kristof65

I think they're actually the same pitch. The programmer's connector plug is wider on the outsides - I think that plug could fit in there offset no issues, with just 10 pins connected. I can see how the mistake could be made - I'm baffled at how this particular customer made it and it how it hasn't happened before now, though.

I really like that last one, but is it just me, or are her feet a little small?

So I haven't been paying attention lately - so I'm going to ask before I go searching for an answer or bother Reaper. I was missing a couple small things in my Wave 1 order, emailed Reaper within a few days of receipt. Received a response back from them that they needed to wait until fulfillment was over before they could address my problems. Totally understandable, and I'm cool with it. But wondering if they've given a timeline or mentioned how they're tracking these issues, and at what point should I be concerned and contact them again? There is no point in being a squeaky wheel when there is no need to. I'm patient enough to wait months if I have to, but I also don't want to wait months just to learn that it got overlooked (as little things sometimes can) and I should have spoken up sooner.

I'll have to follow this one - can't wait to see how it turns out. I felt the same way when I first saw it, but I decided that I could live with it - if anything, i'll call him an Oak Golem or something like that.

Ugh - today started off bad. No internet at the house last night and this morning after major storms in the area last night. In some ways, it would have been nice if it had stayed out all day, because my cell phones would have eventually needed to recharge, and I could have taken a break to paint or something. In other ways, I'm glad it didn't, because I have ten customers with between 80 and 100 of our units total in the metro area that were hit with the same storm. Based on past history, and the severity of the storm and the initial phone calls, it looked really bad. It would have been worse if I hadn't been available to help. Plus we had a tech on vacation, making us short staffed. It started looking up when my internet came back up, I was able to jump right into troubleshooting for my local sites. At first it looked bad - at least five sites down. But overall, the damage wasn't too bad. Mostly just system resets and one blown part that's actually a piece of circuit protection (meaning it did it's job). Still have one site partially down, customer's tech is headed that way now. Just when I thought I was getting caught up with fixing today's storm problems on top of the every day issues, I get the following photo: This is NOT storm damage. Customer smoked a $1300 circuit board by plugging something unknown into it. For those of you who aren't electronically inclined, the connector on the right has 10 pins. It's called an "In System Programming" port, and is used for plugging a programmer into it to update the firmware on the board's microcontroller chip (U7 in the lower right) . Those programmers are powered by the USB port on a computer, which means they carry around 3.3 volts DC. This port is empty during normal operation of the board. The plug the customer tried to force into it has holes for 12 pins. I have NO idea what this connector is from/for, but being in a car wash, it likely has at least 24 volts AC on it, so it's no wonder the board smoked - he just pumped about 8 times the correct voltage, of the wrong type into a circuit that can't handle it. I'm sitting here trying to figure out why the guy would try and force something designed for 12 pins into a connector with only 10. Even worse, this guy's site has been around for at least 15 years, and he's been the co-owner all that time - so I have no idea where this connector came from, nor can I figure out why he suddenly decided it went there when he's gone 15 years without doing this. And even more bizarre he has 3 identical units that he could have referenced to see if anything was supposed to be plugged in there. I'm left shaking my head, and he's going to be buying a $1300 replacement part.

So perfectly normal then. This morning at work was answering a slew of emails and phone calls that all essentially complained "why haven't you done X", to which the answer to every one of them was basically "you/they haven't paid for X, I notified you/they of the cost and provided an invoice on date." This is typical for the day after the national car wash trade show, which ended yesterday. Next weeks challenges will be "I was told at the trade show that you would do X for me this week" - and for 90% of them, it will be the first I've heard of it and rely on engineering providing me with whatever I need to do X. I don't miss going to the trade shows any more, but at least when i went, I could keep better tabs on what was promised to whom.

They're in the enthusiasm thread, somewhere between page 1000 and 1100. Here they are again - they'll be easier to find here: the saw I used: First leg off: Both legs off: I don't have pics, but since I did this, I used Magic Sculpt epoxy putty to create a small foundation for it so it sits flat. As I mentioned in the enthusiasm thread, I never intended to use mine with the legs, and didn't care about the damage I did to the bottom of the model.

Works for me. Happens far too often, unfortunately. I had a friend in California spend an hour in handcuffs in the back of a cop car while they figured out he was NOT the same guy with the open warrant out of Florida. I'm honestly surprised it only took them an hour to figure it out.

I'd rather just take it out of his hide...

When I was at my first duty station in the Navy, there were a quite a number of Smiths, even though there were only about 500 sailors, and 2500 civilians in the town. Might have been a John there, too. But the fun one was when Robin Smith arrived. They messed up her bunking because there was already another Robin Smith stationed there. So the person in charge of the barracks the day she arrived had given the wrong room number and key to her sponsor. And that was how the future Mrs Robin Smith met the future Mr Robin Smith - by barging into his room on her very first night there. They got married about a year after she arrived. I don't know if they ever had any little Robin Smiths.

AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just found out that the company salesman told a site that has 20 year old equipment that hasn't been updated in the last 12 years that there are no extra fees for switching her credit card merchant processing company. He didn't bother to check to see if the site would need any upgrades. The site needs $5-6k worth of upgrades in order to switch from dial up to internet processing. As long as they're on dial up, they're stuck with one merchant processing company.

Thanks for the insight. As for "Just remember while we can look people up by name, it does suck. " - yeah, I try not to rely on agencies and companies looking me up just by name. I'm real experienced with being mistaken for other people. I'm the fifth in six generations of first sons with the same first and last name (different middle names). My grandfather and I share a middle initial, my dad and I both owned the same home, and my son and I were born in the same month. Worse, my wife and unmarried cousin share the same first name and birth month, plus my cousin used to live with my parents when they owned that home before my wife and I did. So I pretty much assume that I'm going to have to provide more information to uniquely identify myself. I don't have it as bad as my Smith & Cruz friends, though - at least I'm usually related to the people I get mixed up with. I think computers are making it worse.

I talked to the lawyer at the Title Co today, instead of one of the agents there. He was a little freaked out at first - he thought that this was something that we were going to need fixed fast so we could sell - and he knows how fast the IRS is. He was quite relieved to hear I'm just being proactive to get this resolved sooner rather than later. Sounds like the agent I talked to a couple months ago never discussed it with the attorney, since it should just be a simple procedural process, but now that he's aware of it, there will be extra attention. Still may be at the mercy of the IRS, but he assured me it would be resolved. The USPS tried to deliver the letter on Saturday while we were out, and my 16 yr old son refused to sign for it, which was good. I went down to the PO today with the slip, and told them I was refusing it, and why. Turns out there were three separate certified letters. Never got to see a one of them. Hopefully the postal clerk will stamp them with something that triggers it as well. And hopefully they aren't new liens. fortunately, this isn't holding up any of my tax refunds - I'm mostly worried about trying sell my house later. There is also a much smaller worry that the IRS might decide to seize the property for auction, since one of these liens is nearing 10 years old, and IIRC, isn't there some sort of statutory limitations about IRS liens at 10 years? I'll gladly mail a letter - figure that's what I'd need to do, but not sure where to mail it to. I feel a lot better after talking with the title attorney today, instead of one of the title agents. I think I'll leave it in his hands for a few weeks, then look into the TAC route. Thanks!

The Hamster is correct. I didn't throw the phone, because it's my phone as well as anything I hit with it, and I would only be hurting myself. But strong adult language was used. A lot of it. It should be a slam dunk. We have a copy of the IRS's Form 669-B Certificate of Discharge of Property from Federal Tax Lien. The problem is that the IRS has never got around to telling our county assessor to remove the liens. I was told two months ago by the title company rep that they would follow it up on their end as well, but over the weekend the post office attempted to deliver a certified letter for the previous owner from the IRS, which makes me believe that the IRS still hasn't done their end of things. So this is just me following up since it directly affects me. I don't want to have spend good money on a real estate attorney to deal with this, but it looks like I might have to.

And at 2 hrs and 2 minutes, it gave me a message of "We're having technical difficulties" and it sent me back to the initial menu. And then it told me "We're sorry, we can't help you because we're too busy." (paraphrasing).