Tuesday 12-30-25 Projects, Diamond Painting & More

 

Cold Day

 

We had another cold day with the morning temperature of 30 degrees and the high of 56 degrees. 

Larry decided to see if he could fix my old cordless vacuum cleaner. The battery in it had gone bad two different times. Larry had both battery packs. He tested the cells and found one set was ok but the other pack had a bad cell. Since all the cells were good in the one pack but the final voltage still checked low Larry figured something on the circuit board went bad. He was able to remove and transfer one of the cells to the 2nd battery pack which then tested good. The vacuum ran, he was quite excited. He then charged the battery, when it was full he tried it again it worked for about 30 seconds and turned off. A bit of a disappointment but he still had a good time attempting to repair it. 

Next Larry moved onto playing with the Echo Hub. He had a new plug that runs via Thread/Matter. The Echo Hub has a built in router for Thread/Matter and using that he was able to get the new plug working.

While Larry did his projects I played games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street of 30 games. It took me 1 hour and 5 minutes to complete, which put me in 11th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

After lunch we went to town to do a couple of errands. First stop was the UPS Store to pickup a package that was delivered yesterday. While there we got our mail. Next was Walmart. I wanted a couple of warm flannel shirts. I found two that I liked. We used our gift card from Larry's mom, still had money left over. Thank you Shirley. 

 

New Shirts

When we got home I worked out with the Synth Riders for 35 minutes with four songs, which were Keep On Smilin, Keep You In Line,  Silent Movie and Watch Your Mouth. While working out with Keep You In Line I got one new high score. While I worked out with Watch Your Mouth I got two new high score and two outstanding scores. I had a good workout.

 

Keep On Smilin

 

Keep You In Line

 

Silent Movie

 

Watch Your Tongue

After working out with Synth Riders I played one game of Monster Manor in Bounce Arcade for 10 minutes. I earned a bronze trophy. I awoken the manor once and tried to stun the manor and failed. I played the spider multiball and got score on banister buster. It was a short game but I had fun.

 

Monster Manor

I played four pinball games on the mini cabinet and the big cabinet. On the mini cabinet I played Cactus Canyon, Fun House, Playboy and Three Angels. On the big cabinet I played Dracula, Indianapolis 500, Mustang and Tron. I didn't get on the board but I played well.

 

Mini Cabinet Games

 

Cactus Canyon

 

Fun House

 

Playboy

 

Three Angels

 

Big Cabinet Games

Dracula

 

Indianapolis 500

 

Mustang

 

Tron

 

I worked on the Dog in Hammock diamond painting. I'm very close to being done. 

In the evening we watched Black Bag movie on Prime. It was a good movie starring Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse and Cate Blanchett as Kathryn St. Jean (Woodhouse). It was about intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse, she is accused of betraying the nation and her husband George has to investigate the problem. After Larry went to bed I watched the first Star Wars, which was called Star Wars (Episode IV). I ended up doing 5,000 steps.

 

Relaxing in front of the television

     

 

 

 

    

  

Monday 12-29-25 Pinball Projects, Diamond Painting & More

 

 

We had just another manic Monday. Our 80 degrees days have stopped for a few days. It felt more like a December day. The low was 38 degrees and the high was 44 degrees. It was cloudy all day with a wind so it was chilly.

Larry started the day out by cleaning his workroom by putting his tools away. He decided to put home assistant on the shelf for a little while. He got it to work but it's very complex to setup and while they now have a voice assistant it is not very good and even more difficult to get working. Almost everyone on YouTube and the various forums agree the average person couldn't make it work. Larry loves figuring stuff out but when he can't he will watch videos and find a Reddit group to ask questions. He used videos to setup home assistant but some of the videos are outdated and don't work anymore. To make it work most people still have to use devices such as Alexa, Google and Apple. He boxed up the Echo hub and put it on a shelf. He'll probably play with it again in six months or a year. Maybe by then it will be better.   

Larry did a couple of pinball projects on the mini cabinet. First was getting rid of the speakers rattling. These speakers are actually called exciters, they provide both sound and a small bit of of vibrating feedback, when the ball bounces on a bumper in the front left corner the feedback goes to the front left corner exciter. The same is true for all four corners, each corner has an exciter. He had to adjust the mounting a bit on each of them to stop the rattling. 

 When Larry built the cabinet he installed a shaker which makes the cabinet shake when you do an activity in a game. Example is while playing Attack from Mars when you destroy a Martian spaceship the cabinet will shake all over. This noise makes the game more exciting. The shaker was not working, he found that somehow the adjuster had gotten turned down, it might have happened when he took the machine apart to fix the power supply.

While he was working on it he also backed it up and updated the software. Then he played a couple of games to make sure everything worked on in the cabinet. He played seven different games of pinball. They were Attack From Mars, James Bond 60th Anniversary, Fish Tales, World Joker Poker, Batman Forever, Road Show and Cirqus Voltaire. Larry got on the board while playing Batman Forever and James Bond 60th Anniversary. He had fun playing pinball.

Mini cabinet

  

Later on I played the same games on the mini cabinet. While playing James Bond 60th Anniversary I became high score #2, Batman Forever I became high score #4 and Cirqus Voltaire I joined the cirqus. I didn't play any games on the big cabinet. This was the first time I played Batman Forever because it's not on the big cabinet.

 

Attack From Mars

 

Batman Forever

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Fish Tales

 

James Bond 60th Anniversary

 

Red & Ted's Road Show

 

World Joker Poker

I played Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: World Tour Mini of 10 games. It took me 59 minutes and 35 seconds, which put me in 29th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I worked out for a half hour with the Synth Riders. Today I did three songs twice, which were Never Gonna Die, New Comedown and hard To Love. I didn't get any Outstanding scores or new high scores. They were tough songs to work with but I had fun.

 

Hard To Love

 

Never Gonna Die

 

New Comedown

I played one game of Asteroid Outpost on the Bounce Arcade program. I earned a gold trophy. I played four multiballs and mined five times and was successful three times. I started all the ships modules and started the engine. It was a great game.

 

Asteroid Outpost

I worked on Dog in Hammock diamond painting. I finished doing the dog part of it. 

 

Dog in Hammock

In the evening we watched Ava on Prime. It was good, certainly could have been better. It was about a female hit woman. When Larry went to bed I watched Star Wars Episode III- Revenge of the Sith. I ended up doing 2,000 steps. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Sunday 12-28-25 Goodreads, Pinball Project, Diamond Painting & More

 

Awesome Day

 

We had an awesome day. The morning temperature was 67 degrees and the high 81 degrees. It was a gorgeous day with sunshine and wind that kept the temperature very comfortable. The wind got stronger in the evening. I can't believe it, that it's the end of December and we're running the air conditioner. 

 

Hold on tight

 

We received an e-mail from Social Security saying we had a message waiting. We seldom login to Social Security and they had made a change to the way I login. It took quite awhile to setup the new process, it wasn't user friendly, some of it had to be done on the computer, then you had to do part of it on the phone and then back to the computer. If you made a mistake you had to start all over. I'm glad I have Larry help with all of this. I get frustrated when it comes to computer stuff. When it works for me I'm very happy but when it doesn't work I complain to Larry and he fixes the problem. Thank you Larry for updating my Social Security information.

Larry had tried to update my Social Security stuff before I got up but ran into a problem when it required a selfie picture, he didn't want to wake me so he had to wait until I got up and start the entire process over. 

While waiting for me to wake up he worked on my new vacuum cleaner. He installed the bracket to hold the vacuum itself in the pantry. The new vacuum came with a big bag to hold the attachments and there was a hook in the pantry already so he put the bag on the hook. The old vacuum had a bracket, that held it's attachments. He found the new attachments could fit on the bracket. He put as many attachments as he could on the bracket and the rest in the bag. The pantry looks great after Larry organized it. I didn't get around to playing with the new vacuum but I'll try tomorrow.

 

   

Storing the vacuums in the pantry

 

 While eating lunch Larry received an e-mail from Goodreads that gave him his a annual report on the books he read. He is very good on writing reviews on books he reads. He writes a review and rates it as soon as he finished the book. The e-mail gave him a lot of information. It told him how many books he read, how many books per month, genres the books were in, how they rate to other readers and other information. 

 

94 books read

 

Genres were Historical Fiction Mystery & Thriller Contemporary Fiction

 

 

  

Books read per month

 

 Yesterday, Larry received the new power supply for the mini pinball cabinet. He spent the afternoon replacing it. It took a little bit. It wasn't the same power supply so he needed to do modifications to mount it in the cabinet. He doesn't mind this because he loves figuring things out. He gets to use his big drill press. Once he did the modifications he installed it in the cabinet. He always likes to make his projects neat by connecting the wires and cable with ties and labeling them. By doing this when he needs to go back and work on the project he knows where everything goes. This makes it easier. The new power supply fixed the problem and the machine works. He has a few more things he wants to do to it. 

 

Drill Press

 

Power Supply

 

I spent most of the day working on Dog In Hammock diamond painting.

 

Dog In Hammock so far

 

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Tri Peaks Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 9 minutes and 42 seconds, which put me in 8th in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I worked out with Synth Riders for 30 minutes with three songs, which were Empires (3:10), It Ain't Right (3:42) and I Loved You Then (3:06). I did the three songs twice and earned 5 outstanding scores. I missed the first time with I Loved You Then getting an outstanding score by one ball. But during the outstanding score of I Loved You Then I got a new high score.

 

Empires

 

I Loved You Then

 

It Ain't Right

I played one game of Gunpowder Gulch on Bounce Arcade. I earned a silver trophy. I played four multiballs, which were Saloon, Wooden Sign Rally, Jailhouse Breakout and Safe Crack. I played two events three times, which were Barrel Barricade twice and Crack Safe. I was successful with the cracked safe event. I played the game for 15 minutes and had fun.

 

 

 

Gunpowder Gulch

 

I played seven games of pinball, which were Big LeBowski, Creature From The Black Lagoon, No Fear, Tron, Willow, Willy Wonka and World Cup Soccer. While playing Big LeBowski and Creature From The Black Lagoon I became high score #1 and World Cup Soccer I became high score #3. I had a great day of playing pinball.

 

 

 

Big LeBowski

 

 

 

Creature From The Black Lagoon

 

 

 

No Fear

 

 

 

Tron

 

 

 

Willow

 

 

 

 

Willy Wonka

 

 

 

 

World Cup Soccer

 

 

In the evening we watched The Extraordinary Adventure of Adele Blanca-Sec on Prime. It wasn't that good because of the script and acting. It was translated from French to English. It was about a famous novelist and her adventures. After Larry went to bed I watched Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I ended up doing 3,500 steps.