Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

Chewing is for suckers.

EDIT: Seems like DoubleTake is a more complicated rsync.  I do think their database conversion is neat, assuming it actually works.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Granny Smith apple slices + natural chunky peanut butter = divine snacking.

[Teleku]

Thank you all for the Rome suggestions, I had a great time.  Though I didn't get to see a lot of what I wanted because I just didn't have enough time.  If only I could have pulled one more day.

Incidentally, I'm at the airport waiting to fly to Budapest for a week (for training).  Soooo, same as before, what should I not miss?  Heh

[Chimpy]

From everything I have heard, you may be stuck in the Rome airport for a week and not get a chance to see anything in Budapest 

[Teleku]

I actually already made it back to Warsaw to put in a few days of work before flying down to Budapest now. Flying in and out of Rome was surprisingly smooth!

[MrHat]

Fucking ACs.

Haven't been getting much airflow last couple nights.  Finally opened the coil door today, shits frozen through.  Checked the lines outside, frost everywhere.

Guess I leave it off for a couple days and try and dry it out, change out all my filters and hope for the best?

Can I replace refrigerant on my own?

Its the weekend, so no HVAC repair is going to make until probably Tuesday.

[Pennilenko]

Fucking ACs.

Haven't been getting much airflow last couple nights.  Finally opened the coil door today, shits frozen through.  Checked the lines outside, frost everywhere.

Guess I leave it off for a couple days and try and dry it out, change out all my filters and hope for the best?

Can I replace refrigerant on my own?

Its the weekend, so no HVAC repair is going to make until probably Tuesday.

You can't change your own refrigerant unless you have a license to buy refrigerant and the appropriate gauges to measure how much you are adding. You also need to know the math for refrigerants.

You can probably keep it limping along for a few days if you pay attention to the evaporator coil and kill the ac as it starts to freeze up.  Also just running the fan only will help the ice melt much quicker, plus you will absolutely get some mild cooling pulling the air past the ice.  You will have to baby sit it, but you can probably keep your place livable until you can get a service call arranged.

As a side note, there are a number of "perfect storm" sort of scenarios that can cause a healthy AC to freeze up like that. There is a teeny tiny chance that there is not a technical problem with your system. The only way to know for sure is to see if it freezes up repeatedly. If it does it every time you run it then you definitely need a service call. An example of something that can cause a healthy system to freeze up like that would be, very dirty filters restricting air flow combined with just the right amount of humidity and difference of inside and outside temperature.

[Zetor]

Thank you all for the Rome suggestions, I had a great time.  Though I didn't get to see a lot of what I wanted because I just didn't have enough time.  If only I could have pulled one more day.

Incidentally, I'm at the airport waiting to fly to Budapest for a week (for training).  Soooo, same as before, what should I not miss?  Heh

Even though I lived in Bpest for most of my life, I'm not sure I can answer this question adequately 

Srsly though, what kind of stuff are you interested in: eating, drinking, partying, or culture (har)?

[Merusk]

2nd Penn said about coolant and filling.   You'll need to pay someone licensed for it.  If you MUST have it, there's always emergency places around that do 24/7 service calls. It'll cost an arm and a leg, but you'll have your system.  I'd go for the swamp cooler by running just the fan over the ice before that, myself.

Oversized units can also cause freeze-ups but you'd have seen it before now if that were the case. Last but not least it can also be a broken thermostat on the unit.  It doesn't know it's forming ice so it freezes.  

[RhyssaFireheart]

I have to thank my mom for inciting the serious house cleaning that was completed earlier this afternoon.  It forced the husband to clean his office/the guest room and he ended up doing a major cleaning job on it.  That also resulted in him figuring out that the windows in our house do actually tip in for cleaning, because in the 13 years that I've been doing these windows, I had no clue.  But now most of the windows in the house are clean, the guest room is really clean, we finally moved the old entertainment center out of the guest room and downstairs so it can be donated (FINALLY), vacuumed every carpeted area around, deep cleaned the guest bath and I mopped all the floors downstairs.  Plus I also learned that those Mr Clean Magic Erasers work fantastic on cleaning dog slobber off walls.

It's been a real learning day for me.

[Teleku]

Thank you all for the Rome suggestions, I had a great time.  Though I didn't get to see a lot of what I wanted because I just didn't have enough time.  If only I could have pulled one more day.

Incidentally, I'm at the airport waiting to fly to Budapest for a week (for training).  Soooo, same as before, what should I not miss?  Heh

Even though I lived in Bpest for most of my life, I'm not sure I can answer this question adequately 

Srsly though, what kind of stuff are you interested in: eating, drinking, partying, or culture (har)?

All of the above (seriously).  I love doing the culture/tourist stuff when ever I visit a city (and Budapest seems cool so far for that).  But I find eating, drinking, and partying to be important things to experience when visiting a new country as well.  I'd be appreciative for all the info on all of those topics that you can give!

Also, I'm deeply impressed by the quality of cleavage in Hungary so far.   

[MrHat]

Fucking ACs.

Haven't been getting much airflow last couple nights.  Finally opened the coil door today, shits frozen through.  Checked the lines outside, frost everywhere.

Guess I leave it off for a couple days and try and dry it out, change out all my filters and hope for the best?

Can I replace refrigerant on my own?

Its the weekend, so no HVAC repair is going to make until probably Tuesday.

You can't change your own refrigerant unless you have a license to buy refrigerant and the appropriate gauges to measure how much you are adding. You also need to know the math for refrigerants.

You can probably keep it limping along for a few days if you pay attention to the evaporator coil and kill the ac as it starts to freeze up.  Also just running the fan only will help the ice melt much quicker, plus you will absolutely get some mild cooling pulling the air past the ice.  You will have to baby sit it, but you can probably keep your place livable until you can get a service call arranged.

As a side note, there are a number of "perfect storm" sort of scenarios that can cause a healthy AC to freeze up like that. There is a teeny tiny chance that there is not a technical problem with your system. The only way to know for sure is to see if it freezes up repeatedly. If it does it every time you run it then you definitely need a service call. An example of something that can cause a healthy system to freeze up like that would be, very dirty filters restricting air flow combined with just the right amount of humidity and difference of inside and outside temperature.

Thanks.

Ended up running the fan periodically through the day while watching the freeze melt off.  Was neat and did provide some relief.

My HVAC guy came through at 730pm tonight to top off the coolant.  He's coming back Monday to assess the rest of it.

Crisis averted?

[Evildrider]

Hopefully you didn't burn your compressor or something out.  But you should be fine, I had the same thing happen a few years back.  It also happened at the worst possible time.. high 90's and 90% humidity for like a week.

[Zetor]

Thank you all for the Rome suggestions, I had a great time.  Though I didn't get to see a lot of what I wanted because I just didn't have enough time.  If only I could have pulled one more day.

Incidentally, I'm at the airport waiting to fly to Budapest for a week (for training).  Soooo, same as before, what should I not miss?  Heh

Even though I lived in Bpest for most of my life, I'm not sure I can answer this question adequately  

Srsly though, what kind of stuff are you interested in: eating, drinking, partying, or culture (har)?

All of the above (seriously).  I love doing the culture/tourist stuff when ever I visit a city (and Budapest seems cool so far for that).  But I find eating, drinking, and partying to be important things to experience when visiting a new country as well.  I'd be appreciative for all the info on all of those topics that you can give!

Also, I'm deeply impressed by the quality of cleavage in Hungary so far.  

They say Hungary has the best-looking women in the universe, ya know.   Anyway, this site is pretty solid as a general information source.

I am fairly sure I know less about the critical Budapest attractions than most tourists, and I may not even have visited all of them! I assume you've already seen the castles and statues and stuff? Since you're here for a week, the usual "get on one of the tourist buses" option is probably a bit too shallow, but their itinerary is a good starting point for the "must-see" sights. In addition to the 'must see' list of monuments, I'd definitely recommend a ride on the funicular and possibly the cogwheel railway as well.
Quick and dirty list:

• Parliament
• Chain Bridge
• Fisherman's Bastion
• Heroes' Square
• churches: St Stephen's Basilica, Grand Synagogue, Matthias Church
• The entire Castle region
• Citadella (aka Hungarian Statue of Liberty)
• Opera House

Culture-wise, the periodic exhibition you should DEFINITELY visit is @RC -- it's basically a street exhibition (no admittance fee) of fake 'advertising posters' around a certain theme, I think this year it's commemorating WWI, the Berlin Wall breaking down, and Hungary joining the EU. This exhibition tends to convey the Hungarian mentality (snarky / sarcastic, and usually critical of government) pretty well, too! It's right next to Heroes' Square. I'm not sure about 'classical' art exhibitions, but ilovebudapest probably has a good breakdown.

A particular 'Budapest-y' entertainment is the "escape game"; there are a lot of them downtown, but you need a group for them (they're typically used as teambuilding exercises). The idea is that the team is locked into a room (or series of rooms) and has to get out while getting some Saw-style narration over loudspeakers. To get out, you need to work together, ie. one person holds down lever X while another person pulls the fake wall aside.

Eating: There are some fancy places like Gundel and Onyx/Gerbeaud, but any restaurant works, really (just use your judgment for avoiding typical tourist traps; also beware of cheaters, ie. if your bill doesn't match what you saw on the menu). Hungarian specialties are goulash, stuff with paprika, and generally everything that starts with "cook two onions for half an hour, then...". Hungary is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to heart disease, btw.  

Drinking: You should try 'palinka' (a special kind of fruit-distilled spirits / moonshine) and Zwack Unicum (if you're a masochist; it was originally medicine. Hungarians do some weird shit, man) as well as wines. You're still a bit early for wine season, so you'll only see 2013 stuff, and I'm definitely no expert to tell you which ones are good. The iconic hungarian wines are anything from Tokaj (sweet wine, see here) as well as the 'Egri Bikaver' (red) and 'Soproni kekfrankos' (also red). For a place to drink all this stuff, I'd recommend the Hungarian speciality of "ruin pubs", e.g. Szimpla.

Regarding the 'partying' bit: a LOT of Europeans come to party in Budapest on the weekend due to low prices / lots of party places -- in fact, if you walk around downtown at night, you're more likely to hear English and other languages than Hungarian! If you came to Budapest last week, you would've been able to see this, which was pretty much an event for the ages. Alas. There are a lot of places (ilovebudapest has a good list), my personal favorite is probably A38 (it's a decommissioned Ukrainian stone miner/carrier ship) -- see programs here.
Usually things are 'happening' on Fri/Sat, so you will miss most of the fun (I assume you are leaving next Friday). There's some leftovers for this Sunday as well, though:

• There'll be a rooftop showing of Clerks (English, hungarian subs); entrance is free, but may have problems due to lack of space / weather.
• 'Dallamos Villamos' (Melodic Streetcar): here. Basically, at certain times starting from the Deak ter terminal for Tram Line 47 (aside: see BKK for traffic info) there'll be random local bands playing as the streetcar goes from station to station. No attendance fee, you just need a regular transport ticket.

[Yegolev]

Today is the first day of my son's attendance of the school VEX Robotics Club.  Anyone have any experience with this?

[Teleku]

Thanks a ton for all the info Zetor!  Exactly what I was looking for.  Already been walking around and saw some of these.  Certainly is an interesting and beautiful city (though I think it's probably the place Ive felt the most targeted for scams, rip offs, and begging in all of Europe.  Some people are really aggressive!  Haha).

[Zetor]

Thanks a ton for all the info Zetor!  Exactly what I was looking for.  Already been walking around and saw some of these.  Certainly is an interesting and beautiful city (though I think it's probably the place Ive felt the most targeted for scams, rip offs, and begging in all of Europe.  Some people are really aggressive!  Haha).

Indeed, Hungary is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. You know the saying about "a Hungarian is someone who enters a revolving door behind you, but comes out in front", right?  

[murdoc]

Hooray it's snowing 

[Merusk]

Remember kids, the worst mistake you can make when troubleshooting is assuming the user knows how to use the program they're paid to use 8 hours a day.

Doubly so when it's accounting. 

[WayAbvPar]

Rule number when in any troubleshooting. Ask dipshit user exactly what they did. And then have them walk you through it,

[Merusk]

We're giving him no end of grief reminding him of that, yes.

He'd watched her before, but evidently the fact that she wasn't clicking in the field but was clicking the hyperlink was missed the first few times.  I'm not sure I buy that story 100% but it did come down to, "User doesn't know how to clear a field" vs. a problem in the database.

[Rasix]

It's raining a lot here, and Arizona simply cannot deal with it.   Phoenix is a lake, which by tomorrow should be a sauna.

[Signe]

My sister leaves for Arizona in a few days.  She's driving.  Hopefully in the four days she's on the road things will go back to being unbearably hot and dry especially since most of the stuff she'll be doing is outdoors. 

[Maven]

Cycled past a Gamestop and saw a huge line out for some midnight release. Then I realized it was Destiny. I went back to my life.

[Cyrrex]

Cycled past a Gamestop and saw a huge line out for some midnight release. Then I realized it was Destiny. I went back to my life.

I thought the world felt a little more brotastic today.  I am going to close my eyes, guess that it has received a 9 out of 10 from all the major reviewers (and a steady 9.1 on metacritic), and then go check to see if I was right.

[Rasix]

Why the world is so eager to get their thumbstick on, I'll never understand.

[Cyrrex]

Bleh, no official reviews yet.  I stand by my prediction.

I don't get it either. 

[schild]

NO KEYBOARD NO PLAY

[Velorath]

Why the world is so eager to get their thumbstick on, I'll never understand.

Largely because I've had a PS4 for a good chunk of this year (it was a gift, didn't go out of my way to get one) and nothing to play on it.

[Yoru]

Well, I do believe I've found what Ironwood does in his off time.

[Ironwood]

What can I say ?  You caught me.

[IainC]

When I was in Edinburgh last week, there were a couple of guys at Princes Gardens busking with drums and bagpipes and they did Wish You Were Here in a way that didn't suck at all.

[Phildo]

Pink Floyd or Incubus?

[IainC]

Floyd.

[Yegolev]

When I was in Edinburgh last week, there were a couple of guys at Princes Gardens busking with drums and bagpipes and they did Wish You Were Here in a way that didn't suck at all.

Hmm.  Did you see Nessie also?

Pink Floyd or Incubus?

Really?