Rain Day Deluge, HDD and SSD, PDC, NanoVNA, Chores, Drip Edge

The forecast was right yesterday morning, it rained all day. It didn't really start until about 7am and picked up quickly as I took the boys to school. They called for up to an inch over the day and we nearly made it there by night.

By 8:30 it was straight up dumping and the birds were all drenched within minutes of being let out.

Around 10am I headed for town as the really heavy front side of the storm came plowing through. I went to Data Recovery Service and shipped off my hard drive to get it diagnosed. I am not likely to spend the kind of money they will want to get the data but at least I will know the problem exactly. I can hear the heads are not moving, the slight eek eek eek as the arm tries to move inside the case. If the heads stopped on the platters then I am fucked, but if not there is the chance that the heads and arm could be replaced to get it working again. It will cost me to get it shipped back but it is worth it if it will lead to getting the data back.

Then I stopped and dropped our old Starlink off to ship back for them to refurbish and send to the next person.

I was home in time to watch the PDC matches for the day. Some serious upsets and really good matches.

So this is my new SSD that will be here today to replace the HDD that died. I am so totally done with HDDs as this sort of shit is what happens. Once it is in I will repopulate it with everything on my backup and see just how fucked I am. I also have a REAL keyboard coming finally. Theses BT boards I have are trash for constant typing and the keys wear out way too fast. Plus I am so disgusted by the placement of the Fn key...

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It took me a while to get my damn computer to recognize the VNA but once it did I was able to start getting some measurements of antennas. I tossed on one of my 2 meter whips and centered the frequency on 145 MHz which gave me the below output.

I still have a lot of learning to do about what all the data means but now I have the device to use to test so I CAN learn.

The storm was out of the southwest and just kept streaming over all day long. I checked both Mt. Spokane and 49N and both were getting snow all day. Looked wet snow but it was snow.

Finally took the screen doors off the slider and stored them for the winter. This rack works perfect to store the screens out of the way so they don't get damaged.

Since it was still DUMPING I got my garden umbrella out and went to the bus stop to meet the boys and walk back to the house with them so they wouldn't get totally drenched. About an hour later I checked the rain gauge to see we had 3/4 inch so far.

I'm quite pleased with how the patio looks now in the rain. We used to have the bulk of the concrete wet during rain storms but now it is a fraction of that.

The gravel is working wonderfully to drain the water away and there was now standing or running water in the yard despite the torrential rains. Very porous soil is a god send at times.

I got dinner made as Hive account@stryeyz had work to do still once she was home.

Had Battlebots shows on for the evening while we ate then headed out to soak. I only got a half hour thanks to my awful skin.

Today it looks like no rain, or at least no where near what it did yesterday. I'm curious for the light to break as I heard some tree or branches breaking about 4am out the window and hope the tree went over. I will get the boys to school, when my SSD arrives I will get it installed and files transferring, I have to clean off the deck, likely bust the saw out for some tree cutting somewhere on the property, PDC is on mid day, Kraken play this evening, the boys have their first weekly after school STEM day today so I get to pick them up from school later, then I will hook the trailer up for a grain run tomorrow morning.