Thanks Dirk. Hope your New Year is starting off great!! It's cold as he!! here today. Was 6 degrees this morning with -8 degrees wind chill. It is becoming clearer every year about this time why people my age move to Florida for 3 months!!

 

It aint too bad. Kinda cold at night. We are in the low 40ºs right now but might go into the high 30ºs this week. And it is raining off and on too.

 

I have smoke/co combo unit detectors in all 5 smoke detector locations, along with an electrical outlet mounted one with a digital display. Nothing has gone off, but the way I knew something was wrong was pushing the peak level button on the digital one. Highest it has gotten is 16, about halfway to alarm level. If it alarms, I'll open the windows and vent the place out. I'll be fine, the cracks in the heat exchanger are not huge, but they were enough to get picked up by the digital detector, but the alarm has not sounded. The guy said the stronger readings were upstairs, so I'm sleeping on the couch for the time being.

My place is more like a townhouse than a condo, garage is a 2 car attached, below the rest of the house, wouldn't have it any other way. No one above or below me, only to the sides.

 

Those look great Scott, painted or powder coated? I forgot which you did.

Hit a Deer this morning on the rebound. I saw it standing in the road about 1/4 mile away but the on coming lane car just kept coming and didn't even slow down. The Deer (about 80lb Doe) could have jumped into a Snow bank or towards the car. Well it jumped on the car and got rolled several times and then decided to slid under my front wheels. No damage to the Raptor.
Had a blast driving in the deep snow. Still snowing too.

Tom who?????

 

Im glad nobody else got hurt besides the deer.

 

That's crazy. Glad the raptor is ok.

 

now you didn't just leave it suffering right ?

 

Nah I turned around and found it and it was pretty much in a heap and dead, no suffering. The other car never stopped.

I think Deer are beautiful animals and I could never go hunting for them, I'm not anti hunting, I just couldn't purposly kill one unless my family was really hundry and needed it.
I love to watch them in the open fields around here and I'm surprize I've never hit one before now.

 

I feel the same way. I have had a number of close calls over the years but never hit one. Karen bumped one in the butt a couple of years ago but it kept on running. No damage to the car. I change the way I go to work in the fall when they are in the rut because they are always around or on the road about a mile from the house. And there is always several hit and kill there every year. Glad it didn't damage the Raptor Darrell!

 

Now we see that Ford trucks really are Built Ford Tough, a deer hit for a car would destroy the front end, but the trucks can take it with no damage. I had a Ranger that I hit a small deer with, all it did was crack the plastic grille insert, replaced with a billet grille and I was good to go. I was going to do that upgrade anyway, the deer just gave me an excuse to do it.

 

Yes Ford trucks are built to last and are tough. One day my wife hit black ice in our 2006 F150 and slide off the road and halfway into a lil ditch and the front crossmember was digging iin the edge of the pavement. Nothing even bent on that suspension all it did was catch grass and pavement that I had to remove later that day.

 

Yet my dad still refuses to buy a ford.

 

Is your dad getting bailout money to buy his new cars?????

 

No. He's been driving the same GMC since 2003. It's got about 100k miles and it's falling apart.

 

'ello everyone, hope all is well

 

That's it after 2 weeks of absence??

 

Agreed.

 

 

First I talk too much, now not enough? Man, I come here to get away from my wife, now you guys are sounding like her.

 

Hey *****...and yes I said *****!! You can't talk anymore than me and it won't have any less meaning than my posts. But you started the Midwest Forums and now you don't even rate a WANT-TA-BE around here now.