Ready to throw the miter saw off a tall building

I started today by spending an hour today exchanging the saw. The manager tried the saw as well and could not get the laser to work either. I thought of asking him to test new saw while I was there, but it seemed so unlikely that I'd get two bad ones that I didn't.

When I got home and tried the saw, the laser didn't work on this saw either! Ugh!!!!!!! Now I am really frustrated. I either got two defective saws or there is something not obvious to two different people and not in the instructions.

I also installed gas gauge on the propane tank in the firepit. According to the gauge, the tank looked empty, which would explain why not working. It stopped working around Thanksgiving, and it's taken me this long to get to it. Everything house related is such a project - I had to find a gauges at Amazon, read reviews and choose a model, order it, wait for it to arrive, and then finally got to install it today. Part of the delay is that I had to be in work clothes since this job involved sitting on the dirt, it had to be during day so I have daylight and I simply had to have time. It often takes a while for the factors to line up. The gauge showed empty, so I took a chance and returned the tank while I was at the store returning the saw and also purchased a second tank so we can rotate them and never be empty. While it was being loaded in my car I had a thought about where to store the extra tank, and asked the guy if the garage was okay. He said no, and didn't know if I could store it outside where it would get rain. I checked the safety info and sure enough he was right. All the way home I thought about where to store it and figured I'd do a junkyard fix for tonight and store it alongside the house or at the end of the driveway and cover it with a trash bag. But then I was thinking of buying a small storage chest for behind the garage and then it came to me to use a big trashcan with a lid. I ended up going right back out again to my local hardware store that seems to have everything and they had just what I needed. I like that this place has a few of everything not a million. There were 3 models of trashcans to pick from and one was just what I needed. It was nice not to have to confront a whole aisle of something that just doesn't need that much selection. While not great looking, it did work perfectly, and eventually we are going to put some tall fencing behind the garage to hide the yard waste bin, sprinkler controls, this trashcan and a composting bin.

I installed the new propane tank with the gauge and the fire pit is now working perfectly. I am looking forward to using it after not having it for 2 months.

Here is the fire pit on and working! The table is covered with dust and needs a good wipe down. I was doing it every few days when we were using the firepit, but I stopped doing it when it got too cold to sit outside with no fire.


Here is the back of the garage. The big can is our yard waste bin, and the small one holds the propane tank. Eventually we'll cover this area up with fencing.



After tackling the fire pit, I went back to the home improvement store to exchange the saw for a second time. I was not looking forward to this as they told me one I took today was the only one in stock. That would mean dealing with another store or having them order it which I know from experience they are not good at.

The manager again looked at it, as did someone familiar with the saw and neither could not get it to work. The cashier at returns said someone had gotten my returned saw to work, so now we were all baffled. After trying everything we could think of, the manager thought to try new batteries even though mine were fresh out of a pack I just bought. AHA!!!! That was it all along - the brand new batteries were bad. Ugh! What a huge waste of time. Between packing the saw and two trips to exchange, those bad batteries cost me 3 hours and about a week's setback on the windows.

Today's window/saw drama brings the total time spent on the windows to 217.75 hours.