Formula One Racing Comes To Alabama

Ah yes, another long weekend.

Today I bought a new toy. No really, an actual toy. What is it? A slot car set. More specifically a Carrera Evolution Pro-X Digital Racing set complete with two Formula One cars.

We played with it most of the afternoon. There was a little bit of crying because the kids didn't want to share with me. I eventally got a turn and dried my tears.

The track is two lanes and supports up to four cars. It allows for lane changing and if you don't have anyone to play with, the 'black box' will drive the other car for you. This is fun, but driving with others is more fun.

After just a few hours of playing I would say Brianna is probably the best driver. The age suggestion on the box is 8+. She is only 5. Perhaps I shouldn't let her play anymore (because she keeps showing us up.)

I prefer to drive the red Ferrari but so far I have mostly been relagated to the McLaren Mercedes. It's not so bad.

It seems I have not been to verbose lately. No news is good news, but all work and no play makes Rick a very dull boy.

Wednesday afternoon the weather was incredible. Sixty-five degrees and I was stuck in the office. When I headed out for lunch today I accidentally left my jacket in my office. Big mistake. It was 40 F. and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt.

Tomorrow I will only be working half a day. After that the kids and I will be headed back to the house for a nice long weekend. I am off Monday as well. Yippe!

With any luck it will warm up a little for the weekend.

Beep beep beep goes the UPS.

The brakes are working fine.

The kids got bikes for Christmas, amoung many other things. Perhaps too many things.

That is all.

Merry Christmas

Finished up the Dogde Brakes

I finished up the brakes on the Dodge 1500 4x4this morning.

I discovered when I started working on the second wheel that it was assembled incorrectly. At this point I don't think I have had the rear brakes worked on before so that implies to me that it came from the factory wrong. That is hard to image, or is it? Could I be mistaken? Possibly, but I looked at it a couple times trying to figure out why it was the way it was. It didn't match the other side and it definitely didn't match the Haynes manual.

The second brake assembly also happened to be the same wheel that had the warped drum. Could this be the cause possibly, but it seems like it would have warped a lot sooner.

Regardless, it is all back together.

Hint: The locking pins are much easier to refasten if you press the spring down with a socket. The pin will then stick inside the socket giving you an opportunity to turn it. I found that the socket is easier to press on the spring if you have an extension on the socket to grab hold with.

Sister Terry came by this afternoon. I took her for a ride in the Miata, her first. Unfortunately it was raining so the top was up.

No work today!

This morning I decided to tackle the problem of the bouncing brakes on my Dodge pickup. First thing was to pull the drums and take them to be turned.

We all went to see a movie this afternoon. "Chicken Little". The sky is falling.

After the movie I went back to the parts store to pick up the drums. As I suspected, one of the drums was warped. They turned it 3 times and and were unable to get a smooth round surface. I ended up buying replacement drums. I asked for a credit on the drum turning and they reimbursed me for it.

After I got back home I spent about an hour trying to get the right side back together. At that point I stopped for dinner. The rest will wait for tomorrow.

I recall from changing the shoes on the GMC last year that the reassmebly goes easier if you do it in an order other than what the Haynes book recommends. Hopefully I will get this finished up tomorrow.

The last drum brake job was on the GMC on Saturday, September 18, 2004.

What's in a Name

I was reading on the old truck forums and I came across some information on identifying the rear axle for my old truck. Quicker than a duck on a June-bug, I was out in the garage with a wire brush trying to scrub some gunk off the right side of the axle to find the ID code.

A more reliable source than myself, suggested if the axle is original, it is probably a Dana 60. These were apparently pretty standard on the GMCs, though not necessarily on the Chevys. They usually came with Eatons.

I found some numbers and letters. 'RHWW2702'. There were some spaces also but I didn't try to remember exactly where they were. These characters came off the front right side of the axle. It turns out I was probably supposed to be looking at the rear right side. That gunk was not real easy to remove so I will wait til this weekend to take another look at it.

Now I am right back where I started. I still don't know what type of axle it is or whether it is a posi-track. I suppose it doesn't really matter because as long as it works, it is not getting replaced. Still though, it is fun to try to identify and learn as much about the truck as possible.

Truck Restoration Progress
The frame is looking better. This afternoon I spent some time with the random orbital sander smoothing out last weeks bubbles. The POR-15 thinner arrived yesterday. The POR-15 turned out much smoother this time. I attribute the improvement to 1) the thinner 2) thee high density foam brush that Chad recommended, and 3) keeping less paint on the brush. I also applied some of the finishing knowlege I have learned from woodworking, ie, work away from the edges, not toward this. This minimizes drips and runs. I probably have about two more weekends worth of work to do on the frame before I move on to other parts: rear axle, leaf springs, front A-arms, and three cross members.

Back in the summer I went to the doctor because I had been having some chest pain. In the process of doing some routine tests, it was discovered that my cholestrol level was high.

The doctor said there were two ways to fix this: 1) modify diet and exercise or 2) medication. He recommended the second. I wondered if he was making a statement about will power and resolve.

After six months of zocor, I returned to the doctor. The chol was down from 250 to 180. So good so far.

We did the welding thing last night. Three boys, two girls, and couple of dads gave it a try. I didn't let the dads do any of the real work. I didn't ask, but I think most of the kids are in 6th grade. One was probably in 4th. Everything went smoothly.

No one will mistake the work for that of a professional but they did accomplish what they set out to do. That is what matters. I think they all enjoyed it. One boy even expressed an interest in coming back to work on the truck. With a whole fleet of helpers I bet I could change the timeline for the truck project from 5 years to maybe just under 8.

The temperature is about 40 F. outside right now. As soon as I finish up the laundry, I plan to head outside and get a little sanding done on the frame.

A friend who we will call David, because almost all of my friends are named David, asked me for a favor. A somewhat weird favor. The favor involved me teaching some 10 & 11 year old boys and girls to mig weld.

The kids are doing DI, Destination Imagination. Their project solution requires some welding, and the program apparrently requires the kids to do all the work. This is where I come in. I have a mig welder and it didn't occur to me to say no-way-Jose when David asked me to help out. Oh yeah, I also have the welding expertise or so I hear.

Tuesday evening I went to one of the groups work sessions to talk about welding and safety. I took with me a welding mask, elbow length leather welding gloves, a flash light (to demo the auto-darkening mask), a couple of small pieces of metal welded together, and a piece of welding wire.

The meeting was being held at the school. As I was approaching the class room, an idea occurred to me. I put on the mask, and gloves and opened the door. The kids got a real kick out it. "Luke, I am your father." Did you know that my leather welding gloves are made from goat skin? The kids sure loved that.

Tomorrow evening David is bringing a group of the kids over to the house to learn to weld. This should be fun. Safety first!

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges!"
When I got to work this morning I realized I had forgotten my badge. The door from the lobby to the office area will only open when you scan your badge or when someone comes out. I am usually an early bird at work, so just a handful of people are usually there when I arrived. I knocked once on the door but no one was nearby to hear me. Next I went back outside and knocked on the window of office of another guy that normally arrives early. Lets call him Joe.

The windows on the building are tinted so I could not tell if Joe was in his office. I headed back to the lobby and had a seat on the leather sofa. After sitting for a couple of minutes I decided I would explore my phone while waiting for some else to arrive.

About ten minutes later, someone did arrive. They scanned their badge and we headed for our offices. Once in my office, I tossed my keys in the drawer, turned on the computer, and remove my jacked. I usually hang my jacket on a cabinet door. I opened the door and I see what appears to be the face of a troll saying "Morning!". Startling! I slammed the door shut. And then I opened it back up and let Joe out of the cabinet. He said "You should have seen the look on your face." I asked, "Did I scream like a little girl?"

This morning when Joe saw me walking across the parking lot he went to my office to hide. What he didn't know was that I didn't have my badge. Joe was in the cabinet almost 15 minutes waiting to surprise me. I hope the wait was worth it.

And he said "No", I didn't scream like a little girl. Tomorrow morning when I get to work, I am going to lock the cabinet door.

I got more email regarding the magical L6278. The link to my story is a few posts down. The latest email was from a guy who just happens to also drive a 1995 Miata.

Sunday afternoon I had to make a trip Wal-Mart to pick up some party supplies. The cold snap had finally broken and the temperature was above freezing for a change so down came the top. It was plenty warm while sitting still.

Return of Dirty Santa
Last night we had a wild and crazy Christmas party for the folks Ginger works with. The dirty Santa game was especially enjoyable. I got a brown candle shaped like a maple leaf with a cinnamon scent. I scent it home with one of our guests.

Can You Hum a Few Bars?
That reminds me of something I said today. Troy, David, and I were driving back from lunch when I spotted a big SUV. I said, "That guy must not know the words, because he is driving a Hummer." Ha! That is when I was asked to get out of the car.

72 GMC Update
Regarding the truck frame: The first coat of paint had quite a few bubbles in it so the texture is not as smooth as I would have liked. Por, Por, me. I guess I will have to sand out the rough spots. I was planning on putting two coats of paint on but now I am thinking 3 to 4. I ordered some PRO-15 solvent to thin the paint with. I hope this will give me a smoother finish. Stay tuned.

I tried a few methods of applying the POR-15.

1) A foam roller. This was a bad idea. It introduced many bubbles to the surface. I think it was also putting on too much paint.
2) Brush with nylon bristles - I don't recall why I didn't like this approach.
3) Brush with natural brisles - This looked good but my brush kept losing bristles so I discontinued using it. I didn't want to have to deal with picking out the loose bristles from the wet paint.
4) Foam brush - This worked well in the corners though again I was applying too much paint at times.

When looking at the non-smooth finish on the frame yesterday afternoon, I had a bit of deja vu. Back when I was finishing the cherry bed I made for Brianna, I had a similar bubble/texture problem. Again I was using a foam brush but I think the problem was more viscosity and applying too much. It didn't occur to me at the time to thin the poly. The solution I had back then was to apply the polyurethane with a lint free cloth instead of a brush. I may give lint free cloth a try again, but first I will thin the POR-15.

The lint free clothes I used last time where the Scott's Rag in a Box. A great thing about this approach is no brush clean up. Just toss them in the trash. I admit this is only a minor convenience. The only drawback I can think of is that each coat is very thin so you may have to apply several coats more than you intended to get the protection you desire.

For the record, it looks like one quart of POR-15 will cover the frame with just a little bit left over. I plan to paint the frame, the rear axle, the drive shaft, and the bottom of the cab with POR-15. If I stick with a steel bed floor I will paint the bottom of it as well though I am leaning towards a wood bed floor.

Also for the record, I wore a respirator while using the POR-15. If you use this stuff, follow the direction and protect your lungs.

Other notes: I used the Marine clean product to degrease the frame, the Metal Ready to prep the surface and I had the temperature in the garage between 70 - 75 degrees F.

I got the first coat of paint on the truck frame today.

The Miata when Zoom-zoom-zoom today.

Our Christmas tree is now up.

And I aced my test. I only needed a 57% percent to get an A in the class.

Procrastination
I have a final tomorrow night. Perhaps I should study. Yeah, that's a good idea. I wonder what is on TV right now.

Useless Facts About Obession

I have been playing with the new Googles analytic tool. It is merely a toy to me, but it provides some interesting information. The thing I like the best is just know where my traffic is coming from.

In the last few days I have had a pretty disperse geographic checking in: Huntsville(AL), Austin, St. Louis, Chicago, San Francisco, Roseville(CA), Tuscon, Muscle Shoals(AL), Rock Hill(SC), Aiken(SC) and Kelowna, Canada.

I recognize six of those locations. The rest of you are a mystery to me.

The most interesting thing I have found so far is that about 5% of my hits are coming via miataville.ods.org. I set that up as a bit of a joke one day and linked it back here. I guess one of the seach engines crawled the link and started sending me some traffic.

What else is interesting? Seven percent of my traffic is using dialup. Sixty-one percent is using Flash version 7.0. Everyone has Java enabled. Only 2% percent of you are using 24 bit color. One guy has his screen resolution set to 800x600. One vistor is using Firefox, one is using Netscape. Everyone is running either Windows Xp or 2000. And finally my traffic level seems to spike on weekends.

Now go and take some vitamin C. Hopefully we will all feel better in the morning.

I had my blood pressure checked today. 157/102. Yeah, that is high.

More Magic Smoke

I have been getting more email regarding my adventure with my hard driving dying back in spring of 2004. Here is my response to the last one. Read on if your looking for info on the L6278.

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear about your hard drive problems.

Check out todays post:

http://ram92.ods.org/2005/11/western-digital-harddrive-using.html

It will link you to my follow up story that detailed the end result. Unfortunately I was not able to retrieve my data. I suspect the controller chip frying was a symptom of something else that went wrong, though there were no visual clues that would indicate what it might have been. I could have been a thermal problem, or a good zap of ESD. Good luck with your efforts.

You might check with your friends to see if any of them have the same model hard drive. Keep in mind it must be the same size as well. Switching controller boards is pretty easy and relatively safe. If your lucky you can retrieve your data. I tried several different controllers without any luck. Fortunately, this did not damage any of the harddrives I borrowed the controllers from.

If you have any success, please let me know. Also I will be glad to answer any specific questions you may have.

Best Regards,

Rick Martindale

Western Digital Harddrive using Controller Chip L6278 1.2

This is the story of my Western Digital hard drive failing due to a L6278 controller chip burning up. This is the follow up story I posted later at the request of a reader. It details the chip swap process results. In the end I was not able to retrieve my data. On the postive side, I didn't kill any other drives while trying.

If you have any success restoring one of these drives, please let me know and I will pass the information on to others.

I occassionaly get email about this topic. Google sends me quite a few people looking for information on the L6278 version 1.2 and Norm Abram. Ocassionally someone even shows up looking for me.

This weekend I spotted one of those nifty new Miatas. Red.

Tonight I spotted one of those nifty new Pontiac Solstices. Red. I got a snapshot. Perhaps I will share it with you.

100%

Vertigo 2005
Last week I got the new DVD, U2 Vertigo 2005: Live from Chicago. This is a must have for die-hard U2 fans. After watching it, I definitely wanted to go to a concert. Unfortunately U2 was in Atlanta about two weeks ago and I missed it. That is probably as close as they will come to these parts for a while.

The first thing I noticed was an old guy with long hair playing the drums. Mr. Larry Mullens who previously had been drinking from the fountain of youth is finally starting to show a little age. That's ok, the other guys are way ahead of him.

The video gave me chills a few times, and a couple of songs reminded me of past times. Almost anything from the Joshua Tree takes me back. The Unforgetable Fire also.

The concert has lots of good music. If your interested in seeing it, swing by the house and we can watch it.

Anyone know what happened to all my old concert t-shirts?

Wow, were did the last week go. That is not fair. I do recall that Monday and Tuesday went on forever. A better question is, where did the long weekend go?

I did not work on the truck at all. The one day that I had plenty of time, the weather did not participate. Cold rainy weather does not mix with paint very well. Perhaps next week.

We managed to eat turkey in three parts of the state this week. No more turkey please.

Last night I finished reading a book called "Truck" by John Jerome. I picked this book based on Amazon's recommendation. I had enjoyed the book "Rusty Knuckles and Busted Tractors" so... While the "Truck" topic was more on track with my current obsession than the tractor book, the author spent much of his time off topic using a lot of four letter words. No recommendation from me on this one. In case your wondering, the truck was a 1950 Dodge pickup.

The DVD arrived today. Better late than never. More later.

Why You Should Not Be Working Today

Back in my college days at Auburn University, I took an ADA class as an elective.  The computer science professor, Dr. Phillips, was a man of much wisdom.  I still recall two bits of wisdom he passed on to the class. 

 

The first piece of knowledge or rather advice, was why we should all learn to weld.  That is another story which I will save for another time.

 

The second piece of wisdom started as a rant.  A student asked Dr. Phillips if class would be canceled for Wednesday morning, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  The student suggested that it should be because all the afternoon classes had been canceled.  Afternoon classes were typically canceled so that students would have time to travel home for the turkey holiday.

 

"Follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me."  Sometimes I can't help but to quote Snoop Dogg.

 

Dr. Phillips rationalized that most students were not morning people so the 10:00 am ADA class was the first class of the day for most folks.  If afternoon classes had already been canceled, there was a good chance it was only his class holding folks back from starting home on Tuesday afternoon.  If he were to cancel his class, we could all go home on Tuesday afternoon.  How joyous our collective parents would be to see us home from school early.

 

Everyone knows that computer engineering and computer science students only have labs on Tuesdays and Thursdays and God knows we don't actually do anything in them.  Odds are we were all in the middle of a project and it would just be a work period anyway.  Surely you could make up this time later, after all, isn't it also common knowledge that lab assignments don't actually get started on til the night before they are due.  Well it turns out that we can all go home Monday afternoon.

 

Monday afternoon.  Not much point in waiting til Monday afternoon to head home.  Most folks are going to skip their first few classes Monday morning, probably due to a hangover.  By the time they are sentient  enough to head to class, odds are the schedule for the day is replete.  Obviously there is no point to staying in town all weekend to inevitably skip all your Monday classes anyway.  We might as well head on home Friday afternoon.

 

You should see the pattern by now.  Obviously if we rationalize away a short week of classes, we can do the same for a long week of classes.  Here is how you do it.  Everyone and I mean everyone is going to skip their classes on Friday.  The reasons may vary but the results are the same:  the classrooms are completely empty on Friday afternoons and mostly so on Friday mornings.  What is the point?  And Thursday?  Well Thursdays are just like Tuesday, labs and all.  No point there either.  So we have now effectively shortened any long week to the equivalent of a short holiday week and you know how it works from there.

 

It should now be obvious why we can all skip Thanksgiving week and the week before that.  And it only takes three more of those weeks to account for a whole month, and ten of those weeks to account for a quarter.  It is obvious that those bothering to sign up for classes have good intentions so by signing up, and paying the tuition bill, we deserve good marks and a little time off.  And if we can skip one quarter, why not 12, or more accurately 15, because no one finishes school in 4 years anymore.

 

Now lets take that same reasoning and apply it to our post-undergraduate career.  Just send me my social security check already and take the rest of the week off. 

 

 

 

I am still waiting on the new U2 DVD, U2 - Vertigo 2005: Live From Chicago. According to Amazon's shipping information it was suppose to arrive on Friday or Saturday. Unfortunately they shipped it USPS and the tracking information is never up to date! I should have just picked it up at Best Buy last week on it's release date.





Maybe it will show up tomorrow. In the mean time, we are revisiting the Elevation Tour DVD.

Yesterday afternoon I smashed my finger by closing it in the Miata door.  What a klutz.  The fingernail is now an interesting shade of purple.  It is amazing how much pain can smashing a finger can cause.  Yeeeooow!  Want to see a picture?

 

I got the call Thursday afternoon that the frame was ready so at 2:00 pm on Friday I left work to retrieve the frame.  Once again I borrowed Troy's truck and his father-in-laws trailer and headed for Hazel Green.  The frame is now back home and ready to paint.  Now I just need a nice warm day to do some painting.  I have a respirator but I still plan to do the painting outside.  The forecast for tomorrow calls for a high of 62.  That is probably a little cool, but you can bet I will be watching the thermometer just in case.

 

Thanks to Billy T. for helping fetch the frame.

 

A Story Without a Title
A few days ago I tried out blog posting via an email message. It has merit.

Mr. Sandblaster called today. He is done blasting the frame. The plan is to pick it up tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully things will go according to plan.

A weird thing happened at lunch this week. Tuesday I had lunch with a David. When selecting a destination, I usually pick a place called Thai Garden. In order to give him a break from my culinary monotony, I suggested an Indian place instead. As luck would have it, he had dinner there the night before and suggested Thai Garden. I was in. This is probably my favorite lunch spot, though I probably don't make it there more than twice a month. It is a bit of a drive. Thai Garden it was. Dave and I ordered the same thing. I think it was SL-8, chicken, soup, steamed rice.

Wednesday I had lunch with Chad, Cheaster, the used oil guy. We went by a specialty glass shop and then I suggested we eat at 5-points since it was nearby. I threw out a couple of choices: Thai Garden and the Po' Boy Factory. The Cheaster had not been to either but he thought Thai sounded interesting, so Thai Garden it was. As we walked in the front door, I am spotted by David's wife. "Hey, what are you doing here? Didn't you eat here yesterday?". Yep, sure did. Even sat at the same table. Apparently he snubbed her the day before to have lunch with me. I probably have 5 or 6 favorite meals there so eating there two days in a row was not a problem. I just ordered one of the other five. Chad and I ordered the same thing. I think it was SL-11, soup, steamed rice. Lots of garlic in this one! To quote Chad, "I think my breath could knock over a mule." I tried not verify this.

Today I asked Billy if he was in for lunch. The basic response was sure, as long as it is not Dreamland BBQ. (That is another story.) A little bit later, Jay drops by and asks about lunch. I say sure. He says, "I would suggest Thai Garden but I know you have already been there twice this week." I say, don't let that stop us. I call up Troy, he's in. Off we go. I had the SL-9, Chicken and peanuts with carmelized onions, soup, steamed rice. Billy had what I ordered yesterday, SL-11. Troy had the same with pork instead of chicken, Jay had Sl-10, the green chicken curry, and Billy picked up an order of SL-11, chicken, fried rice to go for Wendy. He almost messed up and got her steamed rice.

What was the point of all that. None, I just had nothing else to say. Ok, it wasn't that weird.

Will I eat there again tomorrow? No, We are having a free catered lunch tomorrow at work in celebration of the existence of Turkeys.

Did I ever tell your about the time another David and I set out to eat BBQ at a different place every day for a week? Around here, that is pretty easy to accomplish. We considered having another theme lunch with subs but that idea just wasn't that appealing.

Forty degrees outside when I got home this evening. Hot tub weather is here again!

The batteries in the thermostat are dead so we can't turn the heater on. Fortunately the house is pretty well insulated. If we start to get cold we can scavenge the batteries from the TiVo remote. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We aren't that cold yet.

When you finally get around to buying your TiVo, don't forget to tell them I sent you. I think there is something free in it for me. I don't recall what it is but free is good.

I have been at my new job about 6 weeks now. In another six weeks, Chad will be buying me a free lunch. As I said before free is good. He will be smiling though because the company will be cutting him a bonus check for recruiting me.

The Used Motor Oil

belongs to Chad. 

Posted minor updates to my home and about me pages.

I have had my new cell phone for over a week and just today I finally figured out how to change the ring tone. Sad, sad, I tell you. I had to look it up in the instruction manual. Non-intuitive if you ask me. It's not like I am a ludite. Ok, maybe I am, but at least I can use feckless in a sentence. And my seat no longer rattles.

A week ago a 2 gallon jug of used motor oil mysteriously appeared in the back of my truck. I never did figure out where it came from and no one has 'fessed up to it. If you need some used motor oil, it will be out by the curb on recycling day.

The inlaws left this morning. They arrived Saturday afternoon. We all went to a surprise birthday party for G's Father's Father on Sunday afternoon. He is now 90 years old.

Yesterday for lunch, we went to Brianna's favorite restaurant, O'Charleys. She usually has the Mac-N-Cheese. Primarily she goes for the rolls though. Because it was Sunday, she decided to have the Bavarian Waffle from the brunch menu. I considered having the catfish or a shrimp pasta dish but in the end, I selected the Cajun chicken pasta. I have consistently made poor selections at this restaurant. It has been suggested to me that I have the chicken tenders, but I don't want chicken tenders so I keep trying different things from the menu. That is what I get for not listening to advice. If your going to follow the crowd into a restaurant, you better order what everyone else is ordering: chicken fingers. Will I ever learn? Probably not. I suppose I could have a salad. As David M. says "Lettuce is lettuce", unless of course it is wilted.

The new Harbor Freight catalog showed up today. Better throw it away before I discover something I can't live without. Perhaps a high speed air body saw. Look it's on sale for only $19.99.

The weather was rainy today so it was already dark at 4:30 pm. More rain expected tomorrow. I am ready for the some sunshine, please.

Brianna fell asleep on the couch again so it is time to carry her to bed. I think she is just pretending though. She does that sometimes.

John, Debbie, Mathew, Timothy, and Jonathon came to visit today. We went out to Greenbrier for lunch. Hushpuppies for everybody, except Jonathon. He's only 4 months. Brianna really liked holding the baby. The kids all played on the computer. They must have been having a good time because they sure were quiet.

John brought is guitar with him. He is truely talented. He played and sang several songs for us that he has written. I could have listened to him play all afternoon.

I intended to get out in the garage and disassemble the front suspension and steering this afternoon. Jordan asked me to play on the computer with him so I did that instead. We had a good time til the game 'disconnected' us. We started two games but didn't get to finish either one.

Later in the afternoon I went for a short bike ride. The bike needs a good lube job. I think about it everytime I ride it but it is one of those things I never get around to doing. I tried to get Jordan to practice riding with no training wheels but he wasn't inclined to participate. Brianna gave it a try though. I wouldn't be surprised if she learns to ride it first. I am looking forward to them learning to ride so we can all roll around the neighborhood together.

Just saw the new video iPod on a tv commerical. Brianna said, "Look Daddy!". The iPod was playing a U2 video and Brianna recognized the song. The U2 DVD that I ordered earlier this week has not shipped yet. Hopefully it will be here by next weekend.

I am considering another Miata mod. A fleece jacket to keep in the trunk full time. Never can tell when things will get chilly.

Ginger mentioned today that one of her friends recently said "This is great weather for a convertible", to which she responded, "Rick thinks all weather is convertible weather."

99 percent.

The world is flat like a pancake. Am I know this because once again I have been accused of falling off.

I checked on the frame today. Response: "Hope to be done by the middle of next week." My interpretation. "We don't have a clue." No surprise.

Last night by 6:30 pm I was ready to go to sleep. I ended up staying up till about 11:00. I don't think I have completely adjusted to the time change. Usually two weeks is enough. Yep, my internal clock is wound pretty tight.

John D. is coming by on Saturday. John is an old friend. We met in kindergarten. We also attended elementary school together and part of college. I wonder if he has grown up. I know I haven't.

The first three days of this week, we had 85 degree weather. Plenty of top down. Today it topped out around 65. It was chilly this morning, but the top remained down.

This week a guy from work bought a football to keep in his office. This is apparently football season. We have gone outside a couple times to throw the ball around for a few minutes. My shoulder is sore, sore, sore.

Monday night I ordered the U2 - Vertigo 2005 - Live From Chicago DVD from Amazon. It should be here in a few more days. Jordan and I are really looking forward to seeing it.

I just finished watching last nights 'live' debate on the West Wing. Disappointing is one word. Unlike real debates, not once did I want to yell 'liar' at the television. Hardly engaging.

Eighty degrees this afternoon.

I wonder how the sandblasting is coming along.

Friday afternoon I took the truck frame to be sandblasted. I should get it back late next week. I meant to take a photo of it on the trailer before I hauled it off but I was in a hurry, meaning I didn't have time to run in the house and grab the camera. Later it occurred to me that I had a camera in my pocket, my new phone. Doh!

I bought a Bluetooth USB device this evening. As soon as I get it figured out, I will be able to transfer photos from the camera to the computer.

The weather seems to be unseasonably warm. The forecast for this week is high of about 80 every day this week. Hope to get some good top down time. Yeah, yeah, no body wants to read about the weather.

Lights out!

Lately I have been accused of falling off the earth. Several folks have mentioned a lack of blog activity. Well the truth is nothing notable has happened lately. At least nothing nearly as interesting as the typical exciting stuff I write about like the weather, the state of the Miata top, and this weeks efforts toward rust eradication.

While on the topic of rust I will mention that I am planning to take the truck frame to the sandblaster this Friday.

I have not recovered completely from the time change. It usually takes about two weeks. Sign my petition to do away with day light savings by leaving a comment here.

My new cell phone arrived in the mail today. The manual says it need to charge 12 hours before use. How can they expect me to not play with a new techno-toy for 12 hours.

Nice weather again today for running the errands with the top down.

I did some more paint and rust removal on the frame. At this point I am again considering sending the frame out to a professional sand blaster to finish up the process. Why? According to my calculations I will spend more money on supplies to complete the process than I will pay someone else to do it. That doesn't add up does it.

The big bowl 'o candy is sitting next to the front door waiting for tomorrow nights guests. I hope some is left when the trick-or-treaters start to show up.

The Great Pumpkin
Yesterday morning as I was driving out of the neighborhood, I noticed some vandalism. Two mailboxes had been destroyed. By pumpkins.

It is hard to believe throwing a pumpkin at a mailbox could break it but seeing is believing. Last night when I got home, G mentioned that our pumpkin had been stolen.

I wonder if the folks with the broken mailbox would reimburse us for the pumpkin.

Skip on to the next post, this is the boring stuff.

Yesterdays lunch included fried okra. Actual skillet fried okra, not that deep fried battered stuff. I suspect that the okra season is coming to an end. In a restaurant.

I was out driving tonight from 8:00-8:30. It was a chilly 45F but still a nice night for a ride. Gloves and hat were not optional.

Can't say I didn't warn you.

I got the call from the upholstry shop yesterday before lunch. The rear window panel was ready for pickup. I had dropped it off on Wednesday around 11:00 so the total turn around time was less than 48 hours.

The 'h' key on my keyboard is intermittently working today. You never realize how many of those you use until they are occasionally not working. Then when it does work, it is one ell of a surprise.

Today has been a relaxing day so far. That doesn't mean I haven't done anything so far, it has just gone pretty smoothly. Perhaps it has something to do with the cool Fall like weather outside and New Yankee workshop on the TV. I bet if I flipped channels I could even find a football game. No thanks, I will stick with dadovision.

Jordan had a friend come over and play for a few hours. We picked him up this morning and I got a chance to see how the '53 is coming along. Good thing we are not having a race, because I would be losing.

Because we had an honored guest, and also a lack of bread at the house, we made a trip to Sonic for lunch. Wacky meals for everyone. Woo hoo.

Amoung my many mundane chores today, I managed to also get the repaired rear window panel re-installed in the Miata. I looks good and it feels good to know I can weather some ran if I have to.

I mentioned last week it took about 40 minutes to get the window panel out. The instructions I DL'ed off miata.net said it should take about an hour and a half to disassmeble. The instructions also mentioned it would take about one hour to reassemble. Well when it only took 40 minutes to take it apart I decided I was in for a nightmare of a reassembly. I was expecting a 3 hour tour. It went surprisingly quickly and did indeed only take one hour.

Rear window repair summary
- Total repair time: 1 hour forty minutes.
- Total cost: $65 which included the cost of the plastic window and sewing labor.
- Satisfaction level: High.

I have this friend with a rash

I often get asked for advice on selecting a computer. It is usually someone asking for a "friend", not actually for themselves. I think they may be a little embarrassed to admit they want a computer. What a geek. :)

All kidding aside, here is what you need to know:
What do you want?
What do you need?
How much can you afford?

I don't really want to know the answer to the third one, but you should know the answer because you don't want to overspend.

While I am mentioning money, I will throw this out too. If your buying from Best Buy, CompUsa, Circuit City, etc, (Not that there is anything wrong with that!), when the sales person offers you an extended warranty, say NO. If you're the type of person that has trouble saying NO, then ask the dude if you need an extended warranty. They will proceed to tell you all the things that can go wrong with your new computer. At that point tell them you don't want to buy a computer will all those problems and leave the store running. I still laugh when I think about the time a salesman tried to get me to buy an extended warranty for a 17"flat panel LCD monitor.

What do you want? Probably a computer that will browse the internet, email, play music, maybe a little picture editing, and document editing. If that is all you want you are in pretty good shape.

Hopefully your needs are covered by your want list, assuming it is not be prepared to scale back to just the want list if the budget becomes a problem.

Congratulations, life is going to be easy because almost any new computer today will cover the want list from above. But you forgot to mention you wanted a DVD burner, or player or 5.1 channel surround sound.

Seriously though, if your list is what mentioned above you will be in good shape with a 800 MHZ processor, 100 GB harddrive, and 256 MB of RAM. For the record, the laptop I am using right now is has a 800 MHZ processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a 40 GB harddrive.

If you are planning on editing video, the above is nowhere near enough. If you are into playing 3rd person shooters, you will want to add a high end video card. If you are into digital photography you will want a CD writer and probably a bigger hard drive.

The above description is sufficient for some gaming and digital pictures but if your avid about it consider increasing your specs.

You can probably get a PC without a monitor to match those spec's for about $400. Don't forget your still going to need a monitor or flat panel display.

The price of flat panels has come down. I would definitely consider getting one. If you have been using a 19" or smaller CRT monitor, you will be happy with a 17" LCD flat panel. The measure the display size differently so if your use to a 17" CRT and you get a 17" LCD, the screen size is actually larger. You don"t really need to get a 19" LCD unless you have money to burn.

A few more notes on flat panels. I have had good success with the Samsung Syncmaster. I even wrote a review for one on Amazon. The 17" will probably cost you about $350 today. The nice thing about the display is that it will out last your computer. Long after your computer becomes obsolete, the display will still be worth having. Next time you upgrade, you can continue to use the same LCD. Hopefully that will help ease your mind when looking at the price tag.

Now a note about computer brands. I would not buy an HP or a Compac. I would buy a Dell or a Gateway. I have had good success with both of those. If you ask around you will find others who haven't.

If I were buying a computer today for me, I would be considering (GASP!) one of the new Apple Mini Macs ($499 - does not include the display, KB, etc). I haven't used one but I would be highly tempted.

These days I prefer a laptop. You may want to consider one. There is a premium on these but I think the portability is well worth it. Again, the computer I am using right now is a Dell laptop and it is over 4 years old and still working well. I hope you would be so lucky. At work I just got a high end Dell Inspiron 9300. This is a sweet machine and probably more than I would ever have bought for myself.

For the record, you can get a Dell laptop today for $499 that has a 14.1" LED display, 1.4 Ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM and a 40 GB harddrive. It also includes a CD Burner/DVD combo drive and a free color printer.

The only drawback to laptops is that in my experience, the CD players only last about a year, even when you don't use it much. Fortunately I was able to get mine replaced under warranty twice. (My laptop came with a 3 year warranty.)

If I were getting a desktop today, and I decided against an Apple, I would build my own. At this point I have built close to a dozen. This process is not for the faint of heart. For you I would recommend buying the Dell, or Gateway. Maybe even a Sony or an eMachine though the jury is still out on the later. Again avoid the HP and Compac, upgrading these a couple years from now will be a nightmare.

How about an Apple laptop? Now I am just dreaming.

Oh yeah. About that Internet thing. If you have DSL or a cable modem, the internet will be great. If you use dial up, it will seem slow at times. It is not the computer, it is the connection, read THE MODEM. Getting a faster computer will not fix the problem. Getting a faster connection will.

Last year I put together a computer from some spare parts I had lying around. It was a 300 Mhz machine with a 12 G harddrive, and maybe 128 Mb of RAM. Plugged into my network, sharing the cable modem to access the Internet you could't tell the difference between it and a 1.4 Ghz machine I have with 512 MB of RAM. The 300 Mhz machine was plenty fast.

I gave this computer to my sister. I demo'ed it for her at my house. At her apartment she used a modem for internet access for a while but it was unbearably slow. Since then she has gotten a high speed connection and the last I heard was again satisfied with its performance.

2) Ninety-nine

Now with the Dodge de-rattled, the only remaining problem is the bouncing brakes.

ZERO percent chance of rain tomorrow. Just what I need so that I can take out the topless Miata.

Matching Numbers
The frame of my GMC truck is suppose to have the serial number stamped on it twice. The number also shows up as part of the VIN on the VIN plate.

Yesterday while cleaning the frame I decided to check the number on the frame versus the number on the cab. I would not have been surprised to find out they did not match.

I did end up with a surprise. The frame number did and did not match the VIN in the cab. How is that? Well the two numbers stamped on the frame did not match. The last three digits on the cab are xxxxx816. On the frame I found xxxxx816 and also xxxxx815. The number on the front of the frame did not match the number on the middle of the frame. I guess the first stamp occurred before they remembered to increment the serial number. I wonder if this is common.

Of Note
I forgot to mention that last Monday (10/10) was Brianna's Birthday. Exactly one year after her fourth Birthday she turned five. She had a Princess cake again this year. She only had 3 partys this year. Poor Brianna.

Also of Note
I was just looking back at last years blog entry for Bri's B-day (10/10) when I started wondering about the truck. I had been thinking I got it last October but it turns out I got it on September 12, 2004.

The rear piece of the Miata top is riding around with me in the truck now. How long before I get around to visiting the repair shop?

Answer: Because I don't have a sewing machine.
Question: Why don't you try to fix it yourself.

More useless MPG info
The last fill up on the Dodge resulted in a calculated value of 12.68 MPG. This was city mileage. That is only 0.4 MPG less than I got on the tank of highway miles: 13.08. That is not a very radical difference.

GMC Update
I spent a couple hours yesterday afternoon with a wire wheel on my corded drill removing paint and rust from the frame. This is actually faster than using my sand blaster. Unfortunately there will be spots on the frame that the wire wheel will not be able to reach, or simply won't be able to clean as effectively as the blaster.

I had about decided to take the frame to a professional sand blaster but then logistics got in the way. The frame won't fit in the back of my truck nor on my neighbors trailer. I finally decided that by the time I figured out how to get it to the blaster and back, I could probably be done with it. Maybe not.

Super Cat Nala!

I am ready for a vacation.

Job Posting
Wanted - Skilled typist with good grammar and spelling skills to proof-read and correct my blog entries. Must be self motivated and understand my perception of reality. Salary negotiable.

Topless, Well Soft Of

This morning I removed the rear panel from the Miata top. Total time involved about 40 minutes. I will be taking it to an upholstry shop hopefully to get a new plastic window sewn in. We will see. Pun intended.

I used the instruction from Miata.net found in the Garage section. An odd thing about them. They didn't really match my car at all. I am guessing that I do not have the original top.

While dismatling the rear deck of the car, I found a hole. Perhaps someone removed a BB. No it was bigger than that. It was cut in a piece of the sheet metal probably using tin snips. My suspicion is that at some point a CD changer was installed and later removed. This hole was used to run a cord from the changer to the head unit. I was pretty sure when I replaced the orignal radio with a new one last year, that some one had replaced the radio before. And then un-replaced it.

Greasy Kid Stuff
I put the GMC frame up on saw horses in the driveway today and proceeded to scrub it down with degreaser. I removed a lot of grease and grime but there is still much work to do. I made a huge mess on the concrete.

After cleaning the top side, I needed to flip it over. The safest way to do this was to put it back on the ground, flip it over, and then lift it back up on the saw horses. That frame is heavy.

After putting the frame away this evening, I drove over to Mr. Killen's to borrow my sand blaster, or as I said to him, to borrow his sand blaster. Possession is 9/10's. While there I got to look over his freshly painted frame. His project is a '53 Ford. It is amazing how much better shape his truck is in than mine, considering it is almost 30 years older.

Assuming I have the time tomorrow, I will sand blast a few spots on the frame that I can't clean with the big stiff nylon bristle brush.

All the frame lifting I did tonday made me sore. I probably just need more exercise. Perhaps more frame lifting.

Rattle And Hum

Back in the Fall 1996 I decided I wanted to get a pickup truck. By the spring of 1997 I had decided what I wanted and later that summer I ordered it. In the fall of 1997 I finally got my new 1998 Dodge 1500 Quadcab 4x4. Who says you can't have everything you want.

Pretty quickly I noticed an odd sound when I made a sharp turn. But not always. The noise sounded like a BB (Ball-bearing) rolling thru a metal pipe. It occurred on turns in alternate directions. Left, right, left. Never Right, right, right, or left, left, left. The reason is pretty obvious.

Somewhere along way, I decided that the BB, or bearing, or whatever it is was in the frame of the rear seat.



The noise in the seat often spurred conversation, but most folks didn't notice it til I pointed it out.

Friday while driving home from Destin, Florida, I decided I would try to find the noise. Why? Because all the way home from Florida, I had to listen to some bottles rattle in the back of the Tahoe. This could drive a man insane. Assuming he were sane to start with.



To remove the rear seat, it must be folded up and four bolts removed. Not a problem. Next the seat is lifted up to detach two clips from the back wall and pulled forward to detach two clips underneath. Easy enough.



At this point, the casual observer driving by would have seen me standing in the driveway holding the back seat tilting it this way and that trying to get it to rattle. A feckless task.

What next? Time to go for a ride. My neighbor offers to drive while I lay in the floor of the back space. I can no longer call this the backseat because there is not backseat there. Ok, rear floor board.

I press my ear to the back wall expecting to hear the rattle. Surprise! The sound is coming from in front of me. After many donuts in the cul-de-sac in front of the house, I finally decide that the noise is emanating from the passenger seat, about halfway up.

Rolling around in the floor board of the back of my truck is like a crazy ride at an amusement park, especially while alternating between clockwise and counter-clockwise circles. Good thing I don't get motion sick.

Once released from my under-sized prison cell, I take to opening up the passenger seat. This required unfastening the botton of the leather seat cover and pulling it upward. I am now looking at the seat frame and foam. The seat frame is made of steel tubing. That would be the pipe, now lets find the BB.



I drill a big hole in the frame. The finger above points at the new hole. Next I grab a magnet and we go for another ride. Clockwise, counter-clockwise, repeat.



It is amazing what came rolling out of the hole. Several spherical pieces of welding refuse. Some guys at the factory in Mexico City must have been having a little fun the day my truck was build. I guess quality is not job one at the Dodge factory. Eight years later I had a little fun 'fixing' the noise. I can't believe it took me eight years to get around to solving this little problem.

It sure feels good to have the rattle fixed. I was amazed that I only had to drill one hole. I could have easily been in another part of the frame. Ginger has mentioned the Tahoe has a rattle. Not sure if I am up to the challenge. After all, it could ruin my perfect record.

We are now home and glad to be here. The trip is right at 360 miles and took 6 hours of driving time. Throw in another hour and a half for lunch and other necessary stops.

I have a story to tell but I am too tired now so it will have to wait til tomorrow.

Last Night Out
Tonight is the last night of our vacation trip. And we went out to dinner again. I wasn't really looking forward to it because, well, this will be the fourth night it a row. It turned out to be the best night too. We had dinner at The Back Porch. This place is on the beach and had the best seafood we have had this week. Almost every table in the restaurant has a window overlooking the beach. On nice days like today, all the windows are open so the breeze can blow through. There is a small airport just north of the beach so small aircraft fly over while you dine. Between the planes, the boats, and the jumping fish there is plenty to see. For dinner I had the grilled Tuna/Amberjack/Grouper special. G' had the brown food combo: shrimp, scallops, and crab cake. The kids had the, yep you guessed it, popcorn shrimp. It was all good.

Tomorrow morning we are loading up and headed home. Good thing we have a whole weekend to recover from the vacation.

Wow, it is Thursday. This week has consisted of sleeping, reading, eating, and a little bit of the beach too.

Tuesday I went over to B&N to get a book. I had decided I didn't want to read the book I brought with me. The book I was searching for was The Gold-Plated Porsche: How I Sank a Small Fortune into a Used Car, and Other Misadventures by Stephan Wilkinson. If I couldn't locate that one I would get Truck: On Rebuilding a Worn-Out Pickup, and Other Post-Technological Adventures by John Jerome.

The store had neither but offered to order them for me. I explained that I wasn't local and continued to browse. Assuming I remember, I will just order those when I get back home, or better yet, from the condo. After all, I do have internet access.

I found a book. It is probably the same story just told by a different guy. This one is not about a Porsche or an old pickup but rather about a tractor, a Allis Chalmers WC tractor. This book, Busted Tractors and Rusty Knuckles: Norwegian Torque Wrench Techniques and Other Fine Points of Tractor Restoration by Roger Welsch, has turned out to be a surprisely good read, especially considering I settled for this book because I couldn't find what I was looking for. Roger, an admitted amateur mechanic, tells tales of rusted metal and broken bolts. Like many others I am sure, I can identify with much of the material.

18.4 MPG - I filled up the Tahoe Tuesday night. I have never really paid attention to its gas mileage before, mostly because I so rarely drive it. I was amazed that that the trip odometer showed nearly 400 miles, 391.1 to be exact. By contrast my truck hardly ever reaches 300 miles on a tank, I can only remember it happening twice.

More Notes on Dining Out
Tuesday night we had dinner at A.J.'s 'World Famous' Seafood and Oyster Bar. Basically another fried seafood joint for us tourist. Much better than the night before. Don't ask to sit outside or you will end up sitting at the bar upstairs. Thats ok if that is what you want but we enjoyed being inside and looking out the galley windows much more. Outside the windows you can see the boats coming in and weighing their catch.

Jordan filled out the comment card on the table, so I will go to it to complete the review. Here are the highlights:
What time did you visit us? 6:45 pm Tuesday 10,11,05
Server: Megan
What I ordered today: Shrimp, French Fries, Sprite
What I remember most about today? The good shrimp
Something I would change about AJ's is: don't be to loud

I picked up a box of matches to go into my match book collection. I started this collection probably 25 years ago when a friend and neighbor, Blair Tice, gave me some match books his parents brought back from Las Vegas. It is difficult to find match books these days but when I see a box, I still pick them up.

Yesterday morning we took the kids over to The Track to do some go-kart riding, and mini-golf. Jordan and Brianna even got to drive their own karts on the kiddie track. Jordan thought the carts were too slow, Brianna thought the track was too narrow.

I can hear the truck frame back at home calling my name. The tractor book really makes me miss the old truck.

The previous post was created using Blogger's new plug in for Microsoft Word. It works reasonalby well though I did experience one problem. All the apostrophes got converted to some wierd character. I have since gone back and removed all the aposthrophes from the previous post. Notice the first line of this entry has one. This entry was not created with Word, but rather with a collection of words.

Destination Vacation

I am posting today from Destin, Florida. The kids are on Fall break this week for so are taking a vacation at the beach. A much needed one too.


Yesterday we drove down. I used Mapopolis on my Axim X5 to provide on the fly directions during the trip. The PDA was attached to my handheld GPS. It is pretty cool. It talks and provides directions as you drive. It will even tell you when you leave the recommended path and calculate a new route as you go. This is pretty cool unless you have just turned off the beaten path to stop for lunch. Then it can be annoying, but fortunately, the PDA has a volume control. I setup one of the buttons to toggle the automatic routing on/off as well.

We left the house yesterday just after 8:00 AM. The drive is right at 6 hours but we made two stops: the first was for a snack and restroom break, and the second for lunch at Sonic.

The condo we are staying at is called Sun Destin. Jordan thinks it is cool because it has 18 floors according to the buttons on the elevator. He only counted 17 while standing outside.

The condo is on the beach. We are staying on the fourth floor overlooking the pool and beach. There are two pools here. One outside, and another one which is indoors and heated. This is what we call the contingency plan. There is also a hot tub around here somewhere.

And WiFi. The connectivity is not free but the rates are pretty reasonable. I think it was $16 for 3 days. At first that seemed pricey but then I considered the amount of entertainment it would provide me and how disconnected I would feel without it.

After arriving yesterday, we made a trip to Wal-Mart to pickup some supplies. Among those was Brianna's birthday cake. She was celebrating her 5th birthday.

Last night we had dinner at the Fishermans Wharf. Sounds like a good place to eat while at the beach. We had a nice table by a window overlooking the water. A nearby marina was visible so we got to watch some ships come in. Outside on the deck, some newly weds were apparently having their wedding reception. Nothing says classy like a tattoo on the brides back that says Heavy Metal Heartbreaker.

I would not recommend the Fishermans Wharf to a friend. The prices were as to be expected for a tourist area. Entrees around $15-$20. Kids menu was $4-$5. The food was reasonable, but the service was lacking. Save your money and head on over to Burger King.

[Update] Today for lunch I had some shrimp and fish leftover from last night. Believe it or not, this stuff was actually better nuked today in the microwave than it was fresh from the kitchen last night. This just shows environment is everything.

Blah blah blah.

Nothing of merit to say today.

Blah blah blah, blah blah.

Hanging Around

Today was my first day at a new job. Change is good.

Only four more days of work til vacation time begins. I really miss being retired.

Did you know that if a line connects the mid points of two sides of a triangle, the line is parallel to the third side? While were at it I might as well mention that the length of the line connecting the midpoints is 1/2 the length of the third side.

Blockers Blog

Yesterday's fill up on the truck was 21.95 gallons for 287.1 miles. That gives a 13.08 MPG. That is about inline with what I normally get: 13 to 14 MPG. What was unusual for this tank was that it was 87 octane instead of the usual 92.

I can not yet definitely say it is not burning oil any more but it looks good so far. I need a few more miles on the truck before I feel certain on this point.

Cheerio.

Do You Detect a Theme?

Chevelle

Plymouth Fury

International Scout

Chevy P/U

Bel Aire

Jaguar E-Type

Studebaker Silver Hawk

I went to a car show this morning at my church. Mr Wallen accompanied me. Lots of nice cars. One of my favorites was a Studebaker Silver Hawk. (Pictures above)

The kids spent last night at my Father's house.

Just when I am starting to get use to the retirement gig, the week is almost over. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. And fortunately I have a vacation coming up soon.

today's truck adventure involved making a mess in the driveway. I attempted to degrease and clean the frame. So good so far. I suspect a few hours with a stiff brush and some cleaner will complete this task. I imagine it would go twice as fast if you would come help me.

I don't suppose I have mentioned how heavy the frame is. After turning it over a few times it gets heavier.

I was considering having it sandblasted, the frame. I have now decided against it. Basically it is in pretty good shape. Just a little dirt and grease. No real rust to speak of. Definitely not worth hauling all over creation to have it blasted.

I am hungry. Probably because I have been thinking I should go on a diet. That always happens. Where are the bon-bons?

I met some guys for breakfast this morning (6 AM) at Cracker Barrel. These guys meet every week. It is some sort of egg sandwich ritual. Normally I would just be getting out of bed, but I figured, hey since I am retired I should be doing the whole early to bed, early to rise thing. Tune in next week when I will be asleep.

Early this AM, the sky was dark when I left the house but it seemed warm enough. Miata - top down. It was just getting light when I arrived at CB. Oooohhh. Look at those dark clouds. Too bad my top has a hole in it. Fortunately it didn't rain. An hour and a half later I headed on back to the house.

I got an email later from a friend who mentioned he saw a crazy guy driving around this morning in a Miata with the top down. Sixty degrees. Auburn Tag. Sixty degrees is nothing. Last year I did it sub-30. Until my ears fell off. Usta! Yeah that was me.

Several of the blogs I routinely visit have not been updated in a while. Perhaps everyone is busy living real lives. So real and exciting they have no time to allow me to live vicariously though them. You know who you are.

This morning I discovered that my neighbor now has a pirate flag having on his yuppie flag pole.

We are the pirates who don't do anything.

We just stay at home and lie around.

And if you ask us to do anything.

We will just tell you, we don't do anything.

Frame Off

Progress?

Disconnected and removed the rear axle along with the leaf springs. Would have attempted to remove the front stuff but I have yet to figure out how to correctly disassemble it. Hopefully will get that figured out tomorrow. I took about a million pictures of the frame assembly so that someday perhaps I can get it put back together.

I got a 97% on the first test.

Excellent weather == top down.

I am hanging out with the retired guys again this week. They are glad to have me back.

GMC: This afternoon I made very little progress on the truck. I did cut off the the back bumper, disconnect the brake booster from the proportional valve, and cut all the brackets holding the rust exhaust lines in place. Still a lot of work to do before the frame is seperated from the suspension.

The wind and remaining clouds from huricanne Rita cleared up this afternoon.

I called POR-15 about the damaged can. They are sending a replacement.

Week In Review

Yesterday was my last day at my old job. I am taking this coming week off then I will be starting my new job. Is the grass really greener? I will let you know.

Last week I mentioned the gas gauge on the Dodge might be getting flaky. I have since decided it is ok. Instead I now believe I had 8-10 gallons of gas siphoned out of my tank. Not sure if it happened at home or at work but I did happen to leave the truck in the driveway two nights in a row which is pretty uncommon. Assuming I did not have gas siphoned out of the tank, then my last tank full only got me 7.1 MPG. Not likely. On that tank I got 180 miles and it took 25.3 gallons to refill at a total cost of over $70. Thats $.39 per mile. I usually get almost twice that - around 13 or 14 MPG.

In a way I am relieved that someone stole the gas. If it had been the sending unit going bad I would have to drop the tank and replace the sending unit. That would be a couple hours work and a wad of cash. This way I am limited to $30 of missing gas. No extra work on my part.

The kids and I went to Tuscumbia today to visit my father. Lunch at BK and then to Spring Park to ride the roller coaster, train, and carousel. After we got back to Dad's house I walked across the street to visit my Grandfather. He talked non-stop for an hour and a half. I am scheduled to do all the talking next time. He told me several interesting stories about when he was in WWII. He also told me about a '41 Buick convertible he once had. Metallic Blue, Blue leather interior. I am going to try to find a picture of one for him. He also mentioned he thought he would like to get one of those new Mazda MX-5's.

The POR-15 paint arrived Thursday. The box was apparrently shipped upside down and treated pretty roughly. Three out of four cans were dented. One was so badly banged up that it leaked. Did I mention the box must have been upside down? The inside of the box was a nice glossy black color. I guess I will be testing out their customer support line on Monday.

Ginger went to Auburn today to play with the Alumni band for the homecoming game. She had a lot of fun last year. Hopefully today went as well.

I missed a call from Creg today. Apparrently he painted his frame today.

[rmrtndl@zephyr rmrtndl]$ ping ram92.ods.orgPING ram92.ods.org (24.96.129.30) from 192.168.2.17 : 56(84) bytes of data.From 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=10 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=11 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=12 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=13 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=14 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=15 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=16 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=17 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=18 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=19 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=20 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=21 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=22 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=23 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=24 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=36 Destination Host UnreachableFrom 24.96.129.1 icmp_seq=37 Destination Host Unreachable
--- ram92.ods.org ping statistics ---37 packets transmitted, 0 received, +17 errors, 100% loss, time 40069ms
[rmrtndl@zephyr rmrtndl]$

Not much happening so I have been running silent.

GMC Update - Last night I ordered the paint for the frame. I finally decided to go with POR-15. Now I just need to finish removing the drive train and suspension.

Dodge Update - The rear brakes are still sticking causing the truck to bounce. And here is a new one. The fuel gauge is sporadically non-function.

Miata Update - The tear on rear window has grown larger. It should not be driven in the rain until it is repaired.

This afternoon it was all I could do to stay awake. I guess I need to quit drinking those caffine-free drinks and switch to the caffine enriched ones. A nap would have been great. Now why didn't I feel like that yesterday when a nap was a possibility?

This has been a {insert your own adjective here} week.

I read something earlier today that was funny but instead of repeating it here, I will tell you another story instead.

The short version: A guy has a truck full of gas. The next day the tank is empty. Someone stole it. He puts in $10 worth of gas. The next day his tank is empty again. This time he puts in $3 of gas and fills the remainder of the tank with water. Later he hears the sound of a car refusing to crank. The car is a mustang and it doesn't seem to want to run because it has water in the fuel. Dude got busted.

Friday I am going to pre-school. I can hardly wait. Brianna's class is having 'Donut's with Dad'. All the kids get to bring dad/granddad/etc. We will enjoy a nice sugary breakfast of pastries and juice complete with singing. The kids are going to perform for us special guys. Sounds like a good time to me! I am looking forward to hearing the 'C' song again.

Polling the Peanut Gallery

I am considering a new look for the blog. The most difficult decision is what color to use for the background. Any suggestions?

It ocurred to me earlier today while piddling around in the garage that I could not remember the last time I blogged. Wednesday was a few days ago. Where did all the time go. Perhaps nothing noteable has happened since then. Probably.

And now to check in on the current obsession: Yesterday morning I went to get a hair cut. (The kids went with me.) On the way home I stopped by the farmers market and picked up a pound of okra. Long story short. Fried Okra. Mmmm

The Dodge is still running ok despite my working on it last weekend. It doesn't appear to be burning any oil, but then I haven't really put enough miles on it to know for sure.

Tonight while taking a walk around the neighborhood after dinner, I was passed by a kid riding a skooter talking on a cell phone, twice. Kids today! For some reason it was an odder sight than it appears being described here.

The piddling in the garage today was mostly cleaning. I believe I made enough progress that I can feel good about working on the truck some more. This work tends to mess the garage back up.

And yes, it was very pleasant this evening as I took my Sunday afternoon ride in the Miata, er, MX-5. I am once again considering painting part of the trunk lid on the car. A small section along the trailing edge is showing primer. I figure I can do a reasonable enough job with a rattle-can that it will look better than it does now. Note to self: order some paint and primer.

That's all there is, there isn't anymore.

More Okra Please
As previously mentioned, we had fried okra tonight with dinner. Mmmm. Unfortunately there was not enough left over for breakfast tomorrow :)

More perfect Miata driving weather today.

Tomorrow the Dodge will take its first major expedition from the driveway since the repair work last weekend. I don't expect any problems, knock on wood. It does still bounces during braking though. The best guess at this point is that perhaps one of the rear brake shoes is catching on a warped drum. I have not yet been able to confirm or deny that and I don't think I will get around to it this weekend. Look for other mundane non-vehicle related stories in the meantime.

#429
Top down, all day, in the parking garage at work.

Ate lunch outside to enjoy the weather. Unfortunately my friends attract flies.

This evening I cleaned and put away a few tools. Every now and again I get motivated to do a little clean up. I never get completely caught up but, then the mess never gets completely out of hand either. Well mostly completely but not quite totally completely.

While driving home from dinner Sunday evening, I pointed out the window at a group (herd?) of horses in a field and said to Ginger, "What do all thoses horses have in common?" No answer is heard, so I say while doing my very best Mr. Ed, "They are all neigh-bors."

I never figured out why I had to walk the rest of the way home. It was funny and gets funnier every time I tell it. At least all the voices in my head are laughing.

Tomorrow evening: fried okra.

It would be an interesting challenge at this point to read back and enumerate each obsession. How about a quick review: Miata, dirt, '72 GMC, dirt, okra, dirt, '68 GMC grill for '72 GMC, dirt, computer crash, hard-drive crash, Formula One hot wheels, rocks, dirt, diet, dirt. What did I omit? Wet-sanding, dirt, '48 Chevy, and more. Go read for yourself.

Did I mention that I recently realized that more than half my life has occurred after I graduated from high school than before. I am just glad I wasn't a band geek. Sorry iMike, I couldn't help myself.

My five day weekend is now coming to a close. I will miss it so much.

We had a little gathering at the next door neighbors house this afternoon. The kids all played in the pool. And lots of food.

Cab removal photos over at the 67-72 Chevy/GMC Truck Forums.

Sunday

Today I removed the cab from the GMC. This is suppose to be a four man job. I managed to do it pretty much by myself. Ok so I used a little physics also.

The next step is stripping the frame.

I missed the weekly Miata ride today but I plan to catch up tomorrow.

Saturday

Finished putting the Dodge back together this morning. No leaks and it is running smooth. I will keep an eye on it for the next few weeks. Hopefully I can start running 87 octane again it will stop burning oil. {update: Total time was about 9 hours. Total cost about $30. Mechanic's estimate to do this job: $450.}

Went to Sardis for the afternoon. We had a cookout at G's grandfather's house. I had a good time playing with all the kids.

Friday

Started working on replacing the belly pan gasket on the Dodge. It took 3.5 hours to get it taken apart. The Haynes manual wasn't as accurate as it has been in the past.

I removed the air filter housing, throttle body, alternator, a/c compressor, upper radiator hose, a heater house, and finally the intake manifold.

Spent about 30 minutes cleaning up the intake manifold.

At this point I took a break for a few hours including a nap. Wooo hooo!

The weather was perfect at about 75 degrees and my truck was in the shade of the garage.

Later in the day I put another 2.5 hours into putting it back together. Still not done but I am getting close.

Today we filled up Ginger's vehicle with some $2.99/gallon 87 octane. There are a few stations around here that are out of gas. I even noticed at one station cars backed up 3 deep waiting to buy gas. It was only $2.87 there. What a deal.

I bought the gaskets to repair the Dodge. The plan is to get started in the morning.

Took the kids to see Charley and The Chocolate Factory after school today. No rave reviews here. Dinner at the Outback. Their food quality is suffering.

I took today and tomorrow off to stretch the weekend out to five days. Yippee.

Monday

When was the last time you saw a barber poll? Here is another movie recommendation for you. 'The Man Who Wasn't There." Billy Bob Thorton is in this one. I keep waiting on him to pull out the swing blade. And a great line from it: "Doris and I go to church once a week. Usually on Tueday.... for Bingo."

I had to leave work early to pick up the kids after school. After-school-care had been canceled due to huricane Katrina. At that point it still hadn't rained here. Things are looking bad for New Orleans and Mobile.

I am investigating replacing the intake gasket on the Dodge. According to some of the stuff I have read, not only will this fix the oil burning problem, but it will fix the detonation problem that occurs when using 87 octane. Sounds too good to be true.

Sunday

Washed the Miata this afternoon. I had two helpers. I discovered the seam on the rear window had become split. This means that even when the top is up, if it is raining, there will be rain in the car.

As is the usual circumstance, I took the car on a short drive Sunday evening. Due to the newly discovered split seam, it started to rain on me. Ok it was only a light sprinkle so I just speed up to keep the rain out. No point in putting the top up. That would cause rain to get into the car. Note to self, find some seam sealer.

Saturday

Saturday morning I started out by heading out to the farmers market. Two dollars for okra. Then I headed on to Krogers to pick up some corn meal. Krogers didn't have any corn meal so I settled for corn meal mix. I also picked up an onion because I forgot to get one at the market. Two dollars even for the meal and the onion.

I once believed that good fried okra could only be created in a cast iron skillet. I suppose to a purist this is still true, but I have on occassion created a successful batch using a teflon coated skilled. We are talking pan fried okra here, none of that imitation deep fried stuff for me. I generally use a cast iron skillet, but every now and then I like to experiment with the process.

On this particular ocassion I tried two experiments. First I chopped up some onion and fried it along with the okra. Secondly I tried two different preps. A dry toss and a dry toss followed by a little milk. Both create distinctively different results. For best results I cook it on medium slowly. This keeps the amount of grease in the air down and the oil in the pan. The onion was a very nice touch, though next time I will add more onion. Perhaps some potato also. Mmmm.

Now you know my secret. My favorite food is fried okra. My mother-in-law asked me one time what I liked with my fried okra. The answer should have been obvious. More fried okra.

I made a nice pan of corn bread too.

I have no recollection of the remainder of Saturday. Oh yeah, I worked on the GMC. I managed to remove 3 of the four bolts holding the cab on. Two of the three were bent. To further supports my theory that the truck was in a pretty bad accident at some point. I will have to cut or the grind the remaining bolt in half.

Post #423
This evening I filled up the truck. Total cost: $64.50. Feeling I hadn't suffered enough, I came back home and hopped in the Miata to head back to the gas station for another fill up. $27. When I first brought it home, it didn't even take $20 to fill-er-up.

The Dodge has been bouncing during braking. I have been assuming this was due to warped rotors. This evening I removed the tires and checked the rotors. The runout on one was 0.002" and 0.003" on the other. Spec for the rotors afters turning is < 0.004" so I ruled that out as the problem.

After putting the tires back on I took it for a test drive to see if I could pick another possible culprit for the bouncing. It was still there but not as pronouced as before. The problem only occurs while braking so I don't think it is a balance problem.

While I was frustrated that I couldn't figure out what was wrong, I was relieved that the brakes weren't messed up again. Any ideas?

For the record, the rotor check occured before the fill up. The gas station trip occurred during the test drive. By the time I took the Miata out it was dark. The temperature made it a very pleasant night for a drive. I am considering taking another ride early tomorrow morning.

I got an email from John Deaton this week. He is moving back to Alabama. He will be living in Lexington. That is probably about 45 minutes from here. He and I go way back. We met in kindergarten.

I borrowed my engine hoist back from my friend last night. There is a slight chance I will get around to using it this weekend, but I am not counting on it.

At Least it's Paid For
My Dodge is acting up yet again. The brakes cause the truck to bounce when slowing down. There is also an occasional rubbing feeling while driving. My initial suspicion is that one of the brake rotors may be warped. I would guess the front right side.

And lets not forget the truck is still burning oil. And that the cost of gas is sky high and the truck gets 14 MPG on a really good day.

Having said all that, I will now mention the truck is paid for, so there is no payment. And even though it costs close to $60 to fill up, it is still paid for. And even though it burns a quart of oil per thousand miles, it is still paid for. Compared to gas, oil is cheap. At least per 1k miles.

Guess who discovered the text color option on blogger.

Four Stars
Last night we watched one of our NetFlix movies. The movie was The Count of Monte Cristo. This was an excellent movie. I highly recommend it. The writer mentioned the movie did not necessarily follow the book so just because you have read the book is no excuse to pass on the movie. Go rent it now. This one is almost as good as the pirate movie, it practically is a pirate movie. No really! It has pirates in it. Lots of great one liners too. (2 hours 11 minutes)

One great line in the movie is something like "God has nothing to do with it. God is rarely ever in France this time of year." The context is of course what makes it so funny.

HOW To Repair - ABS Light and Brake Light are On

Here I will document a few details of repairing my 1998 Dodge 1500 truck in hope that the information may help others with the same problem.

This evening I installed the new RWAL speed sensor (or ABS speed sensor or differential speed sensor or what ever you want to call it). The sensor mounts on the top of the rear differential on my '98 Dodge 1500 4WD pickup. Installation took about 20 minutes, but give yourself and hour. I had already taken the sensor out once and knew what to expect.

The problem was that the ABS and Brake light on the dash had come on. A little investigating on the internet indicated that this sensor was probably the culprit. My Haynes manual says that this means the ABS is disabled, fortunately the brakes still function, just no anti-lock functionality.

I tried 4 parts stores on Sunday looking for a replace sensor. Finally a mechanic who happened to be in the same store told me I would only be able to get it from the Dodge dealership. I went by the dealership and picked one up this morning. Total cost was about $46. Ouch! I was told I could expect to pay between $150 and $200 dollars to have have dealer fix this problem. I have not attempted to verify those numbers.

The good sensor measured 1.8k ohms between the two pins. The bad sensor measured OPEN or infinite resistance. This is a good test to determine whether the sensor is bad. I believe the MOPAR part number is 1-05014787AA. My truck has an automatic transmission. I believe trucks with a manual transmission use a different part. The dealership should be able to help you determine which part you need.

After hooking up the new sensor the lights all went out. Installation required two metric wrenches. One was a 15 mm. I don't recall the other. To remove the sensor, a nut is removed, the brake line bracket is removed from the bolt and then the bolt is removed from the diff. The sensor then pulls out of the diff. There is an o-ring on the sensor that holds the sensor snug in place. There is a pretty good picture in the brake section (chapter 9) of the Haynes manual for the Dodge truck.

I would recommend removing the part and looking at it before going to get a replacement. The parts stores I went to tried to give me three different incorrect sensors. Fortunately I had already seen what it should look like so I didn't take the wrong part home.

A brief review of the weekend:

Sunday I removed the gas tank from the cab of the '72 GMC. Tomorrow I will probably retrieve the engine hoist in preparation of removing the engine again.

Saturday afternoon we went to G's Uncle Richard's house near Athens. Tubing, water skiing, and jet skiing. Fun was had by all.

Friday evening we attended a Sunday school social.

I have now written and erased todays entry twice. So far it has been focused on my lack of quality sleep. It was not a very interesting topic so I just erased it. x 2.

I had a story I was going to write but guess what, I forgot it. I have a streak going don't I. I believe it probably has something to do with my lack of sleep.

I am looking forward to the weekend. Woohoo.

Which story do you want to read tonight?

1. The More Rocks Story
2. The Ferrari Story
3. The Formula One Story
4. The I Swallowed a Bug Story

While your thinking about that, I will mention that I did not work on the truck tonight. Evan, er, David couldn't come over and play tonight.

Usta!

I Remembered What I Forgot

My naive friend who will rename mainless, I mean remain nameless, mentioned to me last week that he would appreciate it if I saved all my soft drink can tabs for him. His daughter's class is saving them to donate to cancer victims.

I agreed to save them for him on one condition, that condition being that he Google for "coke can tab urban myth". I received a startled look. I explained that I believed the can tab charity was a myth.

He, who I will now call Evan, because it is spelled similar to Evian, which is a brand of water which everyone knows is niave spelled backwards did the research and discovered the truth. A million pull tabs is worth roughly $300 dollars. Hardly worth the effort. Collecting a million of anything would be a lot of effort.

Armed with the truth, he is still collecting can tabs and so far I have given him three(3). He mentioned the truth to his wife and recommended that she make the teacher aware. So far they have not told the teacher. They don't want to embarass her. "Plus it is really about the kids learning to help others", said Evan. I guess she will figure it out eventually. Perhaps they should try collecting pennies instead. As the link mentions, a million pennies is worth $10,000.

Now to demonstrate how difficult it is to collection a million pennies, I will ask that everyone reading this send me a penny. I will know if you don't send one because I can count to one - the total number of people who have accidentally run across this blog.

I had something else I wanted to say also but I forgot what it was.

I did a little rock raking today. What's up with that?

Remember the dirt? Of course you do or you haven't been paying attention. There were lots of rocks in the dirt so I have been raking up the rocks. Why? So the mower won't throw them through the window.

I am about 60-70% done with the rock raking. So far I have raked up 5 wheel barrow loads of rocks. These are all smaller than my fist, most are smaller than a golf ball. I had previously spent some time picking up the larger ones. Today as I was working in the hot sun, I asked myself why are you doing this? I did not have a satisfactory answer so I called it a day.

Don't you hate it when you forget what you were going to say?

Axle Grease
Mr. Wallen is blogging again. Maybe. And this entry warrants the addition of a link to the side bar.

Last night we went to open house at the kids school. It was nice out so I drove the Miata. No hint of rain at this point. As we are sitting in Jordans class listening to his teacher, another woman comes in to announce that it is raining and there is a red Miata in the parking lot with its top down. The rain drops were huge. And cold. By the time I got to the car, the passenger compartment was overflowing. I opened the door to let most of the water drain out then I put the top back up. I was completely soaked by the time I got back inside. Later when I got home I had another dilema. Do I leave the car in the garage with the top up so that the top can dry out or do I leave it with the top down so the interior can dry out? I selected top up with the plan to let it dry overnight and the put it down this morning so the interior could dry out today. If it is sunny tomorrow I will park it in drive way.

I mentioned the rocks already?

A few months ago I was at Goodies buying some new shirts and they had Hawaian shirts on sale for $9.99. It has become a bit of a tradition at work to wear a Hawaiian shirt on Fridays, casual day and all. At that price I decided to pick one up and join the casual Friday crew. The shirt I selected is blue with old cars and motor cycles as well as the required palm leaves, etc. I wish I had gotten a couple more. (For the record, G' does not like the shirt.) This is a true story.

Pulled the radiator and core support from the truck tonight. Baby steps.

A friend from work is taking Th and Fri off. He is heading over the Aiken, SC for a long weekend. This is a true story.

Today was the first day back to school for the kids. Second grade for Jordan. Brianna is in preschool again.

Is it Friday yet.