Where has the Time Gone?

The last week passed quickly.  It's been almost a week since my last entry.  I must have been busy.

 

Today I received the first of two packages I was expecting containing truck parts.  The other one was suppose to show up last Wednesday.  UPS lost it.  More on that as the details unfold.  (Have you ever know anyone to be so unlucky with receiving packages, think back to the Miata rollbar before you answer.)

 

This weekend's truck progress was arduous.  When I got started I forgot the filter the sand before putting it in the blaster.  Big mistake.  After getting clogged a couple of times I decided the best plan was to empty it out and take the blaster apart to clean out all the valves.  This brought productivity to a dead stand still. 

 

Trivia - a 50 lb bag of sand almost fills a 5 gallon bucket.  Yep, using the same couple of bags of sand for nearly a year, I finally had to buy some more sand, 2 bags.  After all this time, my initial two bags had dwindled to less than one bucket.  The rest of it is blowing in the wind.

 

While I had the spray gun out this weekend, I painted the Miata's wiper arms.  They were pretty well faded.  While at it, I painted the wiper arm's for David's Miata also.

 

Ax^2 + By^2 + Cx + Dy + E = 0. 

 

Have you ever tried to derive the equation for a hyperbola?  I am pretty certain I did this years ago while at Auburn.  This weekend, I was working on this again, when I got a very real sense of deja vu.  About three pages in, I decided to give it up.  Based on my previous experience I was about half done.  The first time I tried this, I dropped a negative sign somewhere.  With a 6 page derivation, it takes a while to find such a trivial mistake.  And another while or two to fix it. You can do it with less paper but it's not legible!

 

(((X - h)^2)/a^2 ) - (((Y - k)^2)/b^2) = 1

 

I wonder when Overhaulin' will be coming to get my truck?