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The Peanut Gallery Has Spoken
On Friday I went to the store to buy a couple of calculator batteries. The calcuator is a TI-83+. The required battery is a CR1616 or a CR2016. Either will do.

A friend, let's call him David, has the same calculator and needed to replace his battery also so I volunteered to pick up a spare.

Before going to the store, I wrote down the battery number so that I would not have to be concerned with forgetting it. Actually I wrote down both numbers. At the store, Wal-Mart, I looked over the battery selection and found the CR1620. Wait a minute, I thought it was a CR2016. Did I transpose those two numbers when I wrote it down?

I decided to call David and have him verify the battery number for me. No answer at this office. No answer on his cell phone.

I went ahead and bought the batteries which I discovered upon arriving home were definitely the wrong ones. I had not transposed the digits. Doh! "Oh well, I thought, I guess I will return them and get the right ones tomorrow."

As is the usual case, tomorrow rolled around the next day and while I was out I swung by Wal-Mart to get the correct battery. Only I forgot to bring the wrong batteries with me.

One this trip I did get the correct batteries. Why did I not spot these the first time? On the first trip I went to electronics (where the calculators live). On the second trip, an associate recommended I check in the jewelry department (where the calculators don't live).

What was the point of this story? Nothing, but iMike complained about there being no new posts in a while so I had to come up with some filler. Hope you liked it.

And the top was up on the Miata. I am still waiting on a warm breeze to blow through.

And I did my taxes last Saturday so that is one less thing. What are you waiting for?

And for the record, the whole elbow kissing thing was not my idea. Some other creative soul created that mischief. I simply got blamed 30 years later.

And the snow. I didn't even mention the snow last week.

I think I am all caught up now.

When we change our clocks

Since 1966, most of the United States has observed Daylight Saving Time from at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April to 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. Beginning in 2007, most of the U.S. will begin Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and revert to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time. {source}


History of Daylight Time in the U.S.

Although standard time in time zones was instituted in the U.S. and Canada by the railroads in 1883, it was not established in U.S. law until the Act of March 19, 1918, sometimes called the Standard Time Act. The act also established daylight saving time, a contentious idea then. Daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, but standard time in time zones remained in law. Daylight time became a local matter. It was re-established nationally early in World War II, and was continuously observed from 9 February 1942 to 20 September 1945. After the war its use varied among states and localities. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 provided standardization in the dates of beginning and end of daylight time in the U.S. but allowed for local exemptions from its observance. The act provided that daylight time begin on the last Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October, with the changeover to occur at 2 a.m. local time.
During the "energy crisis" years, Congress enacted earlier starting dates for daylight time. In 1974, daylight time began on 6 January and in 1975 it began on 23 February. After those two years the starting date reverted back to the last Sunday in April. In 1986, a law was passed permanently shifting the starting date of daylight time to the first Sunday in April, beginning in 1987. The ending date of daylight time has not been subject to such changes, and has remained the last Sunday in October. With the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the starting and ending dates have once again been shifted. Beginning in 2007, daylight time will start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. {source}

DST was Benjamin Franklin's idea. In some parts of the work DST, is called Summer Time. The purpose was to move an hour of sunlight from the morning to the evening when it would be more useful.

Here in North Alabama, during the summer, with DST, the sun may rise as early as 5:33 AM. Without DST, the sun would be rising at 4:33 AM during June. This would certainly make some of you cranky. You know who you are.

Myth Busted

It is a commonly held belief that we observe DST so that kids don't have to wait in the dark for the school bus on cold winter mornings. The clock is on standard time during the winter, so DST does not alter the sunrise schdule.

Did you ask yourself why the dates are changing this year? The rationale for the earlier date in the spring is energy conservation The delay of the fall change is to allow Trick-or-Treaters more light while gathering candy.

See the sunrise schedule for your town here.

Real Time Update

A year or so back I added an RSS feed but I never bothered to post a link.

http://ram92.ods.org/blog/rss.xml

Have fun with it.

Blamo!

You know how it is. One minute you have a grovy topic to type up for you blog, and the next minute blamo! Your considering posting the subject lines from most interesting spam you received and what the weather is supposed to be like. How droll. What next, female bandits? Yes, we have all been there.

Here goes the weather. At lunch today the weather must have been up into the 40. Time to drop the lid for sure. I had definitely been experiencing withdrawal.

I finished up my homework today. Two days early. Simply amazing.

Ah, yes, it has returned. And not nearly as interesting as I remembed it being. As of yesterday, the oil is now gone. (Only 15 months later.) Happy Birthday Chad.

Oh yeah, I returned the hard top last weekend. More later.

A Week Of Wednesdays

A suspect you are waiting for a recap of the wild evening Jordan and I had last night. There is no such story to tell. It followed the usual script only a few of the cast members were missing. After picking him up, we headed to the homestead, completed his homework, played Nintendo, had dinner, played some more, and then off to bed. We did go out for dinner, but at one point that was in jeopardy. Jordan was concerned it would use up to much play time. After he got most of his mandatory playing done, he recanted and decided dinner out was a good idea, after all he was picking the destination. We headed out to O'Charley's. About halfway there he changed his mind and decided Casa Blanco would be muy bueno. [I did not attempt to influence his decision in any way whatsoever. Honest.]

Odometer Update

The Charger's odometer hit 5900 miles as I returned to work after lunch. It was 5905 when I arrived back home this afternoon.. We now know how far I drive to work. I take the long route too. [According to the blog, I got this car April 4, 2006, and it already had 450 miles on the clock.] Note to self: It's almost time for an oil change.

"Oh where, oh where, oh where, not there, oh where. My little hair brush!"

Not sure why that one popped back into my head.

Off to school...

Mundane

Today I will be having a pop-tart for breakfast. Blogging just doesn't get any better than this.

All the women folk are heading out of town today so Jordan and I will be living it up, man style. Whatever that means. I will get back to you once I figure that one out.

HW

I managed to start my homework much earlier in the week. Sunday I completed the first of three sections. Monday, the second. And Tuesday I finally got around to procrastinating so I guess I will have to finish it all up tonight.

It is Wednesday again already?

The Mid-Week Blahs

It sure feels like a Wednesday. How can it only be Tuesday. This has certainly been a long week already. This past weekend was cold and rainy. I am ready to get outside and bask in the glow of the sun, where ever it is.

GMC

Saturday morning I had a couple hours free so I drove up to Hazel Green to visit a salvage yard. I took my camera with me as my intention was to get a couple of photographs of the rear suspension of a late sixties vintage GM truck.

I have been considering swapping my leaf spring suspension for trailing arm/coil suspension. The trailing arm suspension is supposed to provide a more car-like ride. I climbed under an old truck an took as many photos as I deemed necessary. Making the switch would not be much work, nor would it cost much, assuming I got the parts from a salvage yard.

As I drove back home, I made my decision. I decided to leave the leaf springs alone. Why? Because the majority of the trucks were made with trailing arm suspension and at the time, the leaf springs on this model truck were not all that common. It just makes it feel more like a GMC.

Miata MPG

I filled up the tank on the little red car this morning. The last tank got 27 MPG. Not too bad considing it was all short trip mileage, and the gas pedal seems to be lightly sprung. Or is my foot just heavy?

I added a bottle of fuel injector cleaner when I filled it up last time. I believe that was back in December. The car has seemed a little peppier lately. Probably just my imagination.

I pulled the hard top off before heading to the gas station, but upon arriving there, I promptly put the soft lid up. I have been feeling cold for the last few days so I just could not take the 40 F degree temperature with the top down today. I guess I am getting soft(er).

How Did I Miss This One?

Did you know that the start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time are changing this year? Yes, the old "first Sunday in April" rule is out the window.

DST in the US and Canada will begin on March 11 in 2007 rather than early April. The end date for 2007 will beNovember 4th rather than in late October.

Cast Iron

As I sat here watching Jordan play Star Wars Lego on the Nintendo, waiting for the Barrett-Jackson Auction to start on the Speed Channel, I decided to find something to read. I have grown bored with YouTube and Google Video, as well as MySpace.

I headed over to Mr-Miata as it was the first blog I had ever read, and my motivation for starting my own blog. I thought I would traverse some of his links.

At the top of his list of Miata blogs is one called Ain't Chicken. I wonder why they didn't use Ain't Skeerd. Must have been taken. Off we go.

Now this is something I can relate to. This person, is obsessing over a purchasing a toaster oven. I am all about obsessing over purchases. Finding what you want is the high point of shopping and the research is the thrill of the hunt. Now don't think I enjoy shopping for shopping's sake, but how can one not enjoy shopping for a new power tool kitchen appliance. (Isn't a kitchen appliance just a power tool for the kitchen?) I fondly recall getting my first blender and food processor, and I was all for it when we got a Kitchen Aid. It's like a mini-drill press for the kitchen, only without drill bits or mortising attachments. I digress. Perhaps someday I will tell you about when I made my first purchase of Tupperware, wooden spoons, a cutting board, tea glasses, or the year I bought myself Revereware stainless steel mixing bowls for Christmas ('92). (These things I will liken to hand tools, as that is pretty much what they are. Hand tools for the kitchen.) (Each purchase is it's own story.) The mixing bowls by the way are the perfect size for making Toll House cookies. I digress again. And I haven't even mentioned Amazon.com yet. But this post is about cast iron.

So over on Ain't Skeerd Chicken, Carol asks "Who needs new cast iron?" Why me of course.

Back in college, I decided it was time to learn how to fry okra. I know you are probably tired of reading about me frying okra, but I promise I want mention it again until this summer, after I finish up here.

To fry okra properly you need a few things. The primary ingredient is of course a cast iron skillet. I had no relatives dying off leaving me their cast iron, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending upon how you look at it, so I obtained some new cast iron from Wal-Mart. A very sensible 8" skillet for frying okra and a nice 6" skillet for making cornbread just like dear old Dad. (I even used his recipe, verbally passed down a whole generation.) A few years later I got a more reasonable 10" Lodge skillet which allows for a larger batch of okra, or perhaps some chicken.

My first experience seasoning a skillet was less than optimal. It required some Crisco, and a little guess work on my part, but no cleavage. I seem to recall I set off the smoke alarm in my efficiency apartment. Glory days.

I think I just found the cure for blogger's block. Now you will have to excuse me as I resume my normal blog subject matter: a red Miata and an old rusty truck.

I never got a deviled egg tray, but then some things should be reserved for the girls.

I think the auction has started. Latter I need to head back over there and find out if "Ain't Chicken" refer's to dare devel stunts or the fried stuff.

This weekend I discovered a BBC show called Top Gear. My Tivo doesn't think it exists but there are plenty of clips on YouTube and Google Video. (I posted a link to a clip of this show yesterday.) The episode on the Ford GT is pretty fun. And the convertible mini-van.

Today the Miata is sporting a different top. A hard top. David # 31 has a hard top that he rarely uses and is considering parting with it. I decided to give it a test drive. First impressions (as compared to the vinyl top) : Better visibility out the rear window; the door seals better, no water "spray" when it is raining; and more head room. It also gives the car a somewhat different appearance, though one might say a Miata with the top up is a completely difference car than a Miata with the top down, at least from the inside.

The only real drawback is that the top is not as easy to drop, though I expect with a little practice, it could be dropped on one's foot.

Seven minutes into this video, there is a convertible mini-van. Crazy. These guys understand the convertible thing, but I think they selected the wrong vehicle.

I went shopping for some new clothes for work today. My pants had begun to fray along the cuffs and needed to be replaced. Clothes shopping is not something normal people enjoy but it is something that must be done.

While I was out I went by Harbor Freight to exchange a caster. The caster in question had the axle bolt hole drilled off center so it did not role smoothly. It wasn't off but just a little bit either, it was more than a 1/4". I realize the products their are not exactly high quality, you definitely get what you pay for at HF, but they graciously made the exchange and all is now good.

We have had wonderful weather here for the last couple of days. It was supposed to rain but it never happened. I suppose all the forecaseed rain was dropped on someone else as ice.

No real progress made on the truck this weekend. Maybe next week.

TGIF And It's About Time

This was a really long work week considering it was only 4 days long. I am about ready for a vacation.

The peanut gallery pointed out I didn't proof read my last post. That is not my job anymore. For the record, it was my Miata I almost jumpted out of. Actually it was more like being launched like a rocket, but that was a location situation. You would have had to have been there to really understand.

January 16 the Barrett-Jackson auction begins. Six days of people paying outrageous money for some really nice cars. I have already setup the Tivo to record all 40 hours of the broadcast auction. That's ok though because I have an entire year to watch it. Someday I would like to go to the auction. Someday. Do you get it? You probably don't get it.

Yesterday I visited the dentist. I visit the dentist every four months, not every six like most people. You may be wondering why. So am I. Perhaps it is for the free dental floss.


Today Tammy volunteered to proof read my blog for me. Actually she suggested I use a spell checker. Unfortunately the spell check does not correct my bad grammar. I will be setting up a login for her and providing you with her email address so that you can send her a nasty graham each time you find a misspelled word or any bad grammar. (Yeah, I intentionally misspelled gram to emphasize my point about the spell checker.)


This evening while driving home from school I happened to be a couple hundred yards behind an RV. Suddenly I am nearly jumping out of my because I hear what sounds like a train locomotive horn right there in the Miata with me. After three or four blasts I realize there is not a train following me down Nance Road but rather the sound is coming from the RV a few hundred yards ahead of me. I was amazed at how loud the horn was even from that distance. The RV continued to blast the horn intermittently as it drove down Mount Zion Road. It eventually turned in to a construction site. I am not certain whether it was the church or the water pumping station. Regardless, if your out later tonight, swing by there and lay on your horn for a while, preferably while this guy is trying to get some sleep.


As usual, I had a few potentially interesting topics I was planning to mention. As usual, I didn't make any notes so they have been lost, probably forever.

A friend of mine has a silver 2006 Pontiac Solstice he is trying to sell. If you're interested, I can get you more information. It is a pretty sharp car.

I think I failed to document the last effort on the truck. That has been a few weeks so I am not even sure what I did. Let's see, I think I painted the spindles, the transmission cross member, and the high flow grill off the Miata. The grill is looking good and should be back on the car this weekend.

Spring semester starts tomorrow. Yippee or something like that.

My So-Called-Space

is pretty pathetic.

Miata odometer: Still 100,774

And the Charger's odometer (5784) hasn't changed in a week either, but we are back from Disney World and that will soon change.

Disney Report

High Point: Not knowing or caring what day of the week it was. Even Jordan was uncertain at one point.

Low Point: Blister on little toe.

Miata odometer: 100,774

2007

Time off is a good thing. The extended weekend was nice, but you haven't seen nothing yet. Tomorrow we are heading for Disney World.

G's cousin just got a 1996 Corvette. Red. I finagled a ride in it on Christmas day. I was going to try to bring it home with me but I wasn't quite sure I could get G' to leave her vehicle out in the driveway so that I could park it in the garage. Did I mention it was red.

According to the spellchecker, I spelled finagled correctly.

Sometimes What Happens In The Garage Doesn't Stay In The Garage

I had an interesting thought not to long ago. I guess I met my quota for 2006.

Anybody got a metric socket set, or a combo metric & SAE set? Is it a 1/4", 3/8" or 1/2" drive set?

Are you with me now? Why is the square driver measured in inches if it is a metric tool set? Is this just an oddity of the USA? Nope. Go ahead and check out the tool section at Amazon.co.uk. See their metrics sockets are the same as ours.

Does this strike you as odd also?

What Happens In The Garage Stays In The Garage

I got a really cool t-shirt for Christmas. It gets funnier every time I read it.

I forgot to write about this but Terry took care of it for me. She failed to mention the multiple trips around the traffic circle though.

This One Will Blow You Away

I finally got around to replacing the fans in my old desktop this evening. One had stopped completely, the other was grinding like a old fan in a computer with bad bearings.

Two thousand seven is on it's way. (Does the possessive form of it have an apostrophe? I thought it did but recently I read something that said otherwise.)

Miata Mod, Well Sort Of

I installed the meter hood in the Miata today. It looks really nice.

After getting everything buttoned up, I drove up to the end of the street and back hoping to verify I had not introduced any new rattles. So far so good.

Who knew replacing a broken piece of plastic could add a few horse power? Or maybe it was something else that I did.

My Seester is visiting with us for the Holiday. She was supposed to wash and wax the Miata while I took a nap today. I haven't been out to check on it yet, but I am sure she did a first rate job.

Parts is Parts

Yesterday I blasted a few more truck parts. This time it was the the three pieces of the transmission cross-member, one spindle assembly, and most of the other. And also the high-flow grill off the Miata.

No painting was done. I need to finish up the other spindle first.

Gotta go, I think I hear hooves on the roof top.

A friend of mine is building an airplane. Check out Jack's build log here. I find this process facinating, but I would never want to do this myself. (Did you just here Ginger breath a sigh of relief.) While building a plane would be pretty cool, I do not want to learn to fly. Ever. For several reasons, and my desire not to hit the ground really hard is at the heart of several of these reasons.

I had a go with RC planes several years ago. Imagine balsa wood splinters strewn out on the ground for several square yards. Imagine this happening several times. Imagine me trading several planes and all my supplies for a nice expedition sized internal frame backpack. It was a good move if you ask me.

And my success with flight simulators on the computer is not a glorious tale either. As far as I can recall, I do not think I ever successfully landed a plane on a flight simulator.

No sense in repeating these successes in real life. Yeah, I know it is not the same. I suspect it hurts more when your in an actual plane.

I am pleased to announce that I am home for a longer than normal weekend. Very pleased indeed.

Meter Hood Update

Last Saturday I won an auction on E-bay for a Miata meter hood. It arrived today. The thing is in excellent shape. Actually it looks brand new. Assuming it doesn't slip my mind, I will install it tomorrow. No more dash rattle(s).

Grades for this semester were finally posted today.

I got an A in the Special Topics Mathematics class I was taking.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The South   That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
The Midland
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The West
North Central
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Don't Move

So far I have gotten 12 out of 20. Give it a try you cinema buffs.

http://www.stationerymovies.com/

I put some oil in the Miata yesterday, so that is one less thing to think about. One less thing.

I made the usual Sunday afternoon drive. This time I took a different route. It was a bit longer and took me past Chad's house. I stopped in for a bit to visit, to play with their little guy, and to admire his work shop.

I had something else I wanted to mentioned but I have long since forgotten what it was.

Truck Progress

Today I tapped the hole on the brake spindle. When I removed the dust plate eons ago, I twisted the head off a bolt.

While I had the drill out, I also removed size rivets from the transmission cross member. Removing a rivet consists of grinding off its head then drilling it out. Now that the cross member is disassembled I can clean out all the gunk that was between the parts.

There is more sand blasting in my near future.

Still working on acquiring a replacement meter hood for the miata.

"Don't judge a lid by it's straw hole" - Jordan

I read today that the US mint spends 1.73 cents for each penny it makes. It spends 8.74 cents for each nickel it makes. Pennies made before 1982 were 95% copper and have a commidity metal value of 2.13 cents.

Today there are only three presents under the tree. Hmm.

The official part name is: Mazda Miata Meter Hood and the part number is NA75-55-420B-00.

I found another '95 Miata gauge cover on E-bay, so the bidding has begun. It is being offered by the same guy that sold the last one. Must be a parts dealer. This auction doesn't end until Saturday. Hopefully I will be able to announce then that I have a replacement part on the way. Good luck to me.

I had a pretty rough day at work. When I got home I opened a bottle of wine and had a glass full. Not a half full glass, but a glass full. All is better except now I am tired. I am not ready to retire for the night yet, because once I do, it will almost instantly be time to go back to work.

Still hoping for nice weather this weekend. Weather permitting I will get started on the truck spindles.

Today I learned a few things from Brianna.

Dinosaurs are extinct.
They died and went to another planet.
They now live on Mars.
They left their bones behind.
Not all of that is true.


There are currently five presents under the Christmas three.

The ten day forecast shows highs in the low to mid sixties for the next 8 days.

I took the Charger in this morning to have the tire repaired. The puncture was caused by a what appeared to once have been a drywall screw.

Is it Friday yet?

Time to go check E-Bay for a Miata part.

Tonight there is one more lighted palm tree in the yard.

Today I cleaned out air filter on the Miata. It is a K&N filter so it is cleaned instead of simply being replaced. The thing is a pain to get out.

I also topped off the oil and added some air to all for tires. I bought a very useful air gauge at HF last week (On Sale) for $6. It seems fairly accurate and you can measure the tire pressure while adding air without disccnnect the hose. Odometer: just over 100,500 miles.

I tried to pick up a replacement gauge cover for the Miata on E-bay today, but I was out bid at the last second. That is ok though, I will find another one sooner or later.

The Charger has a another nail in a tire. I took the car to the Firestone shop this afternoon to have it mended. Their estimate was over two hours before they would get to it. I decided to wait and take it back first thing tomorrow morning.

Today we went to Grandma's for an early Christmas gathering. Also in attendance was my Bro, his wife, their two boys, and my seeee'ster.

The nephews are growing like weeded that have been getting plenty of water, sunlight, and nutrients. Aaron has probably grown by about 17 feet since this summer and his voice has dropped by a full 3 octaves. Austin taught me to play Texas Hold-em. Fortunately for me, real money was not invoved, because he would now own my house and car.

G' was busy Thursday and Friday. She now has all the holiday decorations up in the house. And most of the outside decor as well. We (I) still have one lighted palm tree to set out. :)

801

I submit this post as a fill-in for ADHDaddy next time he needs to take the day off.

Last night we had dinner at 801 Franklin. We did not have reservations so we were seated at a table in the bar. This turned out to be mostly ok. Or maybe not.

I do not recall exactly what the appetizer was called that we ordered, but it turned out to be essentially tender loin, sliced paper thin, served with cheese toast, and shredded celery. How did we end up selecting this? I guess I was feeling adventurous. No regrets here, but I would probably select almost every thing else on the menu before returning to this option.

For dinner I narrowed my choice down to either the salmon, the trout, or the swordfish. The waiter recommended the swordfish, so for dinner I had the grilled swordfish. This turned out to be an excellent recommendation. G' had a seafood pasta including calamari, shrimp, and scallops. Her first comment was "these are the best scallops I have ever had". Later she also praised both the shrimp and calamari. I am just guessing here, but I think she enjoyed her dinner.

Now for a little bit of oddness. About halfway through dinner we switched tables. The loud obnoxious tipsy guys at the table next to us had left and got replaced by a woman who thought she was a chimney.

Huntsville has a no smoking law but it did not apply here. Apparently per out waiter, the restaurant does not serve anyone under 19 so smoking is allowed in the bar. At this point I am feeling rather passively irate about that detail.

While I did enjoy the food, I am feeling less than satisfied with the experience has a whole.

As we left, I noticed the entire dinning room was empty. This struck me as odd. Why? The reason they seated us in the bar was because they were pretty well booked up for the evening.

At least the food was good.

It is suppose to be 17 degrees in the morning, as if the sub-30 we have now is not enough.

This evening David #17 and I put my Miata up on jack stands and crawled underneath in search of the elusive and ferocious noises emanating from the below the car. I suspected it had something to do the with clutch. The clutch line is hydraulic and the fluid level is fine. We didn't find anything interesting. After putting the car back on the ground, I attempted to demonstrate the noise to David. And you know it wouldn't do it anymore. Pretty typical, eh?

While crawling around on the ground I went ahead and took the grill off the car. It is a bit faded so I have been planning on painting it.

I also took that big piece of plastic off that covers the instrument cluster inside the car. It has two cracks in it and I thought I would try to mend it. I am drawing a blank right now on what it is called. It has been loose for a while and is a source of an internal rattle. This thing, whatever, attaches at five points. Two screws and three spring clips. All five of these connection points are broken in some form or fashion. I have a plan for repairing it, but if it doesn't work out, there is always ebay or a local salvage yard. No worries.

Yesterday the Charger visited the Goo Goo car wash. It was in serious need of a good cleaning.

Tomorrow evening I plan to crawl under the Miata and try to locate the annoying rattle. Hopefully it will be obvious (and the ground will be warm).

For the last two days I have been working at home. I am under a bit of a time crunch at work and things have been to noisy around there to concentrate. Working at home has been pleasant and highly productive. It has also been peaceful and quiet (other than me talking to myself). And think of all the money I have saved on gas by cutting out that ten miles of driving each day. And yes, I still go out for lunch, even when working at home. I like to think of it as my social hour.

Petals Around the Rose

While surfing near the end of the internet I came across this post:

http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm

I was intrigued by the puzzle. After about 15 minutes I thought I had it figured out. This link will allow you to see the results from a few more roles:

http://vincentwoo.com/files/petals/

And the solution is available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petals_Around_the_Rose

Enjoy.

Did you know that your fingernails grow four times faster than your toenails?

This Weeks Ketchup

It has been a pretty hectic week. My last post was a week ago today.

As you may recall, last Sunday I was procrastinating. Any thing but studying for my final. Ok, to be honest I did get a few ours of review in, but don't tell anyone. I could cause me to lose my master procrastinator status.

Monday was a typical work day, along with picking up the kids, homework, etc. At about 11:00 pm I finally decided to stop procrastinating and get to reviewing the course material. A half hour later I was in bed, and probably already asleep. Didn't want to over do it.

Tuesday was more work. After work, the final, and after the final some Mexican food. David #17 and I had decided we would grab some dinner after our classes to celebrate the end of the semester. Woo hoo!

Wednesday morning (11/29/2006) Ginger's grandfather passed away. I went to work for a couple hours but then left the middle of the morning to drive Ginger to meet her mother.

I had lunch with John D. and his two youngest, Timmy and Jonathon. We had Mexican food at a local establishment, though a don't recall the name. After lunch John gave me the tour of his Church and played me a new song he had just written on the grand piano in the church sanctuary.

The weather had been nice all day. When we left the house in the AM I had the top up so that Ginger wouldn't blow away. The unfortunate part about having the top up is that all the rattles and squeaks you can't hear with the top down, are very noticeable with the top up. Around lunch the sky started to cloud up, but no worries, I did not see a drop of rain on the windshield until I was pulling into the driveway late in the afternoon.

When Ginger got home, we decided to go our for dinner. We eventually decided on Rosie's because it had been so long since I had any Mexican food. (I have heard these things come in threes.)

Thursday, more work. David, Troy, and I had hot wings for lunch. Wings had been our first choice for after the test Tuesday night but there were no wings to be found in the local vicinity.

Thursday evening G's brother, Jim and his family (Dianna, Corey, Marisa, and Kyle) rolled into town from Maryland. They stayed with us while they were in town for the funeral. The little folks are growing up fast. I had a good time hanging with them for the next few days.

Because we had a house full Thursday evening we decided to order Mexican pizza for dinner rather than try to prepare anything. Ok, it was really just pizza, not Mexican pizza, but it could have been.

Thursday evening it was 74 at 10:30 pm. The weather forecast predicted it would be 30 degrees by 6:00 am. They were off, it was only about 40 but it did reach 30 by 9:00 am.

I drove into work that morning with the top down and for effect, I wore shorts to work that day. They think I am crazy. I know the truth.

After a brief stay at work I headed back home and we loaded up and headed to Sardis for visitation. The house was full of food brought in by friends and neighbors. We all had Mexican fried chicken for lunch. Ok, again, it wasn't really Mexican, but some of it did have cayan pepper in the breading. It was pretty good.

During visitation I got to see a bunch of the kids we don't see very often. Again, I had a good time hanging out with the kids.

We got in late Friday evening. Early Saturday morning we headed back to Sardis for the funeral. As is often the case, my name was Paul. G' played Amazing Grace on the trumpet at the grave site as requested by her grandfather. I really enjoyed it. JH had served in the military so there we a couple of Army folks there to pay honor to him. They did a good job as well. After the service, the church provided lunch to the family in the fellowship hall.

After a crazy week, I am glad to be home, with nothing in particular to do. Ok, I might crawl under the Miata to see that the new rattle is all about, but maybe not. It's cold outside, and I suspect the ground is colder. Or maybe I will take a look at the computer that quit working this week. Or maybe not. Perhaps a nap. Yeah yeah, that sounds about right.

Oh yeah! Today is Ginger's birthday. I think she is twenty-seven again this year. Happy Birthday Ginger!

Back to Procrastinating

The coil springs are complete.  I got the second coat of paint on them just a little while ago.  So far I have put about 5 hours into refurbishing the springs.

 

Before applying the first coat yesterday I had to re-clean the paint gun.  Apparently last time I used it I did not clean it very well.  Of course I did not realize this until after I had loaded it with paint and it clogged up.  What a mess. 

 

I have completely disassembled and reassembled this thing 3 times now.  The complete breakdown is not necessary to clean it good but I didn't realize that until I had it apart the third time.  It turns out cleaning it correctly doesn't take any longer than doing it per the instructions, which is apparently not sufficient.

 

I suppose the manufacturer would prefer that you just replace the entire assembly every now and then.  The paint gun in question is a Harbor Freight special, a $9.99 HVLP detail spray gun.  So far it has worked well, despite my attempts to mess it up.  No drips or runs, knock on wood.  If I ever see it on sale again, I will consider purchasing a spare.

Apple Pie

While on my recent camping expedition, one of the campers utilized my oven and made us a homemade apple pie. The pie was excellent. Was it because we were sitting in the woods at night around a large camp fire while the temperature around us dropped below freezing?

Maybe, but it was still a good pie.

I decided that I would try my hand a making said apple pie. The recipe was pretty simple. The filling was

4 Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

And the crust was 2 1/3 cups of AP flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 cup butter flavored crisco, and 8 tablespoons of water.

The eight table spoons of water was the last thing I measured. As I was measuring I realized that I had used the tablespoon, not the teaspoon when I measure the salt. Doh! Later I realized I did the same thing with the cinnamon.

What did this mean? The crust was saltly. No so salty as to be inedible, but salty enought that 1 cup of milk with your pie would probably not be enough. Too much cinnamon was not nearly as big a problem, but I would not recommend 4X'ing any ingredient in a recipe.

All in all, the pie turned out ok, even with my blunders. The crust was still pretty awesome. Next time I will get it right, and in the mean time I will consede that Jason makes a better apple pie than myself.

I snapped a couple of photos of the pie, because I was so dang proud of it. But as usually, I will not be sharing them with you. I suspect your getting use to it though.

Master Procrastinator

I had a full two weeks to review for a final exam. So far I have managed to let 10 days pass without cracking a book. This is OK though because I have been reviewing the material in my head. Yeah, I know it is not the same, but it still helps. I intend to spend about four hours total reviewing for the test. That is one hour reviewing the material for each of the four tests I have already taken. I made some really nice study sheets for each test so four hours may be too much. Perhaps I should just browse over them while driving to the final, talking on my cell phone, and singing off key. With the top down.

And yes, two years later, I still have How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in my CD player.

Return Of The Truck

Yesterday and today I spent a little time working on the truck. I sometimes forget how relaxing a little strenuous activity can be. I actually managed to forget about work for a little while today.

What did I get accomplished? I ground the heads off six rivots yesterday. These rivots hold together the three pieces of metal that comprise the transmission cross member. Still more work to do on seperating those pieces.

Today's efforts involved nearly 3 hours of sandblasting to completely strip the two coli springs for the front suspension. I am always amazed at how much time can be consumed by such a simple task. And I am always pleased with nicely those greasey-grimey-grundgy parts clean up.

I have high hopes to get the coil springs painted tomorrow. After that I still need to blast/paint the front spindles and then it will be time for a little re-assembly.

Note to self: Don't forget to re-tap the hole on the spindle assembly where the brake shield mounts. I twisted the head of that bolt right off. Some times I don't know my own strength.

Myth Buster

Ok so we have all heard about that tripto-whatchamacallit stuff that is in turkey that makes you sleepy, right. Did you know that by weight, beef has more of that stuff, thank turkey.

Yep, it's true. So if you took a nice nap after your turkey dinner it was either because you simply like to nap, you were bored with your relatives, or you simply ate too much.

I was doing fine with my diet until I had the pecan pie. Time to get back on the wagon.

Caveat: Beef that tastes like fish will not make you drowsy, rather it will make you want to hurl.

Moi

Monday night I grilled some streaks that had been given to us as a gift. Four very nice filets mignons complete with a bacon wrap. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and a secret mystery seasoning. And then I grilled them.

Through some fluke of time, space, and grilling they appeared to turn out perfectly. Nicely seared on the outside, a nice pinkish red inside. These things were picture perfect. (I didn't actually take a picture of them.) I also managed to time their completion almost precisely with when G returned home from work.

I cut a few pieces off the first steak and gave them to Jordan. Then I cut a piece off and tried it out. I will not use the word out in three consectutive sentences. I spit it out.

Have you ever had streak that tasted like fish? I have. There is something not right about it. I got G to verify something was wrong fishy and then we threw it all in the big green mini dumpster out in the garage.

Jordan got made at me for taking his steak away from him. I realize that was not a nice thing to do. Give a kid some steak and then take it away from him. How rude.

For dinner I ended up having Raisin Bran Crunch cereal. I was skerd too skerd to eat anything else that could potentially taste like fish, like steak, chicken, fish, or fish.

Jordan sampled my cereal as well. He like it so much, he requested that he have it for breakfast the next day.

At this point I am still craving a really good steak, but I have been making due with turkey in the mean time.

Twelve, Not Fourteen

Forty-five degrees today but there was nothing falling from the sky, so you know the drill.

Driving home from having gone basically no where, I was sitting at the light waiting for green when I notice my neighbor sitting in his car across the intersection.

Upon green, we passed each other in the intersection. That is when he noticed me. He gave me a grin and a wave. The grin, as best I could interpret it had something to do with the convertible and the temperature. I get that a lot.

A friend asked me this week if I would be interested in buying his hardtop for the Miata . Considering it.

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to go to Jordan's school and watch him perform in a Thankgiving play. He nailed his lines. I have video evidence to prove. Don't make me.

Too much cold weather here. It was raining this morning, top up. At lunch we had a wet 45 degrees. Yesterday during lunch there was a heavy down pour. I think I am ready for summer again. Bring it on.

Swapped blog over to the new beta blogger this evening.

This semester is almost over. Final in two weeks. Lots of material to review in the mean time.

Today we had some pretty decent weather. Good day for a little top down action. Unfortunately it rained tonight so the top was up for the ride home.

It is now getting dark earlier. Too early for my taste. The sky was gray when I headed west today. Not certain if that was the rain clouds or the sun setting or a little of both. Doesn't matter though, I suppose.

I had a great time camping this weekend. Sunday evening at 6:00 pm it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Monday morning I had a bit of trouble getting out of bed. Boy was I sore.

More on the trip later.

Gizzard Trek '06

On October 28th I decided it was time to do a little dieting. After a week and a half, I have lost 7 pounds. So far so good. My goal was 23 so I still have a long way to go. I would guess it will probably take another 8 weeks to reach my desired goal. The first one pound is always easier than the last one. To complicate matters further, I will be doing this thru the holiday season.

Dieting during the holiday season is not really a bad thing. Nothing like coming out the other side a little lighter while everyone else is packing it on.

The camping trip is rapidly approaching. We are headed out Friday noonish. Nine adventurous souls will be roughing it this weekend. Everyone is fairly excited. I have done zero packing though I have been making a list and checking it twice. I also aired out the tent this weekend.

It has been a couple of weeks since I played with worked on the truck. I am betting it will be a least another 10 days, so no news heres. I was hoping to have it 100% done before Mike rolled in this week. I don't think he will be driving Marge.

School has been keeping me pretty busy. Actually that is where most of my free time is disappearing. I had another mathematics test last night. As has been the norm for this class, I am consistently the last person to turn in my test. Everything single time. I know the material, I apparrently just don't write fast enough. Right now my grade is borderline low A so I think my level of effort has been sufficient. Most of the stuff I have missed was just mistakes made from trying to get done faster. The final is still a few weeks away. It will be nice to have a few weeks off from school after that.

I set up the tent in the backyard today to air it out. Goal number two was to clean it out.

I did get it aired out, but goal number two was unsuccessful. I let the kids play in it for a while. This resulted in a lot of small grass clippings accumulating inside the tent. Try as I might, I could not get all the grass clippings out of it.

I think a vaccum or a dust buster would have done the trick, but I would have felt silly running the cleaner in the backyard. Especially since it will just get dirty again next week. That sillyness will have to wait until after the big trip is over.

This years first real spell of cold weather has arrived. How cold is it? Cold enough that I didn't wear shorts to work two days this week.

The very casual atmosphere is one of my favorite things about my job. Unfortunately the cold weather coupled with the high humidity the last couple of days has made we, well, cold.

I tend to be warm natured. I tend to wear shorts year 'round around the house. I am also barefooted most of the time I am in the house. Yep, no shoes, no socks, no problem.

Soon enough I will adjust to the newly chilled weather, and then I will be out riding around in the Miata with the top down.

And two days later, it will be in the 80's again.

The camping trip is rapidly approaching.

I have pulled my gear out of the attic. I suppose I need to setup the tent, clean it out and reseal the seams. I am thinking I will put this off till the last possible minute. Perhaps I will get Mike to take care of it.

I also still need to make the Wal-Mart trip. This is a ritual that David E. and I usually take the night before we head it. We round up the group-grub and anything else that might want to follow us home.

The head count is currently at 9. I doubt we will see much attrition before we head out.

I went down to Shelby county on Monday afternoon for visitation and stayed over for the Funeral on Tuesday. This has been a rough week.

Last night at dinner I annouced to Ginger that it was time for me to go on a diet. Starting tomorrow.

So today went pretty well. I believe I kept the calorie intake under 1500.

For the first couple of weeks my plan is to just keep the calorie count low. Normal food, just hopefully not to much. After I return from the camping trip I will examine the my results so far and decide if I need to kick it up a notch.

I in the past, I have had good success with high-protein, low carb diet. Unfortunately normal people can't live that way long term. But it does work pretty well.

As you can imagine, right now is not the perfect time to start a diet. Pecan pie season is about to start. :(

How much am I hoping to lose? Twenty-three pounds seems like a good number. Good for who though? Note to self: don't let this ruin the camping trip.

Wish me luck, and please don't send me your left over halloween candy.

Last night the kids spent the night at my Father's house. I think he was there too.

Since we had an empty house, we decided to head out for a night on the town.

We went to a local haunt, Olde Heidelberg for dinner. Our usual waitress, Ellaine was on vacation so he had to make do.

On this occassion, I decided to stray from my half dozen usuals and try something different. When the waitress asked for my order, I simply asked for some fish. She recommended the Mediterrean Talopia with capers, olives, tomatoes in a beur blanc sauce. Sounds good, bring it on.

And it was good. Can I have seconds?

R.I.P.

Barry L. Dorough

Sunday October 29, 2006

This morning my friend Barry died. Barry and I met when we in college at Auburn back in the early 90's. We took many computer science classes together.

Points of interest from our time at Auburn included playing the Addams Family pinball machine in Foy and watching Dark Shadows on the new Sci-Fi channel. Tiny Toons, Chips-Ahoy, and Premium Saltine crackers. We procrastinated studying for tests together often, including one time when we took a short 10 mile walk around Auburn instead of studying for a final. And then there was the inedible chocolate cheesecake I made him.

We both moved to Huntsville in December of 1992 where we discovered the elusive 'extra' paycheck. Over the years our families took several vacations together both to the beach and snow skiing, but never snow skiing at the beach.

Barry was a good friend. I will miss him.

Gearing Up

I received a package in the mail from REI yesterday. I had ordered an aluminium pot handle and an thermal mattress pad for the impending camping trip.

I was amazed at the size of the package. The package was about the size of a shoe box. That is pretty small considering it contained a 2.5" pad.

The pad is advertised to pack down to about the size of a nalgene bottle. In my opinion it is larger than a nalgene bottle but it is still pretty small. Much smaller than the 1/2" foam pad I purchased from Wal-Mart back in 2001.

The only drawback is that the pad is not self inflating. So I will huff and I will puff, and I will bl-blo-bl-blo-bl-blow your house down the mattress up.

Underhanded Footballl Is Not a Crime

Yesterday after work, I picked up the kids at school and we headed for the house. Once home the kids dropped their packs on the floor and we all went outside.

This is where things get wierd. All of a sudden, Jordan is holding football. I didn't even realize he had a football. And he wants to play. Tackle, Flag, NLF, what? Hmmm. Where did that come from. So we head out onto the field, which I had never noticed before either. The field is actually our driveway and some inventive youngster has chalked off the ..30, 40, 50, 40, 30 yard lines. Well fortunately he just wanted to toss the ball. Unfortunately I can't throw overhanded more than about 10 feet, so I was throwing underhanded. Have you ever seen anyone throw a football underhanded. Jordan must have been impressed with my style because he started throwing that way also. I encourage him to throw the normal way, because only a dinosaur with bad shoulders would throw a football underhanded.

Where did this football idea come from? Is it due to the weather. I do often hear this weather referred to as football weather. Perhaps it is genetic. Ginger is a real Auburn Football fan. Perhaps it is just a nasty virus he brought home from school. If so it should clear up in a few days.

Eventually Brianna decided to join us. She wanted to play center. Hike! Hike! The game quickly altered form and eventually became "Monkey in the Middle". I knew this game as "Keep Away", though the kids do a pretty good impersonation of a yellow haired monkey in the yard. And eventually the football was replaced with a Scooby-Doo dodge ball. This was Brianna's idea.

And skateboarding is not a crime either.

Idiot Light - Which Tire?

About a month or so back, I had a nail in my tire.  I discovered this because my Charger has an idiot light on the dash to tell you when a tire is low.  When the light first came on, I looked each tire over.  Visually they appears to be 'full' so I just let it ride.  Because the light remained on, everytime I exited the vehicle, I would walking around the call looking at each time.  After several days, I finally was able to visually determine which tire was low, and almost immediately I spotted the nail.

 

The lights behavior is as follows.  When the car is started, it turns on a few seconds and then turns back off, just like all the other idiot lights.  Once I start moving, within a second or two, it comes on if the pressure is off.  Unfortunately it doesn't tell me which tire it is.

 

Last week the light came on again, at which point I started walking around the car everytime I got out.  After a few days I noticed no difference in the appearance of the tires, so I got out the gauge.  The total PSI difference per my pressure gauge between the highest pressure and lowest pressure reading was 2 PSI.  I attempted to even it out, but again, I don't think the pressure gauge I have is consistent and reliable enough to achieve such a feat.  After all this effort I got back in the car and backed it down out of the driveway.  The light stayed on.  "Oh, well I thought, the tire will eventually visually make itself aware to me."

 

The weekend rolled around and I decided to have another go at the pressure equalization.  After adjusting the pressure in all my tires, and in David's Miata as he just happed to arrive while I had everything out, I backed down the drive again.  The light came back on again.  Oh well, return to visual inspection plan.

 

This morning when backing out of the garage, the light turned on as I had grown accustomed to expecting.  On the way to work it went back out. 

 

Ah-ha!  Apparrently the thing has a memory.  So I wasn't actually foiled a second time as I expected yesterday afternoon, I just didn't drive it far enough (or is it fast enough?).  I guess 50 feet doesn't count. 

 

All the tires are now apparently within tolerance.  Do I have a tire with a nail in it?  Not that I can tell.  Do I have a slow leak?  Possibly.  Which tire?  Who knows.  I guess I will wait and see if the light comes back on.

 

What have I learned here?

 

1.  Nothing.

 

2.  Ok, possibly one thing.  I need a more accurate pressure gauge than the common $0.99 pen shaped gauge that everyone is familar with.  This gauge is just not as accurate as the pressure sensors on the car.

 

Plan:  Locate and purchase a more precise $1.99 gauge.  Perhaps a nice digital one made in China.  I wonder what Harbor Freight has to offer?

 

Final Thoughts

 

The daily temperature has begun to change.  Is it possilbe, the light came on because it has been colder outside.  That can affect tire pressure, right?    PV = nRT, right?  I would have assumed that the temperature differential for all tires would be the same so the light would stay off.  After all, it was my understanding that the sensor didn't actually look at the tire pressure but simply compared the speed of the rotating tires, much like anti-lock brakes.  A low tire, has a smaller radius and will therefore turn faster than a tire with normal pressure.  Assuming this is true, if two tires were equally low, the speed would remain similar and the light should stay off.  Maybe.

 

Look at the monkey

 

I have now been trained to walk around my car every time a yellow tire looking light appears before me.  Imagine what I could learn to do if someone would just start ringing a bell.  And contrary to what you may have heard, the door is not a jar, it is a door.

Miata: 100,000 Miles

Last Sunday, October 15, 2006, the odometer on my Miata rolled over 100k.

Where was I when this even occurred? In my driveway! How did I manage that? I put the last 2 miles on the car driving around the neighborhood, mindful of the odometer.

Obviously I took several photos of the car, odometer, etc. As is typical, I haven't posted any of those photos.

In the last week I have racked up an additional 72 miles on the odometer.

And the Charger is sneaking up on 4000 miles.

Truck Update

This weekend I managed to get another lower control arm blasted and painted. I also painted the replacment frame cross member that is located below the radiator support.

The original cross member is bent up pretty badly. I assume that the truck was in a front end collision at some point. I bought the replacement last year at a nearby salvage yard.

I still have a few, probably six, more pieces to blast and paint before front end assembly begins. This will be a huge milestone in the process.

I am on a roll tonight.

I just got a call from my friend Ken H., the creative genius behind Bravo! He is down in Birmingham right now at the Eric Clapton concert, 10th row seats. He called to let me listen to a little live music.

Now go download the Bravo! demo.

Hello World

Last Night while sitting in a math class I listened as the Professor explained Newton's Method. Basically it is a method to improve an estimate of where a function has a zero, meaning for what value of x will y be zero. He then showed how to use this information to calculate the square root of three.

For the last little bit, I have been reading a book on Python programming that I bought last December. Learning a new language is not a spectators sport. Reading alone does not cut it.

When I got home last night, I took my new found information and implemented a square root function in p\Python. This is my first real program in Python. It is a pretty simple actually, though pretty useless because Python's math module already implements a square root function, math.sqrt(). I tested my function against the library function. Mine gave the same result to the same number of digits for every value I tested.

def squareRoot(square):
  '''calculate the square root of a number'''
  def f(x):
    return (x*x) - square
  def fp(x):
    return (2*x)
  def newtonsMethod(x):
    return x - ( f(x) / fp(x) )
  input = float(square) / 2
  for i in range(1, 10):
    output = newtonsMethod(input)
    if output == input: break
    input = output;
  return output

It's got some spam in it.

Want a cube root function? Just ask.

Newtons Method says for some value X0 plugged into his formula, it will produce an X1 which is a more accurate solution. After a few iterations you have a value accurate to a dozen digits.

NM:

  X1 = X0 - ( f(x0) / fp(x0) )

where f(x) is the function of the equation you are estimating and fp(x) is the first derivative of f(x).

So to find the cube root, replace f(x) with

   f(x) = x**3 - cube

and the first derivative would be

  fp(x) = 3 * x**2

Apply Newton's method for a few iterations and you have an answer.

If your interested in learning a new programming language, give Python a try. It's free and there are lots of resources available. Check it out at www.python.org


Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, eggs, and Spam.

Camping Weather

David E. and I were talking recently. I mentioned how nice the weather was, he responded it was camping weather and next thing you know, I am planning a camping trip. I started out with a fairly short list of 5. About a week later we had two definite NAKs from the original list though the head count is at 6 with I believe 4 more maybes, or is it 6.

Our idea of camping involves loading up a back pack, driving to another state, hiking a few miles into the woods and setting up a base camp.

The trip is still a few weeks off but everyone is already getting excited.

Added a link to G's blog over there on the right hand side. Check it out.

Hello From Destin, Florida

This week was the kid`s Fall break so I took the week off and we headed to Florida.

The week has gone very quickly. We arrived on Tuesday and head back home tomorrow, Saturday. This week I have caught up on my homework, read two books ( Micro-ISV: From Vision To Reality [Bob Walsh] and Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them: How to Keep your Tractors Happy and Your Family Running [Roger Welsch] ), been out to dinner a few times, rode go-carts, played mini-golf, and played a couple of games of Monopoly. Oh yeah, the kids and G. spent some time on the beach and at the pool.

The internet access this week has been spotty, but don`t for a minute believe that is why I haven`t been blogging. It seems that I have just fallen off the wagon. Several times this week I have thought of something I meant to share but inevitably I forget what it is before I get around to writing it down.

Brianna had her 6th Birthday on Tuesday. She is growing up so fast, but she will always be my Bri-Baby.

Remember that box of truck parts I ordered a few weeks ago? Has that been three weeks already? It has still not arrived. Apparently UPS lost it. A new box was supposed to be packed up and sent my way on Wednesday, 2nd day Air.

Later I will record our dining experiences. That has turned out real handy in the past to look back at what was good and what not.

Time to watch a movie. Brother Bear 2. I am so excited.

Lazy Sunday

For a bit of pop culture, follow the link, and then go check out Wikipedia or Google for some more. Double True! Be warned, you could easy kill a few hours watching all the response videos. You definitely want to check out the West Coast response though. Crazy delicious.

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?

 

 

Parts is Parts

Saturday, after many delays, I finally got around to ordering some replacement parts for the front end suspension and steering. I ended up ordering the parts from two different companies. Classic Industries and LMC Truck. Having never ordered from either of these companies it will be interesting to see how each rank in the customer service department. If I am lucky, I won't have to talk anyone at either companies customer service department, but rather will judge them based on how quickly they shipped me the parts.

Which parts? Some ball joints, tie rods, other similar stuff.

This morning I received a notification from LMC that I had a package on the way from Kansas via UPS.

I priced this same stuff through Advanced Auto Parts, Autozone, Orielly's, and Napa. Oddly, mail order pricing had them beat. Ok, maybe it's not that odd, but it seemed that way at the time.

Did You Do Anything Unusual This Weekend?

Last Sunday, a friend asked me if I had done anything unusual in the previous week to which I responded, "Unusual for you or unusual for me?".

 

This morning three odd things have occurred already.  Let's see if I can remember any of them.

 

Uno - I saw three deer in the backyard.  After they spotted me, two went into the woods.  The remaining one, a buck, just stood and looked at me before he resumed mowing my backyard.

 

Dos  - So much for my memory.

 

I did not venture out into the garage this weekend.  I had a stack of homework to do so I decided I would not go out there until it was all done.  This was supposed to be a motivational tool.  Ha!

 

Saturday I was so motivated not to do my homework, I had all the laundry done by 1:30 pm.  Then I took my requisite nap and followed that up with a couple of episodes of "OverHaulin" on the Tivo.  I can't believe they still haven't come to get my car.

 

When Sunday rolled around, I got serious about the homework.  About six hours worth of seriousness.  I missed my Sunday afternoon nap and Miata ride due to nearly insurmountable stack of work I had.

 

I came, I saw, I calculated.  Now it is all done.  Don't you feel better.  Learning can be difficult.  The amazing thing is that If I had to do it all over again, I could probably get it done in 60-90 minutes.

 

After dinner last night, I manufactured an excuse to go for a ride in the Miata.  You can almost always use another gallon of milk when you have two kids in the house.  I got to see a pretty cool pink and blue sunset with large rolling clouds.  And we got a somewhat much needed gallon of milk.  The time is quickly approaching where these trips will require a jacket.

 

 

TGIF?

Today I got shocked by 110 volts AC three separate times.

Then my right eye turned red and swole itself shut. (Is swole a word?)

Imagine the fun I would have had if it was a Monday.

Timeout

This afternoon the kids were playing in the driveway. Jordan wanted to go inside to get something to drink. He said "Pause Game."

Who changed the lingo?

Argh Matey!

Just in case you overlooked it, today was national talk like a pirate day.

Today's Theme is a truck theme, or rather a truck blog theme. Any minute now I will be adding these to the blog list link on the side bar.

Truck Blog # 1: This is one of iMike's many alternate ego's. Last time I counted, he had at least four.

truckindaddy.blogspot.com

Truck Blog # 2: This is my sister's blog.

littletrucker.blogspot.com

$2.99 for flat repair, $12.00 for labor.

This morning I went by the tire store to get my leaking tire repaired. I went to work first thinking it would open at 8:00 am, with the plan of getting to the shop a few minutes before 7:00. When I arrived, they were already opened.

I left the car with them and walked to the bank a few blocks away to get some cash. When I got back to the shop the car was in the garage and the correct tire was off the car.

I headed back inside planning to read an old magazine while waiting for them to finish up. When I walked back in the manager asked which car I was waiting on. "The Charger" was my reply. He then proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes telling me how much he likes the new Charger, especially the red one like I have.

Oh yeah, it turns out he has a black 2006 Charger SRT-8. I think that is about 425 HP to my 345HP. When I asked him about his fuel economy he hesitated to tell me it was only about 13 MPG. He apparrently has a pretty heavy foot.

Someone has a math test tomorrow and has spent the last two hours procrastinating the inevitable review of their notes from the last four weeks. Fortunately I already went back through them once this weekend.

What Kind of a Name is BoneFish?

Friday night we had dinner at BoneFish Grill. Several folks have told me this place was good. Well it turns out they were right. We arrived at about 5:30 on Friday evening and they seated us immediately.

We ordered the crab cakes as an appetizer, G had fish, I had a fillet (as recommended by a friend). I had a difficult time deciding on my entree. I was torn between at least three selections but finally went with the beef remembering how Brent had gone on and on about it.

Everything was good. Actually it was better than good. We also had a nice classic white wine with dinner, Blue Moon Riesling from the Bridgeview Winery in Oregon. Yep, a riesling from Oregon. We had had this wine before at a local German restaurant, Olde Heidelberg. Our favorite waitress, Elaine, had recommended. It remembered it because it was a riesling, and it was from Oregon.

On the way home, we stopped at Olde Heidelberg and picked up some Death By Chocolate cake to have for dessert. Mmmm

Yesterday when I got in the Charger to take Jordan to a B-day part, a light on the dash lit up indicating one of my tires was lot. I got out of the car and looked at all four tires. They all looked ok. At each stop on my journey, I walked around the car trying to spot the low tire. It was still not obvious to me. And I was too lazy to get you the tire pressure gauge.

This afternoon when I backed the car out, the light came on again. At this point I was finally able to visually detect which tire was low. I aired the tire up and then looked for a nail, etc. And I found it.

Tomorrow I will take the car in to get the tire repaired. The leak is fairly slow. The computer detected it was low on Saturday. I didn't drive it on Friday, so I must have picked up the nail either Thursday or prior to that.

Now the thing that is driving me crazy is "where did I pick up the nail?"

Another Piece of the ... Truck

For a while now, my current goal for the truck was to get the front end suspension completed. When I first started this task, my plan was to degrease it all, then blast it all, then paint it all.

The degreasing went quickly but the blasting is very time consuming. After a few weekends following this plan, I noticed that the first pieces I had sandblasted were beginning to show light surface rust. At this point I altered the plan. The new plan is blast a piece or two and then paint it.

The weekends selection was a lower control arm. The lower arms are significantly larger then the upper arms so only attempted to get one done this weekend. Blast time for the part was roughly two hours. A good bit of that time was sweeping the sand up in the driveway and filtering it through a piece of window screen to remove any large debris.

I currently have enough sand to fill up a 5 gallon bucket. I filled the blaster up four times. Four times I randomly distributed the sand back onto the driveway. After the fourth sweepup, the part was ready for painting.

The blasting was completed on Saturday morning. At this point I went ahead and painted the top side and left it to dry all afternoon. Today just before lunch, I painted the other side.

Another piece is now complete. Next week I will probably tackle the other lower control arm. That that point, the only remaining front suspension pieces I can think of are the coil springs. Blasting should go pretty quickly on those.

Things seem to be moving quickly since I am now distinguishing between steering and front suspension. It is very satisfying to take a rusted greasy part and turn it into a freshly painted clean piece of a 35 year old classic truck.

Someone needs to be taking pictures of the progress!

I changed the oil in the air compressor today. I am using Mobil 1 per the recommendation of the manufacturer. The compressor uses 6 oz. of oil so a single quart should last me 5 changes, or 15 months. assuming I remember to change it every 4 months.

To be realistic, I will probably only change it about every six months, but that should be ok because I am not using it 40 hours a week.

I Voted!

I entered a picture of my Miata in a photo contest last month. As I mentioned before, when I win, I will get a spiffy new "Oh Yes Wyoming!" t-shirt. Imagine how I will be the envy of the neighborhood.

Go here to vote for my car. If it is not obvious which car is mine, vote for the one you like the best. Just for the record, you like the one labeled "First Picture", third row centered. It is the same picture in the right hand column of the my blog. If I win, you can borrow the shirt on Tuesdays.

I considered voting for a different picture but I thought it would be a shame to get zero votes.

Yesterday's Obsession

As I have noted in the past, many of my blog entries start out with the word 'yesterday'. Perhaps it is time to rename the blog.

Yesterday M. Schumacher won the Italian Grand Prix. And then he announced he would be retiring at the end of the season. Hate to see him go. On the flip side, Ferrari will be picking up Kimi. He should be an excellent addition to the Ferrari team. He is a good driver but so far has really had a reliable car. Imagine saying a McLaren is not a reliable car.

I have already placed my order for a ticket to the 2007 US Grand Prix at Indy.

Truck News

None really. Ok, a small bit of progress was made. I managed to get 5 components of the front end suspension sandblasted and painted. Won't be long before I have no choice but to start putting it back together. When I say it won't be long, I mean maybe sometime this decade.

The Miata's odometer is in the neighborhood of 99,500 miles. It should be crossing the 100k mark within a month. At that point I think I will put it in reverse for a while.

I just spend a few minutes looking back at the early blog entries. As you are certain to recall, I started the blog at the same time I got the Miata, the first obsession among many listed here over the last couple of years.

The reason I looked back was to find the odometer reading from when I got the car. I didn't find it in my blog, but I did find a copy of the bill of sell on my computer. I also found a rather interesting photo of another red Miata.

From the bill of sale:
Purchased on March 19, 2004.
Miles on clock: 85,707

A mere 2 years and 5+ months later I have added 13,800 miles for an average of about 475 miles per month or roughly 107 miles per week. Like I said earlier, in about another month I should see the odometer roll over 100,000 miles.

Well, I suppose summer is over. Tonight, while driving home from class (top down), I had to turn on the heater.

The front suspension crossmember on a 1967-1972 GMC/Chevrolet pickup is a couple of large pieces of shaped metal welded together. The cross member is essentially hollow.

The out side portion had previously been blasted. Today I was going to remove a couple of spots of surface rust and then paint it. While getting ready to blast, I noticed that the inside was full of greasy dirt. The right thing to do seemed to be to clean it out. First I used a scraper to remove most of the gunk then I attempted to use the blaster to clean it up.

About an hour into the process and completely covered with sweat and sand, I asked myself "Why am I cleaning this out?" It is almost impossible to see into and once it is mounted back on the truck, you will only be able to see the gunk if you have it up on a lift and your crazy enough to climb underneath it.

I finally decided it was not actually an obsessive compulsive desire to clean but rather a desire to do a complete and thorough job on the truck. Perhaps I will be able to finish up this cleaning task sometime this week.

Needless to say, I did not get any painting done today.

Where did the last week go?

Friday afternoon our cable line got cut by the phone company burying a new phone line for the neighbors that had been cut the week before by some contractors burying a new power line. They also cut the neighbors cable line, but it went unnoticed as they had already switched to satelite.

While the cable guy was out Saturday hooking our cable back up Saturday, he also hooked the cable back up for the folks on the other side of us. They had a sprinkler system put in on Friday and their cable line was cut also.

Saturday was Auburn's first game of the season. It went well. Fortunately the cable was hooked back up in time for the game.

Today Jordan, Brianna, myself, and Papa went up to Monte Sano State Park to do a little geocaching. We took 5 maps and hunted for two caches unsuccessfully. We did manage to get about 1.75 miles of walking in though.

Finally the truck update. Did some sandblasting. Sand got everywhere. Everywhere!