Happy Halloween

In response to Granny's...

The Pumpkin Gallery

FINALLY got out Jack-O-Lanterns carved. It was only yesterday that we bought the pumpkins. First up is the younger boy's submission. Of course, his brother and I did all the work, but under his direction. Triangle eyes and nose, and an ANGRY mouth with teeth. He didn't like the pupils I'd put in at first, but decided they were good after it was all done.
Next is obligatory 512 pumpkin, representing!!!
Here's mine, I did wild eyebrows and cat style eyes. Just eyes peering out. Simplicity.
The older boy's submission. He was going to do X's for the eyes, but as you can see, they went awry. I'm proud of him and his work, though, I think this is the first year he's pretty much done the whole job himself. Not to mention he did a lot of cleaning of his brother's.
And Naomi's. You can't really see in the picture, but it has a diagonal ridge over the eyes, so the eyes follow under it. Afterward, it was decided a unibrow over the eyes would add to it.

Like Rats From A Sinking Ship...

On Thursday Sammy called me up and told me that Freddy, another one of the long time guys from my former place of employment, was leaving and he wanted to get some of the guys together for some pool and just a little last time get together.

That was what else I did on Friday night. Rafa was there, but he left just minutes before I got there. That was kind of a bummer, but we had a good time the rest of the evening.

Never did play any pool, I think they did before I got there. A few games of Foosball, then we went to the bowling alley and played a couple of games. I got my best score in a long time, 107!!!

Good times, good times...
Freddy is moving to Arizona. He applied at a company there, and they made him an immediate offer. Sounds like he ended up with a deal a lot like mine, where he ended up making a good deal more money, better benefits, and a company with a future. Good luck, Freddy. I know you'll be much better off.

A Little Early???

Friday night I stayed at my parent's house so I could work on my retarded car first thing Saturday. That evening, a group of young teens came up in full costume. I thought it was a little early for trick or treating. Turns out they were on a scavenger hunt. They needed a green apple, a candy corn, and a hoop ear ring. I told them I wanted some candy corn if they found any.

500!!!

It finally happened!!! I got my 500th unique hit on Where's George. Click on the 500 to see the report. I was kind of hoping it would happen around the time of my 300th post on blogger, but oh well. Cool that it was at an In-N-Out Burger!!! I love this ad banner, too.

My retarded Car

Or "How I Spent My Weekend"

In response to my last post, Eyeball made the comment that my water pump was homosexual. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that, if it was in reference to the line "It took almost all of it", or just the fact that it blew, or just derogatory in a general sense.

Anyway, I got the replacement part as well as coolant and cooling system flush, all on Friday night. First thing in the morning I headed down and got to working on it. Mostly it was pretty straightforward, but the water pump drives off the timing belt, rather than a drive belt. First time I've ever seen that, and of course the manual had no precautions about how to keep the valve train timing right. I scribed a mark all the way across and never moved the crankshaft to try and keep from having a problem.

The water pump has five bolts holding it on. After taking off all the covers and right side motor mount, I discovered that the bottom bolt is blocked from coming all the way out by a bracket that goes right in front of it!!! It unscrews all the way, but it's immovable from there. No problem, the whole pump comes out and it comes with it. Putting it back in, I did the same thing. BUT... The bolt would not start threading!!! I messed with it for hours. My dad tried to get it going. My mom tried to get it going. My first born tried to get it going (told him if he could get it I'd give him a buck). Eventually I gave up for the day, my oldest sister was having a surprise party thrown in honor of her birthday. That was fun, got to see a lot of people I'd not seen in a while, including Eyeball (didn't ask him about the homosexual thing, tho) and his girlfriend.

The next day I went down again, and ended up removing the power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, and the three brackets they all mounted on. Don't ask me why there are three for only two accessories, but the third one was the one that was in the way. The bolt went right in with it out of the way, and I spent the rest of the day putting it back together.

Well, once it was back together is started and ran just fine. No leaks, no overheating. Job well done. However, it seemed to not rev up very quickly. It would go, but it kind of hesitated. I figured I'd deal with that later, and packed up to head home. It was already well after dark. Put it in gear, but it didn't accelerate. Damn. I think I know what the problem is, the camshafts are behind where they should be. In technical terms, my car is RETARDED!!!

Night Shots

What a day yesterday!!! On my way into work, at the left turn before I'm there, I notice steam coming from under the side of the hood. Hmmm, that normally doesn't happen!!! At that point I looked at the temperature gauge. Yea, it was near to the top of the gauge. Who needs idiot lights when you've got an idiot behind the wheel??? When the light changed and I got moving, it came right down to mid-temperature. I popped the hood when I got there, and all it was doing was shooting a little steam out of the puke tank.
At second break, I took a 32-ounce cup of water out to top off the radiator, see if that did the trick. It took almost all of it, then at the very end it started pouring out of around the water pump. OK, that's probably the trouble spot.
I decided to go to my parent's house after work (if the car makes it that far with no ill effects) and swap the Geo for the Falcon, which is still down there for paint finishing. I made it without incident, and got to visit with my parents and have a little dinner.

It was nice to be driving the Falcon again. It's a nice ride, but it still needs a little this and that. The fuel gauge was a little on the low side, but I figured if it didn't make it home, I could just give AAA a call and have them bring me some gas. Made it most of the way, and about a mile away it started cutting out. I pulled over and called AAA. Fortunately, I had my camera with me to pass the time, experimenting with night photography. Interesting effect!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNY!!!

Hope you have a great one!!!

(Birthday, that is...)

Rained Out

The weather had been nice recently. The kind of weather that makes me want to take a weekend and go up in the mountains and camp. My dad had been thinking the same sort of thing, too. They haven't had a chance to take the two older grandkids on any camping trips this summer. We decided to meet up a Mallard Falls campground. I was going to head up Friday night when I got home from work. Friday morning the sky looked brooding, and it actually felt like it could rain. The weathermen were all hedging their bets, giving it a slight chance of rain. Mid day, it was clearing, but still with a lot of scattered clouds. Oh well, the boy was looking forward to going, we would head up and and see what happened. Worst comes to worst, we could sleep in the car. Wouldn't be the first time.

On the way to the short drive up the freeway, a few fat drops hit the windshield, but nothing that kept going or went for any length of time. On the freeway, it began coming down fairly constant. By the time we reached the end, it was coming down hard and constant. I turned to him and asked if we should scrub the mission. He concurred. We stopped at the video store and rented "Black Hawk Down" for something to do, I knew he would enjoy that movie, and picked up Chinese.

Last Thursday at work they told me right before the second break that they were taking me off training and putting me in number. That was the longest training period I've ever had!!! I hope I'm really up to the task. But, when I come back from my break, they have a long line order that they need. Typical is 5 to 8 lines. This one was 99 lines!!! I finished it off, one minute before quitting time. Monday I start going in on the third shift, at 9:45. I have a feeling that this shift will suit me well.

Compulsion

This was my first car. As you can see, I cut the roof over the driver and passenger seats. I made it so the cut section could be put back in place for foul weather. It was pretty fun to drive around with the top off. Not so good when it rained, but it only leaked a little, and it doesn't rain that much around here. I had hundreds of other little custom touches, but the roof was the main one, and probably my favorite. This car was a major influence on the purchase of one of my current cars, Mav 2 (scroll down, it's the one at the bottom that isn't completely trashed!!!). I ended up selling Mav 1 for $50 more than my asking price!!!

While I have no plans to cut the top open on this one, these days I'm feeling a compulsion to do this or a similar modification to another car. Must be the warm temperatures we've been having, or the fact that I'm driving around with my camera more these days. I saw a Pontiac 6000 convertible for sale for $950 OBO. That might be a better way to go.

Pretzels

I did it!!! We did it!!! I went and found a recipe for pretzels and we made up a batch.

No, I did not do the depraved style that Granny has been doing of late.


I remember from back when I was about the oldest's age getting the recipe out of National Geographic's World magazine and
making up a batch of these.

I called up my mom and had her pull the recipe, but I could tell it wasn't the same one. The one I'd done had a step where you blanched the uncooked pretzels in a baking soda solution. She confirmed the recipe she was reading was from a cook book.

I did a search and came up with this one, more like what I'd remembered!!!

They are pretty easy to make, but a bit time consuming. The dough gets rather elastic after rising, and doesn't want to make into the long snakes so easy.

It took a while, but it was well worth it!!!

They rock!!!

Driver's Seat

I haven't been able to make a post here in several days. I miss blogging, but I've been rather busy. These are some pictures I took last Saturday while I was out driving around. I just barely took them out of my camera today!!!


The front end on the Storm has been making bad noises again, and I figured it was the half shaft again. The noise would abate when I would have it turned just a little to the left, so that's what I figured it was. I took the shaft out Friday after work, and ran it down to the place I'd gotten it from first thing Saturday. They don't have any in stock, so the rebuilt mine again.


Turns out it was the bearing. I'd just bought it from an online discounter, and had some difficulty getting it. Not like it was a no name part, either, it was an AC Delco. I'll bet I'm going to have an uphill battle getting them to honor the one year warranty.

Anyway, I took most of these pictures while driving around. I am really happy with the way several of them came out.


This was at Wal Mart, I was quite amused that they have a die cast pinto model now.