Yule '17

Many days pass away, as always busy as can be at this time of year. Here's a little recap!!!

Started the month off with the company Christmas party. Since the year we had it under the shuttle at the Science Center, it's been the tradition to have every other year at some sort of destination. This year was at Harry Potter land in Universal Studios!!!

That was a lot of fun, first time I've been to Universal out here since they put in Harry Potter, and a lot of other stuff. I'm pretty sure it was 2008 last time I was there. Only time I'd been on the Harry Potter ride was last time we were in Florida, and it was real soon after it had opened, and it was a zoo!!! Don't know if I ever posted about that, we had been staying at the Nickelodeon resort, and had been to one of the two Universal parks there the day before. My wife and the younger boy wanted to take a day off and just stay at the hotel that day, so only the firstborn and I went to that park. Besides the ridiculous crowds in that area, a couple things I remember were the Jurassic Park themed area with water cannons shaped like velociraptor heads, and some indoor area where a bunch of foreign kids laid down for their siesta. But I digress.

My wife doesn't get around walking for any length of time so well these days, so we rented her a wheelchair after we'd walked the half mile or so down City Walk to get in the park. Asked them about returning it after hours, you know, like when the rest of the park is closed and it's just the company party until late. "Oh, no problem, we'll have someone there" they said. You can guess how that went. I wandered deep into the bowels of that area, and when we finally got someone over there, they had issues getting the register back open.

I went on the Harry Potter ride, which was pretty much a walk on with such a reduced amount of people there. Got up to the first projection dome, and the ride broke down!!! Started back up a couple minutes later, but the video for that part didn't go, so we were shaking around and the audio was going, but no visual. On the way out, they directed us to a short cut if we wanted to go again. Three of the four of us who'd been on with me (all bin fillers!!!) did it.

Since I've got a troll living in my basement now, a lot of the stuff down there has been moved around. I'd seen these before, but never set them up. Vintage Christmas decorations, Santa and his reindeer!!! Well, 8 of 9 anyway.

This year I strung my lights to a pole, something I'd done years ago, again, simulating a Christmas tree. I also finally got rid of all the old incandescent Christmas lights I had knocking around which I haven't used in probably 5 years or more, replaced by LED lights. Oh yea, there's a vintage color wheel down there I'd been seeing the box for for years, finally dragged it out and replaced the heat lamp with an LED bulb, and picked up a white tree to change from the super campy pink tree we've been using for years, and used it with the wheel. It's different, kinda nice for a change. That, as well as Christmas morning, I've got on my DSLR card, I'll unload at some point.

Then there was the annual announcement of the profit sharing (480%, very good, and word is next year should be good, too) goody day, and profit sharing distribution day. Should I say here that, with that very generous profit sharing, this is my first year breaking six figures??? Might as well, I don't think hardly anyone reads this. Comment if you do!!!

Just like the end of last year, I'm hearing a lot of people complaining about what a terrible year 2017 has been. I don't get it. Worst I can say about it was I had a few people I know passed.

On Christmas Eve we went to John's Incredible Pizza. They were having a deal, and it was as empty as I've ever seen it!!! They had this cheese bread which was basically pizza crust with cheese. My childhood friend Sean had been sensitive to tomato sauce, claimed it was too spicy for him, so he'd always order pizza with no sauce. In fact, around a week before I heard about his death, my younger was saying how he was one of the most sensitive to spicy food people, and I regaled him with tales of Sean and his sauceless pizzas. At the celebration for Sean, one of the guys who spoke of how he'd order pizza, so on into his forties he was still having it that way!!! Of course, I had to have a slice of their "cheese bread" in his memory.

Last Saturday, Alt 98.7 was doing a meet and greet at a T-Mobil store over on Whittier Boulevard, with Ravey from The Woody Show meeting the plebs. It was 2 till 4, and I am out of work at 3:30 on Saturdays, and it's about halfway between work and home, so I was able to go over and visit. I like all the guys on the show, but after meeting and getting to talk to Ravey in person for a bit, I like her even better now!!! She's cool. Never made a post on it this year, but we'd gone to the Renaissance Faire on the same day she did. Never saw her there, but on the way in the station had a booth set up. They set us up with a couple shirts, that's where I got the sweet #ALLIN shirt in the picture. It's super soft material, too.

The very next day, at John's Incredible, got to meet and take a picture with Incredibear!!!

More Red Flags...

I'm sure you've seen the terrible wildfires going on in Southern California. For the first time in a long while they actually called red flag day in my neighborhood. Before last years' vacation to Tennessee, it looked like there was a possibility of there being one while we were gone (we managed to dodge the first summer heat wave) but to avoid the possibly of having my cars impounded I used the day before we left to sell off the carcass of Baby as well as the wreck of my old Scirocco. Looking back, the place I had all the pictures of my ol' Scirocco aren't in service any more. May have to dust some off if I can find 'em to repost here.

Anyway, last week they called a red flag day on Tuesday, I believe. Our area never had much wind at all, which is one of the components of the alert. The conditions are defined as wind speeds 25 mph or more and humidity 15% or less (cut and pasted from their website). Accordingly, the next day it was lifted. Of course, the areas around us were burning, so the next day it was back in effect, once again with little wind in our area. For one day. As you can see, the Gif I made up shows it switching from one status to another with only a few seconds between. Apparently you need to manually refresh.

I know what the reasoning behind the red flag days is, and have no problem with it... EXCEPT they always call it when conditions aren't actually met!!! The local news outlets aren't much help, either, their maps pretty much show everything south of Frisco as being active red flag areas.

There. I haven't had an actual raving here for a while!!!

And So It Begins

That tenuous transitional step between concept and reality, to actually stop just thinking about something and start doing something. I suppose the real first step was finding Jade (thus far the name my wife has decided on for her new ride, as good a name as any, I suppose. She is SO happy with her, you'd think I bought her a new Cadillac!!!) so I can get to modding on Scruffy. The next, and and finally getting some actual skin in the game, step occurred on this last Friday. New tires are a very soon necessity for her (Scruffy), and prior to doing that, I'd wanted to locate the next set of rims, to keep from having to pay to get the tires moved around. Currently she's rolling on the alloys that came on 3, which are also the exact same style as jade has. All that works out, because one of them on Scruffy was said to have been bent, and feels like it at certain speeds. A couple on each also have some curb damage, so between them there's likely a good set.

SO, I had the idea to find some steelies I could moon-cap and maybe do in the contrast color, whatever that turns out to be. I slightly rued having sent the originals of Scruffy's west with Baby, but in the interest of saving alloys, it was necessary. Also, it looks like the profile of Saturn steelies isn't well suited to having a center cap hub cap. Lots of cars have the same bolt pattern, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find a junkyard set that would work, and over Thanksgiving weekend, my dad and I were thinking of heading over for their sale day. That never happened, I worked Black Friday for the double time and a half, as well as my normal Saturday shift, and it was far too busy to get that in.

Another thing I'd been looking at was some manufacturers are now making larger rims of steel. First noticed this on the lady friends' Scion, which has hub caps on 16" wheels. I was going to jam her up and see if she'd be interested in trading for some factory Saturn alloys that would have a lower cost to put tires on, but alas, it's the newer model with 5 lugs. As is my custom, I kept looking around to see what people might be selling, and came upon these!!! Not what I had in mind, but a good looking style that will go fairly well with the primer black aesthetic I have in mind, and are also larger diameter. Currently they have 205-40R-17's on them, which are shorter but wider than what I've got, but by just a tad each way. Nets about 3/8" of drop. There's probably a year's worth of tread left on them, but I'm planning on going with 35's eventually, which will be even smaller than what I've got, as well as surprisingly affordable!!! That will get a total drop of about 3/4", plus the around 1 1/2" that dropped springs get. Of course, that's a ways out still, and will give me plenty of time to decide if I like it fine with what I've already got. Speaking of affordable, the guy only wanted $200 for the whole set, which of course is almost less than just getting 4 tires mounted!!! No curb rash whatsoever. Ironically, they were off the earlier model Scion with the same bolt pattern as Saturns.

So now it's time to start getting other things in order. The wear patterns on the current tires suggest that things aren't right with the alignment, and I know the tie rod ends are shot. At 190,000, likely that's not all!!! If I'm going to be putting in dropped springs, she'll be needing an alignment anyway, and may as well refresh everything before that happens. Of course, while I'd be putting on new springs, new struts are only logical. I have ordered both the springs and struts thus far, and will soon be ordering tie rod ends and ball joints. May also get some polyurethane bushings to tighten everything up even more!!! I'd already planned on going with rebuilds on all the brake cylinders while I'm in the course of refitting and new hoses, as well as probably new rotors and pads up front, since I'll have to give everything that will show through the new rims a coat of paint. Oh yeah, also I ordered the necessary lug nuts to fit on such a rim.

This morning I took the original picture from when we'd first got her where I'd tinted the rear windows and put it back in Paint Shop Pro. First I removed the rear doors, then made the panels continuous from front to back. Came out better than the first attempt!!!

Hmmm, while I have Paint Shop Pro going, how about seeing how she'd look with a bit of a drop??? With them old hub caps, no less!!! Got that done, and did the scroll back and forth between the files, and was amused by the jumping effect of the drop I'd performed... a GIF is in order!!!

After that, I messed with the shadow to make it look proper, then black and whited it to simulate primer, as well as mirroring it to make it look different than the other shots.

Hey, you may ask, what about your idea to gull wing her??? Still knocking around in me melon, it is, but thought I'd share the sketch lady friend did before I did mine, back on the reunion lunch day. There you have it, folks, the first rendering of a Saturn Gull Wing Wagon!!! Upon completion, it was noted that it looked a bit like a space alien!!!