Back to the Beach

I hadn't been to the beach yet this year, until last week. On my birthday 10 years ago, I'd taken the family to see Toy Story on the beach in Long Beach. For some reason, I'd happened on the post where I'd mentioned it, and wondered if they were still doing it.

They are!!! I asked surrogate if he would be available, but he had to work. Hit up a couple of younger's other friends, and they were up for it, so we went.

Got there early enough that we'd be able to stake out a spot before the movie started, and got to enjoy the sunset!!!

And the movie that was playing??? The Breakfast Club!!! My wife and I have watched it probably over 50 times, I think she'd made younger watch it, but the friends hadn't seen it. The girl liked it, the guy was off at the bathrooms for the end and didn't like it as much.

It was a good way to spend the evening, and get back to the beach!!! They're doing it for several more nights this summer, and there's a good chance we'll head back again!!! Of the upcoming movies, Lost Boys is one I'd be up to see again, and A League of Their Own will be shown. I haven't seen that, and it's supposed to be good, so I might be up for that as well.

Looking Back: The Antenna Install

I have made reference in a couple of recent posts about the antenna I installed on the Sky. This was back in January of last year, so it's been a while. It's a bit of a story, and here it is!!!

As I mentioned, the original style antenna is a tall solid mast, and it's on the rear fender, right where it's in the way when you are putting the top down or up. All that remained of the original was the plastic base, and around an inch of the original mast. I purchased a little rubber antenna of the style that had been popular during the mini truck craze of the 80's. I had figured I would just remove the original, and plug the replacement in wherever the original cable plugged in. Of course, the radio is a ways from the stereo head, so as a plan B I was thinking I could just splice the cable as needed.

Not previously mentioned, Zonker actually has two antennas, the standard over the air antenna mentioned, and a satellite radio (and probably OnStar as well) “Shark Fin” antenna on the middle back of the rear deck, and of course, both have cables that pass from the trunk area to the interior.

I removed the rear body panel and the center console cover, figuring they would pass through and probably run down the console. That's what you see here, there's a lot going on. The box in the middle of the picture is, I'm pretty sure, the satellite radio receiver. Towards the bottom of the picture, you can see the subwoofer of the Monsoon audio system (which I also previously mentioned that I had repaired by gluing the cone back to the surround) and towards the top is the Monsoon amp. I tried to trace the over the air antenna cable, but was only able to positively ID the satellite cable.

I took a step back, and reconsidered the approach I was going to take. The old antenna base was going to have to be removed to put the new one on. While I was antenna shopping, I saw that almost all of the antenna masts are internally threaded. I went ahead and worked the stub off, and unscrewed the large flat nut on the top of the base, which revealed the threaded rod base. The replacement antenna has a near opposite approach, with a threaded bolt extending down, which is captured and kept from turning with a couple of flats in the metal portion of the antenna base. OK, what can I do with this??? How about using a nut in place of the bolt, and screwing it down to the original threaded stud??? Yes, that could work, but it may end up needing to be shortened, or some sort of adapter made up. I found a flange nut with the correct thread, which of course was too wide for the slot in the metal base. I used a cut off wheel to slice two sides off, and shortened one end, to make a nut where everything lines up.

Next up, how to get everything to line up... The metal base to the antenna is too small to work with the original plastic base. The plastic base for the new antenna has a similar shape, a tapering cone, with the correct size recess for the metal base, and a little extra flange and height on the bottom. Since I already had the cut off wheel set up, I trimmed the flange and a little height off the base, and things were getting close to the right height to sandwich it with the original base, but of course the shape wasn't matching up. I ran a bolt through the newly trimmed down base, and chucked a couple of nuts in my drill, and attached it to the drill. I had the younger run the drill, while I used some coarse sandpaper to shape it down into more of a spherical shape. After the shape was good, I used fine sandpaper and a sanding pad to smooth it out, and it actually polished up beautifully!!!

It ended up looking something like a snowman, with a base cone of the original base (which actually follows the fender contour nicely), the new base turned spherical, and the metal base, which already has a round shape, being two halves that you can use to adjust the angle!!!

At the same time I had ordered the antenna, I also picked up a couple of phone holders. When I had started working from home, I picked up a wireless charger stand for my phone, since I was using my phone a lot for work (I've got a whole folder of work apps I need to uninstall), and the wireless charging was working great!!! I figured I'd look into a similar holder for the cars, and found a couple of these for not a lot. I still hadn't come up with a good holder for Kutcher, and since it tends to get a lot more use, I'd put one in it first. I'm usually not impressed by suction cup style bases, but these work great!!! It's a clear silicone cup with a release lever, and I was able to stick it to the middle of the console, and have the phone holder just back from the gear shift. Just recently, something went wrong with the indexing of the arm, and now it wants to rotate down, guess I'll be taking it back to the drawing board soon. Also, for some reason, it doesn't seem to charge nearly as well as the home unit did. Anyway, here's the one I put in the Sky, it sets it right between the instruments and the heater controls, and it's stuck to the smooth part of the dashboard right over the middle HVAC vents. Lights up a cool blue!!!

So, there you are!!! 80's antenna installed!!! Not going to snap off putting the top up or down, and it seriously improves reception!!! Cool 80's aesthetic vibe, as well!!!

And a happy 512 day to all!!!

The 80's Called, They Want Their License Plate Frame Back

License plate frames aren't much of a big deal to me, but they do give it something of a finished look. I got a patriotic one for my first Saturn which was pretty cool, but faded as it aged. 3 came with a Saturn of Permian Basin dealer frame, which had the white faded out on the lettering, which I cleaned up, spray painted silver to match the car, and sanded the letters to reveal the black plastic and painted the Saturn logo red. When I sent her away, I swapped the frame to Scruffy. The silver doesn't go as well, but it's in memoriam. Back when I was running a CNC machine, I had come up with a few programs for various frames that I could add text to, my favorite being the 512 frame I left on Nasty. I'd always figured I'd make up a couple more of those, but got out before I had a chance. Zonker didn't have one when I got her, but I took care of that recently!!!

I was emptying a trash can, and someone had tossed out one of those “Drive Pink” license plate frames. I'm all for supporting a cause, but I think they look hideous, and unless you got your car from selling Mary Kay, they really don't go with any of the cars they are on!!! I'd never really looked closely at any of them before, but since I was up close, I got to see that it's actually a quality piece, made of steel (I think). I could come up with something with this...

I sanded it down, and gave it a few coats of gloss yellow. Then I used skinny masking tape to do a series of random stripes, reminiscent of Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstrat from the “1984” album. Interesting, when I was looking for info on that guitar, I discovered that he retired it after they played the Us Festival '83, which was the first concert I went to. Maybe one day I'll do a post on that!!!

I then applied a few coats of gloss black, removed the tape, and did a few coats of a clear reflective paint. That flattened the look of the gloss black, which I hadn't foreseen, but I actually like the way it came out!!! It had a little bleed around some of the cross points of the tape, but it's good enough.

As I'd previously mentioned, I had also added an 80's reminiscent rubber antenna, and I feel like the frame also has something of an 80's vibe. I was going to see if I had some stainless button heads to install it with, and came across some tamper resistant screws from back when I was doing packaging tooling. Installed it without the plate for a picture with black oxide screws, then decided that stainless steel ones would be better, since they won't rust.

Took a picture close up, like the blank one, then when I was at the bank, I realized a full back picture would work better, with the black top and exhaust valance panel. Bonus, the antenna is also visible!!!

Saturn 3

Saturn 3. If you were an adolescent in the late 70's & early 80's, perhaps you remember a Science Fiction film of that name, featuring Farrah Fawcett, who couldn't have been hotter at that time. I vaguely recall the commercials for it, and wanting to see it quite badly. I know I was (and still am) very into Sci-Fi, but I couldn't tell you if the real reason was Farrah. Never did see it, and from hearing some of the feedback about it, that may have been a mercy. That could have been due to it having an R rating, or that it didn't last long in theaters, as box office bombs tend to do. Lord knows I saw several fairly bad Sci-Fi movies in that era, I think everyone was trying to glom onto the success of Star Wars: A New Hope.

But I digress.

A completely different kind of Saturn 3 to be discussed some here!!! We'll back it up around a month at this point. Actually, a few months back it actually started up, I guess. The first Saturn I'd bought (all the way back in 2008!!!) started giving me check engine light troubles. Primarily, it was giving me misfire codes, mostly on the #2 cylinder. I tried several things, mostly to no avail. The last thing I'd done, something I'd read on a forum, was replacing the ground wires. I'd cleaned off the ground connections after having read that initially, but hadn't noticed that the ground wire itself up under the battery at some point (before I'd bought the car) had been burnt through by the positive, and only the positive had been replaced. Fast forward 8+ years, and the remaining ground cable is nice and green!!! In the meantime, I'd been putting miles on my wife's, as she's been out of commission (a whole 'nother post could be made of that...) for a few weeks. Finally drove mine in on a Saturday, and as I'm getting off the freeway, I'm hearing a lot of noise. Huh. Sounds for the life of me like a rod knock!!! Strange, it hasn't been getting hot or being run low on oil. Maybe it's the timing chain, after all it's up around 175,000 miles. First thing, pull off the accessory belt to be sure it's not one of them, then off comes the valve cover to check the slack on the timing chain. It really doesn't look bad, but I'm not completely convinced. SO, my thinking goes something like this: if it IS indeed only the timing chain, it's only around $150 for the chain set & gaskets, plus a couple days to do it. But, if I do do it, I've still got an old Saturn block that uses a quart of oil every couple of tanks. Not to mention, if I did the chain & it was still knocking, I'd be out for that. SO, something I'd already been thinking of, find a used wreck or just high miler, yank the engine out of that, and do a full rebuild. Hopefully find one with alloys to put on the wife's. Did I mention I'd just dropped $225 in front end work on her??? Of course. Commence the used car shopping!!!

I'd been looking around for a couple weeks, when I came across this. At the price and miles, it was hardly worth my effort doing all that!!!

2001. A Saturn 3-door, so there's your Saturn 3 tie in!!! That, and it's now our 3rd Saturn. 67,000 miles!!! I thought it was hinkey having a car that old with that few miles, so I ran a CarFax report on it before I jumped.

It has a Texas inspection sticker on the windshield, so I was concerned that it may have been a flood victim. It had been in Midland, Texas, and had it's biggest red flag there, too. It had been stolen, and was recovered two days later. Guess that explains why it has different keys for the door and the ignition switch. For the last ten years, though, it's been in Woodland Hills, and never had a problem passing smog.

Alloy wheels!!! Sunroof!!! Leather interior!!! Pretty much a newer, lower mile carbon copy of my original Saturn!!! That even includes the tore up driver's side seat. Actually, it has a couple of options that one didn't. The aforementioned third door, and ABS & traction control.

A bunch of little things need done, though. First up, the tires are pretty worn, whereas the ones on Baby are in great shape. I like the alloys on her better too, so good. These alloys are going on my wife's. Tire remounting in my future, along with a trip to the locksmith to see about re-keying something. Oh yeah, no remotes, so I can see about getting the ones I've already got programmed to this vehicle. Apparently, you get up into 2001, and you need an expensive device to plug into the OBD2 port to do this. Maybe a locksmith will have that. The lock switch on the inside of the driver's door is gone, but I've seen this before. Twice on mine and once on my wife's I've replaced these. Sunroof isn't working right. It's got window tint (even on the front door windows, illegal) that's quite purple and in pretty bad shape. The speakers in back are shot, and if it's even got any in the front, they're not hooked up. Has the same exhaust leak that the first had, so I want to swap on my 512 labs tailpipe, but I'd like to get a baseline for the mileage first to see if it bumps up on this one, too. Map light buttons aren't working, either. Got a bunch of other little things to swap over, too. I actually like the body style of the first one better, don't care for the newer style headlights, and the backup lights being moved down into the bumper. Conceivably, I COULD unbolt all the body panels (except the 3rd door and quarter panel on that side) on the first one and swap 'em over to the third!!! Nahhhh...

One thing that doesn't need work, it has an awesome radio already installed!!! It has an aux input, but that is actually fairly moot, because it has Bluetooth connectivity, too!!!

Random Tienanmen CupDate

First time in a while I've actually gotten to do any cup artwork!!! For most of the day, I had just the text at the top, which reads, "It was 20 years ago today". One girl asked me what that was for, and I told her it was, in addition to being a lyrical reference, the day of the Tienanmen Square incident. She was unfamiliar with the story!!! I told her she should answer, "It was before my time".



Later in the day, I added the lower text, "Is fashion the reason they were there". Another lyrical allusion. Most of the tank I added in on my afternoon break.

Last Friday I went by Frys because they had laptop cooling pads for only $10, and notebook locks for $12. The cool pads were sold out, though. I did, however, pick up a patch cord for headphone jack to headphone jack. Been wanting one of those for a while, now I can play my MP3 player through Janice's radio!!!

School is doing their Spirit week this week. The older boy used one of my shirts that I got from Shirt.Woot. It has a bird made of newspaper origami. It's pretty cool, looks like the heading says "Freedom", then in other areas it appears to say "Press" and "Religion", only all the places it seems to say these things are two different pages.



Four days this week I've worked middle shift. I've had enough.

I've been driving Janice this week. I'm trying to determine what kind of mileage she gets. Not too easy, because the odometer is broken!!! I've been taking my GPS along and using it to track the distance traveled.

I wore my Mario shirt today, and two different people picked up on exactly what it was of, without it needed to be pointed out. I think this was the first time that's happened!!!

One of my co workers was sitting on the couch next to the end a few months back. He was the only one there, and I sat down on the very end next to him. I said something to the effect of, "This doesn't seem too chummy, does it???" It was all in jest, but he hasn't let me live it down. Now whenever we see each other, we'll say things like "heya, chummy!!!"

The bird shirt (which I thought was appropriate, because it is, after all, black and white and read all over) was a mystery shirt that they had for the devilish price of $6.66. It had a picture of a shirt with a blurry question mark on the site. When I first got it, I thought that I would have preferred one with a blurry question mark, but it has since grown on me.

Did anyone see the beginning of Craig Ferguson's show last night??? He did a lip sync of They Might Be Giants' version of "Istanbul", it was pretty amusing.



I've been trying to come up with some sort of algorithm for what kind of mileage I'd have to get with Janice to be better financially. At a rate of 25 cents a gallon less for diesel fuel, I figure I'd have to get around 26.8 MPG or better. What I really need is a chart with varied mileage and varied price curves delineated so I could easily see.

That spiral galaxy image is from another shirt from Woot. They were doing a pointillism design contest, where all the images were of small dots of primary colors. I got this shirt, along with a maroon one for my wife that depicts Pandora and her friends. They both tied for winning, so they offered both for one $10 price. I couldn't pass it up!!!

I took the picture of my wife over the weekend. I thought her hair looked rather 80's.

My chum was telling the guy I was working with today to be careful, I might get chummy with him. I replied, "Hey, thats just with you!!! See how you make me sound like a chum slut!!!"

I'm realizing that by the time I post this, it'll be twenty years and a day!!!