The Return to Dana Point

A couple of things I do quite a bit: Take an early season vacation, and go back to places I've vacationed at before!!! Last month, we did both again!!!

The last time, it was for our anniversary celebration, so this was the first time for the younger. Stayed at the same Best Western in Dana Point, right across from the beach. I didn't opt for the room with the upcharge this time, just took one that sleeps four. I'm not sure they even have one that sleeps 4 with the improved view and balcony, but we didn't use the balcony much last time. The room was on the back side, so possibly a little less train noise from there. It didn't shock me awake this time, so either that was the case, or I was ready for it this time.

First day we were there we headed straight to Selma's again for more Chicago Deep Dish!!! It was a little early, and we did manage to get in on their happy hour for some pretzel bites as an appetizer. It was awesome, as it was last time.

Just as an aside, I had made a trip to a thrift store again to get a “work” T-shirt, and one for a pajama top, since a lot of mine seem to have gone missing. Ended up with three, one is a big, lightweight coral colored one for the PJ's (that I've used for general purpose as well), another is a Buc-ees with a nice Texas theme (it's a medium, so it's towards the smaller size of fitting me well. We'd stopped into a Buc-ees on our Texas vacation), and the final is shown here, a cool design, “McGuffin Creative Group, Established 2004”. Love me some McGuffin!!!

Last time we were in Dana Point, the weather was phenomenal. Not so much this time, a lot of gray skies. When we'd headed out and for most of the drive, it was bright an sunny. Just as we neared the coastline, it got grayer. It was mostly like that while we were there. When we arrived back at the lodgings, one of the guys camping across the street at the beach had a nice fire going in a fire ring. I considered heading over and warming myself to their fire, it's been forever since I've been to a fire on a beach!!!

The next day, we got in on another whale watching trip!!! I located one that was supposed to have underwater viewing pods, that sounded very cool. However, the ship with the viewing pods is being worked on, so we were on a catamaran. As previously stated, it was cold and gray. It has an upper viewing deck, side and bow access, and an enclosed cabin. My wife mostly stayed in the cabin.

The boy and I ventured out to the bow, and the breeze just cuts right through your hoodie!!! Didn't stop us. We headed to the upper deck, and shortly after they announced a sighting, looks like a juvenile blue shark, they said. Looked like the pictures I've seen of the Loch Ness Monster to me!!!

It just cruised along without a care in the world, and we were near it for several minutes. Not long after it was spotted, they changed the ID to a thresher shark. In my second picture, and in real life, you can somewhat make out it's long tail that it uses to smack stuff around!!! Pretty cool!!!

Always love seeing pelicans. Here was a line flying low over the fairly flat ocean. I also love seeing when they're flying high, and spy their lunch and fold into a spear and dive straight down!!!

They headed on, and just a little later, they spotted a pod of dolphins. It wasn't the massive size of the last one we'd seen, but it was good sized, and there was a good amount of action.

Hung around them for a while, then it was time to head back in. Once more, didn't see whale one!!! Ah well, it was still pretty fun. On the way back in, the obligatory swing by the buoy with the sea lions on it.

I noticed that this time, we passed the green buoy, and I was pretty sure the last time we'd gone past a red one. Went back to the pictures from then to confirm, and yeah, it was red. Didn't have a picture from last time, so here's one from 2021, when the sun was actually out!!! (I think it was gray most of while we were out last time as well, but it was clearing by the time we came back)

I don't remember if we had been discussing Chinese food prior to it or what, but I located a Chinese buffet place that we headed off to that evening.

The next day, after having a nice breakfast again at the hotel, the sun made an appearance in the afternoon!!! The younger an I headed across to the beach, and walked a ways up.

Spotted this white, looked like quartz based rock among all the dark ones, so we posed with it.

Later in the afternoon, we finally made the trek down to San Clemente for some Taco Bell. There's another thing I tend to do on vacation, spend a considerable amount of time looking for somewhere to eat!!! I think I was looking for places that serve dogs, and nothing really grabbed me, so Taco Bell never fails!!!

My wife wasn't feeling well, so she stayed back. Of course, I had to head down to the pier!!! Once again, just like the time we'd gone to the Ventura pier, he neglected to bring a jacket!!!

I hadn't mentioned last time we'd been out on the pier, but to the south there's an artificial reef, the Wheeler North Reef, that pokes up above the surface. I didn't get a shot of it, but there the boy is pointing it out!!!

As before, great views from the parking area, so rounding it out with a couple of shots from there!!!

Good Times!!!

Car Stuff with a Broken Foot

I had mentioned last year I was thinking of doing another car post with all the things I'd recently done. I can't even remember a lot of what I'd done, but with the vintage of cars I own, there's always something!!! Here's a rundown of a few that have been done since the start of this year.

To start off, I'd mentioned that we had red flag days during the fire season, and my wife had driven the Falcon down to the bottom of the hill during that. They'd done a lift of the red flags, then after a couple of days it was back on. Eventually, we got the expected heavy rain season that always seems to follow a nice burn, resulting in mud slides in the scorched earth areas. Of course, we didn't have any fires in our neighborhood, and the rain wasn't as bad as some areas. Anyway, we haven't had a red flag day since, so that's something.

Since my foot was broken, and it wasn't bothering anyone there, I'd left the Falcon down there. After the rains, I drove by and saw that the back of the Falcon had acted as a catch basin for the various muck and debris that had been washed down by the rain!!! Guess it's time to move it back.

I had my wife drop me off one day when we were coming back, and did the classic pop the hood and remove the air cleaner, and shoot some quick start down the carb to fire it up. Got in, and hit the key. It fired as expected, and I let off the crank... but I could hear the starter was still engaged. It often won't stay running on the first fire anyway, and that's what happened, giving me a chance to see what was going on with the key. Messed with it, and it would go back farther than normal to the off position, and it didn't feel right. Gave it a little more quick start, and managed to get it running, even though I had to pull back on the key to keep it from keeping cranking, and drove it back and parked it. Afterwards, I messed with the key some more, and things definitely weren't right.

Oh yea, the back end that had caught all the crud was kind of a mess...

Started feeling around behind the dashboard, and the back of the ignition switch came apart on me!!! I've seen this before...

I knew it had happened before, but I couldn't remember when. Turns out it was about 17 years ago!!! I had no idea that it had been that long!!! I thought I'd looked into the price for a new one back then and had made mention of the price, and maybe I did but I can't find the mention now. Anyway, it was only about $20 from Rock Auto, delivered. A couple of weeks ago, I went down with my full dang foot boot on, and swapped it out. It's kind of a pain working up under the dashboard, and doubly so with my foot in the boot!!! Took a while, and it wasn't super easy, but it wasn't that hard to do. It's all good now!!! Oh yea, by the time I was able to move it back, the weather had turned to our typical beautiful Rose Parade weather, and all the dirt and silt that had washed down had turned into a fine dust, and was getting blown everywhere!!! All the cars down there were a mess. We've had a couple of rainy days since, and it's rinsed a good amount off.

On to the other thing that's been going on!!! One of the things I was going to mention in the never brought to realization car post of yore, I put a new engine in the Matrix!!! Ever since we've had it, it had an oil leak. The consensus was that the usual place it will leak is the timing chain tensioner, which I'd replaced, and then went back and replaced the seal and added some RTV when it still was leaking, all to no avail. I just lived with it. One day when the younger and I were out in it, it was making the low oil valvetrain warning noise, and I checked the oil, which was low as expected. I planned on driving it home and adding a quart, and there we headed. On the way, it got louder and louder, and I was planning on exiting and finding a store to buy a quart to add. Turned out as I decided to do so, we are on a long stretch with no exits, and the power starts dropping. I pulled to the side preparing to call a tow truck. A freeway service truck appears, and gave us a tow off the freeway, then I called and got it towed to our house. The engine was toast, I considered just junking it, then looked into the JDM take out engines. If you don't know, in Japan they have strict emissions standards, and at around 40,000 to 50,000 miles vehicles are usually retired. The engines and transmissions are shipped over, and it turns out for about $1,000 you can pick one up. I've now got a connection at a local shop, and he installed it for $800. Couldn't have bought a similar replacement for that!!!

Anyway, at some point last year the registration was due, and I managed to space out and forget to send it!!! They were kind enough to send a reminder with a past due charge, which I immediately sent in. A few weeks later, they send back a reply, “Oh yea, you need a smog check, too!!!” Thanks. Anyway, it shouldn't be a problem, we've had 2 previous checks with no issue, on an engine with a lot more miles.

Once more, this was right after I'd broken my 5th metatarsal and was fairly incapacitated. My wife takes her over to get the check done. She calls me up, and it's failed. It has a code that the O2 sensor heater isn't heating up as it should, and the replacement is something like $220 with installation. I could do it for the cost of the parts for considerably less, if it wasn't for that broken metatarsal!!! Go ahead, have 'em take care of it. Oh, and there's a molded tube from the valve cover to the intake that has a big crack on the end, that needs replaced, too. Picked that up from the dealer, and surrogate son and the younger put that in, along with swapping the battery in Scruffy, under my supervision. Reset the computer, and drove it for a couple weeks to get a good data set, and checked the codes. Still has the same O2 sensor code. My wife takes it back, and they say, “Oh yea, you've got the check engine light on the dash that's burned out, it's not going to pass without that.” I figured it'd be like every dashboard I've ever dealt with, with twist out light holders. Surprise, they're not!!! The dash has the circuit board with LED lights everywhere on it for all the indicators and dash lights. I considered taking it to a shop to get the LED replaced, then remembered I had several extra LED dashboard lights I'd bought for Scruffy. Took one apart, destroying all the LEDs in the process, and then a second one, and replaced the one for the check engine. Oh, and if I didn't think the seller was shady before, the LED for the check engine light wasn't burned out or not working, it was missing!!!

Reset the codes again, drove it for a week, and the O2 code was still there. Took it back, this time I was able to come along. Still has the code for the O2 sensor, and the check engine light is burning bright (the original was probably red or amber, I've replaced it with a white one, and it's pretty bright!!!) and they tell us so. Yeah, you replaced the O2 sensor and that's done nothing for the code, time to dig deeper. The technician pops the hood, and says, “sounds like you've got a big vacuum leak.” I was in the passenger seat with the car running, and I could hear it from there. I get out and am observing from the side. He messes with the recently replaced molded hose to the valve cover, then sprays some carb cleaner on that end. It smooths out, and the fluid immediately gets sucked away from the edge of the valve cover. He declares that it's leaking vacuum from the valve cover gasket. Sounds strange to me, but I did see it with my own eyes, and it does have a large hose running to the intake right above there, so I guess it's plausible. “We'll replace that valve cover gasket for $220...” No, you will not. Another $20 to Rock Auto, and I've got a new valve cover gasket in hand. A week ago today I put it on. The old one looked like it was in excellent shape. Took quite a while cleaning out a lot of the varnish on the inside and grime from the outside of the valve cover, and it looks really good!!! I had been thinking of putting the plastic engine cover back on, I had picked up some knobs so it wouldn't require any tools to remove on the old one, and repaired some of the stripped out holes, but never got to that point, and since it looks nice now, I may never do that.

Got it all put back together, and it still sounds like there's a big vacuum leak. I start spraying around on my own, and once again, it smooths out towards the end of the valve cover. Hmmm...

I Look a little closer, and directly under there it has the fuel injector. Give it a direct spray, and it smooths right out!!! IT WAS NEVER THE VALVE COVER GASKET AT ALL!!! Pulled the first injector out, and the seal is gone!!!

I checked the local Auto Zone to see if they've got the fuel injector seals. They have an $8 kit with 4 seals, or a $15 kit with 3 different seals. I head over (it was a beautiful day, I dropped the top on Zonker and had a nice cruise) and showed the guy the $8 one. He heads back and comes out with it. It's a set of O-rings for the tops of the injectors. OK, guess that's why there's a $15 kit, let's see that. It was the one. Brought it home and put it on, and fired it up. Got out, and it's spewing gas from the fuel rail at the other end. Guess I'll need those O-rings after all. I head back, and he'd never put them away so they were easy to get. Got 'em home, and put them on. But, they didn't seem to be a good fit on the injectors, they seemed too large. Put it back together, and it's still spewing fuel. I took it apart again. One of the O-rings had split, and one was pushed out of the bore. I had an extra from the first seal kit, and I put it on, put it together again, and had the same problem. Rage quit.

I went the nuclear option, got on Rock Auto again and ordered 4 new injectors. Selected the 2-day delivery to have them here on Friday so I could hopefully get them on before work on Saturday. They didn't arrive. Being in customer service, I now fully understand the phrase, “Boned by UPS'. They were supposed to then deliver on Saturday, and to no one's surprise they didn't. The tracking didn't show movement on Monday, either, but they finally showed up just before I was off work. That's how I spent my first hour of daylight savings' time, putting them in. Seems to work fine, we'll see if it does the job!!!

Disaster Man

Here's a disturbing trend I've noticed.

Back in 2016 we vacationed down in Tennessee, notably in the Pigeon Forge area, as well as an afternoon in the Great Smoky Mountains just outside Gatlinburg. It was a great vacation, and I could have posted more about it.

A few months after we'd gone, devastating wildfires engulfed the area.

The next year, 2017, we went down to Texas, flying into Houston, and spending some time there, as well as Austin, San Antonio, and Galveston. Another great vacation, and again worthy of more posts than I have done. (This was about the best shot that I have outside in the Houston area.)

Just a couple of months later, Hurricane Harvey blew into town and flooded the area.

Just last November my wife and I traveled up north to the San Jose area for our anniversary.

While we were in the area, the Camp Fire broke out. You could smell smoke in most of the places we were at, and it was smoke hazy the whole time. I took the last picture on the flight out, and you can see the layer of smoke.

I'm taking bids on where not to vacation next year.

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!!!

Fired Up

Last Thursday I was in the front room of our house, and I heard sirens. Getting closer. I sat up and looked out, and up our street came a couple of fire trucks. Hmmm, that doesn't happen very often, and it's always troubling when there's an actual fire going on up here. Of course, fire trucks don't always mean there's a fire, but not too much longer, here comes another pair of fire trucks. Shortly after, another vehicle, the size of a fire truck, but more boxlike with "Urban Search & Rescue" on the side.

None of this sounded good as far as there actually being a fire, and sometime in there, a fire helicopter joined the party. Instead of having a spotlight, it had forward facing lights, and when it circled towards us, you could see billowing smoke. Fortunately, while the area surrounding us were experiencing high winds, it has been calm in our area, so no red flag days for us.

I was curious, and was considering trying to walk to where it was going on, but never did. Fell asleep before the news came on that night, but caught it the next day.

A six room,9,100 square foot house. 10 to 15 people living there. The house was apparently in foreclosure. I've walked by the place before, I remember admiring the octagon turrets. Might even have actual pictures of the place on the hard drive from my old Toshiba laptop. The before pictures are from Google Street View.

After I got home from work on Saturday, the younger and I went over to see what we could see. The street does a loop around, with houses on each end and a wide dirt trail on an undeveloped side of the hill with the namesake Sea View. Not knowing exactly which end of the street it was on, we figured it out in a hurry. Two days later, the street is still blocked off with a lot of the fire trucks, and a mobile command center on the opposite side (which is the same style of vehicle that the Urban Search and Rescue had). Parking enforcement was there, guarding the end. Asked if the street was blocked to pedestrian traffic as well as vehicles, and was answered in the affirmative. I asked how we were supposed to rubberneck then???

We walked back, and took off down the next street over, a dead end that has something of a view across the canyon, and it turns out we were able to see a good amount of the property from there.

Unfortunately, there's one person unaccounted for, an 84 year old man. One story I read said he went back in for a litter of puppies. An old guy died last time there was a structure fire up here, too.

Last stories I read, they still hadn't determined the cause. I'd speculate that with that many people, someone may have been using a hot plate in their room. Could be a smoker, too, or some other reason for all I know.

I've Seen Fire & I've Seen Rain

So tonight I was unloading the pics from my camera with the idea of putting together a post of the younger's birthday celebration from last weekend. Those plans have gone awry for now.

Instead, you get this!!! A pair of shots from the night before the event, and a few more from today. The night before, I had been doing a bit of painting in the bathroom, and as I headed outside to wash up the brushes, I saw the chopper I'd been hearing for a while but hadn't even really registered. Looking around (namely at where he was training his spotlight) I located the flashy lights of several fire trucks and the glow of the fire.

My younger & I headed over a ways closer, then up the hill to try and get a better look. A bit hard to tell exactly where it was at in the dark, and we didn't get that close. Sadly, one of my neighbors, a World War II veteran, died in the fire.

The weather changed this week, and we were told by the local media hype that we would all be swept away by buckets of the hard rain that was gonna fall. The first wave swept through on Wednesday night while we all slept, and it was bright & clear the next morning, which of course made my commute take roughly twice as long. Almost no rain that day, and Friday morning there was a light drizzle coming down as I left the house. It picked up once I was to work, but then was dry enough that people were eating lunch and taking breaks outside. Saved it up for the afternoon and today.

This afternoon it was actually coming down pretty good for a bit, as well as having some nice long rolls of thunder. I had my camera ready at this point, and took a few shots of it coming down good, making the canyon and gutters into raging streams. Near the end of the time I was shooting, it was letting up and the sun was glinting off the waters.

Pictured in a couple of the shots are some block retaining walls. The last shot has the latest one I had put up, just a couple weeks back, or more to the point, just in time. Upon having returned from our weekend in Carpinteria, we discovered that a few of the cement slabs had slid forward and a good amount of dirt had come out from between them. The slabs were looking quite precarious, and I took several out and dug some out from behind them until I could get the guy out to put a wall. Naturally, I got busy and it took a while before I dug up his number. He did a great job again, only as you can see, it tends to pool water behind it. I dug out a drainage channel when the rain had let up a bit.

All these great picture opportunities, and I get to title a post with a James Taylor reference!!!

Worrisome

The top picture is from the top of my street on Thursday. On my drive home that evening, it seemed like almost every freeway I was on had smoke billowing up at the end of it. The sky was otherwise completely clear, just smoke filling the northwest. On the second to the last freeway, I could actually see flames. Not a good feeling, looking at fire rising from directly behind where your home is. It's actually quite a bit farther away than it looked, but still too close.




On Wednesday morning I could smell it inside the house, and it was like walking into a light fog bank when I walked outside. Funny thing, that fire was since Wednesday, but there wasn't a whole lot of coverage until the last couple of days. A fire breaks out in Palos Verdes, and it's top story. More yellow journalism, I tells ya!!! Friday evening we were out, and you could see the red glow rising from the hills. I found a map tool that shows the size and scope of the fire, since they weren't showing one on any of the news channels. They'd show aerial views and say "This will give you an idea of the size and scope of this fire", but there are no points of reference.

The weather hasn't been helping. The humidity has been low and the temperatures have been high. I think it's the hottest and most sustained it's been all summer. On the plus side, the wind hasn't been that high, although these fires create their own weather.



Final shot is from Mount Wilson's webcam, where much of tonight's coverage is of the transmitter towers being threatened by this fire.

Rapid Random

Just a few random things I wanted to post on!!!

My wife got lucky and got Jury Duty. Had her calling in since last Monday, but Friday was the first day they actually had her come in. So far, she's on a jury. I notice that when I was on Jury Duty, there were wild fires going on then, too. I saw the smoke rising from the hills yesterday when I was taking the boys to the railroad open house.

I know I've been hiking up there, but I remember the name of the place more than the place itself.

Incredibly hot this weekend. I kind of wanted to take the boys or the whole family to Universal Studios to partake in some of the moist activities that occur there, as well as getting some use out of the year passes. Of course, I don't think I'd drive, but take the rail line.




All images swiped from the 'Net.

The system went down several times on Friday. I wrote about it on my cup. "For a buggy system, it is remarkably stable" and "Do not attempt to adjust your computer. We are controlling the transmission." I wonder how many people actually made the Outer Limits connection.

Wifey's going to take the rail line to court tomorrow instead of driving. If she'd had the presence of mind, she could have gotten a Metro pass at the court and gone without having to pay. Hopefully (and if commuting that way suits her tomorrow) she'll pick one up when she's there tomorrow.

Instead of going to Universal, I did yard work yesterday. That, and the railroad open house. The lawn actually came out looking fairly decent just running the mower over it and weed eating around the edges. Had to cut back a lot of other greenery, too, it's that time of year when the Fire Department does inspections.

Writing about the yardwork reminded me that I should water the grass a little.

My mom called today and talked a bit to my wife. Catching half of the conversation I got that she'd bought something for my oldest boys' birthday present. As she was getting ready to hand the phone to me, wife tells mom that she'll have to tell me so I know what she got him. As soon as I'm talking to my mom, she starts telling me about a Stanley Kubrick video collection she bought. I thought that was quite cool, but a rather odd thing to have gotten for the boy. Apparently, it was not for my son but just something she'd picked up.

Earlier in the week I'd needed something for my cup, so I wrote part of an Emily Dickinson poem:
HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all!!!

If she'd had the Metro pass, could have used that to ride free to Universal. I don't suppose that she could grab a handful of them???

They had a note on the board at work to let them know if anyone is interested in a permanent Saturday shift. Oh yea, I am interested!!! Saturday shift means you get Fridays off, and the shift is from 6:30 to 3:15, so you've still got some Saturday left. If you don't fall asleep after work. It also means a little more gravy in your paycheck. Now, there's something to hope for!!!

I know there is more random, because I had a thing or two that got left off the last random!!! The hour grows late...

Fire

Perhaps you heard of the fire that was burning today in Griffith Park.



Or maybe not, I know the one that was up by the Hollywood sign got a lot of coverage.



Anyway, it's not too far from my home, and on my way home tonight I took these shots.



They say that it is contained, but still...


Worrisome.