Goblin Mail Fail

I'm SO far behind on making posts, I thought I'd start small with a little cupdate. Some background is in order, so here goes...



I don't know if I ever made mention here or not, but in any case, I shall write of it now. A while ago at work, they implemented a change, where they have four fillers not in the number (i.e., assigned to a specific printer), but instead are what they have termed "time fillers". Now, the regular fillers can set aside any documents that weigh more than 40 pounds, require cutting of material, or is a count of 100 touches or more. Surprisingly, our numbers are up since these changes. The original way it was done was to have one time filler on each floor for the blue bins, and one time filler for both floors of the red bins. This created something of an imbalance, as some floors would have nothing, and others would have several. A month or so ago, they gave all the time fillers radios and had them dispatched by one of the supervisors to where to fill. Two weeks back, they changed that to an E-mail system, accessible at all our terminals, so when you get a time fill, it generates a message from that printer. Therefore, all day long, the printers are popping up the message, "You've got mail".

Stream of consciousness, while playing Runescape, one of the items sometimes dropped by a killed goblin is goblin mail. Every time I'd see the "You've got mail" message, I would think, "You've got goblin Mail", so I put this on the side of my cup!!!

Something I discovered about Baby is that when the trunk is open, there is a nice area just the size of one of my cups at the top edge, and makes a great place to set it while unloading. Of course, you should always try and remember that you've set it there. Before I was able to get a picture of this cup, I forgot to remove it before shutting the trunk lid.

I've made mention before of my fondness for LOLcats, and another affiliated website that I will sometimes visit is FailBlog. So, here you have it: Goblin Mail Fail!!!

Speaking of Baby, my last tank (well, I've actually got one fill up since this, but that will follow) took 10.2 gallons for 307.8 miles, for a very nice average of 30.18 MPG. I replaced the air filter halfway through this tank, and it seems to have done some good. Incidentally, this fill up takes it to exactly 100 gallons bought, and 2964.3 miles travelled, for a lifetime average of 29.46 MPG.

Looks Like...

Here's something I happened upon. This site has a program that takes a photo of yourself, and compares it to celebrities. The first one I tried with my current, fuzzy face, and it had Harrison Ford, Carey Grant, Gary Cooper and David Spade featured, among others. I tried an older photo, and the coolest thing about it to me was that it had Laurance Fishburne as Morpheus in it!!! I have no idea who V.S. Naipul is... if only there were some worldwide database that could be easily accessed that had information about everything!!!

The site, if you are interested, is My Heritage. You'll have to sign up to do it, but it's pretty easy. I had to look around a bit to find the celebrity look alike tool.

Scary Decorations

How I used my last vacation day!!! I took the Monday after Halloween off, and took the boys (who had that day off from school) to Universal Studios.

The older boy and I had just been there on Saturday, and they had a lot of the scary decorations up still. He said that I needed to bring my camera with me when we came back. Look who we saw there!!! Beetlejuice, the ghost with the most!!! Later on, by Jurassic Park, we saw him walking and carrying on a conversation with the mummy. Totally candid, who knew they hang out together???

Marylin was there, too. We actually saw more characters there this time than any other, I think. When we first got in there, we encountered a living statue guy. No pictures, but I did get a little video clip of him. Doc Emmit Brown from Back to the Future was driving a Segue around the park.






On the Saturday before, the boy and I stopped at Philippe's near Union Station for dinner. We ended up waiting half an hour in line, but it was worth it. A lot of fans from the SC game showed up there, I didn't know that was a thing for them.






Some of the various decorations.

There were skeleton solders up on the military vehicle. Many other ghouls and corpses all around the park.

In the airplane wreckage from War of the Worlds, they had set up many bloody bodies.



I think I made mention in one of the previous visits, they've Incorporated Norman into the Bates Motel set there. He spots the tram, and advances on it with his knife. The last shot had some guy's head in the way when he was close, but it actually came out pretty cool, with him peering around him!!!



Yesterday I bought another tank of gas for Baby. I hadn't updated since last time, which was a new low of 26.67 MPG (which, honestly, is still pretty darn decent). My wife drove her three days on that tank, which was soon after getting Janice back on the road. All her drive, while about 1/4 the distance, is city driving. Add in at least one day being stuck in a bad traffic jam and it all adds up. This tank was back on track, netting 30.51 MPG. Over the weekend I gave her her first oil change (mental note: buy a strap wrench for doing that, none of my filter wrenches worked well at all for it) and checked the tire pressures. The tires were all pretty low, so this should help quite a bit. Once all these fires are cleared up, I'll probably change out the ash-laden air filter. Coming up for the Thanksgiving weekend, we've got a fairly sizable road trip coming up, should be a good test.

One of the Stupidest Things I've Seen

Oh, SO many things have happened!!! I've got four more cup pictures that I may or may not post, I've gassed up Baby again (who direly needs a bath, but small amounts of intermittent random rain have made that seem like a bad idea) and a lot more pictures I need to get off my cameras (video and still), but I'm going to share this one.

Weekend before last, my wife and I decided to see if we could possibly hit the Wicked lottery again, TWICE, and take both the boys. If not, we'd go on (just a ways up the tracks) to Universal Studios. We got there, and all put our names in. My wife told me later that when she saw our younger putting the first letter of his name on the slip, she knew he was going to get drawn. He did, and we bought two tickets on his draw, and waited to see if another name would come up. Another of the entrants had only wanted a single ticket, so at the end they were drawing for a solo seat. I think it was my wife's name that came up for that, and I was thinking of sending the other boy, but since the seats were split up, we decided not to. Besides, the older boy had already expressed interest in going to Universal instead. Momma and the younger stayed for the show, and we headed on. One of my friends from work also showed up with her girlfriend for the drawing.

Up the tracks we headed, and spent a fair amount of time at Universal. Being it was the first of November, a lot of the scary decorations were still up. Of course, I was prepared for the theatre, and didn't have my camera. It rained on us, we rode the Jurassic Park ride several times (in honor of Michael Criteon's impending death???) and the Mummy coaster more than a few, too. At the end of the day, we lined up for the Simpsons ride, which always has the largest line. Getting on, we were in the front of the car, and there was some commotion and confusion with the loading of the back seats. I thought nothing of it.

Very shortly after the attendant left the room, there's more commotion from the back seats. I look around, and one of the girls back there is all twisted with her leg wedged funny under the safety bar. The other girls back there are calling out for the attendant. We all start calling out, but no one is coming. I'd thought she'd gotten pinned under it wrong when it closed, but she was trying to get out from under the bar, and she did before the ride got underway!!!



We all told her just to hold on and stay down. She laid down across the back seats, and was that way throughout the ride. I have no idea what her deal was, if she was claustrophobic, foreign and didn't understand what was going on, or whacked out on goofballs, but it was about the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Probably made more so by the fact that it seems there is no monitoring of the ride while it is in progress.

Afterward, we viewed the on-ride photo previews (first time we've ever even looked at them, the kiosks are usually too crowded to bother with), and the girl who's lap she had her legs on joined us. I'd thought the whole back seat was together, but that was not the case. She said she was holding her hand and telling her "you're all right!!!" for the whole ride. Said her heart was going like crazy, and she didn't know if she was having a heart attack, but she was screaming and laughing the whole ride. Nice shot of the backs of our heads, huh??? The picture is at the very end of the ride, when it's pretty much stopped. They had an option to E-mail the picture for $5, and I figured since I'd spent $50 for a play already that day, and not a lot else (besides train fare) all day, I'd go for it.

I had to schedule my last vacation day, so I had chosen the following Monday, since the boys were off school that day, and we went back again. That's what most of the photos I've yet to take off my camera are of, but that will be at another time, if there's anything worth posting!!!

Quad CupDate, Part I

Time for some serious cupDating, the first one here came out quite a while ago. It has gone on from there!!!



One day I had my cup, and one of the girls I work with (but not very often: she's almost always on the 3rd level, but happened to have a half hour float on the first floor with me. They call her "Cool Whip", cuz she's "always on top". Get it???) started this drawing on my cup. A plausible drawing of a hula dancer holding a pineapple. It was all in red pen, and I later added in the green on her skirt, and the pineapple stem. She'd never gotten to the head, either, which I later added. I had specific ideas for how her face was going to go, but I did happen to be working, and by the time I got a look, one of the guys on the printer I was on had given her eyes and a mouth. Pretty nice, for a collaborative effort!!!



A few weeks later, I happened to have a bit of extra time between fills, and began the hula girl again. I had started with the skirt, and was going to make her a hippy girl. I remember back when Lilo and Stitch was coming out, how they were saying they were drawing the girls with wide hips, like the true islander girls have, and I thought what a great message that sent. So, that stuck with me. I added in the rest of her upper body, but I think I drew her too short. Oh well, just tell yourself that the skirt is kind of billowed out, cuz I didn't want her quite THAT hippy!!!

More to follow... Down there \/ \/ \/ ... I'm attempting a two part, in sequence but posted in opposite sequence post... In honor of the time change... Wish me luck with that...

Haha, my word ver is "CUPPA"!!!

Quad CupDate, Part II

I did this drawing on my cup around the middle of last week. It was a rip off of the artwork from one of my son's games, Portal. Not bad, considering it was from memory.



The funny part was when I came back to the printer, and everyone (middle shift included, even though it was already their time to go home) gathered around. One of the girls says to the others say, "There's Mr. 512, ask him what it's supposed to be." They did, they were thinking, "Beware of Manhole", "Man Going Down", "Man in the Hole", "I'm outta here" for possible meanings. I asked them if they'd heard of the video game Portal, and most of 'em had not (one guy had, his geek cred has been duly increased in my estimation), and I explained.



I noticed when I got home that I'd drawn Portal Dude mirrored to what the actual artwork is. My dyslexia rocks!!!



After my last couple of cup drawings, last Friday turned out to be incredibly slow for the last part. One cup, but two different drawings on this one. One side, the one I started out on, I drew the portal exit over a desert island. On the reverse side, I did the portal dude once again (again, mirrored, w00t!!!), only this time adorned with a grass skirt and a lei!!!



No one had to ask the meaning of this one!!!

Trick or Treat!!!

Happy Halloween!!!



One of the fun things they always do on Runescape is have special events for Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.



This year's event is especially cool, because in addition to the little task to do to get some cool costume, there is a quest you can do, too!!!



I actually have three accounts on Runescape, but usually play with just my main. I've completed the quest with my second, Newt One Eye (so named because there is one quest that you need to get an eye of newt for. I thought it was clever.), and am part way through with my main and third character.



The top picture in the black robes and hood is my third, Walter O'dim (AKA Randall Flagg or The Walkin' Dude, from several Stephen King stories). The hood was last year's item, and it completes his costume very nicely!!! He's with my younger boy, helping him on the quest. The zombie mask is on my main character, a random event item.



The pumpkin head mask is from two years ago, and it also came with a skeleton costume, too. I don't have a picture of it, but I've got a chicken costume for Newt, an Easter item.

Don't you think the witches this year are kind of cute??? Hey, are you a good witch, or a bad witch???

SPUNKY!!!

This is always a treat!!! Most every time I visit my parents' house, if I'm outside for any lenght of time, this guy will pay me a visit. This handsome beast is named Spunky.



He's quite vocal, and will walk right up to you meowing loudly. He'll carry on a conversation with you, and if you pet him, he'll almost always start rolling around on his back. He's awesome!!!



The bliss of a belly rub!!! He'll usually hang around as long as you keep giving him attention. He'll also show up outside the side or back door to my parents' house at night calling for attention.

Miller's Angels

Miller's angels in black and white
Welcome everyone in
Children dreaming of wrong and right
Wrapped in grace and in sin

They come out of the blue sky
They come out of the blue
They come out of the blue sky
But you never know where they're gonna go
Hey Romeo

Miller's fingers are traveling down the length of her thigh
But Miller's mind is still wandering
Staring up at the sky

They come out of the blue sky
They come out of the blue
They come out of the blue sky
But you never know where they're gonna go
Hey Romeo
Oh you never know, where they're gonna go
Hey Romeo

Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't come around
Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't come around
Please don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't come around

Miller's angels are hovering in between the earth and the sun
In the shadow of God's unwavering love
I am a fortunate son

They come out of the blue sky
They come out of the blue
They come out of the blue sky
But you never know
Where they gonna go
Hey Romeo
No, you never know, where they gonna go
Hey, Hey Romeo
No, oh no you never know, where you gonna go
Hey Romeo

Can't you hear me? Cause I'm screamin'
I did not go outside yesterday
Don't wake me please
Don't wake me, cause I was dreamin'
And I might just stay inside
I don't go out much these days
Sometimes I stay inside all day

Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me alone
Won't you leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me alone
Just leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me alone
Won't you leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me alone
Won't you leave me alone

When I first heard this song, this was the kind of thing I first envisioned Miller's Angels as, a squadron of WWI biplanes, kind of like an old school version of the Blue Angels. Adam's own words regarding this song, "What if there were angels, but instead of being benevolent, they were ambivalent, just there to do a job and hang between God and us or whatever? And they just hang there and wait 'til it's time to go pluck you off. And what if you couldn't stop thinking about it?"

I did this drawing up a couple of weeks ago on a rather slow (for a change) Friday. Finally, I get to CupDate you all with this!!! Oh, and this week is spirit week at the boys' school, and tomorrow is "Black and White" day.

Good Enough?

I'm not sure if it's everything it could be or not, but it seems to work!!! Here's the completion of the vacuum valve system I've rigged up for the Mercedes. A couple weekends ago I mounted the dump valve I'd mentioned, and had been planning on taking a couple of pictures to post here, but had left my camera out of the camera bag!!! As you can see, the dump valve switch came out SLICK!!! I realized that the throttle had a cam plate which has the perfect bump at the end of it to activate the switch if it's mounted correctly. It was a bit tricky to do, and took about three times as long as it should have. That same day I'd also made up a clamp to hold the bleed valve, and was planning to weld it to a plate to bolt onto the engine, but never made it that far.



Yesterday I went down there to finalize that portion. I couldn't find a good piece to weld it to, but at some point I realize that all I'd have to do would be to weld it to the throttle cable mount. I did that, and was fairly pleased with the results. That would be the valve connected to the double bent linkage. I am going to get some "exhaust mufflers" (little threaded air fittings with porous ends on them for pneumatic systems) for the open ports on the valves to keep them from sucking in debris, and possibly to smooth out the vacuum signal.



I liked the third shot here, the sun glinting off the valve in the afternoon sunlight made it appear golden. The function of everything seems to work well enough, but I still can't discern if it makes it into 4th gear at highway speeds. Some tweaking may still be in the future.



Here's one other thing I did, I made up a spring loaded bumper to help pop the hood open. I am planning on one for each side, but they keep sending me one with the wrong threads on it. On Friday at work, I went to take a look at the bin box containing them to see if there were several mixed material in there, but the forward location was absent. I looked it up, and it was "in transit", with a document pending. I'm suspecting that means that the ICG or checking is finally dealing with this situation. I guess better me than an actual paying customer. ANyway, even with only one rigged up, it cured all the hood opening difficulties I'd been having.

Now, for the fun stuff: Bought gas for Baby again, this time a little short of an empty tank. I've noticed that the gauge moves to only about 3/4 tank for the first 100 miles, is still a hair over half full at 200 miles, and drops quickly from there. This time I travelled 266.7 miles on 9.27 gallons, for an average of 28.77 MPG for this tank, the second lowest number I've had since I got it. I attribute this to my wife taking the boy to a doctor's appointment on mostly surface streets, and being caught in a couple of nasty traffic jams. Nice, however, is that this is the first tank I've ever bought for her that has been under $3 a gallon!!! Lifetime average of 29.47 MPG. Heck, I'd be perfectly happy if better than 28.5 every time was all I ever got!!! Once I've begun to drive Janice again, I'll have to repair the odometer to determine the mileage that she gets. I've found tutorials for doing this, and it looks rather easy, if not time consuming. I notice that diesel fuel is finally falling in line with reality, only ten cents a gallon more than regular gasoline. Good times!!!

Lights, Coming and Going

A little of what I did over the weekend here, as well as a pretense to post my latest mileage results!!! I'm not sure if I'd made mention here before, but the factory driving lights weren't working. I had checked the fuse, and it was OK. A week or so ago when I'd gotten to work early, I managed to remove the console cover that the switch is on top of, and the plug for it was disconnected!!! Not only disconnected, but trapped behind the radio. This weekend I finally made time to pull the radio out and get the plug attached. That's all it took!!!

If you look closely in the picture of the lights going, you can see a bit of the tint strip that I took her back to the tint shop to have added last weekend. I'd forgotten to have them do that when I was having the windows done, and probably just as well being as they took forever. I don't know why so many new cars don't have the tint on the top of the front windshield like they used to all have, especially when the sun visors are usually inadequate.



While I was at it, I cut a cardboard template for the radio so when I get a chance I can make one up to fill the space and accept the radio that I had in the Storm. Cutting cardboard made me remember the third brake light I'd put in the Comet I used to have. Between the light reflector and the lens, I made up a cardboard cut out with two slanty cat eyes. It looked pretty cool when you'd hit the brakes. I pulled the third light (which I'd never taken a good look at before) and made up a similar design. However, the lens is very short, but pretty wide. The design I did isn't quite as cool as the one I had on the Comet, but it's still better than stock. I also discovered that only one of the three light bulbs for it was working, so I got the other two replaced while I had it apart. The three light design actually came out pretty cool with my eyeball template, makes it look a bit like a pupil in the middle of each eye!!!


A pretty decent return on the latest tank. I travelled 301.5 miles on 10.15 gallons, for 29.7 MPG, and a lifetime average of 29.58 MPG.

I Shall Call it Ronald

Here's the story I teased a couple of posts ago.



Something new they're doing at my work, on the second floor of the bins, in the blue bins only. They say its experimental at this point, but with a few minor adjustments I foresee it happening for the whole department. They've given us ray guns!!! They're pretty cool. Instead of doing a "batch" of several documents containing 5 to 8 lines to fill for every filler every five minutes, they've switched to doing on big slew of lines every five minutes, and letting the fillers take what they think they can fill.



Each document has a little bar code on the bottom, and you scan it with your ray gun before filling it. This works out good, because if you take a document that you know is going to take more time, you can take less than you normally would. If you take one that turns out to have a difficult fill, you don't need to stress about another batch coming out in a couple minutes, and let the rest of the crew pick up the slack. They say our productivity in that area has increased. I don't know how they can say that, because we always pretty much fill all the orders that come in every day. How can productivity be up if we don't have more orders??? That part I don't understand.

The guns are pretty cool, though. They are wireless, lightweight and nicely designed. They use a small rechargeable battery pack that goes in like a magazine. Lock and load!!! The beam it shoots is a horizontal red beam, and after it registers, it not only beeps, but it shoots a green dot beneath the red beam, and the back bottom and top glow green. If it does a read that doesn't transmit, it makes an electronic donkey "hee haw" sound effect. The supervisors assure us that they store the information and transmit it once they've got reception, but we're all a little iffy about whether that actually works. One of the girls was saying they should issue us shoulder bar codes, and if you can zap a fellow filler on the move you get extra points. I like that idea!!! In the future, they plan on implementing a system where the totes we send down the line will have bar codes on them, and after filling an order, you scan the large bar code on the document, then the tote and send it on it's way. It will know where to go. Amazing.

Naked News

I have much within me, I could probably go random easily, but I think I'll just stick to two topics. Oh yea, if you don't know, there is a website out there with the same name as the title of this post. This is mostly unrelated.

This was a story on the news last night. They had video of of a car chase, with the car driving at high rates of speed with no lights on. At the end, the driver loses control and crashes, rolling the car several times, whereupon the police discover that she is naked. Insert "driving without headlights" punchline here. I've been trying to find out more information on this story, and so far, it's just not out there. There were several discrepancies in the story as I've gone through, too.

The pursuit began in Pasadena, and the helicopter reporter had been saying that it ended on the 5 freeway just before the 110. That is very near my home, and I would have gone and seen myself if I had known, but I didn't hear any helicopters all night. Turns out it wasn't the 110, but either the 170 or the 210, depending on the source. Either of those makes more sense.

What precipitated the chase??? The audio on one of the video clips I've found has the helicopter pilot on the line with Pasadena PD, and the story he came back with was that she had broken into a property, and as she was leaving ran over a motorcycle (hopefully just a parked motorcycle!!!) The much more prevalent story, however, was that she was vandalizing a car. No matter the case, my question, was she naked when committing the original crime??? If so, and the crime was the latter, what kind of vandalizing was she doing??? Is that a euphemism??? If not, how talented is she to be able to drive at that speed and strip naked???

Something I only heard one time, on the television broadcast, was that she threw her purse out of the car during the pursuit.

I heard the car described as a 4 door Acura. The only way they could have gotten that any more wrong was to say that it was painted black.



For such a titillating story, it seems to be near impossible to find any pictures or revealing video to answer the question, is she anyone that you would want to see naked??? I found this picture on one website, but it doesn't say if it's really her or just a stock photo. Looks like what little you can see from the video capture I got.




I once again bought gas for Baby today. That second half of the tank always goes so quick!!! This time, I travelled 301.6 miles on 10.41 gallons, for an average of 28.94 MPG. By my calculations, that puts my average at 29.55 MPG. Still pleasing. Did I make mention that the factory driving lights weren't working??? Can't remember, but two weekends ago, I checked the fuses and found them to be fine. The other day I pulled the cover off the console (which is where the switch for the rear defroster and driving lights are, go figure) and sure enough, the plug to the back of those switches was disconnected, and lodged behind the radio. Looks like only a few screws to get that free, maybe tomorrow. But for now, I must get to bed. Recharge the super zapper.

The Observer

More instant blogging!!! Here's a test I took, only two questions, and I think it got a bullseye!!! I'd never heard of an Enneagram before, but now I'm fascinated.

I'd been thinking of doing a post about the ray guns they've got at work now. They're pretty cool, but it's late so this instant blogging will have to suffice. Likely I'll do that tomorrow, along with another mileage update.

Without further adieu, here's my test results:

5 - The Observer

you chose BZ - your Enneagram type is FIVE (aka "The Thinker").

"I need to understand the world"
Observers have a need for knowledge and are introverted, curious, analytical, and insightful.

How to Get Along with Me

Be independent, not clingy.
Speak in a straightforward and brief manner.
I need time alone to process my feelings and thoughts.
Remember that If I seem aloof, distant, or arrogant, it may be that I am feeling uncomfortable.
Make me feel welcome, but not too intensely, or I might doubt your sincerity.
If I become irritated when I have to repeat things, it may be because it was such an effort to get my thoughts out in the first place.
don't come on like a bulldozer.
Help me to avoid my pet peeves: big parties, other people's loud music, overdone emotions, and intrusions on my privacy.

What I Like About Being a FIVE

standing back and viewing life objectively
coming to a thorough understanding; perceiving causes and effects
my sense of integrity: doing what I think is right and not being influenced by social pressure
not being caught up in material possessions and status
being calm in a crisis

What's Hard About Being a FIVE

being slow to put my knowledge and insights out in the world
feeling bad when I act defensive or like a know-it-all
being pressured to be with people when I don't want to be
watching others with better social skills, but less intelligence or technical skill, do better professionally

FIVEs as Children Often

spend a lot of time alone reading, making collections, and so on
have a few special friends rather than many
are very bright and curious and do well in school
have independent minds and often question their parents and teachers
watch events from a detached point of view, gathering information
assume a poker face in order not to look afraid
are sensitive; avoid interpersonal conflict
feel intruded upon and controlled and/or ignored and neglected

FIVEs as Parents

are often kind, perceptive, and devoted
are sometimes authoritarian and demanding
may expect more intellectual achievement than is developmentally appropriate
may be intolerant of their children expressing strong emotions

Take the test!!!

Reptiles Abound

I bought the fourth track able tank of gas for Baby tonight. It was the farthest I've travelled on a single tank thus far, 326.7 miles. The first time I needed to purchase gas for her, going down the hill it was giving the only low fuel warning I've had. Anyway, I bought more gas than ever before, 10.41 gallons, for a total of 31.38 MPG for this tank. If you're paying attention, this would be the best mileage so far, and drags my running average up to 29.62 MPG. Not bad at all!!!



And now, for a little story I thought I'd share. I don't recall what made me remember what made me think of it, but it came to memory last night for some reason.

Several years ago, my brother in law had a couple of cool things. One was a Jeep CJ-7, and the other was a pet Rosy Boa snake, who my wife had named Rhoda. One summer afternoon, he and my wife and I decided to go to Tommy Burger in Long Beach for some lunch. As it was quite warm out, we decided to take his Jeep, since he had the hard top and doors all stripped off for the warm weather. The Tommy Burger has nothing but outdoor seating, also perfect for summertime dining. When we got there, we laid the quite relaxed Rhoda on the dashboard to sun while we dined.

We didn't pay a lot of attention to her, which turned out to not be a great idea. When we returned to the Jeep, she was nowhere to be seen. A little bit of looking around revealed that she'd gotten up underneath the dash board. Too high to be easily reached, but nowhere near the steering or pedals, so we drove back to my parents house (where he was renting a room at the time) to see if we could get her out there, or remove parts to gain better access. He went to work on it while we did whatever it was we'd come over to do. She continued to slither farther up into the dashboard. At some point, he gave up and put the doors back on, hoping to contain her within the Jeep until she decided to come down on her own accord.

Sometime that afternoon, my older sister stopped by in her convertible Mustang. Later that evening, after we'd gone home, I get a frantic call from her. "Rhoda is here!!! She's slithering out from my car!!! Call up Scott and get him over here to get his snake!!!" She's freaking out. I found this remarkable, but agreed to give him a call and let him know. I called him up, "Hey Scott!!! Your snake is crawling out from my sister's car!!!" His response was predictable: "Nu uh!!! She is not!!!" Eventually I was able to convince him, and he retrieved Rhoda.

A Million Things Run Through My Mind

This could be a random post, for the small bits of various things I've got going on. Or I could just focus on what all the pictures are about. Probably a touch of both. Halfway through edit of the opening paragraph: Make that the first four pictures, if you get tired of reading about my fabrication, scroll down for random.



I did the sketch at the top on Friday at work. It's for the vacuum bleed valve assembly I'm rigging up for Janice. The next picture shows it's current incarnation. You can see how I've welded the arm onto a shaft collar, and hooked it into the throttle linkage. For testing purposes, I used a little C clamp to hold it in place. Nice thing about the shaft collar set up, all you have to do to adjust the initial static position is loosen the allen bolt.



The next two pictures are of the action. I'm holding it at full throttle (full fuel??? Not really throttle on a diesel) and in the other one, it's at the idle position. Seems to work pretty good, for the most part. I'd like it to open a little bit slower, it tends to drop the vacuum signal rather suddenly, and I'd like it to open a little farther at the end, as it doesn't make it all the way to zero vacuum. Other than that, it works great. The position of the original valve is mounted on the injector pump on the side of the engine, with a teeter totter type linkage running it. Of course, the first thought was to keep the needle valve somewhere in that area, but I realized I'd have to do something to flip it around the opposite way, because the linkage would want to close rather than open it. If you look at my sketch, you may notice that I put the L pivot part backwards, where I'd be doing exactly that, too.



However, the modification that I've incorporated in the sketch is what it was about, the means to get it there is just in the details. I can vary the open-close speed ratio by going nearer or farther from the pivot. The idea I had was to put a simple spring loaded dump valve on a T into the same vacuum tube, and position it to where the linkage would activate it at the near full throttle position, dropping it to zero vacuum. It might just be crazy enough to work!!!

Indeed, I had planned to work on at least fabricating a more permanent mount for the needle valve today. We went down to Long Beach to visit with my parents and niece and nephew, as well as work on that. On the way, I dropped off Baby at a tint shop to have the windows re-done. Same place that did the tint on my dad's Studebaker not too long ago. We visited for a while, then all got in the pool (it may be the last time this year of 90°+ water for the year, even though we're in a bit of a nice Indian Summer right now) and the next thing I knew it was almost 4:30 and the tint shop closes at 5!!! My dad drove me back there and dropped me off. I could tell the guy wasn't done, and the proprietor told me it'd be another 20 minutes. Turned out to be about three times that long. I wasn't amused, but the guy knocked a lousy three dollars off the price as I was peeling off my cash. Ironically, that took it to exactly the same amount as I'd gotten for the scrapping of the Storm!!!

Needless to say, by the time I was back from there, there was no time to do any actual work on Janice. At least I got a few pictures to help me envision the mounts and assembly.

The expansion of the bins is nearing completion. They've got an expansion crew moving stuff into the third level of the red bins, and they've got numbers to the extended rows on the other floors. The old numbers were just white letters applied to the ends of the rows, but these are full circles with black numbers on a white background. I rather like them better!!! Wonder if I could get a couple like this to slap on Baby???

One of the stock keepers saw me doing the sketch, and I had to explain it to him. He looks at me and said, "You're one of those guys who looks like a big dummy, but you're really smart, huh???" One of the other fillers in earshot laughed, and I said that was a rather backhanded compliment. Next time I saw him, I told him, "I'm an electro-mechanical genius, thank you very much!!!" The whole thing was rather amusing.

Now who will take over the salad dressing empire???

A shot from the Las Vegas area at Legoland, the Treasure Island pirate ship battle. Hey, that's right!!! We're supposed to sing about pirate-y things!!!

There's a new guy in the bins who looks quite a bit like Odd Thomas. Can't remember his name, but it's neither Odd nor Thomas. I don't think the lingering dead visit him, either, but if they did I don't suppose that's the kind of thing you'd go telling people. I could picture another Odd Thomas novel set in the bins.

As I was driving into work on Friday, the neighbor at the bottom of the hill was coming out of his garage. The streets are quite narrow, so I had to wait. As I did, I saw a young lady with a backpack on walking down the street, past and beyond us. As we proceeded down the hill, coming around a bend in the road his car was drawing up even with her, and at that instant she was startled. At first I thought it was from the car passing her, but as I rounded the corner I saw what she had seen, a dead raccoon with its mouth open and feet up. Looked almost taxidermied.



I happened on this photo shopped image of Sarah this evening. Even though I know its not real, I rather like it!!!

I loaned Odd Thomas to my mom. She's almost done with it, and likes it so far. Now I'm going to have to dig out the next one!!!

And I never hoist the mainstay and I never swab the poop deck, and I never veer to starboard 'cuz I never sail at all, and I've never walked the gang plank and I've never owned a parrot, and I've never been to Boston in the fall.

Which Lolcat Are You???

Surprise Adoption Cat




50% Affectionate, 55% Excitable, 49% Hungry


Calloused. Heartless. Exuberant. You carry the heavy burden of informing children that they are adopted by jumping out of their birthday cake. A difficult task, but somebody must break the news to children on their only day of happiness.

Take this test!!!

I do love the LOLcats!!!





I took this test last night. Today at work I had a chance to put the likeness (my likeness???) of Surprise Adoption Cat on my cup. Strangely enough, it rather looks like in my drawing that the cat is coming out of a hat. Of course, after I drew that, I had to explain what that was all about to some co-workers!!! Good times!!!