I Always Sign Your Name

It's been a non-summer

2010-08-20T11:10:00.002-05:00

We didn't plan a family vacation this summer. The oldest scored a college summer school scholarship. The youngest, we were thinking she would need to repeat some high school classes. When we finally planned a couples-get-away, then I managed to mess up my back! We had to forget the trip. Now, we are a few days away from moving eldest back to the dorm, public schools starting up, and the heat of Texas in August. Maybe later in the fall......

New used car

2010-04-30T10:16:00.006-05:00

I've been driving my 1999 F250 Super Duty truck since May of 1998. Ford did some introduced-half-a-year-early that year. It served us for 12 years and 180,000 miles. We are keeping it to move kids to college, haul junk with, tow trailers with and such.
But if I kept driving it another year, it would be over 200,000 miles. It's also expensive to operate. 14 quart oil changes, $10 oil filters. And I do it myself and it still cost $45 every 3000 miles. Then the cost of diesel fuel is about 30 cents higher than regular gasoline. So this past winter I started shopping. I noticed a used Mustang convertible on a dealer lot. It was still there several months later. I'd spent that time shopping other cars, test driving my parents old Honda. Which they traded in on a 2006 Solara convertible.
One Friday morning, I told the wife that I was ready to buy. Her only reply was "not that convertible". That's like throwing the red flag in front of the bull.
I got it at a great price. Considering that it only has 15000 miles on it, is Ford Certified, which means it has a full factory warranty for 4 more years and up to 100,000 miles. It's also a blast to drive.
Wife drove up the day I brought it home and thought I was playing one of my tricks on her. Until she saw our checking account! I'd paid cash up front.
We took the car with the top down to dinner that evening and then on for our Hot-Date-Friday-At-Wal*Mart. Funny, the next week, I was getting into her 2008 red Corolla for HDFAWM, and she grinned and said "let's take the Mustang again".
She then proceeded to liken the interior "mood" light, to a Lava Lamp.

You know you've been checking out car lots when your truck is in a Craigslist Ad for one of the local dealers!! The F250 Crew was me driving by checking out the Mustang they were photographing.

And here is our "Ford Family Photo". clockwise from the green car.

Green 1969 Mustang Coupe. Dad bought it in 1971. I learned to drive on it.
Orange 1970 Mustang Mach 1, 428 Cubic Inch Cobra Jet with Ram Air. One of the last of the Muscle cars. The thing is brutal to drive. I bought in in 1991 as a non-running basket case.
Red, 2008 Mustang GT convertible. My new daily driver.
Green 1999 F250 Super Duty crew cab. retired to occasional use.
And the enclosed trailer and the flat bed trailer. For hauling junk around.

In search of the Holy Windshield wipers

2010-03-20T22:34:00.004-05:00

I replace our windshield wipers blades every fall. That way they are in great shape for winter and our rainy spring. They then get cooked in the heat of a Texas summer. This past October, I went to purchase some from our local O’Reilly. They didn’t have the replacement blades and convinced me to buy entire arm replacements. And then convinced me that I needed the new, improved, Aero, dynamic tension (sounds like a line from Rocky Horror Picture Show), blades.

Within about a month, those suckers started streaking worse than the pair they had replaced!

So this Saturday, with a cold front in, rain, snow, I decided to try NAPA for replacement blades and not entire arms. I took my two old pairs with me. NAPA told me they didn’t have the replacements. I decided to try a different O’Reilly. That’s when the conversation got surreal.

Him: “Can I help you?”
Me: “I’d like to buy replacement inserts for either of these pairs of windshield blades” (I had the original Ford blades and a set of Anco’s that had been on it for years.
H: “I don’t think we will have them. You have to buy the whole arm”
M: “I did buy the whole arm from your other store. They are three months old and streaking already”
H: “That’s just the way it is in Texas”.
M: “…….in the summer, sure…not in the winter”
H: “why do you want to replace them?”
M: “I told you, they are streaking and they are only four months old”
H: “So you”
M: “Look. I wish to purchase replacement inserts. If you don’t have them, fine, I’ll try your competion”
H: “I’ll look”

LO AND BEHOLD, he found the holy grail! The $20 “blades” that lasted one month and started streaking, have been replaced with Inserts that only cost $6.

Another racket.

Orienteering and Old Cars

2010-03-04T11:41:00.003-06:00

It's been a hectic month. Classes and new projects at work. Orienteering two days in Athens Texas. Mr. G and I are course setters and meet directors at the next North Texas Orienteering Association Dillo-Goat. It is in LBJ National Grasslands, which is mostly forest and hiking/horseback riding trails. We were up there about three days over a two week period. Even in the snow!
There was even a fire north of us in the grass lands. Someone must have been cold in the snow.
We also got the truck stuck in the mud after the snowfall.

Then the old 1969 Mustang decided to give me some trouble starting one day after I'd already driven it about ten miles. When I got home, I took off the air cleaner and found lots of leaking fuel. The carburetor gaskets had given out. I got a rebuild kit and rebuilt it. But it still doesn't run correctly. I traced down 41 year old vacuum hoses were all leaking. Replaced those. The battery cable broke. Replaced all those. The spark plugs were old and fouled. Replaced those. It was funny but except for the carb kit and the battery cables, I had the parts "on the shelf" already!
It still isn't running right. It seems to have developed a vacuum leak, which must be in the carb. I've disabled the choke, since it didn't work anyway. And now have plugged the air passages to the choke. I'll see if that helps.

We are such geeks

2010-02-09T21:12:00.003-06:00

I'm taking a class at work. My old Dell laptop, which is up for replacement in four more months, doesn't have enough horse-power to run the labs in the class. I emailed my boss. He told me to come get one of the new laptops. We'd then reformat my old one and hand-it-down to the next contractor. So in the middle of the class, I'm dashing back and forth working on copying over all data and applications from my old laptop to the new one. Missing the labs in the class, but oh well. Tonight, I brought home both laptops and fired them up next to each other. There were still a few files to copy, IE Favorites, emails and such.
I took the above photo of our table with side-by-side laptops, flash drives, IPODS charging.
I then took a photo of four feet away, where the home PC is, the wifes work PC also.
I didn't both to then turn around and take ANOTHER photo of another desktop and old laptop we rarely use. I didn't take a photo of the college daughters room either. With her desktop in it. Which she hardly uses since she got a new MacBook for school.
All told, four laptops and three desktops.

And yes, I use my drummers Roc-N-Soc chair to sit in.

My tires exploded

2010-01-28T13:23:00.003-06:00

About a year ago there were stories in the news about people having old tires on their cars and how the tires age, even when not in use, and become unsafe. I filed it away for forgot about it. About a month back the story was back in the news. I did some research and started attempting to look for DOT date codes on our antique cars.

First car. Our 1969 Mustang coupe. I put four new bias ply tires on it. In about 1984! I remember bias tires were hard to get even then. Radial had taken over. The date codes on these four Goodyear’s, didn’t even have the same format as the write ups for checking tire age. Given they were put on 26 years ago, and might have been two to four years old then, it was time for new shoes! The spare tire in the trunk was also a Smithsonian-worthy relic. It was a “Buccaneer” tire that I think was a gas-station brand. I think my dad put those on around 1974. I was tempted to hit it with a hammer and see if it would shatter.

Second car. Our 1970 Mustang Mach 1. I restored that car in the early 1990’s. The tires on it are Goodyear reproductions of the original bias-ply tires. But this is 2010, so even those tires are 16 years old.
Neither of these cars is driven all that much, maybe 1000 to 2000 miles a year, so the tires never wear out. But they start getting hard, small cracks appear in the treads and such.

So on one of my Car Forums I query about peoples tire age. One guy reported that his 15 year old tires started coming apart at 35 MPH in his neighborhood and he had trouble getting it parked, even at that slow speed. I tend to get mine out on the freeway by us and get up to 70! A tire issue at that speed would mean a crash and possible a totaled antique car. The recommendation on the Mach was to take off the reproduction tires, coat them with a quality rubber protectant and store them under a blanket in a cool and dark place. Use them only for big shows where “original” counts. I took that advice. I purchased four BF Goodrich Radial and four brand new Magnum style rims.

On the coupe, I just purchased five radials. It isn’t shown that much and the original type tires, are not even reproduced.

The most fun was attempting to figure out just what tires would fit these old cars. The coupes original size was “6.95X14”. Those types of specifications were going away in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. The Mach is an example, as the original size is “F70X14”. Except that nomenclature also went away when they went to metric and then P-Metric, and whatever they are at now.

We wound up with a 205X70X14 on the coupe. That is a bit fatter than original, but about the same height as stock. We went with a 235X60X15 on the Mach. Seems to be what most of the Mustang parts houses and individuals get to fit. Those are a bit shorter that stock, but wider also. Plus, they look great.

The top picture is the coupe up on jack stands in our shop. All five wheels were getting new soles.
The bottom photo is the Mach. You can see the original tire still on the car and the new Magnum wheels and tires stacked up awaiting me to switch them out.

Arctic Orienteering

2010-01-11T15:06:00.004-06:00

The North Texas Orienteering Association held the first meet of the new year this past Saturday. Earlier in the week an Arctic cold front moved in. We saw the lowest temperature we’ve seen in thirteen years. Typically at this meet, there would be upwards of 400 people. I’m not sure we had 100. Most of the school districts prohibited outdoor events, so the schools had to cancel.
So at 7:30 AM Saturday, I was picking up Mr. G and Mr.T. No, not that Mr.T.

It was somewhere between 8 and 13 degrees. We loaded up orienteering clothes, warm clothes to change into, multiple coats, lunches and such. We headed north. Yes, North. The orienteering event was held at Camp James Ray Boy Scout ranch near Pottsboro Texas. The camp is just to the south of Lake Texoma on the Texas – Oklahoma border. We were glad that there wasn’t much of a north wind!
We arrived at the camp about 9:15. We headed to a pavilion to use the restroom and checked the temperature. It read 22 degrees, but it was lying. We were surprised the bathroom was open and warm! We ran into the head ranger and he said they had lost power that morning but it was back on. He said he was heading out to see how the campers had fared overnight.
We headed to the old dining hall to see about registering. Usually there is a line for registration. This meet with hardly anyone there, there was zero line. We could have started competition early, but choose 10:15. That would give us time to put on some Arctic clothes and use the restroom one last time before venturing out into the frigid woods.
So at the start it was strangely quiet. Not the normal hoard of people, just a few in each class heading out.
I took my start and took about two hours on the course. I had trouble with only a few of the controls, and not near the trouble I could have had! By about the one-third point, I actually took off my hat. I left my gloves on, as my hands were warm but not hot. I was wearing some cotton Jersey type gloves from the hardware store. I had cut off about half of the left thumb so my thumb compass would fit. I’d also cut off half the left index finger. That way I could feel the map and work the compass.
I got back and Mr G and T were both finishing up their lunches. We were sitting in the scout medical trailer, which was comfortable with coats on. I went ahead and changed into regular non-sweaty clothes. We headed into the dinning hall again and talked with some other people who were thawing out.

But first I took a photo of the frozen BS swimming pool.

About 2 PM, Mr. G asked someone if they might move up the awards from 2:30. They were planning to do that but then asked us if we could help out with retrieving all the orienteering control bags and electronics out in the woods. They usually have a school help out with registration and they also retrieve all the control bags out in the woods. Since there were three of us, they sent us to the farthest control points! We decided to leave right away, as they would just hold any medals we might win for us to return.
We drove out to one point. Then parked my truck at one of the gates and headed off cross country to find the controls and retrieve the equipment. We take a NTOA backpack with us to stash the gear in as we retrieve it.
We hit most of the controls with only small issues. But the fifth point was something! We attempted to follow a fence line, but then failed to find the ruined fence off it that we needed to follow. It took over an hour to find the one point!
By the time we got back, it was 4 PM, the sun was getting awful low on the horizon and the temperature was dropping again. Down in the forest, it never warmed above freezing.

Obama Announces New Stimulus!!

2010-01-07T13:41:00.002-06:00

President Obama announced today that he has signed Stimulus Funding in the amount of $20 Million Tax dollars, funding the use of Doctors of Proctology to be cross trained in airport security.

In related news, by filling out a simply card and attaching a check for $50, the results of your exam can be mailed to you.

Walking

2010-01-03T21:19:00.002-06:00

I walk about three miles, six days a week. Today, I decided to head out to a hiking trail and get a change of view. I usually do our city trails, which winds along under some major power lines, next to soccer fields and such.
So I headed out the Denton County, Old Alton Bridge. You can park there and there is a 2 mile, each way, hiking trail. Off I went. Took me 55 minutes. I jogged some heading back. Some of the trail was thick mud and some water to miss. What was strange was the trail then dead ended into a new major highway they are building in the area.
When I got back to Old Alton, I yelled for the ghost to show himself. The fishermen were not amused. I looked around as another trail is supposed to head south, toward our home. I didn't find it and was loosing daylight. I got in the truck and looped around the lake to where I know the south end of the trail was. It was too dark by then.
Checking the USFS maps, I'm glad I didn't attempt it! They are about eight miles from the Old Alton bridge, to where the park would be! That is a day hike, not the hour I had!

Frustrating day

2009-12-23T19:55:00.002-06:00

It started on Monday. Our internet router, just died. Called up the provider and they 2-day the new router to use.
I connect to the very weak and unsecured connection at our neighbors. The downside is that I can't connect to work over an unsecured connection.
So today is Wednesday. I'd hoped to work from home, but with out a connection, couldn't do. So I go in. I then spend two frustrating hours attempting to connect. They pushed out some new logon script and it hung up my machine. I couldn't connect at all. I called up the help desk, they open a ticket and tell me I'm not alone and that I should try connecting, at work, over the Wi-Fi. I try that and that won't connect either. I call them back and he finds out that my machine wasn't set up to connect to the firewall, wireless, at work! He tells me to just connect to the internet and open a security request.....and. I heard the light bulb light up when he realised that without a connection, I couldn't connect to open the wireless connection request!!
I told the boss I was heading home. At least I'd had my email at home!

Thankfully, the router showed up and I was able to reconnect.

An Al Bundy moment

2009-12-18T11:24:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we had an Al Bundy moment.

I’ve been working from home all week taking an online IBM class. The wife took the kid to high school yesterday. When she arrived back home she mentioned stopping at the local Star Bucks and talking with one of the ministers from our church. I waited for her to finish.

“Where’s my star yucks?” I asked.

“You don’t like Star Bucks” wife responded.

“True. I find it bitter and over priced” I said.
Followed by my Al Bundy moment.

“Just like marriage” I said.

The couch was surprisingly comfortable.

Up-selling idiots

2009-12-15T10:49:00.002-06:00

My eleven year old Ford truck got recalled along with a lot of Fords. The issue is that a cruise control valve can leak some brake fluid and with a spark, have a fire. Ford solution is a fuse-link, which will trip/burn/blow if the short happens. You'd loose your cruise control, but not burn up the car/truck. So I called a local dealer, check the parts are in and they can fix it. They were just great to deal with. I dropped off the truck and they gave me a ride home. A few hours later, they called with the "up sale". What a load. They think we are all idiots. In their attempt to sell me something, they showed that they are the idiots.
My truck has a K&N air filter on it. These are a cotton fabric in a mesh. You CLEAN them about once a year. You spray on their cleaner, wait a bit, gently brush off the gunk, repeat if needed. Once clean, you rinse with some warm water and set it in the sun for a time to dry. You then apply some of their oil to the cotton and put it back in. I even have a big STOP sticker on the air cleaner housing, which states that it is a cleanable filter.
Ford thought it was dirty and needed REPLACED.
Um, now, they always LOOK a bit dirty, when they are doing their job and catching dirt in the reddish oil.
I guess they couldn't read the big sticker saying DO NOT THROW AWAY.
So they then decided to tell me how the connectors for the Air to Air inter cooler (my truck is a turbo diesel, after the intake air is compressed, which heats it, they pass it through a radiator to cool it) were oily and needed replaced. I just said "NO". Seems they didn't think: 1) 1999 (but 11 years old), truck. 2) Diesel 3) Oil leaks after 175000 miles. 4) the Connectors are not the CAUSE of the oil, especially when all that is passing through them is AIR.
They think all customers must be idiots.

Las Vegas bathrooms

2009-11-10T12:46:00.007-06:00

The bathroom at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas was a bit different than the normal places we stay at. It was very nice, but still different.

Case in points.

The bathroom had a tub, two sinks, a stall shower and a separate room for the toilet. In that room was a telephone. I figure that was so you could ring down to the casino cashier and check your winnings. Or call the spa for your afternoon make-over. Or call down to one of the bars and order up someone……….

Next case in point was the shower soap. It had bits of something in it. I tried to figure it out, but never really did. It could have been coconut husk bits. But the soap had no scent to it at all. Perhaps when Grandma was making up that batch of soap she forgot to strain out the bacon bits from the grease. Or the last option was that Tyler Durden made it. You don’t want to think about what those bits of fuzz were.

And the last point was a High Definition TV attached to the wall by the sinks. Dangerous with a razor in your hand and The View on. I wonder how many men have turned that HDTV on while shaving and then were found dead when the maid came by.

Maybe the maids should check twice a day. Once after "The View" and again after Oprah

Leaving Las Vegas

2009-11-03T20:19:00.007-06:00

So last Thursday I got up in Vegas, ate breakfast at the IBM IOD conference, attended the 8:15 AM session and then checked out of the Mandalay Bay and headed to the airport.
It was interesting in that when I left Mandalay, the flight was on time. An hour later, after the taxi ride, the boarding pass mess, the security line, the tram ride, and arrival at Terminal D, the flight went to an hour delayed. Due to weather at DFW airport. So I had nothing to do but email, surf the Internet, eat a Quizno's, and read a book.
Items noted on the airplane.

1) To the lady with the over sized soft sided luggage that looked like a pregnant guppy, no, no way did you fit that into the "check to see if your carry on will fit". You can act all ticked off and all, but all you really did was delay the flight and a hundred people, another 10 minutes while you tried THREE overheads, as if one would magically be large enough to hold that bag. The guy who first pointed out that your guppy bag was five INCHES to wide to fit, was right the first time. No amount of shoving your bag into a Playtex 18 Hour girdle would fix that.

2) As we were waiting to taxi onto the runway I fired up my IPOD. ZZ Top's Viva Las Vegas roared on. Strange.

3) Most everyone was awake going TO Vegas. A third of the plane was snoring on the return flight.

4) Having a Rock and Roll band on the return flight was cool. They were all very polite gentlemen, even with the guppy-bag lady.

Attend a week long IBM seminar

2009-10-29T14:43:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in Las Vegas all week attending the IBM Information On Demand (IOD) conference. I’ll post some other blogs about all the events on this trip. But one person at the conference kept showing up in my sessions. This guy sat in the back and read the newspaper half the time. Rustling his papers and only half paying attention. I wondered what his boss and company would think. They paid IBM about $2000 for him to attend and learn about new technology, they paid his airfare and hotel. He didn’t care. He was too busy reading the paper.

This company needs to find another marketing company

2009-10-13T12:42:00.001-05:00

They are an electrical repair company. They have a crappy jingle, then they add some person who is supposed to represent an electrician. Looks like Farmer Ted to me. Someone needs to switch the farmer's head with the pumpkin.
And then at the very last second of the advertisement, they have a FLASH! Looks like the same electrical shorting flash which would make a homeowner want to hire an electrician! Not AFTER they SHOULD have fixed it!!

My Weekend of unexpected car issues – day 2

2009-10-08T15:13:00.002-05:00

So on Sunday wife and I did church and headed to the grocery store. While on the way I asked her if she also needed to stop at Wally World. There were a few items I needed, truck oil filters and printer cartridges. But we decided not to stop yet. It takes a left turn into and out of the place, through a construction zone. I would return later on, via another road where I can make a protected left and a right turn. So we proceed on to the grocery store and then home. I did a few chores and then decided to head back to Wally World before lunch. I head out and get into my truck. I turn and wait for the diesel “wait to start” light to turn off. I turn the key and am greeted with a slow “rraaaww…rraaawww…CLICK CLICK CLICK”. Yes, dead batteries. The Ford F250 diesel takes two batteries to start it. I get out and get back into the wifes Corolla and head to Wally World.

After I get back I changed into my old work clothes and go out and disconnect both batteries. I then perform a load test on one battery. The load tester basically doesn’t even know it is hooked up to a battery. I try and put my battery charger on it and it won’t register either. That one was DOA. I load test the second and it has about 9 Volts instead of 13. I put it on the charger and then remove the alternator. The last time both batteries had died, it was caused by the alternator failing.

Then I headed inside to grab some lunch. I also called my car buddy again! Daughter and her car were gone. The wife would be leaving to visit her father in Big-D and my other car was sitting inside the trailer with a DOA transmission! My car buddy had some time to spare.

So he picked me up and we decided to go to the O’Reilly’s first and have the alternator tested. It tested DOA also. Twice. Then the parts guy went looking for the part. And looking, and looking. Soon, half the sales people were looking for the part. Their computer showed they should have had two. They couldn’t find even one. So he called his other store and they made sure they had their hand on it! So we headed off to that store and picked up the alternator. $185.

We then headed to the local Firestone. I’d called them up as they were listed as a site for the brand of battery I had and mine were only two years old. We get there and the guy tested both batteries. One was DOA and the other showed “charge me and re-test”. He then said that we’d NEED THE RECEIPT to warrantee or pro-rate the batteries! I’d wished he’d said that before we drove over there! So we head back home. Unfortunately, I only find a receipt showing one battery. And it was for about five months earlier than the punch-out deal on the tops of the batteries. I then remembered what had happened two years back. The alternator went out, but the now-out-of-business-mom-and-pop car parts place and just replaced them for me. No paperwork at all. So we present ourselves back at Firestone with one receipt. The guy who first helped us was GONE TO LUNCH! At 3 PM in the afternoon when they closed in two hours! So the next guy does a “By the book” deal and finally decides that I’m not going to leave until he at least pro-rates the batteries and I get two new batteries. We then repeat the ordeal of Saturday.

Him: “What car are these on?”
Me: “None, the truck is home, dead, awaiting these batteries”
Him: “so you are going to carry these out?”
Me: “sort of. I plan on putting them into the back of my friends truck first”
Him: “what are these from then?”
Me: “OK. Punch in my phone number, xxx-xxx-xxxx. You’ll find that the other guy already has all this in your computer system”
Him: “oh, yeah here it is”

I was about ready to ask him if he needed to know the color of the truck, the one sitting in my driveway with the dead batteries!

But we finally get the two batteries and head home, $118 poorer. That was pretty much a buy-one, get one free deal. Except if they’d used the punch-outs on the batteries, they should have replaced them under warrantee. See the batteries were right at two years old and they are fully replaced in the first two years.

He hadn’t bothered to even look at the punch outs, nor did he bother to punch out the one’s on the new batteries.

I finally get home, after two hours of running around and FOUR trips to three different stores. I put in the new batteries and place them on my chargers. I put on the alternator. Thankfully, it is easy. Release the tension on the serpentine belt. Remove the small wire connector, remove the 10MM bolt for the main wire, remove three 14MM bolts and lift it off. I’d taken it with me, so all I had to do now was put it back on and make sure the serpentine belt went on all the pulleys correctly.

So the uneventful weekend wound up with almost $400 spent for a tire, alternator and two batteries.

I finally finished up and headed for my walk. I got back home just in time to see the Dallas Cowboys, lose another one.

My weekend of unexpected car issues – day one

2009-10-07T15:27:00.002-05:00

So this past weekend I didn’t have a whole lot of items to take care of around the house.
Here it was:
1) check the tire pressures.
2) Change the air filters in the “new” part of the house
3) Get my car friend over and we push my Mustang into the enclosed trailer

Estimated times to completion (ETC)
1) About one hour for the tires (see below)
2) About 10 minutes, start to finish for the filters
3) About 45 minutes from hooking up the trailer, to pushing the car and disconnecting again.

Here is what really happened:
Item one, where I check tire pressures. We have five cars and two trailers. One car was gone. I still checked the tire pressure on the wife’s car (5 tires), my truck (5 more), two Mustangs (8 tires total, I ignored the spare tires), two trailers (8 more) and a spare for the trailers. 27 tires total. But then Saturday afternoon, I remembered that the wife’s car needed the tires rotated. I figured that wouldn’t take long, an hour tops. Except when I got to the left front, there was a hunk of missing rubber! That was not missing that same morning. So at 4 PM I called up Goodyear to check on a replacement tire. Yes, they have one. Then it gets stranger. You see, they have electronic forms to fill out and there must be a LOT of mandatory fields.

“Color” the service writer asks me me.
“Black….oh wait, the CAR or the TIRE I just rolled in here?” He wanted the car color. I guess that makes it easier to find the car when they send the 16 year old kid with the grease on his pants out to find your car.

“How many miles on it?”
“28000, I guess. Remember IT’S AT HOME!”

“So…the car isn’t here?” the service guy asks.
“No. I just took off the tire and brought it in”.

The look on his face was pretty funny. Like he’d never heard of such a thing. What I suspect he was really ticked about was that they couldn’t get grease on the seats, and declare that I’d need a new air filter, or my blinker fluid was low or some other nonsense.

I’ll give them credit, he had the tire on and off the rim in 10 minutes and I was headed back home.
Wife confirmed that she’d smacked a curb up at the drive in bank lane.
So the hour long tire pressure check, became a rotation and a new tire. Two hours and $118 spent!

Item two, where I change air filters. Actually, this was pretty uneventful. Except I totally forgot to do it until about 11 PM Sunday night. I did the filter change in my jammies, but I didn’t flash the butt-crack to anyone. With our new HVAC system, the other major filters are up in the attic now. But you only change or clean them twice a year. Earlier in the week I’d been up there to check them out.

Item three, where we push the Mustang into the trailer. I decided to quit messing around with the transmission repair and just trailer the car down to the transmission shop. So after lunch on Saturday, I called a car buddy and he came over 30 minutes later. That gave me time to hook the truck up to the trailer, get the junk out of the trailer and then move it all and have it ready. My shop is about the highest point on the property, so we had a nice slope to let the car roll down. The only heart stopper, was as I tried to turn the Armstrong-Steering and line up the car to the trailer. Except I wasn’t IN the car! The car rolled a foot up the drop down door on the trailer and slowly rolled back. We’d done really well, but needed to move the car a few inches one way. We pushed the car up the hill and got it lined up and then pushed it into the trailer. After that I pointed out that one of the four trailer lights wasn’t working. So he and I take that off and decide to make a trip to the RV place and see about a new light. I was hoping to just change the bulb, but the lamps are sealed units, making them water proof. This also gave us a good excuse to take his 1970 Mustang Mach 1 out and terrorize old people. Wait….we ARE old. Oh well. His Mustang always attracts a crowd. We get to the first RV place and they don’t have the lamp. The salesman didn’t think anyone would. It seems that there is planned obsolescence on these and the trailer was “more than 10 years old”. We decided to fire up the hot rod and try another trailer store. Same story, second verse. Finally, we decide that maybe the Northern Tool store might have something. Strike three!!! But we did get some week-trimmer string and got to look at all the tools in the place. Tool stores and Victoria’s Secrets, stores where men will actually browse.
We gave up on the trailer light and he drops me back off. After I backed the trailer up so it was out of the way, I decided to get my test light out and check on the wiring. YEP! The wiring was bad, causing the one lamp not to work! It took me about 10 minutes to rewire it. Oh well, we got to drive one of the old cars about.
Three hours, mostly driving around.

The next item wasn’t on the list, but cost the most in time, money and frustration.

To be continued……

One of those moments in the Cosmo's

2009-10-04T21:06:00.002-05:00

It was a cool rainy weekend in North Texas. I had car and truck issues all weekend, but by 4 PM Sunday, departed on my walk. I planned on doing four miles, but went the full five miles. On the way back, I had one of those strange happenings.
I was walking along and Elvis came on the IPOD, singing All Shook Up.

But then my IPOD is on Shuffle. And the next song is Dire Straights, Calling Elvis!

Reminded me of the stoner's in College. You remember the song Never Been Any Reason by Head East. All the stoner's would always get all spacey when they would reminisce about when the line in the song was about breaking glass and CRASH, a bottle would break.

You know you have been Orienteering when…

2009-09-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

1) You find yourself getting lost in the woods
2) You find yourself backing up to “relocate” yourself someplace you can find in the woods and on the orienteering map
3) You spend two hours completing the course, upset that you took that long
4) You find that only a few people finished the same course any faster than you did
5) You feel much better when two of those faster than you, were MUCH younger
6) You drink two Gatorades, finish the water in your carry-along pack and drink another bottle of water and do NOT need to use the bathroom
7) You hang around for awards because it might be the only time you get one
8) You don’t want to really win the school bus they raffle off at the awards
9) You’d not mind winning the socks they raffle off. Your’s are sweat soaked.
10) You change clothes in the back seat of your truck
11) The back seat of your truck looks like a gym bag exploded in it. Mostly because it did
12) You spend hours studying the orienteering map, trying to figure out the best way to navigate, and trying to remember where all you messed up at
13) You get home and toss all your wet and muddy clothes into the washer. You forget to clean off the mud, sticks and leaves from the cleats in your shoes
14) Your wife asks you just what you put into the washer, why the water looks like mud, and those sticks seem to just float around on the top of the water
15) When you finally take off your underwear, more sticks and leaves fall out
16) You pack up the two compasses you carry with rubber between them, so they don’t mess each other up
17) You look forward to the next event

Yes, the North Texas Orienteering Association has started their year. Actually this past weekend was the second event, but I didn’t make the first one. I’m ticked off that I’ll probably have to miss the next one also. And the one after that is a “B” meet, two day event. I’ll have to keep my head on better to survive both of those days.

In progress - transmission install

2009-09-17T14:02:00.002-05:00

This last Sunday my friend came over and we started installing the C4 transmission. He helped muscle it into place and aligned. He stayed for four of the six bolts from the transmission into the motor, for one of the torque converter nuts(we need it further bolted up, and the starter installed to rotate the motor to align the rest), and the support cross member.
So last night since it was RAINING again in Texas, I installed a few more items, the starter and such. It's getting closer. I hope to finish it up this weekend and get it out of the garage for a drive.

The tranny transplant that didn't happen....yet

2009-08-31T13:46:00.001-05:00

So we have been a bit busy moving the oldest daughter up to college. In between, I got the C4 Transmission for my Mustang rebuilt. I forgot to tell them to NOT paint it. I had to strip off the paint, mask off some parts and repaint it so it is close to how they looked from the factory.
I also spent a few hours running new stainless steel transmission coolant lines and getting 40 years of grease and gunk off the underside of the car.
Yesterday I went ahead and tried to see if I could get the car up and the transmission in place under it. That part went fine, but then my jacks were not cooperating and I couldn't safely get the transmission close enough to actually bolt it to the engine.
It will have to wait until a friend can assist.

Life changes

2009-08-24T12:54:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was one of those times when you pause and say "did that really just happen?"
Our eldest has now moved to a college dormitory! We did that on Sunday. We got home from church and she had already filled the foyer with her boxes. By 2 PM we were up in Denton, and parked in a dirt lot next to the Honors dorm. She got checked in and a room key and we checked out a big cart to use to transfer everything. We only made two trips and had her all moved in. A young man from Denton Bible Church walked up while we were unloading the truck and volunteered to haul something. Mission work by the church. We spoke to him since we knew his pastor had health issues. We had the eldest moved in and wife and I went to see about paying the bill, since all of UNT's online bill pay, seems screwed up. Unfortunately, there were closed for the day. I tried again Sunday evening and it worked! Wife and I then walked about the campus and down to a Sack N Save to pick up a few items for her. We then went back home with a short list of other items needed. Printer cable, ethernet cable, hooks and such.
Hard to believe she is now up at the dorm. Classes start on Thursday, but she is staying up there, getting settled in, meeting people, checking out the campus.

And then today (Monday), the youngest had her first day in High School. She was a bit apprehensive about it, but will do fine.

Somehow with all that going on, I was still able to work on my newly rebuilt automatic transmission. It is almost ready to go back into the car. I need to crawl under the car and install the new transmission cooler lines and clean up a few other items.

Sunday, A day of rest

2009-08-17T10:14:00.004-05:00

Sometimes. Sometimes you get a wild hair and take a transmission out of a car.

First we need to rewind about 6 weeks, or 15 years. I have a 1969 Ford Mustang. It has been a member of the family since 1971. I quit driving it on a regular basis in about 1983. It has the small V-8 engine and an automatic transmission, a C4 in Ford vernacular. The shift linkage on the C4 goes through the side of the transmission case, where it has a seal to keep the transmission fluid inside. Unfortunately, the seal can only be serviced from inside the transmission. The shifter rod is actually designed so that it is above the normal level of fluid in the pan. But when you quit driving the car and let it sit for some time, then the torque converter, which is the device hooking the motor to the transmission, slowly drains its fluid back into the transmission pan, raising the level of the fluid up to the shifter seal. Result? A small seepage of transmission fluid on the floor.
15 years ago, I’d drive the car on a weekend and park it. It would take about six days before the seepage would begin, and then it would only leak maybe a bathroom Dixie cup of fluid. That went on for about 14 years.
This year I started to notice that I’d drive the car on a Saturday, and by Sunday, there was already fluid leaking.
About six weeks ago I decided to do a dirty nasty task and change the transmission fluid and filters in both the old Fords. We also have a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach1. Changing transmission fluids on old Fords is about my least favorite task on them. Ford pinched penny’s for years and never installed drain plugs on the transmission, as it isn’t a regularly required task. Most people just take it in to a shop. Not me. I lie on the floor with the car jacked up and start loosening the pan bolts. That causes the fluid to start leaking out. All over your arm and floor. But that is how it is done. So I change the filter and fluid and hope that some of the leaking on the C4 is from the pan gasket. Well some of it might have been, but you couldn’t tell it from how much was still leaking all over the drip pan under the car.
I hit the internet to see if there are some write ups on replacing the shifter seal with the transmission still in the car. I found a few write ups. Unfortunately, the task requires again draining the fluid, and then removing the shifter body from inside. So a few weeks back, I go back under the car, transmission fluid running down my arm, but I get the shifter body out. Except my car has a kick down linkage that also passes through the shift rod! That is in the way of getting to the large nut which holds the shifter arm. The shift rod can’t be removed, as the main gears are in the way. In disgust, I bolt everything back together. I pull out 40 years of maintenance records on the car and start looking around to see if there was ever any work done on the transmission. I can’t find any records about the transmission, except fluid and filter changes. I crawl back under the car the next weekend and start inspecting all aspects of the transmission. I find 40 year old Ford tags and markings. I also realize that the transmission has multiple leaks. Not only the shifter shaft, but the modulator valve is leaking, and it seems that the torque converter is also leaking. I decide to remove the transmission and take it to a shop for a rebuild.
So the next weekend I climb under the car and start loosening and removing all the parts so I can remove the transmission. I also call a local shop that has been in business since the late 1950’s and they confirm they can rebuild antique automatic transmission.

So this past Sunday another car friend comes over and we work on some parts for his Mustang. We mess with that for about an hour and then he convinces me that with his help, we can have the transmission out of the car in a little while. So we head under it, him on one side and me on the other. About two hours later, the transmission is lying on the floor. No injuries were sustained, which is always a good thing. The only broken parts were the transmission coolant lines. We tried to get the one off we could reach, but after 40 years, the steel line and the nut that holds it to the transmission, had become one with each other. The steel line twisted and cracked. The other line has to be removed when the transmission is lowered a few inches. Since the coolant lines are sold in a pair, I made the executive decision to use a pipe cutter and just cut the line off. I’ll have to order new lines and plan on getting stainless steel lines.

So I need to order some parts, the fluid lines, plus a new steel vacuum line. I don’t have to replace the vacuum line, but might as well at this point. Plus a new transmission mount, which is rubber and had about dissolved from 40 years of use and leaking fluids.

So after 40 years, I have to spend $475 to get the transmission rebuilt.

Should I call up Ford and complain?

The photo is the C4 transmission and the torque converter in the back of my truck, ready to be dropped off at Hackler Transmission.

2009-07-30T10:25:00.003-05:00

HVAC repair

We have had four service calls on our home air conditioning this summer.

The first was when we returned from vacation at the end of June. The “old” part of the house would not cool below 80 degrees. I called out a company, but they charged us $200 for two pounds of Freon.

Two weeks later and the “new” part of the home, the compressor was not running when I returned home from work. New is relative, as the system is 10 years old. Just the day before the compressor quit, I was at a friend’s house and three of us were talking about HVAC repairs. The other guy had his home built 13 years back and the AC had never really worked well. He had contracted a local Trane dealer to “do over” and was very impressed with the professionalism, the work and the energy savings. So when I got home and that unit was not running, I gave them a call. I explained the issue and they said it would be $200 for them to come out now, since it was after 5 PM already, or $175 the next day. I picked the next day. We could set up some fans and turn down the “old” part to try and cool some of the “new” area. About 6 PM, the phone rang and it was the service technician. He asked for the symptom, and then said that if he drew a line between where he was, and his house, we were on the way and would it be OK if he came now? If not, then it would have to be after 1 PM the next day. I told him I didn’t want to pay for off-hours, but he said NO PROBLEM, this was his choice. So, 20 minutes later he and his helper show up, and in 15 minutes the unit was back among the living AC units again. I was impressed. Then he handed me the bill. $157. CHEAPER than they had said. I paid them and told them I’d want a bid on replacing the older system, but later in the fall. They said to just ring them when we needed.

Two days later and I get home and again the old part of the house is not cooling. I called them again. They came by and sure enough, the unit was again two pounds low on Freon. It was leaking it at the rate of two pounds in three weeks. It was just the middle of July, in Texas. The technician climbed up into the attic and looked over the system. Bad news, which was expected. The coil up in the attic was leaking. It was 14 years old. The outside compressor was 19 years old and the furnace was original, 25 years old. The fan in the attic was also squeaking badly, even after he oiled it. I told him about my friend and how please he was with their Trane system, and he went to work on a bid. He asked some questions about the home size and such and then came up that we needed a 3.5 ton unit, not the 3 ton we had. Except in the new energy efficient unit, they only had 3 and then 4 ton units. I opted for the 4 ton, which is a really neat compressor. It is really two, two ton units. The “intelligent” systems in it, can work alternating compressors on mild days, and both at full capacity on really hot days. I also opted to go from a 16 SEER to a 20 SEER unit, with a 10 year warrantee. Since we have two asthmatics in the home, I also added a clean-air filtration system. Built into the unit, it was $400. Adding it later would be $600 plus installation. So we signed up for a full system change scheduled for July 23. It was July 15, so we all crossed our fingers that the system would limp along eight days.

Two days later, the system AGAIN refused to work. Since we were under contract for the new system, the HVAC company came right out, no charge, to trouble shoot us. He found some relay had overheated and shorted out, due to the fan bearings being so bad. He had a used relay on the truck and wired that in to attempt to get us into the next week.

So that was FOUR service calls, by two companies, in three weeks time!

On the appointed day for the system change out, three service trucks rolled up. Along with a pickup truck loaded with all the new equipment. There were five service technicians and the owner of the company. They then proceeded to unload the gear and crawl up into the attic and over the outside compressor to remove all the old gear. About 9:30, I went out and they had all the old gear sitting on the garage floor. I offered them some Gatorade. Then there were two discoveries that had the technician’s eyes wide! One technician decided to dump the rust out of the furnace. He got a small bucket and asked one of the other guys to help him pick it up and dump it. It HALF FILLED the bucket with rust. One of them made another comment about that being about the worst he’d ever seen. The owner cracked me up with his reply. “That unit has been in that attic since before YOU were born!” But then the owner noticed something and asked for a screw gun. He went about removing the natural gas control valve from the furnace. Even his eyes got wide as they started singing “Burning down the house!” The inside part of the control value, had evidence of a fire! He said if it had burned a hole in the gas line, you’d see our house on the evening news with the attic blown off.

They finished their Gatorade and went back to work putting in the new gear.

The next wide-eyed moment was an hour later. Since the new compressor was larger than the old unit, it required a new breaker in our fuse panel. The owner was attempting to get the old fuse out and I was watching. It didn’t pop right out. When he got it out and examined it, it also showed signs of being over heated! There was some light corrosion on the fuse and also some plastic fatigue from heat! Another round of “burning down the house”.

Around 12:30, they were almost all done. We were down to just one truck, two technicians and the owner. He started the new unit up. With it’s built in electronics, it would actually sense things and tell them to add or remove Freon. It was 84 degrees in the house at 12:30. At 1 PM, we heard the one compressor shut down. The temperature was already dropped to 78 degrees, heading to the thermostat setting of 77. A few minutes later, and we were at 77 degrees and the unit shut down. It had pulled it down so fast, they actually had to lower the temperature a few more degrees to take some more readings and tune the system.

We are beyond impressed. I can’t wait to see what our electric bill will drop to. My friend said his dropped in half, but we still do have the “new” part of the house running with an older AC system. If you are about the Flo-Mo-HV-Lake Dallas area, check these guys out, Allied American Service.

I plan to have them out again this fall to replace our worn out duct work.

Film versus Movie - an explanation

2009-07-27T09:28:00.002-05:00

The TV station Encore has been showing Dances With Wolves a few times lately. It was playing this Sunday and I had it on. Our 14 year old daughter came walking by and asked me what show that was. I said "Dances with Wolves, a real nice western FILM". She tisked at me and said "MOVIE....dad....jeshhhh...". She then explained that only OLD people used the term "film".

Let's use two gallons of water to get one cup of water

2009-07-22T14:48:00.004-05:00

I'm always amazed to watch the antics people go through to get a cup of water. I've already documented the "hot water over ice" technique.
So today I'm in the break room micro-zapping my lunch. A lady comes in. She heads to the sink, right where I'm microwaving, and LEANS on the hot water tap to insure it is turned well off. She then turns ON the cold water, full blast. I mean I have to step back to keep from getting splashed on. She heads over and picks up a styrofoam coffee cup. She fills it about half full of hot water out of the coffee maker. All the while the cold water is on full blast, with water splashing onto the floor. She then turns the cold water down, sticks her finger in it (it's Texas, Summer time in Texas...there isn't any COLD tap water). She then sticks her half full cup of HOT water under the COLD water tap. The one she just ran for two minutes to get COLD water flowing. So she has half HOT water, half COLD tap water (and about two gallons went down the drain) in her cup. She drinks some of the water, dumps the rest and tosses the cup in the trash. She then makes SURE the sink taps are off. I mean she leans on those. I pitty the next person who tries to turn them on.

Customer Service

2009-07-15T15:09:00.003-05:00

I have been using flash drives for about five years. The first one I purchased is 512 MB and still works. It is a Lexar. My second flash is a Kingston Data Traveler, 2 GB. I’ve had it about three years. About a month back, it was about 80 percent used and decided it was “write protected”, so I can read off it, but could not write to it. Some time spent with Google searching for solutions yielded a tool to use to attempt to reformate it, but that didn’t work either. I was able to copy most everything off of it onto the computers hard drive. I then went and purchased a PNY 4 GB flash. It didn’t cost much, but the dumb thing quit working in three weeks! And I can’t read anything off it. Thank goodness, the old Kingston is still readable. I lost a few updated files off the “pony”.

So yesterday I decided to call up both PNY and Kingston to see what, if anything could be done.

PNY. Did I always properly eject it? Yes. OK, If you have the store receipt call us back and you will need to send the receipt and the flash back to us. I attempt to find the receipt, but can’t find it. I know about when I purchased it and went up to Wal*Mart, but they can’t pull up a duplicate receipt. I am out of luck on this unit.

I call up Kingston. Can you read the serial number off the side? Yes. OK, that unit is 4 years old, so it is still under our warrantee. They then email me instructions and a return number. I buy a 62 Cent padded envelop and have the post office stamp it. I’m out about $2 and Kingston will mail me a replacement drive. No questions asked. It should not have failed. Oh, and they most likely will replace the 2GB with a 4GB unit.

Kingston and Lexar, you have my business.

PNY, see ya!!!

Entertainment Tonight

2009-07-03T10:33:00.006-05:00

We usually watch the local ABC News affiliate, WFAA. We often watch at the 6 PM news time and following that, the ABC program Entertainment Tonight (ET) comes on. It is the most annoying four minutes and thirty seconds of information that can be crammed into a thirty minute program. They start with loud flashy music and images and excitedly tell you about what they are going to cover in these thirty minutes. They then take a commercial break. When they come back, they take four minutes to dispense one minute of celebrity news. They, they tell you what else they will tell you about in the remaining part of the program. Off to another commercial break. When they come back, it is another minute buried in five minutes of noise, and then they pose some “whose celebrity something or other is TODAY…..we will tell you after THIS commercial break”. On and on and on and on. Some psychologist needs to study if suicides in America go UP as the show drones on.
They spend the last few minutes of the program telling you about what they MIGHT cover in “tomorrows program of ET!!!!!”.

So last week, Michael Jackson died of a cardiac “event”. I’ve been betting the wife that MJ would open and close the show, every day this week. I’ve won that bet. I should have bet that the entire program would be about MJ, but on Thursday, they actually had some other celebrity news, for one minute and thirteen seconds, and then returned to MJ news.

Entertainment Tonight has not been this focused on a dead celebrity, since Anna Nicole Smith passed.

Come to think of it, ANS and MJ had a lot in common. Most of it was plastic. Male viewers appreciated ET’s “coverage” of ANS……

Strange and cool events while on vacation

2009-06-25T07:48:00.002-05:00

1) Youngest daughter took a LARGE Snickers bar out of the refridgerator and decided it was too cold to eat. So we mentioned laying on the balcony banister, in the shade, for a few minutes. Bad idea. She was 1 foot from it when a seagull swooped in and grabbed it and took it!

2) While walking off the inlet jetty wall, the gulls were again fishing for something. The night before, even the pelicans were in on it. Tonight, there were turtles bobbing up in the area! There must have been four or more. We watched until the sun faded and we could not see them anymore

3) While laying out on the sea wall after dark, I spotted FOUR satelites going throgh the sky. They look like stars, but are moving fast and no flashing lights like an airplane. Three were tracking west to east, one was south to north.

4) Spotted at least one shooting star, there might have been two more, but they were so faint, I'm wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

We B Chere

2009-06-23T18:58:00.001-05:00

Texting "I'm SO Bored", over and over and....

2009-06-11T09:32:00.003-05:00

This Wednesday night some bad storms rolled through North Texas. The wife and I left at 5 PM and went on our three mile walk. By the time we got back at 6, the storm clouds were filling the western sky. We called our youngest kid as she was at a friends house, to the west. She wanted us to pick them up, take them to get hamburgers, take them back home. Totally unaware of the pending storms. We got on the phone to the other mom, who agreed that getting home was the priority.
We got back a bit after 6:30 and the news was still on with the bad storms, hail, possible tornado's and such. We quickly heated some dinner and got flashlights out. By 6:45, we were shutting down computers and such. Right before 7 PM, the storm hit, the lights flashed and then went out. It stormed hard for the next thirty minutes while the warning sirens wailed. We took cover in a walk-in closet.
By 8 PM, the worst was over, but the power was out. Our youngest is very "attached" to all things electronic. She started telling me how boring this all was, what could we do, etc. I decided to sit on the back porch, watch the rain and read. She sat with me and texted her friends "I'm bored".
We got showers by flash light and candle light and went to bed before 10 PM.
The youngest didn't want to sleep in her room, so she made a bed on the living room couch. She kept saying how she wasn't tired, but she'd had a "not a sleep over" the night before, so we knew she was running on fumes. She fell asleep before 10 PM, on the couch, texting her friends "I'm Bored".
About 10:30, we heard the oldest kid drive up from her job. I got up with flashlight in hand. I'd texted her twice that we were without power, eat before she got home, flashlight on the floor by the door. She'd ignored the text! The power had not gone out at her work.
About ten minutes later, the power came on. We started laundry, dishes, turned off lights and such. Youngest moved back to her bed.

In the middle of the night, it started storming again! This time, the power stayed on and the youngest didn't need to text her friends "I'm SO BORED"

Good thing she wasn't born in 1850.

Driving in to work today and there were several places with trees down across the roads, lights not working and flooded streets.

Bird Poop Bombing practice range

2009-06-05T09:02:00.001-05:00

We have two cats. One stays inside and sleeps 23 hours a day. The other likes to hang outside. He likes to bother the other cats up the street, he likes to watch the world go by, he likes to lay in the sun, sleep in the shade of the bushes, roll in the dirt and do other cat stuff.

Every spring, we have anywhere from two to five birds build their nest in our three oak trees. They then have their babies. We have cardinals, mocking birds, sparrows and I don’t know what else building the nest. The birds do NOT like the cat walking about. They like to swoop over his head. We’ve seen him actually pinned to the ground by the birds. I’ve also found a few dead birds. He has enough of it and has killed a few over the years.

One thing the cat likes to do is walk down on our drive way, roll on it to scratch his back or head to the neighbors to check on their dogs. The birds have taken up poop bombing practice while the cat is on the drive way.

One photo is proof.

Rassle'n with a truck

2009-06-01T13:21:00.004-05:00

My diesel truck is 10 years old now. It's been relatively trouble free. I do most of the routine maintenance on it. A few weeks back it gave me a no-start day. Part of that day was to disconnect the batteries. Yes, plural, there are two needed to start this diesel. There are two negative cables, that just go from each battery down to the engine block and also to the truck chassis. But the positive cable, is a doosie! It is about 10 feet long. Yes, feet long. It starts at the battery on the drivers side, is then taped along the radiator running to the passenger side battery. Where it has another post connector. From there, it has a smaller wire to the starter solenoid and the main cable runs under the engine to the starter. This is not small cable either. It is about as big around as your thumb. And attached to something every foot. And covered with that plastic wrap to keep from chaffing. At 11 AM this Saturday, I called a local mom and pop battery shop about putting on new connectors. It was NOT advised, as that one connector would be massive, to join the two batteries and also run to the starter. I figure that much, and had priced out a replacement cable. No one had the replacement cable, and it was $100 also. But this guy DID have one and for $65 and he'd throw in two bolts so I could replace those on the negative terminals also! So, I got the cable and it took a bit over an hour to replace it.

Since I had that done and it was only past 2 PM, and I had nothing else to be doing, I went ahead with replacing the transmission fluid and filter. Which I'd not done for about 100,000 miles. The transmission holds 16 quarts in the deep sump, aluminum finned pan. It's held on with about 20 bolts. All that came off, slimy transmission oil in my hair, shirt, arms, etc.
I worked until 7:30 that night, with a dinner break in there. But it all got done.

Sunday, I washed and re-oiled the air filter. I just need to change the oil on the beast before our vacation to south Texas.

The photo is the old cable, with the rotted ends, and missing all the protective stuff that I'd already thrown away.

White people can't clap

2009-05-29T20:29:00.002-05:00

I went to a middle school (sixth, seventh and eigth grade) choir show the other night. They had a fun program, doing Beach Boys and beach song covers. Some of the parents decided to help by clapping along. Except instead of clapping on the regular second and fourth beat, they were clapping on the down beat. The One and Three. Except all those beach songs are classic rock, two/four songs. Where the drums, the snare drum (the one you clap WITH) are on the two/four. So when they started clapping on the one/three, well, it just doesn't work. It almost killed one of the songs. The kids seemed to "feel" that it was off and started getting off tempo with the recorded music.

We need some diversity in that school.

A most welcome telephone call

2009-05-27T14:46:00.007-05:00

My sister started to get a Master degree about ten years back. She didn't complete it then and went back to work. Some years back she was widowed. She worked teaching public school a few more years, but then decided to quit and really pursue a Masters in History at the University of North Texas. She's been working on it a few years. I think she gained a lot of respect from her professors when she realised something was missing, took it to them, showed it, and then went back and totally reworked her masters paper. She called around 5 PM last night and was on cloud nine. She passed her oral defense of her work and passed with flying colors! She said it was all still very surreal. She arrived at the 2 PM meeting. Introductions were made. She was asked to go walk the halls for a few minutes. They then called her in and they discussed the work, and some areas that they wanted more details added. Then they asked her to take another walk. She said she had not even reached the ladies room door, when they called her back in. Unanimous vote that she received her Masters! She then said they proceeded to discuss how she could continue the work and work towards her doctorate!

Lets take stock.

Sister: Undergraduate degree, and now a masters.

Mother: Registered Nurse from a hospital school. Undergraduate degree when she was in her forties. Masters after that in Liberal arts.

Dad: Too much to list! Undergraduate degree. Air force pilot training, which is constant. Masters in Business while still in the air force. Yet another Masters degree when he retired from USAF. He went on teaching school. He's been retired from that for 10 years, but he teaches drivers ed, and does tours at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum.

Me: Just an undergrad degree.

I must be the black sheep. I'm also the only one in the bunch that never worked in public education.

A super big congratulations to my sister.

Telephone calls, what where they thinking?

2009-05-25T14:53:00.003-05:00

We had two telephone calls that had me wondering what people placing the calls, were thinking. The first was late last night and again this morning. I’ll start with last night. I work in Information Technology (IT). Off hour calls are a way of life. When a production computer job breaks, someone, sometimes me, has to get it fixed. My employer recently sent some jobs half way around the world for support there. This is to save money while the business focus’s on new applications. Last night at 10:30 PM USA central time, the phone rang. Never a good thing being that late. I could barely understand the other person, with the delay for an overseas call and all. I did some mental math and figured out that it was around 10 AM on their Monday morning. Since I had trouble understanding them, I finally asked them to send me an email with the job that had failed. We hung up. I then called our global computer center and spoke with the operator. He was able to point me to the correct job. My first mistake was assuming that it was a production issue and had just happened. WRONG! It was on the test system, and to sweeten the icing on the cake, it had failed FRIDAY morning! When the “on shore” team should have handled it. Not calling up me at 10:30 PM on a Sunday evening on a three day weekend. I looked back through some logs and found that a person must have had trouble running a job, all last week. They probably just gave up on Thursday and left it. Except then the Friday morning job failed, but they didn’t fix that either. By 11 PM, I had it up and running, and pointed out to the off-shore person that this was TEST, and it was 11 PM here, on a holiday weekend.

The next call was this Monday, Memorial Day morning. 8 AM in fact. We were still asleep and enjoying sleeping in. The phone rang. I was still groggy, but the wife picked it up. Our middle school kid is going to graduate and move on to high school. The middle school deemed that important enough to telephone all the parents with an automated message. We appreciate the call, but 8 AM on a holiday? I think whoever set that message up to be sent at that time, needs to be sent back to sixth grade.

Eventful three days - part 3

2009-05-21T14:13:00.004-05:00

So after almost getting caught up on sleep, I got up Monday morning and got ready for work. At 7 AM, I headed out to my diesel truck. I turned the key and looked for the "wait to start" light. But it didn't look back. None of the gauges registered. Usually at least the battery gauge goes up. The lights were on, the radio came on. I cranked on it, but it would not start. After about 5 minutes, I headed inside. I fired up the work laptop and sent the boss an email about not making it in. I assumed that the engine wash, must have gotten something wet or, hopefully not, shorted out. This hadn't ever happened in the 10 or 15 other times I'd washed it over the years. I posted a message on the North Texas Power Stroke forum seeking advice and did some "real" work while waiting on their expert advice. Within 30 minutes, the president sent me a reply about a GPR. I had to ask what that meant, where was it, and how to test. It is the Glow Plug Relay. Diesels start much better when the cylinders are warm. The relay activates the Glow Plugs, which use electricity to warm up the cylinders on the diesel. This relay is located right up top of the engine on my truck. Kevin even sent me the part number to go get! So I went to work changing it out. Which wasn't too bad. Except the wires didn't exactly line up, so I had to jiggle the wires and grind down the edge of one connector. Still, the truck would not start. By now it was noon. A few others chimed in about checking all the fuses, especially under the hood. At 1 PM, I called Ford and AAA for getting a tow. But then went out and decided to not only check the under hood electrics one more time, but also the in-the-dash fuses. I got down and popped off the cover. Then it hit me. Actually it was staring me in the face. I have a Turbo Diesel Lifesaver on the truck. That allows the truck to idle, while locked up with no key in it. If you try and drive the truck when the TDLS is engaged, it just dies. Great for letting the turbocharger cool down. I use it when real cold weather, or on trips. I've let that truck run for hours, only shutting down while we ate a meal. As part of the unit, there is a "Kill Switch" feature. My kill switch WAS down low on the dash. While wife and I were cleaning the truck on Sunday, one of us must have tripped the switch! It "killed" the truck. So at 1:15, I flipped the switch and the truck roared back to life. I ran in and cancelled the tow, cancelled the service appointment, posted on the forum that "idiot solves dead truck", and then went and moved the switch to BEHIND the dash. I'm thinking I need to tape it so it can't be tripped again.
I worked from home the rest of the day.

Eventful three days - part 2

2009-05-20T21:46:00.005-05:00

So after orienteering Saturday, we headed home. I got home around 4 PM, tossed my wet muddy clothes into the washer, tossed myself into the shower. After that, I delivered our youngest to a sleep over. You see, it was High School Prom night. At 6:30, seven other kids were showing up in their finest. So wife, eldest, myself and my sister ate take-out Chinese food and got ready for the kids. They started arriving, parents started hanging out by the limo, etc. We had a line of cars from the front to the back of the property of their cars.
We took a few photo's here, but then headed over to another parents house. We lost a few getting there.
After that, it was parents collapse for a bit. At midnight, we had pizza delivered. At 12:30, the limo arrived and dropped nine kids off (we'd gained one). Some changed into casual clothes, some hadn't brought any. Then, even more kids arrived, including one just back from Marine basic training. The wife and I attempted to get to sleep around 2 AM. Around 3 AM, some of the kids decided to head to an indoor gymnasium that one of their parents owns. At 4:30 AM, they arrived back at our place. At 5 AM, they all left again to head to IHOP......back where the gym place was! At sun up, a few were still hanging out talking.

We slept in as long as we could, but were still up around 9 AM. I decided to wash and spring clean the vehicles. That included washing the motor on my diesel truck.

I then drove one of my old classic Mustangs. I went to start daughters car to get out my other classic, but her car would not start. May is when I do maintenance on her car, so I started pulling the spark plugs out. It should not have needed new ones, but one of them was the wrong one! Unreal that a "real" mechanic would do such a thing. He took a tapered seat plug, put on a metal washer on it, and installed it!

A new set of spark plugs and her car fired up. I proceeded to change the oil and filter, the brake fluid, the power steering fluid and the transmission fluid.

More about cars not starting, tomorrow.

The top photo is the line of cars in the driveway.

The bottom photo is the spark plugs from the daughters car.

Eventful three days - part 1

2009-05-19T13:44:00.005-05:00

Saturday, rain. Mr G and I were heading out to the last NTOA orienteering event of the year. But first I had to drop off a bunch of electronic waste for recycling. The local high school had a drop off deal going. We got that done and were underway towards Erwin Park in McKinney Texas. On the way there it took both of us to wake up enough to not take the road north to the Texoma area parks. We arrived about 9:30 at Erwin, to light rain. This event only had about half the usual number of people signed up for it. We parked pretty close and walked over to the pavilion where sign in was. We then went back to the truck to get ready. Our start times were the same and we had about 25 minutes to get ready. We took our start and started in the same direction. I asked Mr. G what number was on his first control. Yep, same control, so we headed over the field and through the forest to the first point, and the second. At that point our courses took different directions. I didn't have any trouble with my third point, but the fourth took me clear across the park to an area that is pretty thick forest. I got to where a trail went down to a creek and ran into about 20 boy scouts, with full packs on. They were S L O W L Y climbing across the stream. I took about 1 minute watching and then decided to find a spot to jump the creek. Even though a few other orienteers cautioned me about it, I did it, made it and headed up the hill past the scouts. I found the fourth point and headed to the fifth. Taking a wrong angle of attack on the way. Funny thing spotted along the way was an orienteer jumping over a "non-crossable" fence. He'd gone off the map! He wasn't the only one to do that this day! That is a bit dangerous thing to do, as people can get lost quite quickly. The rest of my points were not to bad. It had quit raining while I was out on the course. I got back, got out of my very wet clothes. Another friend and I were just getting lunch out when Mr. G showed up. He'd had a good course also, but was also very wet. By the time we finished lunch, the temperature started to drop and it started raining again. We stuck around for the awards and headed home.

I needed to get home, as this was also the High School Prom night. Eldest daughter and friends were congregating at our place and would return after midnight.

To be continued.

Photos.

Stream

trail

control in the forest.

Star Trek

2009-05-12T13:56:00.014-05:00

The wife and I and some of her old college friends met at the movie theater for opening night of the new Star Trek. I’ll start with it was a FUN movie. Decent effects, decent plot, funny bits, some great casting. We didn’t even realize it was Winona Ryder until after she’d been in the movie for 15 minutes.

However, here are some visuals about the movie and some thoughts on it.

The plot

Simon Pegg will always bring to mind, SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Actually, he was near perfect pick for his part.

There was an Ice Planet. Just like the rebel base in one of the Star Wars movies.

But it looks like this now.

At least the Trek Ice planet had a big red monster and not an abdominal snowman, like an original Star Trek did.

The bad guys space ship

Reminded me of this

Nero the bad guy

reminded me of this guy

They also have a new high-tech dental drill, which is used to distroy the Golden Gate Bridge, among other things.

And you must always have “Kirks Babe of the day”. Which is done to remind us of Bond, James Bond.

Keep your ditches clean, or not

2009-05-08T13:10:00.002-05:00

Last weekend I spent a bit of time trimming trees off the roof, fence and other places. The other task was to remove some of the silt from the drainage ditch in the front of the house. In 22 years we've lived there, the city has yet to do it. Not many people do it themselves. I do it as we have two drive ways and I don't need the pipes under the drives filling up. So I got out there and spent about two hours shoveling out about four inches deep between the drives. It only needs done every five years or so. I'd rather do it than have the city show up and break the pipes, chip the drives, and who knows what else. Next rain, we should see how I did.

I take a short cut through an old-town neighborhood on the way home. Wednesday I turned up it and hit the brakes. This other city had a backhoe out cleaning out the ditch in front of this old house. The house is probably 60 to 100 years old. The ditch wasn't half way silted up, but the city was cleaning it out. Thursday I turned up the same street. The homeowner must have decided he didn't like that the city used his tax money to clean out the ditch and put in new rocks for his driveway. He was shoveling the rocks out of his driveway. Back into the ditch.

I wonder when the ditch backs up water, if he will be the first person calling city hall to complain!

Orienteering at Tyler State Park

2009-05-04T13:33:00.006-05:00

Saturday April 25, Mr. G picked me up at 7:30 AM and we headed two hours to the east, to Tyler State Park. We drove in and out of rain showers on the way. I blamed Mr. G for that, as at the last event, he'd commented how we had not had to orienteer in the rain this year.
We arrived to just light sprinkles and went to check in. We then wandered back to his car and got our different gaiter, compasses, clue holders, hats, tape and other items we take.

I did the Brown course and didn't really have any problems with it. I finished in an hour and 23 minutes. Mr G did Green and it was very long and he took about an hour and 50 minutes. It was still sprinkling on us at the start of the event. About half way into it, I'd taken a compass bearing and was heading cross country when I decided to back track. The area I was into, was very wet with chest high grass. I was getting soaked. Other orienteers were in the area, but I'd noticed the trail I was on, would intersect a power line. Power lines are like highways in the woods. The utility companies keep the underbrush open. You can follow them. The orienteering maps are so detailed, that even the power poles are noted, so you can count the poles and use one to go into the woods at. I decided to do that and not get so wet in the grass.

After the event, we cleaned up, ate lunch and attended the awards. After that, we went and sat under the trees and read and napped. About 4:30, we headed out of the park to Bodacious BBQ. We sat with an orienteering couple and discussed world events.

After that, we headed back into the park. They were doing a Night-O event. Orienteering in the woods at night. Last year, about 100 people did it. This year, only eight of us. Mr. G and I do it as a team.

The photo at the top, was one of my control points. It was located on a bend in a stream. The control bag is the orange and white thing, the orange thing below it is the paper/manual punch. And strapped to the tree (click the picture to zoom in), is the reddish electronic control punch. After I dropped down to the control, straddled the stream to get my e-punch, I then had to hoist myself up the bank of the stream and head up that hill in the back ground. Such is the way of advanced orienteering. Now, add darkness!

Below are some photos.

Tree at sunset from a trail

Trail at sunset

A night-o photo from the internet. The orienteer has on a head light for hands free use in the forest. Mr. G and I don't have a HEAD light like that one, but we also carry a regular hand flash light.

And what the orienteerer sees during the night-O (not really, you can see 25 to 30 meters)

Arrest made in Swine Flu outbreak!!!

2009-04-30T08:26:00.001-05:00

Humans walk on water!!!

2009-04-28T15:14:00.004-05:00

No, really. In recorded history, there is only one occurrence noted in the Bible.
This past weekend there were a lot of people standing on Lake Tyler State Park, Texas. I took a picture just to show the wife. She thinks I make up all this weirdness that I see. I was so awe-struck, I only took one photo and only when two people were walking on the water. Earlier in the day, there was about 30 people out there.

Oil change time

2009-04-24T12:08:00.006-05:00

I think the dealership hired the guy in the photo to change peoples oil.
We bought a new/used car last year. They "threw in" three free oil changes. We've used two of them. None were free. The dealership always managed to find something else to do/charge us for.
I've been changing oil in our vehicles for about 35 years. I do the two Mustangs and the daughters car once a year. The Mustangs over Christmas break and the daughters Corolla, Memorial day, because that was when we bought it and I first changed it. She doesn't put that many miles on it, but once a year is a good idea. The Mustangs are the same, not many miles a year.
My F250 diesel and the wife's car, get a lot of miles. I keep spread sheets of maintenance. The wife's Corolla was due an oil change. 3000 miles were up and the "MAINT" light was on. Except I was fed up with the "free" oil changes. I bought a WIX oil filter and four point two quarts of oil for the car. We have about three very busy weekends lined up, so taking the car in for the "free" oil change, was going to be hard to schedule. The dealer takes an extra hour to find if they can charge us for something! I can change the oil and be cleaned up and done in 45 minutes. Last Sunday night, I started at 8:15 PM moving cars about to get a shop bay open. By 9:15, all was done. It took an extra 15 minutes because the dealership hires gorillas to install the oil filter and drain plug! They must not be able to read. Put the filter on until the gasket makes contact and then HAND turn it 3/4 turn more. Trust me, you can hand tighten it past that, but there really is no point as the gasket would have sealed. Hers was put on so tight, I had to use two tools trying to bust it free. They'd put the drain plug in so tight, the gasket for that was practically welded into the oil pan. Again, hand tight with a hand wrench would have done it.
You hit the Odometer reset button and page through the two trip counters to the odometer. Then, hold the reset button in, turn on the key and wait. That resets the "MAINT" light.
Oh, I also replaced the Cabin air filter. One of those items the dealer wanted $50 to do. I got the part for $14.99. One screw holds it in. 10 minutes tops.
And they wonder why we avoid them.....

I had to build a bed

2009-04-23T15:04:00.006-05:00

I had to build a bed for my orienteering compass's. Yes, I have more than one. Five, that I cared enough about to make a bed. Two NTOA events back, I had a bit of trouble getting a good compass reading. In the photo above, the strange looking compass in the middle, with the green elastic strap, is now my main compass. It has been for a year now. It is a "thumb" compass. It actually fits on your thumb, my left one. I hold my map in that hand also. You orientate the map and compass and then use the compass clear pointer, to move along your map as you journey through the woods. The issue I had was that there was a route on the map that was right on the edge. I couldn't get the compass base plate to align on the paper. I had to sort of guesstimate my bearing. I tried a trick, which is to rotate the map 180 degrees and "shoot backward". That has worked for me in the past, you just have to remember that North is now South! You have to go 180 degrees opposite of your compass setting. It's not as hard as it sounds. As I was following my guesstimated heading, I realised that one of my older, full base plate compass's, would have been perfect! But I'd quit carrying those types of compass's last year. Mr. G was always in the habit of taking an extra compass. I decided to do so at the last orienteering meet, up at SID scout ranch. I got to SID and pulled out two Silva base plate compass's from my orienteering bag. They BOTH read 180 degrees off! They gotten too close to a magnetic car key holder that I'd tossed into the bag. They had reversed polarity! I had to take an older compass that hadn't switched.

On the drive back from SID, Mr. G mentioned that he's had a few Silva's do that also and there was a place to send them off to and get them replaced. I waited a week, wondering if I should really bother. It was my fault they switched polarity. One day I called the place up and fessed up. I was hoping they would tell me some way to switch them back. Nope. But they DID say send them back for FREE REPLACEMENT!
While on the phone, I asked about the best way to store multiple compass's and not have them screw each other up. They suggested a hard plastic box, which would keep them away from any magnetic source.

So I sent the two compasses off and one day stopped by The Container Store. I shopped around for 15 minutes and finally found the perfect hard, seal able plastic box for orienteering compass's.

When I got home, I tossed all my compass's into it. But then I realised that each compass was also effecting the other compasses in the box! Brainstorm time. I remembered that I had some sheets of neoprene rubber out in the shop. I got them from McMaster-Carr. So I went and cut out rubber blankets to go between each compass. It worked great! Compass, sheet of rubber, compass, sheet.... Each compass when it is placed into the plastic, sort of looses it's mind and quits pointing North! The next one, with the rubber sheet, keeps them from affecting each other.
Perfect.

The photo:
On the left is the box, lid, and compasses in it.

In the center with the green elastic band is my primary thumb compass.

Above it in a Zip-Lock baggie, is a magnifier that can be added to the thumb compass! Very handy on my old eyes. I usually just keep the magnifier in my pocket, as I don't use it all that much. Plus, the magnifier broke when I fell off a cliff one day! I fixed it also, but decided to not attach it again.

To the right is one of the base plate compasses laying on it's rubber sheet.

To the bottom, is a rubber sheet.

Good thing they don't have a bed wetting problem!

Now That's funny right there

2009-04-20T14:01:00.003-05:00

I was out for my afternoon leg-stretch walkabout the parking lot. A car pulled down beside me, looking for a parking spot close to the building. They came a tad close to me. I noted their hand up to their head, cell phone talking.
Their bumper had a HANG UP AND DRIVE! sticker on it.....

Alas, poor Yorick!

2009-04-16T15:26:00.002-05:00

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a
thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it."
Billy Shakespeare, a long time ago in a Galaxy....wait

I had the follow up at the podiatrist. I took in my 13 year old orthotic inserts. We discussed the options to rebuild them. I have another pair that I use.

Doctor then decided that my trim job on my banged up toe, needed his better trim job. He first went to work with a battery Dremil tool. That led him to look at the nail and decide to try the cutters on it. When he had trimmed off half the nail, it became clear that only the back corner was still attached. He used some lock pliers on it, some really cold stuff so I couldn't feel much, and he carefully removed what little nail I still had. It didn't hurt much and feels better.

I go orienteering again in 10 days, so it is good that it is gone. As the doctor said, the next toe stub and it would traumatically remove what was left of the nail!

I went home and soaked it. Then, actually removed some of the dead skin from where the nail used to be.

Fun with the Goobermint

2009-04-13T14:38:00.003-05:00

I was out washing the cars on Saturday morning. We live at the very end of a dead end street. A small white pickup truck drove slowly down the road. They stopped in front of two different houses, both across the street from us. The driver and passenger seemed to be casing the houses. No one had a yard sale going, so there wasn't much reason for them to be casing the places. After the second house, they came to the end of the street and did their best to turn around on the dead-end without actually pulling into any one's drive way.

About ten minutes later, they came back down the street, repeating their earlier stopping points. Once they made the end of the street, the driver parked the truck, left it running and got out and headed my way. He identified himself and asked me if the house across the way had anyone living in the building in the back.

I decided to have some fun. I told him no. That was a two story meth lab. And the building in the back yard of the other house, the converted garage, was storage for the finished product. If he went back and knocked three times really fast and then said "Orangutan", they'd give him a free sample. But if he knocked too slow, they shoot first. If he wanted to try the coke, to knock five times real slow and then say "Hillary's my hottie", they'd score a free coke blow. If they knocked eight times real slow, and said "NASCAR sucks doode", they'd score some top grade weed.

By this point, his eye's were spinning in his head. I told him I was sort of busy washing my F250 truck.

He was a census worker.

No, I really didn't tell him all those fibs. But I thought about it.

You want to drill a hole in my WHAT!

2009-04-02T08:57:00.003-05:00

So the pain and swelling in my toe got to be too much. I presented myself to a podiatrist. He took two X-Rays looking for any fractures, and then decided to bore a hole into my toe nail. I didn't watch. It hurt for the 10 minutes he spent expressing out the blood, clear fluid, milky fluid, blood, dark blood, clear fluid...
He took another X-Ray, looking for any other issues. My left foot has quite a few. The main toe knuckle is "flattening". Probably due to the axe that went into that joint when I was 14. The toe also has a spiky thing, making the toe hurt that much more. There is the inner edge of the nail, that was removed 30 years ago.
It continued to weep fluid until bed time last night. But, it feels much better.
I get to go back in two weeks and we see if he needs to remove the nail.

That rock got in my way

2009-03-31T16:04:00.005-05:00

Mr. G and I went off orienteering this past weekend. It was up near Bridgeport Texas, at the Sid Richardson Boy Scout ranch. It is an interesting place.

Back in the late 1970’s, my mom actually worked at the ranch, as a nurse. Part of the camp used to be a cavalry post back in the 1870’s. My Day One route, I side tracked a bit and hit the peak where the old fallen down stone walls are.

We’ve been orienteering up there a few years. I think this was my fourth time. They use two areas of the ranch. The north side was on Saturday. I like that part of the ranch better. It is on a peninsula, with some pretty steep drop offs into the lake. There are some cactus in the area, mostly prickly pear, but not too bad. Most of the rocks are more boulders, so they are easy to avoid. Saturday was very cold, with some snow on the roofs when we got there. Mr. G and I ate some lunch and then suited up. We had starts about 10 minutes into the meet, so we were out pretty early. I had a great time on the course and figured I’d placed pretty well. But we were not sticking around for the day-1 results, as we were driving back and forth, which takes about 1.5 hours in each direction. I only missed one control on day one, almost near the end. I had chosen to climb the cavalry hill, but then forgot to take a photo. I didn’t get a good attack point, spotted a creek area and my control description was the top of a minor creek. I went hunting for it, but didn’t find it. Luckily there was a gas pipeline which “caught” me from going to far. I then relocated back to the road and started taking a new compass bearing. I looked down the hill and actually spotted the control! I’d walked right past it.

Day two was a different story. It was much warmer. We had starts about an hour and fifteen minutes into the meet, or 10:15. We got there and checked on our standings from day one. To my surprise, I was in first place! And by fifteen minutes. Mr. G told me to not screw up and I’d medal no mater what. But then I’ve been known to screw up and search for one control for an hour! Mr. G was in fifth place in his class. We were there before nine, so we suited up and headed to the start, hoping to move our start times up. Sure enough, they were moving people up. On a two day meet, they pre-assign start times, but then some people won’t come back for day-2. That leaves big gaps that other people can fill into. I waited and at 10:33, no one showed up after they called the time twice. I stepped up and so the starter changed my time card. I then proceeded to the second stage, when the pre-assigned person showed up! She decided she wouldn’t take her start, but would take another hole a bit later. I got off to a decent start, which is always a good feeling. I hit the second control with not too much trouble. I headed to the third control. I then got cocky. Not a good thing! I decided to hit a road for a bit and then shoot an attack point from a pipeline. I got cocky because the third control, I’ve been to before, so I got that “I know where this is” attitude. I took a compass bearing and heading into the brush. I saw a hunter’s platform, and let my mind convince me that was the “building” I needed. Wrong! Hunter’s platforms are a different clue. I poked around in the brush, telling myself just how hard a stinking building could be to find! After fifteen minutes, I decided to relocate to the road and try again. I hit the same hunters platform! Obviously, I’m getting more and more upset with my mistakes. I relocate, take a deep breath, and head back into the scrub. I then spot the building! By then, I’m pretty pissed at myself so I decide that since there are not many cactus going down this hill, that I can run down to the building and pick up a few minutes. That was before I allowed my mind to remind me that there were ROCKS everywhere. I take three steps, gaining speed as I head down the hill. Then, a nasty rock jumped right in front of my left foot. My big toe plants right into it and hard. I see the ground coming up at an alarming rate, my mind reminding me to “avoid that cactus” as I face plant down the hill. My right hand takes some of the blow, scraping it all up. My left knee takes a hit on a rock, and I stub my toe hard. I figure I’m not dead, so I proceed to the control and the rest of the course. I get back and clock in at just over 1.5 hours. Not bad, considering my mistakes on the third control. I get Mr. G’s spare key and open up the truck, getting out my dry clothes and such. I then go to take off my left shoe and realize that it hurts and hurts pretty bad! The toe nail is black, with blood pooling up around the edge of the nail.
So here I am two days later, hardly able to walk, my toe is black and it hurts to put on shoes. But I avoided the cactus! I’m usually pulling cactus needles out for the week after a visit to the south side of Sid….

Mr. G didn't medal. We ate lunch, helped clean up the scout dining hall, and I got a first place. All the other males in my 50+ class, had DQed. Only one male in the 18 to 49 year old class, had also finished. I had spotted him when he must have been going away from that third point on day-2. I guess that day-2 Brown course, had taken it's toll!

The photo’s are of the lake from the forest, a really neat trail, a control bag near some rock formations, with a passage way beneath the rocks, and the day-1 start which was next to a gas well (Sid has a lot of those).

This soon will pass...I hope

2009-03-27T13:59:00.002-05:00

I officially started my new job this past Monday. Same job, same company even, just I am now employed instead of an hourly contractor. They did seven in my area. We are all frustrated by the "old to new" that we are going through.
I should have a new email. Except they have not told us HOW to log onto it. They don't copy over all our security and programs at one shot. So we wind up trying to see if something works, and then chasing around to find the right person to turn it on.
Toss in studying up on new benefits. I've decided what to sign up for, but have not done it yet. I think I have the logon id and password for that!!
On my main job, I just wandered down the hall as I know the technical support person for the security product. He sort of waved a magic wand and set my old ID's up, to be employee ID's. Three less logons and passwords to monkey with. He went one step farther and set up just ONE logon across all three major machines. I used to have a different one for each. I spent about two days, copying from my now "old" logons to my new ones. But this will be very goodness!! Only one Logon and one password to deal with! He smiled and told me "if they hand you a new logon, thank them....then run down here and I'll do some more magic and you won't have to deal with any other logons or passwords".

Now, if I can just figure out how to get into my "new" email!!!

Fraternity hazing in history

2009-03-19T13:57:00.002-05:00

I finally figured out what this King Tut deal is all about. I got all confused and thought it was Steve Martin out doing his famous King Tut routine.

Wikipedia has a write up on King Tut, and there is a lot of ideas on how the boy-king died. He died at 19. He might have had a head injury, or broken ribs from falling out of his chariot, or a badly broken leg and gangrene. They all missed it. He was 19. He was a swinging rich kid. He got way drunk at a fraternity initiation ritual. He then decided to take dads wheels (chariot) out for a drive, fell out of it, got all busted up, drank the rest of the keg dry and died of alcohol poisoning.

So the wife and sister actually went to a historical display for a frat party gone wrong. You don’t read about this, because they hushed it up.

King Tut

2009-03-17T12:46:00.004-05:00

My wife and my sister decided to attend King Tut exhibit here in Big-D. I decided not to go. They had tickets for this afternoon show. I was surprised this guy is still touring.

I quit my job this past Monday

2009-03-13T12:49:00.005-05:00

Really. Except my next job, is the same as the old job. Didn't The Who sing about that?
Here's the short story, ten years in the making.
1998, I'd been working for a gas pipeline company for thirteen years. They get bought out and will be shut down, jobs sent to Houston. I take a contracting job down the street for Mobil oil. Things go great for the next 2.5 years. I have all benefits and a great hourly rate. That is the downside of contract work, you are paid by the hour. Then, Exxon showed up and here I go again. They actually paid me a bonus to stick around! I stayed with the same contracting company, with benefits, at the next assignment. One of the worst places I ever worked. It only lasted a year and then I hit unemployment for a few months. By then, the world was in a tail spin, post 9/11, etc. I wind up contracting at a huge consumer products company, but zero benefits and less pay. But, hey, a job when a lot of people I know, didn't have one, were changing careers and such. Six YEARS later, I'm still here. My team started with four of us. One shifted to a new technology. One retired and the other contractor quit. They did bring in a great guy into the one employee position, leaving just the two of us. This last fall, the place actually laid people off. However, they approached me, and nine others doing what I do, and offered us full time employment! I was very happy to take them up. Everyone has been. Paid vacation, paid sick time, some match on 401K, retirement, training in other technologies.....
I even stay at the same desk.
So, after six years, I resigned from my contract company. They are happy for me, even though it means a drop in revenue for them.
One more week as a contractor. 10 years ago, I never thought I'd be contracting this long.

I lost the battle, but won the war

2009-03-09T15:15:00.007-05:00

This past Saturday, the North Texas Orienteering Association, NTOA, held a bare-bones orienteering event at the LBJ National grasslands. That is a bit north of Decatur Texas, on the way to Oklahoma. Bare-bones meant that they did a mass start. Everyone started at the same time. Instead of six courses, they only had three. They had a Yellow for people wanting an easy orienteering course. They had Brown for short advanced and then a Red, for long distance, advanced. My friend, Mr. G, was course setter for the event and also the meet director. Which meant he yelled out the instructions to everyone, had the maps made, put the control bags out on the courses for us to navigate to. It also meant that he’d have to be up there real early. So I drove up by myself, making it in just about one hour. I was glad they had signs out at all the turns, as finding the place is an orienteering exercise in itself! The bare-bones event also meant no awards, following, working together, faking each other out, were all acceptable.
So about a hundred people took the mass start and headed out following each other. I arrived at the first control, with about 10 other people. The second control was interesting, down in a dry stream bed. By the fourth control, I had paired up with another Brown, person. Going to the fifth control, was where I lost the battle. We followed a trail around a high ridge, but then butt-slid down the hill to a trail below us. At that point, we had to search around in some thicket area. Unfortunately, there was no identifiable point close by. Something we call an “attack point”, where we could get a bearing from. At one point, we decided to head back to the hill and then decide what to do. That was when I was viciously attacked by a thicket, shredding my arm. We got to the top of the hill, I was bleeding, we’d lost about 25 minutes looking for it, so we decided to head on to the next controls. In this event, you get to skip one control, and we decided we could get the rest of them and not worry about this one.

Once back, I found that some very experienced orienteer’s also had not found it and a lot had chosen to skip it, since it was in an overgrown area, down a big hill, which you would have to climb back out of anyway.

The photo at the top is my arm about 4 hours post the battle. It actually looks worse now, two days later, as it is all scabbed and some bruising. The other photos are some of the grass lands.

I stayed after the event also. They usually have a JROTC school helping at these events, to go out and gather up the control bags and punches. I knew they didn’t have a school, so stayed and went back out to collect one area of the bags. That is fun to do, but you are also very much “alone” as no one else will be in the area.

Other interesting items seen. Lots of horses being ridden and we flushed three deer also.

And LBJ Grass Lands, well, a lot is forest and thickets.

Urine Sample time

2009-03-04T19:50:00.005-06:00

In the last two weeks, I've become an expert in modern urine sampling.
The first sample, was actually at my doctors office. It was my yearly physical. They check your weight (up), height (I'm not shrinking yet), then urine. In his office, they hand you the cup and you fill it, put it into this miniature medicine box and leave. I think they check it and figure out how much money they have for running more expensive test. I thought it was a bit odd, as I had to first report to a laboratory for my blood draw. We'd assumed the urine test would be there. Nope. The insurance wanted the blood at their lab, but the urine test at the doctors was OK. Go figure it out.
Today's sample was a pre-employment one. A LOT more "formal". I had to empty my pockets into a lock box. Put that key, and only that key, into my pocket. Rinse, but no soap, on my hands and dry. Go in and "fill 'er up". But do NOT flush, or the sample is over for 24 hours. Return the cup to the nurse, who marks it and did something and THEN told me to take the rest, and flush it. I then got to wash my hands, with soap. And then initial and date my "sample". Watch her put it into the mail thing. Then, retrieve my junk and head home to await the results.

Now for the strange part. I walked into the place. There were three of us. The nurse and one other victim. Except, we know each other! She was in for some pre-op testing.

Strange.

You know your getting old when....

2009-03-02T14:10:00.003-06:00

Our oldest daughter turned 18 a week back. Unbelievable. I blogged about all the Soda's that teen aged boys can consume. This past Saturday I was heading into the kitchen and a diaper wipe warmer, new in the box, was sitting on our kitchen table.
One of these.

Well, our youngest is 14. We are both over 39 now (well over), so I'm starting to wonder what is this for? I have a moment of panic attack, but then the wife wandered by and answered the question.

Eldest daughter works in a store and one of the other employees is "expecting" so they are giving her a baby shower. Glad it isn't anyone in our house!

But it makes me feel old. When our daughter now is participating in baby showers.

Trinity Forest Hike

2009-02-23T15:50:00.004-06:00

The Trinity Forest project in Dallas, hosted a hike this past weekend. This was the third one I'd been on at the forest. It is amazing, that from the parking lot, you can see the high rise towers of downtown Dallas, but three minutes later, you are in some old growth forest. This year, they moved the hike. We'd been on one trail the last two years, with some massive trees on the route. This year, they switched us. Two of the trees we navigated to, were the same as before, just from different approach ways. They had the path way very well marked with streamers and survey flags. We still got sort of lost. The map is not what orienteers from NTOA are used to. They also had taped routes to some of the sights, where no offical path existed.
The weather was something else! I left the house at 7:45 for the paper. It was 54 degrees, but the wind had shifted to the north. I left the house at 8:15 and it was about 48 degrees. I got to the Trinity, and it was about 44 and about a 40 MPH north wind! It was COLD! Once we took the mass start at 10 AM, it was very nice in the forest. But I did wear two sport type shirts, and my cap.

If you click on the photo's, you see them blown up.
Click on the last one, and you will notice a small orange and white box looking thing hanging from the tree. Those are the control bags. The thing you have to spot in the woods. Fast orienteers spot them while on the jog or full run. That one in the photo, is a smaller version of what we normal have to spot.

Photo's from Athens Orienteering meet

2009-02-20T10:59:00.002-06:00

Boy, was I the shutter bug! Yes, two whole photo's. Snapped from our parking area on the second day. You get a sense of the remoteness of the camp. The day-two area, has not been used by the scouts in years, decades I've heard.
First photo shows the meadow the kids were playing ball in. Down the road, was the lake and the finish area.

Second photo, shows the parking area, and some incredible pines trees. I sat in the sun, listening to the wind in the pine needles, watching the trees sway, eating my PB&J.....

A great Valentines weekend spent Orienteering

2009-02-19T06:29:00.010-06:00

NTOA, North Texas Orienteering Association held a two day meet over the Valentine’s weekend. It was held at Clements Scout Ranch near Athens. Athens Texas, not that other Athens. Maybe there was an Orienteering meet there also, running up and down the acropolis in Greece. I didn’t see an acropolis at Clements Scout Ranch.

This event was a “B”, event. An “A” event was held at the same ranch last year. “A” events are national events, which even draw people from other countries. There are some fairly strict rules about how “A” and “B” meets are conducted. Such as, they pre-assign start times. Our fearless leader and I had requested that our three start times be grouped fairly close together on both days. We’d also requested they be about 10:30 each day. First start on day 1 is 10 AM, but on day 2, it is 9 AM. We were planning on the two hour one-way drive from home to the ranch each day, so didn’t need a 9 AM start on Sunday! Plus, our third person was new to this, and we wanted him to attend the beginners’ clinic. They posted the start times a few days before the event and I noticed our start times were grouped, but also very late on the first day and very early the second. Opposite of what we would have liked. The registrar was very accommodating and changed our times up. It was a bit hard, as he needed to have two minute intervals on the starts, but also six minutes between members of the same club, with NTOA being a “club”.

On Saturday, I picked up the other two people and drove down to Athens. We got there about 9:15 AM, perfect time. While Mr. G and I got our orienteering gear on, the new guy went over to the beginner’s clinic. We wandered over to the start area, stretched our old bones a bit and took the start. I was about four steps past the official start triangle, when I noticed a glaring omission from my map. I was attempting the Brown course. Brown is Orienteering-speak for a technically challenging, but short in distance, orienteering course. I’ve done Green, which is technical, but medium length, at this meet last year when it was an “A”, meet. Last year, I’d not spent two months doing physical therapy on my bad back! I’ve dropped back to Brown for this year.

What was the omission from the map? How about the North South lines! Those are used to take accurate compass bearings for when you need to follow a bearing between points. I paused for a moment, but then knew that if they were missing from my map, they would be missing from all the “brown” maps. Nothing to do but attempt to navigate without exact compass bearings. On the way to the first control point, I walked and just studied the map. I hit the first erosion area, turned right instead of left, and wandered away from the control. I noticed another person searching around the area also. He turned around and waved. I did a “thumb behind” me, showing him that I’d figured we went the wrong way. We chased each other to the first control. He took off after that and I didn’t see him again until the finish. We were in the same Brown, Male, +50 age class, so it was good that he moved out faster than I did.

What was especially amusing, was the lacking N/S lines. The course setter for this event is one of the most experianced orienteers around this area. He litterally wrote the book on it. We didn't give him too bad a time for leaving them off.

The second control was about my worst, taking 14 minutes. From the first, I had to jog along the lake, over the earth dam, then take a rough bearing (remember, no N/S lines!). The control was off in a water channel, but I hit into it at a thicket and didn’t see it. What I did see, was three deer! They took one look at me, and headed west to the lake. I was surprised, as there should have been at least 10 other orienteer’s thru that area ahead of me. While heading to the second control, a “Red” orienteer came over to me and had eyes as big as saucers. Those deer I spooked had run right past him! After that control, I had a great time. It was actually very good that the north/south lines were missing, as I had to slow down and pay careful attention to every land feature to complete the course. Looking over the day-1 results for the advanced courses, all of which were lacking the N/S lines, I’m surprised that very few people failed to finish the courses.

Day two, Mr G picked me up about 7:30 and we headed out for the two hour cruise to Athens. We arrived at 9:30, in perfect time to check our first day results, and get ready for our 10:20-something starts. My day two course had some long distances to cover, with 2.3 miles as the crow-flies, but only seven controls on it. This map, had the north-south lines! I started trying to jog on some of the trails I was using, but my shins were cramping up, so I had to just fast-walk most of it.

At the end of the day, I had a third place. The other two guys were in fourth and fifth place, very decent showings considering one of them was a first time orienteer.
The first place in my class, beat me by 15 minutes over the two days. He’s older than I am, but he is also Russian and his wife does the incredible map work for the club! Plus, she and he have been orienteering for many years. The second place, beat me by 14 minutes. I don't feel bad about that. He was winning his three Olympic gold medals, when I was two and six years old!

Considering the disaster I had the last time I went orienteering, it was a great weekend.

That photo, isn't my compass or hand or trail. I do have a base plate compass just like that. Several in fact. But I use a compass that fits on your thumb on the hand you hold your map in. That allows you to keep your compass and your thumb on your map, exactly where you are in the woods.

Where did all the soda's go?

2009-02-18T10:29:00.003-06:00

Our eldest daughter turned 18 last Friday the 13Th. She wanted some friends over for pizza and cake. Friends turned into about seven or eight teen aged boys and about four of her girlfriends. We have two teen aged daughters. The oldest drinks Leaded Dr. Pepper, but only maybe one a day. The youngest, likes IBC Root Beer, Creame Soda and Ginger Ale. Eldest requested the pizza, some Coke, Mountain Dew and what ever other drinks we already had in the "drinks" refrigerator. About 11 minutes after the arrival of the boys, all the Mountain Dew's were consumed, half the Creame Soda and root beers were gone and even some of the Ginger Ale. By 10 PM, there were nothing but empties.
The wife and I went grocery shopping the next day. We had to get an extra shopping cart, just for the drinks! There was only about 1 creame soda's left, 2 root beers and I think all the ginger ale was toast.
They were all great kids and had fun.

Double dog dare you to watch every second of these

2009-02-10T09:16:00.002-06:00

Worst music video's ever?

You want to say that again???

2009-02-04T15:18:00.002-06:00

I went into my work break room for a cup of coffee yesterday. The pot was, as usual, empty, so I started a new pot. Then, I got my cup, sweetener and stir stick ready to go. Someone must have lit up a sign "FRESH COFFEE!", as about four more people entered the room. OK, fine. Then, one person took her cup and put it under the pot. She looked at me and said "that way, no one can take coffee before it finishes brewing. If you do that, it's just FLAVORED WATER".

OK......

Wait....
Coffee and Tea IS just flavored water......

While my brain was trying to get around this statement, one of our "guest workers", was busy making a cup of something. She put in a packet of hot chocolate and then, about eight sugars and two creamers! She headed to the trash to get rid of all the paper. I peeked into her cup. It was HALF full of sugar.....she waited for our coffee to finish brewing and then went for the hot water for her morning sugar shocker drink.....

The day the music died

2009-02-03T07:01:00.003-06:00

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson.

White House says Daschle......

2009-02-02T14:54:00.005-06:00

What?
Ripped off Harry Potters glasses?
Forgot to pay taxes?

Is a serious mistake?

I remember another guy who "forgot" to pay his taxes.

Another one?

2009-02-02T13:06:00.003-06:00

Goes from the Wheaties box

To a wild party guy..

I can hear it now.....
"dUDE...like, a photo deal and.........like............ummmm....Yeah. like an endorsement and all.....................dude..............."

News link

January 30, 1969

2009-01-30T06:40:00.003-06:00

The last concert. Fifth Beatle Billy Preston on keyboards.

I call it Cyclops

2009-01-29T10:35:00.005-06:00

Our family member that had to be put down was a 1998 Maytag washing machine. In a family of four, with children, we do about ten loads of laundry a week. I figured the Maytag had done about 6000 to 7000 loads of laundry. It had been rebuilt twice. About six months ago it started leaking some light machine oil out the bottom. It didn’t seem to effect the operation. Twice in the last two weeks, the laundry room took on a burning rubber smell. I liked it. The wife didn’t. The next move by the Maytag was leaking some water out. That pretty much did it. We got a Consumer Report on washers. Friday night we found ourselves kid-less. Wife and I actually went out for a nice dinner at Red Lobster. We exited the restaurant to find a large flat bed tow truck blocking our car and no sight of the driver. After a few minutes, we decided to just walk over to Sears at the mall and check out washers. We walked in and a very knowledgeable salesman showed us around the washers. We looked at top loaders at first, as that is what we have always had. However when I was doing physical therapy for my bad back, the PT people were telling me that top loaders were about the worst for bad backs. The reaching in, lifting damp clothes, was not a good thing and there was no other way to do it. We were about sold on a nice top load washer, but I decided to ask about front loaders. The salesman told us that we would wind up spending more money up front, but there were advantages. The front loaders use about one-third the water and half the soap than the same top loader. The base model front loader, spins at about 1000 RPM. You have to purchase a mid line top loader to get the same spin speed. The faster the spin, the more water is squished out so the dryer works less. Down sides are that you have to use the High Efficiency soap, they cost more, you should clean out the door gasket once a month and run a “clean” cycle one a month. The wife got real interested in the savings of water, that perhaps we can extend the dryer life, that we won’t stress our backs and that the mid line unit we purchased, can not only do the king sized comforter, but you could put in the sheets with it! This thing can wash clothes!

It is also a lot of fun to listen to and watch. It is very quiet, but it starts, adds water, stops, reverses, adds soap, reverses, washes…..on and on. The controls are fully electronic. It senses even how many clothes are in it and only adds the water needed to wash that sized load. You can over ride any of the choices the computer makes. The spin cycle is something else. It spins up. Stops. Reverses and spins some more. Back and forth for a while. When it finally does the final spin, and you are in watching it, it sounds and looks like a jet airplane motor. The thing flies. The clothes come out just damp. Our dryer is running faster and the clothes are totally dry when it finishes.

And it is heavy. The delivery guy was a big burly guy and he had his shoulder up on the washer to walk it back into its hole. I asked him if it was heavy and he told me “yeah, 250 pounds. But you will love this thing”.

I call the new washer “Cyclops”. It has lights, bells, beeps. Everything a man needs in a machine. Except it doesn’t keep beer cold.

We had to put an old friend down last Saturday

2009-01-28T20:11:00.000-06:00

He was just worn out. He'd done his job for ten years and about 6000 to 7000 times. He'd started to leak things out on the floor about six months back. We'd fixed it over the years, but you could just tell, it was time to let him go.

Stranger than the truth....

2009-01-26T13:35:00.002-06:00

My wife sometimes calles me "DD" for Demented Drummer. This appeared today in the local news.

DALLAS — A thief could have made off with lots of things from Condoms To Go; a sexy new outfit, a dominatrix's whip, or — of course — condoms.

Instead, a mannequin and underwear disappeared from the store in the 17500 block of Coit Road.

According to police, someone removed the front glass door and took the items before dawn today.

The dummy was valued at $250, the underwear set at $50.

The store’s manager could not be reached for comment. Police said they had no information to release on a suspect.

Handy neighbors

2009-01-25T23:12:00.004-06:00

It's great to have handy neighbors. This past Friday night, wife and I were heading to bed. We both flushed the toilets at the same time, and they didn't go down. It was midnight and we are both attempting to plunger the toilets. Finally, I declare that we must have a backed up sewer and it would need to wait until the morning.
We had a backed up sewer line about six years back. We'd built onto the house and the back part of the house, didn't drain very well. I'd rented a sewer snake and attempted to clean the four inch sewer myself. I didn't have much luck then.
So Saturday morning, I get out a wrench and crack open one of the sewer clean outs. Yes, it was full of water still.
I've got a shop with two old cars in it, drum parts from building drums, and tools from three major building projects (1120 square foot shop, 920 square foot home addition, numerous out buildings). I've got a neighbor who has a shop and does gun smith work. Except for the last two years, he's been buying and rebuilding old Ford 8N tractors.

Our other neighbors, he works in electronic repair and they are constantly fixing cars, boats, homes over there.
I thought I'd remembered a plumbing truck over there, so I called them up to see which plumber they would recommend. They reply with "backed up sewer? We have that twice a year, due to the old septic system here. I'll be right over with a SEWER SNAKE and we'll see about unclogging it". I get out a garden hose and an extension cord and we proceed to snake out the sewer pipe. He estimated we were about 30 feet into the pipe and "bump"....we hit something. A moment later and WHOOSH....all the water vanished.
It's great to have neighbors willing to help each other.

It's amazing what you can find in the street....

2009-01-23T12:12:00.002-06:00

We got our oldest daughter a new Ipod for Christmas. Her old one, just wasn't big enough. It can only hold 1000 songs......
I got the hand-me-down ipod to use while I do my walking. Actually, wife and I share it. I often listen walking out, hand it to her to use walking back home. I had a set of ear-buds that have the soft rubber replaceable tips on them. I got home one day about a month back and one of the rubber tips was missing. I put out the all-points bulletin at home, but we didn't find it. I did find a package of replacement tips, so didn't think much more about it.

Returning home from walking this week, the trail intersects a street near us that we use to get from our home to the trail. That street actually dead ends into the trail. As I was walking, looking down, lo-and-behold, there was the missing ear bud tip!
I put it in my pocket. I then forgot it and washed those pants. It survived the wash and is now back in use.

Another mystery, sol-va-ded...

I have so-le-ved-a the case

2009-01-14T13:00:00.005-06:00

Or so Inspector Clouseau would have said. Remember my Texas Drivers license that I’d lost out at All Saints Camp while orienteering back in November? I had searched my pockets, my gym bag, and even returned to the three places I’d most likely lost it at. That was all assuming that I’d taken it out on the orienteering course with me. Which I had! Except sometime, I had placed the license into my fanny pack, which has a water bladder, a list of the IOF orienteering symbols, my electronic finger stick, and I put my keys into a plastic bag in the fanny pack. It seems I’d also put my license in it also! Why it didn’t fall out when I got back from orienteering that last November, I’ve not figured out. This past orienteering meet, I got my gym bag out and was loading it up with shirts, a change of clothes and such. The morning of the meet, I filled the water bladder and went to place it into the fanny pack, and lo-and-behold, there was the missing, and now replaced, TDL!!!! Why didn’t it fall out when I returned from orienteering? I always remove the bladder, dry it out, maybe run some bleach through it. Oh well. I’ll just leave that old license in the bladder compartment. Next time some cedar tree assaults me, I’ll have my Texas Drivers License right there with me to show the Tree Police.

Stinging battle wounds!

2009-01-13T14:48:00.003-06:00

I had a Monday Night Band practice last night. Just two days after my last orienteering event. I had also played drums Sunday morning at church, but I'd only played about 30 minutes at church. At MNB, I hit some of the drums a bit harder than normal and the drum stick smacked into my injured right palm! A bit painful, so I had to adjust my grip so as to try and avoid the pain. Unfortunately, my palm also started to perspire! That stung! Combine that with another good whack from the drum stick, and multiply the pain!

Oh well. Great jam session.

A bad day Orienteering is still better than a day playing Golf….

2009-01-12T14:56:00.010-06:00

Saturday January 10, 2009, opened quite brisk here in north Texas. I picked up Mr. G at his house at 7:30 AM and we headed north towards Lake Texoma and the James Ray Boy Scout camp. The North Texas Orienteering Association had their meet at the camp.

We got to the camp in good time, about 9:15. The registration area was being set up in a pavilion that is about the highest point in the camp. And it is totally exposed. The air temperature was probably about 28 and the wind was about 20 MPH out of the north, from over the lake. The wind chill was something! Mr. G and I talked with a few people and then paid our $7 each to pick up our registration card. We decided to head over to the start area and see if we could get a start time. Yes, we could. In fact, we both got “zero zero”. That means we were first to start. I was doing the Brown course, which is technically advanced but the shortest of the advanced courses. Mr. G was doing the Green, which is the medium length advanced course. Once we had our start times, we only had about 25 minutes to get ready, so we headed to the camp men’s room and then back to my truck to decide what to wear. I choose an Under Armour athletic shirt my daughter gave me for Christmas, then a zip up long sleeve athletic shirt and a knit cap. We had to put on our gaiters, and I also gaffer tape my shoe laces. That prevents them from getting snagged on vines, brambles and twigs and getting untied. Then, it was time for the fanny pack with the water, the thumb compass and RF finger stick that would record my times and off to the start. We had about 5 minutes to spare, which was a bit cold waiting in the starting block. We spent the time “clearing” and “checking” our finger RF sticks. Clear, erases any data on it. Check, then verifies that it is empty.

The start then proceeded. I place the clue sheet into my arm protector, where it is easy to just glance at it and see the clue to navigate to the control point. Advance to the next start box at the next minute interval and pick up the map and place it into the Zip-lock bag and shoot a staple into it to try and keep it in the bag. Wait the next minute for our start and then insert the RF stick into the official “start” RF recorder. We then proceeded down the path to the official start “triangle”, turn over the map and start figuring out how to go find the first control point in the woods. My first point was a boulder past a building just about 150 meters NE. Off I went. I found some boulders and then found the correct one. First point checked off, which is always a good feeling. I’ve been known to totally mess the first control! Talking with another guy in my age and course this meet, he did mess up the first several points. The second control I again just shot a compass bearing and went almost straight to the control. I navigated to the third control by following a water channel to a path. I was heading down the path when out in front of me, stepped a coyote! He took one look at me, did a 180 and heading back into the brush. I figured that was a good sighting being first out on the course. Once I got the third point, I followed a power line to get near to the fourth point. To the fifth, I followed the wrong water channel and found a “man made object”, just not the correct one. I noticed on the map, an identical water channel and man made object, so headed that way. After the event, I spoke with two others who made the same mistake I had. From the fifth, I chose to pop out on the main road, cut across the parking lot and then follow a well graded trail down to the Boy Scout shooting range. My control was a ruined fence to the north. I was working around the fence and manage to trip myself and bruise up my elbow pretty well. My seventh control point was a bit worrisome. There really wasn’t a good way to navigate to it, so I took a very precise compass bearing and headed into the forest. Thankfully, it was fairly open and not too bad to get through it. I shocked myself, and gave myself a false sense of well being, when I walked right up to the control. Seven controls down in good time with no mistakes! I shouldn’t have gotten so cocky! The course was about to bite me, and hard. At the seventh point, I noticed that I could go out of my way a bit to the west and hit an indistinct trail. I’d been on that trail a year ago and it was OK. Plus there were houses along that trail, which would have been good at “catching” me from going too far. But then to the north, I knew about where a marsh area was, as I’d been there the year before. I chose to take a compass bearing and start stomping through the forest, open areas and such. Except this was the second longest distance to go, about 750 meters, or .4 or a mile. A few minutes into my march, I hit a clearing with a wrecked sailboat, which I’d seen before and was on the map as “man made object”. SO far, right on track. Relax, let the mind wander…..NOT a good thing to do. I got to the area which I thought was the marsh, and there wasn’t much marsh left. But it has been a dry year in north Texas, so I figured I was still doing OK. But then I come across a house in the distance and a bird feeder, which would also be a man-made, X marks the spot on the map. I find what I THOUGHT was the X on my map and decided I’d overshot and was a bit to the west of the gully I needed to find. WRONG! I wasn’t far enough. In fact, I now realize, I was about 200 meters short! I spent the next 20 minutes, stomping around in the gully. I then decide that I’ve screwed up and perhaps pop back to the road and try and determine which house is which black box on my map. Except that we’d also been warned that the houses were out-of-bounds and were NOT mapped correctly. OK…but I figured I’d try it. Except then I picked the wrong house, since I wasn’t far enough still. I then come across a trail. A fairly big trail. So big, it had fresh ATV tire tracks in it! I check my map and there is only one trail noted and it shows as indistinct. I decide I’ve been looking almost an hour, I’m messed up, but following the trail should lead back to something I can navigate from. I follow it a bit but then hear two people coming from behind me to the north and south. I asked one of them to show me where they are on their map. Most orienteers will help out by showing you that, and the one did. But then, I also determined that it wasn’t exact enough and decided to head to the next control, which was actually closer! I got to the ninth control, still having missed the eighth control. I looked at that control for a good 30 seconds, got mad at myself and decided to NOT forfeit yet and try and navigate backwards to the eighth control. On the way back, lo and behold, here is Mr. G! He’s making good time and considering his course is longer, he is way ahead of me. He confirms that I was on a good bearing to back up to control eight. I get over to the general area and find about 7 people standing around, checking in different gullies for the control! Finally, we find it and I hook it back to the ninth control. I would find out at the finish that I’d spent an hour and 13 minutes on the ONE control! That was longer than I’d spent on the first half of the course. But I was also still within the three hour time limit and had a new grit in my teeth to finish the course. Actually, I did have grit in my teeth, from falling down. And leaves in my pants, and twigs in my pockets. One twig was so bold as to squirm down under the elastic band on my finger holding the RF reader! I hit nine and then navigated up to the tenth control, which was on the same water channel as the ninth point. I tag control 10, three more to go and my confidence is heading back up. I pull up my map to figure the next control, and find about 75 percent of my map and zip-lock, are gone! Torn off in the woods! The top photo is of a 1:7500 map of the park. The torn map and zip-lock below, was what I had left. I had enough map left to navigate to point 11. A nice lady had followed me to control 10 and offered to let me look at her map after point 11. Point 12 was the only other “real” point, as point 13, the final point, is always near the finish and is the same point for all the different courses. So, we hit 11, 12 and 13 together. I was just happy to finish the course. I’ve finished every course I’ve attempted. My time of 2 hours and 37 minutes was horrible. Until I check the results after lunch. I was in sixth of the seven in our class that finished. One or two, didn’t finish. I was only about 20 minutes behind the person who got third place. It seems that all of us old folks had trouble on the course. Myself, one other on Brown, and another guy who had done Red (longest and hardest), sat and discussed where we messed up, how we messed up, what would have been a better way to navigate. It's a great way to learn from mistakes and learn new ways to think about navigating.
(The other courses are White, which is all on trails and the clues are both in English and orienteering symbals, Yellow, mostly on trails, but some not, also in english and symbals, Orange, some route choices will need to be made, not all on trails and no English, just the symbals).

I took some ribbing from a few people, including Mr. G, who took a look at what was left of my map and announced that I must have tried to eat it, as I was out there lost so long.

The course setter and I work for the same company, and she was nice enough to give me a new map. I like to mark my route and then mark what I SHOULD have done. They are good to learn from.

So, let’s review the bodily injury report.
Sore ankle, sore muscles. About 40 scratches on my hands, included a good cut in the palm of my right hand. About 20 scratches on my thighs. Four scratches on my face and neck. Some rash on my belt line, where my fanny pack had collected up some leaves and forest duff that caused a reaction. A bruised elbow from the ruined fence that decided to trip me. And the crowning injury, I took a tree branch to my left eye! And I wear glasses and the tree still attacked. I attempted to get the trees name and the name of his insurance company, but all he would say was “cedar tree 438763A……stick it…..old man”. I asked around at the finish, who I should report tree-assaults to, but they just looked at me like I was some loony.

Mr. G and I ate some great burgers, fries and onion rings at the local convenience store. Mr. G got a third place and then we headed back to home.

I had trouble sleeping that night, as my poked eye continued to water and hurt. Around midnight, my wife handed me some eye drops and pointed out that they had an anti-biotic in them. She then informed me that they were veterinarian drops! I put two drops in my eye anyway. My eye doctor goes to the same church and I figured if it was worse in the morning, I’d just ask him if he’d consider taking a look. It was much better, so I didn’t bother him.

My wife just keeps looking at the wounds and the tales of orienteering and saying "And this is fun......again just HOW????"

I’m still on the look out for Cedar Tree 438763A. I have a hatchet with his name on it.

And a day in the woods, even when I’ve “lost map contact”, still beats a game of golf.

Elvis birthday today

2009-01-08T09:36:00.000-06:00

Uber Ghetto Redneck

2009-01-06T13:33:00.001-06:00

We have had a very interesting start to the New Year, 2009. The wife has been battling not one, but now two root canals to her teeth. That was how I spent the second day of the year, waiting to drive her home from the first root canal. On the first Saturday of the year, the temperature here in north Texas, was a record tying 84 degrees. I did our three mile walk in shorts and a T-shirt. Saturday night another cold front blew through. By Sunday church time, it was 40 degrees and the wind was 25 MPH and gusting to 40. I walked in long pants, T-shirt, sweater and coat on Sunday. By Monday morning, it was raining and still dropping. By the time I got to work, it was starting to ice up.

I got home about 3:30, as I would need to pick up a daughter at school, since the wife had the root canal scheduled. I went to check our mail box and the door to our plastic mailbox was iced up and sort of on crooked. I went to open it and it fell off, hit the pavement, and broke!

Later that night, the wife and I were returning in the dark, icy evening from getting some groceries. I suddenly remembered that our neighbors had a broken mailbox. Their wood mounting pole had rotted. They had the box replaced by someone and the old box had been lying on the ground for several weeks. The trash men must not recognize it as trash. After parking in the garage, I mention said broken mail box to the wife. She said, “Hey, it has just been lying there….” So I head out the door, into the icy night, retrieving the broken mailbox. I drug the old mailbox into our living room and was heading out the back door, trailing icicles, leaves and dead grass.

My wife commented “Uber Redneck”. I think she meant to insult me.

I said, “More Uber Ghetto I think”.

Hence, we shall have Uber Ghetto Redneck mailbox.

Our old one had been painted by our Uber-talented artist daughter. Maybe she will paint this one also.

Old cars are a pain

2009-01-04T22:47:00.004-06:00

Our 1970 Mustang Mach 1, decided to start leaking radiator fluid. All by itself it made this decision. There was a small amount on the garage floor, maybe half a cup. Was it the upper radiator hose? No, that was too easy. It had to be the lower. And not where it attaches to the bottom of the radiator. No, up by the water pump. The motor in this car is the 428 Cobra Jet. It is "wall to wall motor". You can hardly even see the bottom radiator hose.
I did figure out the problem. A year ago, I took the front of the motor apart to put in a different distributor but more importantly, to get the harmonic ballancer rebuilt. On this old Ford, it is cast iron, two pieces held together with rubber, to absorb vibrations. The old rubber can fail, so I sent it off to get rebuilt. When I put on the lower hose, I didn't get it pushed all the way up to the stop mark on the water pump. Nor did I get the hose clamp on evenly. So when it was clamped down, it was cocked and after a year, decided to leak.
I drained the radiator and took the hose off on Saturday. And Sunday afternoon, put it all back together. I didn't bother to start it. I need to do that and then let it cool and check the fluid level. Big blocks like "low" water. Otherwise, they spew radiator fluid about.
In the photo, just to the left and a bit lower than center, is what looks to be some white marks. I have them circled in white. That says "RAD" on the lower hose. So you know which end connects to the radiator. As you can see, what with the AC, the power steering pump and IT's radiator, belts and such, it isn't too easy to even see the hose. To work on it, you are under the car. Except to tighten the clamp on the top. That is easier to reach from the top.
I also took the 1969 Mustang coupe out and washed it, cleaned the windows and vacuumed it out. That was the first time in about a year. Hey, they sit in the garage 30 out of 31 days.

Christmas BBQ

2008-12-26T09:24:00.001-06:00

This was actually my second plate. Actually, it was my daughters plate. She had taken too much beef, so I put on some more potatoes, and slaw and had that for seconds. We were so full, my dinner, at 7 PM, was an apple and a roll.
I really wasn't hungry for breakfast either......

Beef - It's whats for Christmas

2008-12-24T18:57:00.005-06:00

We often have family over for Christmas. We eat a noonish time meal. For about five years, we'd get a honey baked ham. But then I noticed that we had about three members, who refused to eat it. One, even turned down honey baked ham, in favor of State Fair corny dogs. Three years back, we had one guest eating corny dogs and fries, one eating fish sticks and one is a vegetarian. My dad, also must avoid salt and honey ham has a lot in it. On top of that, where my wife used to get the ham, the smallest ham they sold, was something like eight pounds. I ate ham for a week and finally threw the rest away. $60 ham and about one-third of our guest, wouldn't/couldn't eat it.
So last year, I decided to just pick up BBQ. And not just any BBQ.
Angelo's.
They opened in 1958. The year I was born and probably about the year my dad found out about them. He was a USAF fighter pilot and they used to actually divert into Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, land, grab a staff car, drive over to Angelo's and eat. Then, proceed on to Dallas to visit his parents. I remember eating in Angelo's in about 1964. They used to keep sawdust on the floor. It absorbed the juice and grease. They fought with the health department for years, until they finally had to ditch the saw dust. They have expanded the place a few times, but it is still great food, and interesting vibe in the place, and some of the coldest beer in town. Ice floating off the glasses cold.
So, last year, I decided to get four pounds of sliced beef. The two visiting college kids still wanted corny dogs, fish sticks and fries. We told their mom to fix it. Basically, I got tired of running a restaurant on Christmas for people who were pretty much unpleaseable.
The best part of it, is I drive over on Christmas eve, eat a half-plate of sliced beef, pick up the take out and head home. I get some great BBQ, two days in a row. This year, the wife decided that their cole slaw is some of the best she has ever had, so we got some of that also.
When a friend and I head into Fort Worth for the big All Ford Show, we time it to have BBQ at Angelo's.
That photo at the top, was taken on Christmas eve, at about 11:15 in the morning. 15 minutes after they had opened. I'm in the bigger of their two parking lots. The front lot was full and two rows in the bigger lot. About half the people were eating and the other half were picking up meat for the next day. I did both. Jason, grandson of the founder, sliced my beef for me.

Festivus - For the rest of us.

2008-12-23T08:03:00.001-06:00

December 23rd

The 5 parts of Festivus:

Festivus Pole

Festivus Dinner

Airing of Grievances

Feats of Strength

Festivus Miracles

I wish everyone a very happy Festivus.

our PC's new best friend

2008-12-22T09:08:00.005-06:00

Our vintage HP desktop is about on it's final boot up. We bought it about 2000, maybe 2001. I think the C drive is about to die. That won't be good, as the C drive is all the applications. There is a separate D drive, with all the data. So about two weeks back I call up to Dell and buy a new Inspiron 530. I spent this past weekend, installing our few programs onto the new computer. I attempted to remove the old D drive, but it isn't compatible with the new hardware! I talked over some options with a friend of mine who does desktop support for a living. He thought there was probably some wire connections to install the vintage D drive, into the new computer.

I decided to use a service that we were already paying for. Carbonite. I'd signed us up about a year back. What it does, is back up the files and folders to the Carbonite off site storage. So once I got the software installed, I hooked up the new PC to the Internet. I downloaded more programs and fixes and patches. Then, I went to the Carbonite site and logged on. I then told it "this is now my machine". Carbonite then walked me through the steps to recover all our data from their back up site! I didn't choose the "do it all" option, as I wanted to control which files were downloaded and where they were placed. Mainly because I knew it would run a while and the D drive, didn't exist on the new VISTA machine. Saturday I did all the small files and folders. Saturday evening, I let it do all our documents. Saturday night, I let it do our photos. It was done when I got up Sunday morning. Sunday evening, I let it do our largest file, the My Music. Something over 13 GB. It was done when I got up this morning.

I've only got a few new issues to deal with.
1) figuring out how to get the new printer shared, so our work laptops can print at home.
2) I messed around with a file after I recovered it. I can't see it now, but the computer knows it is there someplace..... When I try to copy it back off my flash-drive, the new PC informs me that it already exist and do I want to over lay it.
3) ITunes. About 113 songs were "protected" on the old machine. The new Itunes didn't want to "convert" those. I've done some searching and have a few tips to try and get those songs into the new machine. Worse case sounds like "burn them to a CD on the old machine, and then slam them into the new one".

Anyway, Carbonite worked just great and copied all our data down. Get Carbonite on your desktop.

Get into that Christmas mood!!!

2008-12-19T09:42:00.001-06:00

Well, not really. Have a listen, at your own risk. This has been around in cyber-space for years. The lip-sync version....

Another lost weekend

2008-12-15T21:35:00.003-06:00

Working in data processing, you occasionally have lost periods of time. Nights, weekends, entire days. This past weekend was one of those. The company I contract at, one of the largest snack food producers in the world, schedule to test their computer systems disaster recovery. Usually, they start those test in November, and on a Tuesday through a Thursday. My job usually starts about 1o to 15 hours into it. Which means I usually pull an all night shift at IBM's disaster recovery site. Thankfully, it isn't too far from where we live. This year, the schedule started at noon on a Friday! And went 56 hours. Let's do the math. Yes, completing at 8 PM Sunday night. I lucked out a bit this year. My supervisor volunteered for the night shift! He reported about 9 PM Friday night. I attempted to relive him at 8 AM Saturday morning. Except he was so far along, he said he'd stay and together we'd be done by noon. That suited me, as our fourteen year old's birthday party was that afternoon. Since we were done so early, that shortened up my 8 AM to 8 PM shift and eliminated his 8 PM to 8 AM shift. Trouble was, all the other systems were not going to complete until about 5 AM Sunday morning. Translation: Thanks for doing all this, we will start checking it out tomorrow!

There was on NTOA meet Saturday, which I'd bowed out of.

I was asked to play drums for church on Sunday, but had bowed out due to the scheduled work.

That was a good thing, as my cell phone started going off on the way home from 9 AM church. I would work 10 minutes to fix a problem, or an hour. Then go try and do some leaf raking or some other weekend chore. The cell phone would go off again and I'd go back to fixing the next problem. The fun part, was they give us all-powerfull logon ID's. So we can do most anything we want. IBM also allows us to remotely connect. At least we didn't have to go back in. The bad part of that, is that while you are connected to IBM, you can't be connected to much of anything else. I'd get a call, they tell me they were sending an email or IM. You had to be "on work" connection. Then, disconnect, reconnect to IBM. Evaluate and solve the problem. Log back off, back on, call back, email back. ETC.

On TOP of all that, due to that I also support the payroll system, I had to work on an emergency-for-year-end-or-2007-taxes-are-toast project!

Short story, about 20 hours work over the Saturday and Sunday.

My cell phone, had a fully charged battery on Sunday morning. By 7 PM, it was flashing "low batt" at me.

But I still managed to be at daughters birthday and also rake up 11 bags of leaves.

That’s a relief

2008-12-12T10:59:00.004-06:00

Our oldest daughter is a fantastic artist. She is also way, way smart. Twenty-fifth in her class of something like seven hundred students. One of those kids with a 4.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale. She was interested in college at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and University of North Texas (UNT). UNT seems to have won out. She applied and was accepted this past Tuesday. She plans on studying graphic/commercial/marketing type art.

Yesterday afternoon, wife and I planned on trying to get our three mile walk in, from 4:45 to 5:45. I had to do some work for work, at 6 PM. Wife ran a bit late in getting home, so I’d done most of the mail and had gotten my walking clothes on before she got home. We get so much mail from colleges right now, I don’t bother to open it. I just lay it on the daughters bed or leave on ours. So while waiting for wife to get her walking clothes on, I headed out to my shop to drop off some tools that I’d had inside the house. As I go to exit my shop, I start hearing a bunch of screaming and yelling, and my name is included. I figured someone was injured badly. No, one of those letters from UNT, was a scholarship!!! Daughter just got handed about 70 percent of her four year degree, paid for!

I need to get with our financial advisor next week. We might have enough saved up to put her all the way through school.

While sitting and discussing college, we also totaled up her college hours she has completed or tested out of by taking Advanced Placement courses. Seems she has 21 hours of college credit done and she is still a senior in high school!

Look out world. She is a quiet, unassuming, WORLD BEATER!

Her middle school sister, upon hearing the amount, commented “Cool. We can go shopping with that!!!”

Priorities. It’s usually about Priorities!

What if? Starting to get into that Christmas spirit.

2008-12-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Elvis and Led Zeppelin collided with a reggie band? Yes, Dread Zeppelin

Pretty neat when Plant digs on it

What message did you send there mom?

2008-12-10T09:56:00.002-06:00

This past Monday night, our middle school daughter was involved in a choir show. The program was sponsored by our middle school, but two of the elementary schools were there, plus another middle school and even the high school boy’s choir. What they showed, was how the elementary music program fed into the middle schools and eventually into the high school. Our middle school opened, and then all the other schools took turns. This happened at the high school auditorium and almost every seat was taken. About 800 people came to hear the kids and support the schools. My parents even came down to hear their granddaughter’s choir. I saved them seats.

Next to my mom, sat a lady who got there early, like we all did. She pulled out some knitting to occupy herself. We assumed that she would stop her frantic knitting when the program began. Nope! She kept right on knitting during the entire first half of the program. Never stopped knitting, never clapped for the kids. Bumping her elbow into my poor mother, who was trying to watch and listen to the choirs. Next to this woman, sat what I assumed were her parents. They did the exact same thing, but no knitting. They sat and whispered back and forth. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to the program, never clapped.

Intermission came and my mom decided to try and move down towards the front and away from the knitting machine. By then, one of the elementary school had finished and people had started to leave, so some seats were available. I was glad that the people had waited for the intermission to head home. During the intermission, the knitter put up her knitting and engaged in conversation with her parents.

The second half of the program opened with another elementary school. It seems that her kid must have been in that choir, as she attentively listened and clapped wildly when they finished. As that school exited the stage, the high school men’s choir came out for their last two numbers. During this, the knitter picked up her bag of knitting and she and her parents exited. DURING the show! “Excuse me…pardon…, sorry to block your view, sorry to bang into your knee…..”

What was sad is to see the progression. Her parents didn’t knit, but they also didn’t clap for any of the choirs but their own. The mom did the same. AND, she had another child with her, who has now learned that you only show up for the part of the program that you are interested in, you don’t pay any attention to the other parts of the show, and you bolt for the door as fast as you can. You also don’t be aware of how your actions are affecting the people around you. No, it’s all about you…..and your knitting.

We’d wished they had just stayed home.

12/8/2000 -- I was attempting to study for my college senior finals

2008-12-09T07:22:00.000-06:00

2008-12-08T18:10:00.000-06:00

The Twelve days of Christmas - from 1998 and Indiana U's, Straight No Chaser group.

I'm dead....

2008-12-03T20:02:00.003-06:00

I work in data processing. We are on call all the time. Last night, we got to bed around 11:30 PM. The phone rang at 1:35 AM. Operations had an analyst needing database help from me. Except she is from India. I caught about every third word. She told me she was "Quaker". So I logged onto the Quaker Oats systems. No job could be found. I kept repeating the name of the job. Finally, the operator told me it was on Frito Lay and NOT Quaker! I finally got it fixed and was back in bed at 2:45 AM. At 3:35 AM, shes back on the line with a similar problem. Except she has no idea that Frito is so massive, that they have two production systems. Again, the kind operator pointed me to the correct system. Back in bed at 4 AM. Alarm goes off at 6:01 AM. I hit snooze twice, but then was too awake so just went on in. My boss shooed me home during a 2 PM phone conference, but then I didn't nap!

At 4 PM, I headed out and walked 4 miles. With a North Texas cold front moving in, the wind was gusting to 25 MPH and the temp dropped quick! But it was still better than trucking out at 8 PM! Which is my normal time to walk.

Next stop, easy street

2008-12-01T14:44:00.004-06:00

I eat Pop Tarts. But not for breakfast, for a desert with my at-my-desk lunch at work. I get the Low-Fat Frosted Cinnamon ones. I also keep them in the refrigerator. They are great hot and cold, but not so great at room temperature. So, at work last week, I open up my packet and take a bite and something is very different! Seems they have strawberry filling in this box full! Notice in the photo, the pink filling? It is supposed to be brown.

I was totally traumatized. I've had trouble sleeping. I've become very nervous about this.

I plan to sue. I've sent an email to John Edwards. He made zillions as a trial lawyer and probably needs some cash about now.

Unfortunately, all I have left is this photo. I ate the evidence.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T07:15:00.001-06:00

I've been making and eating these since about 1974....

Fresh hot flour tortilla.

Butter (spray on is good)

Dash of salt

Salsa

Roll it up

Enjoy.

You can leave off the Salsa for a change

Or put on just Honey.

My wife doesn't "DO" much hot sauce. However, lately even she has been having some of these. Well, not as much salsa as shown here.

Kids climbing trees

2008-11-26T09:06:00.004-06:00

As a kid, I loved to climb trees. We lived right off Lake St. Clair, outside of Detroit, when I was around eight. There were these massive trees. The military base, had been opened right after WWI, about 1919 or something. The trees had been growing ever since. They were great.

We moved into our home in Highland Village in 1986. We planted a live oak tree in our front yard in 1987 or maybe 1988. We brought it home in a five gallon bucket in the back of our 1986 Ford truck. In 1994 we brought home daughter number two in a 1984 Toyota Corolla. Daughter number two, sometimes likes to climb the front tree. I got home from work this past Monday and daughter-two had two friends over. They'd all climbed the tree. Three kids in the tree. Wife suggested we call the tree man out to remove the growths in the tree.

Just amazing to think that I could put my index finger and thumb and encircle that tree, just 20 years ago.

The squirrels love it for it's nuts. It helps that there are two more huge oaks in the back yard.

almost lost my lunch today.....

2008-11-25T13:29:00.002-06:00

I'd finished my lunch at my desk. I was listening to the local oldies station, KLUV. When on comes this...

What posses's people to call in and request this stuff?????

Don't they remember Disco Demolition Night? I wonder how many blown up Disco LP's, were Kung Fu Fighting....

Orienteering at All Saints Camp

2008-11-24T14:02:00.004-06:00

Over the weekend of November 15 and 16, I went orienteering. It was a two day event for North Texes Orienteering Association. It was at one of my favorite camps, All Saints. 660 acres of forest nestled up on Lake Texoma. Being a two day event, you must complete both days to be in the hunt for an award. I went up with the Marcus High School and the Flower Mound High school kids. We had four adults and about 14 kids on day one. We left on the bus at 6:45 AM and arrived about 8:30 at the camp. Being a two day event, they also had us all pre-registered so we even knew our start times. But with that many people, we had to be up there early. I do the technically difficult orienteering, but the shorter course. Better for this out-of-shape-bad-back guy. Day one, I made a royal screw up. Not on the course. I finished the course in about an hour and 11 minutes. Being advanced courses, we were electronically timed. Meaning, you wear an RF thing on your finger. When you find a control point, you verify it is the correct one and then stick your RF thing into the device strapped on the control point. It records your time onto your RF thing and you keep going. You know it recorded, as it "beeps" and flashes at you. I got to the sixth control, and it wasn't recording. In that case, you must revert back to the punch card method. The lower, easier courses, all use punch cards. On those, when you reach the control, it also has a paper punch. Each punch makes unique marks and you punch the paper into the box for that control. It sounds confusing, but it is easy. So on the sixth and seventh, I reached into my pocket to yank out the paper, punched it, stuffed it back into my pocket and kept on going. You can always paper punch to be sure your presence is recorded.

About an hour after my return to the bus, I remembered that at 6:15 AM, I'd ALSO put my Texas drivers license into that same pocket! Yep, my license is out in the woods. I checked at the finish, but it hadn't been turned in yet. By then, all our group was back, so we headed for lunch and back to the Dallas area. I figured I'd ride the bus back up and then I had about an hour and thirty minutes on Sunday, and would check for the license and then ask permission to head back out onto the day-one course and those two controls and hope to find it. They would probably not be using that side of the camp on day two.

Can you say "Needle in a haystack"? Sure. I went out to the two controls and the one spot where I'd had to climb under an old barb-wire fence, but no luck in finding the missing license.

Over all, I did well. I got third. Our fearless leader also got a third. One kid in our troop got a fourth. Only one other kid in our group, had bothered to finish their orienteering course.

Here are some photo's. The bus, the camp area, the cabins, the woods.

Broken glass everywhere

2008-11-17T13:10:00.003-06:00

What a whirl wind week was the past one! Two more physical therapy sessions, a cancelled doctor follow up. Wednesday evening, 10 PM, phone call from oldest daughter. She was very upset, in tears. She was getting off work and went out to find her rear side window was busted out and her book bag was stolen. They broke the rear window, got in, and took the bag from the front passenger side floorboard. Seemed like a lot of effort! I guess they thought they were getting a free laptop computer. What they got was her bag, the schools Speech text book, her notes, and nothing else. We filed a police report. The next day I called the insurance, but it is below our deductible. They scheduled us a great company, SafeLite, to come out and replace the window. He came out Friday afternoon and replaced the glass in a little over an hours time.

The wife and I had mentioned to daughter, to use her trunk to lock up stuff. Hope she understands this now!

But faith in humanity was also restored later on Friday. I got a phone call from a guy who saw the stolen text book laying in the street by the shopping area where it happened. He got on the phone and he and I met to see if they hadn't tossed the rest of it out at the same place. No luck, her note book and bag must have been tossed someplace else. I checked all the stores trash dumpsters, but never found it.

33 years ago - November 10, 1975

2008-11-10T15:21:00.002-06:00

Cat Napping - An Extreme Sport

2008-11-09T17:17:00.004-06:00

I got a 1:45 AM call from work. I had to get up and fix a database. I was working about 45 minutes, and called our most excellent operations staff to let them finish it up. I also had to get up early today and report to church at 8 AM. So, cat nap Sunday afternoon. However, I don't take cat napping to an extreme sport. Like our 20-something pound cat. I placed a ruler next to him, for perspective. He has set places he sleeps. The wife's side of the bed sometimes. On a couch in the evening, another bed when the mood strikes him.