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Ah Kenneth don't tell me that. I've been going to Reno for 30 years, even in winter, and have never seen any appreciable snow. Hasn't even been that cold. I don't know why I thought a city up in the mountains wouldn't get snow.
Left work at 5 minutes of 12 today. Hit the Awful house on the way home and stayed an hour or so. Now I have the pickup on jackstands and I came in to see if I had any Kroil around so thought I'd take a break. Yes I did find some Kroil.
I didn't realize how bad my tires are until I took off the front two. I think the mechanic didn't do a very good job aligning things when he did the hub on the left side a couple years ago. That tire has now worn down to the metal all the way around. The other side isn't showing metal but it's pretty smooth. And the back tires you can still see the pattern of the tread, but you can't really feel it. I paid a thousand bucks for this set 10 years ago, I'd say I just about got my money's worth. I haven't taken the truck on the expressway in a long time.
I'll sit here a couple minutes more then go out and get to work. I sprayed down the bolts already and everything is fairly accessible, so I hope this isn't too bad of a job. I need to be finished by July 23.
That's just awful. When we lived up home we'd get feet of snow and it didn't phase us. But then let some common disaster like a tornado or hurricane or fire happen somewhere else in the world, and Mom would say, gee I just don't know how people can live there.
So I looked up the Valiant 3D printing thing and bought it online. Now I'm downloading it and it says it will take hours. Gosh I hope not. I don't want to sit here babysitting this thing, sometimes it gives time left in minutes, some times it says 6 hours. Had I known that I wouldn't have bothered. It says the whole thing is 2.18 GB. That sounds like a lot. Right now it's at 1.1GB and it's been going maybe a half hour. It must not have gotten to the hard part yet.
Speaking of Reno, I sat next to Janet (Reno) on a flight from Phoenix>Charlotte (~2006). She had Parkinson's Disease. I asked her what she'd been doing since leaving the U.S.A. A.G. position. She told me she'd been making the University rounds across the U.S.A. delivering speeches. She was a pretty serious person.
I was surprised to see Chicago only averages 37-inches of snowfall annually, I would have thought it was considerably more. Battle Creek averages 65, but over on the lake where Dan is I'm guessing it's probably 80 - 85. Ironwood, MI in the UP, 165-inches, yikes!
165" is peanuts. Copper Harbor averages 270" annual average snowfall. The towns remain open in winter, everyone hides their cars, towns use snowmobiles EVERYWHERE.
165" is peanuts. Copper Harbor averages 270" annual average snowfall. The towns remain open in winter, everyone hides their cars, towns use snowmobiles EVERYWHERE.
And, it can be much more extreme than the average, "The Keweenaw Snow Gauge is an iconic destination for travelers visiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This life-sized snow gauge shows the Keweenaw's record snowfall that was set during the winter of 1978-79. During that winter, the Keweenaw received 390.4 inches of snow between November and April."
And, it can be much more extreme than the average, "The Keweenaw Snow Gauge is an iconic destination for travelers visiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This life-sized snow gauge shows the Keweenaw's record snowfall that was set during the winter of 1978-79. During that winter, the Keweenaw received 390.4 inches of snow between November and April."
Been there many, many times. Girlfriend lived in Houghton.
I'm twitching. All this talk of snow, even though it's 80 out. I may be used to it, or can handle it, but that doesn't mean that I like it.
So the Valiant download only took an hour or so. What I've probably done is download some bizarre robot that will come out of my computer in the middle of the night and eat my brain.
Tomorrow is my one day a week I get to sleep in. And I intend to. Mom seems to think we need to get to Walmart early. Got news for her. I'm the driver, we go on my schedule. She can make all the snide remarks that she wants, we do things the way I want. And you know that's rather gratifying.
That girlfriend in Houghton. She owned a pure-bred pot belly pig. It took up one entire sofa by itself. What's remarkable is it could get up onto the sofa, which was specifically bought for the pig. Ms. Pot Belly weighed in at a healthy 900 lbs.
Something else kinda funny about pigs. Most of Mom's brothers/sisters owned dairy/swine farms. Growing up they'd call in swine at feeding time (not that they had to it seemed they ate all day & night). Yet, I marveled when I heard them yelling "sooie", "sooie". I was told (and correctly) it was an old word for pig used around the world. Funny it was when I took various animal science courses (e.g. mammalogy ) & we studied various phylogenetic keys pigs are contained in the family Suidae. Ha!
I always thought Pot Bellied pigs were on the smallish side, I had no idea they got up to 900 lbs. Had a girlfriend in Highschool who's Dad was a pig farmer. I sure was glad their house was a good distance from the pig sheds/pens, and predominantly upwind. Not much smells worse than a pig farm in my opinion. We had to do a complete dissection of a fetal pig in Honors Biology in Highschool. That was a real joy. I didn't mind the dissection, but the damn formaldehyde sure stunk, and the smell would stay in your clothes the rest if the day.
Well, that's what she said she bought & I never doubted it. But, you have a point. I think pure-breds don't get that big. Either I'm lying (because I thought she said it was a pure-bred, or she was duped into thinking it was a pure-bred when she bought it, or I have misinterpreted/poorly recalled the facts). None-the-less, she was friend's w/ a large animal veterinarian who "managed" the pig's health at her place doing the things vet's do. She had a historical record of its weight. I used to castrate piglets & attend to sows & boars for my relatives. Ms. Pot Belly wasn't as long as a farm-raised feeder pig and had bristles resembling a Pot Bellied Pig - unlike bristles I had ever seen on farm-raised feeder swine.
I did the fetal pig in H.S., as well. Undergrad we did shark. I had a job when I 1st started grad school and this woman instructor who taught medical students worked in the same building. She'd often ask me to help her bring (drag) in some cadavers. Humans stuffed with veins & arteries stuffed w/ blue & red latex stuffed in bags of formalin (formaldehyde). She insisted I treat them w/ respect. I was like - WTF, their dead pieces of meat bitch.
This is what her Pot Belly looked like but bigger than this one in the image. It was a monster.
At any one point in time relatives had anywhere on average from 400 - 500 pigs on each farm & roughly 100 - 150 dairy Holstein. Farms ranged from 200 acres - 800 acres depending on family. Very typical Wisconsin family farmers. They all kept clean barns, clean milk houses, etc. with an assload of tractors and heavy equipment. The Piedmont area of North Carolina has had many lawsuits filed against hog farmers - primarily for unsanitary farming practices. Fights have ensued between people & swine farmers around this area. The hog farmers pretty much had to tuck their tails between their legs when finally the health departments, USDA, Fish & Wildlife Service, BLM, etc. began evaluating the farms. Short story the residents won the hog farmers lost - they had to clean up their **** - literally.
We have an agriculture farm Down East (~30 miles east of me) called Open Grounds w/ 50,000 acres - soybeans & corn (owned by the Ferruzzi group). It may be the largest in N.C. - not sure. During my employment with USGS at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, ND I had an engagement to study Mud Lake over by Fargo, ND a USGS reclamation project. - I spent a great deal of time in North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba, Saskatchewa, Manitoba. One evening driving back to Jamestown after dinner (at night) I thought I saw a spaceship (E.T.) in a field. I slowed down to look and there were about 6 or 7 of these Big Bud tractors cultivating the fields. I believe it was in August so they were most likely harvesting. I told the folks at the Prairie Center and they knew who the farmland belonged to. These things were enormous - six to seven of them abreast one another working fields in the dark. Quite the site.
The best time to shop Walmart is about 12:00 midnight.
The Super Walmart in the small town where I lived in Texas was open from 7 am to 11 pm. That was the only Super Walmart I ever heard of that was not open 24 hours.
It was raining when my wife headed out for her Mud Event with our granddaughter. They're nuts, but more power to them if they have fun.
Waited for the rain to let up some and headed to Walmart about 8:45, there was no one there. I was there and back in an hour. Got oil and filters for the F150 and Santa Fe. Picked up a gallon of pre-mixed 50/50 antifreeze to top off both vehicles, both are a little below the "add" line in the reservoir. I know I've never added any to the Santa Fe and it's a 2017. I know I've added some before to the F150, but it's been years and years ago. Good trip!
The Super Walmart in the small town where I lived in Texas was open from 7 am to 11 pm. That was the only Super Walmart I ever heard of that was not open 24 hours.
Odd you should mention this. I couldn't tell you in a million years where it (I) was located, but I ran into the same scenario - a Super Walmart closed after 11pm - really weird.
Scottie Scheffler is knocking it out of the park this year. Remarkable player.
Jack's course must be pretty tough, or conditions/weather added difficulty, or both. I noticed only 11 players finished under par. Scheffler is something though, so unflappable.
Worked all week at Huntsville plant. Worked yesterday till about 2. Got off, found lunch. I decided to go to record stores. The record store scene in Huntsville is unbelievably white hipster. The first store was in a bad part of town, but, it was in the back of a parking lot that wrapped around a dead mill that was "found space" by these hipsters. There was a whole weird-*** market going on. Celtic jewelry, simple woodworking, pottery made by "all natural" women who looked like they liked other women, goths, relishes and jellies, hot sauces, tattoos, psychic readings, ghost hunters. I was the blackest person there, and I'm not black, and this is the deep south! I knew something was up when I saw the average person there.
That was before even getting to the record store. The store was in another "found space" and did the cardinal sin of looking stocked by mixing all the genres together and selling stuff that will never, ever move, unless you convince some hipster that Ray Conniff is somehow good just because it's VINYL. Second store was the same, minus the hipster faire. Third store was tiny. Had a quad version of Deep Purple's Machine Head I was considering.
Today I got up, hung out, then went to the US Rocket and Space Center. Although I did not care for the wokeness in the part about the new rockets of modern day in the first part, once I got into the classic part, it was really great. It was good in an educational, no frills way. They have a ton of old missiles and military stuff outside, along with a model Saturn 1, Saturn V (that's the big lit one you can see from the road) and they have a shuttle stack mockup, which they are refurbing. The orbiter mockup, Pathfinder, is in pieces right now, but looks like it should be fabulous when done. They had plaques saying where the orbiters went that survived, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavor. Columbia and Challenger didn't make it, of course. Enterprise wasn't mentioned, but she's in New York on the Intrepid's flight deck.
The main hall is the best part. They have a full, stress tested, real Saturn V in pieces spread out linearly, and everything else is staged around it. German V2 stuff, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and the Space Shuttles all have gear there. Real stuff too, a recovered Apollo capsule, a real moon rock, space suits, an Airstream quarantine trailer, engines.
I spent 3 hours there for 30 bucks. Could have done it in 2. It was neat because I am from central FL. We launched everything there. Houston was mission control. I knew Huntsville was important, but I grasp that most everything was built up here up to the space shuttle program. It was just assembled in Cape Canaveral, but it was their product, from here. All the engines got fired here and would shake the town. Stuff like that.
Another week of work here, then going home for a week hopefully and back for trials. I think I'll burn my PTO and quit sometime this fall.
This week I'm coming in at my regular time. Odd, getting two extra hours of sleep I'm not so tired this morning. Good wall guy, good robot guy, we're ahead of the game already.
John sounds like a good time in Huntsville. My best friend is a rocket scientist and he almost moved to Huntsville. But his company(Boeing/McDonnel Douglas) decided on merging with Lockheed-Martin and they moved everything to LM's base in Denver. Isn't Space Camp in Huntsville?
Chris hope everyone had a good time in the mud.
Walmart by me used to be open 24 hours. Then everyone started rioting and Walmart freaked out and started closing at 6pm. Because if the place was closed then the rioters wouldn't think to break in. Months later they stayed open to 8. Now I don't know what it is because I don't go there except on Sunday mornings.
Gotta take Mom to the doctor today after work, and also tomorrow. I supported her decision to stop driving and I don't mind taking her places, but geez two days in a row? I get precious little time to do things as it is. Today is the foot doctor. Her appointment is always for 415, and she is never seen before 5. It must be her punishment(and mine) because she insists on the late appointment.
Okay breaktime. Hope everyone has a good day. Wish Jamesbo would come back.
Worked all week at Huntsville plant.
. . .
Another week of work here, then going home for a week hopefully and back for trials. I think I'll burn my PTO and quit sometime this fall.
I spent alot of time in Huntsville over the years when I was overseeing multiple contracts we had with Intergraph Corporation based there. I thought it was a pretty nice town. That "hipster" area you described sounds pretty wild! Kinda reminds me of Boulder, CO back in the summer of 1980 when I was out there for Geology Summer Field Camp. The place was crawling with Hippies that never grew up.
Mike, yes, Space Camp is part of the complex. Right attached to it. I saw kids having fun.
Chris, I sent a couple emails. Toyota is ... ill ... right now. They implemented something 8 years ago to make the senior engineer position a promotion and not just an earned position. They did this to lower payroll. All of us feel screwed because we have to fight for them now, and it is favoritism and DEI over qualification. If I had kissed ***, or were a minority, or my dad was a Toyota executive and not a dentist in central FL, I would have been well on my way right now. As such, 60 people apply for each position minimum. They have to vet everyone. I am sending emails to make sure I don't get tabled. They have a tactic: if you are absolutely qualified on paper and should get an interview, but they don't like you, you just sit in "looking things over, be with you shortly" in the WorkDay software until long after the job is interviewed, filled, and closed, and then you fall out of the system 6 months later, long after you could have done something about it. I have confirmed with HR that this is not supposed to happen, so I have reminded the recruiters of that to be sure I get interviews. They're just taking forever. If I do get tabled and don't get an interview, I will file HR complaints against the recruiters and bitch loudly.
Chris, I sent a couple emails. Toyota is ... ill ... right now. They implemented something 8 years ago to make the senior engineer position a promotion and not just an earned position. They did this to lower payroll. All of us feel screwed because we have to fight for them now, and it is favoritism and DEI over qualification. If I had kissed ***, or were a minority, or my dad was a Toyota executive and not a dentist in central FL, I would have been well on my way right now.
Wow, sorry about that, sure doesn't sound like good odds unless you have an "in". Good on you for keeping an eye on them and insisting they dot their I's and cross their T's. I wish you the best.
Whew, I had the fullest day I've had in awhile. Got outside at 0800 and cleaned and polished both bumpers on the 4-4-2, then cleaned, polished, and waxed the wheels. Only bad thing about the SSI's is there's more upkeep if I want them to stay nice, the aluminum alloy Torq thrusts were easier to take care of.
Then I did my lifting workout, and after that I headed to the garage again. Did the oil/filter changes on both the F150 and the Hyundai Sante Fe. The frickin oil filter on that Ford 5.4L is a real bitch to get to. Of all the vehicles, including the motorcycles, changing the oil/filter on the 4-4-2 is the easiest of them all, go figure?
but over on the lake where Dan is I'm guessing it's probably 80 - 85
. That sounds about right. about a decade or so ago, if I remember correctly we had 110". Coolish, but comfortable today, in the mid 60's. Around 90 Sunday through Tuesday. Low 80's for Homecoming on Sat. Scheduled an oil change and tire rotation for Wednesday. Picked up a couple of soil testing kits from the local MSU extension today, gotta figure out why grass won't grow in a few spots in the lawn.
Picked up a couple of soil testing kits from the local MSU extension today, gotta figure out why grass won't grow in a few spots in the lawn.
Originally Posted by Fun71
I have a similar issue but I’m fairly sure I know what the problem is.
Same issue for me a couple times over the years. Thought at first it was fairy ring - not so. I applied grub control and that knocked out the dead spots. Turned out to be grubs.
Coming up on break time, we're in a lull. A fair start to the morning. I'll go into break with 7 wheels. Yesterday I finished with 38.
I need some opinions. I may have told you I gave my neighbor the hot rodder's brother my shitty and ratty Vista Cruiser. I wasn't going to do anything with it and it was deteriorating rather quickly. This guy had been after me about it so I said take it. In return he said he'd rebuild the front suspension on the 57 Chevy. He wanted to use tubular A arms and I said no. Guess what. He used them anyway. I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. So I get the car back and I drive 4 feet and get this major clunking noise out of the front end. Get under there, and a tab on the A arm is hitting the rim. How he didn't hear that, or care, is beyond me. Then I start reading about A arms and all I see is that the new ones are junk and will fail in a big way. Whether that's true or not I'm taking them off. Here's my question. Do I have the original parts rebuilt and put back on, or do I get aftermarket original style, already built arms for about 500 bucks. I have no idea what it would cost to rebuild my originals. I can't imagine it would be 500.
Another doctor appointment for Mom this afternoon. Why is it when I don't get anything done for one day I end up 3 days behind. I won't get anything done for two days and I'll be behind a week. Actually, I could be off a year and not get caught up. Eh, I'm not going to worry about it. I might take a couple days off and just do stuff around the house(s). It's funny, most of my life I haven't been a terribly motivated individual. But now all of a sudden I want to get things done and am irritated when they aren't done immediately.
Think I'll walk through the hangar. I haven't seen an airplane close up for awhile. Maybe I'll see someone I know. That doesn't happen very often these days. I got my 30 year pin yesterday. Holy Toledo.
Mike - Here's my opinion on the A-arms. You had an understanding with your neighbor that in return for the Vista he'd rebuild your front end on your '57. Irregardless of the type of A-arms used, you have every right to assume the car would at the very least be returned to you in a safe and drivable condition. I'm not saying he should have disregarded your direction about not using tubular arms, I'm just saying at the very least he should have returned the car in working order and not left you having to correct the problem he created. Maybe there is an easy fix? I would not hesitate for one second to take it back to him and have him make it right. There's no way in Hell that I'd allow him to get away with sticking you with a problem that's going to cost you time and dollars to fix! JMO for what it's worth.
Thanks Chris. I may have put that a little ***-backwards. My friend wanted my wagon and I said he could have it. I didn't want any money for it. He retrieved the wagon and then said he couldn't take it without giving me something. I said I didn't care. He came up with working on the Chevy. Initially he was going to get bushings and press them in. Somehow that morphed into full A arms. Less work I'm sure. This deal cost me nothing. He paid for the parts he used and he did the work. It needed doing anyway. So if I take the car somewhere and have my arms rebuilt or give them new arms, it will be the exact job as if he hadn't touched the car; take off old A arms, rebuild/replace A arms and install.
Surprisingly I'm okay with him screwing the pooch here. Sure I'm a little annoyed, but the project hasn't gone backward, it's remained the same. I am motivated to get the job done right, and that's better than where I was last week. And it will cost me exactly the same as if I had taken the car somewhere in the first place.
So really what I was asking was should I have the original arms rebuilt and reinstalled or get new arms that are already built. That would be about 500 a set, and the couple places I've seen so far say they are out of stock. Hm. This might make the decision for me.
Mike - When you state "rebuilt", the only thing you can rebuild are the bushings. Unless the control arms are cracked and compromise safety I'd press in new bushings.
Mike - OK, I get it, you consider the guy your friend. In my opinion, even more of a reason to at least point out to him what's going on with the front end. If I was doing work for a friend, I'd absolutely want it to be right. You don't have to be confrontational or an A-hole, just show him what's going on, I'm sure he'd want to know if he's your friend. Like I said before, maybe there's a very simple fix. Of course this would all just be an exercise in futility if you are adamant about not having the tubular arms on there.
Norm ball joints would be included in the rebuilding.
Ya Chris, I'm for sure not wanting the tubular arms. I doubt he ever works on the car again so he wouldnt know if I changed anything. But I dont want his brother to get in a twist if I said his work was subpar. I may not say anything. Or I could change everything out and give him back his parts.
June 8th, 2024, 12:12 PM
