Rope main seals will leak. A small leak is fine provided one keeps an eye on the fluids.

 

Norm - Yes, my engine has the original crank, rods, and pistons. Never been bored, just a light hone and new rings when motor was refreshed in 2015. In the top end, new cam, new lifters, new valve guides, and new stainless valves with 3 angle valve job. Valve seats were hardened, and heads were professionally ported and polished by a very reputable Detroit speed shop with Old's expertise. Don't know if you remember this, but the father of the fafher/son duo who did the refresh on my car was an assembly line worker and body man for Old's for 40-years before they went under.

 

John - I'd bet mine has the original rope seal. Don't know if you remember this, but mine was leaking more than I liked about 1/2-way thru last season. When it got down a quart I put in a Qt. of Lucas oil stop leak, supposedly designed to swell old seals. After I drove it about 50-miles, the rear main seal leak went down to next to nothing. When I changed the oil this Spring before the season started, I did not put any more Lucas stop leak in it. I suspected the severity of the leak might rapidly come back, but fortunately so far it hasn't. After sitting a week, I may have 1 dime size drop in my catch pan, next to nothing really. Like I said, it's not even showing up as any appreciable loss on the dipstick.

 

Chris - I was only addressing the crankshaft relative to the rear main hemp rope seal. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my question.

 

Norm - You were perfectly clear. I just opted to add what had/hadn't been done to the engine during the refresh.

 

Hey guys,

Another thing I did today was spend a little time trying to find out more info about the hockey tournament the grandson's are playing in on Saturday. I found out some pretty interesting info.

First, the tournament is a charity event for a long time Meramec Sharks Coach, the Club the boys both play for. His name is Allen Lalk, and he is retired from his real job, but was supplementing his income as an Uber Driver. Apparently in May he was driving for Uber and was hijacked, and eventually the hijackers (2) shot him in the face, and he lost an eye, and has needed substantial reconstructive surgery and extensive rehab. Just horrible! Thankfully the perpetrators are in custody

So, this should be a fun, wide open tournament to watch. It's 3-on-3, meaning there will be 3 skaters, and 1 goalie on the ice for each team. Each game is being played on a 1/3 of the regular rink, with the long axis of each playing area being the width of the full rink. With this set-up there will be 3 games going on simultaneously. Each game will be a 30-minute running clock. Each team will play 3 games. This 3-on-3 format is very advantageous to teams with exceptional speed, and plays very well into Gabe's wheelhouse. If his teammates have skills that are near his, his team should do well.

Here's the boy's schedules on Saturday (3 games each):
Keegan
- 0800; 0910; 0940
Gabe
- 240pm; 340pm; 520pm
I'm planning on going to every game. I should get all the hockey I can stand!

Oh, other very important points about this format and rink arrangement. There are no offsides or icings, just get on your horse and ride!

 

That sounds like fun, Chris. Make sure they don't do too much during the off season.

I am, by nature and by nurture, an incredibly cynical person, and I am not able to do public-facing jobs for very long at a time. Uber driver would be one of those; I simply don't trust the general public at all. I mean, I fill up my cars and watch people gauging their relative threat while I wait. I think there's a fine line between dealing in reality and sociopathy.

I have been spending way too much time learning about this camera and getting a modern upgrade to my film shooting skills. My main issue is twofold, and I think I have corrected them both. Firstly, when in film, your ISO (film speed) is dictated by the film in the camera. If you come in from your sightseeing tour with slow film and need an inside picture, you either bust out the tripod, or the flash, or you put in a roll of faster film. Thusly, I was scared of upping the ISO like you can now do on digital. The days of direct flash are nearly gone. However, with a good digital camera, set the aperture to what you want for depth of field, set your shutter speed to your minimum hand held, or minimum moving target speed, then crank iso up to get the shot. Yes, there will be grain, but it is less than what it used to be.

The second item is manual focus. Digital pictures need to be sharp. I have no autofocus. Can't do it. I can manual it close. I have two aids. One is peak focus, which, when turned out, lights things up in a colored outline when you hit max focus on it, and two, I can toggle electronic zoom, buzz in on the focal point, tune, then buzz out and shoot. All with programmable buttons to toggle both of these.

My trick now is to figure out how this new flash will work. The old strobe is "set to 400, 1/60th, tight, and let it rip." This new flash can do indirect via off the ceiling or off a white reflector on it, and I need to read the manual on how to work it in manual.

 

You are entering a large learning experience if you haven't been dealing with photography in a long time, which from what you're describing in your posts about the new camera this is the case. The manual for the camera can be frustrating the way it's written, they jump all over the place in the instructions (as least that's what I had experienced). What I had to do to learn it was sit down with the camera and the instruction booklet and experiment with each and every button on the camera. Most people don't care about all of the potential the camera has to offer and just want to 'take pictures' and will just leave the selection button in the green auto setting and let the camera do all the thinking for them. At least you have some experience with film photography and know the basics which is a big plus in learning the new camera. My experience up to the point of buying my first digital camera was 'point and shoot'. The great thing about digital cameras is you don't have to worry about wasting film to try and get the photo you want. It can be a lot of fun and rewarding.
To address the issues you are describing check out the 'bracketing' section of the manual and you'll see your answers are there. It's way too much to delve into here and right now I've got to get outside and get some work done before the rain starts.

 

July 5th there was a motel fire in Harrison. It was destroyed. Red Cross opened a shelter for displaced clients. I always thought the people in those seedy motels were just people who rented the room by the day (Or maybe hour- Notell Motel), but in actuality most rooms are occupied by clients of the social services system. Their rent is paid by social services , many have criminal records, no jobs, lots of babies, etc etc. Anyway I helped set up the shelter at a township hall. I went and got the Red Cross trailer with cots and blankets, etc and pulled it with my rusty F250 over to the shelter- not sure if that was kosher but it is done. There is no place for these people to go. About 20 people displaced including 4 kids, but all but 7 were are to stay with friends/ family for now. I stayed a 8pm to 8am shift Sunday night. Very boring....
--Weather has been beautiful here, got Olds all cleaned up and ceramic waxed- I didn't really notice any difference between "ceramic" and old school wax..

 

John - Your right, and they've been getting a good break from the hockey for several weeks now. This tournament was just an ad hoc sort of thing thrown together to help the Coach and is meant to be a fun thing and not serious. It will be good for the boys to get a little ice time though.

You may find this interesting. Gabe just back this past Saturday from a full week at the large Missouri Boy Scout Camp at Lake of the Ozarks. He earned Merit Badges in Rifle Marksmanship, Archery, Chess, Fishing, and Horsemanship. With what he achieved there he has now met the qualifications for 2nd Class at the age of only 12. He said he's determined to make Eagle Scout and I have no doubt he will.

 

Greg - I know you're not in it for the pat on the back, but good on you for helping those in need, especially the children! 👍

Glad the weather has been nice there for awhile. We had a horrible Spring, with rain, rain, and more rain, and are now into the blast furnace of July and August. Michigan Summers are the Best, it's the rest of the seasons I don't miss. It would be nice just to have a little shack up there on a lake in the summertime!

 

john IMHO Reality is nothing more than a collective hunch

 

Chris - Gotcha on the rope seal. For some reason I had a different mindset when reading your response. You're an awesome grandparent, BTW. No off-sides & no icings sorta makes sense w/ a 1/3 area playing surface.
John/Art - Film speed. Brings back memories of those w/ more cash on hand than I ever had & my first realization(s) of why some photographers carried at least two identical cameras strung around their necks - each loaded with a different film speed. Within the past year I got rid of my Plustek Opticfilm scanner & film (slide) projector. For some unknown reason I still have ~12 slide projector carousels which I'll soon be dumping, as well. I converted my slides to digital format w/ the Plustek scanner. The project got tossed out a couple years ago.
Greg - Thanks for the time/efforts you put into assisting. Very commendable.

 

Norm - Thanks for the compliment on my grandparenting, I sincerely appreciate it. I often think I don't do enough or spend enough time with them, but I'm trying. In fact that's where I'm at now, we're hanging out today.

Speaking of Vintage cameras/film, I have what I believe were called Super 8 movie reels back in the day (1976) that were taken of me playing football in High School that were sent to Schools who were recruiting me, and reels of 4 or 5 games of me playing in College (1979, 1980). I need to take them to a speciality place and see if they can be salvaged and transferred to DVD or other media. Since they both like sports so much I think the boys would get a kick out of actually seeing Grandpa play.

 

Chris - I recall the days of 8mm vs. Super8 mm. There are/were differences in the captured frame size, but a significant difference in the packaging - Super8 came in a cartridge, while 8mm did not - you have to "roll" your own film. My parents went through this evolution having owned 8mm formats graduating to Super8 formats. There are companies who specialize in transferring 8mm>digital. My Mom took all our family 8mm films (home movies) to such a company and had them all converted to CD (prior to DVD). I fired one up a couple years ago - what a trip back in the Time Machine.

 

Chris - Speaking to a relative time-frame. The 8mm (home movie) films Mom converted to CD were originally taken in the 1950s/1960s.

 

By the time H.S. rolled around we'd all heard of pornography. Us guys were keen to check this stuff out. Turns out all the **** was shot on basic 8mm film. Of course, you had to have/own an 8mm projector to view these "works of art". It wasn't long before I was sneaking out of the house w/ Mom & Dad's 8mm projector w/ my H.S. friends. This began to occur a little more frequently until Mom & Dad began to question why the projector was gone, not in its original location, bulb burned out, etc. Yeah, I eventually got caught, but boy howdy was I a hero when someone needed the 8mm projector.

 

Norm - Thanks for the additional info. My parents didn't own a movie camera. I was able to get the game films from High School non-gratus from the Athletic Department. Of course it didn't hurt that my Dad taught and coached there.

In College, if an athlete had an exceptional game performance they could request a copy of the game footage from the Athletic Department for a fee, which my parents gladly paid.

All of these films are B&W, and came on tiny reels, about 4 or 5-inches in diameter. It took about 4 reels to capture most of 1 game, so I have a bunch of them!

 

Ya, I bet you were the most popular guy around when someone would get their hands on one of those films!

 

Oh yeah. We had boxes of the 8mm canisters (as we called them). Most were 7" diameter for home movie filming. On a side note...an 8mm projector had an arm you could swing up/down to accommodate the typical 8mm film reel (7" diameter); yet, those **** reels (and honestly non-**** canisters) were often on larger diameter reels with larger canisters. That's where the movable arm was used to shift between the two sizes of reels.

 

Should have seen us guys - carrying around borrowing a box of films shuttling between houses when parents were gone for the evening. Oh yeah, weren't we the talk of the locker room.

 

Well, I've elected not to play golf as witnessed by the gibberish I'm posting. When I awoke I felt like someone tossed me into the middle of the freeway to be used as a target. New shower faucet cartridges, etc. arrive today via UPS - nice & cool indoor activity is welcomed.

 

Did your back flare up again overnight?

 

Not that I'm aware. I'm older than dirt. Shoulders, hip, back, knees require ~1 hour to find relief.

 

Side-bar. Played golf w/ an 81 yr. old on my team who was spanking the ball. He played center for ECU (East Carolina University) was offered pro contracts after college, never took them. He's ~6'8" - I wonder how he feels when he gets up? Everyone ages differently.

 

I got it now, just the typical stiffness and aches when you crawl out bed. My first activity every morning is going to the refrigerator and the medicine cabinet for a Diet Mtn Dew and some Ibuprofen!

 

That's pretty cool he's still whacking whitey that well at 81! Ya, everyone certainly ages differently for sure! I always say to people it's not always the age, it's more often the mileage!

 

Agree...it's the mileage.

 

Norm, My dad owned the company that rented projectors to the Atlanta schools So he always took 16 mm If I could find a projector I'd send ya Christmas 1950 - thru 59] for your personal enjoyment Since all my teachers knew my dad If something went TU, He send me to school the next day with a projector light bulb, spring or other part

 

Multi-reply here.

Thank you for that. The Nkon manual is useless. There is a general reference PDF which I will download, and there is a good website with a page for every function. I have watched all photography videos and read all photography related blogs of a business called Hunter & Sarah Wedding Photographers, and the eponymous duo do good videos and blogs of all things about their business. I care nothing about being a small business owner, nor setting up weddings, but I *do* want to know everything about indoor, portrait, and digital shooting, so that helped. I do like their gear recommendations and other things. Girl is cute, too. I really picked up a lot on alternative methods of aperture and flash usage.

I have also watched a Henry Harmon video about every menu function on the camera. I am tailoring for manual, dumb lenses. I do own a digital camera with a lot of these functions, it just didn't make any sense to use any of them as it was a little point and shoot that could handle things on its own. This new beast is like driving a muscle car. I'm now working on figuring out indirect flash methods

That's a tough business to be in. I was unaware that the gov would rent motels. Makes sense.

I think ceramic is supposed to last longer and be scratch preventative?

I attended a scout camp as a camper, then worked as staff, from 91-96, and then 99. I went off to a different high school in 97 and 98 so I was not around. Scout camps are the BEST way to crank out merit badges. I am impressed by the horsemanship; we never had that at LaNoChe. Typically, one would do the Arrow of Light ceremony in May when one was 11 or so in 5th grade, concluding Webelos. One would then join a Scout Troop and, that summer, be a brand new Scout. Back when I was in, we did not have Scout rank patches, you just wore the shirt. Now they have it, it's an ugly brown patch. At LaNoChe, we put the new scouts in FCE, First Class Emphasis. This was a curriculum designed to get new scouts to Tenderfoot and do most of the work to get to Second and First Class Scouts. If I recall correctly, I was a Tenderfoot that summer when I was 11, then a Second Class that fall, and I think a First Class when I was 12. Another year to get to Star at 13, then Life at 15, and I was about two days shy of 16 when I got the bird pinned on.

Ask the boy if he would like to go to Scout camp again, independent of his troop. Many camps have a Provisional Troop. My second year as instructor, I volunteered. The pay was pathetic anyway. I asked the camp director could my little brother attend Provo complementary a few times, and he said that was a wonderful idea. My brother Provo'ed with me, I was one of the Provo Scoutmasters (got to live in a building, not a tent, and was closer to main camp) and I think he got something like 17 merit badges done. Scout Camp is for merit badges, and high adventure. Encourage him to get BSA Lifeguard at some point if they offer it. It is, hands down, the best lifeguard program in the US.

Funny story. So, I graduated high school and was 19. I needed something to do that summer, so I did the above Provo/Instructor gig. I'm a big guy, I was almost full height then, so a 6'2" at the time man does not look like a boy scout. !8-21 is an odd time in the Scouts. You are not a boy, so you cannot earn merit badges nor rank, but you are not legally an adult in the program. You can wear the knot badges of the adults and earn adult stuff. I was going off to college, so my scouts time was ending. I had no interest in knots or adult badges. At 18-21, you can wear your Scout Rank badge if you like. I started doing funny stuff, wearing my dad's 50 year old OA badge from Indiana while in Central FL, his old BSA lifeguard swimsuit patch turned into a shirt patch, etc. I decided I could legally wear the Eagle that summer. The Eagle Scout Badge is as colorful as the medal. Silver border, bird, font, red, white, blue field, it is 10x the patch of any other rank. So I am rocking the Bird, and some scoutmaster comes up to me, asks my age, and tells me I can't wear it. I noticed he had no red, white, and, blue knot meaning he had not earned Eagle, so I corrected him. I stopped being an active scout in August of 99.

Indeed. I think everyone is making their best guess at it.

My old man ran two cameras in the case. Slide / print or Color / BW. These wedding photographers, the guy shoots two cameras, one wide angle, one mild telephoto.

I've been running now for ten days. I am not losing all the weight I would like, but my back feels wonderfully better and my shoulder does some, too. I can now bend over and put my hands flat on the floor easily. I feel better, too. Started at 0.75 miles, got to 2.75 last night. Might try for 3 tonight. Then I will work on going faster.

 

John - I thought you had probably been in Scouting, that's why I mentioned it. Great additional info and stories. From what you said, Gabe appears to be on the same exact trajectory you were on at this point.

You're doing a great job getting back into your cardio/conditioning, and making terrific progress. I would like to offer one suggestion. Consider purchasing an adjustable weight lifting bench and some assorted free weights to go with it, or a multifunction weight training machine, and start a weight training program. Alternate your cardio days with your weight training days so that you're doing cardio 3 or 4-days a week, and building upper body and core strength 3-days a week. I think you will find a better rate of weight reduction and overall improved conditioning with this routine. When you continue to stress the same muscle groups day after day like you're doing right now with your running/legs, the body starts to fight back and results often diminish. Take at least a day off between stressing the same muscle group/s again and give the stressed muscles time to repair themselves. Taking a whole body approach with a combo of cardio and weight training often yields the best results, it certainly does for me and has for almost 50-years.

 

I actually have a Smith machine in pieces next to the treadmill. I will work on digging it out and assembling it.

 

That's great! If you want any more tips or suggested routines don't hesitate to ask, I'm happy to help if I can!

 

Couple weeks ago my power company (Duke Energy) called inquiring if I'd be interested in them installing power metering/monitoring devices on my combination HVAC heat pump & electric water heater. After a brief question/answer discussion I said sure. The Duke Energy tech just left after the installation(s). Each device is ~12" x 6" they tap into the heat pump & water heater. Top level down I'll provide a basic overview from my own research. Federal government provides monetary incentives to power companies. Purpose is to reduce &/or help stabilize nationwide electric consumption by reducing demands/footprints/burdens on developing/installing additional new power stations - albeit, the monetary incentive. The "process" is referred to as "Load Shedding" or "Shedding Load". Load shedding is basically an event. Shedding load occurs if there is a shortage of electricity supply &/or to help prevent power lines from becoming overloaded. I thought it was good thing so I did it.

 

Jim - I can't recall, you my have said something some time ago about your Dad renting projectors to the ATL schools. I recall those 16mm films, canisters & ensuing bulbs required as basically each class had their basic film go-to nerd (that was me) who knew: (1) where the bulbs were stored; (2) type of bulb required: and, (3) how to change the bulb(s). I was one of those nerds teachers asked to get the projector from the equipment closet & wheel it back/forth to classrooms.

 

Norm, Part[s] delivery was where I stopped. [probably because they hated me] I could thread the film into a protector blindfolder but I was never the nerd. My older step sister paved a rocky road ahead of me

 

Hi guys,

Got home from watching my grandsons, came in the door and there was the smell of Pot Roast wafting thru the house, and homemade yeast rolls rising on the stove. I knew I was in for a treat. Man can my gal cook!


What's left of the Pot Roast after we both piled our plates to the ceiling. It was tremendous!


Homemade yeast rolls. She made 2 pans, and one was saved for another meal. I had 2 rolls with just butter on them with my dinner, and a 3rd with butter and Raspberry jam for dessert. Man am I stuffed.

 

Chris - Looks fantastic.

 

Thanks Norm, I'll let her know. It was superb and I'm still stuffed!

 

Pretty cool photography history with you guys.
Norm - I never thought the guys who did the projector for the teacher were nerds, I always thought you guys were cool. I was envious because I wasn't smart enough.
Chris - You better never let that one go, she's a rare find.