No, but it might be worth stopping by Ms. Kitty's place for awhile!

 

Good morning everyone.

We actually had a good start this morning. The lead is back, so the audit must be over.

Most of the new guys are in Human Factors class. All the holes in the swiss cheese have to line up for something bad to happen. I went to this class years ago. I thought it would be finding ways to make sure the holes don't line up. Nope, the instructor, a fellow mechanic, only wanted to assign blame. And it was always the mechanic's fault. I couldn't figure that one out, other than he was a company man through and through and someone told him to say it was always the mechanic's fault.

So I've got this Suburban. It's my first Suburban and it's been to Chicago, Florida, and California with me. Rusty, beat up, never let me down. The pinion seal went bad on the rear axle and all the oil came out and the gears detonated themselves. It's been sitting for over 20 years. I got a new axle assembly and gears to rebuild it, but never have. Now I'm thinking I should just be rid of it, it needs everything and I'm not going to get to it. And I've lost the rebuild kit for the axle. I won't be too sad because I have two other Suburbans to keep me company.

Okay time for a walk. Things have slowed down a little and I've been sitting too long. Hope everyone has a good day.

 

Mike - What year is the Suburban w/ the detonated rear end? With two additional Suburbans on hand you bring a new meaning to the term Suburbanite.

 

Norm it's a 79. That's funny. People know I'm from Chicago and if anyone says that I say that's actually not true, I'm a suburbanite. So I really am. I have two Imperials so that also makes me an Imperialist. I'll stop there with the labels.

 

The NPS assigned to me a 1979 (4x4) Suburban while conducting my aquatic invertebrate studies on the Buffalo National River (1981-1983).

 

Mike - Glad your day is off to a good start!

Yes, send the Suburban off to the salvage yard and out of your way. Maybe someone can get some use out of the parts? However, this advice is coming from someone who has crap in his basement from College 40-years ago that he never gets out or uses. So, until I start practicing what I'm preaching, just take my advice with a huge grain of salt!

 

Good morning guys,

Big news for the day, it was 67° out when I got up at 0730. What a wonderful change!

Lots of small stuff to get ready today and tomorrow.. Getting the fluids, and tire air pressue checked in the Sante Fe for Dawn and my daughter's drive to Chicago Friday afternoon. Getting the 4-4-2 packed and ready to go to a Show early Saturday morning. Catching up with bills and medical accounting, etc., etc., etc.

Hope everyone has a great day!

 

Chris - The Tough Mudder is in Rockford, IL - yes? I just finished driving through Rockford twice in the past two weeks - Interstate I-55>I-39. I love I-39 - such a cake-walk - great road.

 

Going to begin tackling R&R of the Andersen front entrance storm door panel. I have this large thick area rug laid out flat on several tables in the man-cave I'll start deep cleaning w/ RESOLVE carpet cleaner - four spray cans should do it. This area rug lays on the marble flooring under the swivel chair & desk in the office. And, soon I better start removing the Indian All ***** HD starter & resolving that issue.

 

Yep, you're spot on! They're leaving tomorrow afternoon around 2pm and coming back on Saturday afternoon/evening after it's over. After it's over I think the plan is to find a decent truck stop with ladies showers to get cleaned up before going to get something to eat and heading home. They have hoses at the end of the Tough Mudder to get the chunks off, but no real way to get clean. That will be a long day for them Saturday by the time they get home! I wished they'd just booked their hotel for an extra night, but neither one wanted to do it. This will be the hardest Tough Mudder they've ever done, I believe Dawn said 10-miles, and God knows how many obstacles, a real bitch!

 

Norm - Sure sounds like you have plenty of projects to keep you busy! Did you ever think of buying a better quality steam/solution rug/upholstery cleaner? We have to have one because of the dogs, everything gets dirty so fast because of them. With a lone adult in your home I'm sure your rugs and upholstery stays clean much, much, longer and having a cleaner might not be worth the investment? Dawn's been really happy with the compact one below she purchased a couple years ago!

 

Bad Grandpa, Bad Grandpa! I forgot to mention that little man Keegan turned 7 yesterday! It is so hard for me to imagine he is just turning 7 because he is so tall for his age, just like his brother Gabe. We did not forget his B-day, but my daughter Blaire had already made plans with his other set of Grandparents to take him out to dinner yesterday. We are going out to dinner with him/them this evening. It's a no brainer to figure out what to get him for his birthday, he is growing so fast that he has outgrown several pieces of his goalie gear, so we are just giving my daughter cash to go towards the purchase of his new gear. Man is that stuff expensive! Luckily there are Hockey Resale Shops where you can trade-in good condition used equipment for good condition used or new equipment, for a fee of course! Even with the trade-in discount it's still expensive, but we're more than happy to help!

 

Chris - The steam cleaner is an excellent suggestion. I may have thought about it once years ago. I’ll look into it again. Good suggestion.

 

Thanks! 👍

 

I have expensive tall & wide solid cotton drapery panels (white) in the living room - six large panels total. Might be a good opportunity to re-evaluate a steam cleaner.

 

Yep, I think a good steam cleaner would be great for that task, and your rugs too! Our upholstered couch ensemble is the worst because the dogs are always on it, and the main area rug in the Great Room in the area of.the couch gets a tremendous amount of dog traffic too!

 

I bought a steam cleaner once, an upright deal. Used it once. It did such a poor job I couldn't believe it. It's been in the basement for years. Maybe I could dust it off and try it again. Heck a poor job is better than no job.

My Suburban is also 4 wheel drive. And a granny 4 speed. But a half ton and standard ratio axles. And bare bones on the inside. Very odd.

Congratulations to Keegan. I think I remember 7. Hope he's enjoying hockey.

Two and a half to go. Man this day is dragging.

 

I remember a few things about being 7. Track and field day, one of the kindergarten teachers admonishing us not to be crybabies by showing us how the other kindergarten teacher had stapled her finger and was not crying. Nap time.

My grandfather, shortly before he died, helped me with a science fair project. We wired a 6 volt flashlight to a circuit that was interrupted. I could lay various things across it and rate their conductivity empirically by how bright the bulb was. I think I won first place. I also remember getting in trouble for something, getting sent to the principal, and when I went back to class, telling the teacher they wanted to know something about a trophy for that project. Apparently I am genetically good at escaping bureaucratic persecution as I started from a young age.

 

Chris - Yes, I’m tracking, buddy. Hand held steam cleaner like the unit you displayed will/would be used for both these thick area rugs & drapery panels. I’ve used them before. In past homes with room carpeting I always rented the Stanley Cleaner units which are awesome.

 

I am dealing with a vendor whose first name is Myoungho. Pronounced like you would address a streetwalker. He goes by his surname.

 

Love it. 😍

 

 

Dan - Considering a hummingbird's wings flutter between 70-90 beats/second those images are very impressive. My brother (Tom) resides on the Menominee River. I was watching the hummingbirds drink from their feeders. There were so many they were lining up for turns at the golden nectar.

 

SOP - deep vacuum, bristle brush & another deep vacuum - four hours. Letting it thoroughly dry O.N.
Read the instructions to R&R the Andersen storm door panel. That's all I could muster up for the day. Why be in a hurry, right? Had a couple entry keys cut/made @ Ace Hardware then ate an excellent pizza at my favorite pizza parlor.

 

Thanks Mike! He's loving hockey! He moved up a skills level after having several stellar Eval sessions. I think he's gonna be really something.


This is not intended as bragging, just stating an oddity. When I was 7, I was starting 3rd grade. Mom was able to convince the school I should be allowed to enter Kindergarten when I was 4 by taking me to.the school and having me read to them when I was 4 and 1/2. They bought into her argument. I always resented my Mom for doing that to me. I was never big to begin with, but being at a minimum of 1-yr younger and sometimes as much as 2-yrs behind my male classmates I was always at a huge disadvantage in regard to physical activities/sports. It really pissed me off the disadvantage she put me in.

 

Very ice Dan, thanks for sharing, I love hummingbirds!

 

Beautiful rug Norm, it.looks terrific! 👍

 

Dawn and I went out around 4pm to take Keegan's B-day card to him and wish him happy B-day. He was very appreciative when his Mom told him our gift was going towards getting him his new hockey equipment he needs.

When we left there we went to Dollar General to pick up some windshield washer fluid for the Santa Fe. With Dawn driving our car up to Rockford, IL this weekend, I did a thorough check of it this morning, including adding tire pressure, topping off the oil, and topping off the coolant. It needed washer fluid, but I didn't have any at home.

After stopping at Dollar General we ran to our favorite Chinese place to get takeout. Check out the size of this Ham St. Paul Sandwich patty, it dwarfs the slices of bread it's on. They are killer!



Hope everyone has a wonderful evening!

 

 

 

Chris - Thanks. Yeah, I like that rug. I really like quality area rugs on floors.

 

Norm, 1/3200 sec. shutter speed. Last year i was trying at 1/2000 sec. and the wings were still a blur. By the way, 1/2000 sec. shutter speed will freeze the spining blades on a B-25 cruising overhead. Found that out a couple of decades ago, but that wasn't what I wanted at that time. Chris thanks. Nice gift for your grandson. Nice looking dish of food as well. Norm, I was going to comment on something else, but I forgot what.

 

Good morning everyone.

Seems like a slow morning but I'm pushing 40 wheels and it's still over an hour to lunch. Not too bad. Good way to end the week.

Dan those pictures are incredible. Mom has a feeder on the back porch. We have 6 humming birds that live close by. They are always fighting and trying to push each other off the feeder. If I'm on the back porch they will buzz me. Rude little suckers.

I called my heating and air guy yesterday. The AC at Mom's is still acting up. She had it set at 80 and it ran and ran and the temp on the thermostat said 86. It was coolish air coming out but not what I'd call AC. She finally turned it off and said if it's going to be hot in the house she isn't paying for it. AC guy works heating and air for the school system here. He got to the house after I left for the evening. Mom was there of course so he took a look at it and said the fan motor was bad. Heard from him this morning and he said he'll be back this afternoon with a new motor and a filter. Said the motor is under warranty. That's cool, but the machine is going on 4 years old, I wouldn't have guessed warranty at this point. I'm glad it will be fixed, that was puzzling.

When I was little I thought The Rockford Files was filmed in Rockford. I knew the guy's name was Rockford, I guess I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Hey I was 9.

We've hit a lull so I'm going for a walk. Been sitting too long. The weekend is so close I can feel its breath on the back of my neck. Hope everyone has a good one.

 

I got to thinking about Dan's hummingbird images & photography in general i.e. aperture, f-stop, etc. & various manners in which any movement is captured & rendered for evaluation.

Tossing this up as a novelty. Most know North America is protected via NORAD. I was surprised to find out (research) NORAD air defense warning continually monitors/tracks all North America airspace objects to w/in 0.000001 second (one millionth of a second = one microsecond = 100 nanoseconds). Impressive.

 

I Dang, I'll say!

 

Area rug back under office desk, front entrance storm door removed, various h/w from door removed. Tomorrow, I'll prep new (warrantied) door panel for installation. I'm not 100% on-board w/ Andersen EMCO storm door quality for the pricing.

 

Mike - I hope the A/C at your Mom's place got fixed! What's the status?

 

All I'll say is you have no idea about U.S. space borne capibilties, they would literally blow your mind!

 

Well, I had a plan for today, and the big man upstairs threw a wrench in it, literally. Went to take the 4-4-2 to get gas around 1000, because I didn't want to bother with it in the morning. Didn't initially see it when I pulled out of the garage to go to the gas station, but when I got home and went to pull back in I saw a sizeable puddle of tranny fluid on the garage floor. But you know how fluids spread out, and it's usually much less than what it looks like. It had been sitting for 2-weeks since the last show. First thing I did was wipe up the puddle and then pulled into the garage on a level surface, and checked the tranny fluid level while running and in park, dipstick was still showing full. That was good. Shut it off and let it cool down a bit. Then I jacked it up to try and find the leak. Looks like it was coming from the Speedo cable coupling to the rear of the tranny housing. Hard spot to get a wrench on that coupling nut, but I was able to and snugged it down a little, but not alot. Then took it for a short drive. After the drive I took a quick glance and didn't see the formation of any new drop where I saw the leak before on the coupling. Now it's sitting with a pan under it where I saw the leak. It's sat for over 4-hours now and no sign of new leakage on the coupling or anywhere else. I hate to leave on a 60-mile drive without being confident I've solved the problem. I'll check it again in a few hours and again in the morning. If there's no evidence of new leakage I'll probably go for it. I do carry a full quart of Dex/Merc ATF in my travel carrier.

 

Norm - Glad you have the rug back down. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the quality of a trusted brand like Andersen has diminished to some degree. We see it across the board right, name brands trying to give us less, for more! It's sad, but true!

The girls got off around 3:30, and you'll be glad to know they're taking your recommendation of 55N to 39N. It's pretty much a no brainer right.