It's up to 45 degrees out, so I'm working on a car outside, and have the garage door open. Something in the way the air moves means the pot smell from two houses down ends up in my garage. At least now that it's legal, it's better quality and not the skunk E36 M3 they used to smoke, but come on, get with the times and vape so the smell isn't as strong 100 feet away.
Antihero said:In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
What SciFi series was it? That sounds familiar...
It was (or the first book of the series is, if you don't count the short story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars") The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal.
I actually didn't realize she'd written a third book in the series (I read "The Fated Sky" right after "The Calculating Stars" like 6-7 years ago), I'm going to have to check it ("The Relentless Moon") out.
I like alternate history sci-fi, but don't get to read enough of it (or much of anything these days).
I don't trust my own memory enough to know whether I berkeleyed up or if it's just getting blamed on me. Either way I'm taking responsibility for it on the chin and feel incredibly guilty about the whole situation. I just wish I knew if it was my fault or not
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
And he's an shiny happy person. Cash in my wallet ready to go. In his original post he didn't want to spend anymore time / money on it. Now in less than 24 hours he's fixed it and going to get it re-diagnosed.
My garage computer's mouse is currently covered with blood because I was carrying a heavy potted plant outside and my middle finger caught on a motorcycle's tag and ripped a gouge in the side of the finger. That's going to be annoying while it heals. It's a big flap. Great.
In reply to dan0 :
It makes me wonder if he was serious about selling it at all. What a dick move.
Sorry it didn't work out.
Old man yells at clouds rant time.
Apple used to be so good at making things that just work. And when they made updates, even if I didn't like them at first, after a bit of use, they'd make sense. Recent-ish UI changes are getting on my nerves. It seems like they keep adding more gestures and using edges of screen space for them, and make it harder for me to just scroll on my tablet. I don't know how many times I've opened a whole new window, or gone to the home screen, or done something else completely unexpected just trying to scroll.
Today took the cake. My watch updated. I use a picture gallery for my background. It changed to a different face. I had to google how to change it back. They've "integrated" the time/date/event info into the pictures, so now, every time I look at my watch, the information is in a different location on the screen, and sometimes in a different visual format (hours and minutes stacked or horizontal, sometimes part of it "tucked" behind a feature in the photo). How the hell is that useful? I have this thing because the doctor wanted me to have something to monitor my heart, and all this is going to do is raise my blood pressure.
It really annoys me when people try to be nice while driving when it's unneccesary. I can't see you waving at me from 50ft away in the rain, so i'm wondering why you aren't turning yet when you have the right-of-way and I don't. And with how many E36M3-ty drivers are on the road these days, i'm certainly not going to assume that you're letting me go and risk you getting off your phone and accelerating just at the right time to hit me. This whole snafu of trying to figure out what is going on caused me to sit at my stop sign longer than if you just went when you were supposed to and I went afterwards like i was supposed to.
Don't be nice, be predictable.
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
Probably part of it. Listing only had two pictures, nearly similar and taken with leaves still green on the trees, so at least 6 months old. But for the price it was worth the chance.
I decided against writing anything back to him, mean or indifferent. But if he reaches back out to me when it's for sale again I'm leaving that open. Unless it needs more work and it's the same or less in price I'm not buying it.
Here's the reason I jumped on it so quick. Top is the wagon I sold to golfduke and then just missed out on buying it back from him. Below is the wagon I tried to buy...
In reply to budget_bandit :
That sort of thing makes my blood boil. If you want to be "nice" on the roadways, all you need to do is follow the system of rules that have been worked out already and codified into law. My subdivision ends in a "tee" intersection at a crest on a somewhat windy posted-45 road. The subdivision has a stop sign, the other road does not. You do sort of have to slow down to almost a stop when making a left turn into the subdivision because there is a limited visibility down the hill and occasionally pedestrians are crossing the street, so there's stuff you need to look for. Time after time after time some person who thinks they're being nice wants to sit on the main road with their turn signal on flashing their headlights at me intending for me to go. And more often than not, there's no traffic behind them. Well, correction, there is traffic behind them but it's far enough away that if they just slowed down, checked for right-of-way, then made their turn, I'd be able to get out in front of the oncoming car with no issues. But of course they sit there flashing their lights at me while I flash my lights at them in some sort of perverse standoff with two or three cars now stopped behind them until they finally make their turn.
I suspect those are the same people that, when approaching a parked car on their side of the road, will simply drive around the car on, you know, the OTHER side of the road, even when traffic is approaching them. And then get all pissed off because the oncoming traffic had the audacity to not just stop so that they can get through.
But I didn't come to talk about that... The daughter's Civic is *this* close to being ready to go. We got it insured and registered, fixed the short in the brake light circuit, and all that's left to do - we thought - was take it out and seat the rings. Great. But when we came back to the car, the paper I put under it was soaked with oil. It looked like it was coming from the oil filter so we removed the filter to inspect. Oddly, the filter was completely empty even though we had filled it before putting it on and then ran the car for quite a bit. Fortunately, we had bought a couple oil filters so we broke out a new one, filled it with oil, and put it on. Ran the car, everything was good, so we shut it back off and left for the night. We went back yesterday and there was another little puddle under the car. Oil was pooled on the block so it was hard to tell from where it was originating, but we started looking around. To get access to the oil pressure sender - since I know those can leak - we took the filter off. Mostly empty again. Everything above the filter is clean and dry. The area below the valve cover is clean and dry all the way around. The area above and below where the head and block meet is clean and dry. I can't see any place from which oil could be coming other than the filter. And I can't imagine how the filter could wind up being empty if the leak was coming from anywhere other than the filter. They're both Wix filters that I got from Rock Auto, so maybe it's a bad batch, but that's weird, right? And the mating surface on the block for the filter gasket feels smooth. There was zero oil leak on the car before we rebuilt the motor, so it's not like we somehow missed a hole in the block or something.
We stuffed a bunch of paper towels around the area last night before we left and we're going to go back over this morning and take a look. One of those paper towels will be soaked with oil and the others should be dry, so hopefully that will at least point us to the problem. It's so damned frustrating to be this close and have a weird problem like this.
In reply to wae :
Double check the o-rings / gaskets on the filters.
Working at Napa we had a bulletin about the two. It's either 'lathe cut' (the style that has existed on everything forever) or a 'molded gasket' (new and fancy idea I guess?) I can't remember when we got this bulletin and there is no date or numbers on it for referencing.
Lathe cut is cut flat and square, molded is rounded top. Molded style can be 'tightened until the metal canister appears to be touching the mating surface on the oil filter housing'
Do not back it off after it touches as it can result a poor axial seal.
Wix makes the Napa Gold filters so there is a chance this could help sort out the leak.
In reply to wae :
Maybe oil filter pedestal o-ring got pinched on reassembly?
In reply to budget_bandit :
Pittsburgh drivers are like this and it drives me insane. They will clog up moving traffic and create a hazard to let someone out. If they would just keep moving, that person could easily pull out after we pass them freeing up the road. My saying is that Pittsburgh drivers are courteous to a fault.
Don't get me started about people going 50mph in the center lane. When you pass them and glance over, they look like they are absolutely terrified to be driving at all.
We put a Honda filter on it and that seems to have fixed it!
DjGreggieP said:
Wix makes the Napa Gold filters so there is a chance this could help sort out the leak.
I think I heard recently that NAPA switched their gold line to another manufacturer?
iansane said:DjGreggieP said:
Wix makes the Napa Gold filters so there is a chance this could help sort out the leak.
I think I heard recently that NAPA switched their gold line to another manufacturer?
There's been discussions of the switch happening, but the parent company of who's making them hasn't been told to us as of yet at a retail level.
The bulletin about the molded gaskets came out some time last year and we are *just* starting to see some of the molded gaskets in store now.
In reply to DjGreggieP :
Sounds like the new company uses the new gasket?
Just got out of the local doc in a box clinic...
Strep throat. berkeleying again.
That makes strep throat twice and pneumonia twice in the last 12 months. What the hell is going on with me? I have never had to deal with so much illness. I've had covid three times but that was just a circumstance of where I lived at the time (Florida).
My stress level has been extremely high lately with trying to get prepped for my upcoming deployment. My anxiety has been running at redline for the past few months. For the first time in my life, I had high blood pressure.
It's like the universe hates me.
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
I have no idea if this stretches to NM or not, but years ago I talked to a retiree in the Vegas area that lost his wife to some sort of fungus that grew in the desert there. Apparently caused a bunch of respiratory issues in a very limited number of people, and was treatable if the doctor realized what the problem was.
solidworks uses 70% of my computers resources when I open it, my company's security software uses the other 30%. If I have any other apps open while I'm using solidworks, everything slows to a crawl. It would be nice to be able to use the browser while I'm working on a drawing but oh well. I even have to close outlook and teams
Cost of living is skyrocketing here.
I can't believe people are willing to work 50 hours weeks and have their spouse do the same, just to eat store brand chips. berkeley that.
Longer rant should probably be typed out but scotch is good and only limited rant is necessary
Our the wife of the couple (or at least one of them... we honestly have no clue exactly how many people live there at any given point) across the street has a medical condition where here BP will suddenly drop and they have been told they have to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital every time this happens instead of them just taking her there (given the new hospital they just built nearby, it likely takes longer for the ambulance to get here, load her up, and get to the hospital than if they drove there themselves). It hasn't happened for a while (she apparently just had a baby so my theory is that being pregnant had countered the BP issue) but about 1am last night we saw the flashing lights and a fire truck and ambulance pulled up.
Went to head out this morning and found this:
The Infiniti was parked out on the street because I got back after The Dancer and she needed to leave before me this morning, and since the people across the street have too many cars to fit in their driveway the husband's work truck is always parked on the street so the ambulance and fire truck had to squeeze between the two- and apparently failed.
Unfortunately there's not likely much I can do about it in the way of recourse- if I'd seen it happen I could have taken pictures then but now it's just (very educated) speculation as to what happened and even then it would likely mean having to sue the city, which would cost more than likely buying an entire replacement QX4. Thankfully the new local junkyard has a QX4 with (I believe) intact mirrors I can pull (plural, because it's a different color- silver vs my black- so I will probably grab both so they match.
Our the wife of the couple (or at least one of them... we honestly have no clue exactly how many people live there at any given point) across the street has a medical condition where here BP will suddenly drop and they have been told they have to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital every time this happens instead of them just taking her there (given the new hospital they just built nearby, it likely takes longer for the ambulance to get here, load her up, and get to the hospital than if they drove there themselves). It hasn't happened for a while (she apparently just had a baby so my theory is that being pregnant had countered the BP issue) but about 1am last night we saw the flashing lights and a fire truck and ambulance pulled up.
Went to head out this morning and found this:
The Infiniti was parked out on the street because I got back after The Dancer and she needed to leave before me this morning, and since the people across the street have too many cars to fit in their driveway the husband's work truck is always parked on the street so the ambulance and fire truck had to squeeze between the two- and apparently failed.
Unfortunately there's not likely much I can do about it in the way of recourse- if I'd seen it happen I could have taken pictures then but now it's just (very educated) speculation as to what happened and even then it would likely mean having to sue the city, which would cost more than likely buying an entire replacement QX4. Thankfully the new local junkyard has a QX4 with (I believe) intact mirrors I can pull (plural, because it's a different color- silver vs my black- so I will probably grab both so they match.
eastsideTim said:In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
I have no idea if this stretches to NM or not, but years ago I talked to a retiree in the Vegas area that lost his wife to some sort of fungus that grew in the desert there. Apparently caused a bunch of respiratory issues in a very limited number of people, and was treatable if the doctor realized what the problem was.
The thought that something in the environment is causing me to get sick crossed my mind too.
There was mold growing in the laundry room wall due to the furnace condensate drain getting plugged and saturating the flooring and drywall. The tests came back as pretty common household mold spores and not black mold or anything super dangerous. But that's all been remediated.
Maybe it's something outside? That's a possibility for sure. I just find it ironic that I lived in Florida for 9 years in total and never had any respiratory infections; COVID notwithstanding. The place where mold literally grows everywhere.
Now I live in a high desert climate and it's been one thing after another
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