Archives March 2004

It’s odd how things come to mind. Yesterday we took a break from the labor and took the Vette to a pizza joint for lunch. As we were sitting there I was doing some people watching. I noticed a big bunch of people, a bunch of what seemed outwardly happy people. Lot of laughing, joking around etc. I generally don’t act like that, unless I’m drunk. I don’t laugh a ton but not because I am miserable. I began to analyze why that is. I often have people that don’t know me well tell me how serious I seem. It’s ironic because that is about 180 degrees from how I actually am. I think what it comes down to is I am a naturally shy person. Plus I suck at making small talk which makes me steer away from starting up spontaneous conversations. I also have some sort of issue with my brain that at times will make me mumble, talk too fast or just be plain hard to understand. It frustrates the hell out of me. After a few drinks, all those reservations seem to evaporate. So I guess I need to either drink more or try to act like I have been. Easier said than done.

Here is an uplifting story regarding Reading, my old stomping grounds. Yea, right.

Aren’t weekends supposed to be relaxing? I hear they are. Mine was crazy busy. We have company coming down this weekend so I feel obligated to make everything spic and span, top notch. Can’t have people see our “grounds” in anything less than prisitine shape. Of course I can never have it as good as I like it but I sure tried. Last weekend I spent 3 hours cleaning up the outside lanai area. This weekend was worse. A week or two ago it struck me how crappy the entrance to our lanai doors were. I had a patio stone half assed thrown in front of each door. Looked like crap. I rectified this on Saturday by building steps for each door. It looks better. I also ripped out the plastic border in one of our areas that kept getting overrun by dirt when heavy rain washes dirt down the bank. Those projects took a good part of the day. The rest of the weekend was filled with more projects like cleaning up the outside, getting the pool in top shape, washing down the floors, shampooing the carpet and more cleaning, picking up and arranging than I care to describe. Both days were non-stop more or less. I had a run in with yet another new snake, never saw this kind before. I trapped and relocated him across the trench. I also had a tiny pencil thin snake in the pool and a small scorpion scurry by my feet this weekend, our own wild kingdom.

Part of the weekend time was used doing more work on the Vette. I had several projects to tackle on it. The rear hatch did not open with the electric release. The only way to open it was to reach back from the inside, stretch to the back, grab a keychain that was attached to the manual release and give it a yank. Not exactly convenient. The one power window switch was done half assed and replaced with a door switch that didnt fit right and looked dumb. (you can see the switch on the right side of console) I also had to replace the power mirror joystick that worked in every direction except down. Finally I needed to install my italian leather shifter boot cover to replace the nasty dry rotted original. All in all in went relatively well. I was thrilled to get the rear hatch release working. Everything else was installed and is working. Here is the console after the surgery. To replace the stuff I had to take the console all the way out of the car. One new problem cropped up. The power seats don’t work now, oh well just another thing for the list.

I just saw the video of the Vet getting imploded. Made me a bit sad to see it go. Yea it was a dump as far as stadiums go, but it was our dump. Visiting teams HATED to play there which was a huge home field advantage for us. As a youngster, the Vet held many memories for me. It seemed like a magical place when I was 12 years old and in the 700 level watching the Phillies play. It was also a part of one of my worst memories when my grandfather dropped with a heart attack as we were waiting to get into a game. Being the sentimental type I am, it hurts to see it go, but it was time.

I have been in group policy, file replication, windows update hell the past week. I have been trying to get our win2k and newer workstations to accept updates internally and automatically from our SUS server. It has been one roadblock after another. I FINALLY have all the issues ironed out. (I think) It’s fun to fix problems. Now I am working on using Wake On Lan technology to have our systems turn on automatically overnight and apply the updates, then turn themselves off afterwards. That is another less important battle.

Wow the Eagles managed to get Terrel Owens somehow! The post season grade just jumped to an A+. This is the most free agent activity I can ever recall the Eagles participating in. It is very exciting, too bad there is such a long wait to see how it all comes together. Terrell’s personality against Fat Andy’s stoic demeanor will be a great dynamic to watch. They didn’t even draft yet which should bring some more exciting young talent to the team! On a down note, Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent both officially joined new teams. However I believe both are on the downside of their careers so it’s up to the new guys to step in. Football season can’t get here soon enough.

One the way home last night, I was behind a full size Dodge pickup truck. I noticed something hanging from the trailer hitch. Upon closer inspection I saw that this freak had a set of reproduction testicles attached to the hitch. I can’t even describe how disturbing this looked. How someone could hang this on their truck and think it was somehow cool is beyond me. Maybe the FCC could censor this as well.

The Spanish reaction to the train bombings is quite different than I would expect. Terrorists bomb your country and you respond by pulling troops? Basically saying to the terrorists we will do what you want just don’t bomb us anymore…

My (and most Americans) attitude would be “Let’s nail them to the wall”

Feeling down about the world today, hopefully just one of those cycles I seem to go through regularly.

I got a chance to see The Passion of the Christ. Although I am not a religious person, curiosity made me want to see it. This thing has made over a quarter of a BILLION dollars so far! As far as movies go, it is well done I suppose. I thought the fact that it was all subtitled would bother me but after a bit it really wasn’t that much of a distraction. The torture and subsequent death of Jesus was EXTREMELY graphic. Since I never read the bible, I am sure I was at a disadvantage compared to regular church going folk when following the story. Even though I may not be sold on the concepts that the entire event represents, I can see how religious people would be deeply affected by it. If anything, the story further cements the idea for me that mankind is flawed to it’s core and these flaws will be the end of us.

If anyone is all about fighting the onslaught from old age it is me. I do my best to retard it’s affects. However even I had to snicker when I caught a bit of the episode of Oprah my wife was watching. She was doing a show about the anniversary issue of Sports Illustrated where they had some of the old swimsuit models reappear, and I stress OLD. The three she had on were Cheryl Tiegs (56), Christie Brinkley (50) and Vendula (late 30’s). It was comical, all of them have stayed in shape but all three were ‘toxed up. They all had manequin-faces where only their mouths and eyes moved. It was sort of scary. I want to stay as youthful as possible but if I have to do that to my face I think I would need to draw the line there.

I ripped into the Vette some more this weekend and of course had more problems. I wanted to troubleshoot why the power locks did not work so I ripped off the door panels. They are half ass attached, with a lot of screws missing and screws that don’t belong there just punched through the panels at odd locatons. The driver side panel wasnt too bad but then I took off the passenger side where it had been hit. What a mess. The back of the panel revealed that it was held together with lots and lots of DUCT tape! It didnt even have a power lock switch on that side. I found the power lock connector buried down in the door. I hooked a switch up to it but no dice. Damn it. So I threw it back together the best I could. After it’s all back together the power windows now stopped working!!! DAMN IT. I was too frustrated and depressed to continue so after a a few quick attempts to remedy it I gave up. I did a six pack Saturday night and made some drunken posts on the corvette owner message board looking for answers.

On Sunday, after the fuzziness wore off, I decided to take another whack at it. First thing I did was sand off the contacts to the circuit breakers. For some reason, the entire fuse box is very corroded. WOW, I got lucky, that fixed it. I felt somewhat relieved and did some more tinkering in preparation for some miscellaneous parts that I have coming this week. Right now my immediate concern/fix list stands at:

Replace the dry rotted shifter boot
Replace the power mirror joystick control ( only works in 3 of 4 directions)
Replace the rear hatch solenoid (no remote hatch release but not sure this will fix it)
Replace all fuses (all are corroded)
Replace the EGR switch (Check Engine light issue)
Diagnose small leak on top of intake manifold where there is some antifreeze collectiing
Fix the passenger power seat
Remove each lug nut, apply “no-sieze” to prevent any more stud stripping

A long list and that doesn’t even scratch some of the bigger jobs like replacing the carpet, door panels and weatherstripping. One day at a time…

Have the Sixers scored more than 100 points all season? The NBA sucks!

This week I almost hit my personal fitness grand slam. Around the new year I imagined what an ideal week would be. Play volleyball one night a week, go to the gym 5 days that week and on the 5th day, do a bench max, some curls and then do some running. I did it all this week but missed volleyball Monday night. In reality it would be tough to to ever do it because if I go to volleyball, the resulting aches and pains in my legs would probably prevent me from doing a leg workout until late in the week, which in turn would hamper my ability to run. Way too much thought for something so dumb huh? It’s all about goals! 🙂

I have already been scoping out Sirius satellite radio gear in case Stern jumps to satellite radio. Not only would Stern be a big plus but Sirius has no commercials during their music, better coverage than XM and they have a much better sports package, including carrying radio broadcasts for EVERY NFL regular season game!!! A great value for 10 bucks a month if you ask me.

Last night’s Survivor was a bummer for me. Colby, who is probably my favorite player from any of the Survivors got back-stabbed. To make it worse, the final nail in the coffin was hammered by Shi-Ann who is my player in a Survivor pool I am in. This time around Colby was a little more outspoken early on in the game and when Jerry, his enemy from his first time wound up on his team I knew there would be trouble. He was gracious on his exit and the game continues. This season really is good stuff.

I brought my Vette to work for the first time today. It was a fun ride overall although sitting in traffic in a Vette isn’t a great time. I was stuck behind a cement mixer, pulled out to pass him, the car downshifted and roared to life. As it shifted, the torque kicked in and the back end started to slide out on me, whew have to take it easy.

No exciting plans this weekend. Tonight my wife has a huge Pampered Chef party she is running. 20 people or more are supposed to be there. It could be the break she has been needing to expand her business outside of her immediate circle of friends, family and co-workers. My project for the weekend is to clean up the outside of the lanai thouroughly. We have company coming down in a couple weeks so I want to get the pool area cleaned up. I have some small things I want to do on the Vette as well like put some “no sieze” on the wheel studs to prevent further episodes of lug stripping.