Archives March 2004

As requested by the gnome, here are my thoughts on the Eagles moves so far this offseason:

Duce going to Pittsburgh – a loss for sure, personally I would take Duce over Buckhalter but I think we will be ok here

Carlos Emmons to Giants – not a big deal

Acquisition of Dhani Jones – good move, will replace Emmons and will be as good if not better

Acquisition of Jevon Kearse – could be either incredibly good or incredibly disappointing depending on his ability to stay healthy. He has been hurt more than not the past 2 years, it makes me nervous. However if he is healthy he will be a HUGE plus for the defense.

Then there is the big TO question mark. A sportscaster down here thinks that Owens will be such a huge pain in the ass for the Ravens that they will submit to his wishes and trade him. As long as they get back equal or more than they gave up they will do it. I am skeptical it will happen and hate to even get my hopes up. However having TO would give us our first top notch receiver since the Mike Quick days IMHO. We’ve had decent receivers here and there but nobody that was considered eilte. TO is an elite receiver. It would be great to see him and Donovan work some magic.

If the Eagles lose Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent in FA I am not confident that Lito Shepard and Sheldon Brown are good enough to replace them. Hopefully an improved defensive line that gets more consistent pressure on the QB will take some of the pressure off the DB’s so they won’t have to be that good.

So far I give the Eagles offseason moves a solid B+.

We have had one of those single use cameras lying around for awhile with pics from our cruise. I finally got it developed. The camera obviously isn’t great as the pic quality is pretty bad, but still you get to see some of the most beautiful pictures from the cruise. Check out the additional pictures here.

Ali has inidicated she was interested in laser hair removal. She went in for a free consultation yesterday. The numbers she came back with were staggering. You could easily spend 1 to 2k on this depending on what you have done. I offered the opinion that shaving really isn’t a big deal and if it comes down to spending 2 minutes shaving or spending 2k, I’ll choose the former, hands down. However, since she just let me get the Vette, I had little leverage. However, last night, Google saved me. I punched in “laser hair removal problem”. In a few seconds I was directed to a page that gave the scoop on different cosmetic procedures. This page spelled out in black and white that laser hair removal is not permanent! It said that doctors are legally allowed to advertise it as permanent if it keeps hair away for at least 3 months. However it spelled out in black and white that although the hair may come back finer than before it is NOT permanent. I immediately forwarded this info to Ali. She read it and was disappointed to see that what she thought was a miracle cure is more like a very expensive razor. Hopefully this idea will be permanently back-burnered. Big waste of money, at least I can see, touch and drive the Vette. 🙂

If you are in one of the markets that foolishly took Stern off the radio, you may be able to get your fix here.

Here is something you will hardly ever see from me, a book review! Since reading a book is a bi-annual experience for me, not many reviews are available. However, my wife got me a book that I am thoroughly enjoying. It is called “Bringing the Heat” by Mark Bowden. If you are a hardcore Eagles fan like I am, you will love this book. It is a behind the scenes account of the Eagles during the Buddy Ryan and Rich Kotite years. Those teams were some of the most exciting ever to root for. The book offers all sorts of inside stories, background and detail that I never knew about. If you bleed Eagle green, get this book.

Some ebay sellers really piss me off. I stumbled across an auction for a GM computer code reader. These are relatively inexpensive devices that allow you to interpret codes given off by the car’s computer. This guy had one that was standing at 2 bucks. Wow nice deal, usually they go for 10-15 on ebay. I was just about to place a bid and saw the shipping, 20 DOLLARS. 20 bucks to ship something that weighs a few ounces. Jerk. Nothing will turn me off an auction faster than a seller that is trying to make money on the shipping, it’s BS.

For all of you too lazy to click on the link to the Vette pics, here ya go.

It was a good weekend, sunny and in the 80’s both days. The pool water is in the middle 70’s, almost swimmable. On Saturday, I dropped off the Vette at the garage first thing to have the wheel studs replaced and have the nasty front end noise diagnosed. (pics of the Vette are now viewable online here) They found that the prior owner forgot to install brake clips when he replaced the pads, causing the calipers to be dangerously loose as well as causing the noise. The car at least feels safe to drive now.

We cleaned the house and then decided to clean up the outside. We haven’t mowed in a couple months and it was looking ragged. It’s amazing how much of a difference an evenly cut lawn does in the appearance of a house. It was like night and day. After lawn maintenance I spent a good hour or two cleaning up the Vette. Saturday night, Ali, Nicki and I took the Vette for a spin and grabbed a Dairy Queen dinner. It was fun to cruise. Finally, we watched Legally Blonde, which was loaned to Ali from a co-worker. It was ok, not bad, not great. We also had Legally Blonde 2 from the same co-worker.

Sunday was relax day. Ali had expressed how she doesn’t seem to get to relax very often. I tried explaining to her that just because I have to go, go, go, doesn’t necessarily mean she has to do the same. So on Sunday I wanted to try to make it as low key as possible. I took the removable roof off the Vette and went for a spin with Nicki. It’s even sweeter driving it sans top, a real blast. I worked on some odd jobs throughout the day. One spur of the moment project was adding a 2nd network run to our bedroom. The Tivo requires a network connection, however the only one I had was right next to the bed. So I had a long cable strung along the wall and then up and over the door frame to the closet, a visible eyesore. So, I used a spare CAT5 run I had in the attic and dropped a line to the outlet by the TV. It was sweaty, itchy procedure, working in the steamy attic with blow in insulation, but it all in all it wasn’t too bad.

Sunday evening is typically bill time, where I sit down once a week, pay all the bills and reconcile our financial things. Whew, I spent over 500 bucks this past week on auto maintenance between the vette and new brakes on the Tacoma. Ouch. No more vette stuff for this month. We decided to watch Legally Blonde 2 while the first one was fresh in our head. I was skeptical of how they could come up with a storyline for a sequel. It turns out, they couldn’t. It was TERRIBLE. It was one of the stupidest plots I ever witnessed. Here it is in a nutshell. The chick wants to invite her dog’s mother to her wedding. She hires a PI to find the mother. The dog’s mother is in a cosmetic testing lab as a test animal. The girl decides to go to Washington to get a bill passed outlawing animal testing so her dog’s mother can attend her wedding. The end.

If you want to laugh, hard, try to catch Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. It is a wacky Japanese game show where people do all those ridiculous stunts. The funniest part are the voice overs. They make no attempt to actually translate what the hosts say. Instead they insert hilarious dialouge that had me crying from laughing so hard. Check it out on Spike TV. A MUST see.

Pics from project month are now online.

After an all out assault on the stripped wheel stud with a 50 dollars worth of tools of destruction, the rear wheel was finally able to be removed last night. I chiseled the hole I drilled Wednesday night to make it bigger. I was then able to use my carbide drill bit to drill out part of the stud, finally I hammered away with a center punch on steroids with my 4lb mini sledge hammer. As the stud popped out the lug got skewered on the center punch like a head on a stick. I proudly took it in to show Ali, she gave me her nod of approval while she was on the phone. It was a triumphant moment.

Stern is predicting the FCC is going to force the company that employs him to take him off the air. If this comes to fruition there are going to be MILLIONS of pissed off people. Sure Howard does a lot of raunchy bits but he is also genuinely funny, intelligent and has a lot of good opinions on real issues. The backlash to such a move would be huge. Just say no to Bush. Now Bush even has the 9-11 families angry with him because he is trying to parlay their personal tragedy into support for his bid for reelection. This is all driven by the religious right, as if I didn’t have enough of a bad taste about religion this further cements it.

I picked up some new drill bits after work and headed home determined to finally break the wheel free off the vette. In the first 30 seconds I broke another bit. No problem, I have much more ammo. I got a hole drilled where I needed. I jacked it up and went about taking off the nuts from the good studs. The last one was sticking, it didn’t want to break free. So I put some extra ooomph into it and it started to turn, but it didn’t feel right. Noooooooooooooooo. The stud had pushed through the back of the hub and was spinning freely. I suspect all of the endless banging and pulling I did on the first bad nut has loosened up the other studs. So now I have another problem to address. I am hoping to be able to split this nut with a cold chisel since it is brand new. I’m going insane with this but I’m trying to stay logical and attack the problem as advised by those in the know.

It looks like Michael Jackson has some competition, Lionel Richie’s soon to be ex-wife. Anyone else get disgusted by reading this?

(LONG BLOG ENTRY DISCLAIMER)I picked up the Vette after work Monday night. It was dark, the guy wasn’t home (only his wife) so I had to get the beast backed out of the garage, cold. It was grumpy as normal on startup, stalled a few times until I refamiliarized myself with the 2 foot method necessary to keep the machine running initially. I rumbled home, making mental notes of all the shakes, rattles and other noises that I need to address. Once, home the big test, will both cars fit? Ali guided me in as I backed it in, readjusted, backed it again, several times. They both fit! It’s tight but doable, a relief.

On Tuesday, I took the day off. Ali needed a break from Nicki at work because the state auditors are in and I had things I wanted to address on the car right away. First line of business, I had to replace the right front tire. It is almost brand new but the prior owner had a bad run in with almost 2 dozen nails that he filled with patches. It holds air but it’s unsafe, so I wanted to get that taken care of asap. The tire I needed was a “Kumho”, a comical name for a tire. I went on the kumho website and found local dealers. I called the first one, they don’t carry them anymore, I called another, the guy said they do carry them but the computers were coming up so they couldn’t check the distributor yet. I said I needed to get it today so if they have to order it I wasn’t interested. He come back with “You aren’t listening, I get the tire from the distributor but I get it the same day.” Hehe he must have been watch stand man’s cousin. I hung up with him and filed him under the “never call again” file. My last option was a place called “House of Flat” this is where the prior owner got the tires from. I was in luck, they had 2 of them! I find the place, it is a dump. Old tires stacked to the ceiling, barrels of lug nuts and not a word of English being spoken anywhere. I found the guy I talked to on the phone, he was nice enough and hooked me up. Job one, done.

On the way back I stopped at the auto store to load up. I purchased some cleaning supplies, lug nuts, a tire iron, a shop manual, a steering wheel cover, some replacement light bulbs and most importantly, A FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Ok I threw the new tire on the car. Then I began the process of replacing all of the dirty nasty lug nuts with new chrome ones with wheel locks. I noticed that some of the wheels where short one nut, running with 4 instead of 5, a bit alarming. Some of them were quite tight but I managed to get them off with my big ass tire iron. Until I came to THE nut. One wheel had one nut on it that was obviously different than the others. The tire iron just spun on the nut. A closer insprection revealed that the corners were rounded. Great. I got out my trusty gator socket, the socket that is supposed to turn anything. No dice. I worked on it for awhile with no success. I got frustrated and decided I would have a garage get it off since they have a far better arsenal of tools than I do.

Next project, replace 2 bad bulbs in the rear taillights. Normally this would be a super easy job, unscrew the lense, slap in a bulb you’re done. Hmmm no screws in these tailights. I flip through my manual and find the procedure to replace these bulbs. I reread it to make sure I got it right. To replace these bulbs requires the following procedure:

Remove license plate
Stuff arm into hole behind license plate and jam your arm into the bumper area, up to your elbow (if you have a big fat arm, forget it)
Feel for the bulb holder
Once found, try to figure out how to release it by feel alone
Once the socket is out, the wire is too short to come out of the license bracket hole
Crawl under the car and jam your 2 arms behind the bumper and try to hold the socket with one hand while attempting to release the old bulb with the other
If you are successful removing the old bulb, reverse the procedure to put a new bulb in the socket
Stick your arm back into the license plate hole and feel for the wire
Blindly try to manipulate the socket so it fits back into the taillight assembly

No, I am not exaggerating.

Replacing the 2 bulbs took close to an hour.

Thankfully installing the new steering wheel cover was easy. All that was left was to take it to the garage and let them have a whack at the lug nut. On the way there I was having some serious buyers remorse. Ali again has been super stressed at work which makes me feel guilty about buying my new toy. The car obviously could suck money out of me like a vaccum cleaner. I was depressed. I rumble into the garage. I decide to have them do an oil change, check the brakes (pulsate badly) and try to remove that lug nut. The guy says no problem, we can get it in for 20-25 minutes. Ok, I’ll go get lunch. I walk to KFC and eat a depressing solo lunch, doing nothing but thinking about my stupidity and regretting my purchase. I returned to the garage 30 minutes later, it still is sitting where I left it.

So I walked around the lot like a wanderer, I sat down on a curb awaiting for the work to commence. I was sitting there a good 5 minutes when I felt a burn on my knee. Damn fire ant. I jump up. The spot on the curb where I was sitting has fire ant battalions marching back and forth. I do an immediate damage survey, I have ants on my belly, on my legs and even had one on my neck. Grrrr. Just as my annoyance was escalating off the charts, they pulled the car in. They changed the oil, said the brake pads were good and tried to work on the lug nut. They tried the air wrench. They tried hammering on a socket and turning by hand, no dice. The said that the only other option was to drill it off. They did not want to attempt this since there is a high risk of damaging the aluminum around the opening. Great. They said if I can get it off, they can replace the mounting stud and we would be back in business. Although my car was there for close to 3 hours, they only charged me for the oil change and sent me on my way.

Now I had a mission. The lug nut must go. I got home around 1:30 and began my assault. About 7pm I gave up, exhausted. I think instead of stamping license plates or digging ditches, state prisoners should have to try to remove stripped, frozen lug nuts as part of their work program. I broke 4 drill bits, my hands are still numb today from hammering on the nut with a chisel for hours on end. I took care of the mechanic’s worries about damaging the aluminum by scoring it repeatedly with the drill and chisel attempts. By the time I gave up, what was once a nut, looked like an amoeba. I smashed, ground, chiseled and pryed the thing till it looked like it was part of the wheel itself. I am close. I was actually driving the thing back and forth up the driveway with no other lug nuts on it, hoping it would break the final piece of metal that was holding it on. It’s loose, it’s real close but I think it needs a wee bit more drilling. I packed it in , cleaned up and decided to give it another whack with a new drill bit tonight. It was the most frustrating automotive repair experience I ever encountered. It made the taillight fiasco look like a day at the beach. Somehow during the process, my feeling of guilt subsided, maybe the anger and frustration beat away the guilt. Oh well, I asked for it.

I have cut back on my mentioning of reality TV comments to avoid public humiliation but I witnessed one of the dumbest things ever so I have to mention it. In Average Joe Hawaii, it was down to 2 guys, 1 “average joe” and 1 “hunk”. The woman didn’t appear to have a genuine thing going with the hunk. He was good lookin and intelligent but you got the feeling they just didn’t click. The average joe guy literally loved the woman and was ready to tell her that. He opened up his feelings to her like a book. She got along with him well. He would have done anything for her. The way the show was edited, it looked like she would pick the “joe” for sure. The only downside was she wasn’t that attracted to him but surely he would be a better choice than the hunk who was very guarded and closed in comparison. Well you can see where this is going. She picks the “hunk” anyway, and breaks the “joe’s heart. You couldn’t help but feel terrible for the guy. But that isn’t the real stupid part.

The woman and the hunk go off on a 4 day trip to get to better know each other. It’s going great. Then on the last day she has a big “secret” that she has to let him know. They have been playing up this secret for weeks. So she exposes it. She dated Fabio. Ok great, big deal, who cares? Right? Wrong! For some reason this sets the hunk into a tizzy. He calls the whole thing off. Follow Fabio? Outrageous!!! It made no sense. A very silly ending to a silly show. One less show to watch, GOOD.

Friday night I packed the truck to the gills with unwanted items we have collected from around our house. I wanted to have it ready to go so we could roll out Saturday morning no later than 6:30 am.

Saturday morning I popped up, ready to have a prosperous day selling stuff to people that already had too much of it. It was quite chilly, the thermometer read 46. To make it worse, it was quite breezy on top of it, making it feel even colder. Cold weather and flea markets are not a good mix. When I got there there were only a few stands, a far cry from the 15 the lady mentioned to me on the phone. We had a total of 8 stands. All the vendors were freezing their asses off. We wound up retreating to the truck, only coming out if we spotted a patron heading towards our stand. We had an impressive display, 90% of our stuff was a buck or less. We had great deals. Unfortunately, traffic to the sale SUCKED. One car here, 2 there, in total if 50 people stopped by the entire time we were lucky. As I forecast, I sent Ali home shortly after the initial setup so I ran the show myself. As the norm, the people that were also selling there were the biggest buyers. Not one haitian showed up and only a handful of mexicans. Mostly older white people were the prime clients. Even with the cold and light traffic, I managed to get rid of around half of our stuff. At the end I was throwing stuff in for free if they bought something else, it was comical. After we paid out the fee for renting the space, we had cleared 28 bucks. HHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh well. Less junk.

I have been going back and forth with this local guy that was selling the Vette for a few weeks. After I made my offer on Friday, we got a call back on Saturday with a counter offer. We were about 500 apart. I initially decided to just let my offer stand and if the guy had the car another week he would probably cave to my demands. I thought about it awhile. Sunday afternoon I called back and made one last offer, splitting the difference, DEAL! SWEET! Today the seller’s wife stopped by and dropped off the title, I paid her. I will do the title and plate work here today and pick it up on the way home. I’m excited. It’s a bit daunting imagining what I need to fix on it but I have lots of time to do so. Sunday night I gutted the garage, took out the measuring tape and then rearranged in a manner that I am HOPING will allow us to put two cars in there, crossing my fingers. The Buick has finally been replaced.