Archives 2004

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.

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.