Archives 2009

I forgot to mention we had two people in the house yesterday, the ADT installer and a guy from our electric company to do a free energy audit.  This time the ADT installer showed up in the allotted time window, performed the work he was designated to do without incident for the price we were quoted and was out the door, nice.

Ali initiated the visit from the electric company.  We have suffered from astronomical electric bills forever and since they offered this service for free we figured why not take advantage of it.  In a way it seemed odd to me that the electric company would offer such a service as the end result could mean less dollars rolling in for them.

The energy auditor went through the house pointing out various issues that we could address to lower our electric bill.  He had a bunch of interesting advice as well as finding some problems.  One that caught my attention was he found that the duct work in the attic was leaking at the seams in several spots which is allowing cold air to escape into the hot attic, making the cooling system less efficient.  He also said that an investment in the expanding foam type insulation applied against the inside of the roof would dramatically reduce heat absorption from the outside.  The only problem is that type of insulation costs thousands of dollars.

He also suggested we revamp the way we run our pool pump.  I had read/been told that our pool pump should be running at least 8 hours in the summer and 6 in the winter. I have followed those guidelines since the pool was installed.  The auditor suggested that instead we set the timer to run the pool pump for 1 hour every 7 hours.  He said that it is unnecessary to run the pump as long as suggested.  He said that perhaps the reason a pool supply store would recommend that is it would result in more use of the expensive chlorinator tablets.  It’s a dramatic change but it’s worth a shot, I can run the pump that way for a week and see if I notice any degradation in the pool water quality.

So we are going to address as many of the issues that were brought up as we can.  It would be awesome to knock down our electric bill significantly by simply making a few inexpensive to zero cost changes.

I put in 3 miles on the treadmill yesterday at the gym and was rewarded with a painful lower back last night and this morning.  I popped aspirin.  I’m hoping it clears up quickly.  I am playing in a vball tournament in South Beach on Sunday. 

Last night I did some more work on the water softener.  I had the manual for the unit printed out and went through it.  I discovered that the default setting for the controller is to not soften the water.  Instead it will function as a tannin filter only by default.  I also was able to customize the duration and configuration of the clean/recharge cycles.  I’m hoping the change will return us to the realm of soft water.

I didn’t see Obama’s speech last night but heard about the congressman yelling out LIAR when Obama stated that his health plan did not extend coverage to illegal aliens. (something I would not want either)  I think it is disgusting how a culture of disrespect for the office of the president of the US is being cultivated by the right.  Sure you can disagree with policy but this still is the president of our country, show some respect. I mean WTF, this wasn’t a rally in a parking lot at Wal-mart, this was the f’ing United States congress.  The outburst didn’t come from some religious zealot or fat talking head personality, but from a congressman.   Joe Wilson should be ashamed of himself. Apparently he is. Dumb ass. I wasn’t surprised when I saw he was from South Carolina.

So I went to the doctor yesterday just to be safe about my bee stung, puffy hand.  The care plan was as I would expect, Benadryl and ice the hand.  They actually had some samples of Zyrtec that they gave me.  The swelling in my hand is much better this morning, it’s close to normal size at this point.

After work yesterday I drove to the garage to pay for the van repair.  They were able to fix the vent problem by replacing a section of vacuum tubing that was dry rotted, causing it to leak.  For the rear AC problem they referred me to a place that does more AC work on conversions vans and RV’s.  I got out of there with an $80 bill which I was happy about.

I decided to leave my truck there and drive the van home so I could verify the AC was working.  I was happy to find it did indeed blow cold and out of the front vents as it should.  When I got it home I pulled out the manual and was checking things out more in depth.  The coolest thing I found was the radio had SCV which stands for speed control volume.  Basically you set the volume on the radio and then as your speed increases or decreases the radio volume adjusts appropriately so you can still hear it clearly over road noise.

I crawled under the van and located the pipes running to the rear AC, I had the van running with the AC cranking.  I touched the pipes leading into the rear unit and they were hot, too hot to touch for more than a split second, hence the reason warm air blows out the rear vents I assume.   One of the contacts I got on rear AC problems said there is some sort of valve/diverter that is controlled by vacuum, it’s possible the rubber tube that supplies the vacuum could be bad. 

I have some other action items for the van, I’d like to get it washed and waxed to preserve the still decent exterior paint.  I also want to get underneath the van and work on the frame.  There is a lot of surface rust on it, presumably from it’s time in Michigan winters.  I want to strip the rust off, hit it with rust preventer and then follow up with a rust inhibiting rubberized undercoating. After that is done all that is left are little detail items.  I’d like to do a complete survey of the various electronics in the van and find out what exactly doesn’t work.  Some of it may be an easy fix.  I also should do some maintenance items that may or may not have been addressed by Erwin like changing the fuel filter, air filter and flushing the coolant system.  It may be smart to get the trans fluid changed as well.

When Ali got home from work we headed back out to the garage to get my truck.  We brought the dogs with.  It was the first time Ali got to ride in the van as well as the first time the pooches got to check out their new travelling accommodations. Ali was impressed with how smoothly the van rode and the comfort of the sofa like seats.  Sadie and Nicki seemed to approve as well with Nicki immediately checking out the bed accommodations in the rear.

Ali drove the truck back while I stayed behind the wheel of the van.  Party van 2.0 is now parked in the wheel prints of it’s fabled predecessor.  The stress I was feeling about the way the transaction went down has subsided mostly, that’s a good thing.

The rest of our Labor Day was fine.  Both Ali and I felt better having $1500 in our pocket.  It was a whirlwind transaction, in no way did I expect to list the van Sunday afternoon and have it out the door Monday.

We made burgers on the grill for lunch, a Labor Day appropriate meal.  I also did some labor in the morning, changing the oil on both the Tacoma and the tractor.  Over the weekend we(I) watched a couple movies.  Sunday night we watched Angels & Demons.  I read the book a couple years ago and it was one of the best books I ever read.  The movie would be hard pressed to come anywhere near the book.  Having read the book I was able to understand how Tom Hanks was able to pull all of these answers to impossible questions out of his ass, it’s explained in detail in the pages of the book. However in the movie without the background info it just seems ridiculous how he comes to some of his conclusions.  The ending which seemed to come together perfectly in the book didn’t seem to make nearly as much sense in the movie.  I’d give it a B+.

The other movie was District 9.  I have heard a bunch of positive reviews about this one.  I knew little about it going in except it had to do with aliens and Peter Jackson directed, two good things in my book.  Wow it was really cool.  The movie was shot in a different sort of way that moved in and out of traditional methods.  The story was told from a perspective that was unique.  I really liked it.  It’s obviously set up for the sequel, District 10.  The film handles the scenario of aliens landing on earth in a manner different than anything else prior.  Check it out, you’ll like it. A.

I got a call from the garage that the front vent problem has been fixed, the AC leak was fixed and the system recharged.  My portion of the bill, $80, very easy to swallow so far.  The rear AC problem remains and they recommended my taking it to an AC specialty place.  I plan on taking a whack at the problem myself.  I got some advice online about the issue and also have a Haynes repair manual on the way.

I have been having a problem with our water cleaning equipment since I replaced the brains of it.  It doesn’t appear to be recharging correctly.  Recharging is the process that occurs when salt water is flushed through the system to clean out the resin.  The resin is what actually cleans the water.  When the recharge doesn’t work the water starts to feel “hard”.  It’s difficult to explain the difference between hard and soft water but you can definitely feel the difference.  I am thinking there is something I need to set up with the new brains of the system to make it recharge properly. 

I had my first work out back at Planet Fitness today.  I went in before work and joined back up.  There are SOME good things about going back there. It’s cheap, only $10 per month with no yearly contract. It’s clean, almost spotless which is always a good thing.  On the bad side it feels almost sterile in comparison to the shit hole where I was.  It’s also much more crowded than I am accustomed to.  That accompanied with the smaller amount of space designated for free weights could lead to a lot of the “someone being on the equipment you want to use” sort of thing. They also only have dumbbells up to 75 pounds, no more 95 pound dumbbell flat bench presses for me. 

Going to Planet Fitness may also designate the end of my 300 work out routine.  They have no boxes or steps to jump up on or to use to support the weights during floor wipers.  They also really don’t have a good space to do it in anyway.  I may try to do a bastardized version of the routine, swapping out exercises that I can no longer do with some sort of similar replacement, we’ll see.  It’s not an ideal situation but it will work. Hey the lunk alarm didn’t go off at least.

Ok that is enough about me.  Let’s talk about this ridiculous outrage because President Obama wants to do something as crazy as talk to our kids about the importance of education.  How DARE he offer words of encouragement for America’s youth??  I mean really, what the F is wrong with our country when something like this is criticized???   This is sickening. 

I will tell you one area where Obama has absolutely failed.  That is his hope to unite the parties in working together towards common goals.  If anything the country is more divided than ever along political boundaries.  The right wingers are foaming at the mouth to the point where their anger about losing the election has made them incapable of agreeing with one single statement, idea or hand gesture Obama makes. They actually are pulling for Obama to fail.  They discredit any progress he makes and scream from the hilltops various exaggerations, falsehoods and outright lies.  If people hear this enough, especially uninformed lemmings, they start to believe anything, even if it is not true.  The Bush administration executed this plan to perfection after all.

I’ve heard them call Obama a racist, a facist, a communist and an America hater.  You would think that the republicans think the country would have been better served if Obama simply sat on his hands and did nothing.  Nothing to help the economy, nothing to address the health care boondoggle we have been mired in for decades,  nothing about the collapsing financial and auto industry and nothing to help the millions of Americans that have been cut loose from company payrolls over the last year. 

No wonder so many politicians bow down to the status quo, content to sit on the sidelines and see “the system” continue on as it has forever, never addressing the gaping flaws that are evident because they are paid by lobbyists to look the other way.  Change is painful and difficult.  I wonder if this country of me firsters really has the ability to change in a meaningful way.  No one can say Obama is afraid to take on a challenge, he is looking square into the fangs of the beast right now and it isn’t pretty.

So I found out what the “emergency” was that the gym was closed for, they were cleaning the place out!  Yep I went back today and saw a red tent in the parking lot, I knew this wasn’t good.  It was a rep from Lifestyle Fitness.  He said Pure Fitness was officially out of business.  Of course I was outraged but I can’t say I was surprised.

The guy that runs Pure Fitness, formerly Powerhouse Gym has always seemed shady. I’ll never forget the one day when a guy was marching around the outside of the gym telling everyone who would listen how the owner was dirty and dealing in drugs.  The owner recently  was married and divorced within the span several months.  His claim to fame was running the shittiest gym in town, putting in the absolute minimum effort to keep the place afloat.  There hasn’t been a single new piece of weight equipment put into that place in the 8 years I was a member and the amount of filth inside it’s walls was legendary. 

Of course what annoys me the most is the fact that I just renewed for a year no more than two weeks ago.  I’m sure this closing has been in the works for quite awhile yet the guy had no problem taking money for a business he knew he was going to be walking away from very shortly.  That is what a thief does.  I know some fellow members that recently did two year renewals.  They were fed a line of bullshit that renewing for two years would lock in a low rate.

So now even though Life Style says they will honor the membership, I am in a conundrum.  Neither of the Lifestyle locations are close enough to make a lunch time workout feasible.  That leaves me with exactly one option, to go back to f’ing JFZ/Planet Fitness, home of the god forsaken “lunk alarm”.  As much as it pains me to do so I will have to just clench my teeth and do it.  It would throw our whole routine out of whack if I was to go back to working out after work.

So last night after work I looked at a van that was listed on Craigslist.  There were several things that interested me about it.  It’s a 96 Chevy that only has 89,000 miles on it.  It also is a one owner vehicle and finally the price is right, he has it listed for $3400. 

The van is owned by a snowbird from Michigan.  The van, although it still has Michigan plates has been in Florida for the past 5 years or so.  They used it as their transportation when they are down here.  When I pulled up one of the first things that caught my eye were the green accent stripes that just happen to be really close to Eagles green, big brownie points for that.  I walked around the van and checked it out.  There are some minor paint blemishes on the wheel well and at one spot some of the fiberglass is damaged where the step and front fender skirt come together, nothing major.  Other than that, cosmetically the van was in really nice shape both inside and out.

The van was sitting at an auto repair shop.  I called the owner and he told me it was there to have the AC fixed, the system has a leak in it somewhere.  He said I could get the keys from the mechanic to open the van up, start it up and check it out which I did.  The seats in the van are super comfortable.  It felt like I was sitting in a comfy couch when I was behind the wheel.  It has all the bells and whistles and unlike the current party van, this one does not seem to suffer from all the little eyesores that the Ford enjoys.

The van started right up and sounded fine.  Although the AC wasn’t working I checked the air flow to the back of the vehicle.  One of the biggest problems with the party van is air flow to the rear of the vehicle is non-existent.  The Chevy did not suffer from this problem, air flow was blasting out of the rear ceiling vents.  The tires and brakes were recently replaced as well. Of course the van had the required folding bench into bed option, crucial to satisfy the dog’s cruising needs.

So after my thorough inspection I called the owner back and told him I would definitely be interested if the AC problem is fixed.  Supposedly the AC is going to be worked on today and the owner is going to call me back to let me know the result.  I showed Ali the pictures I took and described the van in detail to her.  She was into it, the only negative she saw was that it wasn’t an extended roof.

  To me, the normal roof height is an advantage.  Yea sure you have to duck a few inches when moving around in the van but you are able to park in a parking garage and you are less likely to be plagued by the drip rail rust problems that plague vans that have their tops chopped off to have the the extended roofs slapped on.  I also would be able to actually wash/wax the roof of this van.  This van has a roof rack that could come in handy to store luggage on instead of clogging up the interior with it on long trips.

So we’ll see what happens.  If the AC  issue gets resolved it could be a bang bang process, the owner is heading back north on Friday so I’m sure he would want to get the transaction completed before he leaves.  Luckily I am off Friday.

So I went to the gym at lunch and immediately noticed the parking lot in front of it was totally empty, not a good thing.  I park and look at the sign on the door.  It said the gym was closed due to an “emergency”. Um ok.  Well I had decided today was going to be a treadmill day so it was pretty easy for me to simply redirect my effort to an outdoor venue instead.

Less than a half mile away is a great little park that has a scenic running trail around the property.  Ali and I used to run there on a regular basis when Ali used to run on a regular basis.  The course is sort of unique, not only do you get to run around a huge lake that has various wildlife, native Florida vegetation, a small beach and a quiet ambiance, you get to run UPHILL.  It’s really sort of odd the way it works. 

If you run the course counter clockwise you wind up running a large portion of it on a gradual incline which adds to the intensity.  The odd thing is if you run clockwise you run much less of an incline for much less distance and instead wind up running downhill for quite a stretch.  Of course I chose the uphill route.

Right after I finished stretching it was almost like somebody shut off the hot sun on request.  The sun stayed behind clouds during the entire run, now if I could just find the button to turn off the humidity. I had no GPS watch along, no exact measurements of how fast or how long I ran.   I just ran the course.  If I was to guesstimate the run was somewhere between three and three and a half miles. 

I was a sweaty mess afterwards.  The change of shirt was definitely handy today.  I thoroughly doused myself with Shower to Shower when I got back to the office.  Running 3 mile + outdoors for the second time in three days surprisingly was pretty much pain free, I’m digging it.

I was eager to reattempt charging the AC system on the party van last night.  I popped the hood and looked where I read the low side port should be back towards the firewall on the passenger side.  It wasn’t there.  Instead I found it on the driver side tucked back in a spot that made it appropriately difficult to reach.  I bought a second can of 134A yesterday that had a gauge built into it to measure the pressure in the system. 

I started the van and let it run for a couple minutes before taking a reading, the system was 10 pounds below the recommended pressure based on the ambient temperature.  I had to really wedge both my hand and the coolant bottles in there, pushing various hoses out of the way to gain access, luckily there was nothing hot or moving in the vicinity.  I wasn’t able to keep the can perfectly upright as recommended when adding the juice due to all of the obstructions.  Still I managed to empty all of the can I bought Monday and most of the second one into the system.  The pressure got up to 45 pounds which was just within the recommended range.  It seemed that adding additional coolant after I reached that number did not increase the pressure reading any further so I stopped.

I came around to the passenger compartment and was happy to feel that the air coming out of the vents had dropped in temperature noticeably.  Hopefully the recharge holds for awhile, although it was easy enough to do that I could simply hit it with a can or two whenever it starts warming up.  This all could be a mute point since I have been scanning Craigslist for possible party van replacements.  I found one yesterday that seems like a nice deal although no picture of it was posted.  I plan to drive by it after work today and take a peek. 

If we get another van, instead of trying to push the party van on another buyer I think we will simply be donating it to the Humane Society.  They in turn sell it for whatever they can get and keep the money.  We in turn get to write it off as a charitable contribution for more than we likely could sell it for.

My other project last night involved getting ready for our fantasy football draft that is being held at our place tomorrow night.  I am putting a high tech spin on things this year.  In addition to having a laptop hooked up to the 73 incher to display remote owners chat sessions, I also will have two more laptops available for owners to do last minute research as well as a live feed of the event with audio and video that can be viewed by the remote owners.  It should be pretty kick ass if it all works. 

The only thing I need to finalize is how I want to lay the room out.  We need to hang the draft board somewhere as well as bringing in our fold up table as a place for owners to sit/work/eat.  I am thinking I will be pulling our existing furniture in the great room out of the way to open the space up. It should be a fun time.

So I took the can of AC refrigerant back to the store with the intention of returning it.  I wound up walking out of there with the same can.  I was looking around at their various AC related items and I saw a kit that was labeled for use to convert R-12 to R-134.  Well that’s odd, the one valve looks exactly like what I was trying to jam the connector onto last night?  I looked closer and saw the plastic cap that fit this valve had an H on it.  Hmmmm the plastic cap I took off last night had an H as well..  Why the f it would not click in my head that the H stood for HIGH PRESSURE is beyond me. Oh, and the cap was RED as well, as in, “Warning don’t touch this dummy!”  To confirm my stupidity I saw that the other, slightly smaller valve had an L on it.

So in a nutshell I was trying to connect to the high pressure side of the AC system which is a big no no.  Thank goodness I wasn’t successful.  I did some googling and found that the low side port is tucked back in a somewhat hidden location.  I will give the recharge another attempt after work.

As I was carrying the can back to the truck I decided to read the warnings.  It mentioned to not leave the can in your vehicle as high temps could cause it to EXPLODE.  Well the can had been sitting in the cab of my truck all morning and Florida in September is still hot as hades.  I had visions of the damn thing exploding while I’m driving.  I decided to take it into the office for safekeeping.  Exploding items just have a way of ruining your day.

Yesterday before the gym I picked up a can of 134 refrigerant to hopefully recharge the AC system on the van.  After work I popped the hood, found the low side AC service port and tried to attach the connector.  It didn’t fit.  The fitting on the van was just a little bit bigger than the connector from the can would allow.   The party van originally used the older R-12 refrigerant type, I had it converted over to 134a during one of it’s many visits to the garage.

I am thinking that possibly the fitting on the van is the older R-12 variety, I don’t know.  So I plan to head back to the auto store today to see if I can find something that will work. Since my AC recharge project was a bust I decided to pull the satellite antenna from the party van and put it in the Tacoma.  This project went smoothly, I now once again have Sirius in my truck.

I used to watch the original Japanese Iron Chef show years ago, I always found it very funny and entertaining.  I recently rediscovered the show, albeit the new American version.  There is just something compelling about watching chefs prepare exotic dishes out of unexpected ingredients.  However the best 15 seconds of every show is when the “secret ingredient” is revealed.  The Asian guy that performs this ritual is absolutely hilarious.  The faces and gestures he uses when revealing the ingredient makes me laugh out loud every single time.