Archives February 2012

So yesterday several months of research, consternation and indecision regarding what route to go with an audio upgrade for the SSR finally culminated with my purchase of equipment online. I have compared options buying it all from a local audio dealer, piece meal from various internet sources or from an online audio outfit like Crutchfield.

I decided to go with sonicelectronix.com, who offers similar customer support to Crutchfield but prices their equipment more competitively.  I actually got a better deal calling them up than if I went through their web site which was kind of odd.  The guy on the phone also steered me to some better options for certain items instead of the web site recommendations.

I decided to go full geek and opted for the back up camera that includes the park assist function that utilizes a separate processor to overlay graphics on the image, depicting their distance as potential obstacles.  It’s a feature I wouldn’t have been able to get even on a brand new Camaro. I also got the harness needed to maintain the use of my steering wheel audio controls.

Another nice part about buying from Sonic was I paid no sales tax since they are based in California, they ship it all for free and include the mount adapter hardware for free.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some apprehension about doing this install myself.  I will definitely be taking a “measure twice, cut once” attitude during the install.   I expect there will be many mini-hurdles along the way. Hopefully there aren’t so many to clear that my legs give out. One thing is for sure, I will become much more familiar with the workings of the SSR.

The truck warm rough idle issue is really getting to be a pain in the ass and it seems to be getting more prevalent.  Two footing the gas and brake is never a good thing.  I have already resigned myself to buying a new IAC for the truck, I was just hoping to wait to do it until we get word about our tax return from our accountant.

On the way to work today even after the real rough idle disappeared I had a few unexpected stalls when I was standing still.

So Saturday morning Ali and I decided to cut ourselves some slack and instead of getting up at 4:30 AM to do the GCR club run we instead decided to just run by ourselves a bit later.  Before running we stopped by mom’s place.  We had a bunch of items from our garden to give her and I also needed to pick up her tax information as well as her artificial Xmas tree that we store in our smaller shed.

We decided to run around the water park, doing the big 10k outer loop.  About an 1/8th of a mile into the run I suddenly found myself crashing down on to the sidewalk.  I somehow managed to get the toe of one foot stuck in the shoelace loop of the other, tripping myself.  I was stunned for a second and Ali was worried I hurt myself seriously, I went down pretty hard.

A quick physical inventory turned up some brush burns on the side of right knee and some banged up palms but other than that I felt ok.  I got back up and told Ali I was good to go.

Ali kept up with me for the entire run although she was really struggling during the second half.  The worst part of the run just happened to be the last part of it when we turned onto Livingston Road and got smacked in the face with a wind tunnel that lasted all the way back to the park entrance.

There were a few points where I thought Ali was going to stop.  I can normally tell when this will occur based on her breathing which gets uncontrolled and heavy.  To her credit she pushed through those spots although she later admitted to me that she did want to stop multiple times. One advantage of Ali running with me is I can push her to run harder than she would run on her own.  She has been making some strides in her pace lately, running her first sub 8 (7:59) speed mile ever at track practice earlier in the week.

When we completed the 6 miles Ali was spent.  I took a Goo and a drink of water and ran the 2 mile loop inside the park myself, I wanted to make sure I at least upped my mileage from the 7 miles we did last Saturday.  Despite already running 6 miles I trekked the last two at a decent clip right at or under a 9 minute mile pace.

By the time we got home it was close to lunch time.  After eating lunch Ali retreated to the bedroom for a nap. I attended to the remaining house chore items before sitting down to do mom’s taxes on the TurboTax web site.  I have used the TurboTax online version for several years to do mom’s taxes and have had no complaints.

Mom was concerned about her taxes for 2011, figuring she would have to pay into the system since she had to pay taxes on her SS benefits.  When she was collecting unemployment she at least had the taxes taken out up front.  With mom’s current income stream the last thing she needed was a big tax bill.

Well by the time I was done I had good news.  Instead of paying in, mom instead was getting a refund, a sizable refund, probably the biggest amount she ever got back.  Mom of course was very happy to hear the news and was very surprised.  I told her it was because of her low income level, sort of a bitter sweet situation.  Yea it is nice to have a super low tax rate but it would obviously be better to pay more taxes if you had more of an income stream coming in.  Anyway, the extra cash will certainly be a good thing.

Saturday night Ali and I decided to go out for our official Valentine’s Day dinner.  I suggested to Ali we do it Saturday and then on the actual holiday I would treat Ali to pizza since that is her favorite meal of all.

We decided to go somewhere that we knew would be a madhouse in season on a Saturday night, the Naples Carrabbas.  We thought we would be “smart” and get there relatively early at 5:30.  That put us at the beginning of happy hour so we have plenty of time to take advantage of 2 for 1 drink pricing and also hopefully put us ahead of the Saturday night dinner crowd curve. Well one of the two things worked out.

5:30 may be early for traditional dinner goers but it is right in old person prime time.  I was a bit shocked when after I parked the SSR Ali reported a 60 minute estimated wait time. Oh well typically they will overestimate the wait so they can deliver an actual wait time that is less so I figured we would have a seat in 40 minutes or so.

Ali got the happy hour kick started by getting my 2-1 Bud Light taps and her double serving of white zinfandel.  The area around the bar was quite crowded so I suggested to Ali that we head outside to sit on a bench, which we did, briefly.  The cold front had already started rolling in and it was too cold for Ali’s tastes outside, we decided that being warm but crowded was a better alternative.

Well we found a small section of floor that was out of the main flow of bodies.  We entertained ourselves by people watching, primarily old people watching.  I would estimate that 75% of the patrons were 65 years or older.  Seeing what potentially waits down the pipeline for me is pretty depressing although I told Ali I certainly hope to expire well before things would progress too far.  I just have no desire to simply exist where the highlight of my day is a meal.

The four beers I downed did a good job of making the wait tolerable, even as it extended past what we were originally told.   We wound up standing around for 70 minutes until our buzzer lit up. Eventually we got seated and were greeted by our polite but rather generic waiter.  One thing that we typically enjoy at the Naples Carrabas are servers that make an effort to engage the customers in a very friendly way.  Well this guy was not up to snuff in that regard.

Our meal itself was good as normal.  Since it was “Valentine’s Day” I didn’t even make a fuss about getting desert after a caloric bulging pasta and bread filled meal.  Ali I shared  some chocolate desert that went well with my coffee.

Saturday night I started watching season 4 of Breaking Bad.  Randall had given me the season on a set of DVD-R’s.  Well the 360 can be weird when it comes to playing content on DVD-R’s.  Although I watched Dexter on burned DVD-R’s as well, for some reason the BB discs absolutely would not play.

Well after futzing around unsuccessfully with it for a bit I punched “breaking bad” into the 360 Bing search to see what my online options were.  I saw I could get episodes on Vudu, a service I never used before.  If I signed up for the service I got a $5 credit which was enough for me to “buy” the first two episodes.

Well of course I had no intentions of buying all of the episodes. I later figured out a work around.  I throw the dvd into my computer and create a 4 episode AVI file that I can stream to the 360.  I tested it out last night and it works well.  It goes without saying that so far the current season of Breaking Bad is outstanding.

When I woke up Sunday morning I felt crappy.  Basically the lower half of my body just felt shitty.  The spot where I fell not only had painful brush burns but also some bruising as well.  Me left knee didn’t feel fantastic either.  I was walking around like a stiff 80 year old for a good portion of the morning.

Sunday was very low key for the most part.  I was feeling unmotivated plus it was damn cold outside, in the 40’s for a good portion of the day.  I did have one suggestion, to take the dogs out to the swamp for a walk, since the cold temperatures would help prevent them from getting overheated. We headed to the swamp after lunch.

As expected, the dogs definitely had more endurance walking in the cold air, we wound up going the furthest into the swamp on foot than we ever had.  I sort of expected to see a lot of gators out trying to warm up in the sunshine.  I was surprised that we saw no adult gators at all, only 3 baby gators up on a log.

We did have a swamp first as we were on the way back.  A decent sized animal, a little smaller than Nicki, darted out on the path in front of us.  It paused for a few seconds before the barking of the dogs scared it away, it was a bobcat.  Ali and I knew that bobcats were a pretty common Florida predator but they are typically nocturnal.  This was the first time we ever saw a bobcat in the wild.

After the dogs settled down we continued walking until we ran into two women walking into the swamp that Ali happened to know.  We were surprised that after we told them of the bobcat sighting, pointing back to where we saw it, the bobcat had reappeared, standing in the middle of the path, interested in something. It was a cool way to wind up the hike.

Sunday evening I watched the Planet of the Apes movie, the new one of course.  Ali started watching the movie with me but soon bailed.  The theme of the chimps getting abused was not something that she was interested in watching. Of course the abuse lays the groundwork for some payback later on.

I liked the movie overall although there were some loose ends that were sort of left dangling in the wind.  I couldn’t help but think about that woman that had her face ripped off by a chimp repeatedly through out the film.  I’d give the flick a B+, worth a rental.

I have outlined once or twice the annoying problem I have with toenail fungus.  It has been an issue for a long, long time, probably pushing 10 years at this point.  Thankfully it has been isolated to only 3 of my 10 toes.

Well over the years I have been trying various things to clear it up.  I have applied various creams to the affected toes before bed and then covered it with a sock.  I have soaked the feet in warm water and epsom salts.  I have cut the nail super short and tried to file the affected area.  None of it has really worked.

Now I think part of it is a lack of patience and consistency on my part.  It takes a long time to treat this sort of thing and an even longer time for the affected nail to grow out.  I think I have not been diligent enough.

Well anyway I recently did a search for home remedies for the problem and hit on this page.  Two of the suggestions I had not heard before, using vinegar and/or WD-40.

WD-40 is truly a magical substance.  I have heard it suggested for all sorts of applications outside of it’s intended automotive lubricant designation.  Anyway I read multiple reports of people treating their fungus successfully by simply applying WD-40 to the affected area twice a day, simple enough.  Hey I have nothing to lose.

On a related foot subject, when I was at Sam’s Club Friday I got the inspiration buy some new socks.  My sock drawer has been filled with mostly older socks that are the varying shades of off white / gray that socks go through during their lifespan.

Well I saw packs of BLACK socks and was inspired.  Black socks make so much sense. If black socks get dirty  they still look black, what a brilliant invention.  I had two choices, Burlington socks and New Balance branded socks.  Seeing the Burlington socks were made in the USA and the NB socks were made in Mexico made the decision a no brainer.  I threw out any even slightly questionable old white socks I had in my drawer and added my 11 pair of fresh black socks to the mix.

Next week my dad, step mom, my brother, his girlfriend and the two dogs will be arriving for an extended visit.  I am taking all of next week off as a result.  I am hoping to get all of the SSR radio upgrade stuff ordered so I can use some of that time to do the installation.  Dad is always looking for a project to help me with when he visits anyway.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention Whitney Houston died.  As you can tell I am really broken up about it.  I have little sympathy for someone with so much talent that threw it away and basically turned into a crack whore.  I have a very Amy Winehouse’esque attitude about it.  If you are going to keep playing Russian roulette with your life, don’t be surprised when you finally hit the chamber with a bullet in it. See ya later Whitney.

Several years ago the county I work for made a dramatic change to their health care plan.  They installed three different levels of coverage, BASIC, NORMAL and PREMIUM.  As you move up the chain you have smaller deductibles and less overall out of pocket expense.  The theory was if you put in the work to take care of yourself through a healthy lifestyle  you are rewarded for doing so.  The employer also benefits because presumably a healthy person will require far less cost in terms of health care dollars than someone that ignores their health.

When this was introduced I was all for it.  The ideological part of me thought that this may actually provide enough incentive to encourage the masses of health ignorant people to do something about it.  I recall even saying at the time that this would be a great model for a national healthcare plan.

Well in the years since it’s implementation I am sad to report that the basic human trait of laziness has won out.  You can be a 400 pound chain smoker and STILL be on the premium health plan.  The only difference is you have to complete a few “awareness” classes where they tell you it is stupid to be morbidly obese and to smoke.  There is however no requirement for you to change in any manner whatsoever, you just have to attend the classes.

I imagine that it isn’t legal to tie insurance coverage to certain number thresholds like a BMI range or excluding people that smoke.

Well of course people caught on very quickly that although it is inconvenient to have to go to a few classes, it is far less inconvenient than taking a hard look at themselves and making permanent changes to their lifestyle.  I have not seen even one example of somebody making any significant change after these health screenings when they are told the pitfalls they are facing with their health moving forward.

Hell I heard one woman complaining that the health advocate said she was right on the verge of being a diabetic due to her weight gain.  She acted like the woman was out of line for telling her that.  I almost choked on the irony of her ignorance.

As is normally the case, in most situations, human nature is just very disappointing.

Not feeling overly chatty.

I spent some time trying to do so home work for the perspective SSR audio swap.  There are LOTS of moving parts that have to come together.  It’s a bit daunting.

Yesterday when I was leaving the gym the truck actually started up and idled just fine.  I will be monitoring the situation closely.

I finally got smart enough to look at the weather forecast before heading out in the SSR today.  It will be spending it’s first Friday in month’s in the garage due to the 30% chance of rain.

This weekend I guess I should be doing a long run on Saturday if I want to actually do the half marathon that is coming up in a few weeks.  I haven’t signed up for it yet.  I wonder if I would feel the same satisfaction if I simply go out and run 13 miles under two hours without the pomp and circumstance.  My motivation has been lacking.

This weekend we may do an early Valentine’s Day dinner, I’ll have to see what Ali prefers.

So yesterday I claimed I was 90% sure that my cleaning of the IAC valve on my Tacoma was going to take care of my warm starting problems once and for all.  Well I guess I am one of the 10% after all.  When leaving the gym yesterday I experienced the same issue and once again when I left early to go home  to meet the mattress delivery guys.

As you can imagine I was discouraged that the effort I put into cleaning the IAC appears to have been for naught.  My next plan is to disconnect the battery cable for an extended period of time to allow the engine computer to totally reset.  There is a remote chance that could work.

After that I could look at buying a replacement IAC which will run about $200.  There is a chance that the solenoid that actually opens and closes the valve (part of the IAC) is defective.  Of course if I spend the time and money on a new IAC and it still doesn’t fix the issue my frustration factor will be multiplied several times over. Either way I will wait till our tax refund hits to buy more parts for it.

Last night I seemed to arrive at a firm decision to perform the radio upgrade on the SSR myself.  The self doubt I was harboring about the project just felt less important than saving the money and the satisfaction of doing the job myself.  When you face something you don’t feel comfortable doing, 9 times out of 10 that is the signal that is exactly what you should be doing.  That is how you grow and learn.

So after repeated calls to the shipping location I finally got a delivery window of between 3PM and 7PM.  When I got home from work I got busy disassembling the old bed and dragging it out to the dining room, hoping the delivery service also included removing the old bedding. (I wasn’t sure)  It was a bit of a chore lugging the king size mattress around.  I also figured it would be nice to put clean sheets on a brand new bed so I threw the sheets in the wash.

I was feeling sort of blah since the gym where a three mile run on the treadmill after doing my GUTS routine really wore me out.  The idea of juicing seemed like entirely too much work.  I was very close to just throwing a Lean Cuisine meal in the microwave.  I decided to just suck it up and make the juice, adding beets to the mix.  Beets will dominate the color of any juice and their sweetness helps counteract stuff like spinach, celery, tomato and broccoli.  Ali liked the juice as well, she is a beets fan.

Well it was now 6:45 and still no delivery guy.  I called and left a message.  He called back a few minutes later and said they should be at our place in 20-30 minutes, we were the last stop of the day.

The truck arrived a few minutes before Ali got home from track practice.  It was good Ali got there so she could try to keep the dogs occupied.  They were both very interested in the delivery guys and were getting in the way.

The delivery guys were happy that I had everything totally ready to go.  All they had to do was drop the box springs and mattress on to the bed frame and they were done.  Evidently most people expect them to do more of the tear down.

The two guys seemed nice enough, especially considering they are based out of the Miami area.  They said they had to drive back across the state and then report to work at 6:30 AM to head towards the Keys today. I felt bad for them and had no issue handing them a $20 bill for their efforts, especially since they took the old bedding as well.

The first thing Ali and I noticed was the bed height was now significantly lower than it was with the old pillow top mattress.  I bet we are a good 6-8 inches closer to the floor which is fine, it makes it easier for the dogs to get on and off of.

This mattress was listed as a “firm” ,a dramatic departure from our old puffy mattress.  I had some worries about buying a mattress without ever laying on it, especially when changing the type of mattress.  Well the new mattress is dramatically harder than what we slept on for the last 7-8 years but with the two mattress toppers we have it took the edge off.

Ali and I both woke up this morning with no reported problems sleeping.  Ali, whom often woke up with a sore back because of the bowled out shape our old mattress developed, said she had absolutely no discomfort last night and felt great.

Yesterday I got a message from Autozone that my IAC gasket was in.  I was surprised because I was told it wouldn’t arrive until Wednesday.  I had to laugh out loud at the Vonage text translation of the voice mail. Here is what it thought it heard.   “This is Roy. I am calling from outdoor song to let you know about the car payment. Thank you”

I was worried when I stopped at Autozone on the way home and the guy walked out with a huge cardboard envelope that was at least a 2 foot square.  The part I ordered was all of 3 inches .  After he ripped open the cardboard and another smaller envelope inside I was relieved to see that the gasket was indeed what I needed.

When I got home I headed right out to the garage to try to put everything back together before I ran out of day light.  The new gasket fit exactly as it should.  Reassembling the throttle body and reattaching it to the truck went smoothly.  The truck fired right up although the real test is when I do my first warm start. I am 90% sure that I have squashed the problem.

I made a video outlining the steps I took to clean the IAC since I was unable to find any Tacoma IAC cleaning videos going into the project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-71hfgaxzc

So we are supposed to receive our new bed today.  Last week I was contacted by the company responsible for the delivery and set things up.  I was told the night before I would be receiving a call giving me a 4 hour delivery window.  Well I received no call.  I called and left a message, hoping someone calls me back to let me know when I can expect someone to show up.  I wouldn’t be surprised if my notice is the call that says “we are at your front door and no one is home”.  Oh well, I guess they will be waiting if that is the case.

Yesterday when I was using StumbleUpon I was directed to a pretty cool job search sight, simplyhired.com.  The site aggregates job listings across many sources and presents them in an easy to use interface.  Of course I did a few searches based on mom’s address and came back with a few interesting hits that I sent to her.

Last week a copy of Newsweek showed up in our mailbox with my name and address on it.  I was baffled.  I definitely did not subscribe to the weekly periodical that is typically found in doctor waiting rooms.   Hell the only subscription I have anymore is Wired and the paper version typically goes right in the recycle bin since I can read the enhanced electronic version on my Kindle Fire (or Ipad).

Maybe someone got a free subscription deal and put my name down as a joke.  Some FB friends said they too have started receiving magazines they didn’t order and heard it is a gimmick publishers have been trying to boost subscriptions.  Well I can assure you, it won’t work in this case.

I saw Rick “Anal Fluid” Santorum won three primaries, well not really, they were more like straw polls since no delegates were decided based on the results.  The election process is so needlessly complicated and stupid.  Anyway grats to the republican voters of Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri for firmly establishing that you are indeed first class ass hats.

In a story near and dear to Rick’s heart, since he thinks gayness can be cured and is somewhat similar to bestiality,  a California court ruled it was illegal for voters to overturn the gay marriage right (Prop 8). I think this is a great thing but of course Rick doesn’t or the religious marriage police.  I have yet to hear one logical explanation of how allowing two men or women to marry each other affects anybody else in a negative manner whatsoever.  Maybe that is because there is no logical explanation.

Last night we got our first taste of our home grown asparagus, the spears are still rather small at this point but that is because the plant is only going on it’s second year.  It tasted like asparagus, imagine that. 🙂

Yesterday we got a letter from our home owner’s insurance.  The letter said that they were contracting a company to redo the windstorm inspection on our home.

Several years ago as an effort to give homeowners some relief from outrageous insurance costs, the state sponsored free surveys of people’s homes to determine their ability to withstand hurricane force winds.  If your home met certain requirements after the survey you qualified for a discounted rate on your homeowner’s insurance.  Our house didn’t qualify for the top end of the discount level but it did qualify for some discount.

Well of course this letter is a huge red flag for me.  The insurance company is paying someone to reinspect homes because they don’t trust the inspection done by the state.  Of course it is quite easy to see the true intent.  They want these paid mercenaries to disavow the original inspections so the insurance company can in turn charge a higher rate.

This pisses me off, greatly.  I plan to be calling my agent today to raise hell about this.  I am generally displeased with what we are paying for insurance, especially car insurance.  We carry both home and car insurance under Allstate for some mysterious “umbrella discount” which seems to be vaporware in real dollars and cents.

If this new inspection results in a significant change in my home owner insurance I will be actively seeking alternatives.

I had another frustrating phone conversation with mom late yesterday afternoon.  She places a disproportionate amount of weight in things that don’t merit it and precious little in things that are crucial to her well being. Yes the old adage of “you can’t help someone that doesn’t want to help themselves” has come into play here for a long, long time.  However I think I would be skirting my responsibilities to just stand by like an innocent, ignorant bystander and watch it continue without trying to do something, anything to make her see the light. Of course mom hates when I point out the issues with her decision making and typically will try to just exit the conversation instead of talking about it.

Mom has told me in the past she has done a lot of feeling sorry for herself since she was laid off and she realized that has to change.  Well her attitude yesterday had no hints of change, just a stuck in granite resolution that she is helpless to make things better.

So I did indeed call Sirius on Friday and told them I was ready to cancel my subscription after seeing the latest rate increase.  The woman with an Indian accent wasted no time offering to renew my subscription minus the price increase.  Well that came way too easily, it was obvious there was more savings available.  I told her thanks but no thanks. I told her how the past few years I was on the fence if I wanted to renew at all since the only reason I have Sirius is for Howard Stern and he now only does three live shows a week and takes 2-3 months off a year on top of that.

Well this opened us up to the level 2 discount which is half price on the base subscription.  I am pretty sure I could have pushed for more like a discount on the online streaming portion or the bullshit music royalty fees but I called it as good enough and told the woman I guess I’ll renew.  Of course when next year rolls around the same song and dance will be repeated.

Originally the plan for Saturday morning was to run 10 miles at the normal club group run.  Ali got a message from Michelle saying she was going to be running around her neighborhood instead with a friend of hers.  She invited us to join them although she planned to only run 7 miles.  Friday afternoon my knees were a little painful after running on the treadmill Thursday, the idea of putting in less miles made more sense to me.

So we met up with Michelle and her friend whom also happens to be named Michelle.  We had a solid run, Michelle number two was obviously a good runner.  Ali was struggling a bit because she was starting to feel the onset of illness.  A couple times she scolded me because I dropped back to run with her, saying she doesn’t want me to slow down to run with her.  I told her it was no big deal and ran most of the last couple miles with her a little behind the two Michelle’s.

When we were done it struck me that it was ironic that running 7 miles is now viewed as a compromise for me where as for the first 42 years of my life 6 miles was a bucket list item.

After a well deserved stop at Dunkin Donuts the rest of my Saturday was non-stop work save the 40 minute Kitchen Nightmare show I watched over lunch.  Ali had busted ass on Friday getting a lot of the house work done which was nice.  After I finished up what was left to do I headed outside to start on the long awaited Tacoma idle air control valve cleaning project. Through various internet research I had determined this was the reason I was experiencing warm start problems with the truck where the engine sputters and barely wants to keep running.

Before heading out I located the forum post I found earlier that had pictures of another person taking his IAC off.  I reviewed the pictures to give me a bit of a visual road map.

The IAC is attached to the throttle body.  To clean it you need to remove the throttle body before you can remove the IAC.  Removing the throttle body wasn’t too bad.  After removing the intake hose and the cables attached to the linkage you had four bolts to remove to get the throttle body off.

Once you slide the throttle body off I got better access to the two coolant hoses on the bottom and was able to slip them off, allowing the throttle body to be completely removed.

I then moved to the work bench in the garage.  The IAC is attached to the throttle body with four brass screws.  I read several warnings about the potential pitfall these screws presented, evidently they are very easy to strip.  One recommendation I read to avoid this was to utilize an impact screwdriver, a tool I never used before.

An impact screwdriver is used in combination with a hammer.  Basically you strike the end of it.  The impact is transferred to sudden rotational energy which will break loose most frozen screws without damaging them.

Having never used the tool before it took some trial and error.  I practiced on a wood screw that was in the peg board.  I was quite pleased that the tool worked as advertised on the IAC screws.  All four of them broke loose with absolutely no problem.

Once I got the valve off the throttle body it confirmed what I suspected.  The valve was cruddy and covered in carbon deposits.  These deposits cause the valve to stick, causing the bad idle when things are warm.

So I got busy with the carb cleaner, giving the IAC a thorough bath in addition to using a small brush to help remove the deposits.  The ports are pretty small so it took some patience to get it cleaned up.  While I was at it I cleaned out the throttle body, cleaning areas I was unable to reach with it attached to the engine.

I also removed the solenoid on the side of the IAC so I was able to rotate the valve to make sure it was both clean and rotated without obstruction.  The solenoid was attached with two screws that had a rubber plug on top of them.  When I reattached the solenoid I replaced the rubber plugs with some silicone caulk I had hanging around.

So all that was left to do was put everything back together.  I also read on the internet that they highly recommend you replace the rubber gasket between the IAC and throttle body as part of the process to make sure there aren’t any vacuum leaks when it is put back together.  I prepared for this as well, ordering not one, but two of these gaskets, just in case I messed one up somehow.

So I pull out one of the new gaskets and immediately notice it is not even close to the right size/shape.  Well that is annoying, I know I was very careful selecting it online when I ordered it.  Well that is just great.

So I figure that I would just put the old gasket back on, as far as I could tell it seemed to be in decent shape.  So I lay the gasket into the slotted outline for it in the throttle body however it doesn’t want to quite fit.  I would press it into the slot on the bottom but then it would not quite line up at the top.  If I lined it up at the top the bottom would fall out.  WTF?

I f’d around with the gasket for a solid 15 minutes but regardless of what I did it would not seat itself correctly.  I thought this was odd since the gasket has resided in that slot for the last 13 years or so.  My only theory was when I pulled the gasket off I did not exercise much care in doing so, grabbing it by a corner and yanking since I thought I had brand new replacements. Perhaps the yank stretched the old gasket just enough that it no longer fit correctly.

Great. So I head inside to see if by some miracle I can secure a replacement gasket.  A quick check online revealed it was a special order item from Autozone which would take a few days to get. I then called up both local Toyota dealerships in the hope they may stock the little rubber part.  I struck out both times, they would have to order it as well.

I was frustrated.  I called up Autozone and had them order the part.  My order came out to $1.69. I was pissed my repair was derailed by a $2 part.  I told Ali the truck would be out of commission for a few days, at least I have two other vehicles that could fill the transportation void, the party van and the SSR.

If you want to see all of the pictures I took during the IAC project you can go here.  I also shot some video of the work and plan to utilize it to create the first YouTube 99 Tacoma IAC cleaning documentary.

After the Toyota work I turned my attention to the SSR.  It was still dirty from it’s unintended drive in the rain two Fridays ago.  I gave the truck a thorough bath both inside and out.  I snapped a pic after I was done.

So now that it was clean I wanted to finally install the “bling” I bought a few weeks back.  First I installed the chrome water pump pulley cover which is intended to cover up the only stand out ugly item in the engine compartment.  The stock pulley has a large threaded end that gets rusty.

The recommended install procedure including brushing the threads to remove the rust and then coating the threads with Vaseline.  Ali snickered when I came inside asking for vaseline to use on the SSR.

Installing the cover went ok although I was annoyed that some of the chrome flaked off on the big nut when I was tightening it with a pliers.  I had the jaws wrapped up in tape but evidently not thick enough, a couple teeth poked few and must have caused the damage.  Oh well the cover still looks decent.

Next I turned attention to my new license plate area chrome cover, the same one that Ali rolled her eyes at when I showed it to her.  To be honest ever since Ali ‘s reaction I have felt less enthused about my rear bling but I was certainly going to install it regardless.

The cover comes with red plastic inserts that can be cut as needed to cover the 3 cut out logos on either side of the cover.  I decided to make the Chevy logo and the R red and leave the SS uncovered.  These inserts were secured with the same silicone I used on the IAC work.

Installing the cover was easy.  After removing the factory black snap on license plate cover I simply removed the license plate and then reattached it behind the new cover, utilizing the 4 longer stainless steel screws it comes with.

I stood back and took a look at the end result.  I think I liked it.  Like I said I now had this seed of doubt in my head about it based on Ali’s initial reaction.  It helped add another degree of uniqueness to the exterior of the truck in addition to the lowered stance and custom pin striping.

I had Ali come out so she could take a picture of the plate when it lights up when the car is in reverse.  It will look cool at night although the coolness will only be in full effect when the truck is in reverse.

The last project I had for the day was to wash the party van, it was pretty grungy both inside and out.  I swept up the copious amounts of dog hair that was spread around the interior and scrubbed the exterior so certain spots no longer had a light green hue from algae/mildew.   With my dad, step mom, brother and their dogs coming down in a few weeks I figured it was good timing since the party van will be our primary mode of transportation with that many bodies.

In total my various vehicular labor kept me busy until after 5pm.  Ali, who was feeling worse as the day went on had taken several naps during the day.  She did come out later in the afternoon to work on two food projects.  She made some hearty bread that was modeled after something we had at Sweet Tomatoes.  She also made a soup that included strained juicing pulp, additional vegetables and pasta.  We had both for dinner.

The soup didn’t turn out that well, the pasta didn’t take as long to cook as Ali expected and wound up turning to mush, making the overall consistency of the soup not very desirable.  The overall taste wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the type of thing I would go looking for.  I always feel bad not always giving ringing endorsements to Ali’s cooking, especially in a case like this when I know she put a lot of effort into the process.  However I don’t think I would be doing anyone a favor by being dishonest about it either.

The bread Ali made was another story, that turned out really well.  You would think it was prepared in a real bakery.  We both had more than one serving.

I was walking around like an old man Saturday night.  Sometime during the various projects I must have pulled something in my back, right below my left shoulder blade.  I would get a sharp pain if I moved the wrong way and even if I breathed deeply.  I still can feel it a bit today but it the edge has worn off somewhat.

We watched Hangover 2 Saturday night, my most recent Netflix queue item.  I had been warned it wasn’t all that great and those warnings rang true.  It was more or less an instant replay of the first movie, only with less funny moments.  Maybe it felt less funny just because we had seen much of it before but I think it was more that it just wasn’t as well done.  Neither Ali or I were impressed.  I’d give it a pretty stinky B- rating.

Sunday morning I started it like I normally like to start them, with a DD run in the party van with the dogs in tow.  Well when I got to the second traffic light, about 2 miles from our house I hit a sudden red that necessitated me hitting the brakes hard.  After the initial sudden stopping surge the brake pedal unexpectedly gave way and headed towards the floor.  Thank goodness nobody was in front of me, I stopped a good 20 feet out into the intersection.

Well I instantly knew this was a problem and by the time I hit the next light I decided it was lunacy to try to drive with the van like this, my stopping power was almost non-existent.  I turned around and headed back home, knowing there had to be major leak in the brake system.  I also briefly pondered how lucky I was that the brakes didn’t fail at highway speeds in a situation where I had to stop.  It could have been very, very ugly.

So after I limped back home, I opened the hood and looked at the fluid level in the brake reservoir,  it still had plenty of fluid in it.  I then slid myself under the rear of the van and saw a stream of brake fluid dripping down.  It appeared that one of the metal brake lines in the back had ruptured, wonderful.

Well obviously this had to be fixed, replacing metal brake lines was definitely outside the boundaries of what I was equipped to fix myself.  I went inside and told Ali who was still in bed of the problem.  I asked her if she could follow me in the Camry to Tire Choice, the place that did the van front brake work a few months back.  My thought was Ali could provide me with a rear safety cushion and I would make sure I had plenty of stopping distance in front of me.

The drive to the garage was very slow and steady.  I got lucky in that I hit mostly green lights.  When I did need to stop I used the engine to assist by manually down shifting to burn off speed.  I managed to complete the roughly 15 miles without rear ending another vehicle and felt lucky to do.  The brakes were so weak.

After explaining what was wrong I handed over the keys and told the woman to call me when they had an estimate.  In my head I figured it might cost a couple hundred bucks.  Well when I got the call saying the estimate was $700 I swallowed hard.  The woman explained that all of brake lines in the back were a mess and badly rusted which I already knew.  I anticipated them all getting replaced in my prior mental estimate.

In my mental estimate I thought you could simply order rear brake lines for a 1996 Chevy van.  Well that is not the case.  She said the lines have to be custom fabricated to fit which is why the vast majority of that $700 is labor.  Well it was a problem that had to be addressed, you don’t just cross your fingers and hope that old brake lines won’t explode.  I told her to go ahead with the work.

I was at least pleased that I got the van back the same day without an appointment going in and that the woman honored a 10% discount that I thought I had a coupon for but later found I didn’t.

Over the weekend I noticed a new bag laying on the counters. We literally have dozens of bags/purses in the house so the fact that it was sitting on the counter wasn’t interesting.  The lululemon branding was what caught my interest.  I asked Ali about the bag of course since I had never seen it before.  She said she bought it at the store with the gift card I gave her for Christmas.

Well the gift card was only for $50.  I am far too lululemon savvy to think that the gift card covered the price of the bag, especially after she told me she bought a pair of running pants with the card as well the day before.

Since Ali was feeling sick I just lightly jabbed her about it, pointing out that we already have 345 bags in the house, why in the world would she need a lululemon bag?  Of course there is no logical explanation , she equates it to my SSR “bling” which is maybe 3 or 4 items, compared to the dozens of lulu branded clothing items and accessories that reside in our house that join an already immense supply of Nike, Reebok, and Under Armour items.  Of course this is always a no-win discussion but it still irks me that Ali has this sneaky secret shopper inside of her.

So this year we did not do a Super Bowl party, something we did for the last 4 or 5 years.  It never really came up for discussion for some reason.  With Ali not feeling well I guess it sort of worked out well timing wise.

For our SB meal we had vegetarian pigs in a blanket which I don’t mind in the least.  Our food was filled out with some Baked Lays and garlic bagel bites.  Eating the less than nutritionally stellar food combined with an entire exercise-free day immediately lead to the gluttonous feeling that makes me very uncomfortable.

So I flipped on the 73 inch tv and surround sound and took in the game.  Let’s get the game discussion out of the way since I didn’t have any real rooting interest although I did find myself pulling for the Patriots for some reason.  The game was a good one for sure were both teams missed some opportunities to dramatically change the outcome.

When Bradshaw mistakenly scored the TD when the Patriots didn’t even try to tackle him with time running out I thought Tom Brady might have a miracle left in him.  In their prior series the Pats lost a golden opportunity to seal the game when Wes Welker dropped what would have been a huge pass play which eventually lead to a punt instead of a score.

Well Brady ran out of miracles and for the second time in 4 years and the Giants beat him in the end, knocking down a last second hail mary in the end zone.  It was fitting end to a very up and down season.  For a large part of it the Giants were a mess, at one point sitting with a 7-7 record.  It was only fitting that this year, which seemed to be the year of inconsistency that a team that at points was really bad, wound up winning it at the end. Oh well.

So let’s talk about the other part of SB experience, the commercials and the half time show.  I had seen a few of the commercials online before the broadcast. For some reason they decided to make them available ahead of time.

I thought for the most part the commercials, especially early on when you expect the big hitters to really knock it out of the park, were weak.  I could not believe the very first Bud Light Platinum commercial.  It was as bland as bland could be.  Bud Light normally does a good job with their spots.  With a few exceptions, I thought most of the spots were just boring or dumb.

Of course I liked most dog themed commercials as expected but I think my favorite of all was the Jerry Seinfeld Audi commercial, the online extended version is even better.  There were a few others that were creative/good but for the most part they were weak.

GoDaddy really needs to get a clue.  Do they think that people don’t realize that the T&A tease to go to their website for “more” has long been revealed as a huge letdown? Their ads suck. Coke? Enough with the polar bears please.  Like I said there were a bunch more have nots than haves in my commercial scoreboard.

So the Madonna half time show had a lot of hype going in, after all it is Madonna, even if it is a 53 year old version of her.  After watching it and exchanging several confused looks and commentary with Ali we both agreed we were underwhelmed.

The portable stage and lighting effects were top notch, crazy good.  All of the props and supporting dancers in the performance were really cool.  How about that guy doing crazy stuff on that suspended wire?  However I though Madonna herself looked like she was performing in a haze, her energy level felt low for some reason. She looked to me like a 50 something year old woman trying to give a Lady Gaga type performance, it just didn’t work for me.

One thing obviously has had a lot of work is Madonna’s face.  There was not a wrinkle to be found on her 5 decade + old face courtesy of botox and whatever weird stuff she has had done.  I wasn’t nuts about her hair style either.

Of course the fact that she lip synched the entire performance annoyed me, just like it does Elton John. I know lip synching is very common at the Super Bowl, it doesn’t make me like it any more.  Sing for real please.

When I looked online I saw my opinion of the half time show was not echoed much.  For the most part my Facebook circle of 40 something’s  thought the show was good.  I guess I just watched a different performance than they did.

So I took my shower early and was back in the bedroom before 8:30 to pile drive through the remaining episodes of Dexter.  My co-worker warned me this season sort of tails off at the end. I saw exactly what he meant.  There were two major twists in the finale, one is creepy, uncomfortable and unwelcome, the other is interesting.

There are also a few other side plots with unresolved conclusions, only one of them holds any interest for me. Out of the 5 seasons of Dexter I have watched I would probably rank this one above last season but below the other three.  The show definitely has lost some luster.

I, like any other home owner, have certain home maintenance items that need to be attended to on a schedule.  I used to help keep these items in order with my weekend paper to do lists which Ali always used to complain about.  I abandoned the paper lists for the last couple years.  As expected there has been some slacking when it comes to staying on top of some of these items as a result.

Well last night I started entering some of these recurring items into my Outlook calendar, complete with reminders and a recurrence schedule.  With this set up I will be reminded of these items on both my pc and handheld smart devices when they come due.  I will continue to be reminded until I “dismiss” the task, ideally after I have completed it.

Some of the chores which Ali is also involved in I shared with her so she could add them to her calendar as well.  Well Ali rebelled against my idea, refusing to accept my calendar item.  It looks like Ali is an equal opportunity list hater whether they be of the paper or electronic variety, as long as they are created by me that is.

So in the mail yesterday I got my colorful subscription reminder from Sirius.  Inside was a “personal” letter from CEO Mel Karmazin, telling me how much he appreciates me sticking around for all of these years even with Sirius giving me and all of their customers the shaft repeatedly. As a token of his appreciation he also reminded me that Sirius was raising their prices.

I saw a press release when this price increase was announced several months ago where Mel was crowing how Sirius has not raised prices since they have been in business.  The amount of bullshit in that statement was overwhelming.

I must just be unlucky since despite there being “no price increases” what I pay for Sirius has gone up by close to 50% since I have been a customer.

Mel will tell you that the subscription fee has been exactly the same. What he won’t tell you is Sirius has removed items that you used to get included with that subscription and then fed them back to you for additional cost, like online streaming. He also forgets to mention the utter bullshit “music royalty fee” that was tacked on to everybody’s subscription a couple years back.

I find this disregard for customers intelligence insulting.

So anyway my plan is to call Sirius today and tell them I am cancelling my subscription, assuming they will offer me a substantial discount to stay.  If that discount is appreciable I will take my savings and continue being a customer solely to be able to listen to the ever dwindling amount of Stern live content.

If they offer me nothing or very little I am fully prepared to say thanks but no thanks.  I have enough other listening options available that cutting the cord from Sirius would be only mildly painful at best and only for a short time at that.  Like anything else, time makes most situations easier to deal with.

This weekend I have a lot of things I’d like to get done around the house in addition to the normal collection of to do’s.  I have had the parts/tools to clean the IAC valve on the Tacoma for a couple weeks now, I’d like to dive in and get it done.  Three of the vehicles are dirty, the party van to the point where algae is growing on the back corner.

The SSR also could use some attention.  The truck needs a bath after it’s unintentional rain exposure last week and the chrome accessories I bought need to be installed.

I am almost at the point where I am ready to pull the trigger on the radio upgrade for the SSR.  I still have been bumping back and forth as far as if I want to buy all of the stuff online at a discounted price and install it myself or pay an installer several hundred dollars extra to do it professionally.

I recently started considering a third option, buying the stuff at a not so discounted rate from Crutchfield whom will give you top notch installation assistance over the phone  which would offer me middle of the road savings, cutting out the installers labor rate.  I need to figure out which route I want to travel soon.

Since the half marathon I targeted is only a month away I need to get in a long run in tomorrow as well.  I actually have been questioning my desire to do the event the last couple days for some reason.

So last night I once again had juice for dinner.  I know there has been some curiosity about the process so I flipped on my JustinTV app on my Iphone to capture approximately 15 minutes of the juicing process.  I tried to narrate some of the process, unfortunately JTV’s somewhat spotty live recording ability dropped some of the commentary.  You will still get the drift.

I took a couple pictures of the finished product.  There is absolutely no denying it looks gross.  Luckily it doesn’t taste nearly as bad as it looks.

I also decided to take my first crack at the 5150 challenge.  I wore my Bar-barians shirt for the first time for the attempt, it fits well.

This was also the first time I tried using my new 1080P video recorder for an attempt.  The 1080P video did indeed look very sharp.  The downside is full HD video files are very, very big.  I am not sure if I am going to record everything in 1080P or drop back to 720P for most normal recording.

The attempt was difficult as expected.  I managed to complete 35 pull ups and 75 push ups before my 5 minutes ran out.  That leaves me 40 more reps I need to somehow jam into that same time if I want to successfully complete the challenge.

I’ll have to keep working at this one.  It is a great way to improve your ability to handle lactic acid build up.  Here is the attempt.

I just reached the portion of this season of Dexter that made me groan a bit. The big plot reveal/shift sort of made me think “Really??”.  When I apply the plot twist to past events in prior episodes it didn’t really make a ton of sense.  Oh well.