Archives May 2016

During this part of the blog I talk about the transgender bathroom drama and Tacoma features that are surprisingly absent. https://blog.duf.net

I talk about trusting strangers and how it has worked it out for me over the years. https://blog.duf.net

Yesterday I returned to the bank to deposit the remainder of the funds from the sale of the Tacoma.  Luckily the amount was less than $3000 so a Spanish inquisition was not necessary in order to deposit the cash.  I drove the new Tacoma yesterday and had the GoPro rolling for the vlog.  Somehow it added up to over 30 minutes of brain dumping covering no less than 6 or 7 subjects.  30 minute videos just do not work in YouTube world so I plan to chop the video up by subject matter to make three videos each around 10 minutes in length instead.

Yesterday I received some more Tacoma upgrades, a cargo net and a bed mat.  Both items are to address similar problems.  The 99 and new  Tacoma has a great composite bedliner which is very resilient. However there is one problem, it’s very slippery.  If anything smaller was in the bed, even slight deceleration or acceleration would cause it to slide all over the place.  Sometimes this was just an annoyance, other times it was a real problem, for example if I was transporting chlorine jugs or gasoline.

This new rubber mat not only looks good but will keep most items in place due to it’s grippier surface.  It also offers a second layer of protection for the bed floor.  The cargo net will come in handy if we want to do something like throw groceries in the back.  The net will securely keep the stuff back in the tailgate area instead of letting it roll around.

Once again this evening I have to work late at the office but it should be much earlier than the last time.  The rest of the weekend should be ok.  I have some small projects to work on like trying to swap the guts between two monitors.  I also have some house chores as always but I’d like to have some chill time if at all possible.  We hopefully we catch the new X-men movie.  We also have the last Florida Tarpons game of the year on Sunday evening.

So throughout the day I was pinging the guy that bought my 99 Tacoma regarding him dropping off the money that I lent him to pay for the title transfer and taxes.  Despite my gut feeling the guy was trustworthy, my past history of being overly trusting leading to bad situations made me paranoid to a degree.  It turned out my paranoia was unnecessary, he showed up shortly after I got home from work with money in hand.  He arrived in my Tacoma meaning he got the tag and insurance handled as well.  It looked weird seeing someone else driving up and away in my truck.  He told me he loves the truck which I was happy to hear.  I told him to take good care of it as I walked back up the driveway before shooting one parting glance of the Tacoma as he pulled away.  Adios to my faithful friend….

So while I was in the yard I noticed that one of my favorite  chickens, Cutie Pie was acting very strangely.  She was darting around the coop with her mouth wide open.  She then would head outside and loop around, reentering the coop.  She seemed disoriented.  I was immediately concerned and called Cindy over.   We were worried that maybe she was dehydrated, causing her to act weird.  Cindy gave her some water via syringe and gave her chunks of watermelon as well.

When we put the chickens to bed we saw there was an extra egg in the nesting boxes.  We think the egg was from Cutie and perhaps she just had to get the egg out and was freaking out because her sister, Cupcake had been camping out in the nesting box most of the day as she has resumed her broody behavior.  Cindy is going to keep an eye on her today.

So the buyer of the 99 Tacoma showed up at my office mid-morning.  He told me had the cash in hand but it was more difficult than he expected because a check he got for some work had not cleared the credit union yet, forcing him to basically clear out the account.  I met him out in the lot to exchange the money and we then went inside to do the paperwork.  As we started the transaction it was apparent the guy wasn’t as prepared as he should have been.  Since he was short on funds he planned to just pay for the title transfer now and then come back the following day to get the license plate.  He also did not have his proof of insurance with so he wouldn’t have been able to complete the registration even if he had the money.

So the title transfer and sales tax came to a little more than $250.  The guy handed his credit union debit card as payment, despite the account being basically empty.  I assumed it could still be run as a credit card transaction.  Well the card was denied and it was apparently the only card he owned.  So now I saw two options.  We postpone the transaction until the next day when he has the funds necessary in his account or I front him the money out of what he already gave me.  I chose option two.

I pulled three hundred dollar bills out of the envelope and told the clerk this was now a cash transaction.  The buyer thanked me for extending myself.  Of course I knew I was taking a risk but he seemed like an honest guy to me and even if I never saw the 250 bucks I still have come out quite well in the transaction.   Since he had no plate yet he could not really drive the truck.  We agreed that I would drive the Tacoma with my plate to his Dad’s place that was about 5 miles away.  Once we got there I pulled my plate off and Shelby gave me a ride back to the office.  He thanked me again and said he would drop the additional money to me on Wednesday.  Despite my track record of being overly trusting in these situations I am hopeful my trust will be well deserved this time around.

So as planned Cindy picked me up after work to give me a ride home.  We swung into the credit union drive thru to deposit the envelope of cash.  I filled out the deposit slip and handed it and the envelope jammed with 100 dollar bills to Cindy to put in the transport tube.  A minute or two later the teller came over the speaker and said the most cash you are allowed to deposit via the drive thru is $3000.  The lobby was closed so I could not go inside and deposit the entire amount. What the fck…

I thought this was stupid.  I am a customer wanting to give a bank money and they tell me sorry, you can’t give it to us….  As we filled out a new deposit slip for $3000 and removed the excess money I was grumbling the entire time about the idiocy of this policy.  Is this an effort to subdue the drug trade or terrorism that deals with large cash transactions?  How do they come up with $3000 as being the magic number where the line of trust ends and distrust begins?  So regardless of the stupidity of this policy in my mind the bottomline is I will have to now make a second trip to the credit union unnecessarily.

The driveway at the house which for years was occupied by both the party van and the Tacoma now is conspicuously empty with our two remaining vehicles both residing in the garage.  It’s a weird feeling for sure.

Last night we were ripped out of our sleep repeatedly by strong storms that brought lightning, thunder, and 2-3 inches of rain.  I do not welcome the return of summer weather.

If you are a Duf-cast subscriber you should now have 4 or 5 episodes in your feed.  Unfortunately the stuff I recorded yesterday in the Tacoma had an abundance of rattling noise from the very long rig I had the GoPro attached to.

Today’s vlog covers such subjects as the sale of my 99 Tacoma in one day, Paul Ryan, getting prosecuted by law enforcement via YouTube, and more…  Yes I know the video and sound quality on this episode sort of sucks.  It won’t happen again.  This is the first and last episode to be shot in my 99 Tacoma.
http://duf.net

So I carefully created my Craigslist ad yesterday, including a pretty thorough description along with 9 or 10 pictures.  I published it and waited for my phone to ring.  To be honest it didn’t ring as often as I expected.

My first contact was a text message from some guy that offered me $3000, over 2k less than my asking price.  He qualified his offer with an acknowledgement that it was a low offer but was all the money he had.  I politely told him I couldn’t sell it for that but thanked him for his offer.

I then got another text from a guy that said I should text him when I got home, presumably so he could come out and see the truck.  Once I got home I texted as promised but got a response he couldn’t come out tonight but he would be in touch.  I then got a call from a guy from Fort Myers.  He was definitely interested but couldn’t come down to see the truck until the next night.  I told him that was fine, as long as I don’t sell it ahead of time.

Then about 7:30 my phone rang.  It was another guy wanting to know if I sold it yet.  When I told him I had not he said he could come right over, since he also lived in the estates it should only take him 15 minutes or so to get there.  I told him to come on over.  While we were waiting Cindy and I did another round of interior clean out of the truck.  Cindy had already pulled a lot of the personal items  out when she cleaned the inside but there were a few more things in there.

Shelby pulled up in his big full size diesel Ford truck with his wife/girlfriend in the passenger seat.  She stayed in the truck the entire time for whatever reason, apparently uninterested in the potential purchase.  Shelby seemed like a cool younger guy.  He has his own handyman business and does some car repairs as well.  He is very familiar with the Tacomas and owned one several years ago that he liked.

Unfortunately the sunlight was fading fast but I showed him some examples of where the clear coat was failing.  He said his brother actually does paint/bodywork so that would be a nice fit.  I brought him a flashlight which he used to get a better look into the engine compartment and under the truck.  We went on a 5 minute or so test drive where it seemed clear he liked the truck.  The negotiation actually occurred during the last 1/2 mile of the drive.  He offered me 600 less then what I was asking, I said I would be willing to split the difference and he agreed to it.

Once we got back we talked about the logistics of the transaction.  We agreed on him running to the bank this morning to pull out cash and then meeting me at my office since we can do the transaction right here.  I then would hopefully be able to hitch a ride to the gym with my buddy and will get a ride home from Cindy at the end of the day.  Now of course my experience with the first potential SSR buyer who backed out after giving me a deposit makes me not willing to count my chickens before they are hatched but I am pretty confident the sale will transpire as planned.

The sale of the Tacoma will culminate what has been a quite busy month or so with the SSR sale, 2016 Tacoma purchase followed by the sale of my 99 Tacoma.  As I looked through the folder of repair documentation I was going to deliver with the truck it brought back many memories.  I bought the truck in October of 2001 for $15,300.  To be able to sell it some 15 years later for almost 5k is a testament to Tacoma value.

I expect there will be more sentimental feelings as I see the Tacoma drive off compared to the SSR because of longevity.  I have never owned a vehicle for as long as I have owned the truck.  It’s not even close.  It has served me tirelessly over so many years in endless projects, races, and just commuting on a daily basis.  The various maintenance and repair tasks I have taken on with the truck have provided me with many challenges to overcome with the accompanying sense of accomplishment when I eventually succeeded.  It’s been a great vehicle and I hope it continues to serve it’s new owner for many years to come.

So I got my rebooted podcast online yesterday.  You can find it with this link or search “duf-cast” on iTunes.  My plan for now is to convert my YouTube vlogs to mp3 podcasts.  After uploading the video to YouTube I pull back the processed mp4 file and then convert it to mp3 format.  I then use the Blubrry plug in in WordPress to create the feed which is fed into iTunes.  It takes some work to get the content out there but it isn’t too bad.   The podcast really is for nobody else’s benefit but my own as it will help me work on talking through my thoughts instead of keying them.  If somebody finds it entertaining enough to listen to outside my immediate circle, great.

I shot my first and last vlog entry in the 99 Tacoma on my way to work today.

I have been having a TON of detailed long dreams the last few nights, too bad that detail is mostly lost when I awake.

My new Tacoma has a GoPro mount. I thought I would try it out occasionally to do some vlogging. Today’s topic is primarily about my Chevy SSR and why I was ok with selling it. http://duf.net

Today’s vlog covers such subjects as politics, Tacoma upgrades, gym etiquette, Dunkin Donuts coffee, and more… http://duf.net

As predicted the weekend was stuffed with work but with the work came a sense of accomplishment.  I was up early Saturday as Cindy had to drive two hours north for the state middle school track meet.  I headed outside shortly after sunrise to tend to the chickens and weed the yard.  Once I finished up I loaded up the truck with the computer I was setting up for Ali.

I took the new Tacoma since Ali and her boyfriend had not seen it yet.  I was surprised when I saw a different vehicle in Ali’s garage as well.  She got out of the lease on her Kia suv and bought a 2015 Nissan Versa.  It’s a big change in vehicle types but will be financially much more agreeable.  She wasn’t thrilled with the world of leasing and I don’t blame her.  I have never leased a vehicle in my life.

I got busy backing up stuff from Ali’s old computer.  Luckily she keeps most of her stuff in Dropbox nowadays so it made moving most of her data pretty simple. In total I spent a couple hours getting her new system configured.  I left her old system online with remote access so she can still get stuff if needed.  There are a couple things I have to configure yet remotely.  With 12 gigs of ram and a fast SSD drive her new, used system is much faster than her old used system.  As I worked I had various visits from Sadie, Ferdie, and Latte which made the process more enjoyable.

When I got back home I headed outside for much dirtier work.  I had more old Tacoma work planned, replacing the throttle position sensor and both of the battery cables.  I worked on the sensor first.  In theory it could have been a 5 minute job to replace the sensor as it is held in with only two screws.  The problem is the sensor is near the back of the engine compartment and the way it is oriented the only way to get on it is with a stubby screwdriver that has to be turned from a side direction.

I was able to get the top screw broken loose but the bottom screw was more stubborn.  I was starting to strip out the screw after multiple failed attempts.  A much more time consuming reality seemed to be my only choice, I was going to have to pull the throttle body off.

I have removed the throttle body several times as part of other maintenance jobs I have undertaken.  It isn’t horribly difficult but time consuming nonetheless.  Once I had the throttle body off I was able to turn it so the troublesome screw was now facing up, allowing me to strike it a couple times with my impact screwdriver which finally broke the sticking screw loose.  After installing the new sensor I reversed the procedure to reinstall everything.  After the work the check engine light had gone out, a good sign.  You can see the video of the work here.

I then turned my attention to the battery cables.  The cables were my third attempt to address a random CLICK when trying to start the truck.  I already threw a starter and a new battery at the problem.  The cables probably should have been looked at first instead of last as a potential source of the problem.  So I surveyed the greasy wire loom I was going to have to deal with to replace the cables.  I started the work by disassembling the positive battery lead that had a wing nut holding down two terminals, one for the starter and the other for the fuse box.

When I took the wing nut off I looked at the surfaces of all the terminals, they were black and covered in scuzz.  A bright idea popped into my head that perhaps I should try to clean these terminals completely before undergoing the hassle of replacing the cables.  I put my paint stripper attachment on my Dewalt drill and went to town, cleaning each piece of the puzzle until I had fresh shiny metal where black scuzz once resided.  I put the now clean terminals back together and was ready for a test.

When I started the video I had tried starting the truck while it was up on the ramps and I got three successive clicks.  After my cleaning project the truck roared to life on the first turn.  Damn.  I could not believe two things.  First that I actually got lucky and was able to avoid cable replacement with some simple cleaning. Second, that I threw more than $200 and a lot of time at solutions (starter/battery) that were not the source of the problem.  It was a valuable lesson for sure, always try the simpler solutions first.  Here is the video of my revelation. 

I wasn’t 100% sure of the validity of my repairs until I drove the truck more. Cindy and I took the old Tacoma to run errands Sunday morning and it started like a champ repeatedly without any recurrence of the check engine light.  I now feel 100% ok with listing the truck for sale which I plan to do later today.

So mid-afternoon, despite successfully accomplishing three different projects I was ready to take on my fourth with a large assist from Cindy, running the wires for the security dvr through the attic.  So my plan was to use my new 100 foot fiberglass snake to feed from the outside in.  Cindy was assigned the unenviable task of being up in the attic, armed with the extendable pool skimmer pole to hopefully grab the snake and pull it to her.

Since we were doing this mid-afternoon on a day with a high temperature of 90 degrees the attic was not a very hospitable environment.  Plus Cindy was decked out in long pants and a long shirt to protect her skin from the itchy blow in insulation.  We did the backyard wire run first as it would be the more difficult of the two.

I started to feed in the snake but could tell it was coiling up inside the attic.  Cindy said she could see it but couldn’t reach it.  She wound up carefully climbing through the blow in insulation to get there, something I was not interested in doing.  She was able to snag the snake and pull it back to the attic entrance.  When she emerged from the attic she looked like she had been in a sauna for an hour.  The heat up there is well into the triple digits.

We attached dvr wire to the snake and then I carefully pulled it back from the outside.  It was exciting when the dvr cable emerged from the hole since only a week ago I had written off this project as not doable.  The run to the front of the house was not quite as difficult but still involved Cindy crawling into an area I just would not manage well in.  The run to the front of the house was much longer, we wound up needing pretty much every inch of the 60-65 feet of camera cable they provide.

I was obviously tired already and could have left the actual camera install for the next day but my inner taskmaster demanded I finish up the work since we came this far.  I mounted both cameras and then hooked up the dvr inside in the hobby room.  Other than me stupidly having the cameras rotated upside down, they fired right up.  The 1080P picture of the front and back yard looked bright and crisp, giving me my fourth injection of accomplishment for the day.

I really appreciated Cindy climbing around in the scalding attic and told her the least I could do is take her out to dinner for it.  We headed back to Pelican Larry’s for the second time in three weeks and had a very nice dinner.  It was well deserved on both of our parts.

Sunday morning we decided to go for a run for the second weekend in a row.  If I ever want to get back to any level of decent running endurance I need to get out there at least once a week.  We did not get to enjoy the same cool temps as last week unfortunately, it felt quite warm most of the run.

We ran at the nearby track.  I had made a bit of a mental effort to try to maintain a stronger pace than we have been lately.  Most runs we have been just under a 10 minute mile pace which is pretty slow.  I was somewhat surprised when Cindy said her gps showed a 8:58 average pace for the 3.3 miles we covered.  It is the first time my pace has started with an 8 in 2016, that’s for sure.

When we got home we took quick showers and headed out to run errands in the old Tacoma.  As I said I wanted to verify my repairs from Saturday did indeed fix my remaining problems.  It also may be the very last time we do our familiar weekend errands in the old Tacoma since I am planning to list it for sale shortly.  The truck still fits me like a pair of old sneakers.

We got home around lunchtime.  After eating I needed to do my normal weekend bill paying session.  As I brought the monitors out of sleep mode my left screen started acting odd.  It would flash the desktop for a brief second a couple times and then go completely black.  WTF.  I did a normal array of monitor trouble shooting, checking cables, disconnecting/reconnecting power and restarting the system.  No matter what the problem remained, son of a bitch.

I bought this matching set of Samsung 27 inch monitors from Costco last year.  When I looked up the purchase in Quicken I saw it happened in February meaning the manufacturer 1 year warranty was done.  However I was excited that I could still get coverage under Costco since they automatically offer a second year of coverage on electronics, or so I thought.

So I called up the Costco Concierge hotline.  I explained the situation to the woman on the phone.  She verified it was out of manufacturer warranty and would only be covered under Costco coverage.  She started having me go through troubleshooting steps, basically the same stuff I did already but I played along if that was what necessary to get it replaced for free.  Eventually I grew tired of the dog and pony show.  Twice I told her I had been in the computer business for almost 25 years so I know how to identify a monitor problem.

Eventually she believed me but only then told me that the monitor was not covered under the Costco extension. Huh???  I told her I thought that Costco doubled the manufacturer warranty on all electronics?  She said it is only on select electronics like computers, tv’s and major appliances.  Well that is annoying. She said if I bought an extended warranty it would covered.  I told her I thought it was included in the Costco coverage so I didn’t bother.  Well If she would have simply told me that up front about the lack of coverage I could have not wasted 15 minutes doing the same troubleshooting I had already performed.  I hung up and had my first sense of disappointment in Costco services, even if it was caused by my lack of understanding..

I decided to bring in my old 27 inch monitor which of course is a mismatch of the one that died but it will have to do.  I did some research and found multiple examples of people having issues with this particular model of monitor, the S27360D.  Those issues made me wary of plunking down another $250 to get another one.  Instead I am trying another option with a high risk/reward formula.  I found someone selling a used version of this monitor with a cracked screen on Ebay for less than 50 bucks.  Even though I have no history of monitor repair, my hope is I can simply swap logic boards between them and come up with a functioning unit once again for the fraction of the cost of a new one.  I will either wind up a genius or a dummy depending how it works out.  Either way I will learn something at least.

I went outside and joined Cindy who was doing work in the garden.  I worked on swapping out the pond pump and the tubing that connects it to the spitting frog on the second level.  It was a well needed replacement as the old pump was barely spitting a trickle of water at this point.  By the time we got finished it was time to clean up to head to another Tarpons game.

For some odd reason they were playing the Jaguars, a team they already played at home this year, again.  Normally with scheduling a team plays each other once home and away.  With this level of arena football they don’t seem to adhere to normal scheduling rules.  Unfortunately the Jaguars, who sucked the first time we saw them sucked even worse this time around.  The final score was something ridiculous like 81-16.  Blowouts like that just are not very entertaining to watch.  Even with the blowout on the field and extremely sparse attendance in the stands Cindy and I find a way to enjoy the games.

It was a busy yet rewarding weekend.  Cindy made plans for us to have a fun weekend in July as we will be attending SuperCon in Miami, a super hero based convention.  Of course I love super heroes although I am not a hardcore geek about it.  It will be fun seeing people that are however.