Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Ugh.
So I ate something that didn't agree with me and now I feel bad. Kinda dizzy. And my kitchen smell like cat ass.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Car Madness part deux.
Dang! I just got my car back from my new mechanic (Casey Motorsports) with the diagnosis I was fearing: Blown Headgasket, or cracked head/block. His estimate of $750-$1000 to fix it is way more than I can spend on this thing right now so it'll sit until I've got the time/$/parts to do it myself. I've never fixed a head gasket before so it'll be a good learning experience right?
He also noticed a ton of other little things that weren't right: Fuel injection system is missing parts, wrong coil, weird battery, etc...This is in addition to my already long to-do list:
# Strut Bearings*
# Trim (beltline, and rocker)*
# Dash
* Odometer/trip
* Fuel
* Clock speed
# Rattle (undercarriage)
# FI Tuneup
# Swap Taillight Lenses
# Install rear reflectors
# Petronix/Crane ignition*
# Bumper install
# Screw down grills*
# Heater valve
# Blower motor check
# Stereo clock fix
# Center console fix/cover
Sigh. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Of course I could just dump this car and get another one. Maybe save up some money (ha!) and buy one in the $3-$5k range which would be less rusted. It pains me to spend so much time and money on a car that still looks likes shit at the end of the day. But then I'm also like the cat-lady at the pound. I hate to see a neat old car just wear out.
Of course the other part of me says: Sell all your vehicles and just ride your bike. That is also tempting.
He also noticed a ton of other little things that weren't right: Fuel injection system is missing parts, wrong coil, weird battery, etc...This is in addition to my already long to-do list:
# Strut Bearings*
# Trim (beltline, and rocker)*
# Dash
* Odometer/trip
* Fuel
* Clock speed
# Rattle (undercarriage)
# FI Tuneup
# Swap Taillight Lenses
# Install rear reflectors
# Petronix/Crane ignition*
# Bumper install
# Screw down grills*
# Heater valve
# Blower motor check
# Stereo clock fix
# Center console fix/cover
Sigh. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Of course I could just dump this car and get another one. Maybe save up some money (ha!) and buy one in the $3-$5k range which would be less rusted. It pains me to spend so much time and money on a car that still looks likes shit at the end of the day. But then I'm also like the cat-lady at the pound. I hate to see a neat old car just wear out.
Of course the other part of me says: Sell all your vehicles and just ride your bike. That is also tempting.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Errata
New favorite show: Firefly (too bad I've already burned through all the episodes...but the movie is coming out this fall!)
New favorite online article: It's the Monkeysphere stupid!
New favorite linux distro: Ubuntu
Useful tools:
Best to-do list setup ever (for me)
thumbdrive PIM software, good, but windows.
New favorite online article: It's the Monkeysphere stupid!
New favorite linux distro: Ubuntu
Useful tools:
Best to-do list setup ever (for me)
thumbdrive PIM software, good, but windows.
Car Madness
In addition to the computer work which has been taking my nights, I've gotten my BMW back on the road and that has led to a flurry of little fix-it jobs. The major one was fixing the brakes. The calipers were dodgy and the driver's side front was dragging to the point that it had warped the rotor and gouged it pretty well (also the resultant heat had cooked the grease in the wheel bearing). I had hoped to have all the pieces in place to get it fixed before the BayArea02 Swap & Show but alas, it didn't happen. I went down anyway (it was in Palo Alto) and saw lots of shiny cars, and met a few nice people.
The parts finally came, and since the beginning of the month I've:
-replaced the discs, calipers, wheel bearings in the front.
-reinstalled the stereo/speakers & Center console
-Installed oil-pressure/temp gauges
-Oil change
-Trunk seal
-Refurbished the tail-reflectors, lenses and replaced the seals
-Refurbished the gauges (fuel gauge still not working, must be sender), fixed the turn signal dash light.
-Installed a driver's seat from a E30 M3
-Tune the FI by ear to get it running better (my ex-mechanic tuned it, and in the process destroyed it's drivability, and made it run far too lean, thus hot). It still needs some tuning, but I will take it to a place here in Petaluma and see what they can do for it.
I want to get it into good running shape (reliable, fast, good mileage) for some driving events coming up: California Melee; the Alpine 500 (which I missed just barely this year. Damn!)
Also I just want to do some general road-trip fun (LA, sierras, etc..) as this is the year I will take my first ever paid vacation. Yay!
The parts finally came, and since the beginning of the month I've:
-replaced the discs, calipers, wheel bearings in the front.
-reinstalled the stereo/speakers & Center console
-Installed oil-pressure/temp gauges
-Oil change
-Trunk seal
-Refurbished the tail-reflectors, lenses and replaced the seals
-Refurbished the gauges (fuel gauge still not working, must be sender), fixed the turn signal dash light.
-Installed a driver's seat from a E30 M3
-Tune the FI by ear to get it running better (my ex-mechanic tuned it, and in the process destroyed it's drivability, and made it run far too lean, thus hot). It still needs some tuning, but I will take it to a place here in Petaluma and see what they can do for it.
I want to get it into good running shape (reliable, fast, good mileage) for some driving events coming up: California Melee; the Alpine 500 (which I missed just barely this year. Damn!)
Also I just want to do some general road-trip fun (LA, sierras, etc..) as this is the year I will take my first ever paid vacation. Yay!
Dusty old blog...
I don't know if anyone is still looking at this with any avidity, but I apologize for the long delay between posts. I've been busy with other projects and had a cluster of hardware/computer difficulties. That being said, I hope to add some more stuff here on a fairly regular basis (isn't that the comment that always dooms a website?)
So to start off, or perhaps to catch up, here's what I've been working on in no particular order:
A pair of little, old panasonic laptops (CF-25, CF-M32 sub-note) that Gary gave me. One had a broken DOS installation, and the other had a buggy win98 installation. I wiped them both and then worked (and worked and worked) to get linux on them. The trick as it turns out, is that the little guy (CF-m32), which is about the size of a paperback book has no floppy/cdrom so trying to get data onto it once you've wiped the operating system is very hard. I ended up taking thing to pieces and pulling the hard drive. After patching the drive to my desktop system and getting a basic Debian installation running on it, I was able to update/install over the network.
The CF-25 is an armored laptop (drive over it with your car, drop it, clobber someone with it) and it's pretty pokey. But it has a swapable floppy and CD-ROM drive, but still it was a challenge, as you can't boot from the CD-rom and there's no USB. Also during the many attemps to install something happened with the MBR that made it...resistant to any further monkeying. I pulled the same trick: pull the drive mount it in my desktop, and wipe the sucker spotless, then reinstall. Now it runs debian as well, albeit too slowly to be of much use (except at the command line, which I'm still shakey with). The upside is that I've learned a tremendous amount about linux, command line work, hardware, and general geekiness.
During all of this, Meredith's laptop decided to die (power-in came off the motherboard) so I pulled the hard drive out of my laptop and plugged hers in. This gave her some functionality so she could continue to work. Then my desktop winxp installation got seriously corrupt and took the MBR with it as well, so I did a re-install, and went with Ubuntu (an extremely user-friendly linux distro) and I like it.
Last weekend Meredith got a new laptop (due to a financial angel who co-signed for her at compusa) and I got my case back. So now I'm back to my old laptop (which seems so dodgy and worn out compared to Merediths shiny new Toshiba), but I still pine for a 12" Mac. Maybe if I get a raise this month.....
So to start off, or perhaps to catch up, here's what I've been working on in no particular order:
A pair of little, old panasonic laptops (CF-25, CF-M32 sub-note) that Gary gave me. One had a broken DOS installation, and the other had a buggy win98 installation. I wiped them both and then worked (and worked and worked) to get linux on them. The trick as it turns out, is that the little guy (CF-m32), which is about the size of a paperback book has no floppy/cdrom so trying to get data onto it once you've wiped the operating system is very hard. I ended up taking thing to pieces and pulling the hard drive. After patching the drive to my desktop system and getting a basic Debian installation running on it, I was able to update/install over the network.
The CF-25 is an armored laptop (drive over it with your car, drop it, clobber someone with it) and it's pretty pokey. But it has a swapable floppy and CD-ROM drive, but still it was a challenge, as you can't boot from the CD-rom and there's no USB. Also during the many attemps to install something happened with the MBR that made it...resistant to any further monkeying. I pulled the same trick: pull the drive mount it in my desktop, and wipe the sucker spotless, then reinstall. Now it runs debian as well, albeit too slowly to be of much use (except at the command line, which I'm still shakey with). The upside is that I've learned a tremendous amount about linux, command line work, hardware, and general geekiness.
During all of this, Meredith's laptop decided to die (power-in came off the motherboard) so I pulled the hard drive out of my laptop and plugged hers in. This gave her some functionality so she could continue to work. Then my desktop winxp installation got seriously corrupt and took the MBR with it as well, so I did a re-install, and went with Ubuntu (an extremely user-friendly linux distro) and I like it.
Last weekend Meredith got a new laptop (due to a financial angel who co-signed for her at compusa) and I got my case back. So now I'm back to my old laptop (which seems so dodgy and worn out compared to Merediths shiny new Toshiba), but I still pine for a 12" Mac. Maybe if I get a raise this month.....
Friday, May 13, 2005
Fargo's big day -from Laurel
fargos big day. one day fargothedog got up in the morning, shedded some on his bed and chewed on his itchy hips and then went for a walk with the big bald weird dogs who fed him. this was the usual morning routine but today the cute brown dog next door and her bald dogs came too. she peed alot and he liked to grin at her and sniff where she peed. then a time of sadness and despair came when they were both tied to a tree while the bald dogs ate good smelling food not far away. but fargo could see them and got some bites of toast and the brown dog amused him by scooting around on the sidewalk on her butt and then turning around and sniffing the sidewalk. she let him sniff the sidewalk, too. it smelled good like her butt. she was very whiny and barked at the baldogs while they were eating but fargo was a gooddog and just bugged his eyes out at them as far as he could to let them know that he could use a little more toast and that his butt itched.
then fargothedog got in the car and sat down on the floorboards and stared at the girl bald dog until they got to the headlands where the bald dogs did all kinds of boring things not involving sticks. but he got to sit in the sun and sniff deer poo and run around and chew on a kong that tasted like boxerdog spit. sometimes they'd throw a stick for him and he'd get very excited and focused. sometimes they yelled at him and made him worried and sad because he wanted to play but apparently they wanted him to lie on a bed that smelled like boxerdog. boring. stinky. boxerdog bed. sometimes he just doesn't understand bald dogs even though his butt goes bald sometimes with how hard he tries to understand. but it was a good time anyway, and he liked to poop in the grass and eat grass and try to get random strangers to play with him. then they went to the beach! just for a little while because it was getting cold, but WOW there were sticks everywhere and sand to run in and even a stinky wet old tennis ball that he could eat sand off of. his feet got a little wet, which he didnt like, and sometimes his ball went in the ocean, which he really didnt like, but then he learned that if he just ran back and forth and kept the water away from his toes sometimes the ball would come back and he could grab it. there was a strange tense moment when a big fuzzy dumb bad dog ran up and jumped on him and tried to bite him but then the bad bald dog with him jumped on the fuzzy bad dog and squashed him and yelled at him and fargo got to just lie there with his good bald dogs and smile and pant and feel smug. while they drove home he licked sand off his face which made him very thirsty and make strange faces. by the time they got home he was tired and a little stiff but this was a very big day because he got to go over to the brown dogs house and play with her toys and her while everyone went to dinner. the bad things were that they didnt bring him any meatloaf and there was a weird scary gray cat staring at him at the brown dogs house but the good thing was that everyone petted him and he got to chew on the brown dogs squeeky ball on the floor until there was a huge puddle of his drool that the brown dog licked up. he slept very well taht night. it was a big day. he even had stinky farts that night. a very good day indeed.
then fargothedog got in the car and sat down on the floorboards and stared at the girl bald dog until they got to the headlands where the bald dogs did all kinds of boring things not involving sticks. but he got to sit in the sun and sniff deer poo and run around and chew on a kong that tasted like boxerdog spit. sometimes they'd throw a stick for him and he'd get very excited and focused. sometimes they yelled at him and made him worried and sad because he wanted to play but apparently they wanted him to lie on a bed that smelled like boxerdog. boring. stinky. boxerdog bed. sometimes he just doesn't understand bald dogs even though his butt goes bald sometimes with how hard he tries to understand. but it was a good time anyway, and he liked to poop in the grass and eat grass and try to get random strangers to play with him. then they went to the beach! just for a little while because it was getting cold, but WOW there were sticks everywhere and sand to run in and even a stinky wet old tennis ball that he could eat sand off of. his feet got a little wet, which he didnt like, and sometimes his ball went in the ocean, which he really didnt like, but then he learned that if he just ran back and forth and kept the water away from his toes sometimes the ball would come back and he could grab it. there was a strange tense moment when a big fuzzy dumb bad dog ran up and jumped on him and tried to bite him but then the bad bald dog with him jumped on the fuzzy bad dog and squashed him and yelled at him and fargo got to just lie there with his good bald dogs and smile and pant and feel smug. while they drove home he licked sand off his face which made him very thirsty and make strange faces. by the time they got home he was tired and a little stiff but this was a very big day because he got to go over to the brown dogs house and play with her toys and her while everyone went to dinner. the bad things were that they didnt bring him any meatloaf and there was a weird scary gray cat staring at him at the brown dogs house but the good thing was that everyone petted him and he got to chew on the brown dogs squeeky ball on the floor until there was a huge puddle of his drool that the brown dog licked up. he slept very well taht night. it was a big day. he even had stinky farts that night. a very good day indeed.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Ho jeeze...
What a couple of days it's been: River cleanup including a dramatic hour of being stuck in the mud with Edith E; a wonderful grand openning of Free Mind's space with food and art. And last but most definately not least: Nomeansno with Polar Bear and the New Trust at the Phoenix last night. Jesus. Nomeansno was my favorite band during the late 80's early 90's. I haven't seen them play since maybe '93. These guys are now in their 50's and they are still louder, faster, and rockiner than almost anybody else I've ever seen (except for maybe Grimple, and Blatz). I'm just going to core-dump my photos and here and sort it all out later...enjoy.
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