It has been like this.

For over six months. I desperately need to get out of here for a while but more herding and stupid will not allow it right now.

 

I Have Been Remiss Here!

I'm sorry. Between work going crazy, the weather being crap, and the following photo, I have not been here. I hope to fix that soon! 
I truly love my parents. I really do, but the whole good teeth gene they did not have. They and I have spent a lot of money to insure I am not sucking apple sauce and Ensure for a diet.

 

Not Dead Yet!

Whatever this thing is that has vexed me for several weeks truly sucks. 



I'm feeling a bit better though!

Here. Have a picuture of a Colt 1902 Semi Automatic in .38 Auto. 

Happy New Year everyone!

 

 
 

Thanks Guys!

What a thoughtful and useful gift from my friends at work! A pair of Wiley X Valor polarized sunglasses.

So all I need now is to grow a beard, buy a shemagh and I can be an operator operating operationally like this guy =) 



Dude, Srsy? Why don't you just use that pedal on the right hand side of the floor board and leave. Oh, and if you are going to fall out the back of a vehicle like a drunken hooker at least be wearing some platform heels and a mini skirt, K? 

Many thanks to my friend over at eIAft for the video! He is a great instructor and passionate about what he does.

Thanks again to my friends for the gift and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. Mine has been postponed until Saturday. 

Bad News

Those of you on the book of face already know this. My Mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Lumpectomy was performed and cancer was detected in the Lymph nodes on that side.

She has decided on a double mastectomy. That is scheduled for October 10th. 

I humbly ask for your prayers, well wishes, whatever you do. She is in her 70's. This is not going to be easy. On the other hand we fight. Always. She is a fighter and when asked about reconstruction, well, her reply told me her head is in the game. Decorum prohibits me telling you what she told the doctor. I did do a spit take on it though! She is a smart ass too. I at least can say I get it honest.

 

   

Coolant Leak!

Not quite as dramatic as this:



Troubling just the same. The '94 Mustang beater is reporting "Low Coolant" on an idiot light. Bad on me for not catching it sooner. There is a reason they call them "idiot lights". Sigh.  Luckily, the "No Coolant" light is not on yet =). Looks like the thermostat housing. On it tomorrow, it's supposed to get cold here Friday.  

Thanks Lucas, Uh FoMoCo!

So returning home from the range last night after CCH class, I pull on the trusty headlamp switch on the 1994 Mustang. I get headlights but no dash lights.  It should have dawned on me if the dash lights were not running, the parking light circuit was dead. That includes the tail lights and side markers. Yep! They were out too. 

So after consulting the Lucas prince of darkness fuse chart I get to it. 

Some research showed this is a common problem for the SN95 Mustang. Hmm... So after hearing some 20 year old plastic break we get to this:

I think I have found the problem! And yeah that wire just hanging up there above the connector to the headlight switch came out of it! The LED is the after market alarm indicator. 

It must be a big problem if the local auto parts store keeps this in stock!

Yeah, I know I'm using crimp connectors instead of soldering the connections. Its a well protected place with little vibration. I'm cool with this for my daily beater! I have already transferred the mounting bracket to the new switch and pigtail. Of course the wire colors don't match up so its going to be by location on the connector. 


Sigh... I really can't complain too hard for a 20 year old car coming up on 218K and has been totaled once though. 

Sigh......

So Murphy and his human were going to fly down for some shooting and a really good airshow. We were going to hook up with Bob I had an itinerary of stuff for the weekend. BBQ? Check!  Menu variety? Check and check! 

Shooty goodness? Check! My home range no less. I got the call this morning. Crosswinds have him and Murph grounded. Asked how long to drive it. I told him and I agree with him. 14 hours on the road round trip is a bit tough with a dog on the mend no less. 

Sigh... I guess I will save the dog treats for later and we will try again!

I'm Bent!

An event that would have been unthinkable 10, 20+ years ago has happened. My cousin is restoring the Family home his Father grew up in. It has been difficult and quite frankly not cheap.

Some lowlifes broke in this past week and ripped the house off.

On top of that his Father has had a setback and about the same time was placed in an assisted living center this week. My Uncle is pushing 90 and has Diabetes. My Cousin is flying in as soon as he can from the left coast.

My Uncle back in the day at the house.

 















There is a temp service pole for electricity there. All tools were stolen. The rough in wiring for new electrical was in place and details are hard to come by if they stripped the copper or not. 

I am so pissed right now! I have never felt so impotent. For someone to come do that in My Familys home for decades I can't comprehend. 

It's getting cold there and that house was cold even with interior plaster walls. No matter. I'm ready to go spend weekends there with a kerosene heater and a sleeping bag.
I know where to hide a car there. I did it oh so many years ago. Perhaps they will be ready for a rematch? I assure you it would be different!

 
 
  

Dear Samsonite,

You have come a long way since 1971! Here is a commercial from then.



Now? Well as I was pulling my luggage out of the closet for a trip next week to see my friend for training in Iowa, this simply broke off. I had not even got it off the floor.

 

















This handle used to be attached to this:

Not anymore! Sheesh! There is a "Lifetime warranty" but it requires me to ship to some obscure repair center. Sorta like Kel-Tek. Its not like this thing has been around the world. yes, 15 years old but still. 


Glad it happened here instead of in a airport! I would have been REALLY bent then! 

 

Hey What's in the Water in WV?

Hey Holiday Inn Express in Ranson WV, what the frack are you irrigating the grass with? After returning home well uh, this:

Yeah, water spots. Sheesh! I did not want to get the clay out or the DA buffer with more aggressive stuff so I'm trying this stuff out first. 

Even if it works, I have to re polish. 

Next time I might stay with Murphy and his human! More on the Blog shoot later, I have this to do and some video and pics to edit for that. Short version? Even with the drive and this it was WELL worth it!

We Must Protect our Phoney Baloney Jobs!

Well I just might have for a little while. I've been home a little over two hours after showing up at work at 0800. It's 0330. 



PLC running half the plant vented its magic smoke around 1800 hrs. Took the UPS with it. Knocked associated downstream comms to other processors with it just for fun. 

Sigh... I can never go to sleep after such fun for a while. Sorry for the late night interruption! 



 

I Hope!

I hope there is a special level of hell for people that sell used .357 Magnum snubbys to little old ladies. Had one today in Basic Pistol class of each. NOT the first gun to learn on! Sigh... Off tomorrow to see what awaits on the CCH class.

Sigh... .gov is .gov everywhere!

So here at stately manor we receive a document from the Tax assesor. Here it is in all of its glory:

First, you addresed the envelope to me and yet refer to me on this letter as "Customer"?!?!? No, I'm not a customer, just someone that must meet your convoluted demands for more paper work to maintain a lower tax rate on a 42 year old car! If I do not, you will run some random number generator and  decide what the car is worth and tax me on that amount.

Second, what the hell is a "Personal Property Sr. Specialist"? I would LOVE to see the job description for that! 

Third, I'm not a "Past Owner" or "New Owner". I'm a CURRENT owner! 

I do love the fact that the form I am supposed to fill out asks for the VIN number AND A COPY OF THE TITLE! Earth to .gov. The VIN is on the title! Second, I am to report the current odometer reading. Gee, you want the original odometer reading that is sitting on a shelf in the garage or the one I put in the car back in 1984? LOL! I proudly reported a mileage of 90K and some change. Throw another 200K on top of that and you might be getting close. 

Sheesh. 

  
 

If You Ever Visit....

Stately manor when you turn into the development please keep an eye on your rear view mirror! The road in is at a 90 degree angle to the main two lane road between county seat and eastern yuppie ville. Two lane has a posted speed of 55 MPH.

So I was sitting in the office just after work today and hear the sound. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! No squealing of tires, no intermittent chirps of ABS working either. 

Two drivers are walking, one air bag deployed on the last car to add to the three car pile up. That car has handicapped plates and they are still in the car. This is the view from my front yard. 


Here is that car.

 








A good distance off the road, but not a glancing blow as if they attempted to swerve. Looks head on.

It's 5:30 and rush hour. The best I can do is insure 911 has been called and try to stop another pile up. I love glow sticks and reflective triangles but burning things on the pavement seem to get a drivers already distracted attention better:

 













So do they still make these? I deployed them 100 yards away from the scene in both directions. 


The VFD was the first to arrive at 8 minutes after the fact. EMS took another 10, and the State Trooper another 15. 

So now almost two hours after the fact we are back to normal here. 

If you come here, watch your A** turning in! If you leave I suggest a good dose of acceleration too!

Throw the Switch!

So a communications card made of unobtanium went Tango Uniform over Memorial Day weekend at work. Workaround is in place for testing. To borrow one from Robert Plant: "One's for the money but I'm through with the show".

And several quotes go through my head: Mr. Scott: "The main energizer is bypassed like a Christmas tree, don't give me any bumps". Kirk: "Throw the switch." Mr. Scott: "she'll likely overload". Our little workaround for a failed communications card with a large dose of code from our friend.  We will take it for a spin Monday! 

It's not pretty, but if it works it will be a thing of beauty!

Weekend question...

So I'm continuing to Try to show the Mustangs some love. For some reason I wanted to try to replicate the retro look of the 1966 Fastback rear window on the 2013. Here is the real deal:

Here is the rear window of the 2013:

 









The '66 was a true bolt in. It actually worked. Here are the commercials from back in the day from a old post of mine here. 

Best I can do now is some fiberglass that attaches to the window. So what do ya think about this?

 








Yeah, I can place it better when the 3M trim adhesive comes out! Sorta hard to take a pic and hold that in place at the same time! 

I await your comments. I now have time to do so because the color match was great but:

  









Trash in the paint or bad fiberglass mold. They will ship replacements next week. 

So, in the meantime off for a full new shooter class tomorrow and the same Sunday for CCH! 

I hope y'all have a great weekend!

Inverse HAL

So at the requisite time of '0 dark thirty last night instead of this:





I get the house alarm going off telling me that the garage door is open.  This is strange as this means that the motion detector is not going off nor the heat detector.  The door frame has been moved upward, not a panel kicked in, meaning the door has opened. 

So I break a rule and go to the area.  There is a steel door from the garage to the kitchen. No sounds heard from the kitchen or garage and the alarm monitoring company is now calling. 
  
Hmmm.....  look out into the garage and find...... nothing but an open door.  So I pull the remote batteries from the cars in the garage and the external keypad, lock HAL into "vacation mode" and go to bed. 

Tonight, I release vacation mode and wait.  My perverse version of at the very best a TTL version of HAL has gone rogue it seems.  It will open oh, just about anytime it feels like it.  Sigh.... The opener was here when I bought the house and it looks like I have a project for this Saturday. 

This version of HAL is getting so disconnected! I also doubt it will be singing "Daisy" when I do the deed. 

This Dude is Back. I'm not Happy!

Sorry for the absence.  Remember this little project?  Well we had some "feature creep".  Go figure.  That invalidated the licenses I had for the operator workstations.  So I wander off to get upgraded.  I thought I could just plug in the new license code for the SAME FREAKING SOFTWARE just upgraded from 15 screens to 30. NOPE!

After attempting the oh, 4 GIG download three times at work, I figure everyone is hogging the TWC Business Class bandwidth to look at You Tube, streaming Pandora, downloading uh, stuff.  Whatever.  I'm not in charge of the Interwebz connection.  I tell my manager I'm going home to download the stuff and burn a DVD.

So here again is this dude. 

  s












I hate this guy!


I'll be back later as we actually ran the stuff using VNC to the development workstation and a batch of stuff was made this week.  That will not help the production schedule next week though! 

Oh, other activities are heating up too.  Just to make it interesting. Oh, joy.

Any Cisco Gear Heads Out Here?

So I have been putzing with one of these off and on all week:

With no luck I might add. 

I have discovered that under the hood, this really is a Cisco IS3000 Layer 3 switch.  All I want it to do is route between two networks on separate VLAN's.  The old 10.10.10.0 network is on copper at interface F1/4, the new network is at 10.10.20.0 and on Fiber interface G1/1. 

My old Cisco CCNA from 2002 has proven to be insufficient to the task so far and my old Jedi tricks are equally useless. 

I created a VLAN interface for the new network and gave it an address. Issued the command "ip route". I also gave it an address in the existing VLAN. I would pay real money if someone could help out here!  It's not like I WANT to call the happy smiling people at AB tech support! 

Drop me an email if you can help! I will respond with more than average pecuniary remuneration!