| Details, Long Overdue. |
[Oct. 31st, 2006|12:36 am] |
Ok, so, Myles is right. He pointed out that "Details never followed," referring to the post about the chair (see two below.) Apparently the blank look on my face following his keen declaration was priceless. But I get it now! Details never followed! So here are the details for anyone who didn't hear the results. More than anything, this post is just 'for the record.'
Mero took Honorable Mention at the convention in Los Angeles. The prize for honorable mention was $500 (which helped cover moving expenses this summer.) There were 93 contestants in total. And here is the official page for the competition finalists:
2006 Jury Results
Thanks, everyone for your support! I'm looking forward to doing this again next year! |
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| Nutsy Cumulative Graph! |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|05:59 pm] |
The results from four nights of nutsy added together.
I'm not winning. |
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| For Immediate Release! |
[May. 1st, 2006|11:02 am] |
Details to follow....
Mero the cardboard chair has been selected as one of the six finalists in the AIAS national cardboard chair competition! The six finalists will be shipped to the national American Institute of Architects convention in Los Angeles and will be in a prominent place on display in front of ten-thousand architects. Yay! Oh--prizes for the top six (which will be ranked 1 through 3 with three honorable mentions) range from $500 to $2500. Heh. I'm gleeful. Thanks everyone for helping me out with this and thanks especially to my roommates. Aside from this and last year's chair, I think all the cardboard is finally out of the living room. |
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| I live in a box. |
[Apr. 10th, 2006|07:45 pm] |
Hello! Thanks all for looking at Chair '06 preliminary photos. It needs a name and it wouldn't hurt if you would tell me if you think it has got a chance or if its abundance of personality will harm its odds. Thanks in advance!
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| Alas. |
[Dec. 19th, 2005|01:39 am] |
Last Job Update: Finished Product
I'm blogging from a Motel 8 in Cookeville, TN. I am one my way home.
I'm mostly going to let the photos do the talking. I'll mention a few things, though. The walls and window/door frames have not yet been painted. Aunt Lorraine will do that and send the finished pictures along soon afterward. The trim on the ceiling lights is hanging so the paint can be applied easily. They'll be pushed back up afterwards.
Have at:
And lastly, here is a cross-eyed stereo pair, for those of you who know what to do with it. (For those of you who don't, this makes a way, way nifty 3D image when you point your right eye at the left image and your left eye at the right image. It literally pops out at you.)
Thanks for your patience, all! See you soon. |
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| Running water and sinks....a great gift idea! |
[Dec. 5th, 2005|11:50 pm] |
Ah, snapshots. Chilly moments in time.
It's warmer inside. Let's have a look at the progress:
The water is running in the sink, toilet and shower. This is now a functioning bathroom! Only a few things like medicine cabinets and towel bars are scarce.
You'll note, perhaps, the remote control unit on the lid of the toilet. It CONTROLS the lid of the toilet. Or the seat, more like. It's a washlet! No, I haven't tried it. My excuse so far is that it doesn't have a power source. The outlet it's plugged into isn't live and won't be until tomorrow, at which point I will make up a different excuse not to have used the bum-washing toilet seat. It has been tested, by the way, without the use of a bum. We ran an extension cord over to it, covered one of the sensors that allows the device to determine if anyone's sitting on it, and told the thing to go for it. If you don't put your hand (or personal parts) in front of its sprayer, the stream ejected would easily make it into the bath tub. This machine heats the water nearly instantaneously, and has plenty of water pressure.
The sink and its stand are the best part. Heh. That counter came out pretty ok, didn't it?
It's a vessel sink. There are hundreds of varieties of these made out of everything. The blown glass ones catch the old attention, especially. You can get square ones, naturally / randomly shaped stone ones, lacquered wooden ones....
I've filled it completely (to its top edge) full on more than one occasion. It has no overflow allowance so it can be filled right to the brim. It likely holds three or four gallons. Look:
Isn't that serene? I want one. Really, I want a whole house of my own I can do these kinds of treatments to. I'd take just the sink right now, however. I would have no immediate purpose for it, but I'd treasure it, I think.
Oh, the other thing that's fun to do with these? Roll a penny in it. It spirals into the center in a hurry, but it's a good 25 seconds of fun. Repeat, and kill hours at a time!
Pictures of pennies, set glass, glass block and the new cabinet tomorrow or the next day. Almost done! There's just not that much more to do! |
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| A floor update is a down-date. |
[Nov. 23rd, 2005|11:23 pm] |
Hi!
Floor here, with test-squares of glass:
Remaining to be done to the floor: Seal tiles, set glass, grout.
We need your help! Which of the following four glass colors is most at home with the floor? They're all up for consideration and we'd like more opinions. There will be fifty-seven glass squares set in the floor. You can see the empty places above just waiting!
Blue:
Green:
Aqua:
Teal:
Thanks!
In other news, it's snowing on my car again. Crap. Cousin Zoe spent most of the evening checking for flurries every twelve minutes, and she got what she wished for. I don't get the magic, but that's just me.
Thanksgiving at the Uncle Terry's house tomorrow! I get to see my other local cousins. Pictures to follow. Is everyone going somewhere or seeing folks for Thanksgiving? If I extend a "David Says Hello" to all your favorite people, how many people will be greeted? I suspect there would be many. So Hello, all you extended family members and friends, happy Thanksgiving. |
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| Another brick on the floor. |
[Nov. 22nd, 2005|10:27 pm] |
Today's work:
Almost there! (Floor-wise.)
Oh--to those of you who called me around 1:00AM....thanks. I love you all. I will pound you. I know who you all are; even if you didn't leave a message (which caused my phone to ring at 1:15) I heard you laughing. Pound, pound, pound. |
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| Tile! |
[Nov. 21st, 2005|11:32 pm] |
Hello. Today was door-hanging, glass-buying, tile sanding day. I rounded the sharp edges over on 200 beige travertine tiles (shown below) and made the bathroom door hinge on the proper (opposite) side. Now it does not occupy the middle of the room when fully opened.
What you see here is a yellow marble border which is stuck with thin-set mortar to the ground. The vertical yellow parts look like they're set to the walls, but they're not. The mortar behind them is for the purpose of joining the wall and floor backer boards. Therefore, you can expect that upright row of yellow tiles to be straighter in the finished product. In the middle of the floor is the arrangement we have chosen for the travertine squares. They will be oriented diagonally like you see them and will feature glass squares at every fourth intersection. See the glass tipped up against the bath tub in the background? Those will be colors used in the custom glass border that will run the circumference of the bathroom at 3 feet above the ground (except by the bath tub, where they will run at a height of six and a half feet.) The green piece of glass will be used for the diamonds in the floor. Way nifty, eh?
That's a pretty good job update for now, I figure. I'll see if I can make another picture update tomorrow. The more cool stuff there is to show, the easier it is to post updates! With the progress I'm making now, there will be lots of cool stuff to show.
In other happenings, there are animals involved. Let us see....Aunt Lorraine said today, "I think you need to design some contraption whose bottom drops out at 5:00 AM and releases food to Purrkins so she doesn't wake up your parents." Not waiting 'till the end of Aunt Lorraine's sentence, I began to formulate the plans for a device wherein the bottom dropped out at 5:00 AM releasing the cat into a pit of burning kerosene. But it seems as if, in a dramatic change of events, that Purrkins yowls all night now 'cause she's lonely, not because she's hungry. It turns out that the daily crying fit she pulls off just outside Mom and Dad's bedroom door at 5 AM every day is probably because she wants someone to play with. She just wants someone to love her! So instead they've been throwing her in the garage every night so they can't hear her. Not completely insensitive to the needs of the cat, (and by the way, we know she isn't just hungry at 5 AM 'cause there's food left out for her every night at 10 PM) Mom says the consensus is that they need another cat to keep Purrkins company. I'm placing my money on the probability of inaction as concerns adding cats to the drama, but I'm amused. I think Purrkins needs to be let out in the daytime to keep from getting bored but the wild life in Riverside is more treacherous than it was in Agoura. Maybe from Purrkins's standpoint, some lazy fuzzy to beat up all day would be personally fulfilling.
Lastly for tonight, I'll add a feature to my blog. It's called "What's Wrong Now?" and features the newest fit of personality my car has taken on.
What's Wrong Now?
Well, it seems as if I've burned out the resistor pack that controls the speed of the blower on my heater. I used to have twelve blower settings available to me, but now I have three. One is "Full Blast" and can be activated by setting the blower dial to one of the two highest settings, one is "Low" and can occasionally be selected by running the dial down to its lowest setting, and the last one is "Low/Default" which accounts for every setting in between. Manageable, maybe, except for the fact that the blower runs continuously now whenever the car is on, whether or not the climate control is turned on. The blower continues to run at its most recent setting, Full Blast, Low/Default, or Low, and seems to blow lukewarm air. I doubt I'll take the time to work on this dilemma before I leave for home so maybe my trip back will be well-ventilated. At least I can still adjust the temperature of the air that comes out of the vents and which vents it comes out of.
Estimated Fixability Rating (1-10, ten being most easily fixed):
9
Estimated Cost (including the possibility that 1.) I'll make some new part out of copper wire or 2.) just buy a replacement ):
$40 (junk yard part)
Just remember, I'm not complaining. I do this for love of my car AND for love of repairing it. Except when I get stuck in Fresno. I don't love that.
Enough of this for now. Good night. |
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| Most up-to-date update. |
[Nov. 20th, 2005|10:06 pm] |
Hey. Bathroom update:
Two days out of date, this is a picture of the bathroom with all its Hardie Backer cement tile backing board in place. Since this photo I have laid a yellow marble border around the perimeter of the floor. I've also cut one corner 200 travertine square tiles in preparation to install them tomorrow. The floor should require about 250 more tiles, 50 of them being special shapes. I'll post another photo when the floor is in.
Tomorrow I will also finish hanging the new door, whose hinges swing on the other side of the jamb (so that the door will not open into the middle of the bathroom.
All that basically remains are these items:
Tile
Custom stained glass border above tile
Touch-up plaster wall treatment
Custom wooden cabinet box in one wall
Wall paint
Clean-up
I don't want to post anything else tonight. I want to go to bed. I'll be more perky later. The project is taking shape and I'm enjoying my new tile saw (where the hell am I going to put that?) and I will, of course, be home later than I imagined. Not by much, I hope. Miss you all. More exciting stuff soon. |
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| Progress Update! |
[Nov. 10th, 2005|11:57 pm] |
Today I present the current state of the bathroom.
The plastic you see is a permanent fixture. It will remain underneath the fiber cement backing board which will be installed over it tomorrow. The plastic's purpose is to keep any moisture that the tile or cement board absorbs from evaporating and passing into the walls. The tile and cement board are themselves impervious to water and will be sealed using the world's most expensive tile sealant ($104 per half gallon!) anyhow. The stuff's worth the price, 'cause it completely preserves the natural look of the stone. No glossy finish will be left on the tile.
See the pretty colors!
This bathroom started out with yellow/orange paint, apparently. (With pink tile, that does not compute.) It was later painted a gray/blue color. (To go with the pink tile?) Next, salmon red. (This was to make sure it clashed with the pink tile.) Finally they became off-white like every other interior surface painted in the 1980s. These colors are exposed because I've sanded out a patch of water damage (from a roof leak) above the window. Much of the room will have old exposed paint layers as soon as I try to level out the ceiling and walls which show every seam in the plaster boards they are made of. I am facing a lot of sanding. And for you lead paint aficionados out there, come get a big whiff of paint dust while you can! I'm gonna be obliterating the dust via a filter and a fan blowing out the window full time while I'm sanding (in addition to having a good dust mask.)
Look at the new copper pipe! Shinier, for one thing, than the old stuff. More importantly the hot and cold connections will come out under the new sink, not nine inches east of it. There are also ball valves involved in this new setup (look to the left where the pipes come out of the bottom plate.) This will allow future residents to cut the water supply to the whole bathroom via an opening in that wall, but on the reverse side in the closet. This will allow for repair work and practical jokes in the future. Furthermore, the drain pipe has been centered additionally and expanding foam stuff has been sprayed wherever the copper pipes contact wood in order to eliminate pipe clank. This is a Cadillac job, after all. Expect re-badged Pontiac, Cheverolet, Buick, Oldsmobile and Saturn versions no later than fall 2005.
Here, by the way, is the Gordian Knot of wires I took found when I removed the medicine cabinet a little while back.
Here's a diagram of the new system. Complex, but elegant. Most importantly, all connections are made IN AN ELECTRICAL BOX where they belong. Sheesh. And no electrical tape was used. Electrical tape is a band-aid. If it is used professionally, it is used to mark special wires such as switched legs, etc., and in special cases I'm sure it can be used to fix mildly nicked insulation. It should not be used to keep high-voltage wires separated from one another. Use wire caps please. Ok?
I don't expect anyone to be able to read it at this resolution. I made this diagram to leave with my D.C. family in case they ever need anything added.
Soon, tile. |
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| Day something update! |
[Nov. 9th, 2005|11:02 pm] |
Hi, world, how goes?
Let's see. Seems like I haven't posted recently 'cause I keep thinking of things to post and the job of posting just gets bigger and bigger ever night and after a long day of beating stuff I don't want to handle a big job like posting with everything I've been wanting to say.
So tonight, I'm going to slack off and post. It's just a small post, you see....and I've already uploaded the photos!
The project is going a little slowly. These are photos from a few days back, but they're a good set to show 'cause they're pretty much at the transitional stage between removing the old stuff and putting new things in. Up to the point when these photos were taken, I have:
Removed all or very very most of the tile in the bathroom.
...and all the fixtures. No small task...
Added two bright can lights to the ceiling.
Crazy-wired the bathroom for two sconces, one on either side of the vanity mirror, as well as making provisions for plug receptacles in a few places (including behind the toilet! Toto Washlet on the way!)
Replaced the vent fan and ported it through a hose to the outside.
Built a stand for the new sink out of an old mohogany table which has been in Aunt Lorraine's basement since a while ago.
Lots and lots of drawing as a way of planning for the tile. More about the tile soon.
Since the pictures I have:
Installed insulation (where none existed before!!) on the outside walls and all around and within the empty spaces under the bath tub. See the insulation piled up in the tub temporarily?
Moved the framing necessary to having the medicine cabinet centered over where the sink will be.
Re-plumbed all the copper. All of it. Lots of soldering.
Moved the waste pipe for the sink down a few inches toward the bath tub.
Put plywood or studs everywhere we expect to put a towel bar, soap holder, etc. so that everything substantial that hangs on the walls gets attached to sturdy wood.
Pulled one Cat 5 e and two 4-pole telephone wires from the basement to the attic.
Begun to put up plastic on the walls were the tile will go.
More things, as well.
Tile soon! Garage sale updates, as well. Maybe even a fall leaves picture. I had better hurry, they're falling of the trees. Time's on the move and I am at the limits of my schedule. |
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| Colorado, Part 2. |
[Oct. 19th, 2005|10:48 am] |
Perhaps I've passed the opportunity to truly "live-blog" my trip East, the drive being over, but the best I can do now is fill my loyal readers in on the interesting parts of the trip since Colorado. I've been through Denver, all of Nebraska, West to East, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Eastern Virginia. I stopped in Papillion, NE near Omaha. The next night I spent in Clarksville, TN. I arrived here in the D.C. area on Friday night at 11:30.
Grandma won on account of snow, by the way. At least in part.
I probably could have gotten on the road on Tuesday but the situation was this: Grandma really was worried about me encountering more storm on the way out, some friends of hers had weighed in with the same opinion, and there was more work to be done. Whenever I visit a grandparent or grandparents, I tell them that they should make a long list of things they'd like fixed while I'm there. I had not finished the list off completely by Monday night, so I made the decision Tuesday morning to leave on Wednesday. This was for the best, ultimately, because it made a little more leisure time in Colorado and it only delayed me one day. Grandma and I were enjoying ourselves, too. When we weren't talking about the people in the town she doesn't like, she did have some excellent dog stories, and I'd been getting some new information on extended family I didn't have before. I asked if I could scan some of the pages from her photo album. That was fine, she said, and she brought a whole bunch of them out.
I got pictures of my dad as a youngster, pictures of family members from before my time, pictures of houses and other special places, and a bunch of my grandparents' wedding pictures. (A few of them:)
This is my grandmother's yearbook photo.
My grandparents' wedding.
Dad.
My folks at Dad's Georgetown Law graduation. (1984)
.......Oh, and we found one very special surprise. Grandma has a baby picture of her mother from around 1894. It's an old tin-type photograph. Tin-types are images actually formed on tin by a layer of silver, among other things. This old photograph has been stored in a wooden wallet/locket enclosure with glass over it and copper foil frame that binds the layers. Hava look:
I tried to scan this image simply by putting it face first on my scanner, frame and all, but it came out a little blurry due to the fact that the image itself was held away from the scanner by a layer of glass and the frame. This set was probably put together in the late 1800s. Would you be surprised to know I asked to take it apart? No? Of course you wouldn't! I wanted to put the baby picture directly on the scanner for a better scan. I got permission and luckily, was able to separate the layers without much trouble, both because of the wallet's simple construction and the fact that years of wear had caused the photo, foil and glass to be loose from the wooden frame. I found two surprises: first, a second tin type that was identical to the first but with less contrast. Who'd have known that there'd be two, right? Well, there were THREE images tucked away under the glass, and the third is the one that most amazed us: (The picture of the man.)
It's like a tin type image, but it's on glass! Dark glass! I'm fairly sure it's called an ambrotype. Who is he? My grandmother thinks it's her great-grandfather. Which, I suppose, makes him my great-great-great-great-grandfather. John Traub may have been his name. Grandma isn't sure, herself, so I'm sending a copy to her which she can send to a cousin of hers. I'll mention this again if he becomes properly identified. In the meantime, look at this photograph in a different light:
It's transparent! This explains why it did not scan properly. Here's how the scanner captured the tin-type and the ambrotype. These were done at the same time, side by side.
Wild! It's as if the ghost of the man showed up instead! The image was not affected by the scanning process; rather, this over-exposed result may have been because there was nothing backing the glass on the side opposite the actual image. I did not close the lid of the scanner, in other words. Light from the room may have come through the glass. The image that came out properly (three above) was taken with my camera.
So staying the extra evening was worth the while! Grandma was really excited over the whole ordeal and besides, now I have another treasured image in my collection. I'm referring to the photo I took, of course. The tintype and ambrotype images went back in their ornate wooden case where they had been for the whole twentieth century. But at least I got to hold them in my hands for a few minutes. I feel like I'm better off now for having done that. |
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| Day 9 or so. |
[Oct. 16th, 2005|12:06 am] |
Few and far between are these posts so far. Whatever. Here's another one.
I'm in the Falls Church now! Actually, I don't know that for certain. Aunt Lorraine's house sits right on the border between Arlington and Falls Church, and I think I might be on the Arlington side. At any rate, I'm at my destination!
Here's my new tool chest at home, temporarily, in my temporary home. Little Cousin Zoe used to live in this room, but she has since moved into Big Cousin Galen's old room. This room is still pink on two walls. And this delightful fish mobile (pictured) does its darnedest to counteract the serious nature of my new tool chest. It will not win. Once I get the rest of my tools out of my car, this room will look more like a garage than a bedroom despite the "Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron" poster on the back of the door and the few remaining Neopets characters taped to the walls.
That's all I have at the moment. Soon, I'll tell you about the trip since Colorado, the amazing discovery made while scanning old photographs, and the most spectacular injury-free car accident ever seen on Interstate highways.
Also--I'll get in the habit of leaving my computer on in the day so anyone who wants can leave me messages.
Good night! |
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| Days 4 an 5. |
[Oct. 10th, 2005|08:12 pm] |
Hello again.
I'm finding it will be difficult to update this weblog from the road, so I'll have to continue to supply long bursts of blogingness where and when I am able to get internet access. Unfortunately, there is only one WiFi base station within range of my grandmother's house and it's a lousy AOL device, so I am dialing up. But that's good enough for updating! I'll even include a couple of photos.
Yeah, so, right now I'm at Grandma's house in Colorado Springs. It's freaking snowing on my car and everything outside. Car is probably more confused than I am, but being that Car was built in Chicago in February, it has probably seen snow before. As have I, but I realize that not having practical experience with the stuff aside from spending the night in places where it snows and digging a minivan out the next day, I don't have any idea how long I can expect it to stay on the ground, when plows are likely to come by, how much will be on the ground tomorrow morning, and stuff like that. About the only thing I do know about the stuff is what stupid stuff to avoid doing when driving. I have chains to add to my tires if things get icy, but hopefully I can get out of Colorado without having a true 'winter driving experience.' But I also hope I can get out of Colorado on time. It's not too big a problem, I suppose, if I have to stick it out here in Colorado Springs 'till the storm gets good and done with itself, but should stick to my schedule if I can. The plan is to leave by about noon on Tuesday. More than just snow threatens my schedule however.
"I'm hoping to have you stay until Friday, David," Grandma says. She's been checking the weather real, real frequently. Grandma's hoping for a major snow day or week, perhaps, so she can keep me here. When I asked to spend two nights here I was very specific on which nights I wanted them to be. My goal is to leave here on Tuesday, sometime after lunch, not on Friday. Unfortunately, the two choices which will present themselves will be to leave on time or offend Grandma. This is bad considering that she has also just told me that she wants me to change my course and spend a night in Moline, Illinois with some cousins of hers because "You've met some of your family on Gordon's side now, but you've never met any of my side of the family. Except Bud. Did you meet Bud?" Yup. I sure did. A few times. I remember Bud. "And of course, him," (referring to Grandma's brother, my Great Uncle Bob) "which is really unfortunate since I think he's said a lot of poisonous things about me to the other people in my family and things like that, but that's your choice to see him, not mine."
Grandma and Uncle Bob don't speak to each other. They haven't spoken voluntarily in over twenty years. My dad tried to re-initiate a dialogue a few years back, just before my high school graduation. but each party had brought a metaphorical bucket of stones to the mediation and that process was called off in a hurry. Grandma and Uncle Bob are basically just feisty German types and getting on one of their bad sides is as easy as suggesting that 4:00 PM is too early for dinner. Not many people hold grudges against my mom -- MY mom, for gosh sake! -- but Grandma, just tonight, recounted (twice) how 'upset' my mom was when she reorganized mom's linen closet and pantry when my folks were out of town.
"I don't understand. You know me, though," Grandma said, "when I'm around, I need things to do. So when your parents went on that trip to Canada and I stayed and watched you kids for a week, I decided to clean out your guys's pantry. And that linen closet, too. When your mom came back, she was upset and I just couldn't understand why. It's not like I was trying to be offensive, you know, by cleaning the pantry. I just though it would be helpful but your mom took it personally for some reason like I was criticizing her, and I wasn't, although that pantry sure did need a good cleaning." So I'll be walking real carefully in the next few days. I love Grandma and I love staying at her house which she and my Grandpa Gordon bought back in, I think,1978, but I'm bird in a cage until I leave. But I'm being taken care of exceptionally well and Grandma's so excited to have a grandchild here. "My first visit alone from a grandchild ever!," she tells people. I wish for her sake I could say longer, but luckily I'll see her again over Christmas and saw her only a few weeks ago when she, Dad and Sister came up and toured Cambria.
So, photos:
This is in New Mexico. I'll say more about New Mexico tomorrow.
Here's DIA. DIA hasn't known much snow.
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| Adventure-Day One. |
[Oct. 7th, 2005|01:18 am] |
Hello, everyone!
I'm actually going to update my weblog semi-regularly between now and when I return home from my adventure!
I'll be driving to Washington D.C. beginning on Saturday when I leave Riverside (where I am now) and arrive in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I'll not go into intricate detail now as to what my plans are because I'll tell the stories as they happen. Basically, though, I'm going to remodel my Aunt Lorraine's upper-floor bathroom in her house in Falls Church, Virginia, and spend some time with the world's best cousin, Galen. I see Galen, on average once per summer. She works right now and is in a similar position I am regarding college enrollment and is likely to get busier every moment between now and when we're both grown with families of our own. I'm taking this opportunity, therefore, to go spend some time with Galen and her family because time will likely not allow for long-term visiting later. This will, hopefully, be the last Semester I'm off from classes. Word has it we'll be hearing back from Cal Poly about Winter admission soon.... I'll keep everyone posted.
Here's a "before" photo of the bathroom, by the way:
Here's another showing the tile I'll be replacing. Pink and Black? Why?
So, it's Day One of the "adventure," so to speak. Maybe yesterday was day one 'cause it was the first day driving. No matter. We'll start counting from today, the day I began preparations to DIA. I flushed the radiator (revealing how much rust really was clogged in the fins) and will do an oil change tomorrow. Additionally, I will tighten the bolts on the transmission pan some more and finish another repair I've started on the steering system. Lifting the car onto jack stands today, I got to feel for problems in the suspension. Everything was tight on the left front side. All of the actual suspension components are holding up fine on the right side, but the wheel had play in it when I turned it with my hands. In other words, it could be manually rotated by about a degree before the steering system engaged. Turns out that during (or shortly after) my last alignment, the boots that cover the tie-rod ends got twisted something fierce and tore. Then all the grease leaked out and the ball joint has been deteriorating ever since. Here are some photos.
Notice how there's a gap between the ball and its socket in the first photo and no gap in the second photo. That's real bad. The gap is what happens when the wheels are turned left. No gap is what happens when the wheels are turned right. This could have something to do with the condition which, as Myles says, makes my steering wheel feel like it "has a mind of its own." The problem wasn't outright dangerous yet, but it definitely needed to be changed. I will inspect the steering carefully after alignments in the future.
I'm hoping to learn a little bit about the character of all the places I stop at along the journey, and I guess Riverside is open for scrutiny itself, being the first stop. It turns out that even in the nice parts of Riverside, like where my parents live, you still have to be on the lookout for bad guys. My neighbor is apparently on high alert.
Today, preparing to start said car adjustments, I raised the garage door, (the front gate was already open) got in my car which had been parked overnight on the street out front and backed along the driveway into the garage. Ten minutes later I was eating in the house when, the doorbell rang. There was a DARK figure trying to look in through the side lights on the front door. I opened the door to find a TALL police officer.
"Which vehicles are yours?"
Um, the green Taurus in the garage and the black Camry down the side in front of the garage.
"Can you tell me why you backed your car into the garage like that?"
Um, yeah, I'm going to be driving to D.C. in a few days and I want to get the car up on stands and fix it before I go.
"Oh....ok...hang on and I'll tell you what's going on. Other units," he says into his radio, "that's going to be a 'cancel' on that last call, stand down." Just then another officer and his BIG, HAIRY German Shepherd walked down the driveway to his car. "We got a call from a neighbor who said she saw a suspicious car she didn't recognize back into your driveway, but that's ok if it's you."
Yeah, this is my parent's house.
"Ok, have a good one."
Thanks for checking in.
I grabbed a glass of orange juice and went out through the garage, checking the place over (for the intruder who was me, I suppose.) I got to the end of the driveway just in time to meet the other officer (the one with the dog) in his car.
"Yeah, we always catch the good guys," he said. "Your neighbor was just worried 'cause she saw a car she didn't recognize back in."
This neighbor here, I ask?
"Yup. Good to know she's looking out for you."
Yup, I'm glad our neighbors are looking out for us...........
Turns out it was a nice lady named Delphi, our next-door neighbor whose kitchen window looks down on our driveway, full time.
So why did she really call? True, my parents both work in the day time and it's true that I'm not here every day, but the real reason I set off the ohshit--badguy alarm is 'cause I backed MY car into the garage. I guarantee if I had backed a silver BMW into the driveway and loaded half the house into the trunk, I wouldn't have raised suspicions a) because all the other cars on this street are silver BMWs and the like and b) because SCARY POOR PEOPLE drive '93 Fords, not New Silver BMWs.
This is a ritzy street.
Anyway, it might be time for a paint job.
...Or it might just be a sign that Riverside isn't quite the haven of security that Agoura was or that San Luis Obispo is once you separate the drunken student shenanigans. Maybe we should be on the watch here, too.
More tomorrow. Hopefully I can avoid the cops for the rest of the trip.... |
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| Crisis averted! |
[Aug. 4th, 2005|04:02 pm] |
Here's what July would have looked like if Myles and Kim owned a used Saturn!!! |
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| Lowest life forms. |
[Jul. 31st, 2005|11:54 pm] |
Am I a bad person? I hate hummingbirds.
If you want to be well liked, it seems like you either need to be beautiful or smart. Doesn't that describe most famous people? Perhaps that describes humans' relationship with nature. Consider that that dandelions are much hardier plants than, say, petunias (which die if you walk too close to them), but that dandelions are the ones that get eradicated. Likewise, if hummingbirds weren't more graceful or precious than common house flies, we'd probably have more hummingbird feathers in our fly swatters.
Because the suckers are STUPID.
At my parents' new house in Riverside, there's wildlife everywhere. Snakes, lizards, hawks, gophers, coyotes and rats. And hummingbirds. Sidetracked from the flower it was apparently sucking the life out of beside the front door, a humming bird found its way into our house on the lower floor. Just like a fly, it went straight for one of the windows. Whack! Surprised but undeterred, the creature headed for another window. This time it got stuck behind the blinds and a curtain until I let it out. Liberated, it flew in looping circles. Ryan raised the good point that if it were to leave the living room, the next place it would go is straight upstairs. In fact, this is exactly what it chose to do. Tiring of windows and banging its head, the creature dove around our upraised hands and climbed to the upper floor. Not, then, for over two hours would it again attempt to exit through a window or door. And believe me, we shut the access to the attic and the doors to the bedrooms and opened every other portal to the outside.
What do you do about a hummingbird that can't take a clue? Smash it? No, it will leave a smudge. Bat it out of the air? We didn't actually want to hurt the poor thing....at first. Our first course of action was to cover all the windows on the upper floor that could not be opened, including the one above the double door to the balcony. This, we hoped, would coax the bird into flying low enough (two feet down from the ceiling) to go out through the open doors. It had a six foot square opening to fly through, but instead, the bird flew back and forth from the chandelier in the stair well to the ceiling fan and back again repeatedly. We tried to corral to the open door first with our hands and then by waiving towels and then by taping a towel around a spade shovel and waving at wildly. It was beginning to tire out at one point and we mistakenly decided to let it rest. Ideally, it would have fallen to the ground and flapped its way outside. Instead we gave it a few minutes downtime on the ceiling fan to cool off.
If you have a fly in your house, you don't worry about leaving for the afternoon because if it dies, you can vacuum it off the window sill when you get around to it. When a hummingbird flies into your house, you worry that when it dies it's going to leave a carcass somewhere surprising. So when a hummingbird flies into your house, you cancel your afternoon's plans and focus on returning it to the outside.
In the process of being chased, the creature got its beak stuck in a small gap above the crown molding. It was only attached for a second, wrenching itself loose with a popping sound that seemed like it must have been painful. By now it was clear to us that by chasing the bird, we were only confusing it and causing it harm. The more excited it got, the closer to the ceiling (an farther from the open door) it would fly. It repeatedly bounced its head off the ceiling, each time leaving delicate feathers behind. A new strategy would have to be developed.
Here, Ryan tries to motivate the hummingbird to leave the fan by blinding it with light.
Hummingbirds don't chase LASER dots, but they do run from them frantically.
Here, Ryan experiments with bringing the bird down in a flashlight-induced epileptic fit.
By the end, we had erected a ladder in front of the open door with a vase of water on one of the rungs and the brightest purple agapanthis flower we could find in it. Perhaps the hummingbird would come down to feed, and then take advantage of its lower elevation to fly out. Dumb idea? Whatever. We were desperate, after an hour and a half. And while we sat there despairing, calling the wisest people we knew, the little turd flew from the fan, down through the open door, and out into the wilderness. Like THAT was hard, right?
So, in conclusion, a sparrow had relations with a bumblebee one day, many centuries ago, and a race of hummingbirds was born. And ever since that day, they have flown from flower to flower obliviously.
Here, Ryan wishes the creature harm:
I share the sentiment.
Upside from the experience: Now I have a simple story to dramatize and tell people for years to come.
Downside from the experience: Being as I feature carcasses on my illustrious weblog from time to time, a hummingbird carcass would have graced these pages affably. |
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| Non-post post. (Photo blog.) |
[Jul. 31st, 2005|11:15 pm] |
Here's one of my most ornery possessions. It has made me more money than any other tool I own, and has probably cost me the most, excluding the forty dollars I spent to free it from someone's driveway.
Trying to load it in the front seat of my car (it weights nearly 150 lbs) I added a ten-legged spider to my windshield. More on the saw, its most recent project and Myles and Kim's new place...soon! |
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