Cranky-D

I discovered this evening that I have a new roommate. I went into the bathroom and turned the light on, and a mouse began skittering around. I have no fear of mice, so I kind of felt bad about scaring him or her. The mouse finally ran past me and disappeared into the heating vent in the wall of the kitchen. Yes, the bathroom is off the kitchen. This is kind of a funky house, especially the second floor since it started out as bedrooms only and was later converted to duplex status.

Later this evening, about an hour or less ago, I again went into the kitchen and turned the light on. The mouse ran to the heating vent again.

I guess there’s something on the floor of the kitchen that’s edible. Certainly possible, but I can’t imagine what it is. Dried pasta, maybe, or gatorade powder. Whatever. Dried beer, certainly.

It’s fairly obvious that I live alone.

I guess I’d better clean up a bit.

Part I

Leaking water usually means a radiator hose. The last time I replaced the hoses whas in 2000, when I replaced them all before taking a trip to California for an internship. However, there is a lot of stuff in the way so I couldn’t tell whether the water was coming from the lower radiator hose or the water pump. I whined a bit, then got to work.

As usual when I travel, I had brought all of my tools. My Uncle had ramps, so I drove the car onto the ramps. It was at a good height to get at both the bottom of the engine and the top of the engine.

The alternator was in the way so off it came, along with its dedicated drive belt. To get the radiator hose off I had to remove the idler pulley. The idler pulley tensions the serpentine belt which drives the water pump, the air-conditioning compressor, and the power steering pump. Once I had done that, I was able to get at the clamp holding the radiator hose to the engine. Removing the clamp from the radiator side was easy, and off the hose came. There was no obvious damage to the hose.

Spinning the water pump pulley resulted in some interesting noise from the water pump. Also the pump was fairly loose and the pulley could be moved in such a manner that indicated the bearings were shot. To get the pulley off the pump shaft, the idler pulley and belt had to be re-installed. Then I could remove the bolts from the pully, and after that I again removed the idler pulley and belt. There are about 10 bolts holding the water pump to the engine. Off they came.

The local auto parts store had the parts I needed. New radiator hoses cost as much as the rebuilt water pump. My Aunt drove me to the store. I parted with around $80.

Cleanup is my least favorite part of car work. The old gasket was firmly attached to the engine, so I had to scrape, wire brush, and finally sand the surface until I got it clean. Then I used blue silicon to glue the gasket to the water pump and engine, and replaced all the bolts. You have to keep going around re-tightening the bolts for a bit since when you tighten some, others get a little loose, until you have them all at a good torque. I then noticed that I couldn’t find all four pulley bolts, so I again had my Aunt drive me to town, this time to the hardware store. They had an exact size match for what I needed.

Once back, I finished, and had the car back together. I let it set a bit, then fired it up. No leaks. I let it keep running while I cleaned up a bit. However, once it got warm, water started puddling up under the car again. I still had a leak. The leak was nothing like it was before I replaced the water pump, but it was still there.

I shut it down, and let it sit for a while, about an hour. Then I tried again. It only started leaking when it reached operating temperature, and didn’t leak all that much, but it was enough that it wouldn’t be a good idea to drive the car for a very long distance.

At that point, I was stuck. I had replaced the parts that I could replace with the tools I had. Either I had done a poor job, or there was another problem. At that point I realized I would have to turn it over to the professionals. My wallet began to hurt.

To be continued/concluded

I review movies right before their DVD release so you can make an informed choice. I see movies at the cheapo theater, which shows them after everyone else has given up.

“Madagascar” is an animated movie from Dreamworks about four zoo animals, a lion, a zebra, a giraffe, and a hippo who, through a series of misadventures, end up in the wild. They are totally unprepared for the wild, and really don’t know each other’s role in the wild. The lion, for instance, eats steak, but he and the other animals seem to think it comes from some magical place, not realizing that it’s from other animals. The main plot turns on the fact that the lion discovers he is a predator, and his status as a predator both drives a portion of the conflict and provides the resolution.

After the animated movie “Robots,” which disappointed with a poor script, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. Instead, I was vaguely satisfied by this movie. The movie contained the usual amount of slapstick and site gags for the kiddies and the increasingly common pop-culture references for the adults. However, the slapstick and references for the most part seemed to be dropped-in events than tended to pull the viewer out of the story. The story also lacked sufficient character development. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had many writers along the way. “The Incredibles” proved that you can have good writing, well-integrated cultural references and humor for all, and character development in an animated movie. Maybe the bar was set too high. Then again, this movie was doubtless already well on its way before “The Incredibles” was completed.

Visually, it was satisfying. That is to be expected these days, since rendering software and computing power have improved tremendously in the past few years, and continue to get better. The characters were stylized, but not to as high a degree as, say, those in “The Emperor’s New Groove.” The color choices were somewhere between faux realistic and cartoony. However, since I’m red-green colorblind, my interpretation of the palette may differ from yours. Movement was usually dominated by cartoon physics, as was the potential flexibilty of the hypochondriac giraffe’s neck.

I recommend renting this movie only if you’re a fan of animated movies. I don’t believe any adult would want to view it again, unlike such animated movies as “Mulan,” “The Lion King,” “The Incredibles,” and so on, so purchasing the movie is not recommended unless there are kids in the house. I can’t see anyone discovering anything new by seeing it again.

The time between conception of the trip and the actual trip was a little over a week. I only considered going originally because a friend of mine had expressed interest at one point on seeing the big motorcycle rally in Sturgis. However, once the idea was in my head, I didn’t let it go when it turned out my friend could not attend due to his work needing him. I have no such problem since I don’t have a job. Therefore, vacations, such as they are, can occur at any time.

I crammed a bunch of crap into my car on the morning of August 10. I always take a lot of extra crap on a trip, and this time it turned out to be a good idea (that’s foreshadowing, folks). I always take more clothes than I think I will need.

The trip was uneventful. It took me less than the available daylight to get to my destination. The car, which is getting on in years as well as miles, provided transportation without drama and gas mileage in the high 20s. That isn’t bad for a car with over 127,000 miles on it. It had been a few years since I had been to Spearfish but I remembered how to get to my Aunt and Uncle’s trailer. Yes, they live in a trailer in a very nice trailer park. Scoff if you will, but they own it outright and only pay a modest amount of money per month to rent the space. They consider it to be affordable housing, which is what it is.

They kindly fed me, and I eventually went to bed, which includes removing my contacts. I checked the case as I always do and saw two lenses, one per side. I may have done a tactile test on that as well. I don’t know.

The next day, I got up, took a shower, and eventually tried to put my contacts in. There was only one lens, the one for my right eye. My right eye is the one I can sort of see out of without correction, while my left eye is so bad I’m probably legally blind in that eye. I can read the text on the computer screen with my left eye, uncorrected, if I’m about 6 inches or less away (I just checked). I don’t know if the lens was never in the case, if I somehow accidently removed it before closing the case, or if it went down the drain. I looked, my Aunt and Uncle looked (my Uncle, who has macular degeneration, was not a lot of help on the visual front), and we took the p-trap off the sink to see if the contact was in there. No dice.

Well, I knew that the lens was in lens heaven, so I considered my options. This one time, I had not brought my spare lenses, for some stupid reason I cannot fathom but probably involves having a bad packing checklist. My Aunt suggested having the spares sent. Brilliant! So I called my friend/landlord and he agreed to send them. We had checked with the postal service and they said they could send the lenses by Saturday if we mailed them Friday.

I put the lens for my right eye in my left eye. It is not a great fit, but it will correct my left eye to the point that it is fairly good. Then, I drove to the rally and walked around gathering souvenirs. Mostly t-shirts this time, as usual. They are pretty cheap, 3 for $30. I bought too many, maybe, but they are part of my fashion statement. I also looked at many bikes and took many pictures with my new digital camera. My biggest interest is in the paint, since most custom bikes are fairly standard in their construction, even when they are radical customs. I took in most of the commercial exhibits, walked on main street, and bought stuff. I finally had had enough and walked back to the car and drove back to Spearfish.

My cousin, who is my Aunt and Uncle’s daughter, joined us for dinner that night. We had Domino’s pizza. It was pretty good. I related my trials and tribulations with respect to the missing contact.

The next day, I went to the Harley dealership in Rapid City. They had more vendors out there, more bikes to see and photograph, and a few cool modified Mustangs to see. All it takes is a truckload of money to buy them. I bought a few more shirts, of course. The checkout girl recognized my last name and asked it the people in Winner were related to me. I didn’t know, but told here that they probably were related since my last name if fairly scarce in this country (they were related, I believe we share a great grandfather). After that I went to Sturgis again. It was the same routine, but this time I didn’t buy anything. Instead, I tried to see the vendors I had missed the day before, and took more pictures of bikes. I also took a lot of video footage of the bikes cruising around. Then I did my “roving reporter” bit in which I rest the video camera on top of its case, leave it running, and then walk through the crowd. You cannot aim well that way, but you also get more candid shots since most people would not assume the camera is running unless you are holding it. I hope I got good crowd footage, but I haven’t checked it yet. Tapes are cheap and the camera does not get much use, so it doesn’t matter much if the shots are poor. It’s a good way to get shots of women without being obvious. Frankly, the local color (local girls/women) is much better than the biker women. Biker women are generally not all that attractive, are often overweight, and have leathery skin and too many tatoos.

The result of that day was more walking and sore legs. Even though the weather threatened to get bad, it didn’t get bad until I left. At that point it started raining. Back to the trailer park.

Saturday came, and no contacts arrived. I waited around a bit for the mailman, then gave up. I drove to Rapid City to go to the civic center, only to discover that the events there had stopped already (the day before, as I later found out). Then I went out to Thunder Alley, which had even more vendors, including the famous Orange County Choppers. OCC had two big trucks, one of them housing displays of merchandise, the other set up to allow the Pauls to sit and sign autographs. The Discovery Channel has been very very good to them. I shot some photos and video footage of the whole thing. People lined up to get autographs. The Pauls were gracious. I did not get an autograph, since I never understood that sort of thing.

Man, this is getting really long.

I went back to the trailer park and removed the contact. My left eye was protesting the ill-fitting plastic disk, so I figured the best thing was to take it out. The contacts had still not come. Lovely. I said I would leave the next day, but changed my mind just before going to bed. The next day I asked if I could stay longer, and they were happy I did since they really didn’t want me to leave one-eyed. I figured I could get the contacts the next day, and then leave that day.

Sunday, I put the contact in the right eye, and went about blind in the left eye for the whole day. We went bowling that night. I didn’t do all that well, but I probably can’t blame the lack of vision. I will blame the fact that there are no left-handed balls that would fit my hand, so I had to used righty ones.

Monday morning, I called the post office early and asked for them to hold the package. They agreed. At first I was going to come back to the trailer to clean them, then I decided to just leave from the post office, but my Aunt encouraged me to return to the trailer. I got the contacts and complained about the delivery since I had had assurances that the contacts would arrive Saturday. The guy I talked to said that that wasn’t the case, and noted that the guarenteed deliver, as written on the package, was for Monday. I couldn’t argue with that. I drove back to the trailer, anticipating a quick stop to clean the contacts and then hitting the road.

Just as I pulled in, steam began coming from under the hood. I got out, and noticed that a good amount of water was coming out of the engine and collecting on the ground.

Stay tuned for part ii

I finally got back from South Dakota tonight. The trip lasted much longer than expected. I will write up the reasons why later.

One mistake, my cousin’s son (which makes him my second cousin) got a kitten and I didn’t take any pictures of her. I could have used them for Ask the Cats at Laurence Simon’s place. She was sooo cute. A black and white kitty. Very vocal, probably missing her litter mates. I got to play with her the same day she got picked up at the humane society. She slept on my shoulder for a while.

I may have to get a kitten of my own, whether or not I actually settle in to a job soon. I’d like to have a companion around here, and people can be problematic at times.

Not that I’ve been posting much lately, or ever, really, but I definitely won’t be posting for a few days. I’m going to the bike rally in Sturgis. It’s close enough to where I live that I can drive there in one long day, and I have relatives who live close enough to Sturgis that staying with them allows a convenient short trip to the rally each day I go.

I briefly thought about riding the motorcycle there, but gave that idea up. The last time I did a long day on the bike my wrists hurt for a month. Plus, there isn’t much cargo capacity and I plan on buying yet more shirts to wear to the bar. Furthermore, the weather report says rain until the weekend. Showers only, I hope, but we’ll see.

I bought a new digital camera because I’m an idiot. I’ll be taking plenty of pictures to try to justify the purchase. The only digital camera I had already was a Mini DV camera that also had a still picture function. The pictures it takes are not all that great, and you have no control over anything. The new camera is small, and offers some control over the exposure. You still have no control over the f-stop or shutter, but you can select the “film speed” which helps.

Now, I’m off to bed, and will try to get some sleep even though I rarely go to bed this early. I imagine I will end up driving on about 5 hours of sleep, if I’m lucky.

Okay, the spammers have got through to my comments. I opened the can of raid on them. I hope no legitimate commenters (where are you?) are effected.

La la la la la la la, existential blues…… .

Today’s topic: You are standing by a lake.

Fiction, non-fiction, it’s all the same to me.

The lake was, of course, frozen, since it was only March. He hoped the ice was thick enough. His host assured him it was.

For his first time on a snowmobile, he pulled onto the ice and cruised around a little bit, then decided the best way to avoid being skittish was to just pin it and see what she would do. The 600cc sled went to an indicated 70 before he let off the throttle. Plenty of lake left.

After a few hours riding the trails, he got to ride the 1000cc sled on the lake. It went 100.