"2CELLOSlive".....These Guys Are Amazing

Heard about them tonight on Sirius/XM as I was driving home.

Just amazing stuff.




And if you don't care for cello renditions of Nirvana, here's their own YouTube page.

I Feel A Great Disturbance In The Force

I just found out the Brigid's dog, Barkley, has left us.

Having been through this, please say a little prayer for dear Brigid, and Partner in Grime.

  

 Barkley

July 11, 2003 - February 24, 2014

                             

YAAAAWN........

Didn't get a damn thing done today that I had planned except check my mail, and play with the dog.

The wife was running around all morning, so Pebbles and I played in the back yard off and on for a couple of hours, then it was lunch time, then nap time.

Only my planned 45 minute nap lasted two hours, which means I'm groggy when I wake up, and it takes me another two hours to get going, and then it's dinner time, and I tend to get sleepy after dinner, and well....you know the rest.


Well, actually I did get a few things done. I measured the cabinets in the kitchen, and "inventoried" the number of doors, drawers, hinges, and knobs for future use as we're going to get them refinished soon, and it's nice to be able to tell the contractors what we have, and how much.

And I took the wiring harness apart that connected the "old" Sony headunit to the OEM wiring in the Supra. I bought a set of connectors with leads that fit the Toyota connectors so I can just make a plug-and-play harness, like the one that the Sony had on it.

Only I misplaced the connectors somewhere.......

I figured, what the heck, I already have a set of plugs that fit on the Sony harness, so I'll just make a drawing of what color Toyota wires connect to the Sony wires, and then compare the Sony color code to the color code for the new Alpine CDE-134HD I bought, and then cut the Toyota connectors off the Sony harness, and connect them to the Alpine plug/wire assembly.

The installers who did this job back about 1999~2000 used really cheap electrical tape to bundle everything together, and if you've ever done any wiring, you know what really cheap electrical tape turns into after six months, let alone 14~15 years.

Yep, an ooey-gooey mess!

Took me about half an hour to clean the glop off all the wires before I could even bring it into the house.

Oh well, drawing is made, Toyota plugs cut off, and the new harness is soldered together.

I won't install the new radio until after I finish ripping out the interior, clean it, install the new carpets I ordered, and put it back together partially so I can test everything.

The carpets by the vestigial back "seats" are in good condition, and the carpet in the rear cargo area looks OK, but the front carpet is just completely shot. The clutch master cylinder failed at some time in the past, dumping all the hydraulic fluid inside the car as these cars are prone to do, and the driver's side carpet is permanently stained. The front carpets are also faded badly to the point they're several shades lighter. My wife though we could just clean them up, and maybe redye them, but after I pulled the center console, she could see the difference in the color between where the sun never shone, and where it did, so she agreed that the carpets were shot, and should be replaced.

The new carpet should be here in about two weeks, right about the time we'll in full-blown pre-departure testing for the next launch, which is now scheduled for April 15th.

Going In Today For My Cardiac "Stress Test" On The Treadmill **UPDATED**

Wonder if it will be different than the last time I took one.

I'm 12 pounds down now from December when my Doctor told me I had to lose 30 by July. My weight will go up and down a couple of pounds during the week, but the trend has been DOWNWARD since December.

The procedure called for me to NOT take my Metoprolol this morning, but to take the Losartan, Plavix, aspirin, Furosemide, along with my Glipizide and Metformin as I normally do.

Yeah, my nightstand looks like a mini Pharmacy!

The last time I saw my Cardiologist she was quite pleased with my progress, and got quite a chuckle out of my "Toyota Physical Fitness Plan". They ran an EKG on me, and all looks good, with no signs of any complications.

The Stress Test I'm taking today will be the next-to-the-last hurdle in getting myself declared fit for Sea Duty. The last step will be conferring with my regular Doctor, and deciding if I'm fit for sea duty.

The HR lady called me in last week (she's 'outsourced' and is only on-site once a week) to see how I've been doing. She also informed me that regardless of what the Doctor says, the final decision will be mine, and mine alone, and the company cannot legally hold it against me if I decide not to go to sea.

The medical care onboard is geared more towards "industrial" type injuries, and if I were to have another "cardiac incident", it could be 72 hours before they could get me to a real hospital.

If something happens on the way to the launch site, the options are to turn around, or divert to Hawaii.

If something happens at the launch site, we have to haul a$$ to Kiritimati, where the US Coast Guard would airlift me to Hawaii on a C-130.

I've been on several launches where this has happened, so I "know the drill", and how long it takes.

In a way, I'm looking forward to this "Last Launch" for me, as it will be #20 that I've been on, but in another way, I'm not looking forward to going. The company has crippled our Internet availability, with all sites that are "Online Communities", "Auction Sites", "Photo Sharing Services", and dozens of more categories , being completely blocked to us.

This means 99% of the Ham Radio and Automotive sites I enjoy after hours are blocked, along with eBay, and ALL blogging sites.

I could easily say "I'm not going", and (allegedly) there would be no repercussions, but in a strange way I feel some sort of obligation to go, do the job properly, see another satellite soar into space, and then come home and hang up my toolbelt, Spectrum Analyzer, Signal Generator, and DMM.

I'll just have to see how the test goes today, and what the Doctor says......


UPDATE

Well, the test went fine, although it took much longer than I thought it would.

I was wired up with a 10-lead EKG setup, a blood pressure, pulse, and Oxygen uptake monitor, and an IV in my left hand.

The IV was one of those "Just In Case" things, and was also used to push some special contrast enhancer into my bloodstream so the ultrasound measurements would be easier to read.

The test went fine, and the Cardiologist said I'm in good condition, and encouraged me to keep at the weight loss program, and to continue with various types of aerobic exercise.

I'll have my regular quarterly check-up with my normal Doctor in early March, and that's when he'll sign off my medical certificate.

Geeez.....Did The Vet Give Me The Same Dog Back?

We just can't believe this is the same dog we had before.

Ever since the drugs wore off, she's like a different dog.

Very playful, tail always wagging, doesn't bark when people or other dogs go by on the sidewalk, and does NOT bark at the mailman!

And all her wounds are healing very nicely. Last Friday I took her to the vet, and he pulled out the drainage tubes, and gave her a once over, pronouncing her fit and well, and well on her way to a full recovery.

Quite a change from the "whipped puppy" she was after I got the other dog off of her.

I guess removing the "Bad Influence" from our house has brought out the dog that was hiding inside her!

Welcome Home, Soldier

I don't watch football. Just never cared for it. But, the Superbowl has a reputation for having some pretty good commercials, and this is one of the better ones.

USS Iowa "Birthday Bash" Coming Up On 2/22/2014

Join BIARA (Battleship Iowa Amateur Radio Association) as we activate
NI6BB to celebrate the 71st birthday of BB-61's original commissioning on Feb. 22, 1943, along with the Iowa Plankowner Tribute Wall Official Unveiling, and our "Charter Party" as the ARRL presents us with
our certificate of affiliation.

Operations will follow our usual "Rule of 61" working our way down from 28461 through 24961, 21361, 18161 and ending up at 14261 MHz.

Operations are expected to be between 1730 and 2330 UTC. QSL per instructions on QRZ.com.

$680 at the Vet Today, and We're Now a "One Dog" Family

WELL......it happened again this afternoon, and I almost couldn't get them apart.

It was the usual "Mailman Thing", and this time the big dog went at the little one with full force.

I threw water on them, threw blankets on them, swatted him with a magazine, and finally resorted to belting him with a 1x6 from the Ikea chest unit I was working on.

He broke loose, and as she started to run away, he went right back at her, TWICE.

I absolutely hate hitting dogs, but I was getting desperate, so I really walloped him with the pine board I had. He stopped long enough that I was able to get the little dog away from him and outside.

I brought back in the fold-up kennel, set it up, and opened the door to it, and yelled at him to get in there, which he promptly did.

The house looked like a crime scene, with blood on the walls from where he body-slammed her into the walls, blood on the floor from her torn ear, and blood on the sideboard cabinet in our bedroom where he chased her in and cornered her on my side of our bed. I butt-stroked him with my Remington 870 to break him off, and that's when he chased her back out into the living room where I finally walloped him with the board hard enough to get his attention, and hustled her outside.

I had to sit down for about ten minutes to catch my breath before I could call my wife and tell her "Swisher is OUT of here", so she called the guy we got them from, and he's on his way over now to take Swisher back.

Pebbles has a left ear with about 20 stitches in it, two drainage tubes stitched in her back where he chomped her, and two in her right foreleg where he also chomped her.

And she's got several other wounds that the Vet said were surface wounds, and he cleaned them, and probed them to make sure they weren't deep, and put in a couple of more stitches.

Pebbles is sleeping on the small dog bed, drifting in and out of the anesthesia, and whimpering, and Swisher is in his kennel, awaiting transport off the premises.

Been a REALLY bad day here, and I'm taking Wednesday off from work to tend to the dog......

IKEA JUNK.......Poor Design and My Fix

Yep, it's been a week between posts. I've been busy at work getting ready for the next (and my last) launch, and tinkering on the Supra, and playing around a bit on HF radio.

Today I put my "Eggbeater" satellite antenna back up. I'd had it kind of in the middle of the driveway on the non-penetrating roof mount, but when I bought Ms. Swan, I had to take it down because I needed the driveway space.

Well, today I moved the Rohn mount to a suitable place, and put the antenna back up using different mast. I'd used 1-1/2" rigid EMT (heavy wall "conduit" for the non-techies), and it weighed too much. It was very difficult to walk it up, and frankly, that size rigid EMT isn't very strong.

So, I found a company that sells surplus military aluminum mast, and bought some. It's bigger than I counted on, so I had to redrill a bunch of holes, and swap out all the U-bolts I used, but finally finished it after a few hours. Typical "45 minute" project of mine that winds up taking 3 hours!

ANYWAY......now that the antenna, rigid EMT, Rohn NPRM, and Eggbeater antenna are back in the air where they belong, I have an additional 30~40 square feet of driveway space feed up, and a lot less clutter. Still have to get rid of a small Harbor Freight utility trailer that I bought a couple of years ago for a project that didn't pan out, and I'll have even more space.

So, what does this have to do with Ikea? Well, my sweet little wife went and bought a 5-drawer chest to put in the guest room (aka former "Kid's Room"), and she spent the last several days staining it, and getting some different drawer pulls for it. I started putting it together yesterday, and noticed that the quality of this product from Ikea seemed a bit lower than the last Ikea bit of furniture I built, which was also a chest of drawers.

Imagine my surprise when I noticed something funny about the drawer assembly.

Here's a drawer pretty well along in it's assembly. Please ignore the poor stain job....my wife has never stained any knocked-down product before, and wasn't sure which parts were outside (to be stained), and which were inside (to be left in natural wood):

Looks "Pretty OK" to the casual eye, but look closer. The shelf bottom is held in place ONLY by fitting into the groove on the front of the drawer, and the groove in the back panel of the drawer. The last chest I built from Ikea had the side panels slotted so the fiberboard drawer bottom was held on all four sides.

If you put anything heavy into this chest, and some people will, there's NOTHING holding the sides of the drawer bottom, and it will droop:

And I hardly used any force at all to separate the drawer bottom from the side pieces.

OK, so no big deal. I'll just go out to the garage, grab some small nails, and secure the drawer bottom to the sides like it should have been out-of-the-box from Ikea.

This is an incredible CHEAPENING of the product. I can kind of understand them designing it without the grooves in the side plates to save a few cents, but to not even give you 25 cents worth (probably less considering how many millions of this size nail they buy) of little nails to use to properly secure the drawer bottom?

This was a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR piece of furniture, and the bastards chiseled every fractional cent of profit out of it they could.

BAD IKEA! 

NO COOKIE FOR YOU!

And no more of my cash, either.


It'll be cold day in you-know-where before we go back to Ikea to buy anything again!

Oh, and some of the holes barely lined up, too.

Sad, very sad.

Ikea used to be a place where you could get low-cost, knocked-down furniture that was of reasonable quality, but it looks like they've jumped on the "Make It As Cheap As Possible" wagon.

Buh-Bye, Ikea.

Ms. SWAN Passed her Smog Test!

Barely squeaked by the 25MPH test with 83ppm HC, vs a max allowed of 83ppm.

The 15MPH test passed with 111ppm vs 130ppm max allowed.

NOx went from 674ppm to 536ppm at 15MPH, and from 569ppm to 459ppm at 25MPH.

Then I drove her down to AAA, filled out and signed the "open" title, coughed up $285, and drove out of there with a valid "temporary" registration card.

The permanent registration card and title should follow in "5 to 9 business days" according to the rep at the AAA.

And then in April, when the tags expire, I get to cough up another $200 or so (based on last registration), but I should be OK with the smog test until 2016.

One thing I immediately noticed as I drove to the smog place this afternoon was how much smoother she ran, so changing the plugs and "fixing" the air leak at the throttle body definitely helped.

AFAIK, she has the original, 29 year old, 167,000 mile, catalytic converter on her, so I'll look into getting a replacement to have "in stock" for when she has to get smog tested again.

But as of today, she's **OFFICIALLY** mine!

Project "Ms. SWAN" Flunked Her Smog Test

But not by much!

First off, they busted me (well...previous owner) for having a piece of heater hose in use as a breather hose. This particular hose goes from the air duct that crosses the engine to a port on the intake manifold, and it's more of a reference hose than an actual "breather" hose. The hose had obviously been there for quite a while, was in excellent condition, and had zero signs of any damage from any oil or crankcase vapors that might have been passing through it.

BUT, it was marked as "Heater Hose, 5/8"" or something similar, so the Smog Nazis of the People's Republik of Kaliforniastan declared it as TAMPERING/MODIFIED, and I had strike one.

The actual "PCV" hose exits from the side of the boss the oil filler cap screws into, and goes to a separator before being vented back to the intake manifold, but since this car is older than the kid doing the smog test, I didn't expect him to understand that.

All the rest of the visual/functional checks passed, and then it was on to the dyno rollers.

She passed the 25MPH test (barely), and while the guy didn't like having to pass the car, the computer told him to, so she passed. The 25MPH HC readings were at 83ppm, and the limit is 83ppm, so since it wasn't over the max allowed, they passed it.

The problem was with the 15MPH dyno run. The max allowed for HC (HydroCarbons) is 130ppm, and the car generated 142ppm, which failed it.

For both the 15MPH and 25MPH runs, the CO and NO numbers were in the middle of the min/max range, so no problem there.

Now I had done a couple of things to her Saturday morning, and drove her around for about 45 minutes to ensure she was all warmed up, and decided to take my chances. One of the things I didn't do was to change the spark plugs, which have god-knows-how-many miles on them, and the other was to fill the tank with fresh fuel, as the half-tank (about 7 gallons) had a "Full Load" of fuel system cleaners consisting of a 20oz bottle of Techron, and two 8oz cans of SeaFoam.

I stopped on the way home from the smog test place to get some "approved" PCV hose and a couple of clamps, and drove around some more until the low fuel light came on, at which time I filled her up with 91 Octane Shell.

I went ahead this morning and installed the new plugs, and the ones I took out were really worn. The specified gap for new plugs is 1.1mm (.043), and some of the old ones were well over .050, with worn, rounded electrodes. Several of them were loose ( ! ), which is NOT a Good Thing with an aluminum cylinder head. I've seen plugs get loose in aluminum heads, and the combustion gases go at the threads like a cutting torch, in some cases causing so much damage that the plug blows out of the head!

At least my new plugs are properly torqued now, with a dab of anti-seize on the threads to prevent them from galling the threads.

ANYWAY.......


Reading the Toyota Service Manual last night, and going through the Emission Control System troubleshooting flow chart, something hit me.

If there are ANY air leaks between the Air Flow Meter and the Throttle Body, the measured amount of air from the AFM will NOT be the actual amount of air going into the engine, and the fuel injection system will improperly meter the fuel. In this car, the AFM is located down behind the air cleaner in the right front corner of the engine compartment, and the throttle body is several feet away, connected by some plastic duct work with rubber couplings between the various sections.

 
There are three large rubber "cuffs", or "couplings" between the various solid parts which are made of fiber reinforced plastic, and the final rubber coupling, at the throttle body, was split!

It had been wrapped with ooey-gooey black electrical tape in an attempt to fix it, but the tape had degraded to the point that there were gaps in the rubber with daylight showing through!

I had a massive air leak, and it's amazing the car ran as well as it did!

This part is also an excellent example of Fossilized Rubber from the Disco Era (mid 1980's), and was a real PITA to get off the throttle body, as it was crumbling away as I pried it off, witness some of the missing chunks on the outer edges.

I carefully peeled away all the electrical tape ( ! ) that was trying to seal it, and scrubbed it with lots of hot water and dish soap in the kitchen sink (yes, I cleaned the sink when I was done) so that whatever method I chose to use to seal it all back up wouldn't have to try and bond to a 30 year collection of grease, oil, and road dirt.

After it was completely dry, I fit it back on to the plastic piece that connects to the throttle body, and proceeded to wrap several layers of self-fusing silicone rubber tape around it.

This stuff is absolutely amazing, and I've been using it for years to seal things and weatherproof them. It's only recently caught on in the consumer market as "Rescue Tape", but if you buy that stuff, you're paying about 5 times what it costs if you carefully shop for it.

Once I had it wrapped and slid back on the throttle body, I noticed that while I had the coupling sealed on the outside, the split in it made a channel from end-to-end that would still leak, so I forced some black RTV sealer into both ends of the channel, smoothed it out nicely, and reassembled the whole air intake system.

She started right up, and seems to idle smoother, but since I didn't get her fully warmed up and drive her, I won't really know if my "fix" worked until Monday afternoon when I take her back to get retested.


Oh, and I installed the new "breather" hose so that the printing indicating it's "PCV Hose" is clearly visible......