Finally Friday!

Been pretty busy the last few days getting ready for tonight's final testing of the "Integrated Launch Vehicle".

I'll be going in about 1600 to finish training the guy who's going in my place, and supervise him during the test.

The RF portion of the test will start about 2200, although the customer has told us they *might* be ready to go as early as 2000.

If all goes well, I should be able to get out of there at midnight, otherwise it could be a looooong night!

The last time this particular customer was there, they dragged things out, left for dinner without telling anybody, didn't follow the printed schedule we gave them, and in general caused the whole operation to be in Charlie Foxtrot territory all night.

I wound up being there almost 16 hours!

This morning I'm going to go by the Social Security office to ask a few questions about my upcoming retirement, and then I'm going to a farewell lunch for another person who's leaving the company. She's one of the "Export" people who handles a lot of the paperwork, and she'll really be missed.

After this launch, we have NO idea what's going to happen. The launch for fourth quarter of this year isn't going to happen, and the customer the management was in talks with for next year has yet to commit. Considering it takes anywhere from 6 to 12 months to get some of the specialized hardware built, if they don't commit pretty soon, that launch just aint gonna happen.

Several people have told me in private they're going to bail after this launch, which will really out the company in a bad position.

As for me, I'm out of there in August!

Bummer......

Just heard via Tam's blog that my friend Jeffro has passed away.

I always enjoyed corresponding with Jeff about Big Rigs and stuff, as he was a wealth of information, and always willing to patiently answer my Dumb Questions.

God Bless you, my friend, and may you Rest In Peace.

Duracell Battery Problems

Has anybody had problems with the big "24 pack" of Duracell batteries lately?

I bought a pack at Home Depot some months back, and they're pure GARBAGE!

I use them in my LaCrosse digital clock here in the radio room, and they not only go dead in a month, but they LEAK!

I've never had problems with "AA" size Duracells before, and a pair of them used to run this clock for about a year.

And it's not just this clock, either. They don't last more than a month or so in the various remotes we have, and those leaked, too.

I'm beginning to wonder if somebody slipped Home Depot a fast one, and they got stuck with some counterfeit batteries.

Guess I'll have to write Duracell directly, but just wondered if anybody else out here has noticed this.

I've gone back to Energizers in the meantime.......

Busy, Busy!

Besides being busy helping to support the next launch, been putting a big dent in the Honey Dew list.

We bought a new air conditioner for the living room, and after my wife's #1 son helped me install it, I noticed the plug was the "T-Slot" type. Well, it needs a "20 Amp" receptacle, I thought, so I went to the Cheapo Depot, bought one, and swapped it out. ALL the breakers to our 120 Volt outlets are 20 Amp, so changing it was no big deal.

I went to plug the new A/C unit in, and WTF???? The "Tee" was wrong, and wouldn't fit the new outlet!

Then I looked at the GFI that's built into the plug, and realized she'd bought a 240 Volt unit! Then I looked at the part number I gave her, and realized I'D given her the wrong model number to buy!

D'OH!!!!!


Luckily her BFF's son-in-law is an electrician, so for $70 worth of parts, and $160 in labor, he came over with his dad Wednesday night after his normal shift, installed a new outlet, ran new cable, and put a new breaker in our Service Entrance box.

It cools much better than the 10 year old 120 Volt unit we had, and as a bonus, the lights don't dim when it kicks in.

ANYWAY....then I had to spackle the one hole he had to drill behind the baseboard so he could run the cable, nail the baseboard back on.

Toyota Leaving California For Texas

Toyota's been in Torrance for 57 years, and now they've pulled the plug for all the Usual Reasons.

Read the whole story here.

I wonder if when Honda will go, too.......

I'm Out Sick Today

Wife was sick last week, so I blame her.

All congested, headache, achy body, and all I want to do is sleep.

I'm going back to bed......

Glad It's Tursday!

As this has been an exceptionally BORING week at "work".

We have a morning meeting informing us of the progress in getting the launch vehicle back together, and then.........NOTHING.

I've read all of the books I have on the Iowa

I've read every "Hammer Time" post over at The Truth About Cars

I've re-read all of the books I have on the care and feeding of an M1 Garand

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.......


And I still have four months until retirement.......


We've heard the ships will be going in to "Cold Layup" at the completion of this launch campaign, although there's a faction fighting to keep the command ship in "Semi-Warm Layup".

And one of the IT guys told me they want to shut down the building where all us payload guys are cubicaled (is that a word?) to save money. The problem is, there's not enough floor space in the building they want to use to house all of us.

I expect a Reduction In Force to occur a few weeks after the ships are back........

Easter Brunch On The Battleship Iowa

Well, my jaw has recovered 90% or better, and no signs of swelling, so the wife and I went down to the Iowa for the Sunday Easter brunch.

The food was catered by the San Pedro Brewing Company, and was typical breakfast fare, with eggs, potatoes, sausage, BACON!, and a lot of other items, and it was quite good.

After eating, we took the self-guided tour again, and saw some of the areas that have been cleaned up and open to the public since we first took the tour before the ship was opened.

And we saw the Plank Owner's wall, with the teak plate inscribed to the memory of my father, who served in the Sea Bees from 1941 through 1945.

One of the really neat things the restoration crews found was in the Officer's Wardroom.

As they were cleaning off some peeling paint, they found a beautiful map, hand painted on the wall, of the South Pacific Theater of War.

It was very similar to the map on Wikipedia, reproduced below, but was painted in differnt colors, and had much more detail.

Since they can't find any photos of this map in their extensive archives, it's still a mystery as to when it was painted, and who painted it.

My wife was very surprised that I could point out all of the places my Dad had been to, and frankly, I was too. He was like a lot of our Veterans, in that once their job was finished, he came home, and didn't care to talk about it much. Sometimes he'd start to talk, and just when it was getting very interesting, and I'd ask some questions, he'd clam up. But seeing that map, with names of places in use at the time, brought the memories flooding back to me.

And we stopped by Turret 2 to see the memorial to the 47 who lost their lives 25 years ago. I didn't make it down there yesterday to help with the "Radio Activities", but at least we got to see the memorial while it's still there.

Back from The Dentist

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I learned a ton about how teeth are extracted.

The tooth in question is/was "#31", the last molar on the lower right side. I'd had a filling fall out some years ago, and like a dummy, I just ignored it until it really started to hurt. My own dental insurance had gone away after I was laid-off from Boeing, so I went to the Dentist my wife uses.

He wanted to just pull the tooth, but I figured it wasn't that bad, so I went back to my own Dentist who examined me, said I needed a root canal and a crown, and no, my wife's insurance wouldn't pay for it.

I also got a lecture about what would have been a $250 filling replacement had now turned into a $2200 procedure!

ANYWAY.......that was about 5 years ago, so I guess I got my money's worth out of the crown.

During a previous cleaning they noticed something was odd, but couldn't decide what was going on, so they told me not to worry about it, but to contact them immediately if I had any problems.

WELL...during the cleaning I had a couple of weeks ago, they noticed that the tooth appeared a bit "strange", so they took and X-Ray, and found the front root had separated from the rest of the tooth, and declared the tooth would have to be removed, which we did this morning.

The worst part was getting stuck with the needle (God, I HATE needles!) to numb it out, and the actual extraction and cleanup went very smoothly.

There were NO problems apparent with clotting, despite the fact I'm taking Plavix and an 81mg aspirin per day.

I was in and out in an hour, and then came home and took a bit of a nap.

So far I'm just kind of "generically sore" in the jaw, and taking it easy, as I don't want to interfere with the clotting/healing that's started.

I had planned on attending the Battleship Iowa memorial service tomorrow for the 47 people that lost their lives in the Turret #2 Explosion, and then operate the radio station for the event we're having, but I think I'll pass on it. One of the things the Dentist told me to do was NOT talk a whole lot, and since I operate on Single Sideband, that's kind of hard to do!

Sunday the wife and I will be going to the Easter Brunch on the Iowa, so at least I'll spend a little time there this weekend.

Think I'll head back to the rack for a little while.......

Bundy Ranch Video

Supposedly Facebook is has banned this video.

Several commenters have said they post it, and it just "disappears".




And for those that don't understand why Mr. Bundy refused to pay his "Grazing Fees", here's another rancher's explanation of it all.

All the big city folk that cry and fret about a supposedly endangered desert tortoise, while eating their Big Mac, don't have clue where the beef comes from.


And then there's this story about a planned Fed raid on the Bundy's home.

As much as I'm happy the Feds pulled out (or were pushed out), I certainly don't think this is The End Of The Story.

Bullies have a way of returning, you know......

Bill Whittle Smacks Another One Out Of The Park with "Disarming The Warriors"

Tip of the hat to The Feral Irishman

I'll Be Busy On The Battleship Iowa Saturday

We have a bunch of Scouts coming to the Battleship Iowa on Saturday to take the test for their Radio Merit Badge, so I'll be there all day running the radio, and coaching the Scouts.

Some of them are very good on the radio, and some are almost terminally "mic shy". Still, they man up, and talk on the radio, and we do our best to encourage them. Usually the more talkative types will go first, and if we're lucky (we usually are), and have a Ham on the other end who knows what we're doing, the other Ham will coach them along, too.

Last year we were very fortunate to stumble across a Ham in Vancouver, B.C. who was a Scoutmaster, and the kids had a great time. Signals were strong and steady, and he hung in with us for almost 4 hours!

This class we only have 10 Scouts, so we won't need the Propagation Deities smiling quite so broadly.

And our friends on the Hornet will be listening for us, to try and help, as they're doing the same thing.

Might be the first "Scout-to-Scout" AND "Warship-to-Warship" contacts ever made for the Radio Merit Badge program, so all us Old Greybeards have our fingers crossed!

We're also working out the details of a "Four Sisters" award that will be issued to Hams who contact the Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

As it is now, every time one of the ships gets on the Amateur Radio frequencies, they get swamped with people calling. This award will just make it that much more popular!

Oh, Boy.....Wife Got In Another Accident

She's OK, and the car isn't too badly damaged.

She was coming home from visiting her brother (great guy!) who's in the hospital, and was coming in to our little neighborhood when she got "gently" T-Boned in the passenger side.

She was making a left turn, with the sun to her back, and another car, with the sun in his eyes, didn't see her until he was about 20 feet away. He locked 'em up, put down about 15 feet of skid marks, and slid into her. Got the front passenger door pretty good, but it was all above the rocker panel, so hopefully no serious structural damage.

They both said they didn't see each other, and having turned left at that corner many times, I can understand it.

We dropped the car off at the body shop this morning, picked up her rental car, and she went in to work, while I'm staying home.

There were several witnesses who saw the whole thing, and they all agreed it was unfortunate, but probably unavoidable due to the traffic and angle of the sun in everybody's eyes.

What's Your Favorite "Car" Movie?

I had a new found (to me) car chase scene I posted a few days ago, and it got me thinking....always an activity fraught with peril.

What's your favorite "car" movie?

I'm NOT a big fan of car movies loaded up with CGI, and impossible stunts, like the "The Fast and The Furious" series, and some of the stuff done in the remake of "Gone In 60 Seconds", so I won't include those.

And movies with great chase scenes, like "Bullitt", and "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior", are great movies, but aren't what I'd call "Car Movies", where the cars are a big part of the entire story.

This narrows the selections down considerably, and the few that I know about, and like, would be as follows:

"Grand Prix" starring James Garner and others

"Le Mans" starring Steve McQueen

"Rush" starring Chris Hemsworth

"Truth in 24" starring "People You've Never Heard Of"


Now there are many other movies out there that the cars play a fairly big part in, but by my narrow-minded definition, aren't quite in the same category as the 4 movies above.

Some of those are:

"Heart Like a Wheel" starring Bonnie Bedelia

"Cars" by Pixar

The original "Gone In 60 Seconds"

"The Big Wheel" starring Mickey Rooney

"To Please A Lady" starring Clark Gable


And many, many more.

So which are your favorites and stinkers?

Friday Update

GROAN....just got back from the Dentist, and found out I'm going to lose a tooth.

Bottom right molar, the very last one, (#31, I think) has a cracked root. I had a crown put on this one back in 2009 after the filling fell out, and I didn't do anything about it for too long.

What could have been a $250 filling replacement turned into a $2200 root canal and crown. This was while I was laid-off, and didn't have any decent dental coverage. The dentist my wife's coverage provided wanted to just pull the tooth, but I knew it could be repaired, so I paid for it out of pocket as my Dentist wasn't in her plan's network.

Oh, well....I got another five years out of that tooth.....

Funny thing is it doesn't hurt, which is good because it hasn't started to decay yet. They X-Rayed it back in November, and nothing showed up, but because there was some weird feeling in it, my Dentist said they'd watch it closely.

The launch has been delayed until the middle of May due to damage to the rocket and some equipment on the launch platform that happened last Saturday when they went to erect the rocket.

A very large panel with electrical and gas connectors, similar to the umbilical on a U.S. launch vehicle, didn't line up properly, and when they raised the vehicle, the connector panel on the rocket and the mating connectors on the launch platform were damaged.

In order to assess the damage, the complete launch vehicle had to be transferred back to the command ship, and the payload assembly/third stage demated. Now we're hearing all the damaged parts will have to be sent back to the rocket manufacturing company in the Ukraine to be rebuilt and recertified for flight.

AND....one of the export managers quit yesterday, and when I went to to take the original letter from my Doctor to the outsourced HR person who only comes in once a week for 4 hours a day, I was told "They no longer work here".

Hmmmm....no HR anymore?

WITHOUT any announcement?

SO.....I took the letter to the gal who handles all the legal stuff and maintains the paper files for all employees, and find out that she's out until next week. The payroll lady has the next office over, and when I asked her about the HR person, she hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, and said "If you have any issues, talk to your direct (manager) first". Then I help up the letter, she turned red, and said I could leave it with her, and she'd give it to the legal gal next Wednesday.

I think I'll keep it and give it to the legal lady next Wednesday myself.

If we're open that long..........

GREAT Car Chase Scene

From a movie I've never heard of, "Short Time" starring Dabney Coleman.

"Honey Dew" weekend......

Well. since I was supposed to go in to work Saturday at 1800 for about 6 hours, and was called saying to stand down due to problems with the rocket, my sweet little wife decided sleeping in was too good for me!

She works for the local school district at a magnet high-school, and since they're off this week for spring break, she had scheduled a contractor to come in and refinish our kitchen cabinets.

Yes, I'm quite capable of doing this type of work, but she wants it finished in a week, and it would take me a month......OR MORE!

SO....we unloaded all the drawers, and I cleaned off the small table in the breakfast nook that I use for rebuilding stuff that's too big to handle here in Radio Central.

I then pulled the range hood out of the cabinetry it was stuffed into, as it's pretty old, crummy, beat up, and having electrical issues. Plus it was an almond color that doesn't match our stainless appliances, so we'll get a new one after the cabinets are refinished.

The contractor is coming Tuesday to pull the drawers and doors and start on the fixed cabinets. They'll have one crew back at their shop redo the things they take, while the "local" crew here will do all sorts of things to make the cabinets look nice.

No idea what's wrong with the launch vehicle other than it's more than minor, and all the activities I do are on hold until the issue(s) get resolved.

EARTHQUAKE!

Whew....just had a good one roll through here!

Pretty good vertical shaking, followed by some rolling motion, and what felt like an aftershock a minute or so later.

Can't get to the USGS site, so I don't know how big it was.....


5.3 out by San Bernardino

Lowered to 5.1, and centered near La Habra.

Read more here at the Press Telegram.....

*Slightly* Sad Today.....

Well, the launch vehicle transfer went smooth today, and since I had a ton of stuff to do, I stayed on the ship. About 1300 they started to move it back to the east side of the pier, and it struck me......

This was probably the last time I'll be on that ship when she moves under her own power.

Since she's tied down to the pier until she leaves Thursday morning, and I'm not going with her, I felt a twinge of sadness.

I've been out on 16 launches, and at a "nominal" 20 days per launch, that's 320 days at sea I spent on her.

Add up the two times we went on sea trials (10 days each), and the four missions that ran to 30 days due to weather, launch aborts, and other delays, and I've spent well over a year at sea on her.


Oh, well, life goes on.........

In The Home Stretch For "My Last Launch"

Been insanely busy the last week running checkouts on our various systems.

I was able to get one of the Linux PC's that runs the weather radar running again by using an external boot device to load a rescue disk in memory so we could run "fsck" on the hard disk and "repair" it. It had been improperly shut down several times, corrupting numerous files, and causing a kernel panic when it tried to load the OS.

And we also finished up 95% of the RF Link testing, and dropped the cable running between the two ships. We use a cable to tie the two systems together for pier testing as we're not allowed to radiate on the system frequencies while in port.

Tomorrow the Launch Vehicle gets transferred to the Platform, and on Saturday they roll out, erect the LV, and run a full-on dry (unfueled) countdown. If all goes well, they put her back in the hangar Sunday morning, and leave Monday morning. The bad thing about Saturday is the satellite people won't be ready to do their RF testing until 2200, so I'll go in about 1800 while there's still plenty of daylight, and train my "replacement" on how to aim some antennas we use, and where all the right knobs and buttons are that he'll have to adjust down at the launch site.

Oh, and I'm working up a whole list of things I just love about this job, and how terribly I'll miss them, but that'll have to wait until August to get published!

Obama and Putin Play Golf

And it turned out like this......

I wonder if he's thinking that Putin's a racist for making him carry Putin's clubs?

Pat Condell on "A Society of Cowards"

I don't always agree with what he says, and I don't subscribe to his religious "beliefs" (non-beliefs?), but he's usually spot on with his commentary.

This one is exceptionally good.

Saturday Morning Music

Really beat after all the running around I did all week at work.

So, while I'm gearing up to attack the Honey Dew list (I swear it gets bigger every day!), and checking my email, I've been listening to this.

I don't care for the man's politics, but he sure can perform.....

Been Pretty Nutso At Work

.......And I'm really bushed.

So, to borrow a phrase I see at other blogs...."Go read the good people on the side bar".

'Night!

Oh.....I Broke 200k Page Views.....

Not sure when it happened, but my stats indicate I'm at 201,xxx page views.

Thanks to everybody who drops by to read my drivel!

Russia Electronically Captures US Drone Over Crimea?

If this is true, we're in a serious world of hurt.....

Read all about it here on Breitbart.

Chumlee Is NOT Dead

One my wife's and my 'guilty pleasures' is watching Pawn Stars.

Besides the interesting items they have brought in, the characters in the show are, well, characters.

Sure, it's staged like most "reality" TV shows, but it's fun to watch.

WELL....my wife came running into Radio Central saying she'd read that Chumlee had passed away from a heat attack.

A quick check of Wikipedia shows he's fine, and now the first hit for "Pawn Stars" on Google is a story where he's Tweeting that he's still with us.

This is "news", while they still can't find MH370.......

It's Official.....I'm NOT going On This Launch

Well, my Doctor agrees with me. On the basis of the recent lab tests I had, and my description of the medical facilities we have at sea, and the time it would take to get me to a hospital, he has advised me to sit this one out.

My Triglycerides are way up since my last lab tests, and we're both wondering why. I gained back 6 of the 15 pounds I'd lost. so now I'm going to start keeping a log, and counting calories. My wife has an app on her smartphone called "Lose it", and I'll be installing that tonight.

Other than that, I'm OK......

Shooting Drones With Shotguns

All I have to say is it sure looks like fun!

Here's more on the Gnat R/C airplane used.

Tip 'o the hat to Survival Blog.......

The Weekend Already?

Oh, well....been pretty busy at work getting ready for the next launch.

The customer finished fueling the satellite today (UDMH) after spending Monday and Tuesday putting the oxidizer (NTO) into it. They take a one day break to clean all the equipment, and make sure the lines are purged.

While they were busy doing those tasks, we've been checking out our telemetry equipment, and some other radio links we use to allow the customer to command and monitor their satellite.

Next week things will really start rolling, as once they've completely fueled and checked out their bird, it will get "floated" from the fueling bay to the encapsulation bay where it will get tested again, and then "encapsulated" into the payload fairing, or "Nose Cone" for all the civvies out there. Then we do the final RF testing, and it gets rolled over to the ACS to get mated to the Launch Vehicle.

After some more testing, and a full-on live data flow from end-to-end going through NASA's TDRSS satellites, it gets transferred over to the Launch Platform.

After some more testing, it get rolled out, erected, and a full-on "dry" (unfueled) countdown takes place, usually a very long day. This is when we make our final adjustments, and the customer runs all their pre-flight tests. Except for fueling the Launch Vehicle, and running our RF systems at reduced power, this is the real thing. If anything goes wrong, it has to be fixed before we leave. Things usually go well, but it still winds up being a 12~14 hour day.

The last launch we did with this customer was a real Charlie Foxtrot, as they didn't follow the script we gave them, they took off for dinner without telling us ( ! ), and I wound up being there 18 hours. NOT a fun day!

If all goes well, the platform stands down for a day, and then sets off to the launch site. The command ship follows four days later, and for this one I'll be on the dock wishing them a "Bon Voyage".

I'll be a tiny bit sad not going on this, my "last" launch, but I don't want to take ANY chances with my health. If I were to have another cardiac episode, it would be a MINIMUM of 36 hours before I could be in a hospital, but more likely it would be 72+ hours. I've been on missions where we had some seriously sick people, and I know how long it takes to get somebody to a "Full Service" hospital.

No thanks, but I can do without that particular uncertainty!

Today's Lesson On Irony

From a friend......

Lessons on irony

These three statements tell you a lot about our government and our culture:

1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.  Funny how that works.

And another statement for consideration--

2. We constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. How come we never hear about welfare running out of money?  What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't.

Finally ...

3. The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever --- to 47 million people, as of the most recent figures available in 2013.

Meanwhile...

The National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals. "The stated reason for this policy is because "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."

Thus Ends Today's Lesson On Irony

RAIN!

And lots of it.

Haven't been on the PC much, as I *finally* got the new one I built a while back online as my daily driver, and had to transfer a ton of data from the old one to this one, and then verify everything transferred over correctly.

But holy smokes has it been raining here! We've gotten almost 3" of rain in the last couple of days, and it's pouring again.

The backyard looked like a swamp this morning, but it had pretty much drained out by 10am, but it's filling up again.

The first winter I lived here we got several inches in about 48 hours, and the "drainage" we have couldn't cope with it, and I was seriously considering heading out the Harbor Freight to get a pump. Hasn't been nearly as bad this year, and this last major line of rain should be through here tonight, and the showers will be tapering off through Sunday morning and afternoon.

Pebbles (the dog) heard her first thunder this afternoon, and jumped out of her bed running around to see what made the noise. The next boomer that rolled through startled her pretty good, so I calmed her down, and now she seems used to it.

Hope she'll be OK on July 4th......

"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......

How's YOUR State's Fiscal Health?

Interesting article about the fiscal health of the 50 states.

Happy Birthday, JMB!

Shamelessly swiped from Jeff over at The Poor Farm!

YUK! FLU!!! AND An Update On The New PC

Groan, was out for two days last week. Got really ill Tuesday night, and stayed in bed all day Wednesday. About all I could keep down was chicken soup and bread, and not much of that.

Stayed home Thursday as well, and still didn't fell 100% when I went back in on Friday, but not wanting to get a Doctor's "excuse" to stay out three days, I went back in. My wife says they've been sending home 3 or 4 students a day from the high school she works at, so something nasty is floating around out here on the Left Coast.

Anywhoo....here's a breakdown on the new PC I recently built. It's still not online as my Daily Driver as I have a whole bunch of files to transfer over, and I always run a new PC 24/7 for at least a week before I entrust my data to it.



When I decide to build a new PC, I start first by deciding which processor I want to use.

Since I do some video encoding on this PC, I went with an Intel Core i7-2700K "Sandy Bridge". I chose the Sandy Bridge over the later Ivy Bridge, as the Ivy Bridge units have a reputation for running hot due to Intel's decision to use a different Thermal Interface Material between the die ("chip") and the Heat Spreader (outside of the metal case), which results in a lot of heat being trapped in the die. Since heat will kill semiconductors, and I prefer reliability, I opted for the Sandy Bridge version.

Since the provided heatsink/fan with these Intel processors is widely regarded by the "hardware guys" community to majorly SUCK, I went with a ZALMAN CNPS8000B cooler. Zalman is another company I've very good results with.

 

This cooler has a solid copper baseplate to suck the heat out of the processor, four heatpipes to carry it up to the "fine fin" aluminum dissipator, and a 92mm slow turning fan that pumps a lot of air, and runs very quietly.

Next up is the motherboard. I've had excellent results using both GigaByte and ASUS motherboards, but this time I went with an ASUS P8Z77-V PRO motherboard.

This motherboard has more bells and whistles than I'll ever use, including a little WiFi module that's still in the wrapper in the box. Since I rewired the house a few years ago, and pulled a Cat6E Ethernet cable to every room, I see no reason to use wireless. Even though our wireless router is locked down about as tight as I can do it with the hardware provided by our ISP, I still don't care to use wireless when there's a network cable available.


For memory, I went with 16 GB of G.SKIL "RipJaws" DDR3 "X" series, which is another vendor I've had very good results with. I remember when 16 Gig was a good sized hard-disk, and now I'm running that much memory!

 

Hard disks are a pair of Western Digital "Performance" (formerly their "Black" series) 1 TB drives running as independent (NON RAID) drives.

  Since this is a Linux machine, I run an NVidia video card in it. The Intel Core i7 has built-in "High Definition" video, and this motherboard supports it with DVI, VGA, and HDMI video outputs, BUT I've never liked using onboard video, as it's usually a "Lowest Common Denominator" type of video solution, and from what I've read, the Linux support for the Intel video is fair to middlin' at best.

I'm not a gamer, so I don't need a video card with eleventy-zillion polygon renderings per nanosecond, so when I buy a card, I look for something in the $200 range with an NVidia chipset on it. Even "low end" video cards have astounding graphics capabilities these days compared to when I first started building PC's. The card I chose for this machine, an EVGA "02G-P4-2663-KR (whew!) has an NVidia GTX660 core, 2GB of special "GDDR5" video memory, and outputs for running up to FOUR monitors at once!

 

 

And, a new case to stuff it all into! I greatly prefer Lian Li all-aluminum computer cases, as they're extremely well made, very light, and all metal, which helps keep any computer generated RFI down to manageable levels.

HOWEVER, I also prefer the desk-top style of case, which is basically a flat box that I put my monitor on top of, which saves valuable real estate on my desk. These cases have been getting harder to find, leading me to build my last couple of PC's in a "Home Theater/Media Center" style case. BUT, these cases are now getting hard to find in a size that will accept a full-size ATX motherboard, and Newegg has been Out-of-Stock on my favorite Lian Li case for quite a while now.

SO, I went with a brand I'd only used one other time, Silverstone, and bought a model SST-GD08B aluminum and steel Home Theater case.

 

It's an "OK" case, but not made nearly as well as a Lian Li, Only the front panel is aluminum, with the rest being painted steel. And I'm not too sure hoe the paint is going to hold up compared to the hard-anodized aluminum of a Lian Li case.

It does have nice filters in it, and plenty of large (120mm) slow turning fans that move a lot of air, and are very quiet.

 

To power this guy up, I went with am EVGA "SuperNOVA" (I really hope it DOESN'T live up to it's name!) 1000 Watt power supply, with modular connectors for all the cables, This way, if you don't need six cables for hard-disks, you don't have to put up with all six being permanently attached to the supply; you just plug in the cables you need to power up what devices you have. Makes cable management inside the PC much simpler.

I've also had good results with EVGA video cards, so I thought I'd try one of their supplies, even though I usually buy PC Power and Cooling supplies.

And to finish this build, I loaded the latest version of OpenSUSE, 13.1, which really screams on this PC

 

 

Hopefully I'll get all my files transferred this week after the "burn in" test is complete, and then I'll be able to retire this PC, after 5 years of faithful service.

AAR on the Sunday "Fun Shoot"

Got together with 7 of my friends yesterday for a "Fun Shoot" at the local indoor range.

My former manager arranged it so she and her husband-to-be, along with some of their friends, could rent different guns to try, and get a little instruction from yours truly.

We went through The Four Rules before we went into the range, and I talked to each person about previous firearms experience. Some had shot before, and some hadn't, but all were looking forward to getting some range time.

All the classes I've had, and the classes I've helped teach, came in handy, because this was the first time *I* was the only "instructor" with the group.

We started with determining what their dominant eye/hand relationship was, I explained all the controls on the different pistols I had brought and my friends had rented, and then we worked on stance, sight picture, and proper grip.

After that, we hung some targets and proceeded to put holes in them!

Like a lot of beginners I've seen, most of them tended to lean back, rather than lean into, their firing position, and most of them weren't properly gripping their pistols.

So, after correcting their stance and grip, and explaining the sight picture to them again, the improvement was immediate.

They all went from being all over the target, to being solidly "in the rings", with percentage of "in the black" rising sharply.

A little more "fine tuning" and explanation, and all of the new shooters were 100% "in the black" at 25', and the experienced shooters were "8 ring or better".

One of the things I pointed out was that this was a perishable skill, and that if they bought handguns, they should try and make it to the range once a month, just to keep their motor skills from fading, and the stay "comfortable" with the operation of what ever firearm they bought.

We "tested" my Kimber 1911, My SIG P226, my S&W TRR-8 revolver, a couple of Glocks, and a Springfield XD.

Most people remarked about how "easy" it was to fire the XD, and how controllable it was. BUT...the XD was the only pistol in 9mm we had, while the rest were 38/357, 40S&W, or 45ACP, so I had to explain to them the differences in recoil caused by the cartridges having different weight bullets, and different muzzle velocities, resulting in different amounts of "Action-Reaction" caused by the bullets going down the barrel at different speeds. They pretty much "got it", but it occurred to me that it would be nice to have the same gun in different calibers so they could really get a feel for what just changing the cartridges does.

The only way I could show them that was to let them fire some "range ammo" in my revolver, Kimber, and Sig, and then switch to some factory loads I had with me.

The Kimber and Sig were significantly different between the range ammo and some Golden Sabers I had brought along, but the biggest difference (boom vs BOOM!) was between 38 Special range ammo, and full-load 357 Magnum I brought in my wife's revolver.

After that drill they began to understand that maybe it wasn't just the pistol that was so "controllable", and that the ammo used had quite an influence on how the pistol handled.

And then I brought out my good old Remington 870!

The range was pretty quiet, and the first round of Wolf 00 buck I let loose really woke things up.

Since we were there to help people decide on pistols for home defense, I figured it would be a Good Thing to bring along a serious home defense weapon, and explain it to people.

And yep, had plenty of stereotypes to put down, like the classic "You Don't Have To Aim A Shotgun" myth. They got to see that at 20', a shotgun still has a pretty tight pattern, and how just "pointing" it could easily result in a miss.

It was also the first time I'd fired it since I installed the "reflex" sight on it, and it few turns of the Adjusting screws to get it "on target", but the reflex sight was a great hit among those who elected to send a few rounds of 12ga downrange!

So all in all, we had a great time, I think I helped a few people, and I know I made a few friends, and people who will want some private instruction.

Another In House Dog Altercation......

Been an interesting few days......

Right before I was going to get cleaned up for a retirement party for a buddy of mine that I worked with at both Hughes Aircraft and DirecTV, or dogs had another tiff, and this time there was blood drawn.

The circumstances leading up to The Latest Confrontation have happened before. Our dogs just go berserk when the mailman walks up puts the mail in the slot. We've learned to get the inside door closed when the mail is due, +/- 30 minutes, or have them both outside. We have one of the dog beds in a corner of the living room, near the front window. It's a somewhat small area, and when the mailman cometh, they both try to get up to the window to bark at him. Well, the area is small enough that with both dogs in there at the same time, there's not much maneuvering room, they both want to use the little step stool to look out the window, and doggie tempers flare. The big dog has snapped at the smaller one several times, and while she yelps and backs off, as far as we know, he's never really chomped on her.

This time was different, and the small dog went after the big dog. She took a chunk out of one of his ears, clamped down on his left foreleg hard enough to break the skin and cause quite a bit of swelling, and bit him in several other places hard enough to draw blood. He had her by the scruff of the neck, and he really showed restraint because as big and string as he is, he really could have hurt her.

She has some fur missing by her collar, and a couple of small bite marks, but no major damage compared to what she inflicted on him.

The whole battle lasted about 5 minutes, with my poor wife holding on the the big dog, while screaming for me to come help. I grabbed a large glass of water, and that broke them apart and stopped the fight for about 500 milliseconds. I lunged for her collar and missed, and she went right back at the big one, and off I was to the kitchen for more water.

This time I hit them both in the face with it, and was able to grab the little one's collar, and drag her outside.

We spent the next fifteen minutes cleaning up the mess, both on the floor, and on the big dog, and treating his wounds as best we could. We wiped him off with peroxide, applied some triple antibiotic ointment, and got him cleaned up and calmed down, and gave him three 81mG "baby" aspirin. The animal rescue guy we got both of them from says he thinks she's getting old enough to want to challenge his Alpha status, and the dog trainer we took them to a few months back had warned us of the same thing, and that young females were more likely to challenge the other dog.

SO.........we kept them apart most of yesterday, alternating them between the one wire frame kennel I brought back in the house, and the little one was confined to the kennel for sleep last night. I had a private shooting party to tutor at the range today, so I was gone in the afternoon, but kept in touch with my wife, who said they had "made up" and were being civil to each other.

As of this evening, Swisher's (the big dog) wounds appeared to be healing OK, the swelling on his left foreleg has gone way down, and he's pretty much stopped limping and favoring that leg.

At least my poor wife isn't suffering (shakes, nausea, cold sweat) like she was the time the neighbor's dog and Swisher got into a confrontation, and I joked with her about this being her second time in "combat", and that she was handling it better.

I bought two of the "soft" muzzles to put on them while we're out of the house tomorrow, so hopefully if they get aggressive at each other while we're gone, they won't be able to do any damage to each other......

OOOOPS!

Well, I was going to write a post about the new PC I built for my Christmas present to myself, BUT...got home from work late, then had dinner, then the dogs mugged me to take them for a walk, then had some Radio Club biz to take care of, then my sister called........geez, hectic night!

It's a screamer, though. Intel i7 Quad Core, 16GB of memory, a pair of 2TB SATA 6GB/s hard drives, NVidia 660 graphics card, running the newest version of OpenSUSE, 13.1.

And everything worked out-of-the-box, after I finished installing the OS.

Linux sure has come a long ways!

Later......

Been Busy.....

Tinkering on the "new" car. So far I've changed the oil and filter after adding some Bardahl "Motor Flush" and running her on the highway for about 30 minutes, changed the transmission lube to Red Line Synthetic "MT-90", changed the differential lube to Red Line Synthetic 75W90 with 4 oz of Red Line friction modifier for limited-slip differentials, trouble shot and replaced the rear speakers (one had an open voice coil, and the other had broken wiring), troubleshot and got all the interior lights working (blown fuse; no shorts anywhere), troubleshot and got the power mirrors working (another blown fuse; no shorts), and gave her a really good bath. Scrubbed the rims twice to get most of the crud off, but they'll have to be pulled and individually detailed.

Now that she's clean, I found about half a dozen good sized stone chips that need to be touched up. NONE of the auto parts stores around here had Toyota paint code 040 "Super White" paint, so I ordered a couple of the little Dupli-Color paint "pens" to touch up the nicks.

Today I pulled the battery and cleaned out all the (very minor) corrosion that I found. Treated the metal with some rust encapsulator, primed it, and then painted it with the only can of the correct color paint I was able to find.

Installed a new battery of the correct size (the battery in there was about half the size of the correct one!) after the paint dried, and took the wife out for a late afternoon cruise.

Next week I'll get her smogged, and head to AAA to get the registration updated.

After that, I'm waiting on all the parts I've ordered to rebuild the front suspension. The passenger side boot/bellows on the steering rack is split and needs replacing, so as long as I have to tear it down that far to replace the boot, I'm also going to change both front struts and the top strut mounts, all the tie rod ends (inner and outer), and replace all the bushings with performance oriented "Poly" bushings. I'm also going to replace the rear shocks, but even though I ordered all the replacement bushings, I'll hold off on that a while.

Also received my new FUNCube Pro + dongle, so I'll be playing with that one and comparing it to the original FUNCube dongle I have.