The Old Home Fill 'er Up and Keep On Truckin' Cafe

I've had many things on my mind which I felt like posting about, and failed to post on any of them. I'm catching up here:

Throwdown: Haynes vs. Chilton

Ever been in your local auto parts store, looking at the various guides and wondering if they would be any help in your current project? Well, the answer is, gentle reader, no, they won't help a bit.

Of the two leading versions, Haynes and Chilton, I've found Haynes to have better technical content and diagrams. The Chilton guide is slightly better organized, but not so much so that it is superior to the Haynes guides. That being said, both suffer from a similar problem: they don't offer any useful advice for working on your vehicle.

What do I mean by that? After all, I have a '97 Ford Ranger, and the guide says Ford Ranger 1994-2000. It should include my truck right? Well, it does. But my truck is ten years old, with over 100k miles. The one in the book...just rolled off the assembly line. Haynes will tell you how to press out the ball caps on your old u-joints, and put the new ones in, but it doesn't tell you that if you try to press the old ones out with a C-clamp, all you will do is turn it into a parenthesis clamp...because at this point they are cold welded in place. (I eventually hit them with a hammer. A big hammer)

Pull A Part
So now I have a drive shaft with new u-joints. And a bent yoke. Because apparently hitting them with a big hammer is a Bad Idea (R). So I see an ad for a new place in town call Pull A Part. Ever done U-Pick Strawberries? Same idea with cars :)

The lot is on West 130th, just north of 480. You bring your own tools, and pay a buck for entrance to the lot. It took me a half an hour to find a Ranger that still had a drive shaft, but once I did, and got it out, I realized the real benefit. Cost of a drive shaft, with 30 day guarantee and entrance fee? $17. Beat that Auto-Zone.

And now for something completely different

Heh.



From the "Its About Damned Time" Department
Raked the lawn last night. Pulled up all of the leaves that had been there since, oh, say, November. And raking leaves in the dark is fun. I don't have to worry about sunburn...

Of course, now, instead of looking like an over-grown, leaf covered field, our lawn just looks like an overgrown field.

Went to see the Indians this afternoon (had loge tickets courtesy of stampinmak's employer). The game was great, breaking our losing streak (and the A's nine game win streak), the snow didn't bother me much, but something else did.

Cleveland's finest don't seem to be able to direct traffic worth a damned. If the morons had stood on the sidewalk and watched the lights do their job, traffic would have moved better. And the asshat who stopped in the middle of the intersection to pow-wow with the foot patrolman had just gotten the hell out of the way, that intersection would have cleared much quicker with a lower level of frustration for everyone involved.

I hate going downtown.

If I ever get to go to the moon, I think I'll range about a little farther than this.

Via StrangeMaps.

I really hate reality shows. None of them has managed to interest me, and most are completely repulsive. But last night, while channel surfing, stampinmak and I discovered Trace Atkins was still in the running on Celebrity Apprentice. I'm a fan of the big man (his cheesy music is great, and when he wants to, he can convey more emotion than almost any singer I know).

We watched as he was arranging entertainment for a charity event, and his synopsis his meeting with the band was spot on: "The time I had to spend with The Backstreet Boys was time of my life I will never get back."

That's right, the cartoon.

Before I get into this, I have to admit a bias though. I love to drive. I'm sorry, that's not quite right. I love to drive. To me the automobile is the penultimate symbol of freedom. I don't follow NASCAR at all because my idea of a good time isn't watching someone else drive, but I envy Dale Earnhardt, because he got to make a living driving a car real fast, right to the very end.

So it's probably no surprise that I liked this movie, being about a race car and all. What surprised me is that after watching it ten times since Saturday (the Son and Heir likes it too :) ) I still get goosebumps when Doc takes off down that dirt track, and I still tear up a little at the end. I know I'm a little sappy that way, but not usually after the second or third viewing.

And in case anyone's wondering, it works. If you turn right hard enough, you'll find yourself going left.

I found the solutions to my immediate PDF problems. It seems that you can invert the page order of a PDF when you print, and I have the option of printing to a PDF file, so that takes care of that.

As for collating, this company has a product which allows you to collate, and they offer a 14 day free trial. The trial version claims to watermark the resulting files, but I haven't seen that yet.

I need help. We have a nice form feed scanner here at work, but it only does one side. So if I feed a stack of documents through and scan side A, flip it over and do side B, I end up with two PDFs. Does anyone know of any utility that will collate the two documents, or do I have to do it by hand?

Thanks,
Indy

UPDATE:
This is even hairier than I remember. To use my current example, 32 pages are scanned, resulting in a PDF of the odd pages 1-31. Taking the whole stack and putting through the scanner to get the flip side gives me another PDF of the even pages 32-2. So I need to reverse the page order of the even numbered page file, then collate the two files.

This blows.

I've been a big fan of the Dresden Files for some time now, long before the short lived Sci-Fi series tanked (don't look at me, I loved that the series wasn't the books). And I really liked this book, while I was reading it. Now that I'm done, and looking back on it, I have some reservations.

One. Harry's getting better at his job(s). Now, this is to be expected, if he didn't grow, I might as well be reading children's books. But he's getting too good. Too clever. Too prepared. The bad guys don't seem as likely to bring him down as they were before. Before this book there was always the illusion that Harry might not be able to pull it off. Now given the serial nature of the Dresden Files, there's probably not any real danger of Harry not making it. But this time it didn't even seem hard.

Two. Loose ends were tied up too easily. Granted, this series has been acquiring loose ends much faster than it has been tying them up, what with a war between wizards and vampires, the shadow of a fallen angel taking residence in his head, a brother with unusual appetites and a mysterious career, a new apprentice, etc., but the major loose end tied itself up with only about a fraction of the conflict I felt it deserved.

Three. The bad guy(s) wasn't(weren't) good enough. I never really thought that they posed a serious threat to Harry or his allies. I'm not sure if it was the way the book was written, or an artifact of knowing the author won't kill off Harry, but I was looking for a better showing by the bad guys.

On the plus side, Marcone is back, and Gentleman Johnny always makes the story more interesting. And we learn a little about Mouse's heritage.

Up next: The Jamestown Experiment.

Took the Son and Heir to see the pediatric GI doc this morning for the follow-up on his endoscopy. The damage to his esophagus and small intestines looks minor, and should repair itself on its own in short order.

He's put on a pound since in the ten days since the procedure (and the start of a gluten free diet), and to look at him one can see he's filling out a bit.

stampinmak and I received prescriptions to get tested ourselves, as cases of celiac are often sub-clinic in presentation, but could present a higher risk for intestinal cancer down the road.

I think that's the pertinent information, including some I forgot to tell mak after we finished, so I'm sure to catch hell for that.

Apparently there's a total lunar eclipse tonight.

Last week, the Son and Heir was diagnosed with Celiac Sydrome. The incredibly simple version is that the way his digestive system reacts to wheat (gluten) prevents him from properly digesting the rest of his food. The end result is that he's lost a couple of pounds over the last four months or so. We're still in the process of getting test results back, but now that we know what has been causing his stomach issues, we can make sure he gets the foods he needs.

Yesterday must have been the day for the Dodge Charger. First, a post by gieves drew a response from me questioning the merit of referring to the new Charger as a muscle car. Later that night I saw one of Dodge's new "So you really want a..." commercial, in which the customer intimated that she wanted a more powerful engine. Dodge's answer? The new, more powerful Charger with a 3.5L V6...

Now, don't get me wrong, a modern 3.5L V6 has plenty of power, enough to get you so many speeding tickets you'll lose your license. In fact, our Nissan Altima has a 3.5. The question this raises though, is what was a car with a pedigree like the Charger doing with anything less than this in the first place? And if they don't pack an eight, can we stop referring to them as muscle cars?


The second commercial concerns something which I'm eminently unqualified to comment on. But I will anyway (hey, they let me vote too :)

I keep seeing (on some cable channels) advertisements from a feminine hygiene company concerning a 13 year old girl somewhere in Africa who could miss up to a week of school every month because of her menstrual cycle. This absence from school could cause her to fall behind, and eventually drop out. To quote CPT Koprowski: What the F*ck, over?

Are you telling me that throughout the entire history of this region no one figured out how to deal with this? I'm expected to believe that more primitive tribal women were able to stop working for a week because of their period? Or is this some self-righteous first world company trying to take more credit than is due them for their minor act of charity (the company in question, I think it might have been Cotex, donates products with every purchase you make)?

The trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie has been up for a while. Like most trailers it gives absolutely no insight into the plot of the movie, so there's no way to know how good it's going to be. That being said, the first bit of the trailer seems to have Indian fighting US Air Force guards, which, without a real good reason for it, will definitely spoil the rest of the movie for me.

And if it is good, I'll have an excuse to get this.

BHO (on tv): "I approve this message because we can't fix health care until we fix Washington."

Mak: "Yeah, neuter them all."

Has it been ten years already?

God, what a ride...

After perusing the results of the Super Duper Tuesday primaries, I decided to check out the sample ballots for Ohio's upcoming primary.  I was relieved to see that Thompson was still an option, at least on the sample ballot, so I won't need to request a write-in ballot to lodge my protest vote. 

I was dismayed to see that no one is running against Stephanie Tubbs Jones.  Now, I don't believe that any will actually beat her, especially anyone with an (R) after their name, but I also believe no politician should ever run uncontested.  In that spirit, I am announcing my write in candidacy for Ohio's 11th district.  I will, over the next few weeks, months, etc. outline my platform in this venue, mostly because its free and I'm on a budget.

So, while I wait for the donations to pour in, I'll outline the first plank of my platform: election reform.  Election fraud generally takes one of two forms: legal voters being prevented from voting, and illegal voters being allowed to vote.  My aim is to make both as difficult as possible, and punish transgressions in an unduly harsh manner.

To take the second case first, all voters must show ID.  It seems to me that possessing state issued ID is fundamental enough that no one is unduly burdened by having to acquire it in order to vote.  Any caught using fake ID to vote will have their fingernails pulled out or some-such, I'll figure the specifics out later. 

Additionally, poll workers will be trained to not sign in any voter until the voting booth into which said voter will enter is available.  I believe that this activity is what caused 12,000 extra votes to be cast in Cuyahoga County during the Nov 2006 elections: voters were signed in before booths were available and placed in a second line; that second line became long enough that the people at the sign-in desk had no control over it; and voters who had not signed in (yet) simply entered the second line leading to the voting booth.  It seems that a simple rope maze, a la the local bank, would help alleviate this type of traffic problem.

As for the first case (legal voters not being allowed to), cases of voter intimidation can be reported to the voter fraud hotline created by the Indy-Cimperman Voter Protection Act of 2009 (see, I'm already reaching across the aisle), and Mr. T will be dispatched to deal with the perpetrators post-haste.  Ok, I jest.  Things like calling voters with incorrect polling dates or locations, destruction of vehicles used to transport voters, etc, needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (wire fraud, vandalism), with modifications to the penalties for lawbreaking related to voter fraud.

In order to help make voting more accessible, and resistant to fraud, I would support moving federal elections from Tuesday to Monday (rural voters no longer need a full travel day to get to the polls), and making it a federal holiday.  Not to overburden November with holidays, I'd recommend moving it forward two weeks as well.

Because I don't believe in unfunded mandates, some federal monies would be made available to train poll workers better (and perhaps pay them more to attract some better ones). 

What I'm still struggling with, and thusly am turning to my throngs of supports for help, is what is to happen if a ward or precinct cannot match the number of votes to the number of signed in voters?  Obviously throwing out all of the votes penalizes those who voted correctly, whereas keeping extra votes would mean diluting the votes of those who voted correctly.  What should the success criteria be, and who should pay the penalty in the event of mismanagement?

3:10 to Yuma has been critiqued as the best western since "Unforgiven." I say bullcrap. 3:10 is the story Unforgiven wishes it was. And I say that with the utmost respect for Clint Eastwood. I grew up on spaghetti westerns, and still love The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

3:10 did one thing that no other movie has done for me in recent times: taken two well known actors and made them disappear. Batman and General Maximus were gone, and we saw a story about Ben, a truly bad man, Dan, a truly good one, and the effect one good man can have on one bad one.

At its heart, the movie is a story of redemption, but it was done so well that at no point did it become sappy or unbelievable. And the ending was gut-wrenching. The way it should be.

I'd write more, but I lack the ability to capture the depth of the story without giving away the plot. If you only see one western in your life, it aught to be 3:10 to Yuma.

Sitting at your desk, eyes fixed to the monitor, reach to your right, grab a jar of peanuts, and pour some into your left hand. Easy enough, right?

Try it again, just this time, have two glass bottles, one with peanuts, one with iced tea...

58%

I'm pretty sure that would be higher, but I don't actually own a gun (gonna have to fix that soon), and I have a self-destructive tendency to protect my family. Of course, the quiz doesn't reflect how much better Mak's chances are having me around :)