11 Dec - Cold

-10°F this morning at home; NWS says -2°F, sign in town says -5°F. Cold enough for me. Got maybe 2" of snow yesterday, plus a lot of drifting. The roads kind of vanished for a bit as the blowing snow made it hard to see where they were and obliterated the tire tracks. Driveway isn't bad enough to worry about yet.

Matt got the Suburban finished yesterday afternoon. Went together easier then it came apart, mostly because he already had it figured out. After the owner replaced the bald tires last night it handles the snow very nicely.

Vger's temp gauge didn't get to 180°F until half way to town, and it has so many leaks that it never did warm up inside. Need to finish the engine on Stripez so Vger can be laid to rest and parted out.

Got the new cord on the heater.  What a pain that was.  And, it is only a 45,000 BTU heater (the other is 115,000 BTU), not nearly enough to keep the garage warm.  And I think I need to clean the nozzle or something on it, the flame isn't nearly as bright and there is a distinct smell of diesel exhaust; I ended up opening the garage door a couple of feet, the wind and snow were then blowing straight in the garage so I finally turned the thing off and just used my little sunflower; at least that doesn't smell and there's no wind and snow so I can warm my hands up momentarily.

10 Dec

Gas went to 1.699 yesterday.

Snowing to beat heck outside, 1"/hour.  Forecast 5-7 inches today.  And the snow plow tractor isn't done.  Ah well.

Economic news continues to get gloomier.  There are even rumors of layoffs at Blandin here in GR.  Since Blandin makes coated paper usually used for adverts and mags they typically see steady or increased business during economic downturns as businesses increase advertising, but with the rise of global e-business many companies are turning to the Internet to increase their visibility, and mags have been losing subscribers steadily over the last few years as more people use the internet.  Blandin's warehouses are reportedly full now, so they will need to cut back sharply soon.  Since they are one of the major employers in the county it will be a big blow here.  However, they still seem to be shipping paper since I still see the special train delivering clay and hauling away 5-8 boxcars of paper daily.  We'll see.

I'm still waiting to see the new Sherwin-Williams paint store close.  I was very surprised when they opened it last spring, back on a side road behind the new Super Wal-Mart.  I have never seen any other cars in its parking lot other than the two employees.  I have been in twice looking for paint products that they do not sell only to end up at my usual hardware store where they do sell the product I'm looking for.  I suppose that they are primarily aimed at the professional painting contractor rather than the homeowner or hobbyist, and maybe contractors will keep them open.  Our local ProBuild (formerly UBC) never has any vehicles in the parking lot, but rumor is that most contractors in the area use them and that is how they stay open.  They must give contractors a pretty deep discount if that is true; every time  I have priced them they have been nearly twice as expensive as any other source in the area.

Need to go get parts to fix a heater.  The heater we used while working on the Suburban needs to go back to its owner today; and the one that is to replace it needs a new power cord.  The ground prong was bent over and when I tried to straighten it the prong broke off.  Since we are working here with diesel and electricity I want it to be properly grounded when we plug it in.  Would have been easy to just put a new plug on the cord, but the cord is only 2" long to begin with and there just isn't room to cut it off and start over.

9 Dec

Gas in GR went to 1.729 sometime yesterday.

Changed oil in Vger and the Red Horizon on Sunday to Valvoline 5w-30. Vger barely started after the cold night and we had to jump-start the Horizon. Neither car has a block heater, not sure why I didn't get one installed on the Horizon while it was apart. I need to see about doing that soon. Vger has an oversized battery, but I don't know of a bigger one that will fit the Horizon, it needs a small, reversed terminal battery and doesn't have room for anything different.

Matt got the steering box out of the Suburban and removed the old pitman arm and put on the new one, just need to figure out how to torque it to 160 ft-lbs. Need a big vice on a big bench or something like that. The 115,000 btu heater makes a big difference in the garage. If I had $3-400 I'd get one.

8 Dec

Well, I think we can say that winter has really come in. Saturday night we officially hit -11° (although my thermometer showed -20°) and we got an honest 2" of snow on Sunday.

Roads are very icy this morning; as I followed the UPS semi (with doubles) into the round-about about 75 ft back at 10 mph and barely managed to keep from hitting him, the road was solid glare ice. Traffic on Hiway 2 that is normally 10%-15% over the speed limit was 10% below this morning.

Went to Bemidji on Saturday, good trip and lots of fun. Spent Saturday trying to help Matt work on the neighbor's '97 Suburban. The joint between the pitman and the drag link has a lot of slack, so we are replacing the pitman. Normally shouldn't be that hard of a job, except that in this case the pitman barely clears the front frame crossmember and so the steering box must be totally removed from the vehicle to R&R the pinion. We made it as far as getting the box loose, we just need to figure out how to snake it out of the hole now. Fortunatly we are working inside the neighbor's garage, so we are out of the snow and wind, but the garage isn't heated. We used my little "sunflower" yesterday, but that mostly just lets us warm our hands occasionally. I think we are going to have a 150,000 btu reddy-heater tonight which should make it easier.

It's Friday!! (again)

Well, it was only 7°F this morning, I'm disappointed that it didn't get below 0°F (just kidding). Snow is on radar, might get a couple of inches this afternoon thru tomorrow morning.

I've created a new page "New Slide Collection" to organize the new scans of the old slides.

4 Dec

Gas this morning is at 1.829.

Temp this morning is at 5°F with a light dusting of snow.  Forecast is -3° tonight, first below 0°F.

Pain level very high this morning; don't know how much longer I can sit at my desk; may need to go home and take some pain killers.

I have restarted scanning the slides, my new scans are much better than the old ones, so I will be replacing the old with the new.  I'm doing good to get between 5 and ten slides an evening; takes nearly 10 minutes to do each one.  These scans are approx 3000 x 2000, I will be posting approx 800 x 600 but originals can be emailed or made available for download upon request.  Here's a sample:

The filename is 19790632-M-LoneCypress.jpg.  Format is YearMonthNumber-size-Info; in this case the date and sequence number printed on the slide indicate that it was developed June of 1979 slide number 32, Medium size (could be Original or Small) and I happen to know that this is the Lone Cypress.  Info may include what is written on the slide or the names of the people or place pictured when I know it.

December already

Yup, today is December First, or in Xanth, Dismember First. Or, maybe, Disremember First.

Gas yesterday 11/30 in Bemidji was 1.719, in GR it is still 1.899.

Some days I don't know why I bother looking at the news. Officials found 9 headless bodies in Tijauna Sunday. Over 4000 people have died in drug related violence this year in Mexico. A seige of Mumbai, India left 172 people dead over three days last week. A temp worker at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream NY was killed as Black Friday crowds blew down the doors at the 5AM opening. GM owned Saab and Ford owned Volvo are having financial problems and Ford and GM are asking the Swedish government for help. Chinese manufacturing orders dropped sharply last month. Black Friday sales figures appear to be down from last years. Since Black Friday can be 10% of a stores annual sales, and sales are already down this year, most retailers books aren't going to make it into the black. Japanese factory output is down.

Sunday while in Bemidji I noticed that I was approaching an odometer milestone, so I tried to photograph it. Almost succeeded; I was on a quiet stretch of road, getting into position, when three cars suddenly came up behind me, so the picture ended up being really poor, but here it is, Vger hitting 222,222.2 miles at 22 mph:

If only I'd been an hour earlier it would have been even better.

Pretty nice weather so far this winter. No snow to speak of yet, we haven't been below 0°F yet.

Codex Alera: Princeps Fury arrived in Friday's mail. Wow. Jim Butcher has outdone himself. In the penultimate book of the series he has opened up many more questions. He answered the question of Invidia Aquitane with a question. He answered the question of Attis Aquitane with a question. He answered the question of Raucus Antillus with a question. He answered the question of Kalarus Brencis Minoris with an final answer (I think).