My site is becoming a cobweb site. If you’ve never heard the term before, I’m not suprised. It was a short lived term to describe a site which is static, eternally under construction, and never updated, possibly for years at a time. It’s a shame the phrase never caught on. In my opinion, it’s fairly clever. Maybe people are just averse to spiders.

Anyway, I haven’t posted in a while. I think it’s because All I’m doing right now is the same thing everyone else is doing. I work. I eat. I sleep. I take ocasional bathroom breaks. That’s pretty much it. I’ve been out in the garden a lot. I’m expect to be done with the spring effort by the end of the day today. Do people really want to read about that?

Actually, that is something I have thought about. What do people want to read? Initially, I started posting reviews of movies. I consider myself an expert critic. Also, I have a strong appreciation for good movies and TV. It made perfect sense for me to review movies. The only problem is, who wants to read my movie reviews? At one point, I started reviewing resturaunts too. It only seemed proper because I like to eat too.

Unfortunately, the situation became untennable. I exhausted the cheaper dining options. I really didn’t want to see terrible or uninteresting seeming movies just so I would have something to review. Lastly, it took so much time that it felt more like a job then a hobby. Since it didn’t pay like a real job, and to the contrary, cost a significant sum, I stopped.

Well, I stopped my reviews after I had my website, domain, etc. So, what could I do with it now? Well, it became very blog-like. In fact, it became so blog-like that I installed Wordpress blogging software on my site to make posting easier. There was still no income, but at least I wasn’t using notepad anymore.

Once I lost the primary focus, I started posting all sorts of stuff. I could write about any and everything I wanted. Unfortunately, the second factor came in. Readers. I had none. OK, really, I had less than 10, and probably less than 5. Most of what I wrote was informal, so it really didn’t bother me that much. I still had viewers of my site because they came for the pictures of my daughter. Unfortunately, the effort to post a hundred pictures every month is a pain. I have to rotate them, filter them, and then take up all available bandwidth for hours just to get them to the server. After that, I have to load them onto the picure site and post a link to them. All said, I probably was devoting a couple hours a month just to get pictures on the web.

Then, I had a couple server/ISP failures. Despite the fact that my ISP said everything was totally restored, it was broken. Fixing it myself resulted in the loss of the online precense of my “acessory” photos like the car  shows, travel, etc. Sure, I could re-upload, but how long would that take? Thousands of photos would take days of network bandwidth. The final technological blow came when my ISP initiated a forced relocation to another server to “improve” things. I tried it a couple times myself, given the past history I had with them. It didn’t work. Eventually, they said they were going to do it if I didn’t. I let them. Surprisingly, they did it acceptably.

What does all this mean? Well, like most of my posts… not much. I want people to read what I write. I’m sure it would motivate me to write more. If they’re not going to read it, though, I don’t want to pay a decent amount of money. That is especially true if I don’t post. There are plenty of free blog servers out there. Also, there are also picture servers out there. At this point, all I wouldn’t want to move is my e-mail. It would be a pain to figure out all the various things that have my therhodeislandreview.com e-mail addresses. I think I may start a potential move. I’ll have to look around and see what’s out there for photo storage. After all, I have a new baby on the way. 2.5 years of Laura’s life resulted in 4000+ photos. I’m sure the second kid will be less, but maybe not. The other advantage to going the free blog route is that I could break up my diferent sites into themed sites.

Will I do it? I don’t know. Probably. Maybe not. I’ll post a follow-up here if I do. I just don’t think I want to pay for this site anymore. It seems like a waste of financial resources. That’s especially true if I don’t post. So, enjoy this Memorial Day post. I’m going for a run.

I saw this posted on the Cadillac & LaSalle forum, but it deserves a post from me too. I knew this stuff existed, but I had no idea it was so advanced. Apparently, you can get a 3-D scanner for about $3k. They didn’t say how much the printer is, but it is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Give the video a watch if you want to see the next big thing in making stuff. After this, matter converters can only be a short time away.

I’ve never been one to part with things lightly. It’s the Yankee Thrift in me. If it were up to me, I would never replace anything until it was no longer functioning and beyond repair. Sadly, I have become somewhat of a pawn of industry. It’s hard to fight the giant, inexpensive TVs, even though my 16-year-old 13″ TV still functions with a converter box. Besides, it has become like an old friend. I’ve been with my TV longer than I’ve been with my wife. How do you give up on that kind of friendship?

I’ve also got my old stereo which I got when I was still in high school. Should I get rid of that just because I haven’t used it in almost a decade and I never even hooked it up when we bought our house? And my scanner… Just because I have a new all-in-one device that replaces my printer and scanner in a better, smaller package, should I dump that? You never know when an aspiring comic artist is going to need a scanner.

Well, whatever I have to do to force myself to get rid of this stuff is what I have to do. I can’t afford the space. Although, as I write this, I’m considering keeping the stereo receiver for the garage and the TV would fit just perfectly on top of that. All I would have to do is get rid of Erin’s mini-stereo that I rescued from the junk pile. Can you believe she was going to get rid of it just because you have to shove the CD tray closed while repeatedly hitting play to get it to work???

UPDATE: As funny-but-not-joking as I am being in this post, I just found the remote for a TV that died about 4 years ago. It was covered with tape because the battery door broke. I can’t even fathom why I wanted to keep that.

If I were smart, I would be productive. There are those dishes from dinner that I left until tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to wake my daughter and/or wife. I could clean the office, but my eyes are so tired that I don’t want to turn on the light. I could go work in the garage since it’s not that bright in there, but it’s too cold out there. I could do anything worthwhile, but that would rob me of my opportunity to make excuses.

Really, I just want to sleep. I was watching TV and dozed off at 9:30, but I woke up. When I turned the TV off, my brain turned on. I really need to go to bed, but I can just feel that I will be staring at the ceiling for a while. Maybe I’ll just go have some warm milk. Yeah, right. Who ever decided to drink warm milk in the first place? Alhough, come to think about it, milk comes out warm. I guess the real question should be, who ever decided to drink cold milk in the first place? Enough about milk.

I bought a bucket today at Home Depot. I had a couple bags of sand in my truck bed which split open. Instead of waiting until I got home to fill the bucket, I did it in the parking lot at work. I was very careful to take corners slowly so the bucket wouldn’t fall over. Careful, that is, until I got to my driveway. The bucket dumped out in the bed. Fortunately, I have a 2-year-old and a small orange beach shovel. She was working too slowly, so I decided to help by scooping up handfuls and dumping them into the bucket. I didn’t consider two things. First, leaning over the tailgate of the truck puts my face about a foot away from the top of the bucket. Second, Laura was very meticulously scooping up a shovel-full, dumping it in the bucket and packing it down. Sadly, when a 2-year-old packs the sand down, she apparently throws a bit of sand back up with each pat. She got me square in the right eye. I couldn’t close my eye, but I couldn’t keep it open. I couldn’t get it out because I had sand all over my hands from helping. All I could do was pull my phone out and call Erin to get her to come out of the house so I could blindly stumble my way to the bathroom sink and mirror. My eye still hurts. It’s all scratched and irritated. Considering how much different stuff I do which could result in crap in my eyes, I should really consider investing in an eye wash. I can’t imagine they’re too expensive.

In still other news, I am almost done hooking up the air compressor in my garage. I managed to misplace the 90 degree elbows I had bought, so I got one of those today too. All I have to do is cut a couple pieces of PVC and wire up the outlet. Except, that will only get me to the stage where I can plug in the compressor. I started looking at what I need to actually use the compressor. Small compressors come in a nice little plug-and-play package. You get the compressor, regulator, shut-off, usually some hose and some beginner-level tools. With a big compressor, you get a big compressor. I briefly looked into what I needed today. I got a good deal for the compressor when I bought it. What I didn’t realize is that I am probably going to have to go out and spend another $50 to $100 just to get it minimally working. That doesn’t even could what I would have to do to get it set up optimally with multiple drops, hard lines, filters, and other miscellaneous parts and pieces. It will be nice when I have it working, but it looks like it will be a while still.

It sucks because I am going to have to get started on my list of nice-weather projects soon. I may forget about my annual maple tree pruning. The power company already did a minor pruning. Actually, that made me feel good to see that professional tree pruners couldn’t find much to do when pruning my tree.  It means I must have done something right when pruning. I already did the fruit trees. I should probably thin the blueberry bushes. I know I should thin the raspberries. I also need to put in the other grape vine post and prune the vine too. I have to finish my office closet desk project. That literally just needs to be finished. After that, I have two major indoor projects. I am going to install wood floors in the last carpeted bedroom. Also, I need to do a partial renovation in the main bathroom. I just decided that I am going to do whatever I can to bring some natural light into that bathroom. I know it meets code, but having a bathroom which is central to the house with no windows is just idiotic. Right now, I’m thinking a solar tube is the bare minimum. I may also revisit the idea of installing glass blocks up near the ceiling. That would let light in from the master bathroom while being unobtrusive and still isolating sights and smells to their origination point. I have to investigate their sound insulation qualities though.

Well, according to my word counter, this is already approaching 1000 words. Also, it’s 11:30 so I should probably give sleep another try. I just hope I don’t wake up at 5 like I have every other morning for the past week. Stupid daylight savings time. I guess one good thing is that it’s almost spring. I saw a blooming dandelion yesterday. So what if its an annoying weed and it was sprouting between a joint of some curbing along side a parking lot. It’s still spring-like, damnit!

OK, so I didn’t realize it had been getting close to a year since I last posted anything related to my car. I also didn’t realize how long it had been since I actually did anything on my car. I had the whole chaos of changing jobs last summer. Also, there was the hit on the finances associated with that chaos. Then, of course, there was the Holiday season which is made all the busier by throwing in all of our birthdays. Well, now it’s time to get back to work.

So, since my last car-specific post, I have done a bit of work. I have pretty much stripped the block of all of its accessory pieces and removed the heads. I wanted to get an idea of the internal state of the cylinders. To my inexperienced eye, they look pretty good. There is a bit of carbon coating everything, but there is no rust, no apparent ridge and no evidence of detonation happening. I e-mailed a machine shop asking for a rough idea of price for the machine work for the engine parts. The sales guy called me back and told me the heads would be about $500 for a thermal clean, shot peen, pressure test, magnaflux, and surfacing. Considering the heads are just a hollow block of cast iron, it’s fairly pricey. For $600 or so, I could get some premium aluminum Cyclone heads that would look killer, although not original. Hmm…

Anyway, one of the big things I have been doing is scoring parts that I am going to need for the eventual restoration. I now have the original water pump plus a replacement. I have an original Stromberg AAV-25 in need of a rebuild. I got a new set of radiator shutters and some random bits and pieces. One of my most successful acquisitions was a radio. It is in much worse condition than the one in my car, but it is complete. Having this radio means two things. Most importantly, I now have an original replacement cover that I can use for my radio. Secondarily, I have a case that I can play with to try to create a modern radio inside the original case which is powered and controlled with the original connections. That should be a fun project.

My pile of parts ready for restoration/repair is getting a little large. One of the big things holding me back is the fact that I still don’t have my compressor hooked up. Just yesterday, I finally got the circut breaker hooked up. I still have to pull the wire down to the spot I mount the 220 V outlet. Once I get that done, I can go buy all the parts and pieces I need to hook up my pressure blaster. That’s where the fun begins.

I’m not sure what I should tackle first. One thing I need to do for my car is recast the steering wheel. A while back, I got a ‘37 wheel with the rim in good condition. I figured I could recast my wheel by creating a mould from the good wheel. A little epoxy should give me a nice shinny new wheel. Except, I have never done anything like this before. I was a little hesitant that I would screw up my good wheel core trying to cast the new part. As such, I managed to get a spare ‘38 steering wheel core in good condition which I can use as practice. If it works well, then I can sell the new recast wheel for a hefty profit. If not, I sell it for what I paid for it. Either way, I can’t loose.

Well, that’s all I have for now. Hopefully I won’t be writing my next car post a year from now. I would like to start with some more regular work. Maybe, now that Laura is getting old enough to help, I can start getting her into car restoration and repair. Little girls like that sort of stuf, right?

Oh, one other thing. Here is the gallery link to the photos since my last post: http://www.therhodeislandreview.com/?page_id=260&g2_itemId=13258

I have an RSS feed for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission – Recall feed. I regularly see recalls like this:

Candles Recalled Due to Fire Hazard

Seriously, do people not know that lit candles are firehazards, in and of themselves? Isn’t it obvious to everyone that fire is hot?

I saw this video, and agree wholeheartedly. This guy says that if the government does nothing, there will be terrible recession, but this stimulus will lead to “unmitigated disaster.” Summarizing, he feels that the fundamental problem is that Americans spent, through credit, money they didn’t have which overinflated the economy. Now, they can’t afford to continue this so the federal government, through stimulus, is trying to keep up the spending. The only possible outcome from this is prolonged massive inflation and economic collapse.

Quite an interesting set of ideas. I feel this way, but I rarely encounter people who have such a clear understanding of common sense. People overspending is bad. The government overspending is worse. Think about the people you’ve known throughout your lives who made a reasonable amount of money, but always seemed to live beyond their means. They live paycheck to paycheck at best; live by the credit card at worst. The total and absolute certainty with people like this, is is that their house of cards will fall.

Sure, having a nice car, fancy toys and every meaningless distraction of life is fun. If you’re lucky, you may even make it through the low times unscathed, only to come out the other side more set in your ways. But really, should our government live like that? Is that what we’ve become? We have gone from declaring our independence from an overbearing king to getting our treasury bills cashed at a liquor store. Yeah, US!

New gallery of Laura. All sorts of stuff made it into this gallery. There are pictures of Halloween, our trip to NC, Laura’s B-day, Xmas and some winter fun. Also included are some pictures of Laura’s newest cousin, Jameson. Right Jim? With an ‘e’?

http://www.therhodeislandreview.com/?page_id=229&g2_itemId=11645

Lately, I just feel wiped out. I could go for a nice long hot shower and a nap… 24 hours a day. The problem is that I can’t afford to take time off at work or at home. I have tons of things to get done at work before the contract runs out in May. I also have tons of projects, big and small, to finish (and start, in some cases). I really need a month of time where I can just do stuff around the house followed by a month vacation followed by another month doing stuff around the house. Good luck to me.

Erin and Laura are sick. Laura came down with a dry hacking cough on Sunday morning, which progressed like a cold in reverse. Monday evening she ran a fever, which has persisted. Last night was a little concerning. Erin had her in the shower and she started saying her neck hurt over and over again, and she started crying. Last night she threw up, and this morning she dry-heaved some stomach juices while waiting for her jello breakfast. I called her pediatrician and relayed the symptoms. When I added the symptom of, “My neck hurts,” the Dr. said, “Well it’s not bacterial menengitus because she would be dead right now.”

I am not often stunned into silence, but my words failed me. I had no idea that menengitus transitioned from sore neck to death in 12 hours. Of course, now that I know, I will probably run her to the ER any time her neck hurts everafter.

I stayed home with Laura yesterday because Erin was almost out of sick time. Today was supposed to be Erin’s half day, but now she is out cold from sickness herself. Hopefully, my superhuman immune system will keep me healthy. Sadly, though, even though my symptoms are shorter and less severe, I seem to get sick far more frequently now that I have a little petri dish, err…, I mean child.