April 24, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 24, 2025, analemmatic.
Five years ago today: April 24, 2021, dragons & superstitions.
Nine years ago today: April 24, 2017, 67 miles long.
Random years ago today: April 24, 2009, I lived in Inuvik.

           End of the first quarter, the 13th week of recovery. Lots of hope and disappointment, and now a broken van. Hey, I’m the one who drives used vehicles and calls these breakdowns an adventure. We know from experience the KIA transmission is a “closed” unit, claimed to last a lifetime—of the transmission, not the whole automobile. In that sense, toilet paper can vouch the same.

           A big breakfast, not knowing what this day will bring. I may need to hunt up a second driver, or hit the neighbor for a lift, as that church parking lot is closer to two miles away. Twice what I estimated and well beyond walking distance. First, we go on-line for some more information, crappy as that may be. Aha, there are other videos other than official KIA that show a fill plug directly on the transmission sump pan. Hmmm, how to get at it? And it is behind a plastic housing that runs the whole width of the vehicle.
           Now is the time to make an extra coffee and think things through. Here are, in any order, some questions I asked and a sampling of my answers.

Why won’t the van move? Because there appears to be no transmission fluid.
Do I need the KIA dealership? Not right now, I just need the van back here.
Are there any pressing commitments? Nope, just the checkup in Miami.
Will the “Hy” make it to Miami? Easily, it’s only 400 miles and it would make Tennessee.
How important is the correct fluid? For a couple hundred miles, probably no difference.
Is there any fluid around here? Yes, I just have to dig it out.
How long could I use the Hy? Months or more, but not a good idea.
What does the Hy need for now? A decent battery.
If I don’t tow the KIA, how much money do I have on me? $136.

           Driving back to the church, I assessed the situation in bright daylight. That shroud has to come off, around a dozen plastic screws. I can see the fluid fill plug and it appears to be undamaged, however the nut is at least an inch, meaning I have to dig out my big monkey wrench that has not been touched in years. This activity will place me right in the hottest part of the day, probably 90°F. Last week I wisely picked up an extra carton of ginger ale and it will be ice cold about the same time.
           That is the fill plug, I cannot see or find the drain plug. By the pattern of leak, I suspect something in the general area it must be located. The encouraging news is that is at the opposite end of the machinery from where the axle problem was last year. Let’s get back home while I make some plans to avoid spending a thousand bucks over this, or JZ would be laughing.
           To keep myself clear on the plan, I want to see if filling the transmission plan with generic brand [fluid] will get me home. I will not look for the presumed leak at this time, as I know it is slow enough to drive a few miles.

Picture of the day.
Hawkeye Valley, N. Dakota.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           Okay, it is 2:00PM and at least not humid, in fact this township has been declared the middle of a drought. That fill plug is less than 3 inches above the pan bottom, meaning they expect to use a pump to get any fluid through there. Instead, I rigged up this gizmo from surplus hoses, which I cleaned by using a dowel to push through a wad of hospital gauze, which I also have in surplus. That’s my kitchen funnel and the hose is flexible enough, iin theory), to feed down past the battery bracket and into the fill hole, again, guesswork. Either way, the equipment gets transported in a super-handy wooden crate, which you can admire here.

           Two hours later, we are back here. I got most of the shroud off. It was held by those nylon screws, which had been removed once already so many were stripped. I also found somebody’s socket fell in there. The, the last screw had both the threads and the head stripped. The plastic is too tough to kick out of the way. After wrestling with it, I came back for some cutting tools. I won’t get this before dark. Yet, for what it took today so far, I’m most happy with the amount of work.

           This would be at the low end [of a day’s work around here], yet [it is] at least what I’d get done on a lazy day. As the saying goes, you will die on an ordinary day with many unfinished projects, and the next day the world just carries on. The shroud is covered in what looks like fairly fresh transmission oil. My hopes are up that we are dealing only with some kind of slow leak. Nothing looks damaged. I’m trying to locate that drain bolt—it may not have been tightened, that would be the best-case scenario here.
           Two hours later, 6:00PM, I called it quits. That last bolt cannot be removed by a wrench. It’s cut either the plastic or the bolt and I don’t have the right equipment along. However, the church lot is mostly empty except for a construction crew working on an annex. So my van blends right in. Tomorrow it is, I’ll take the sawzall with a metal-cutting blade, and the Yeti. I’ll probably fix the problem no matter what, you do know that starting in 2027, your new car will record your face.

           Let’s do the news and more coffee. A big game hunter got trampled by a herd of elephants. This repair has me driving through parts of town first time in years. That property over on Parker, the one I loved but could not possibly afford? You should see it now. Totally restored, including the brickwork. Probably a half-million in materials and it looks it. Iran says its supreme leader, the Ayatollah, is in hiding because of occult threats. The goblins, maybe? What is with all the science people suddenly dying and suiciding? Nothing funny going on, today was a NASA engineer in a Tesla, again, beyond recognition.
           Pressure mounts to ban VPNs, which spells the end of the Internet as we knew it. That turns it into just another government-regulated media. It says here GenX women expect to find mates who are 25% more attractive and successful than they are. (I called it 25 years ago as “dating clubs”.) In the latest climate change claim, the oceans are getting “darker”. Bank of America sees silver topping $300 next year. The US has reinstated the firing squad for certain Federal offenses. I never knew it had been stopped.

           Next, I read several accounts of successful inventors. Once again I was jolted by the preponderance of astonishing good luck in their stories. They seem to meet people who believe in their inventions, where I have never met much other than naysayers. Yes, I get encouragement, but this others, they seem to meet engineers, scientists, and factory owners riding in the same rail cars. Kalashnikov, the AK-47 guy, gets thrown in detention and still manages to meet higher-ups at the design bureau.

ADDENDUM
           Feeling untired, I studied. For the nth time, I went over the flip-flop, a circuit that has intrigued me for years. It’s simple and easy to understand, but I’ve never built one that works. It is simply a wiring configuration that allows electricity to “remember” if it was last turned off or on. There’s more to it, sure, such as the need for separate on and off switches, but super-kudos to the people who saw this and realized the potential.
           I was thrown for years on the theory, but I know the gates worked. What stalled me was lazy teachers. They showed the two diagrams of the before and after states. They did not explain there is a third state. Electricity is fast, but it is not instant. For a tiny moment, there is a change of current, and this alters the inputs in a memory circuit. And it fascinates me to see this happen. This, however, has meant I’ve not really studied other types of latches. (Latch simply means once an output is set, turning the input off and on does nothing. You need a separate signal to unlatch.)
           With one exception. I have looked at registers, and one byte of memory is, the way I visualize it, a single 8-bit register. Thus, I’ve at least “read” the logic diagrams of the input for a register. It is called a D-Latch, I suppose D for data. It’s a series of gates that make sure whatever is input is output without any hysteresis, but that is a separate topic. I have never put the two together in my head. I think I can now. It’s my heart getting old, not my brain.
           And I have a small box of these registers somewhere, because I once hooked so many together they slowed down enough to see each digit. I know I must have recorded it, but where? When? What file name?

Last Laugh