One year ago today: August 26, 2025, yep, pure oxygen.
Five years ago today: August 26, 2021, 5:00AM near Orlando.
Nine years ago today: August 26, 2017, real estate comments.
Random years ago today: August 26, 2014, tea, book, and storm.
Good morning and remember all those horrible thing I said could happen one I got at that brake show? They did. Every bolt and piston was seized, every part was worn, the new parts came without necessary brackets, nothing fit right without a fight. In the end we got Howie’s “tractor factor”, which allows him to stand on the end of the lever, to finally loosen Polks most famous pair of nuts. Howie, who has worked on countless sucy repair vehicles, said he has never seen that, or the bent wrench. See, this blog is full of firsts.
It was as bad as I said. Forty minutes of sweltering grunt work to pry the old pieces off and remove the brake parts. Not the pads, the parts. There were no pads. At this point, we notice the piston was seized about 25% closed. Soaked in oil and squeezed with a 8” c-clamp and whacked with the orange deadblow seen here, would budge the thing. Then Howie hit on an idea. Why not install the bad parts back on the rotor and hit the brakes, letting hydraulics have a go. It worked.
By how, we are drenched in sweat and the mid-morning sun is about to attack. I had the forewisdom to park in the narrow space where would be shade the next day, so we carried on in the heat. We replaced everything finding it fought back also at that phase. Each nut and bolt had to be rachetted the full distance, poor Howie got stuck with all the heavy lifting. The rotor is totally scored, but I’ve driven with that halk my life without incident. Here’s she shoe worn down past the metal. That’s likely the source of the heat that got that piston.
This was the full brake job, including pumping the fluid. We did not use Elliott’s fancy brake tool. Just before noon I spun it around the block to find everything seated nicely and worked. Whew! There was a mild but perceptible better feel to the brakes. I think Howie just saved me $350 or $400. Now, I can get back up to speed, gawd I’m so behind, reminding everyone other items on the Hundy have been complaining lately.
It was a 1-1/2 quart of iced tea job, requiring about 30 different tools, cables, and products. Seven man-hours, if you count my time as sort of equivalent. I was able to avoid any direct strain across my chest, but across my back, that hurts already. I got the tools out of the yard, but not put away. You can forgive me for an extra nap in the middle of the day. It feels like I was pressing weights, is that a good sign?
Later, I figured I’d best sit down and think about these pains. I see a pattern. These are not heart troubles, in fact my heart has not given any difficulties. It is the rest of my parts giving me the old everything hursts behavior. I realize I’m getting the same signals as people around me ragged about—but I wrote that off because they all had something in common. Watching TV. How was I supposed to take the word of people who’d been watching pain and allergy commercials all their lives? Of course there is no cause-effect here, but there is a pattern. I better not get post-nasal drip or loose stools, because then I’ll really start pointing fingers.
Kilimanjaro.
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Remember the Tennessee coffee maker? It’s here since it quit working, and that caused by dunces who try to heat things other than water. So folks don’t go thinking I did nothing all afternoon, I took it apart because I liked the fancy switches. Boy was I wrong, for example, I thought they worked like an old percolator system. Heck no, there is a motor and a pump in there. I have to zip over to Winter Haven, stopping in Bartow, but I’ll get back to you on this. Consider this a test drive so it does not come off my 125 mileage limit to end of this month. Austerity rules.
This means the letters to Tennessee missed the post, so they will not go out until tomorrow, and may not arrive until Monday or Tuesday Two more collisions means I didn’t get into Winter Haven until 5:30PM. Wait, I have some good news. The lumber place gave me a sheet of thin plywood for free, the correct thickness for box panels. Sadly, for the first time in my retirement (in 1996 by the way), I had to put back groceries that were too expensive. The tag said $2.69 for four apples, the register said each. I don’t have $10 for apples. The clerk said, with apples, it has been happening all the time lately. I also canceled a transaction at a key-cutting machine. The machine charged tax but only accepted bills (or a credit card for you people who like data centers knowing what your house key looks like), and I don’t spend $7 for key.
I took the old coffee maker apart, and yes, there is a beautiful small water pump assembly, but that and none of the parts are recyclable. The motor is 24VDC and I have no such transformer. I’m a 5VDC man from the word go. The neighbor lady came over to chat while we worked on the tire. Turns out they know people in Haines City, where she was born. They missed being bought out when the secret teams of Disney people were circulating in Orlando. Her family lived on a ten-acre ranch near Davenport. Between them and Disney was a 240 acre ranch that would not sell. But she says, they got to watch the Disney fireworks for free.
Of course we talked a about Dolly Parton. I don’t know that much about her except she was one of 13 children raised with no electricity or running water. And she would have been a billionaire if she had not given away hundreds of millions. She had a soft spot for children that could not read. I guess I would have knownher better if she’d helped smart kids who, through no fault of their own, had to use that to stay alive instead of using that brainpower for good. Never assume if somebody was smart they would also be rich, it don’t work that way.
The Roman telescope is due to launch next Monday. Roman is just the name of the project leader, the unit will orbit the same distance as Earth but on the other side of the Sun. It uses some strange theories to work a telescope that could, in theory, find other planets like Earth. All exoplanets to date a found indirectly, by measuring the slight dimming of far-off stars as the planet orbits in front. If the pattern is regular, they can calculate the rest.
In the background, I’m watching a Japanese movie based on a math student hired to calculated the cost of a battleship. The “Great War of Archimedes” got my attention, and now so does the attention to detail. The model ships are the most accurate I’ve seen, also the uniforms, cars, and portrayal of Japanese character. I could not cut the plastic casing on the coffee pot, so I melted through it with a grinder. And got myself covered with tiny flecks of plastic that won’t wash off. Later, they do wash, after three showers. The movie continues, they actually reconstructed a railway carriage with authentic whistle sounds. Even the giant sushi they used to eat, not the mini-rolls of today.
The good news of the day is that all green card appointment interviews were canceled. First, all the immigrants were told their final interviews had to take place in their home countries and not on US soil. Ha, now that’s self-deportation the way it should be. Fifteen percent of the US population, 50 million people, have no right to be here. Out they go. Talk is that Trump, after his landslide in November, will ramp up deportations to 50,000 per day, including every immigrant who ever went on welfare, social security, Medicaid, or got food stamps, college, or stole anything from the US taxpayer. Immigrants who did that, including “legal” one, lied on their applications where you have to declare you are self-sufficient to even get here.
ADDENDUM
At the other extreme, a Democrat caught photocopying 64,000 votes for Biden faced no charges, she just got fired. So she is free to go do it again. Of course, this was up northeast. Where else? That’s where the bulk of America’s parasites reside. Wait, there is one other place I know of for sure.
Under the drip pad of the coffee maker. These photo, the best I have these days, show one end of the ribbed shell. It the size of a two pieces of cooked rice. Hey, warm, water source, intermittent food supply, I’m should be glad some third worlders didn’t show up with some Karens in tow demanding equality.
Did I just say “forewisdom”?
