It didn’t take long before these two were going at it:
Every Cloud has a Silver Lining
I’m a big fan of the old adages suggesting we make the best out of a bad situation. Seems like that’s been a lifetime theme of mine. The lightning strike back in September certainly tested my patience in that regard, as I found ever more dead electronics for weeks following the strike. I finally got around to the main room sound system yesterday and as expected, much of it was toast, including the Sunfire Subwoofer – a $2k piece. But after getting a re-furb’d Outlaw 975 installed and the amps replaced with off-the-shelf spares it’s back up and running at lower power with the 2nd string amps, sans the sub – but not for long. A quick measuring tape exercise confirmed my hope that a new PSA S3611 dual-opposed 18″ monster boomer will fit under there:
It plays little brother to the V3611 I’ve been enjoying in the man cave for the past year. There’s no way that behemoth looks right anywhere upstairs, but the S3611 tucks in under that TV shelf quite nicely. I suspect it also out-performs the big boy downstairs somewhat, considering the uniquely customized corner placement in a smaller space.
Steelers Dominate!
Nobody, myself included, expected much from Pittsburgh this season. They sure don’t look like a team with lots of issues and distractions at this point. Wow – what a statement last night! Here’s all the highlights from the most-ever points scored by the home team at Heinz Field:
Red-Tailed Hunting Ground
There seems to be quite a few of these hawks here. I imagine they find plenty of food among the prairie dogs, smaller birds and other wild critters we have in abundance. Our own little finch flock gathers here around the bird feeders all year round, more so in the winter. It’s grown to a few dozen in attendance in recent years. This guy on the railing is just waiting for that poor little fella on the floor to make his move. The hawks and cats seem to get plenty of feathered food around here.
Puppy Play
She’s still too small to give Jax much trouble, but Annie didn’t take long to get started in on him. She was being lazy in the 2nd video after probably being overfed. I’ll try for some more puppy play in the days/weeks ahead. Pics of the new family member start on this Photo Page.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
The FDA Advisory Board chairman called for the drug to be rejected, but they approved it anyway. How does that work? The interesting thing to me is how the pharma companies keep re-making this same poison in ever more concentrated form. Therefore, as the excuse goes, it’s more tightly restricted. …Leading to guess what? Higher prices, of course. It’s getting more expensive to die of an accidental overdose.
Whodathunkit?
Introducing Anna Mae
Annie for short – a lab mix from Rezdog Rescue. She’s a bit shy with that pouty puppy look only cute puppies can have. My family might recognize the strong resemblance to a little pup named Annie from back in the 70’s at my boyhood home in Murdocksville, PA. This one is going to get a little bigger than the 1st Annie Shaffer.
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There was the expected tense few moments Saturday, including when Jax snapped at her for getting too close his biscuit. He teases the other pets with his morning biscuit to exert dominance by just carrying it around for hours, daring anyone to approach. Looks like he’ll be forced to actually eat them right away going forward. And of course Kiki had to get a swipe in at one point. Marshall, the big tomcat, couldn’t seem to care less. He’ll probably find more to worry about as she grows bigger, but it looks like Annie’s been well-accepted into the herd.
Mom 'n Boys
Look at the shyt-eatin’ grin on that dog boy:
Bye-Bye Bengals!
This late game comeback seemed improbable, but they did it. Shocker for Cincy. Looks like things are starting to click on offense. If only the defense can hold up…
Last of Summer
Had a nice crop of Petunias by the pond this year. They were about the only things that recovered well from the hailstorm. They’ll be gone soon. We came close to a hard freeze here last night – early in the season this year.
1st snow of the season came an hour after I took the shot above:
39° ambient ground temperature.
24 Nights
Most people who really know music agree Eric Clapton is one of the greatest guitarists of all time. I keep a healthy dose of his music on file, but ran across this gem for the 1st time only last week. It’s from a concert recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1990.
Torque Link II
After being outside and back on the road again it became clear the CTD’s rear springs were in need of another adjustment (3rd since new). My guess would be it got some improperly hardened Chinese rear leafs from one of their sweatshops lacking quality control. The fronts are fine, but the rears seemed to continue slowly sinking over the years. they will probably need replaced again at some point if I put some more miles on it. There is a good suspension shop I found in Denver where I can get better springs. In the meantime I thought I might get a couple more years out of the Skyjunkers by just putting in new U-bolts with 2½” blocks. This amplifies the high-torque axle-wrap issue, so on inspection I noticed the TorqueLinks didn’t look right and found half the rail bushings worn completely away in just under 10k miles. That explained the increasing noise level I noticed from them. They work great, but are noisy, heavy and obviously did not wear well. It makes little sense spending 4-5 hours rebuilding the rails if they won’t last more than 10k miles. So I ended up basically rebuilding the whole rear suspension and went back to the drawing board for a crack at TorqueLink-II.
The rear mounts only needed cut off and modded a bit to accept a bolt and re-finished. The main, 20lb portion of the bar(s) itself was scrapped in favor of 5lb. steel tubes, made possible by the new front link design. It is a simple slide joint made from an old shock mount, a 2x⅝ bolt and 3 big flat washers. After assembly it allows movement in any direction except forward. The shock bushing part has an inside radius to hold the bushing in place after being pressed in, so the slide fits through closely with static play in any direction. It should wear better over time because the link is not being constantly punished like the old design. It works like a slide hammer in reverse, moving around as needed with suspension flex, but stopping at torque-induced axle-wrap forward motion. A 1/4″-thick nylon washer in the 2003 Torquelink-III™ model provides the impact surface, mitigating any potential noise problem.
I put about 30 hours into the fabrication over a 9-day period, spending maybe $20 for a few bolts, washers and paint. The rest was all scrap metal I had onhand. Anyone seen bars like this before?
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The Big Tank
Time for another indoor aquatics update! The 190-gal main tank in the living room has fared quite well. In fact, the only real change it’s undergone apart from maintenance schedule adjustments is in the fish lineup. Most recently, we had a murder. But first, a little backstory leading up to it…
We got an Electric Blue Mbuna from one of Michelle’s friend’s about 4 years ago, IIRC. They were moving and could not keep him, so we gladly gave “Flipper” a new home. The only problem was he’s an African cichlid, and our tank has South American cichlids, so they are not exactly compatible. Exactly what that means and how it plays out depends on several different factors, but suffice it to say they just don’t like each other. The tank was lightly stocked and the cichlid population at the time including an Oscar and a Jack Dempsey were all nearly the same size range, so with little recourse I just watched to see how things progressed.
To make a long story even longer, The Oscar and Jack got too big and aggressive, so they were euthanized about a year ago. The Firemouth pair was busily spawning during that time, so there was alot of social unrest, but Flipper held his own throughout. The Firemouth parents also became large and aggressive towards everything else in the tank, so they eventually got the boot, as well. When the dust finally settled at the end of 2017, the fish lineup included 1 Chinese Algae Eater (oldest/original member of the group), 3 Figure-8 Puffers, 5 Pictus Cats, 1 smaller Firemouth of unknown lineage, 11 juvenile Firemouths and Flipper – a quite small load on this tank, with plenty of room for all, you would think. At ~5″ in length, Flipper is actually the biggest fish in the tank at this point and things seemed to have been quite peaceful lately.
But apparently he’s no match for 11 Firemouths less than half his size, because I’m pretty sure they killed him after finding his picked-clean skeleton on the bottom one morning last week. Must’ve been a frenzied gangland-style killing that night, cleaned up by the catfish, no doubt.
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Pond v5
The Backyard Pond Project came along well in the 5th year. We had a late start and early shutdown making for a short season this year. But all the problematic issues I’ve been working through over the past 5 years now appear to be solved. Late start was due to a protracted leak battle. The liner cracked badly in several spots at different times when subsidence stretched it a bit too hard. It’s been a slow process of basically reacting to settling ground and making repairs as it goes. It looks like it might be about ready to finish settling. Then a couple weeks ago I moved the fish inside, shut it down, drained and cleaned it early, expecting to get a preliminary layer of fiber-ed roof coating on before winter. That stuff takes 3 months to cure, so it will be coated again in January, and finished with 3 coats of truck bed liner prior to startup again in April 2018.
Filtration and associated water quality was the other niggling issue that finally got well sorted this year. Algae blooms came under control with the combination of barley straw and a UV sterilizer. The filter stack now consists of a super-efficient multi-layer setup of lava rock, coarse matala mat and finer polyester media that probably does a better job filtering the pond than the commercially built and sold units running on the aquariums inside. This was the first year the pond stayed crystal clear the whole time, right from the start. This pic, taken just before shutdown, shows a clear view to the bottom through 4 feet of water.
It will take another full cycle of the liner building process before attempting 365 operations. It’s starting to look like Pond v7 will be the finalized version. The 11 pics I kept from this year can bee seen at the top of this page.
More Nefarious Government Collusion
Conservative Modus Operandi: First you get control by stealing the election, then rush to implement as much of the agenda as possible, including diversionary tactics like re-scheduling a drug (but not it’s source), because some of this stuff is just so stupid you know another election win is totally out of the question.
A couple months ago, I posted a little quip about the end of the Marijuana Prohibition era. It’s truly un-deniable – it IS coming. Then you see stuff like this:
“In other words, rather than apply generally to all CBD-based products, the order applies to only those that have cleared FDA’s expensive and time-consuming approval process.”
So according to the DEA, Cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive, safe, highly effective and clinically proven compound occurring naturally in the Cannabis plant is still a dangerous drug with no medical application. Really? This is such total horseshit it almost defies comprehension. It benefits nothing and nobody except the drug companies and harms everyone without access, or who cannot afford it.
But comprehending the new DEA scheduling makes perfect sense. The collective conscious that is our government cares only about a few things. Near the top of that list is the monetary math supporting establishment and protection of wealthy political contributor’s unfair market advantage through (among other things) corrupt regulatory practices. The health and well-being of millions of citizens does not factor into that equation.
These pharmaceutical companies can profit from millions of people addicted to opiates, then get away with shyt like this. Our culture has already legalized Marijuana. The question is how long will it take for the laws to catch up. People need to stop promoting and buying the pharma garbage, starting with doctors who should be smart enough to know better.
Maybe enough of them are just too greedy to care as well.
Timbrens
I almost forgot to post this after being way too busy scrambling to get finished with the truck early last summer. Timbrens are basically big, compressible rubber bump stops. They work really well as helper springs for carrying heavy loads. The Skyjacker SoftRide springs make the truck’s ride bearable, but only just. It just rides like a softer buckboard. And cargo capacity was down, at least in terms of stability while handling heavier weights. The ass-end of this truck has numerous issues caused by my modifications making it squirrel-y under many conditions, exacerbated with higher power output. It could probably literally tear itself apart pushed hard under a heavy enough load. Dodge was testing the limits of light truck tech when they decided to put a Cummins in one of these things.
The first thing I decided to do when it came time to address the rear suspension (this time around) was upgrade the Timbren install. I adjusted the stops under them twice before along with the spring sag issue already. But it was a non-optimal process of basically rebuilding the part, so I designed a better, adjustable piece. Making the stops adjustable has 2 benefits and eliminates the Timbren’s only real drawback. They make the rear a little too bouncy sometimes with the stops positioned at the recommended 1/2″ clearance. It was only noticeable running empty on bad roads and speed bumps, so not that big a deal. Now I can leave a full inch of clearance and adjust them in for heavy hauling only when needed. And of course, any ride height issue from spring sag is easily compensated for now, as well.
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