The Useful Duck!

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Sunday, January 22, 2017

Some rambling thoughts

I find Sunday evenings kind of depressing. Monday I got to work.
Today I was not feeling particularly well. I kept waking up covered in sweat during the night and I was sure I was coming down with something this morning. I went back to bed.
We were looking forward to a church potluck today but we all went back to bed. I stuck my head out at 8 a.m. and the family was sleeping in the living room so I retreated to the bedroom.
My supervisor has been sick for a week. (You may have noticed the groundskeeper sledding video from the previous post)
I do not want to get sick. I plan on using my personal time to plant or make hay.
I would have probably spent the day in bed but,
I had forgotten that my nephew wanted to buy our car.
I can't really afford three vehicles anymore and we decided if someone makes an offer then why not?
The check engine light was on.
I had thought it was a left over problem from earlier when I had coil and spark plug problems. I am a rather lazy person and planned on ignoring it and telling the new owner this is why I was going to give him a good deal.
But my wife bought a code reader and so I felt compelled to try it out. The error indicated a problem with the catalytic converter. (Apparently it is leaking cows or the Catalyst retired) Or it could be the O2 sensor or a loose wire, or a fuel injector problem, or a bad spark plug. There is a good chance it is a bad plug or fuel related but with my luck it would be the converter.
I reset the codes and started for Portland to deliver the car. The check engine light came on and so I went back home to check the codes as in my optimism I had forgotten the code reader. It was another 0420 code. I suspect it is Chronic...(get the joke? 420 is Chronic?)
I should have worked on the car two weeks ago.
I'm going to see if the mechanic at work will look at it.

In other news, I am in the process of building a trolley set up for splitting a tractor. I worked on that instead of the car on Saturday. I was having a lot of trouble thinking.
I finally settled on a design which was too complicated.

It will have a four wheel carriage which will ride on rails made of angle iron welded to flat plate. A hydraulic jack with a telescoping stabilizer on each side will sit on the carriage and push up a bar which is supported by the two stabilizers. The bar will have holes to bolt to the bottom of the tractor engine. It will also have support for the frame side rails.
The idea is to block up the transmission a bit, then use the jack to remove the pressure on the engine and then remove the bell housing blots and the frame rail bolts. It should all roll ahead with no need for a chain hoist.
We shall see...

The Hercules engine swap is progressing slowly. My helper seemed convinced that he needed to remove the injector lines from the pump. I would have just removed them from the injectors. I hate to disrupt another person's project but I want to pull the timing cover and see if the cam gear is bolted or pressed on. The cam gear and injector pump gear from the tractor need to go on the army truck engine.

Finally, Donald Trump has been a major subject as of late.
My college had a public forum to watch the inauguration. There was much crying. It was a little amusing as earlier in the week we had an address from the President of the College where we learned that the nominee for Education Secretary was expected to decrease the expenses of the college through less regulation and that her support of small private colleges is expected to reap further benefits.
Of course Donald will probably deport all the students whose parents are illegal but the college has already started resisting. The security guy found it amusing that college president has directed security not to pass information on these students onto the Feds. Not only has security never done that but they don't actually collect that information on students nor do they share any personal details with any outside agency. But, it was a great email.
But, I digress.
I chose to skip the party as I had a shrub to prune.
A coworker went. He got up and said he was a Republican and he really didn't expect the world to end. This provoked an outpouring of love and adoration. They all got to have a dialogue.
I found it pretty hilarious.
A simple yeoman worker who is deluded by the propaganda of the evil Donald. Oh my! The wonderful simplicity of his belief.
I'm sure that at the next wine tasting the faculty will be congratulating each other actually having one of "those people" at their college. Diversity is wonderful. Yes indeed, some of my best friends are Republicans, I don't have them here with me of course because they would feel out of their element, but tokenism makes one feel so much better. Shaking hands with the simple folk...
I did listen to his speech on the way home. I didn't find it all that dark and unsettling. My wife said I should not say that people who interpreted the speech that way were idiots. After some reflection I do see why it is interpreted that way.
When Trump made the claim that he wanted to be the voice of the dispossessed I assumed it meant poor and unrepresented people of all walks of life. What I didn't understand is that when you run that though the Democrat Nutcase Perception Filter it comes out meaning people like me...
In reality, think the the speech was a lot of hot air and I expect everything he attempts to do will be spun into the most vile and horrible abuse of women's rights and civil liberties since Tomas Jefferson trumped Sally Hemmings but then I didn't vote for Trump because I thought he would be a particularly good president.
To be quite honest with you, I've always been a little fascinated with the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (Growing up at the end of the cold war and all) and I figure if I'm going to be screwed I'll do it on my terms and I'll take as many $%^&8#ing liberals down with me a possible!
And their little pink hats toooooo...

Have a nice day...
Tomorrow I go to work mowing grass for a bunch of really privileged morons. The athletic director with his BMW roadster needs his grass at precisely 1 1/4" for the good of mankind and the future of American youth. Gotta chase that ball! I'd go mow the football field but I doubt I'd get fired. Possibly retrained. (artificial turf-which I think is just wrong anyway)

Note: I really never had anything against Liberals until this election. I've always leaned towards the Libertarian side of things and I like to make comments which I think are clever. Perhaps someone can pray for me that I am able to forgive Democrats for sticking with Hillary. Or perhaps I just need the re-education camp. At least I bought myself four more years away from that...

Second Note: I just found this post on the original trolley tractor split idea. You would not believe how I have over-engineered this concept... Click Here

2 comments:

  1. I'm still trying to accept the idea of cutting grass in January. My lawn mowers get a rest from October to June. The grass is not growing underneath the snow.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I mowed leaves yesterday, mainly to clear off the dog's dumping area. The grass won't need it here for a couple months yet.

    ReplyDelete

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