Is that a house in the road?
It’s not everyday that you see a house in the middle of the road. Actually, the house was also in the right lane and the left lane as well as parts of the shoulder.
They move houses down here. Don’t know why, exactly, but I suspect that since most houses here are on short brick or cement block piers they seem just waiting to be picked up and taken down the block. Then again it could be just for the pure joy of a job like this on a double 95 day. (95 degrees and 95% humidity — in other words a nice summer day for the Florida panhandle.)
Well, this house obviously had different ideas, or the rear wheels did anyway. From what I can tell the part of the truck, if you can call it that, holding up the back of the house came undone from the front of the truck and took a left turn where it should have gone straight. There were still piles of bricks on the side of the road the next day… but the house was gone.
So that's how they do it!
rear wheels to front wheels, "Did you say left or right?"
Filed under: Unimportant
It all started yesterday, the day before Father’s Day. I thought I’d make a quick trip to the dump with our trash and recyclables. It’s not really a dump. It’s a rural waste transfer station. We call it “the dump” for convenience. I usually go on Sundays, but this Sunday was Father’s day, and who wants to go to the dump on Father’s Day? Well, not me.
Anyway, I tossed the two smelly bags of garbage and the bags of bottles and cans into the back of the dually, put the paper recycling into the cab (so it won’t blow away) and started out of the driveway. Before I even got five feet I realized I had no brakes! Damn! A quick look under the truck revealed a suspicious fluid on the driveway. Yep, it smelled just like brake fluid. Poking my head underneath I saw a large area of the underside of the bed, the muffler and some other areas covered with brake fluid. I thought, “there must be a brake fluid leak.” I soon saw that the brake line leading to the rear wheels was leaking and would have to be replace before any trip to the dump (to say nothing of the planned trip to New York at the end of the week) would happen. Getting the Prius out of the garage so I could work on the truck was the easy part. You see, not only is the truck a very tight fit though the garage doors but the trailer was blocking the way. Using the skills I’ve developed over the years piloting boats (which also have no brakes) I manoeuvered the truck using forward and reverse so that I could hitch up the trailer and move it. That done, again using only forward and reverse gears I got the back end of the truck into the garage and out of the sun. Now, for those who don’t live in Florida, I must explain that it may only be 95 degrees out but if it’s sunny, the sun will fry the skin right off you. You gotta have shade.
Removing the brake line is a simple matter of two flare nuts and two bolts holding on some clips that keep the brake line from bouncing around. OK, not too back except one of the flare nuts is between the gas tank and the truck frame. Gotta drop the gas tank. OK, that’s just two more bolts, but it’s almost full of gas. Thirty gallons weighs what, around two hundred pounds. Hmm. After some pondering… it’s always the pondering that takes the most time (but yields the most results) I realized that rather than “drop the tank” I should raise the truck, leaving the tank behind. Soon I had the gas tank resting on the spare tire and some scrap lumber and the two bolts holding to the truck removed. Did I mention that they were rather rusted and required a fair amount of working back and forth with generous applications of penetrating oil? Well, they did, but eventually they succumbed. My plan was a success. Raising the back of the truck with my floor jack succeeded in creating sufficient room to get at the flare nut. Remember the flare nut? Oh, you didn’t know about removing the tires on that side plus the spare tire which hangs underneath so that I could sit under the truck to work. Yes, I had a jack stand as well as the jack supporting the truck. Although I had never used them I was very glad to have bought a set of flare-nut wrenches some time back as they were just what I needed to remove the nuts and the busted brake line. Having achieved that milestone, I called it a day, planning to finish the job in the cool of the next morning.
The next morning was Father’s Day! What joy to look forward to another few hours (at least) crawling under an old truck and having rusty bits and dirt fall into my beard every time I so much as made a loud noise. But first I had to get a replacement brake line. The closest auto parts store is about 25 miles from us and they didn’t have a replacement. The third store I tried had a straight 40″ piece with which I would have to make a functional replacement for the very crooked 36″ original. I purchased the best tubing bender they had. Finally at home I ate a quick late lunch, donned my battle dress, and started bending tubing. This was actually the most satisfying part of the job as I slowly worked the once-straight and boring 1/4″ steel tube into the zigzag brake line required. My spacial geometry skills were taxed at times, but by making each bend a little at a time I was able to recover from my errors and soon (in the big picture) had a brake line that fit.
Now all that was left was to put the gas tank back, bleed the brakes, put the tires on and clean up. Oh, I probably should have bought some brake fluid. Fortunately I already had some, and also have nifty brake bleeder vacuum pump gadget that sucks the old fluid and air out of the line at the wheel. Sort of. It worked pretty much as designed and after a few helpful presses on the brake pedal by my shop assistant (aka Corinne) I had the brakes bled.
I finally got to go to the dump. Remember the dump?
The local technology alliance (TalTech) is proudly presenting its third TechExpo tomorrow. I thought I’d go and see if there was anything interesting. So I took a look at the website and had to laugh, although it’s rather sad, not funny actually.
Here are some of the bloopers I found on their websites. Now, keep in mind, this is an organization “focused on uniting our many technology-oriented corporations, small businesses, entrepreneurs, service providers, investors, civic lenders, individuals and students from all sectors of our community.” Mission and History.
I hope they didn't get the award for best HTML.
Then, there’s this one:
Not to mention creating run-on sentences.
Or:
I think I’ll suggest they hire an IT undergraduate from the School of Library and Information Studies at FSU to help them figure out this new-fangled web-thing.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I saw this mis-constructed arrow in an elevator in a fancy hotel which will go unnamed. This is just one of many examples I’ve come across, and will be sharing here, of what I see as an indication of the lack of pride our workforce takes in its work. If I were reassembling this elevator indicator and saw that I’d put an element in sideways, I’d take it apart and put it back together right. Wouldn’t you? The other, equally sad, explanation is that once the unit was assembled, no one bothered to test it. I come across this often in the IT world. Instructions to do something are given to some poor non-techie without having been tested. The poor soul follows them to the letter, not just once, but twice, three times before he admits that he is just not “technical.” The Helpdesk person comes to help and lo and behold, there’s a mistake in the instructions. Anyway, here’s the first in a series of such items.
Filed under: About
Almost every day I see something that I think deserves wider attention. Generally these things fall into the category of dumbness. But sometimes I see something uplifting. I often take out my iPhone and snap a photo or two of what I see, because I know most people wouldn’t believe me if I just told them about it. So I’ll be posting these gems frequently. Hope you enjoy them.
Filed under: Our Earth
The National Audubon Society (among others) is organizing a wildlife rescue effort and letter-writing drive in response to the Gulf Oil Disaster. Here is what I sent to Secretary of the Interior Salazar:
I’m writing to comment on the Department of Interior’s remand of the 2007 – 2012 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, announced on March 31.
Let’s use this tragic accident to refocus our efforts on reduced use of petroleum products which an increase in the production and use of “green” energy sources (wind, hydro, solar) will result in with the added benefit of reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases.
Given the recent oil rig disaster in the Gulf Coast, I am alarmed that dangerous offshore drilling may be allowed in some of America’s most sensitive coastal ecosystems. As a Gulf Coast resident I am disappointed in the decision to expand oil and gas development in new areas, such as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and increase oil and gas exploration in the Arctic Ocean and the mid- and south- Atlantic. A long-term energy strategy should focus on clean, job-producing, renewable technologies, not expanded drilling in our oceans or elsewhere. I am particularly concerned about plans to allow risky offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Despite the acknowledged gap in scientific information, limited understanding of the effects of drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, the potential difficulty of removing oil spilled in icy waters, and the limited infrastructure available in the Arctic to respond to such spills, the plan still allows exploratory drilling as early as this summer on Chukchi Lease Sale 193.
I urge you to reject exploratory drilling in these sensitive waters. I thank the Department of Interior for this opportunity to comment on the revised 2007-2012 oil and gas leasing plan.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m not sure if the message is aimed at you and me or they’re just getting ready for the second coming. Or maybe they’re just refering to Jesus Colome of the Washington Nationals.
Working Draft – Please comment.
The Center for Open Source Software Documentation is a not-for profit volunteer organization whose goal is to provide a comprehensive collection of verified, understandable, localized documentation for software available under any one of the open source licenses.
Documentation may also be referred to as a manual for readability purposes.
It is anticipated that all documentation in the collection will be covered by one of the GPL or similar licenses
The main attributes of the documentation contained in this evolving library are:
- Verified — All documentation will be passed through a rigorous process of verification. Every installation step, file name, file location, command, etc. will be checked for accuracy.
- Understandable — Each section of all documentation will organized in parts with short parts written for experts and longer parts written for novices.
- Localized — Familiar in style and usage to readers whose native language is the language of the document.
Manuals will be in one of four stages. The stage a document is in will be prominently indicated.
- Unreviewed — documentation that has not proceeded through the approval process
- In process — documentation that has undergone some review and rewriting but is not considered ready for final approval
- Submitted — documentation that is being considered for final approval
- Approved — documentation that has passed the approval process.
The entire process taking a manual from unreviewed to approved status will be an open process encouraging community participation. The steps in the process are:
The manual may be added to the collection by its author or anyone else providing the rights of all parties involved are respected.
The In Process Stage
- A team of one or more editors will be formed to oversee the transition of the manual to approved status.
- The editors will, either by themselves or with the assistance of others, check all facts and correct any errors found in the document
- The editors will also adjust the style and usage to conform with the goals of the Center.
- Translators may, at the end of this stage, be employed to translate the manual to other languages.
The Submitted Stage:
- The editors will post a notice that the manual is ready for approval.
- During the review period comments and suggestions for changes will be solicited.
- At the end of the review period the editors will decide whether any of the suggestions are worthy of incorporation into the documentation. If this is the case, then the documentation will return to the “In Process” stage.
Approval
- When the editors decide that there have been no significant suggestions the document will be considered approved.
- The approved documentation will be posted in the approved collection.
- The maintainers of the software will be encouraged to notify the editors of changes to the software so that the documentation can be kept up-to-date.
This belongs in the series “What’s wrong with our educational system.” I saw this Ford Exploder on campus (Florida State U.) the other day advertising two things. One is a worthwhile fund raising dance marathon. The other is the level of education many of our students get here! It just goes to show that you can buy them a nice big SUV but you can’t buy them an education… that they have to work for.
Filed under: Our World
I have to wonder what’s behind all the hype surrounding the recent Toyota recalls. Here are some facts to put this into perspective:
Ford Motor Company is recalling 17,600 hybrid cars for the same problem that Toyota’s are suffering, a software glitch that makes it seem like the brakes are not working. I haven’t heard much about this in the press.
That software glitch causes a lapse in braking for 0.6 seconds. So? “If you hadn’t been tailgating you wouldn’t have hit me!” I drive a lot and I see a lot of sudden braking because people aren’t paying attention. All of a sudden they realize the car ahead is not going 85 but only 75! They hit the brakes, the driver behind them hits the brakes and if we’re all lucky it just causes another ripple-jam, and not a serious accident. In those situations, which are the result of driver error, maybe a 0.6 second delay in braking makes a difference.
People need to stop driving like they’re in the Daytona 500.
We consistently get over 50mpg in our 2006 Prius with over 60,000 miles on it. It’s one of the best small cars we’ve ever owned, and we’ve owned Saabs, Subarus and Fords. The only way I can beat our Prius’ gas mileage is to drive the 1938 BMW motorcycle with sidecar. Talk about brake problems. You’d better start applying the brakes on that beast before you even think you might want to slow down!
