Ugh. We have different priorities because we're different people. That's OK.
Every little failure I have is NOT a direct reflection on how much I care about you. It just means that some small things that are important to you may not be important to me - and vice versa.
Again, that's OK. We're not very far apart at all on the big picture items... so can you give it a rest already on the little stuff?
I record music on a little Tascam 8 track digital thing. Progress is mostly fits and spurts and only when the trifecta of time, motivation, and my wife is willing to keep the toddlers away.
This afternoon was looking pretty good but the SD card I use solely for the Tascam is missing. Wife borrowed the machine for a video project and took the card to transfer her audio to the Mac. She didn't put the card back in my machine and now it has gone into oblivion. And I stupidly do not have a backup of my files. Even if I converted the low quality YouTube audio I posted and imported it into the Tascam I have no way to align the tracks to the on-board metronome and any additional tracks will be off time.
Time to buy a new card and start over.
Sat down with MrsRecon's parents today. If you've been following along, you'll know that my wife is Deaf (but learned to speak before her hearing tanked, and lip reads well) and has begun using sign language for the majority of her communication needs. Her parents have reacted rather negatively, going so far as to be offended when we sign at their house.
For the next installment, you need to understand that ASL is a language, every bit as rich and expressive as a spoken language, if not more so. Many Deaf people do not consider themselves broken or disabled, and my wife is among those. She isn't broken, and gets angry with people who assume that because she cannot hear, she is somehow "less". Okay, she lost her hearing. Why does that automatically make her a lesser member of society?
So, we had a talk with her parents about language and communication, and why signing is as important to her as speaking is to them.
Their response? "ASL will be great for her to communicate until you can afford Cochlear Implants, then she'll be able to hear again!"
(cochlear implants are a big fat maybe. Maybe they'll work, maybe there won't be issues, and maybe you'll be "normal". That's a can of worms I'll avoid for now. My wife is uninterested in them.)
I honestly don't even know why I berkeleying bother beating my head against the wall with this E36 M3.
We're moving. Soon. To a different state. Where being Deaf is OK.
berkeley.
I dropped my phone today and destroyed my screen. It still works but it gives me glass splinters when I use it.
Switched from my broken 6 year old phone to a slightly newer one, but newer one has 1/4 the storage space. Ugh.
Guess I need to buy a new phone.
In reply to Recon1342 :
You did it so you and Mrs Recon can look yourself in the eye and say, without hesitation, that we explored every avenue of decency and respect regarding this issue.
The problem is no longer yours.
mad_machine said:stanger_missle said:Finally got around to changing the oil in the Ram today. The auto hobby shop was a ghost town when I got there at 1530. There was one other car and he was pulling out as I got there. There has been quite a lot of personnel turnover at the shop the last 6 months or so. It seems like everytime I go there, there is somebody I haven't seen before working there. There were only two people working today; a very attractive Hispanic woman at the counter and a retired Navy Senior Chief out in the bays. The SCPO runs me through a quick training session even though I am been there probably 100 times. I have to sign a card saying I have been properly trained on the lifts and various tools. I don't mind though because it shows that they are trying to improve things around there. The SCPO guides me onto the lift. He starts BSing with me and is hilarious. We complained about our exwives and he told dirty jokes. Super cool guy. I also notice that I have never seen the shop as clean and organized as I did today. I was stationed here for 4 years while on active duty and the shop was always a disorganized disaster. That makes me happy that someone wants to improve it. The SCPO states that he was appalled at how things were run before so he's trying to fix all of the issues. I hope he gets support from the Mission Support Group (aka funding).
Anyways, now the minor rant part. I always research to death any procedure I want to do well in advance of doing the work. People online complain about the oil filter placement on the Hemi powered Rams. Now I can see why:
The oil filter is directly over the electric power steering rack. So when you loosen the filter, the oil drops right onto the top of the rack assembly and splatters EVERYWHERE. Not only that but you cannot remove the filter without tilting it so that it fits between the rack and trans lines, which drops more oil onto the rack, which splatters more oil EVERYWHERE. Such a stupid berkeleying design. I took a shower of hot oil while trying to pull the puzzle piece out before my hands burned.
A popular thing to do is buy a remote oil filter kit and mount it in front of the engine on the frame.
I'll be buying one and will install it at the next oil change.
or punch a hole in the bottom of the filter and letting it drain?
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but things like this are why I have more respect for the Nissan engineers that designed my QX4 (fancy Pathfinder) than the Ford engineers who designed the Dancer's old Mariner (fancy Escape)- the filters on both were positioned such that when removed they would puke oil onto things below them- but the Nissan engineers put an angled piece of sheet metal with upturned edges that made a nice channel for the oil to run down and into a catch can and kept the oil off of anything important, where the Ford engineers just left it to soak the exhaust pipe below the filter.
Ugh, such a weekend of ups and downs. But, one thing I learned for certain... if for some reason I am no longer able to work in engineering any more and have to find another career to pursue it will NOT be as a plumber.
Over the last 3 days I had to make 5 trips to 3 different hardware stores trying to resolve two different plumbing problems, and wasted about 3 hours total of the weekend driving back and forth to said stores. The first problem (feed pipe from the pressure tank to the filters at the cabin leaking) and the 3 trips it took to resolve pissed me off a lot more because the problem and the second trip (and to an extend the third) were a result of other people either trying to jury-rig things or alleged knowledgeable people giving me crap advice. The second problem (the hot tub at home was losing water and I had to track down and plug the leak) was at least not directly attributable human stupidity and more as nearly as I can tell a result of natural forces, but it was still frustrating to deal with.
And I'm not even totally done with plumbing yet... both toilets at home need new fill valves, which I had hoped to take care of Saturday morning but instead had to head back out to the cabin to try and resolve the issue there.
Even more minor of a rant- in part because of the above I spent a lot of time driving over the weekend (not a rant, I generally like driving). In about 2 months the Dancer, Dog, and I will be making the 11-hour or so drive from central KY down to the Gulf Coast of Alabama for our only real vacation of the year, and I am trying to put together a playlist of the music on my phone that the Dancer won't complain about. We both have very wide-ranging tastes in music and while there is a lot of intersection in them there are also some things that I like and that makes up a good bit of my library (EDM/Techno, instrumental scores, music in foreign languages, etc.) that she really doesn't. So I've been going through the music on my phone and trying to put together a playlist of the music that I think she won't complain about. And since I've been driving and holding my phone and going through the steps to add a song to a playlist while driving is generally a bad idea, I've been trying to use Siri on my Apple watch to do so... but for some reason that only seems to work about half the time. As nearly as I can tell, I can only get Siri to do so when the song in question was purchased/downloaded from iTunes- which if true is really annoying since a lot of my music comes from CDs and a smaller percentage bought and downloaded from Amazon.
This is why I like my BMW.
The oil filter sits at the top of the engine. The only thing on the bottom is the drain plug.
FuzzWuzzy said:This is why I like my BMW.
The oil filter sits at the top of the engine. The only thing on the bottom is the drain plug.
BMW got it right, especially with their cannister style filters, so all you are replacing is the element instead of a huge hunk of metal.
I am putting powder coating companies in the same list as car shipment brokers and other villains. How hard is it to meet timelines.
In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :
I don't feel so bad about only making 2 trips to the hardware store to change the internals in the toilets at home. The guest bathroom downstairs started leaking from the fill valve (nothing like finding a puddle of water around the toilet first thing in the morning). The kids' bathroom upstairs had been leaking at the flush valve, not a big deal just wastes water, but it isn't great for the budget. The master bath was fine, but I knew that it was the same age as the others, so before a problem occurs....
Instead of patching things, I decided I would "upgrade" them all to dual flush units and try to use a little less water this year.
I put back the new gaskets and I buy 3 dual flush upgrades and head home. The cost of the gaskets would be similar in cost to upgrading to a newer solution.
Of course the Mansfield flush valves on our tanks aren't compatible. So back to the store to buy flush valves that ARE compatible (they couldn't put this info on the box, but bury it in the instructions inside the box?)
I pick up new tank bolt washers, but not tank gaskets since the new parts should include them, right? Nope.
Luckily the tank to bowl gaskets are fine and the new flush valves come with new gaskets there. Had to do the one downstairs twice because I didn't tighten the flush valve nut enough.
Probably $100 worth of parts now, but all of the tanks are now level/square, don't leak and potentially use less water. On the plus side, the kids can flush the toilet a little easier (I need to watch the younger one since he's getting curious about the toilet and potty in general). I'm absolutely beat, crawling around on the floor and taking the tanks on/off wears you out.
Of course I was supposed to go out with the family for breakfast that morning with one of her good friends and their kids. I was initially boycotting it because of how little regard she seems to have for everyone's time and had us waiting all day MLK day for her with just a flippant reply about why she didn't respond to several requests for updates. The leaking toilet forced that decision. My wife was frustrated that I wasn't going though and actually said, "I don't even know why you're not going" as there is a drained/disassembled toilet in the other room with towels on the floor. I just looked at her like she was from outer space. This was after a rant about the mess of all of the reusable shopping bags in her trunk and trying to get presents organizied.
Of course her friend said to meet at 9:30 am at a specific restaurant. She didn't show until 10:00 am because that's what she thought when it was supposed to be. She also lost her phone. Again. So they couldn't get a hold of her. I tried not to look too smug, but yeah I'm not interested in spending time with her if she can't be bothered to manage herself better than that (which isn't the real issue, my wife's reaction is the real issue since we SHOULD be able to just shrug it off and do our own thing, but nope).
Netflix.....I realize that not many people do your DVD rentals anymore. I subscribe to both, and sometimes my internet sucks so DVDs are great.
So why the berkeley can't you make a functional DVD site??? Seriously, I've used potatoes that were better webpages
We took in a used '19 Mazda CX-3 at work, and the dispatcher gave it to me to do a Used Vehicle Inspection on. It's a good-looking little thing, the seats are comfy, I like Mazda's minimalist center stack and the UI seems pretty solid, the chassis is surprisingly fun to hustle through corners, and the auto transmission is surprisingly snappy with the shifting. But that engine....ugh, that engine. I looked it all over expecting a leaky exhaust or a broken motor mount or something because there is no reason for this engine to be this freaking loud and coarse. It's not even a good sound, it just thrash. Was kind of shocked at how bad it was. Also, why does the CX-3 exist? It's the same size as a 3 (if it is at all), it has barely any more ground clearance than a 3, it has AWD but you can get that on 3's now, and the rear seat and cargo area are laughably tiny (smaller than a 3).
In reply to NickD :
Check the mount at the passenger fenderwell again. If they inherited it from the Ford chassis, that mount lasts about 20k before it is sagged.
In reply to Knurled. :
Even if it is bad, doubt our used car manager would pay to fix it. But every review I'm reading on these comments on how absurdly noisy this engine is.
Knurled. said:In reply to NickD :
Check the mount at the passenger fenderwell again. If they inherited it from the Ford chassis, that mount lasts about 20k before it is sagged.
CX-3 is on the Mazda2 chassis, so I'd hope it is different, but who knows Big complaint I've heard is they are underpowered. CX-5 and the new CX-30 are on the Mazda3 platform, which at this point I have no idea if it is an evolution from the shared Ford platform, or something entirely new.
eastsideTim said:Knurled. said:In reply to NickD :
Check the mount at the passenger fenderwell again. If they inherited it from the Ford chassis, that mount lasts about 20k before it is sagged.
CX-3 is on the Mazda2 chassis, so I'd hope it is different, but who knows Big complaint I've heard is they are underpowered. CX-5 and the new CX-30 are on the Mazda3 platform, which at this point I have no idea if it is an evolution from the shared Ford platform, or something entirely new.
I wouldn't call the CX-3 underpowered. It makes 184hp and outpowers everything in its segment short of the Kia Soul Turbo. It zips right along. But it's just a whole lot of NVH.
NickD said:eastsideTim said:Knurled. said:In reply to NickD :
Check the mount at the passenger fenderwell again. If they inherited it from the Ford chassis, that mount lasts about 20k before it is sagged.
CX-3 is on the Mazda2 chassis, so I'd hope it is different, but who knows Big complaint I've heard is they are underpowered. CX-5 and the new CX-30 are on the Mazda3 platform, which at this point I have no idea if it is an evolution from the shared Ford platform, or something entirely new.
I wouldn't call the CX-3 underpowered. It makes 184hp and outpowers everything in its segment short of the Kia Soul Turbo. It zips right along. But it's just a whole lot of NVH.
I think the CX-3 has the 2L with 148? CX-30 should have the 2.5L engine with 18x HP. Haven't driven one myself, but it should have a better power/weight ratio than my daily, so I'm sure its not dangerously underpowered.
eastsideTim said:NickD said:eastsideTim said:Knurled. said:In reply to NickD :
Check the mount at the passenger fenderwell again. If they inherited it from the Ford chassis, that mount lasts about 20k before it is sagged.
CX-3 is on the Mazda2 chassis, so I'd hope it is different, but who knows Big complaint I've heard is they are underpowered. CX-5 and the new CX-30 are on the Mazda3 platform, which at this point I have no idea if it is an evolution from the shared Ford platform, or something entirely new.
I wouldn't call the CX-3 underpowered. It makes 184hp and outpowers everything in its segment short of the Kia Soul Turbo. It zips right along. But it's just a whole lot of NVH.
I think the CX-3 has the 2L with 148? CX-30 should have the 2.5L engine with 18x HP. Haven't driven one myself, but it should have a better power/weight ratio than my daily, so I'm sure its not dangerously underpowered.
Whoops, had a dyslexic moment, it is 148hp. Still, not terrible.
In reply to NickD :
Yeah, better than a lot of subcompact CUVs. Of course, none of them have a reputation for being fast-ish, except the Kia Soul Turbo, and maybe the departed Nissan Juke, but that may have been more compact than subcompact. Now I'm finding myself wishing more of these things had higher powered options, then I'd be more interested. If nothing else, I guess a Trax or an Encore could be tuned.
I bought a new CX-3 (touring trim level with the preferred equipment package) last April and I’ve got 14.1K on it now. Power is adequate though it gets no credit for surprising to the up side and yes, the engine is both loud and makes a less than pleasant note when under load. Why then the CX-3 rather than the 3 that can be had with the 2.5L…because it’s really cute; there I said it.
I love the dynamic diagonal character line on the side, I love the rankish short rear over hang, I love the facia that suggests the car thinks it’s a bigger deal than it is.
Additionally, I’m 55, keep my cars for 10 years on average, park on a steep driveway, and had a serious problem with my left knee a year ago…the seat pan height makes entry and egress super easy and sitting up a little higher improves situational awareness. Even though my two preceding DD’s were a FC RX-7 and a RX-8, I felt these benefits were worth accepting a slightly higher CG.
BTW, Road and Track got an impressive 0.88 G’s on the skid pad so it’s not like we can’t mix it up pretty good if we want to.
My eldest daughter will be getting her license next October and I bought the CX-3 with giving it to her as a Birthday present in mind…I’m now leaning towards just letting her pick out a new 3, CX-3 (I know, they're probably being phased out) or CX-30. Point being, I like my CX-3 so much that I’d rather keep it and let her get the new car; it's OK to let cute count.
Dear CenturyLink; it's pretty bad that your payment processing system apparently ceased doing what it was supposed to do and erroneously notified a bunch of people last night that their payments had failed. But what I'm curious about is the insanity of immediately killing our Internet connection. Was that "normal" for if we'd really had a failed payment? Makes it hard to look into what's up with bank/credit accounts. Also makes the "correct this by Feb 25th or we'll disconnect your account" message odd.
Also, the connectivity to (EDIT: not Comcast) CenturyLink-only while de-Internetted was slow and unreliable, which made hearing the recording telling me to use the site for faster service even more galling.
I understand the issue is unresolved. Here's hoping it doesn't boot us off the Internet again, requiring a fourth/fifth/sixth (if the pattern matches today) call to get back online...
In reply to Ransom :
Sounds like they owe you for the outage and missed payment.
There was a thread that I was going to respond to but didn't have time to do so, and now that I am home and settled in, I cannot find it.
I think my spine may be in worse shape then the doctor hoped when he pushed me into a career change. At this point just being on my feet for 8 hours kills my nerve in my right leg. Don't think I'm going to be able too avoid a 3rd surgery and that will probably cost me the new job. Torn between toughing it out as long as possible and being miserable at home vs just calling the surgeon and telling him the meds aren't working we need to try something else
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