The other night, I’m flipping through the channels and there’s this guy singing. Long reddish-blond hair pulled back in a pony-tail, mustache and beard, kinda heavy… I immediately thought; “Who in the Hell told Mario Batali he could sing?” Just then, the camera pulls out, I see the keyboards and I realize; “Duh, it’s Gregg Allman.”
I’d never thought of it before, but they really do look quite a bit alike.
‘Extinct’ Ivory Billed Woodpecker Sighted - Yahoo! News
This is SO cool! I remember the first time I saw a Pileated Woodpecker (which is quite similar). They are just majestic creatures… woodpeckers roughly the size of a crow, and beautifully colored.
So, I’m soldering up this wiring harness for a new car stereo. Everything is going fairly well, when suddenly I run into a roadblock. I’m color-blind and could not distinguish the ‘gray’ and ‘gray/black’ pair of wires from the ‘green’ and ‘green/black’ pair on one of the harnesses. I scrutinized and squinted, I tried looking at them under a variety of light sources, all to no avail. Finally I go knock on my neighbor’s door, wiring harnesses in hand, explain my predicament, and ask which wires are which. She says to me “Are you really color-blind?” then points out the green and the gray wires for me.
Am I really color-blind? Why in God’s name would I make that up? When this topic comes up (which is infrequently, I try to keep it to myself) people invariably either:
A) Ask if I’m really color-blind.
B) Argue with me about it (”Oh, you are not!”)
I’m just thankful that my neighbor didn’t want to:
C) Play the “what color is this?” game.
That one really annoys the piss out of me.
So, here in Ohio (in some counties) we have emissions testing. I suppose I’m in favor of this, what with decreasing pollution and all. The thing is this; my “new” car, the ‘96 Maxima’s check engine light was on, and my temporary tags expire May 13. According to the Ohio EPA website, a vehicle automatically fails ECheck if the check engine light is on.
So, anyway… I get the codes from the ECU (Electronic Control Unit) and they are:
1) Front/Left O2 sensor… this isn’t too bad, it’s at least the easiest one to reach (~$75 for the part).
2) Knock Sensor… this one’s a fairly monumental PITA, it’s located in the “V” of the engine, under the intake manifold, thankfully I have small enough hands that it’s at least feasible without removing the manifold (~$115 for the part).
3) EVAP control system/Flow… this is one of those “jackpot” codes, could be any of about 12 different things, probably not terribly expensive, but potentially very time consuming to track down.
Hmm… this presents quite a dilemma, indeed. I decide to reset the ECU (and thus, the check engine light) and try my luck at the E-Check place; the worst that can happen is the car doesn’t pass, and that’s free!
So, I go, I pass (with flying colors), I pay my $19.50 and I’m reading the printout; it says “your vehicle received a tailpipe test because its OBD system was not ready”
I don’t know for certain why it (the On Board Diagnostics System/ECU) “was not ready”, but I have a strong suspicion it may have been because I just reset it. Somehow it just seems wrong that my car was WELL below the limits for hydrocarbons and NOx (like 1/10 of the allowable amount) but it would have failed had the “check engine” light been on.
What this all means that I now have plenty of time to address these issues, rather than knocking myself out trying to scrape together the money and get it done in the next month.
It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a bit of knowledge and a screwdriver!
So, the other night I was watching a program on The History Channel about the “Bible code”. Apparently (depending on which “scholars” you believe) the world will either:
A) be destroyed
or
B) narrowly avoid destruction
by a comet or meteors or somesuch in the year 2012. Armed with this “knowledge”, I’ve taken to buying lottery tickets. I know, I know, the lottery is “a tax on people who are bad at math”, but I sure don’t want to spend my last seven years on earth working for “the man” when I could be having great big multi-millionaire fun.
I just discovered today that there is only one company in the entire world presently producing pinball machines. Gottlieb, Williams, Bally, Midway… all gone. Stern, in Illinois, is the only one left.
I can’t imagine a day when there are no more pinball machines, it breaks my heart. Now, if someone could find me a Bally ‘Captain Fantastic’ machine in good shape for something less than a king’s ransom, I’d give it a good home.
Those of you who’ve been following along (my family and imaginary fan-club) have no doubt read (or know) about my cross-country trek schlepping 20 dozen frozen tamales from Bernard’s in Midland, Texas back to Ohio. The original grand scheme was to set to work learning to make tamales myself and to hopefully be able to create a reasonable facsimile of the Bernard’s family recipe by the time I ran out of the real thing.
Well, you know what they say about best laid plans… anyway, it was with great trepidation and a touch of remorse that I thawed and subsequently devoured one of my 3 remaining dozen. Suddenly realizing the gravity of the situation, I decided I needed to do some further tamale research. I found this site which has a recipe that looks like a good starting point. This guy grew up on a ranch in west Texas and learned the fine art of tamale making from an hispanic “abuelita” (my word, not his) there on the ranch, so we’re at least speaking the same language, so to speak.
I figure there are three keys; first is perfecting the meat mixture. Second is the masa dough (and I know one of the secrets to this: Lard!). Third is the rolling technique, which appears to be a skill quite similar to that of rolling, ahem, cigarettes, so that’s a skill I hope will come back fairly quickly.
I’ll keep you apprised of my progress, wish me luck!
For those of you who are new here and wondering what, exactly, I’m babbling about here’s a post where I go into the tamale story in some depth, and here’s one where I mention it in passing.