Beer Lesson

Beer.



American Goat Piss.

Cuckoo's Nest

Harry took Mrs. Harry to New Brunswick (Canada) on vacation and he split today. The inmates are now running the asylum for 2 weeks . . . if the place remains standing that long. Mrs. F suggested I bring the dog to work to act as our adult supervision. Heh.

GM recall

You see why I bitch about General Motors products? This is just the latest for this line of vehicles:

Make / Models : Model/Build Years:
CHEVROLET / AVALANCHE - 1999-2002
CHEVROLET / SILVERADO - 1999-2002
CHEVROLET / SUBURBAN - 1999-2002
CHEVROLET / TAHOE - 1999-2002
GMC / SIERRA - 1999-2002
GMC / YUKON - 1999-2002
GMC / YUKON XL - 1999-2002

Potential Number Of Units Affected: 804000

Summary:

CERTAIN PICKUP TRUCKS AND SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES MAY EXPERIENCE UNWANTED ANTILOCK BRAKE SYSTEM (ABS) ACTIVATION.

Consequence:

THIS CAN CAUSE INCREASED STOPPING DISTANCES DURING LOW-SPEED BRAKE APPLICATIONS, WHICH COULD RESULT IN A CRASH.

If I were you, I'd put a 'For Sale' sign on it (or trade it in) after the recall is completed and buy a Ford or Dodge. If you're into Japanese, Honda and Toyota are your best bets.

And a note: If you're ever wondering about the recall status of your vehicle, you can check out the NHTSA website to find out. More good shit here.

Another loser

(Tampa-AP, August 23, 2005) - Former baseball star Dwight Gooden was being sought by police Tuesday on a felony warrant after he allegedly drove away from an officer who stopped him on suspicion of drunken driving.

Gooden, 41, left the scene of the traffic stop early Monday after refusing to get out his 2004 BMW to take a field sobriety test, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

[. . .]

You have more talent than you deserve, you've had an outstanding career, and earned more money than God. Why the fuck do you have to throw it away for stupid shit? Been hanging around with Darryl Strawberry for too long, have ya? Idiot.

Where I work

Harry's office.

Our cash register. Yes, that's all we use. Don't take credit cards neither.

Mmmmm . . . beer!

Only 2 bays. Quality over quantity. Looks like someplace you'd see in the desert, don't it?

The NYS inspection machines and dyno (sorry, I didn't sweep yet).

Ya think they could park 'em in a line when they drop 'em off?

Saving on Gas: Use a little Sense.

Here's an article in the LATimes on what people are doing to stretch their gas money. It offers some solid tips and debunks some myths.

How about driving behind a big rig? That also can improve fuel economy.

"It's the same theory that Lance Armstrong exploits whenever he's riding in the Tour de France," Shames said. "He's taking advantage of the draft created by other riders to reduce the amount of effort he has to make."

However, experts don't recommend the technique for motorists because of the dangers of being in the trucker's blind spot.

I used to commute 70 miles a day in L.A. on a motorcycle whatever the weather, and I know a little about this. Drafting a truck, or "getting a tow", gets you out of the wind and it's warmer there, which is why I did it. You can hear your RPM increase when you hit the right place, which is a lot closer to the truck than is really comfortable, maybe ten feet, and you can maintain freeway speed with just a whiff of throttle. The air displaced by the truck's passage actually swirls in behind you and pushes you along. Some truckers don't like this and will do stuff to try and shake you. Take the hint. Most don't care, especially the ones who have helpers to wash you off the back of the rig if something goes awry. Your main wish is that the rig's brake lights work. Also, if there is some object on the roadway, you won't see it until you either run over it or the truck kicks it up in your face. I ran right over an entire car exhaust pipe and muffler once. A truck kicked it up and luckily it hit my front tire instead of my face. Thank God I was on a Triumph. It twitched once and went on. If I had been on a lesser-handling machine, they would have buried me with it as one lump. I absolutely recommend against this practice.

I think the best lines in the article are:

Even with the average price for a gallon of regular now at $2.71 and premium grades going for more than $3, most drivers aren't in a position to stop using their cars.

So they are responding in much the way they try to lose weight - with complex special diets, instead of by simply eating less and exercising more, Kloza said.

"It's like that scene in 'Goodfellas,' where one of the guys says, 'How come this food tastes so good?' 'Because it's stolen,'" Kloza quoted.

"When people save money on gasoline, it gives them an immediate sunny countenance. They think they pulled the wool on somebody."

I still keep a length of fuel hose in my handlebar. For emergencies only, you understand. It's an "Okie credit card".

Gas is still the cheapest thing you can buy for your car. Keep it all in perspective.

The Ol' V & T R R

The last coupla Saturdays have been spent at Carson City Toyota & Scion finishing getting our new truck built. One more trip to Trimline Truck Caps & Accessories and we'll be done. Full report in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, while they were installing a few accessories, (among them: running boards for better footing during high-speed shootouts with the Feds), we had some time to kill so we went a little ways up the street toward downtown and paid a visit to the Nevada State Railroad Museum which is basically the resting place for the remains of the Virginia & Truckee Rail Road. We go by this place all the time and have always wanted to stop in and see it.

It's a comprehensive, but fairly small museum. The staff is pretty much volunteer retired gentlemen who are eager to have you see their baby, and are in no hurry. The two websites in the paragraph above were stamped on the back of my admission ticket by Casey Jones himself, who made sure I knew about it. $4 each, and well worth it.

The V.& T. R.R. was not a huge line, running mainly from the Transcontinental Railroad line in Reno south about 50 miles to Minden, with an east-west spur from Carson City to Virginia City. There are a couple of restored locomotives, with photos and placards on the history of each one. There are models of the ones that no longer exist, again with photos and histories.

There is quite a display, and some dioramas, on the history of the Chinese laborers who built the railroad. I didn't expect that, and it was pretty cool. At the diorama depicting the "Chinese Woodcutters", I came around a corner to find myself staring at the south end of a northbound mule. Good thing I'm used to that.

Out back of the museum proper is an old train shed, full of restored and unrestored rolling stock, including a French "40 et 8", for 40 men or 8 horses, which was donated by the French people in appreciation of Americans saving their asses in two world wars by riding in them. The barn was again staffed by cool old farts with all the time in the world to share stuff with you. One of 'em was wearing a 6thMarDiv cap. They were only in one little fight, at Okinawa. We spotted each others' Marine caps and got along swell.

There is a small, but well-stocked, gift shop. Translation: the joint is jam-packed. If there's more than three people in it, you do the "suck it in" dance to proceed. They have everything you would think they would, and more besides.

Probably the crown jewel of the joint is their running steam train and its one mile of track that you can ride on. We didn't, but we will. I want to see what happens: the locomotive and its two cars and caboose pulled out of the depot just like a regular train, but after it got out of sight, something happened. When it returned, the locomotive was backing up, pulling the caboose. I wanta watch the switch! I guess the track doesn't run in a complete circle, but I don't know.

It was fun and we'll pay it a return visit, I am sure.

Since I just know my review of this joint is going to have you making plans to visit, while you're there take the time to go a few blocks to the Nevada State Museum. I first went there when I was about ten years old and it still dazzles me. If the walk-through recreation of a silver mine doesn't get you, the extensive display of 19th century surgeon's tools sure will.

Free Advice

Please, please, please, I can't say this enough, please bring a used car to me (or other reputable mechanic) to look at before you buy it.

I got these customers, a couple, hard as hell on cars. This past winter, they blew the transfer case and front differential out of their Jeep Grand Cherokee. Paid me a lot of money to fix it and they don't have much. Fine.

The male half of the couple gets a wild hair a couple months ago and buys this Mercedes S-something from a guy he works with who's moving to California. It's 15 years old. Ya think he would have had the guy bring it to me, or he'd get it and bring it to me, before he bought the fucking thing. It's a Mercedes, it's gotta be good, right? Yeah, right.

He drops it off this morning. He tried to drop it off before I got there to open up, but I beat him in. "When'd ya get that?" I ask.

"Couple months ago," he replies, sheepishly. "I made an appointment with Harry, it runs a little funny."

"Funny how?" I ask as I take his keys.

"You'll see," he says as he heads off towards his wife's Jeep. "Can't miss it."

Six hours later, I call him to tell him about the $1500 bucks for the exhaust he's gonna need and another $500 for the complete tuneup (I gave him the fuel filter and my labor to put it in, just to keep it idling so I could figure out what the fuck else was wrong. I could stall it by misting water on the sparkplug wires.), and the $250 for new driveshaft couplers (the vibration at 30 mph shook two of my fillings loose). I swear I heard him shit himself over the phone.

"The guy I bought it from said it was in good shape," he says.

"What did we say when we looked at it?" I asked knowing damn well what the answer would be.

"Uh, I didn't bring it to you."

Idiot. Pay up, sucka. We would have told you not to buy the fucking thing to begin with.

Note to potential used car buyers: Just because you can afford a luxury car at a good price, make sure you can afford to fix it. Before you buy that S-Class, find out what parts cost and then compare 'em to parts for less luxurious cars. It'll open your eyes.

How?

WASHINGTON -- Adriann Nelson remembers reading about the tragedy that took 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen's life in October 2002 when his father accidentally ran him over while backing up his BMW X5 sport utility vehicle in the driveway of his Woodbury home.

"That poor family," Nelson of Dix Hills, recalls thinking at the time. A year and half later a similar tragedy would befall the Nelson family when an elderly relative backed over her 16-month-old son Alec when he was momentarily placed on the ground.

"You think this can't happen to you . . . you always read in the papers it's someone else," Nelson said Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where she, her husband and three surviving children traveled to push for auto safety legislation sponsored by Rep. Peter King.

[. . .]

How the fuck do you back over your kid? How the fuck do you put your infant on the ground when there are cars moving around? This is why I bitch at people about taking driving seriously. The shop is a madhouse, we have customers, their kids, their dogs all running loose in the morning as people are dropping off their shit. WTF? In 35 years, nobody has gotten backed over. Well . . . I almost backed over Harry once, but that was sorta intentional too.

You know how many times on my 30 mile drive to work every morning I see people reading the fucking paper as they're driving on the Long Island Expressway? Yeah, I drive fast, but the most I have in the way of distractions is when I light a cigarette. Jesus H. Christ, your car is not your fucking living room or your breakfast table. It's a couple tons of guided (sometimes barely) missile. You can fuck people (innocent people) up for a long time, maybe permanently. If you can't get your morning constitutional done before you get in your fucking car, get up earlier. What the fuck is so hard about that?

Driving is about getting you from Point A to Point B in relative comfort and haste. It is not a prick-waving contest. As I said, I drive fast. Don't bust your ass to get your little rice burner to pass me and then die. I drive 90 mph so long as I have open road. If you've gotta prove your car can reach 100, more power to ya, just keep it up, I'll let you go. If you get it up to 100 to pass me, because you don't like people driving faster than you, and then back off to 70, we're gonna have a problem.

This also goes to the left lane. THE LEFT LANE IS FOR PEOPLE WHO TAKE DRIVING SERIOUSLY! Rule of thumb: If people in the lane to the right are going faster then you, keep moving right until they're not. Jesus fucking Christ, there are a million other assholes out here with you, don't do 45 in the left lane, talking on your phone, playing with yourself, whatever. You're the same people who say, 'look at all the crazy people on this road'. Know why they're driving crazy? They're trying to get around YOU, shithead.

Don't weave through traffic, dickheads. You're not gonna get there any faster and you're gonna fuck somebody up. If there's bumper to bumper traffic moving at 65, be happy about it and stay in line.

Watch when you open your door. Christ Almighty, at least twice a month, somebody gets a door taken off in front of the shop. The post office is next door and the locals come up to check their mailboxes. Look in the mirror before you fling your fucking door open into traffic. You could lose an arm or a leg in the process.

Do not drive fast on side streets. What the fuck is wrong with you people? There are peoples' kids, pets, all sorts of shit. Do you think you're gonna ever have a good night's sleep again if you kill somebody's kid? How would you feel if somebody ran over your kid or dog or cat?

All I'm saying is driving requires your full attention and common sense. The stupid shit you do could ruin a lot of lives besides yours.

Listen

If you're driving a sporty little Lexus and your vanity plate has some convolution of numbers and letters that spell 'attitude', don't be going 50 mph in the left lane when I'm trying to get home. I will show you attitude. Idiot.

Status Report

2004 3.0L V-6 Ford Ranger Edge 2x4



Well, I bought this thing about 13 months ago and I'm just coming up on the 15,000 mile service. So far, so good. It's is fun to drive, very, and has better get up and go than a V-8 thanks to the 5-speed standard transmission and the 4.10:1 rear end gears (I can leave rubber on the first 3 shifts). It also handles like a sports car thanks to the suspension and 2 wheel drive. I call it my undercover mid-life crisis because I don't look like an old guy in a little sports car. (Mrs. F to old guys in little red sports cars: 'Sorry to hear about your dick'.) Only one drawback, it sucks in the snow. But this fall, I'm actually gonna spring for snow tires and throw a couple hundred pounds of sand in the bed. Either that or do what I did last year, drive the Mrs.' Explorer.

Just for info. Ford calls for a blended synthetic 5W-20 motor oil. I however have been using Mobil-1 0W-30 full synthetic and have had zero problems. No wear yet (I use a magnet and cheesecloth in the stream when draining the oil and have yet to see any visible wear metals). Trust me, this thing does not get babied. Aside from a daily 90+ mph run home, I use it for road calls and chasing parts around town. I am truly impressed with the vehicle and will probably trade it in (in a couple years) on a newer version of the same.

More reports to follow.

Still working

Minor tweaks now. I'll be completely done later tonight. Another test post.

Info

Don't use comments until further notice. I haven't set up Haloscan yet. I'll do it this afternoon and all the Blogger comments will be lost.

Comments are up.

Test

I'm testing out this new template. Pardon the mess.

For the record

This is not me:

[. . .]

Richie Wood escaped by running into a marsh, prosecutors say, but this time he couldn't run away fast enough. Mr. Wood will be arraigned on charges that he and other suspects stole a gold chain and a wallet from a passenger on the A train Sunday night.

Police sources say Wood and his friend intimidated the victim with a gun at the Grant Street station in East New York, threatening him with the weapon until forcibly grabbing the goods and running. He was arrested about 45 minutes later.

Police say the victim in this case was able to follow his muggers and point them out to police. Also Mr. Glen Moore, who suffered a fractured skull, is apparently doing much better. He's been discharged from Jamaica Hospital.

I been hearing shit about it for 2 weeks now. I'm not a criminal and I'm certainly not that stupid.

Characters

As many of my readers here and at Alternate Brain know, I work in a small shop on the north shore of Long Island. There are 4 of us working (see the lineup in the sidebar) but we also have a regular cast of characters who show up on a regular basis. They come, hang out, get coffee, bullshit, and then leave. At any time of day at least one of 'em is around.

Joe and Ma: Joe owns a tree service . . . well, Joe is the tree service. When he needs help, he heads into Glen Cove and picks up a couple illegals for the day. Ma is Joe's dog (a 13 year old Pit Bull with eyes that look like Marty Feldman's) and adult supervision. Joe has about 10 pieces of equipment (bucket truck, dump truck, etc) but no place to park them so he leaves them in parking lots around town overnight. Inevitably, one of us is giving Joe and Ma a ride somewhere in the morning to get one of his trucks. I dropped them off at Burger King one morning where Joe left the bucket truck the night before. Ma was in heaven.

Franz the Kraut: A pain in the ass old German who has too much free time and knows everything. Reminds me too much of my old uncles, but I do keep my German fluent by practicing with him. At least once a week I'm telling him to 'shut the fuck up before I slap the old right outta ya'.

Bob the Admiral: The dried up old squid who lives across the street from the shop. He was blown off a destroyer during WW2 by a Kamikaze and spent like 4 days in the water before they found him. He sits on his front porch and watches all the women go into the Post Office (next door to the shop). The crusty old geezer yells at us across the street and gives us the finger. We yell back for him to get off the porch, he's scaring the children.

Grumman Dave: Former still photographer for Grumman Aerospace until he retired a couple years back and now has too much free time. His wife sends him up to us when she's had enough of him. Unlike the three above, he actually is a customer and has been for 30 years. That's why we don't tell him to get out as quickly as we do the others.

Clyde: Retired Nassau County cop. Works part time playing carpenter. He stops by in the evenings so he can drink beer before going home to his wife.

Jeff the Pimp: A brother who went to school with PDB. He thinks he's a big pimpin' playa but he ain't got two nickels to rub together. It's fun to watch the looks women give him when he lays his line on them. One of his favorites: 'Wasup, breakfast?'.

Shanghai Johnny: Chinese immigrant mailman who is fascinated by cars. I'm the only one who can understand him.

Kommissar John: The New York State legislator for our district. Republican, spitting image of former Connecticut governor (now convict) John Rowland. An asshole extraordinaire and I tell him every chance I get. He usually checks to see if my car is in the lot before he shows up. Tries to avoid me like the plague but his local office is line-of-sight from our door. Try to guess how many times I've mooned him. Yes, the locals are used to driving by the shop and seeing me in the lot, mooning somebody up the block.

So, aside from all the crazy shit being an in-demand mechanic entails (we're always busy, no comebacks) we have these clowns to put up with. But that's what makes us unique. It's a garage plucked off of Route 66 fifty years ago and dropped on Long Island. I wouldn't work anywhere else.

Shit happens

I broke my finger today working on this piece-of-shit Subaru. That started the day off well. I reset it and taped it up and went on a road call to get one of our customers' cars that wouldn't start. Ran down to the IGA in town to find it was her husband's car and she didn't realize it had an alarm in it (Huh?). Once I reset it, it started. Oy! I get back and Harry sends me out again. Old guy runs his fat Lincoln off a 12 inch high curb. "Oh, it just has a flat tire," he tells Harry. When I get there it has 3 flats, he just saw the one on the driver's side. I pack him in my truck and call for the wrecker before dropping him at his house. I just put 2 new tires, ball joints, and swaybar links and bushings in the thing last month. He's gonna need new ones again along with more shit. Another old guy who shouldn't be driving, but that describles most of my customers. Then I had to deal with a guy with his Goddamn Sedan DeVille who's got a transmission torque converter malfunction that the body computer is seeing. This means, he can't get an inspection sticker. He's pissed at me because he doesn't want to spend $2200 to get the thing fixed. He's called Albany and the DMV and they tell him the same thing I do. He has to get it fixed. He says he shouldn't be forced to pay that much. I say, if you own a luxury car, be prepared to pay more for parts if shit breaks. If ya can't afford the parts, maybe you should be driving something that's cheaper to maintain.

Road test

2005 Chrysler 300C



One of our customers brought one in the for service and inspection other day and told us to try it out. Has he seen us drive? Anyway, I got it first. Heh.

As I left the shop, I blipped the throttle, lighting up the tires and leaving rubber all the way to the stop sign. The 5.7L V-8 Hemi (Not the Elephant motors of the Sixties and Seventies but a suitable replacement, same thing for the '300C' nameplate. The car doesn't insult its legendary predecessors.) has more power than I would have thought; better than the pickup truck version.

I took off from the stop sign, working the throttle to keep traction instead of burning up $600 worth of tires. In half a city block I was up to 70 with neck-snapping performance. Next test: get it stopped before the next stop sign.

It did with aplomb and panache, and I was never worried about keeping the car straight or not getting it stopped (The brake calipers and rotors on the front are HUGE. No worries about fade here.) I sat there and grinned, definitely aroused. I was impressed . . . very. I took the opportunity to bring my breathing under control and wish for a cigarette (We dont' smoke in customers' cars), and look around the well-appointed interior. It was comfortable, the leather seats seem to envelop you like a good, familiar lover. The dash is laid out well and easy to read. My only problem is the shifter which stops at 'Drive' and then has the side-to-side '-'/'+' thing that's the current fad among automakers. Just give me the old 'P-R-N-D-3-2-1' and I'll be happy. I'm murder on automatic transmissions anyway and that's just one more complication I don't need when I'm in the process of blowing one up (That's why I have a 5-speed in my Ranger pickup; I can rebuild one of them in a 1/2 hour, in the dark, with a hand tied behind my back. 30 years in the industry and automatics are still pure fucking magic to me.).

Well back to the shop before I get in trouble (The 70 mph drag run went past the local police booth. I came back the other way.). The boys were wating when I got back and the shit-eating grin was still on my face. It told them volumes. We put it up on the lift and got the next surprise.

The running gear and suspension, the exhaust system, everything underneath was classic Mercedes-Benz engineering. No wonder it ran and handled like such a well-balanced car. Again, impressive.

Overall thoughts can be summed up easily. A good car. It's a luxury car, no doubt about it, though well appointed for under $30K. If it came in an AWD version, I'd consider one when the lease was up on the Mrs.' Explorer. A caveat, I don't know how their electronics will weather age, but if Daimler had as much influence as it seems, the engine control electronics should be above par. If you're in the market for a full-size luxury sedan, it's worth your time to give the 300C a test drive. Make sure you tell 'em you want the Hemi. Having too much horsepower is like being too rich or too thin.

On parenting

Generally, I don't tell people what to do with their kids. Hey, they're your little delinquents, but I'll just offer a bit of advice, even though you parents say I couldn't possibly know what it's like because I don't have any.

If anything, teach them respect for authority and their elders. Your 17 year old gets in my face because he's been walking all over you for most of his life, I'm gonna drop him like a bad fucking habit. You give me any shit about it, I'm gonna drop you too.

Just to make this clear. You are not your kids' friend. You are their parent. Teach them that the world does not revolve around them. Because the first time they meet up with an asshole like me, they are gonna have a very rude awakening. That is all.

Dog wisdom

Got this from another member of the Australian Cattle Dog Club of America:

Things we can learn from a DOG

Never pass up an opportunity to go for a joyride

Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure
ecstasy

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them

When it's in your best interest, practice obedience

Let others know when they've invaded your territory

Take naps and stretch before rising

Run, Romp and Play daily

Eat with Gusto and Enthusiasm

Be Loyal

Never pretend to be something you're not

If what you want lies buried, dig for it

When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them
gently

Thrive on attention and let people hug you

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do

On hot days, drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree

When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body

No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout
- run right back in and make friends

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk