BLOG 2-21-18: An everything blog · 4:41am Feb 22nd, 2018
That's right, folks, we've got it all here!
News and updates and a writing tip and a mechanicing tip, plus we can talk about the weather! So, basically win, win, win.
So much winning.
First off, AShadowOfCygnus has once again graced me with a reading, this time of The Trouble With Unicorns IV. So do go check that out!
Second, a bit of writing advice—
Said writing advice turns out to be on a different computer, so we're going to change that to a protip: Upload everything to the cloud as soon as possible so that you don't have to go figuring out which computer you actually saved the file on.
From Wikipedia
Apparently, horses can dig wells. I did not know this.
Also, since we're here, I just remembered one more thing I was gonna mention in the blog post.
I follow Insufferably Intolerant Science Nerd and recently she reposted one of the best insults ever, directed at one of her detractors: "If I really wanted to feel pain by being exposed to you and your words, I'd climb to the top of your ego and jump to the bottom of the IQ you're displaying."
Thirdly, a helpful mechanic tip!
Some of y'all are waiting eagerly (or not so eagerly) for me to write a blog post about a bizarre wiring problem on a Dodge Sprinter, and I'll get to that, I promise. Case studies are always fun; I just have to figure out how to upload all the pictures and the accompanying video up to the interwebs. [Actually, that's a lie; I know how to do all those things. I just have to get around to it.]
When you're adjusting tie rods on a car, they typically have a hexagonal part of the inner tie rod that you put a wrench on, and then there's a bigger jam nut that you have to loosen in order to make adjustments. Usually, they're 22mm and 13mm, although of course that varies by manufacturer.
Some of us are blessed to live in a part of the world where rust isn't a thing. For the rest of us, what usually happens is that the open end 13mm wrench just slips on the flats on the inner tie rod, because let's face it, there isn't enough surface area. So at that point, you get the torch or Vice Grips™, and try again.
But suppose you don't have either a torch or Vice Grips? What then?
Gentlemen, behold!
Some of y'all may remember back when my manager was complaining about how his house isn't in a flood zone despite what FEMA says. After all, that little creek by his house couldn't possibly ever rise enough to threaten his house, right?
Last weekend, we got about a foot of snow over three days.
This weekend, I assume all the weather pegasi tied one on, because the temperatures started rising, from the 20s to almost 60. That foot of snow melted, which—by itself—is a bit of an issue when it comes to drainage. Add to that the fast that it rained for two days straight.
He came into work late this morning. He said that he had to mop up some water in his basement, because there was a crack in the wall and water was coming in. Later in the day, he took a car on a test drive, and when he came back he had pictures and was explaining to me how the creek was already up four feet from where it normally ran. His little waterfall feature in his yard was now underwater (he didn't say if it was still working). He had his uncle run to Harbor Freight and buy a heavy-duty pump, because his backyard was completely flooded, and due to the lay of the land, the water couldn't run off, at least not until it got up as high as his driveway.
It's almost like he was in a flood zone or something.
Also, since we're on the subject of teaching an old dog new tricks . . . or is it a new dog old tricks?
Seriously, how cliched is rolling over and playing dead?
Source Unknown
Anyways, we had another Tahoe in today. Guess what it had on the bottom?
That's right! A fuel composition sensor!
Oh, and we've got another F-150 with a bad fuel pump driver module. This one's still attached to the frame, though.
Interlude:
I tried to build my own power screwdriver today. It didn't work quite like I intended. 
(yes, I actually used that for a legitimate diagnostic purpose)
I'm working on my EFNW contest entry, which y'all should see in the next couple of weeks. By March 3, if I remember the contest deadline correctly.
Anyhow, the prompt this year is Family Trees: Roots, Branches, and Leaves. Which lead to this exchange in the comments (and which if I was clever/not lazy I would have screenshotted, but anyways):
Snowliasion: Family trees? Come on Everfree, you're giving Kudzu and Chengar auto wins here. 
To which I replied: I'll make them work for it.
I'm even putting an actual tree in my story.
I'm sure to win something. 
Lastly!
Every now and then, I check through YouTube to see who's done readings of my stories, 'cause a lot of people are sneaky like ninjas and don't tell me that they're going to do a reading.
So a couple of weeks ago I was bored at work, and I found out that Fire Rain had done a reading of two of my stories*.
One thing that you try to do when you write comedies is make the audience laugh, which is why I love his reading of Random Horse Fact so much.
Trigger warning: some swearing and some innuendo. Proceed with caution.
_________________________________________
*I discovered (when looking up the video for this blog post) that he has now done a third reading, as well. Sneaky like a ninja.
Lastly! For realzies!
I was going to use this art in a rant blog, but this didn't turn out to be a rant blog, and I'll almost certainly have forgotten it's a thing by the next rant blog, so . . .
I suppose you decided not to tweak him by going "Wow, flooded? I thought your house wasn't in a flood zone."
Are you high?
4802828
No, but the boss' creek is!
Onto the Pony Planet
is this going to get updated soon??
4802835
Not a flood zone eh?
I have the feeling is also going to complain that the governement is not doing anything to help him now that his house is flooded. Or do they do that where you are from?
...And?
You, sir, are a tease.
He is a prime example of how some traits survive the sledgehammer that is natural selection. Pure luck.
I wonder if the contest organizer listened to Radical Face's series of albums bearing related names...
The Family Tree: The Roots
The Family Tree: The Branches
The Family Tree: The Leaves
The Cloud is a great idea. If only it wasnt dependant on paid company centralised remote networked storage.
For when you absolutely, positively have to transmit from Mars to Earth and your radio and antenna are stuffed?
You know, I think I've maybe ever changed just one of those fuel pump drivers... like ever. idk, I imagine it's cuz you just have more trucks out there.
What'd you ground with your power screwdriver? pos Jimmy or Blazer whatever, I see. God, I hate those cars so much. My dad had one and it was an absolute turd. Would not run right for nothing. But he'd sing high praises about them, right up until he sold it (after finally tiring of trying to get it right). Now he sings high praises about Saturn Vues - incidentally, we own about 3 of them - but I have to say, crappy as they are, at least you can fix the damn thing and it'll be right.
4802986
Setting up a personal NAS or renting and configuring an offsite server blade isn't too difficult.
Of course, with Net Neutrality going down the tube, ISPs are likely to try to ban customers from setting up personal servers.
Many routers will let you plug in a USB drive and use it as a network folder over the internet. Of course, that brings headaches over self-signed certificate errors. VLC finally updated to v3, and you still can't get it to ignore certificate errors when trying to stream from a remote server.
4803746
I think the coding method is called N of M, and is an extended version of Spread Spectrum, or CD audio error correction encoding? If youve ever use Planar Graphics, instead of Indexed or Chunky RGB, you can follow it a lot easier.
4802902
Cloud downloads ain't the problem. What goes up must come down and all? Gettin' it back in one piece is the hard part.
4802824
No, although it was tempting.
4802828
I wish. What would lead you to believe that I was?
4802841
Probably not terribly soon. I've been working 7 day weeks for the last month. . . .
4802855
Well, luckily for him, the waters didn't come up quite high enough to damage anything.
In general (and I'm not an expert), you need to have FEMA flood insurance to get any coverage for a flood. In some disasters, the state or local governments might contribute, but it's generally administered on a federal level.
4802865
4802997 figured out what I was doing with it--making a ground on a stick ('cause I needed to poke a ground where I couldn't reach with my hands).
He is. And so are two of his kids.
Well, maybe that's being unfair; one of them is reasonably smart, and once he gets knocked down by life a few times, he'll probably figure out that he isn't Billy Badass after all, and then he'll probably do all right.
4802876
I don't think so, but one never knows.
4802902
Pfft, don't be silly Applejack. Everypony knows what goes up must come down. Just ask your cousin Cherry Berry.
4802986
Yeah, although I honestly think I'd rather have Google or Amazon keeping my stuff safe than the government.
I'd need a bigger battery than just the 12v car battery.
4802997
That might be it, or it might be how our customers use their trucks as opposed to yours. We do enough of them that we've got a known good in our parts cabinet. It's a cheapass Dorman, but it's good enough to drive the truck in instead of pushing it.
Trying to ground the turn signals. Turns out that the one wire was broken in the insulation, and the other rusted off the core support, so I ultimately had to pull the headlights and run the jumper wire to them to prove my diagnosis (although I knew what it was before I did any of that). Weird thing was that when the turn signals were trying to flash, it also made the light on the fog light switch flash, even though that's supposed to have a different ground.
I never really liked the rounded body ones, and GM's 4WD system on those things ate front end parts (although that was a good thing for a mechanic). I will say that the old 2.5L squarebody s-trucks were nearly indestructible, and didn't mind indifferent maintenance. Mine has somewhere over 400k on it, and one of these days I'm going to get it running again.
Eh, I'm not overly impressed with the Vues (and their kin), although I'd rather have one of those than a Blazer. Or an Enclave, for that matter.
Somewhere I've got a picture of my manager putting a heater core in a Equinox. That's a fun job. I'm glad he did it and not me.
4804887
The key is to have it fall somewhere kinda soft, where it can bounce a couple of times.
4807509
Ouch! At my place they usually garantee 2 days off each week, but sometime if your five days of work align you can go up to 10 consecutive day. Happened once, it was exhausting. I can't imagine 28 consecutive days.
4807535
I don't know what my record is (and I'd probably be sad if I thought about it too much). I usually work around 60 hours per week.
4807538
Do you at least get time and a half, or does your employer have a loophole (farm work, piece work, seasonal, etc) to dodge that?
Consecutive sevens are rough. A month of 80 hour weeks is just misery, and I'm impressed you're active even as much as you have been.
4807523
lol I did one of those once.
4807509
dam dude rest is required!
4807507
Bummer. Not sure I was high when I posted it.
4807660
I do. It's two separate jobs, which of course means that I don't get overtime just because of total number of hours worked; having said that, I usually work between 45 and 50 hours/week at the shop. On a busy week, I'm on overtime all Friday.
One thing that helps is that there's not a lot else that I want to do in the wintertime.
4807677
And you had fun, right?
4807739
Yeah, yeah. Turns out I can function decently well on 6 hours of sleep per night.
4807851
I've never tried, but I'm not sure that I could read particularly well when stoned. Maybe if the opportunity ever arises, I'll have to experiment.
4810152
If you are of age go for it! Not really but you do lose your place on occasion.
4810149 Loads. And IIRC, it was one of those customers that thought 'why does it cost so much?' or 'how hard can it be?' so I made damn sure that they came in and saw the job halfway through.
4810204
Oh, I'm definitely of age. I'm probably older than you.
4810240
That's something customers need to see more often, IMHO.
4810252
There you go then. 50 in less them then two months.
4810282
Well never mind; you've got me beat by almost a decade.
4810303
just rub it in LOL.
4810150
go for 8 or ten
4810467
8 or 10 hours of sleep per night? Ain't nobody got time for that.
4810321
If it's any consolation, I'll get there sooner than I'd like.
4810816
lol well i look forward to
onto to pony planet