Ow. The middle finger on my weak hand hurts. Jarrel requested I build a wheel for a regular customer, and I guess all the callouses and deadened nerves from years of wheelbuilding have reverted to pre-wrench conditions. Heck, I had a difficult time chopping off all the old spokes since the tendonitis in my left elbow has been acting up since before Kyoto. When was the last time I built a wheel? Was it the set on the Truth? No – there must have been something after that…
(0)Archive for the 'rant' Category
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I saw the later half of the “Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins†movie today, and the only understanding I can gather about all the complaints that they cast an “Asian†as Velma is that this is racism. The actress, Hayley Kiyoko Alcroft is half-Asian, so therefore is also “half whiteâ€. So what’s the problem? She’s no more Asian than she is white – why is she being labeled as “only Asianâ€? It’s like a famous American mixed-ethnicity politician being labeled as “America’s first Black President†or another mixed-ethnicity professional athlete being identified for only his father’s race. Do these complainers only see what they consider an “impurityâ€, and not the remaining white side? That’s seriously Third Reich thinking. Alcroft performs the role well, regardless of her ethnicity. The show’s producers were not trying to “Asianify†the character: They cast the actress that fit the role the best. Period. A syndicated reviewer mentioned the whole “Asian†thing and went on to say that she also didn’t have freckles like the original cartoon character, almost intimating that being Asian was mutually exclusive to having freckles, and therefore made her another level inappropriate. Sorry, dude – Asians get freckles too.
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Those times of year when the normal Northeasterlies break down and Southerlies prevail bring clear, dew-covered mornings and picturesque sunrises and sunsets. Too bad they also bring torrid midday heat and irritants that exacerbate various respiratory conditions. Here’s a pretty picture of this morning’s sunrise to take your mind off the evil lingering heat and itchy eyes.
I keep hearing this radio spot about how “American-built [pickup] trucks from Ford, Chrysler, and Chevrolet outsell foreign-made trucks from Nissan, Honda, and Toyota”. Duh! Nissan, Honda, and Toyota build all the trucks sold on the USDM in North America! None of them are imported! In fact, none of these companies’ Japanese divisions even makes or sells pickup trucks for the JDM anymore. The ad wasn’t lying, but it definitely wasn’t truthful.
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Yellow = cracked insulator: Red = open conductor
Just after lunch on Friday, the lights started flickering in the office, then all kinds of things shut down. Odd thing was a random half of things didn’t work, but the remainder of things worked fine. The electrician next door makai came over and opened the electrical panel and metered the incoming wires, and one of the legs of the three-phase power was out, so only one half of the box had regular power. There was about 24-volts of leakage current on the dead side, so low-powered items still semi-worked; the emergency lights still detected power and didn’t come on; and inductive things like fans ran, but really slow. We were dead out to the meter, so it was in HECO’s territory. The landscape guys next door mauka also didn’t have three-phase power, so a visual track of the wires coming into the building service entrance led our eyes up to the transformers on the on-property pole and a broken insulator and disconnected contact. Now there’s the problem… Continue reading ‘Bzzt…’
I was in back of a new navy blue base Matrix on Punchbowl heading in to work today. It had a “Got Yaoi?” diecut (in brown vinyl, no less) on the rear windscreen. The expected heavy, bespectacled fangirl was not behind the wheel, instead the car was occupied by two spiky-haired Asian dudes! WTF?! Yikes!
(0)Whoever designed the GM jack and tire changing tool set that comes with the Express van has never changed a flat before in their life! The jack has a planetary gear, so it takes forever to raise the vehicle, the handle doesn’t have a “crank†shape, so it is difficult to use, and the tool to lower the spare doesn’t extend past the bumper edge, so it takes forever to ratchet it down – in quarter-turn increments! All the mounts for the jack and tools look to have been cobbed together from random bits of bent metal.
(0)Chris had some free time on Saturday afternoon, so we put a ride together at the Ditch. Ckucke and JT were unavailable, but Root, Jeff, and Sara made the trip out to Waimanalo. There hadn’t been much rain since mid-week, but the ground was saturated enough that even the intervening clear days didn’t dry up the ground completely. Chris had gone on some crazy all-night hike on Friday evening through Saturday daybreak, so he was taking it easy. Along the climb up to the Ditch junction, a tighty single-speed guy with his full-head DH helmet friend and brand-new-shiny-Trek friend came up the trail. After regaling us with tales of the distant past when he and his friend built all the trails in Waimanalo, he and his buds went down the Ditch, while we continued up Government road to do the side loop. Continue reading ‘Quick and Dirty’
Went out for an easy Friday spin. I took out my keitai to answer a text, but when I put it back in the pocket of my Oakley Ballistic 3.7 shorts, the zipper jammed and I couldn’t close the pocket! I struggled with it until it got dark, then gave up and rode home being careful not to lose my phone. Damn krappy shorts! While trying to unstick the zipper at home later, I discovered that only one of the four zippers on the shorts works properly! WTF!? The waist elastic sucks, the weak fly snaps suck, and whoever designed it must have a crazy long torso, since both the liner short and outer baggy have such a long rise that in order to have the chamois against your perineum and the outer not hanging down to get hooked by the nose of the saddle, the waist ends up above the navel! Erkel MTB action! If the color didn’t rule, I’d toss them in the trash.
D = 13.16 km (8.18-miles), Vavr = 18.0 km/h (11.2-mph), Vmax = 39.3 km/h (24.4-mph), T = 44-minutes
OK, most of my Toyota’s are pretty good about this, but some designer/engineer was napping when they designed the clutch master cylinder in the AE86 Corolla. After all the engine and tranny work the past weeks, discovered the hydraulics were quite crusty and leaking. 
It was something I was intending to address from way back, but finally got the parts. So I figured this was going to be a quick and easy job, on the FX if you were motivated could be done in an hour. Not so here. For some reason someone at Toyota decided to put one mounting stud into the engine bay, behind the brake booster. In order to squeeze in a wrench and move it, you need to unbolt the brake booster from inside the foorwell. In order to gain easy access to those bolts, you need to remove some dash trim and drop the steering assembly. Sheesh. It’s done now, and then I discovered the clutch slave I bought is the wrong one, looks like its for the SR5 4AC model that has the slave mounted on the opposite side of the bell housing! Nuts! Looks like I’m not going to make the event this Sunday.