Retro Game Night!
I’m so excited. I have officially dubbed Tuesdays as Retro Game Night in my house. You’re probably thinking, I could play retro games every night around here if I wanted to. And I COULD, but then I couldn’t get a lot of other things done, be it gaming, or actual, you know… responsibilities.
So I decided in order to be able to enjoy a few of the things I’ve really been wanting to do, and not just plow through them one at a time like it’s a job, I would take different nights of the week and dedicate them to different areas. All part of this preparation and organization kick I’m on lately.
Monday – Guild Wars 2 Night: Officially started last night as Andrea and I were playing through with her new character. This game is incredibly fun, but will literally consume every minute of your life you’re willing to throw at it. Part of this new schedule is to keep me from spending ALL my time playing GW2. Haha.
Tuesday – Retro Game Night: A night to play anything not in HD. That’s (begrudgingly) how I’m defining “retro” gaming these days. Right now I’m focusing on Final Fantasy III. It’s tough because it’s been so long between play sessions I’m having trouble remembering what to do next. Hopefully playing on a more regular basis I can follow along a little better.
Wednesday – Guild Wars 2 Night: Because honestly this game deserves 2 nights a week. It’s the game I’m most interested in right now and the game I’m having the most fun with. These game night themes aren’t the same forever. But this is how it is for now.
Thursday – Automotive Night: This makes the list because generally I kinda like working on my old cars. And matter of factly, I NEED to work on these old things to keep them running. Basically there’s only one thing that matters when you’re driving old cars on a daily basis like we do. And that is fix things faster than things break. If you can do that, it will last forever.
Friday – Project Night: This one I’m most excited for. Mostly because I don’t know what my project is going to be yet. Ultimately I’d love to build a MAME Arcade Cabinet. But this night will rely on funds being available for big stuff. But right now I know there’s plenty of little projects around the place here that I need and want to get done. And this sets aside some time to do those.
So there you go. This whole idea is all about making time for the things I want to do. I’ve felt so busy since Luke was born. But hopefully putting a little focus behind my recreation, I can not only actually get to them, but also enjoy them. All to often I feel like I’m just plowing through something I’ve wanted to do, making it something I have to do because I don’t know when I’m going to get back to it. This adds some structure. And it helps me remember I will get back to things, so I don’t have to force my way through them.
We’ll see how long this lasts. I get on these kind of kicks then eventually they fizzle out for me, but right now, I’m pretty excited about it.
An $8.00 Project
Well the biggest glaring flaw on the Jeep to me was the paint on the rear vents between the window and the hatch. After years of UV rays, the paint had begun to bake off. Not sure why it hasn’t effected the rest of the Jeep, but I’m not complaining.
So I stopped by Autozone and got an $8.00 can of Duplicolor “Chrysler Flame Red” and set out to clean ’em up.
Here you can see a previous picture that shows where the paint was gone behind the windows.
They come off pretty easy. Even so, I busted one of the mounting pegs when I was pulling it off. A little super glue overnight and it seems like it’s holding strong.
They didn’t turn out perfect so I might pull them back off sometime down the road and redo them, but for now. They met my “better than it was” standard.
Jeep gets new exhaust
So literally the day after we bought the Jeep. The Check Engine light came on. Took it to Autozone to read the code and it said “Catalytic Converter Efficiency Low”. Basically on these new fangled things, it has not one, but two oxygen sensors. One in front of the cat converter, and one behind it. It compares the two readings and if they are too close, it deduces that the cat isn’t doing its job and should be replaced.
And because I want to save the planet… we’re fixing it.
I test fitted everything together. We got all the parts from RockAuto.com, since the local Autozone & O’Reilly’s couldn’t get the front pipe. With a handy discount code that almost payed for the shipping, everything came out to just a couple bucks over $300. Not bad considering a exhaust shop was going to charge $400 to JUST replace the cat.
Getting the tailpipe out was definitely the hardest part. I tried cutting the pipe, but the exhaust pipe cutter I got on load from AutoZone was junk. So luckily the old muffler was so crusty, I just hammered on the pipe until it popped out of the muffler.
My little jack is small, but it has served me well for the cars we’ve always had. The Jeep is about 6 inches higher off the ground though. And fully extended my jack didn’t even reach the undercarriage! Forced to make do with what I had, I came up with the above scary setup. Luckily I didn’t have to actually be underneath the Jeep while it was jacked up like this. Because that’s some serious red-neck engineering right there. If I want to keep working on this thing, I’m going to have to get a bigger jack, that’s for sure.
I had to jack it up to get the tail pipe over the axle, and I had to unbolt the track bar and drop that down too. After that, it was pretty easy to pull the old crusty one out and slide the new one in. Then I promptly put the wheel back on and got the vehicle back on the ground and off of that crazy ass setup! I could just see a cinder block exploding and the whole thing crashing down.
I had to make one more cut in front of the cat and after that, everything came out with relative ease.
The whole job was prompted by the check engine light, but it was also a good excuse just to redo the whole exhaust because it had some definite leaks. The old muffler was just plain wore out. It had pinholes from corrosion all over it and as you can see above was super crusty.
I didn’t get any pics of the re-assembly process because once it all started going together, I got on a roll. Hardest part was getting everything lined up and tucked up as good as possible. I probably straightened that muffler 10 times before I tightened everything up and it’s still crooked… oh well. Nothing I can do about it now as it’s all locked in place. And it’s not like anyone will see it anyway. It is nice to see the fresh exhaust in there. Feels rewarding.
Seems like it did what it was supposed to. It’s definitely quieter. We cleared the check engine code with our new code scanner.
I have to say, it was super nice working on something that wasn’t rusted solid like our other old cars. The O2 sensors and even the bolts going into the exhaust manifold all came loose with relative ease! Is this why people don’t usually drive 30 year old cars? Haha.
07.29.12
Another Project Radio
These seem to gravitate towards me. Jamie and Bryan got this for me for my birthday this year. Man is it cool! It has a phonograph, cassette deck AND an 8 track! All the good stuff!
I hooked it up to Andrea’s speakers, we plugged it in and it seems to work fine. Other than the selection switch is pretty finnickey so I need to get some electronics cleaner and clean all the contacts there.
It needs a good cleaning, but it should be a trusty radio!
It’s Finished
I don’t have pics of the completed project, but here’s a quick picture I snapped right after I picked it up from the upholstry shop.
I’ll get some better pictures as soon as I can.
You know I really like working on cars, but I can get frustrated. Especially when I’m on a time crunch. I don’t like having to have a car back together by the next day so it can be on the road. Sadly we only drive projects around here! Haha.
I think it turned out pretty good though.
06.12.12Sorry I’ve Been Absent
It’s been busy. I had mentioned in previous podcasts that I started playing Metroid Prime with the intention of playing it until completion. Well the bad news is I’ve been too busy to play any of it for the past two weeks. But then again, I haven’t really been doing any gaming at all INSTEAD of that, so it’s not like I’ve been “cheating”. Though Andrea and I did play some Mario Kart 7 on 3DS tonight.
Other than a whole lot of travel this month. Here’s the big project that has kept me most busy. The vinyl top on Andrea’s car. It hasn’t been too bad. I just hope I’ve done everything well enough that the upholstery shop will put the top on. My biggest fear is that I get it all prepped to go and they’ll say I didn’t do something right. Ugh. Let’s hope not. Really just want to get this done!
Here’s some pics of the process. I’m only going post a few of them on the front page, so click through to see the rest!
This is what was underneath when we took it off.
Here’s the old vinyl that was flapping in the breeze.
Uh oh. This can’t be good. Got most of the old glue sanded off. But the paint underneath is pretty flaky, so a lot of that is going to have to come off too. But what is that drill for?
I had to drill out all the rivets holding down the trim pieces that go around the edges. Kinda apprehensive about drilling holes in an otherwise nice car. But must do what must be done. I was afraid this was going to be tedious work, but the drill chewed right through them!
Time for new Vinyl
I wish I were talking about records…
Actually talking about Andrea’s Cutlass. The vinyl top on the back half of her roof has slowly been coming loose since we bought the car. It hasn’t been too bad, then all at once it really went to crappy. The glue just totally gave up.
She said she could hear it flapping in the wind as she was driving down the highway, so we stopped by the upholstery shop to get a quote. It’s actually pretty reasonable if I remove the old top. So that’s the plan. Infact, Andrea already got most of the vinyl off!
Cutting away
The Guild Wars 2 servers were down for a couple hours, so I decided to go outside and be productive.
Man, I have cut a lot of limbs and trees around here over the past year. I really need to find someone with a truck to help me haul ’em off.
I chopped down a tree that has been left to it’s own devices for many years. As you can see it has become one with the fence.
Makes for a lot of waste.
And all these…
Speaking of plants, the garden is still alive, though my potatoes got nipped by a cold night. I didn’t notice any frost, but apparently it got cold enough that the plants didn’t like it. Onions did OK, but the potatoes sure looked better a week or two ago. I think the might bounce back though.
And my pumpkins are just starting to sprout!
So onward we go!
03.20.12
Podcast: Terrible Segway Edition
For a lack of planning or forethought of any kind I almost liked this one. Which is rare for this Podcast.
Topics:
- eBay Habits
- Severe Weather
- Garage Sales
- Elusive Vectrex
- Freecycle & Projects
- Gardening
- Podcast Music
- Mystery Song
Last time’s mystery song was from Animal Crossing on Gamecube!
03.17.12Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Well they say on St. Patrick’s day you’re supposed to plant your potatoes. I got that done! I planted those and my yellow onions, and my garden is already half full! I think I’m going to have to tear up some more ground for the pumpkins and watermelons for sure. Plus I still have corn to plant, and peppers, and… yeah, my garden is going to be too small I think. And tearing up all that ground took me three days! Haha. Roto tillers are for wimps.
Funny story, a co-worker of mine and I were talking and I told him that I was planting a garden. He asked how it was going and I said pretty slow because I’m just using a spade to do all the cultivating. He said that the local hardware store was renting tillers pretty cheap. “I’m communing with my ancestors,” I said.
“Oh, you mean you’re cheap!” he said.
Ha ha. Well, ya, I guess that’s no secret. But honestly there is something pretty therapeutic about sticking the shovel in the ground and breaking through all the years of roots. Does kind of make you think of how many years people all over the earth lived like this. There were no part-timers to schedule, or mufflers to change. It was a very basic way of life, and to think if my survival was penned on my gardening skills… God help me!
So afterwards I felt like I deserved a reward. And after all it was St. Patty’s Day so…
Which I am still enjoying now. It’s a medium dark beer, and QUITE hoppy. Boulevard makes some great beer, and this is definitely my seasonal favorite. Not a beer you want to sit around and drink a lot of, but a nice treat.
Now gonna kick back and relax for the rest of the evening. Might even bust out the telescope and take a look at Venus and Jupiter!