New shoes!
Okay, not a new photo, but I'm not running out to take a pic of my tires at 6AM!
Well last time I posted about wheel opinions, which I brought up because I was really in the market for new tires. I went ahead and bit the bullet on the tires, so if I ever do decide to get wheels, I’m limited to the same size wheels I have now (15″) which isn’t terrible since I’m not a big fan of the huge rims. Although I was considering going up as high as 17″. But oh well.
For a long long time I’ve been fighting a vibration going down the road. It all started back shortly before we moved to Great Bend when my right rear caliper locked up… overheated and warped my right rear rotor. But at the time being in the middle of a wedding and not even having enough money to get ourselves moved… I was forced to drive it for a while. Eventually I got the caliper and rotor fixed which eliminated most of the vibration, but as my negligence continued it actually wore the tire out of round, taking a tiny bit of rubber off the side of the tire that had been dragging on the warped rotor. The result was that even after I had all new hardware installed, there was still a slight vibration that got REALLY annoying above 60 MPH or so. As such my car was relegated to around town duty while the Mustang hauled us on long trips to Minnesota, Wichita and SWK all the time.
So now four new tires and from what I can tell, the vibration is gone! The ride is smooth and comfortable (or at least as comfortable as it can be on Great Bend’s awful streets). I’m really anxious to hit the hiway and set the cruise. This car is so comfortable and easy to drive that it just makes the miles melt away.
As I look outside, now about 7 o’clock and the skies are lightening up it makes me anxious for the spring time. I have a laundry list of automotive goals I need to get done. Priority one, get the Blazer serviceable. That is going to be a long term project I feel as I’m going to have to rewire the whole driver’s dash area and some under the hood. I need to do some maintenance to the Mustang, replace some gaskets and check out the transmission fluid. And my car needs a radiator flush, some exhaust work, and a little touching up on my cheap bastard paint job. Should be enough to keep me busy through the summer!
Wheel Opinions
This is just a quick photoshop of a wheel I found that (supposedly) would fit my car. Trying to decide how they’d look on my car. If I could find a used set I’d probably go for it. But I don’t really think I want to drop $170 a piece for them brand new.
American Racing Chrome Aero
Amazing mind trip!
Okay, this is what you do when you have amazing skills. Check out the photo this fella took. Looks pretty good for late 50’s photography. As I’ve posted before, I love taking old photos like this and “colorizing” them to kind of experience what it would have looked like if you had actually been there.
But a fella named Micheal Paul Smith took the concept just a bit further. And all he needed was a nice camera, a little photoshop touch-up, and some serious skills!
This is a real photograph. No colorization at all.
How’d he do it? Would you believe those cars are just models he built!?
Micheal Paul Smith.
WOW! Just WOW! He has truly done some amazing work. Check out his slideshow if you ever get a chance!
02.5.10Fun with stuff that’s almost 100 years old.
So I’ve had this idea for a while that I wanted to do something somewhat different with audio on the site. I wanted to have two things going at once in each speaker, but both related. I hadn’t really thought of a way for it to (kinda) make sense until now. A while ago I put a “superloud” needle in the old Victrola. The increase in sound quality and (you guessed it) volume were amazing. I tried to capture it as best I could with my crummy microphone but it just doesn’t do it justice.
At any rate, Here is Gloria Hart & the Art Kassel Orchestra. In your left speaker you will hear the mid 50’s press, recorded (crapily) from the Victrola, and in the right speaker, the 2008 digitally remastered CD version.
First podcast of the decade
Well I was feelin’ it today and decided to knock out a Podcast. Not saying it’s interesting, but as usual bring me your tired, your creepy and your bored. They shall be served.
01.24.10Saints 31 – Vikings 28
Well it was a good game. Hell it was a fantastic game. It was frustrating, exciting and just about every other emotion. I so desperately wanted the Vikings to win. So many times we had a chance to do so. One less fumble, one less interception and we could have had it. But because of those things, the Saints were the better team tonight. So congrats to them. I’ll be rooting for them in the Super Bowl.
For years I’ve despised the Packers but still found a small once of respect for Brett Favre as a player. He always was a guy who just looked like he loved to play the game. It took a few games into this season seeing him in purple but I got behind him. He’s a great player and I’d be willing to guess after tonight’s game, he’s finally going to call it “good” and enjoy retirement. It was fun watching what I believe is his last NFL game, even if I wish the outcome would have been different.
Hilarious phone call last night.
So nothing much of interest usually happens when I’m at the radio station late running the board for a ball game. But last night I got a call on the business line that I just about couldn’t keep a straight face though. I wish I could have recorded it. I’ll try to recite the call as well as I can remember it.
The woman was older, but not senior aged. Maybe late 40’s with a slight rasp to her voice. Her words were spoken with a general tone of bewilderment.
“Eagle Radio and Hull Broadcasting,” I answered.
“Yeah, uh. Is Trader John on today?” she said, I assume she is talking about ‘Trading Post’ hosed by our AM guy, John.
“Umm… Yes ma’am. It was on at 9:00 today and will be on again at 9:00 tomorrow,” I answered.
“Oh, so he’s going to start doing it at night now?” she said a bit suprised.
“No, no. 9:00 to 10:00 in the morning,” I said.
“But I have my radio on right now and I’m picking up some other guy,” she said as if I were lying to her face.
“Well, it’s 9:30 a night right now…” I replied in a deadpan tone.
“IT’S NINE O’CLOCK AT NIGHT?” she bellered.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said trying to keep from snickering, but somewhat wondering if she is messing with me.
“Oh, don’t tell me I slept all day. Are you sure? Oh no. Okay… well… thank you…” she said.
“No problem, Trading Post should be on in about 12 hours!” I couldn’t help it, I let out a small chuckle before hanging up the phone.
01.17.10Pleasant Weekend
Well it’s been a real nice weekend. Or at least my recollection of it is nice. Started out late Friday when we headed over to Charlie’s Place for some beverages with several former Rocking M folks. Had some good times laughing over the old stories. The occasion was the departure of Matt, the last person that was left in programming at the old station I worked at across town. They’re down to the front desk gal, and a couple sales people. No regrets about the tough decision I made last year, sentiments that were echoed around the table.
After a late night we were able to sleep in. Saturday and watch the Saints thwomp the Cardinals. Which will make NEXT Sunday interesting as now the Vikings put on a real impressive show today. I’m excited and nervous. I’ve never rooted for a team that had a CHANCE at a champ-a-ma-thingy.
Went to the store over the weekend too. You ever have little annoyances that just bug you to no end, but they just seem like they aren’t a big enough deal to worry about? Well we were at the store and I decided I was going to go ahead and nip two things that had bugged me for a long time. Got new drip pans for the stove, and a new el cheapo coffee maker.
Black rather than chrome after the last experience...
$14.00. No timers. Just old schooly on/off switch.
I subscribe to Mom’s school of thought when it comes to coffee makers. It really does no good to drop a bunch of cash on a coffee maker when the tap water is so hard that it eventually ends up getting ruined anyway, no matter how much you try to clean it. The last coffee maker we had was real nice, but even with regular cleaning, it still only lasted a little over two years. So until I end up with a water softener (unlikely) I’ll stick with the bottom shelf Mr. Coffee maker.
In contrast, I skimped on the last set of trim rings I bought for the stove. And it didn’t take but a week for the fake chrome the flake off the chinesium surface. After a few heat cycles and a couple passes with comet just trying to keep the stove clean, they looked like a beer can that had been sitting in a campfire overnight. Decent drip pans are freakin’ expensive though. But tired of looking at the old ones; I dropped the cash for new ones which hopefully last until we move out of this place!
Helped Andrea wash and wax the car, played some of the New Super Mario Bros. Wii that we recently picked up. And just had an all around great weekend. Here’s hoping a week full of sports board-op-ing is at least tolerable!
01.13.10Communication is the key!
Well one of the benefits of my recent lack of motivation is that I’ve had plenty of time to *gasp* watch TV. Something I don’t usually do a ton of. Biebs introduced the show “Big Bang Theory” to me quite some time ago when it first came out, and I watched a few clips, but never really felt like sitting down and watching a show.
So now with a lack of anything better to do, Andrea dug up some episodes of the show and we started watching. A couple episodes in and (a few years late to the show) I’m hooked.
We’re both really enjoying the show, so we’ve been trying to watch all the episodes together, but it’s HARD. Especially when she’s off bowling and I have nothing to do for about three hours. So after resisting for as long as I could, I went ahead a few episodes and just figured I’d watch them again when sat down and watched them “together”.
So only after we sat down at lunch and watch an episode (which I’d already seen) did I find out that Andrea had done the SAME THING TOO! So we both re-watched an episode that we both thought the other didn’t watch only because we didn’t tell each other about skipping ahead.
So maybe if we’d been honest with each other we could have actually seen something new!
01.12.10My Funk
Well I get into these little funks every now and then. Where I just feel very passive. Usually when I get in these ruts I find myself doing a lot of things that don’t involve much input on my part. I haven’t even been much into gaming lately. I’d rather do something that I can just absorb and not have to push something forward, whether it’s a character, thought, a project, a goal or what not.
I’ve actually spent a decent amount of time just looking up random topics on wikipedia just to soak up a quick general understanding of things I’ve never really put much thought into before. Make myself a little more well rounded, if you will. Sure you can’t trust wiki for a lot of details, but they usually get the big picture of a topic pretty well.
I’ve been watching a lot of Big Bang Theory catching up on Season 1 & 2, and just discovered that Quantum Leap is on Hulu now! Man I LOVED that show. Can’t believe that it is 20 years old!
I haven’t even made a post on any of my regular message boards for a couple weeks, and I’ve been on my messenger almost as scarcely. It’s weird to not feel like doing things I know I like to do.
I think part of it is I’m just not passionate about anything right now. As far back as I can remember, whatever it is I’ve been interested in at the time, I’ve been fanatical about it. Whether it was Mario Kart, the Toronado, building computers, the old radios, or whatever. Not to say I’m not interested in those things anymore, I’m just not passionate about much of anything right now.
I think the best thing to do is to just ride it out and see where I end up. I know I’m not going to feel lethargic forever. I just need some kind of spark. But for now I apologize for being somewhat of a hermit lately. I’m sure SOMETHING interesting will happen.