Transmission update (good news)

So last night i finally opened up the transmission completely and found the broken part. It turns out it wasn't quite everything that was broken. The good news though is that I was able to get the parts i need to fix it already today! There was a DSM (Eclipse is a DSM) type get together and one person had recently upgraded his transmission (to the dogbox i want) and no longer needed the old internals. Currently i have them in my garage already, but i probably won't be able to get them isntalled to the transmission before Wednesday at the earliest. Good news though is that friend prices on used internals are MUCH cheaper than getting a dogbox, but it should be sufficient to get the car back on the road until i can save up some more money. I definitely plan on gettin the dogbox still and i rode in the car that had it. It's quite loud and would be obnoxious to most people, but i think my car already fit that category so i'm good there. It gets into gear FAST though and his car has some serious power so that part was fun too.

I'll be saving for a while, but if you want to help for free take a look at the firefox and/or google pack buttons on the blog. Both products have good points to them

Loans instead of charity?

Recently I heard about a website where you can contribute to loans for people who would not be able to get them from a regular bank (http://www.kiva.org/). I like the idea of having people work to get help so they take pride in themselves and actually make better use of the aide that is given. I had heard of microfanance previously (yep, from the same person =) ), but it didn't really sink in as much until i saw how a similar idea is used for habitat for humanity( http://www.habitat.org/ ).

I guess now i need to explain that one. When i was in the officer training they had a day where you get to do community service for the morning and there were some choices, and i felt my best fit was habitat for humanity. It was a good time, and they described their process of how they have the potential owners work 500 hours of "sweat equity" before they can get their house. This is in the form of some classes such as finance, and working at the jobsite. I got to see the owner of the house i was building and how much she cared about the process and how thankful she was.

I will probably try to do another habitat for humanity project near home when they have one again now. Also, I decided to lend some money to someone on kiva, let me know if you find out who it is. My only hint will be that a side part of the loan is to set up a pool table =)

Gps arrived

It will probably lose it's novelty pretty quickly like most things, but so far the GPS is a pretty fun toy. I haven't really had any use for it for navigation at this point, but i was racking up points with navizon on it. The idea behind navizon is they take the gps data for wifi and cell spots and use it to give an estimated location for people that do not have real gps systems. People pay for that service so they will pay for my to locate the hot spots. It is never going to be lucrative for me, but it does kinda make it interesting when i might get 20 bucks if i had it on all the time whnever i drive different places. It's also neat cuz it points out where all the hot spots are. I had 170 networks found in about a 10 mile or less radius. If anyone is interested the site is www.navizon.com

Organizing etc.

I finally started to catch up a little on cleaning and paperwork issues around the house. It's really hard to get myself motivated to do those things. I'm not saying it's done by any means, but better and hopefully it will be easier to take on the rest of the paperwork now.

One of the good things about this was in going through the mail from while i was away i found a check for 18 bucks. Nothing major, but it made my time organizing a little more worthwhile. Apparently i over paid my local taxes. Oops, at least i got it back and it's nice since it was kinda surprising to find.

The side of the basement with the foosball table now has a ceiling and the table is playable. I didn't finish cleaning out the area where the soda fountain should be going yet, but i've made progress.

This weekend was guard weekend and i do have an interesting story from it, but i think it is better one on one, so feel free to call and ask about it if i haven't already told ya.

Update on GPS unit

instead of the one that i ordered previously it looks like i'll get the i. Trek M5+ it looks to be newer and should be at least as good, also it has double the battery life. They are sending it for the same price since hte one i ordered looks to be on back order until june.

Here's a link, it also looks prettier hehe:
http://www.semsons.com/im5blgpsrewa.html

Ordered a GPS unit

I was able to find a bluetooth GPS device that was only $50. It doesn't come with a display or software, but my phone can already handle the display and software portion. It's the Holux M-1000 and I ordered it from www.semsons.com There is also a site called www.buygpsnow.com which also has good deals and sells this for the same price, but they had more expensive shipping. Unfortunately this is a pre-order special so it won't be shipped until the 18th. I guess for the price it's worth the wait though, and it should be a pretty good device from what i have read. If i end up using it a lot i'm sure i'll post more about it's performance too.

Transmission

I took the transmission out of the eclipse tonight. I took my time, but it's on the garage floor now. It's probly gonna need EVERYTHING replaced, but i didn't look inside it. If you want to hear all the details you'll have to call. I'm definitely filthy now though. I wore a yellow shirt and it lets you know where the dirt is.

I might not end up getting a dogbox transmission like i want since they are really really expensive and the transmission i had should be able to take more power than i'm making. I still want the other one though so if you wanna donate lots of money to me just let me know =)

This car makes any other maintenance i do to vehicles seem small, but it's still my favorite by far!

Shocks

I have the Bilstiens installed on the ranger now. I guess i'm getting pretty well practiced at this now. In fact it even went fairly smooth. I've done them on my miata, helped my bro with the talon (just like my eclipse, but i didn't need them since i've had a garage) and now the ranger. Hopefully soon i'll get them done on a Toyota for a friend too. We'll see how that works out, but i won't be counting on it to be as smooth as this one went.

The truck rides better from what i can tell in the 5 miles i've driven since. It's stiffer than before which is good. That's pretty much the news for today. Oh, if you know anyone that needs a set of 16" steel rims that don't have tires, but are in really good shape let me know.

keeping busy

I finally finished the soffit on the garage yesterday! It should be a huge step in getting rid of the squirrel problem i've been having. It looks pretty good too. After i was done i decided to celebrate by taking the eclipse out for a spin. That car is lots of fun! I also splurged on a toy called an Airhogz Havoc Heli which is $30 from wal-mart or target. I only had it one night so i'm not great with it, but i'd reccommend it since it's a lot of fun for a fairly cheap investment in a flying toy.

Today i went to the carlisle car show. It was decent, it seemed like there weren't too many people compared to what i was expecting. I did see the StarBoyz bike stunts which were pretty awesome.

Now for the bad part. On the way home from the car show i was driving the eclipse and just as i was getting off my exit the car made funny noises. It was also starting to buck so i pulled over. As soon as i got off the road the car stalled even though it was in neutral. All of these things added up to a diagnosis of a broken tranny. I called a friend of mine and he's had this same thing happen 5 times to the transmissions which came from the same company i got mine from. The engine in the car is running perfectly still fortunately, but this does mean more eclipse downtime.

Bro update (wow 2 posts in one day!)

Dear Friends and Family,

Did I say I would write these every two weeks? That must have been a typo. Maybe I meant every two months. The time between each letter seems to be doubling. So don't worry about me for four months. (Kidding).

Every two weeks is rather difficult though. There isn't enough to report. Going to try monthly.

May be visiting Pennsylvania for a highschool reunion at the end of June. My roomate, Derek, needs to move to Portland the week before the reunion. Won't have the time to drive to PA (or at least not the same route). For those of you that were visited on my journey here: If you enjoyed my company, my appologies there won't be a visit this June. If you didn't enjoy my company, don't worry, you won't see me for a while.

After the last letter, hit a snag in writing the book. Took a while to figure out that I know nothing about police procedure. Got some help from some friends on the force. While waiting for one of their responses, started working on another long standing project.

Owned "http://www.tekempire.net/" since about January 12, 2005. Until recently, the site didn't do anything. Now, as far as functionality is concerned, it's finished. It's a text based forum, no pictures, nothing special to see. Most of the "commands" are akin to their counterparts in the UNIX operating system. It was designed for my own purposes, you aren't likely to enjoy it.

At this point, if anyone is considering taking a look at the website (despite how hard I tried to downplay its appeal), hold on a second. If my friends (or internet users en masse) have gotten to it before you, the messages may be vulgar or otherwise offensive. That being said, do as you please.

The website was supposed to waste a week, it ended up taking over a month at about ten hours a day. There were approximately five complete rewrites. Fortunately I learned something in the process.

When trying to build something, take the time to learn the tools. Creative construction is a cumulative process. The creativity part may not require any prior knowledge, but trying to implement an idea can require a great deal of it.

Outlines, even when not necessary to complete a task, will simplify it a great deal. The outlines don't have to follow any standard, the idea is to make sense to the author at a glance. A quote comes to mind, "Work smart, not hard." A lot of small tasks are easier than one big task.

Don't worry about time. Stress impedes performance. Also, time is a largly left-brained process, and creativity a largely right-brained one. While worrying about time, it may be difficult to be creative. Ironically worrying about time is likely to make things take longer. This one is probably the biggest problem for me.

Somewhere in the middle of the website diversion, one of my friends on the force sent me an e-mail. Not only did their response explain what areas to research, it gave a great deal of the specific information needed. Of course, nobody can write my book for me, so there is still some research to do on my own.

Originally thought I knew all I needed to know to write this book. Gained a new respect for authors (at least the good ones); they must be well versed in a variety of fields. Conversely lost some respect for computer programmers. Programming is no longer magic to me. (Or at least I discovered the spell to be caffeine and endless hours in front of a keyboard).

I'd like to thank those of you that have written to me on real paper. This dying art feels "warmer" than it's next of kin (e-mail). I do intend to respond to them in a more individual fassion, but there is a limit to what I can write in a given period of time. Eventually I will realize this is just an excuse and set aside a day to respond to all of them. Until then, please be patient. (Are you thinking that I can't know that I will realize something, without having already realized it? Well in that case I'll respond to your thought with this thought, "what?").

home improvements

I finally purchaced the materials i will be needing for the soffit on the garage. It's wide open now, but i think a squirrel or two still likes it in there. My speaker for the radio doesn't work again. When i checked it out i saw the chewed up wire. It's getting rediculous. I will also be making more improvements this summer, but this is the first priority. I don't have a roommate anymore though so the improvements will come slower this year. Speaking of which, if you know anyone that needs an apartment in the area let me know.

I'll also be installing shocks on the truck soon, maybe the weekend after this one.