Author Archives: anachostic - Page 12

But, All The Money I Saved

Posted by on March 1, 2020 No comments

What did I accomplish this weekend?  My plan was to work on the car.  When I last had my brakes done, the service center gave me a list of what else needed fixed on my 10 yr old, 300k mile car.  One item of note was the valve cover gasket.  It was leaking.  The other items were like $3k of work.  But a gasket, I can handle that.  Unbolt the valve cover, replace gasket, bolt cover back on.  One hour, tops.

That’s all well and good for "normal" cars.  The MX-5 is anything but normal.  Changing a headlight bulb on a normal car is popping the hood, taking out the old bulb and putting in a new one.  Changing a headlight bulb on the MX-5 means jacking up the car and taking the wheels off.  It’s utter bullshit.  So listen to me when I say that if you’re going to change the valve cover gasket on an MX-5, you have to take off the windshield wipers.

I started the project pretty optimistically.  I started with the obvious things.  Take off the spark plug coils.  Ok, I can see the sway bar crossbar needs to come off.  Ok, the rest of the sway bars need to come off as well.  Ok, now the AC hoses are in the way, let’s unbolt those.  How do I even get to these back bolts?  There’s a steel panel that has to come off to get at those bolts.  That means I have to take the cowl off.  Off come the wipers, off comes the cowl.  Off comes another plastic drainage piece.  Still no room to work.  Off comes the windshield wiper motor.  Finally, off comes the center plate blocking the access to the rear bolts.

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About this time, I was pretty well pissed off.  Every bolt or nut I take off is one that I have a high probability of dropping into the engine bay, never to be seen again.  Every part I take off is potentially one I could either forget to put back or put back in the wrong order so I have to take it back off again.  While taking a break, I refer to the service quote for my car.  How much am I actually saving for this hassle?  $200.  200 fucking dollars.  There’s no way this job can be done in $200 time.  The gasket itself is like $25.

I finally get everything off and all valve cover bolts loosened and the cover won’t come off.  All the videos I saw online, the cover just pops off.  Not mine.  And you’re discouraged from trying to pry it up, either.  My workaround was to run a nylon zip tie through an unused hole on the corner of the cover and pull up.  With a loud pop, the cover broke free.  Finally, some progress.

The gasket was in poor shape, yes.  It was hard, dry, and brittle when I pulled it out, to the point of splitting multiple times as it got pulled.  Replacing the gasket felt pretty good in comparison.  Despite the difficulty of the work, I feel this should have been done at least once before on this engine.  I added the silicone sealant as I’d seen in videos, which differed from the official service bulletin, but was consistent with the sealant residue left on the engine from the original gasket.  after tightening down all the bolts in the specific order needed, I gave up for the day.  That was 4 hours of work.

The next day, I got to reassembly.  It went a lot smoother and I made no mistakes while fitting all the pieces back in.  That’s not to say it was easy.  The plastic cowl covering the wiper motor and holding the washer hoses was a real pain in the ass.  I know it’s now not as good as it was before, but it’s livable.  And I was left with one bolt left over.  I purposely did not put it back in because it was in a terrible location and only held a bracket for an electrical connection that I had broken off anyway.  No sense replacing a bracket that can’t hold anything.

My initial startup test didn’t show any leaks.  My post-reassembly drive didn’t show any leaks.  My drive to dinner and back presented some slight oil burning smell, but that could be left over oil from the work.  I didn’t see anything leaking around the cover.  The first spark plug well had a substantial pool of oil in it when I started.  I mopped most of it out, but couldn’t get all of it.

In the end, that was over 6 hours of work.  It would have definitely been worth the $200 to have the dealer install it and not have to worry about possibly doing it wrong, nor getting covered in dirt and oil, nor back pains from stretching and bending over an engine bay for hours.  but I did get to use my tools.  They did their job quite well.

The Way The Cookie Crumbles

Posted by on February 25, 2020 No comments

Ah, youth.  A time of growth and exploration.  And a time to test limits and boundaries.  A time to express yourself in all sorts of unproductive and unhealthy ways.  A chance to act without any fear of consequence or concern of others.

I wax poetic about what I assume is youthful indiscretion at my local convenience store.  Framing the behavior in flowery prose is about the best I can do in the situation.  Certainly can’t catch them in the act; certainly couldn’t smack them in the head if I did.  And in some ways, I even hesitate to address the problem.  Not that my post is going to raise awareness of the problem and cause a rash of copycat actors, but sometimes it seems that just giving thought to problems seems to make them multiply.

So what’s the big, huge problem likely instigated by young hooligans upon my poor, local convenience store?  Well, there’s these cookies, you probably know of them, Fudge Stripes.  Shortbread cookies with chocolate stripes on one side and a chocolate back.  I like them.  I buy them every once in a while for breakfast.  Don’t judge me.  Tell me how cookies for breakfast is any worse than donuts.  It’s the same thing.

Anyway, these cookies.  At my local store, the cookies in the Fudge Stripes packages are always crushed.  Crushed into tiny crumbs, so eating them is an experience more like eating cereal than eating cookies.  And it’s not just a random thing.  It’s also not attributable to shipping problems.  Every pack is crushed.  Once I came in and the box was brand new and full.  I checked the lower layer.  All broken.

As maddening as this is, I do actually get it.  Breaking a shortbread cookie does have a measure of satisfaction.  It has a nice firm, but silent, snap to it.  I can understand why an ignorant child would be attracted, and maybe addicted, to doing something like that.  It still doesn’t make it right, or good.  And as an older person, I feel it’s my duty to express that these miscreants are going to be the future anarchists of the world.  The "Jokers" of their generation.  And I also have to comment on how bad the world has gotten compared to how it was when I was a kid, shoplifting candy from my local drug store.  Wait – scratch that last irrelevant (although true) comment.

Is the world worse?  Hell, yes it is.  But it’s only worse because there’s more of it.  More people, more opportunity, more stores, more products, more cookies.  The suck grows in proportion to the size of our environment.  And it’s this expansion that also feeds the proportional movement to create small, insular communities that attempt to keep out what is perceived as bad.  A poor solution – completely unsustainable.

So again, I reach the conclusion I’ve held for ever so long.  We need less people.  Sorry, fewer people.  We need to conserve everything we have – resources, sanity, cookies.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Posted by on February 24, 2020 No comments

Last Friday I had to call off work unexpectedly because I was sick.  And when I say I was sick, it wasn’t like the usual can’t-be-bothered-to-get-up kind of sick.  This was the puking sick.

But also, it wasn’t that kind of sick.  First off, I don’t get sick.  Well, there was that one time I tried doing CrossFit and puked, but that was a totally different experience and reason.  Even when I had the flu, which is a really rare occurrence in itself (because I don’t get sick), I didn’t throw up.  Second, there was no reason for me to get sick like that.  I hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary, in fact, I didn’t even really eat anything for dinner at all.  I had no warning signs, it just came up on me quickly.  I woke up with massive stomach pains.

Obviously, I’m not telling the whole story, because there is a probable reason why I got sick, but I didn’t put the two together until later that day and had to get some confirmation from a friend and later, online.

Normally, when I go to bed, I leave a small kitchen light on.  It’s a single bulb light and I’ve discussed the special wiring in the Casa blog when I was changing it to LED.  Normally, as I say, that light is on.  But you can read in many places that in order to get the best quality sleep, you should sleep in complete darkness.  Since my sleeping has been variable for quite some time, I decided Thursday night to leave that kitchen light off, which does leave my house dark.

Despite the small change to my sleeping ritual that night, everything else was kept the same.  My additional sleeping aids of the sound machine and 1mg of melatonin were applied and effective.  And, right on schedule, I woke up at around 3am to go to the bathroom.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

But was out of the ordinary was the extra darkness.  I’m not sure if it’s like this for everyone, but when it’s really dark, and sometimes with my eyes closed, I feel like I can still "see" the room.  It’s like an infrared vision or like an x-ray.  Maybe it’s just a memory, because I have never considered trying this special sight in an unfamiliar room.  But anyway, I made my way to the bathroom using my night vision, still half asleep.

And my vision failed me terribly.  I misjudged how far into the room I was and turned straight into a door frame, cracking my forehead on the corner of the molding.  After a brief pause and some self-deprecating comments, I continued in the correct direction and rested my skull in my hands while on the toilet.  The return trip to the bed was less eventful and I fell asleep again quickly.

About two hours later I woke up with the major stomach pains and wandered back to the bathroom, where I chewed up some Tums to settle my stomach.  I had made it to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water when I got the unmistakable, undeniable, certain feeling that there was going to be some puking soon.  And I was correct.  However, there was nothing in my stomach.  Well, some Tums, but nothing else.

I went back to bed and reasoned that if I was sick enough to puke, and I don’t puke, I should call off work.  Oddly, my manager didn’t answer the phone, and his manager didn’t either, so I had to go to the third in command to submit my request.  And afterwards, I fell asleep for another 5 hours.

The rest of the day I sort of wandered around in a daze.  Food helped and didn’t make me any sicker.  I didn’t really feel weak.  I had no more nausea.  But later that afternoon, I had a memory somewhere about concussions causing nausea and vomiting.  Well, that makes my head injury seem a lot more important now.  After confirming with my friendly paramedic, and later reading about concussions online, yeah, that’s probably what it was.  If I was being extra attentive and sensitive, I could note that I had brief flashes of headaches come and go.

As it turns out, I guess I did take the best course of action and rested for the weekend.  Everything was pretty normal by Saturday, and I got some extra napping in, too.  Am I going to be any dumber for the incident?  I don’t know how I would know.  Wait, is that a sign?

A New Piece, And A Little Less Peace

Posted by on February 17, 2020 No comments

After lunch today, I had the idea to visit the Cash America pawn shop.  I don’t bother much with pawn shops anymore, and it’s rare that I visit them, much less buy anything.  I have the assumption that most everything there is overpriced or has some problem with it.  Although, I do admit, I bought two Wii systems from pawn shops and those have been just fine.  That’s probably my last purchase, a couple of years ago.

So today, I browse around and ended up spying and buying a graphic equalizer for my stereo setup.  It’s made by Technics and is the correct vintage for my CD player.  The model is Technics SH-8017.  The EQ was $25, but was marked down to $20 early for President’s day.  And when I checked out, they made it $20 after tax, so even a little extra. 

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But when I went to check out and pulled out my credit card, they asked for my ID.  I said, "That’s new," and the manager said it was, because, you know.  Yeah, pawn shop.  And then, I was completely set up in their system with an account.  Name, address, phone number, date of birth, the whole works.  To buy something!  midway through, I though this wasn’t worth it for $20 and almost pulled out cash, but also considered, this was going to happen sooner or later and the sooner I can get in the system, I won’t have to do it again.

But what a weird thing, to have to create a customer profile to buy something.  Then again, is it weird?  You do it all the time when shopping online.  It is weird when buying something over a counter.  But is it?  You usually give up all that stuff when you sign up for loyalty or reward programs, too.  And it is a pawn shop, after all.  Everything behind those doors is a strange legal limbo.

But anyway, with all that behind me, I took the device home and plugged it in.  Everything worked quite well.  I noticed no additional noise when running it inline with the Technics CD player.  The only thing wrong with it is it’s missing one rubber foot (not seen in the front right), which I’ll be able to buy replacements for easily enough.  I tested out its capabilities using my CD of ZZ Top – Afterburner, which is notoriously anemic; even more so through the Technics CD Player.  As shown, I simply boosted the lower two bands and that raised the bass level to something more appropriate.

Could I have done the same with the tone controls on my preamp?  Well, yeah, but two things: first, there’s no quick bypass for the tone controls, so I would have to adjust them every time.  With the EQ, I just turn the device off to bypass it.  Second, the bass control is probably centered around a higher frequency than the lowest two bands on the graphic EQ.  That usually causes some "boominess" and is why tone controls aren’t that good for sound shaping.

I recently read a quip from a blogger whose opinion I trust and he said while using studio monitors for music listening (as I do) is fine, they tend to make the music more clinical, whereas normal amps and speakers are designed to reproduce music with a bit more excitement or punch.  So now, I have to consider if I want to go that route and if so, what amp and speakers to get.  My setup has been pretty good to me so far.  I guess it’s time to go to the next level.

Not For A Lack Of Trying

Posted by on February 11, 2020 No comments

Fresh off my success of building two CD shelving units, I set my sights on what else I could do.  I have plenty of resources available to me in both time and money, so I have a desire to use both of them up.  It’s a well-established habit of mine to try lots of different things and generally abandon them shortly afterwards.  In most cases, the abandonment leaves behind some investments in the hobby.

Looking back, I have some photography equipment sitting idle.  I could certainly pick that back up at any time again.  I have a decent GPS unit from my geocaching times.  I have a vinyl cutter and heat press from the derby days.  I actually have a vinyl sticker designed for one of my cars that I want to cut, but haven’t taken that step yet.  I have a sewing machine that’s been still in the box for months planned to help me hem my curtains and maybe for some other craft projects someday.  I have plenty of power tools, which actually were used in building my shelves.  Do I have all the tools yet?  Of course not.  So when I get a fresh idea, I have to buy the tools to execute that idea.

Before the shelving unit project, I did the most basic of woodworking projects: a rack for my sunglasses.  And when I say basic, I mean it.  Literally, cutting six pieces of wood, sanding the edges and screwing them together to look like:

As time has gone on, I have grown my sunglass collection and outgrown my storage.  Now I need a bigger rack.  Fresh off my success at building shelves, I figure I can build a nicer storage unit.  I did some research and found a design that I like and I should be able to replicate.

To have someone make this for me is $132.  It’s about $10 in wood, if even that.  The construction is interesting, using joints of some kind (dado? box? rabbet?  Hell if I know).  I have plenty of tools, but the ones I have are way too robust for working with wood this thin.  First, using a circular saw on 1/4" plywood would probably just shred it.  A jig saw would probably work, but in both cases, I have to consider that I’m losing a bit of wood each time I do a cut.  When your target size is only a couple of inches and you’re sawing away 1/8", that’s a fair bit of waste.  Additionally, the holes for the joints are pretty precise.  Too much for the jig saw.  I researched using the Dremel for this, and it probably would work, but it’s not the ideal tool for the job.

The answer to these problems is another tool, the scroll saw.  I am actually not a stranger to the scroll saw.  It’s probably the first power tool I ever used, way back when I was probably about 10 years old.  Maybe I used a power drill first, but the timeline is really close.  I have no idea how the Craftsman scroll saw came to the house or if it was even meant for me.  I can’t imagine my dad bought it for himself.  Regardless, my parents had just had the kitchen flooring redone so there was a lot of scrap wood around that I was able to saw up into nothing of any interest, since I had no goals or plans.  But I did learn how to use the saw, so I will be able to apply that old, old knowledge for this project.  Humorously enough, at the time, I never knew what the saw was called, so when I eventually broke all the blades, I couldn’t get any replacements because I couldn’t explain the device to the hardware store people.  All they offered me were jigsaw blades.  And with no blades, that ended my time with the scroll saw.

Scroll saws don’t have to be expensive, but they can be.  I bought the cheapest one I could find for $115 since I was not someone who would require a $500 tool to make a $10 sunglasses case.  The other tools I would need are a drill and I think I’ll be using files to square off the holes and make the openings precise.  I have both of these needs covered. 

While I’m waiting for the saw to be delivered, I planned out my design.  The design I’m copping needed the sizes boosted a little bit to accommodate the cases my glasses would be stored in.  Even so, I can still get all the pieces out of one 24"x24" sheet of wood, with a second sheet for the back.  Total size: 14" x 14.75".

So, to recap.  This is a $132 handmade item.  I’m spending $115 on a new tool and maybe $10 in wood.  I’m going to spend less money, test and expand my crafting skills, plus acquire a tool that I can use at any point in the future (like my camera, GPS, vinyl cutter, or sewing machine).  That’s what a hobby should be about – acquiring skill and junk.

Banks Still Gonna Bank

Posted by on February 8, 2020 No comments

I’m personally sitting pretty well when it comes to my financial house.  I’ve mentioned changes I’ve made here and there and for quite some time, I’ve been satisfied with what I’ve got.  In summary, where I’m at right now is: Ally handles all my savings accounts needs.  They pay 1.6% interest (right now.  It’s been slowly dropping again.)  T-Mobile (through Customers Bank) handles my checking.  They pay 4% interest on up to $3k in my account and 1% on the rest.  That’s a pretty nice deal, especially as rates keep dropping elsewhere.  Looking at the interest rate history, we’re back where we were two years ago, after peaking in December, 2018.

So, it’s always good to be vigilant and keep an eye open for what may be better for you in your current situation.  Although this hasn’t affected me, it’s still an irrational issue for me that I don’t have a presence at a physical bank.  To repeat, I haven’t needed the services of a physical bank in many, many, years, but I still feel like I should have an account at one.  So every once in a while, I give it consideration.

An offer came in the mail from TD Bank, which opened a branch nearby me recently.  Recently – in bank years – is like in the last decade.  I’ve always been intrigued by them, and I do have a IRA account with TD Ameritrade (although I’m not sure they’re actually related), so when I saw the offer, I figured I’d investigate.  After all, they’re offering a signing bonus of $150 or $300, and who doesn’t want free money?

Let’s start with their top-tier account and see if I can get in.  No minimum deposit to open an account (I don’t even know what that means – how do you open an account with no funds?).  Monthly maintenance fee: $25.  in the old days,  that actually meant something, but now it just means you need to see if you can meet the criteria to get it waived.  It’s almost a pointless charge.  If you don’t meet the waiver criteria, you don’t get that account.  Duh.

So, to waive the fee, I need either: $5k in direct deposits a month.  Oh.  Well, that’s quite a number.  What else you got?  Keep a $2,500 daily balance.  Well, you know I had that at my last bank and it is doable, but are you going to pay me 4% interest on it like T-Mobile is?  Not likely.  Finally, I can have $25k in accounts with TD.  They didn’t mention TD Ameritrade, only loans and deposit accounts, so that could be my ticket in, if that’s the case.

I visited their "Contact" section and their immediate response options were limited to social media or calling.  I wasn’t going to call for a 5 second question, so I sucked it up and used Facebook Messenger to ping them for an answer.

While I wait, let’s see what benefits I get for my account.  No ATM fees, free money orders, cashiers checks, blah, blah.  It looks like I could have a free account…  And now "Marie" has messaged me back, with essentially a copy/paste of the text I already read.  So I have to be more specific in my question.  Is a brokerage account with TD Ameritrade considered a "deposit account"?  And the answer is: no.  TD Bank and TD Ameritrade are separate and their accounts don’t count towards each other.  So TD Bank is not for me.  And it didn’t offer anything compelling anyway.

But, let me jump back just a little bit.  When the TD Bank first opened in my area, I remember being impressed with their choice to have banking independent from investment.  I thought it was the proper thing to do, unlike what, say, Wells Fargo does (as if WF does anything properly).  I still do think that.  But, after looking into their service offerings, I’m just not their target audience.  There are better deals from online banks and the benefits of being physical just aren’t there.  And maybe, maybe… I could be convinced that having my banking under the same umbrella as my retirement investment account is a good thing, then maybe things would be different.  But right now, I think keeping things apart is best, especially in the growing swell of deregulation and financial insanity.

Class Action Pennies

Posted by on February 5, 2020 No comments

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a class action lawsuit in which I was a participant.  The end result of that was me dropping out because I had to provide proof of my involvement, which I could have, but it was more effort than I wanted to expend for my "up to $900", but realistically more like $5 award.

And now today, I get an email about the Yahoo security breach class action lawsuit.  Oh boy, this should be expensive.  Scanning the email quickly for numbers, I find that the settlement is for $117 million.  Nice.  Now, how many potential claimants?  Oh… 3 billion.

Quick, what’s the math on this?  About four cents per claimant.  Well, I guess that’s something.  And what, perchance, are the lawyers fees for the case?  $30 million, plus an extra $2.5 million for expenses (postage for 3 billion $.04 cent checks=$900 million, FYI).  Oh, and the expenses.  Some people endured a greater hardship to prove the culpability of Yahoo, and those people will get awards of $2,500, $5,000, or $7.500.  I did not see in a quick scan of the online documents how many people this award pertains to, but there are six plaintiffs.  When talking in millions of dollars, 4-figure awards are a rounding error.

So, let’s round down to the nearest million for the post-lawyer-payday settlement pool, which is now $84 million.  And now, each claimant is due at least 2.8 cents.  I would round that up to 3 cents, but that’s $6 million of rounding that we just don’t have the funds for.  Sorry about that.

Breadcrumbs

Posted by on January 31, 2020 No comments

On an online forum where I browse, someone had posted a gripe suggesting that everyone that posts should have to provide a minimum amount of information in their post.  The gripe was directed at people who were posting pictures of 2 or 3 CDs with a title like "What I bought today".  To the griper, posts like these were useless and added nothing to the community.  Many of the replies to the gripe were of the mindset, "let people do what they want", which I agree with.

Although I didn’t reply with my comments, I did try to understand and consider the problem without simply thinking, "let them be".  I mean, if they’re being stupid, why are they being stupid?  Is there a valid reason for them to make such a minimal post?  The rationale I came up with is that the post isn’t for everyone, it’s just for them.

The community I am referring to is Reddit, which can certainly be classified as "social media".  As is my standard for anything social media, I don’t participate much.  But this isn’t about me.  Most people have made their primary choice for social media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, WordPress, or many others.  Their chosen platform is where they document their life, at least the parts they want to share publicly.  Basically, it’s where they leave their breadcrumbs to look back on later to see how their life was in a specific time period.

So these posts that people are making with their recent purchases, they’re nothing more than a status update or a tweet.  And in Reddit, they can use subreddits as categories, to classify and group their different activities.  It’s a different application of the platform, and one that probably differs from those that want Reddit to be a discussion forum.  That difference leads to griping that the majority of posts are uninteresting to some people.  It’s probably not a surprise to observe that these are younger people making these status posts, where it’s older Reddit users complaining about the lack of discussion.

But yeah, look at me.  I could have put all this explanation in a reply on that thread, which would have spurred discussion and conversation.  Instead, I make a post in my little private-public journal, where no one can respond to me and start any conversations.  Am I any better?  Well, I’d never suggest something like that.

Farewell MegaBenno

Posted by on January 30, 2020 No comments

My homebrew CD storage shelving has hit capacity, so it’s time to replace it.  It’s never been an attractive solution, although you might not notice it from the tiny pictures.  Last night, I did the unloading of all the contents in preparation for the construction and installation of unit #1 of 2 of the next solution.

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All the CDs got stacked up under my stereo table temporarily.

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The original capacity of the MegaBenno was over 2,000, but changes during construction meant I ended up with less shelves and I maxed out at about 1,700.  For the cost of the materials, it wasn’t a very cost-effective solution.  I could have purchased a massive unit that held 1,500 for a little more than half the cost.  But, the project was also an exercise in building and assembly, much as the next version is a continuation of that experience.

What I’ve Heard Thus Far

Posted by on January 23, 2020 No comments

I had mentioned in a previous post that I had a thing for buying cheap CD players, the reason for such was to compare the sound of each and see if I was able to hear any real difference between makes and models.

Well, this is what I’ve got in my collection right now:

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From top to bottom:

  1. Technics SL-P330
  2. Scott D980
  3. JVC XL-V311
  4. Onkyo DX-701

Of these four players, the ones that get the most play are the Technics and the JVC.  The JVC has a little bit better bass and the Technics, in the opposite way, has a brighter sound.  The other two, the Scott and the Onkyo, have a similar sound, which I feel is a little dulled.  The Scott has an additional handicap in that the display can display either the current track or the track time, but not both simultaneously.  All but the Onkyo have support for indexed tracks, and the JVC will show the current playing track and index.  I have yet to find one of my CDs that has indexes, though.  Still looking…

All four have headphone jacks; the Technics and the Onkyo have headphone volume controls, which is great.  All but the Onkyo can be run by remote control, and I purchased remotes for the Technics and JVC.  In both cases, the remotes were twice as much as I paid for the player.

And on the subject of cost, each player cost me less than $10, and each player was originally $150-$300 when new, so this is not an expensive endeavor.