Still nothing new to say

It has been status quo since the last update except Mrs. the Poet’s digestive system has been slowly improving. There’s no longer a stack of commode liners waiting to get dumped at the door, usually just one or two from the time after sunset when I can’t see where I’m walking.

One of the big reasons for that is the progression of my cataracts is basically killing my night vision. Add that to allergies that cause cloudy discharges in my eyes during the day and you get my life now. Add THAT to I have to live on Mrs. the Poet’s sleep schedule of being up during the day when the internet is slowest and sleeping at night when there’s lots of bandwidth and I’m awake and alert, and Hephaestus knows we need all the lerts we can get. Right now I have to stop and wait for my eyes to clear up periodically while I compose this post, combined with pauses to get my mind working on the subject of the post, because sleep deprived.

And as much as I would like to join it, it’s time to put this post to bed, but not me.

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I feel guilty about not posting

But I just don’t have anything new to say. Nothing has really changed, I’m still crippled, Mrs. the Poet is still pushing her walker around, trees are still having sex and I’m still in the splash radius of it causing my allergies to flare up, and all the other things that are normally not right.

The one thing new is that the elder daughter is visiting from Scotland now that Trump is out and the pandemic restrictions on travel have been lifted. She works for the NHS in Scotland so she’s totally up to date on all the boosters because it’s required by her employer. And of course free because she lives in a civilized country. She hasn’t been back since 2016 because of Trump &co. screwing up the country. But Biden is marginally acceptable so she came back to see us and Alex specifically. She’s very fond of her little (or not so little as he is now) nephew. She brought cookies (or as they are called there “biscuits”) and candies from Scotland to share with us. They are vegan, of course.

But other than that I don’t have anything new to relate. It’s just the same thing over and over and over. Just a little worse than it used to be.

Brief but seriously painful allergy (or something) attack

First of all because of a sliding sleep schedule I was basically out of it except to roll over from 0930 to 1830, then it was too painful to move until 2200, but I got up and got some coffee to drink and took my meds. Then about 0100 I started to feel like eating the plate of dinner Mrs. the Poet prepared. That’s after I consumed about half of the volume of my coffee cup (my cup holds about 800 ml). I’m still getting some joint pain, but greatly reduced from what I was experiencing when I woke up. What was also a problem is I had a case of allergy eyes obstructing my vision, for the first hour or so after I woke up. That has also reduced significantly.

I have been reading an author new to me, and because it’s a female name writing porn (yes, I read text porn, so sue me) I have come to the conclusion the author is a man (or penis owning person). The reason I mention this is because every encounter is from the penis-owning character’s point of view, even if that person wasn’t born with a penis. And I started thinking about how I would write those scenes from the point of view of the other characters who don’t have penises, and I don’t have a clue about how to do that, because I lack the experiences needed to write from that point of view on several levels. All the heterosexual porn I read is written by men, and most of the lesbian porn I read is also probably written by men, for men. It just has the feel of how males see lesbians, including the conquering of one partner by the more dominant one. The porn I know was written by a female author because she gave it to me with her name on it had less conquering and more cooperation. It was very hot, but different, because the women were more into making each other feel good, and also because it described the physicality of sex very differently from people who don’t experience penetration as a normal part of their sexuality. But still this brought home how bad I am at putting myself in another person’s shoes, figuratively.

Also I finally got some chips to let me experience a brand of guacamole that was not familiar to me. We had a coupon for Wholly Guacamole brand and we also bought a brand of chip that we see locally that we didn’t see in either NY or TN, Calidad. I have been scarfing down the chips for years, but Wholly Guacamole was new to me. I don’t buy guac all that often and mostly I get the deli guac from my local grocery, which isn’t bad. I mean it’s nothing special but it isn’t bad. Now I had some guac years ago that was awful, but that was more than 45 years ago in Logan UT. Wholly Guacamole was pretty good. I’m not sure it’s enough better than the deli guac to justify the price difference, but it is better.

And veering on another tangent, I watched a video from Engine Masters that basically proved that for an LS engine at low loads it doesn’t matter what you put in the tank as long as it is gasoline. The combustion chamber in LS heads is highly octane tolerant, you can drive around on an optimized tune for 87 regular and it works The Same, it falls into the range of run-to-run variation on the dyno used as 91, 110, 116, so long as you get the tune right. But if you need that last little bit of power E85 is where you go for the LS engine, which validates my decision to get to and from the races on 87 and race on E85.

And, that’s about all I have to say as I can feel the pollen levels starting to rise now that the sun is up and things are getting uncomfortable again.

Allergies and PTSD kept me from having the energy to write

Short post to explain the sudden lack of posts. The headline pretty much explains everything, but for the record trees and grass have been been having an orgy and my head is caught in the cross-fire. I can breathe, but at the cost of not having energy to do much else beyond that. Part of that is allergies, part of that is the deep funk I fell into after Chauvin was convicted of the murder we all watched repeatedly on TV and social media most of last year after every protest against a cop killing a BIPOC which seemed like every other day. I mean nonchalantly kneeling on the neck of a Black man with his hands in his pockets like this was a normal thing for him to be doing, murdering a Black man in the street with dozens of people filming it and recording the sounds of it as Floyd’s life left his body.

I get that he is going to prison and unless he spends the rest of his life in solitary the rest of his life will be short and violent. But this still does not feel like a victory. The closest thing I can compare it to was that one hill in Vietnam we “won” like 3 times, only to abandon it and the VC were back on it firing on our troops in a couple of weeks at most. To “win” this one we have to eliminate White Supremacists from all branches and forms of LEO and make ever being a part of any racist organization disqualifying for having a firearm and from working for law enforcement. We not only have to “take the hill” of each individual LEO who kills a BIPOC, we have to “win the war” against White Supremacy. And that looks like a very long and costly battle.

I have had PTSD longer than PTSD existed as a diagnosis, and for most of my life it has been untreated, even after I was diagnosed. It is now known that untreated PTSD results in depression that is extremely hard to treat, because after a while depression becomes less like a mental problem and more like a personality trait. It burrows down into your soul, and takes up permanent residence there. And while I can live with it like this since I don’t seem to have the option of suicide, I would prefer to be actually happy sometimes, instead of just “almost not depressed” which is what passes for “happiness” for me. And to understand what depression as a personality trait looks like, I present Eeyore. Eeyore is so depressed suicide is too much of a bother because it will put others out cleaning up the mess. I passed that milestone decades ago. And the recent circus about the White Supremacist who murdered a man with his hands in his pockets did my depression no favors. I’m still not in any way suicidal because I don’t want to make anyone have to clean up the mess. And I still haven’t forgotten what may have been the hallucination of getting put inside a body bag, so suicide is right out.

Still feels like I’m getting punched in the face

Like, seriously, I wish the trees would keep their sexual activity to themselves. If there are any genetic engineers out there reading this, could you genetically engineer a less-messy reproduction process for the trees I’m allergic to? Seriously, trees, keep it private.

Also, showing my age here, but am I the only person getting Fireball XL5 vibes off the SpaceX Starship?

Seriously I know it’s not exactly the same, and the XL5 launched horizontally from a track while the Starship launches vertically, but I’m catching a serious XL5 vibe from the Starship. Or maybe just some of those paperback book covers from the ’60s, but old school SF.

And while I’m doing a lot of pictures, here is a picture of the front of a truck LS architecture engine with the picture of my proposed belt routing underneath so you can get a better idea of where things go.

Things have been much worse

That’s the good part of the story, I’m starting from someplace other than rock bottom. The bad part is I got another late start because allergies, and I also had a bad situation because after I did some shopping near the house I just missed catching the bus to the next stop of my shopping trip, and had a 40 minute wait at least until the next bus. Since by that point I had been standing around trying to find the item I was looking for without success for about a half hour, I really didn’t want to stand around for 40 minutes. So since the choices were wait another 40 minutes or go home for dinner, I went home for dinner.

I was looking for the sleep aid I had been taking that had been preventing the worst of the allergy eyes, that I had found at the Dollar General last time. But I didn’t even find a slot for it to be, and the slots for the other sleep aids that didn’t have pain relievers I can’t take because I’m already having the side effects before I even take one, were all empty. I’ll let you guess as to what kinds of sleep aids they did have. You guessed it the sleep aids with the pain relievers that I can’t take because I’m already having the side effects. Before the wreck caused brain damage I could take those pain relievers until I started having the side effects, and they worked up to and through the point the side effects began.

On other things, I have been thinking about the panhard rod for the front axle of the Sprint-T. It will have to cross over the frame from the point it mounts to the front bulkhead to the point it mounts on the axle, which means I need to put a bend in the tube almost in the exact middle to clear the frame at full droop. The axle droops about 1.5″ from normal ride height, and the frame mount is about another 1.5″ below the top of the bottom frame rail, so I need to make about a 3″ bend in the tube that makes up the panhard rod so that it just touches the frame at full droop. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how much bend is involved but the bungs I bought for the heim joints are made to install on a 1.25″ X 0.125″ wall tube which has enough bending resistance to survive getting the required amount with minimal flexing under load. The panhard rod is a big jump in rod end size and tube size from the watts link kit for the rear end, and it’s not like I don’t have a pattern to follow. The one I need has to cross about 3″ of tubes horizontally as well as clear the same amount vertically sooo.

And it’s late again and we have weather rolling in, so I’m going to take this as a good time to put this post to bed, and maybe me also. And maybe it’s just me, but I’m noticing my spell checker lacks some application-critical words from its dictionary, like panhard, and heim, that I use on a regular basis in this blog.

Today was a doubleplus ungood, no-fun kind of day

I knew today was going to be bad when I woke up to a white world because of allergies filming my eyes over again. Eventually I was able to see well enough to get to the bathroom and take care of business. Then I tried to get a “cup” of coffee, which in my insulated cup is right at 800 ml or just shy of a quart. I grabbed the last toaster pastry for breakfast and started to read the news on Twitter. That was a mistake, because there were 2 things fighting for air, Agent Orange saying he’s back on hydroxychloroquine in spite of reports saying it kills more people than it saves, and the report that his administration fired another IG investigating Pompeo over arms deals to the Saudis, and also the IG investigating no-bid contracts from Elaine Chao, wife of #MoscowMitch, and head of the DoT, to companies that had supported Mitch with campaign $$.

Then I started having problems getting my eyes to track together, feeling dizzy, and almost falling out of my chair a couple of times. Mrs. the Poet said my face was red and hot when she checked for fever. I eventually found a person I could talk to over Skype who I talked to and I was also able to find a thermometer, and my temp was an even 98°F which is a touch warm for me but within operating tolerances. After a few hours my vision cleared up and my dizziness went away, but my face remained red and hot. We, the doc and I decided I had the unfortunate combination of allergies and over-exuberant exfoliation from yesterday that combined to make it look like I was really sick when I was just having a bad grass allergy day. The double vision was probably clogged sinuses, the dizzy was the double vision caused motion sickness, and the hot, red face was irritation from trying too hard when I was stripping the dead skin cells from my cheeks and forehead yesterday. I stayed sat down until I was sure of my balance and took an allergy pill, after which I started feeling much better.

Now the fun thing is I wasn’t able to make that trip to the hardware today, which means I get to try again tomorrow. Yay? (Tom Slick unenthused crowd noises) I’m out of my sleep meds, I also need to make that trip to the hardware to get the screws and door bumpers, I have the battery for the sawzall on the charger so I can cut the pieces for the radiator mockup. I tried it earlier, but there was no charge in the battery so I didn’t even get one cut finished on the first 2 by 4. I barely got started before the battery died. So battery is on the charger.

And I cracked the first bottle of kefir of the 4, and I had to google what this is supposed to taste like because I honestly thought it had gone bad and that’s why it was given to me, but it’s supposed to taste like a vinegar smoothie. I have had things much worse (see Natto on google), so I can learn to live with this. TBH it is not much worse than the lemon-lime yogurt I was eating a while ago. It just takes being prepared for the taste. I already knew what the various citrus flavors were like but this was new.

And this seems like a good place to stop…

Allergies are kicking my backside yesterday

I slept 14 hours yesterday because of tree bukakke as the VP of my church used to put it. Most people call it a pollen bloom, but it’s actually tree sperm sprayed into the atmosphere and landing on us. Anywho, there was some of that, that I was especially allergic to, that gave me aches and pains and just made me miserable. I would wake up and not be able to open my eyes because of how swollen my eyelids were. Yay, me! And just go back to sleep.

Things here in my state are getting pretty bad as far as government services go. The new UI applications are about 630 TIMES usual volume. This is like all the other states and all of Europe decided to run their UI through TX phones and computers. This is the worst it has been since the 1930s as far as people out of work is concerned, they didn’t have unemployment back then but they still counted how many people were working compared to how many were looking. And it wasn’t as bad as what we are dealing with now. Now if people don’t get crazy greedy about getting paid NOW! and we can just let things ride a bit until this blows over everybody can just pick up where we left off and no big thing, especially if the GOP decides to give most of the bailout to people instead of companies. Granted companies are going to need some cashflow to keep the doors open and pay the mortgage, or we could just put everything on pause until after the lockdown is over. Banks aren’t paying for much, so use the bailout money to cover their costs but only just their costs, no profits. Let the stimulus money pay for the things that have to be bought while everybody is out of work and also pay “hazard pay” for the people keeping us alive.

Enough of the ranting about political stuff, I also have been thinking about making things while I couldn’t open my eyes. I mean like how to stuff an LS engine into a sprint or midget chassis, or a shaft drive motorcycle into a live axle frame of some kind, or some kind of independent rear suspension thing for SCCA A-Mod (all of those for A-Mod), and riffed off of those to do mutants that were some of A and a little of B and a whole bunch from out in left field. As I was mostly asleep this was fun, but not recordable or shareable.

And I have basically run out of things to say. I’ll post something again when I have something more to say.

I haven’t felt this bad since The Wreck

Slight exaggeration, I’m sure I have felt worse than this since the wreck, but I managed to wipe the memory from my mind. Something is growing that “doesn’t like” me and it feels like I was punched in the face and my eye area is swollen and I don’t see so good right now. Of all my allergy attacks this year this one feels the worst. I’m tired all the time even when I’m not taking the generic diphenhydramine that is also on my list of approved sleep aids, and taking even the reduced dose puts me right out for hours. I spent a lot of time lying down because my leg is treating this like the histamine reaction is because of muscle strains or something and it gets uncomfortable like it’s swelling or something so I have to elevate the leg. Also I still haven’t managed to get my sleep cycle back to sleeping at night and active by day so Mrs. the Poet is annoyed I’m making noise at night and in the bed all day.

On the Sprint-T front, I’m thinking about other directions for making power where I need it for racing while still having a car that is capable of running 87 octane on the street and Interstate without destroying the engine with detonation. One thing that I saw was an article on the Hot Rod magazine web site on running close to the same engine as I’m planning on using a cheap small turbocharger that was too small to even cause the waste gate to open at peak RPM because it lacked airflow capacity, but generated good boost and throttle response in the RPM range I will use for racing. This would require running E85 racing, and somehow only getting enough exhaust to not restrict the intake when running 87 octane (the local unleaded regular blend), or stuff it and don’t worry about it just driving around and bypass all the exhaust around the turbo(s) using exhaust cutouts on the pipes leading to the turbo(s) and just use the stock exhaust manifolds and running the stock camshaft so the engine budget is only the cost of the turbo(s) and the plumbing that connects the exhaust to the turbo(s) and back to the intake, and maybe a Charge Cooler of some kind on the intake side.

I’m looking at a pair of $99 Amazon turbochargers for a 1.8 liter turbo diesel economy car instead of the $163 single turbo in the article because quicker initial spool, desired HP range (the tires I can get plus the light weight mean hooking more than about 400 HP to the ground is a lost cause). The tricky part will be running oil lines from the 5.3l that was never meant to run a turbo to the turbo that was intended for a dedicated OEM turbo installation on a 4 cylinder engine. Not an insurmountable obstacle, just a bit tricky unless the kit includes diagrams for the oil system. And the other tricky part is running the exhaust and compressed air from the passenger side turbo, because everything is directed to the wrong side of the engine for that side, unless the turbo is oriented with the inlet facing forward and the exhaust inlet facing down and the compressor housing is rotated 180° on the driver’s side turbo. It looks like this is possible from looking at the pictures on the listing. Also from looking at the pictures the gas speed going into the turbine is going to be quite high as the inlet is only 1.5″ while the exhaust flange on the 5.3l exhaust manifold is about 2.5″. That means quick spool, but it also means the turbo will be an exhaust restriction at high RPM.

Now before I buy anything I need to price the difference between the turbochargers and traditional performance parts, as in a cam swap kit with valve springs and free-flowing exhaust manifolds. Either way I need to run 2 maps because the 87 octane is going to be optimized for scooting around town and good gas mileage on the highway while the E85 tune is for racing. But the map, and MAP sensor (Manifold Absolute Pressure) is going to be very different between the turbo and NA (Naturally Aspirated) versions. More fun when tuning.

And now that the sun has set my face feels much better so whatever is beating my face up is a day blooming plant. I’ll be back later.

Update on my messed-up face

I don’t hurt as much, and tears are no longer rolling down my face involuntarily. I’m about halfway through a half-gallon of ice cream that I have been using as an internal ice-pack on the broken and infected teeth, and things are much improved, although it still hurts to use the shaver I got for Christmas. Sleep is still broken, but dreams are returning to typical instead of the nightmares caused by the pain. The trees had better be glad my chainsaw is broken and too small to use against them. I’m almost positive the Japanese Maple is the one most responsible for my other anguish.

As I said my sleep schedule is totally broken because of having to take short naps through the day and night. So this seems like a good place to stop.