I’m Not Dead, just really busy

I have been away from the house almost every day this week doing something or another, or recovering from being away from the house. I have things to write about but either no time or energy to write about them. Well I’m still low on the energy but I have the time so here goes.

Monday I deposited a check and made a trip to the hardware to get supplies to do a kludge to fix the bathroom, then used the supplies to do the kludge. We have an ancient (1984 or so vintage) bathroom faucet that can’t be fixed because parts to fix aren’t available, and has been installed so long that new feed lines have to be made to install a new faucet. I can change out the faucet if the feed line fittings are still intact, but these fittings are so old I don’t think they will survive removing the old faucet, so a kludge to prevent the leak from flooding the vanity was to corral the leak so it goes down the drain when the faucet is used instead of all over the vanity.

Tuesday was getting transportation to go hang with my friend in TN before he moves his family to DC to rejoin his wife who works for the Corps of Engineers as a civilian employee. She used to work in Nashville, but got a big promotion and raise to work in DC on more national projects than her position in Nashville. Late June everybody is moving to DC to live, so their kid doesn’t have to change schools in the middle of a school year. So before that move we are going to have one last visit to TN, and I spent most of the day pricing options and setting up transportation. So too busy to write.

Wednesday I went to the Lab Rat Keeper to participate in more Basic Research (yay!). Someone has discovered a New Protein Marker that in animal testing showed up when hypertension was caused by a physical process but not when it was a stress reaction or other externally-instigated reaction. This test was to determine if that marker was present in humans, and could result in people getting a lot less medication for high blood pressure that they don’t really need because they have White Coat reaction that temporarily raises their blood pressure or other external things. This means less chance of getting hypotension and the problems that go with it, like fainting and excessive urination…

Yesterday was a fiasco as I missed the bus for the appointment to see if I can get free Lasik and had to reschedule for next week. And one thing cascaded into another so to salvage something out of the day I used a coupon from Whataburger to get Mrs. the Poet a free Mushroom Swiss burger for dinner. I got the Bacon Cheeseburger meal, and then because it was quicker than waiting for the bus I walked home from the Whataburger, over a mile. When I was younger, like 3 years ago younger, a mile one way wasn’t a problem, but things have not gone well on the joint pain front and walking a mile is significantly more difficult now, as in the recovery period is almost as long as the walk. And again, when everything was done I did not feel like writing, at all.

Which brings me to today, where I have time, and sorta kinda have energy to write. And there you have another slice of my life. Thrilling, wasn’t it?

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A good day role playing…

Beats something or other.

The toxic shaman went after us, we didn’t need to go hunting her. Yes, her. She’s a 12YO girl with terminal cancer caused by a radioactive waste dump too close to her village, which triggered her going toxic as a shaman.

And I just faceplanted in the keyboard, after falling asleep on the toilet a few minutes ago. I can take a hint that I need to go to bed. I don’t think I damaged the laptop any further than I had already, but I definitely need to get to sleep. I have errands to run tomorrow, and need to be rested in the morning.

Good news and bad news at the Lab Rat Keeper

The good news is I weighed in at 210 again, and my BP is slightly high but still “under control”. The bad news is while they are scrambling for a drug that can replace Valsartan, it will be more than a year before human trials can begin. This is what happens when you put too many of your eggs in one basket, and somebody drops the basket. In this case the basket was a Chinese pharmacy company with questionable safety practices that managed to corner almost 80% of the world market for Valsartan, and dropping the basket was not properly controlling the process and allowing known human carcinogens to get made as part of the drug. Now there are several ways this could happen, but the most likely would be contaminated feedstocks, the chemicals they use to make the drug. My guess is that more than one was contaminated, and probably with chemicals that individually are not problems so they were allowed through, which then reacted with each other and the actual chemicals that were supposed to be there to form the carcinogen(s). But then again I’m just a technical writer with a background in chemistry and making explosives from “indigenous materials” for my first enlistment, not a trained chemist.

In other news, it wasn’t beastly hot today. I don’t think we even broke 90°F thanks to a cold front and heavy morning cloud cover. And I can’t remember the last time we had a morning low that close to 60. And that was a very noisy cold front that came through at 0500 and woke me up, so I’m trying to not faceplant into the keyboard right now and mostly succeeding. And when I don’t it isn’t a real faceplant, more of “my nose brushes the keyboard and I wake up with a start” so my laptop doesn’t take any more damage than it already has.

Still trying to get my sleep schedule worked out

I went to bed noon Thursday and got up about 1700 so I’m a bit tired and sleepy at 0100 Friday. My mind is a bit foggy too. In fact I’m just going to post this and go to bed.

My sleep got messed up and I faceplanted into the keyboard 3 times trying to write this headline

Usually I sleep pretty soundly, but something was making noises like someone trying to break into the house shortly after sunrise this morning and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I spent most of the day running around taking care of banking, buying cat food, and paying the phone bill. With temperatures in the mid-90s and “feels like” temps in the low 100s I was dehydrated again, and between dehydration and exhaustion I have been bouncing my face off the keyboard. I’m going to take a nap and come back to finish the post.

OK it’s 4 hours later and I’m feeling better, not great but better.

As you might imagine I got no work done on any projects what with all the time spent running around. That’s OK I can’t do everything. I did find some information about lightweight OE replacement spindles that I could use for an IFS. There’s the MII/Pinto spindle that comes in at 17.8 pounds per pair or 8.9 each, and there is a forged aluminum ’60s GM F-body spindle that weighs “half of stock”. And there is also the late ’60s VW balljoint spindle that is also slightly lighter than the MII/Pinto spindle, but is tricky to find outside of eBay and even trickier to find big brake kits for. The biggest brakes I have found for this spindle top out at 11″ diameter. Another lightweight candidate is the Wilwood MII modular replacement spindle at 9 pounds each but massively strong and the steering arms can be replaced for more lock/quicker steering/bump steer correction.

And now I’m hot and sleepy again, so let’s end this and park my butt in front of some AC and get more sleep.

The hone is here, and I’m exhausted

I’m watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans since shortly after the start at 0700, when I couldn’t get to sleep until after 0530. I keep falling asleep and faceplanting in the keyboard. And I just got back from my Father’s Day dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, where I had a Bacon Cheeseburger that must have weighed at least a pound total, 1020 Calories plus 400 Calories of steak fries. So besides being tired I’m dealing with a Food Coma.

So now Imma go have another lie-down. I get my present tomorrow.

I went to the lab rat keeper and now I have a headache

I think the headache is because Mrs. the Poet has really bad allergies this year and couldn’t breathe last night. She was making these awful noises like she was dying and I couldn’t sleep until about 0600 and then the alarm went off at 0715. I mean it is really hard to sleep when your wife sounds like she’s dying next to you even when you know it’s just allergies making her head stopped up.

Remember when I wrote how nice it was to have the actual parts in hand to mock up an assembly? Well this time I remembered to take pictures (actually only one).

I have the bracket centered on the spindle approximating the caster angle of the axle and you can see how the tie-rod is just above where the upper bar goes? That’s because at that point the upper bar moves less than 1mm between full droop and full bump so it doesn’t have to clear by much to clear all the time, and the tie-rod likewise doesn’t move much during its travel left to right, and is closest to the bar at straight ahead. So the closest the two will come is at full bump and straight ahead. And there are enough shims in the kit to keep the tie-rod high enough to never touch that upper bar.

And the drag link? It will ride roughly parallel to the axle right behind the axle centerline never getting anywhere near anything except the pitman arm and the passenger side steering arm that it is attached to. And if I really want to get crazy I can put everything up top and nothing will ever run into anything except maybe some cones. As little as the front end of this car will weigh I don’t think there will be enough flex for anyone to notice.

And that lack of sleep has caught up with me as I’m having problems with seeing what I typed on the screen (and I probably need new glasses).

So Knighty-night.

This is when I write about what I did

Earlier this week I was too busy doing things to write a blog post. Now I have a few minutes to write what happened. All I need to do is get the story straight in my head so I can put it on the screen. That is easier said than done.

Big news first, I lost my wallet again. Exact same way I lost it last time, from the same pair of shorts. I thought I was putting the wallet into the pocket, but it didn’t stay there. I probably lost it when I was sitting down after buying the day pass on the first bus of the day.

Second thing is I am no longer hairy. Well as hairy. I used a ½” guard on the top of my head and no guard at all on the beard. Then I charged up the electric razor and finished off the beard. Voila semi-fuzzy.

On the Mini Sprint-T, I think I have my tire mounting problems solved. I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be using a discarded insulin syringe to inflate the tire out to the edge of the wheel, well the other problem is the wheel making the tire grow larger in diameter by a substantial amount because it’s just too thick, for structural reasons. The resin used to cast the wheels is not as strong as the styrene plastic used in commercial model kits so it has to be thicker, basically all the way out to the flange diameter of the wheel. This in turn stretches the tire diameter by a similar amount, which drastically alters the scale relationship of the tire to the rest of the car. Well I’m going to try sanding out the inside of the tire bead so the oversize wheel so it doesn’t force the tire larger and see how that works. I have a spare set of wheels, and tires that I won’t be using on either model, to experiment with.

And I’m starting to get fuzzy around the edges of my mind, so I’m quitting while I can still hit the correct keys on the laptop.

Bille @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable but sleepy

I survived the trip to the Lab Rat Keeper

I had a hard time getting out of the house for the trip to the LRK because Clint was “helping” me get dressed and out the door then decided he wanted back in right after I locked the door on my way out. I was on the wrong side of the street when the bus went by while I was trying to get across. That led to me walking about a mile and a half to catch the crosstown bus I wanted to catch at the station, after it was already en route. I got there in time and I even managed to check in to a bonus check-in 4 times while I was going to and from the LRK and breakfast.

So anyway, I was supposed to catch the bus that went by the main road at 0658 so I got up at 0600 to shower and dress and leave in time to catch the bus, but between Clint “helping” me get dressed and his deciding to turn around right after I locked the door I got going 5 minutes later than planned, resulting in my watching the bus go by from the wrong side of the street instead of riding it to the transit station for the crosstown bus. So I hoofed it to the bus stop where the crosstown bus turned on Beltline about another mile and a half from that stop. Then I sat and waited a few minutes for the bus and for my left foot to stop hurting. Part of the reason I missed the bus is my normal bed time is 0400 or so, usually later rather than earlier, and I get up about 1200 or 1300 instead of 0600. This meant I was running on very little sleep which means I was running slow, and still am. I have caffeinated to the limits, but I’m still having problems putting two coherent sentnces together in a row.

I’m gonna take that as a sign to hang it up and hit the sack.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable

The meds are working

My antidepressant in particular. My body is starting to get acclimated to not being depressed which is reinforcing. As I get used to not being depressed I feel less depressed, which makes me feel better so I feel less depressed… A virtuous circle rather than the vicious circle. And I’m actually getting other emotions that aren’t depression or anger. Some of them seem unusual to me, like fear, real compassion instead of the intellectual compassion I felt in the past.

Speaking of my body becoming used to not being depressed, my BP has changed. The systolic is still up there, but the diastolic, the measurement of how much my heart relaxes between beats, is the lowest it has been in over a decade. My body is remembering how to relax again. Even when I’m upset and there has been a litany of things to be upset about the last two weeks at Casa de El Poeta, I’m still mostly relaxed now. My heart is working more efficiently, it is having to beat less because every beat moves more blood with a more complete relaxation phase between beats. That is one of the big things happening as my body adapts to not being run by a depressed brain.

On the bike pump front I have been approved for a refund, contingent on my returning the broken pump by 3/31/17. Here’s where the problem is on that: I have to print a return label for the box they shipped it to me, and I don’t have access to a working printer. I have a printer but it doesn’t have any cables to connect it to my laptop. Some time between my youngest getting the printer for herself and putting it in her garage because she never had to print anything with it and giving the printer and a bag full of printer cables to me for my birthday the cables for that printer went bye-bye. So I’ll take any assistance I can get on that one.

On the hot rod front I found the actual weight of the Mopar 3.8L pushrod V6 – 413 pounds compared to the 545 pounds for an iron head SBC or 458 for the LS. The 41TE transaxle splits the difference between the TH350 and the 4T65E at just under 200 pounds by one source or between 150 and 200 from several sources. So for weight comparisons 3.8L/41te Mopar just over 600, 350/350 Chevy 675 plus 120 pounds of rear axle or just shy of 800 total, and the LS3/4L70E combo come to 625 plus that 120 pounds of rear axle for about 750 total. So assuming the 1700 pound dry weight for the Speedway kit is accurate my mid-Bucket will hit the scales right at 1500 dry.

And I’m running on 3.5 hours sleep because someone (coughmrsthepoetcough left the bedroom door open and Clint came in to snuggle about 90 minutes before I had my alarm set. I have been falling asleep all afternoon/evening even while I was trying to write this, which might explain the disjointedness of the composition as I was in a different frame of mind every time I woke up. I fell asleep 3 times typing the paragraph prior to this one.

Night-night, Opus the Unkillable