I have a Down day, and I need to write sumthin’

I don’t even know what I want to write about again, but I haf’ta write sumthin’ even if it’s just more stream of consciousness stuff. Right now I’m grooving to a meditation mix from YTM. It has like 10 minute and longer ambient pieces, that let me get a groove on and actually write something coherent.

Anyway, yesterday I picked up some stuff from the store that I’m gonna need because #1 son is moving into his house on Saturday and he’s going to be busy directing movers and shit. And tomorrow I’m going to be doing the taxes. So today I write, even though I lack a subject beyond “I have to write today”.

I told someone once about 40 years ago when I had to use a manual typewriter and paper to write because nobody could read my writing, that writing for me had the same feeling as a big BM. After I finished either one I had a feeling of relief, a feeling of emptying out that would get filled up again but was at the moment pleasantly empty. I had the same feeling back when I could still write poetry.

Current writing Jam: Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pts 1-5. Thirteen and a half minutes of psychedelic instrumental music. I think I might have mentioned I was a Pink fan because so much of their early stuff was instrumental. It’s not that I don’t like vocals, it’s just that when I’m grooving to the sounds, human voices jar on me and harsh my vibe. That’s why I liked Autobahn, and Tubular Bells, both of which took up an entire album side with (mostly) instrumental music and in the case of Autobahn even then the vocals were more of an “instrumental drone” than actual voices, being in another language. And I just put Tubular Bells on for 26 minutes of instrumental jams uninterrupted by vocals.

I had to just use the restroom and put a drop of lotion on my hands because I have to wash them so often the skin gets dry and chapped and resembles the belly hide of an alligator if I don’t. Anyway I was thinking about lotion and got to wondering about lotion for nursing mothers and what they did when their nipples got dry and sore, which I know happens. Do they have a special lotion for nursing mothers to use on their nipples, that babies couldn’t taste or that wouldn’t make the babies sick like some hand lotions do if they’re accidentally ingested (old formula Jergen’s lotion was made with almond oils and smelled good enough to eat but would make you sick if you ate it, new formula smells the same but I don’t know if it is still slightly toxic). Anyway that’s where my mind wandered after washing my hands.

And I’m still thinking about mating an LS engine with an aluminum block with a T5 transmission for low total weight for the Sprint-T, because when my mind wanders it prefers to wander down the same path after a while. So, for a stock T5, the biggest LS I could use would be the L33 5.3 motor which is right at the maximum torque limit for the trans. If I wanted to use anything bigger or tune the L33 even slightly I have to upgrade the gears in the transmission. I even did the numbers for installing a T-10 4-speed with a non-quick change rear axle because it’s light and strong enough for a tuned 5.3 LS or even a 6.2 LS before tuning, but the rear gear that would let me drive the car on the highway would cause the car to do 73 MPH in first gear at redline with the race tires without installing an OD, which negates the purpose of using the T-10. That purpose being that a T-10 is 5 pounds lighter than the T5. Seriously, that would be the only reason to go with the 4 speed over the 5 speed. And the only gearset that can handle a 5.3 LS is the one with the 2.45 first gear, the rest would break the input shaft (weak spot). With the T5 3rd gear is the weak spot, so minor tuning upgrades wouldn’t break the gearbox unless I took the Sprint-T on a road course instead of autocrossing it. Again, I have been doing some serious thinking about this for a guy with no engine to bolt either transmission to. And either one would need to get faceplated for the Sprint-T because there’s still no room for a clutch pedal so the clutch would have to be a hand clutch and shifting would have to be done with just lifting off the gas a fraction to let the shift rings unlock to jam it into another gear.

Now if I wasn’t going to drive between events, and just stick it on a trailer or use a toterhome, then what rear gear I had would be a non-issue. But that would require the toterhome or another vehicle to pull the trailer, when the budget doesn’t even allow for completing the vehicle as it is, and I totally didn’t with either the Lotto or the Powerball yesterday. Now either one would seriously benefit the Casa De El Poeta budget and allow significant upgrades and taking care of deferred maintenance to both the house and the writer, but the Powerball would pay out about $2000000 a year after taxes and would also allow building the Sprint-T to desired spec and buying that toterhome. Seriously I could fix everything that needs or will need fixing including me and Mrs. the Poet in the first year, and build the Sprint-T and buy the toterhome to drag it around the country without running out of money from the first two payments (toterhomes are kinda spendy). Without the toterhome then everything could get done the first year.

OK I’ve written, and I’ve done math, and I’ve grooved to some instrumental music with some long-playing tunes, and I doublechecked my spelling including checking for homonyms and the wrong words spelled right, and everything looks good.

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Still gotta write something

If only I hadn’t gotten the TBI, this would be so much easier. I could still put poetry up here, or maybe a story. SOMETHING other than this stream of consciousness stuff. I mean S.o.C is good as far as it goes, it just doesn’t go far enough.

I have a different version of Windows 11 on this computer than I had on the last laptop, because this one kinda installed itself when I connected to the Internet and the one on my old laptop was an upgrade on the existing copy of 10 that was already on the computer. The issue is the apps I use to open certain files don’t work like they did before. I used to open .pdf files with Chrome, but doing that in W 11 results in files that try to save again in random directories of the drive selected. It could be worse, it could be in random directories of random drives. I discovered this when I bought some publications that were posted in .pdf form and they did the stupid thing when I tried to read what I bought. Windows seems to do what I want when I use the apps that Microsoft wants me to use, not the apps I want to use. In this case it doesn’t matter because all I care about is getting to read the stuff I bought, regardless. And there is no functional difference between opening a .pdf in Chrome or opening it in Edge except for changing the default app in settings.

The .pdf I’m trying to read is the e-book of the dead-tree edition of Sacrimony – A tale of love, life and death in no particular order, I bought volume 3 after buying the first two. Actually the .pdf comes free for buyers of the dead-tree edition I bought. The artist is currently having a RL scheduling problem which is impacting the updates in a negative way, just like most of the websites on that section of my bookmarks. This comic has gone from once a week to once a month, which is still better than some of the comics in that corner of my bookmarks that have gone to once a year or less. One of the comics I (used) to follow hasn’t updated in 5 years and they stopped in the middle of an arc (painting the bedroom).Atomic Laundromat At one point I was reading several hundred webcomics a day and had 9 different folders, one for every day and 2 more for the ones that didn’t update every week.

And I’m ready for sleep, well tired, but I don’t know how long it will take to shut my brain down and actually get to sleep. Not too long, I hope. But it feels like there is a bunch of stuff churning around up there that will keep me awake for a while before everything shuts down and I can sleep. But the sooner I go to bed the sooner I can go to sleep, so I’m putting this post to bed so I can get to bed.

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.

I need to write something, again

And once again I have no idea what to write about. This has happened many times before, and what usually comes out is confusing to read at the best. At the worst it is unintelligible.

I know part of why I’m writing this is procrastination. I have to send a letter to claim my pension from a former employer that I did not part from on good terms. The process to claim is confusing and annoying, and also I have to do it by writing longhand because my printer is snafu. The printer works fine, it just can’t communicate with my computer because it needs a parallel connection and all this computer has is RJ-45 and USB. The printer is older than either of those standards, so yeah, pretty old. The printer used to have a serial port that connected through the parallel port after a conversion from serial to parallel, but it died. I have other printers but they need ink and interface cables to work and right now can’t even do a self-test page.

I have been thinking about a lot of things, and nothing. Basically I have been allowing my ADD to run rampant but failed to remember anything I might have stumbled upon that might be useful. I remember one thing I thought about was using a motorcycle or bicycle master cylinder on the shift lever so I can get a hand clutch that doesn’t require three arms to drive the car. That way I can have a manual shift car when I only have room for 2 pedals in the foot box, because I still haven’t bought a transmission for the car yet. The previous design iteration was a 4l60E, before that was 4l80E but that’s way heavier than the 4l60, and almost every manual transmission is lighter than the 4l60E. On top of that is the ability to do a “clutch kick” to break the rear tires loose when desired with a manual. A couple of other things, one is there is a lot of rotating mass that comes with an automatic transmission that can’t be reduced that can be reduced with a manual, and another is that there is no slippage in high gear like there can be (and usually is) with a torque converter. Lockup torque converters usually have tiny clutches that are sized for power required at a steady-state cruise, and even they slip if asked to do too much. A clutch for a manual transmission generally doesn’t slip until it’s worn out. So, that’s one of the things I was thinking about when I let my mind run free, a hand clutch that didn’t require 3 hands to change gears and steer so I could shed some sprung weight and rotating weight.

I thought about other things unrelated to the Sprint-T, bicycles, women, or cooking meat (to give a short list of things I did think about that I can share subjects). The reason cooking meat came up is we bought the smallest spiral sliced ham they had in the store and we still had 3 or 4 times as much as we could eat, and at some point I’m going to cut the bone shorter to fit in the slow cooker with beans and spices to serve with rice. I like using the slow cooker to get the last bits of meat off the bone, because slow, wet heat causes the meat to fall off the bone as the connective tissues dissolve away in the hot water from both the heat and the water.

As I activated my ADD powers I had to take care to remember what I was thinking about, because unlike a google search ADD doesn’t have a history link. As you might imagine doing that is… difficult.

I have time to fill and I need to practice writing stuff

Specifically I need to practice writing stuff that isn’t technical wanking about cars, or bicycles, airplanes, hovercraft or any other kind of vehicle.

I know some people who read this blog have been asking me to write romantic dialog. Those are people who actually know me IRL and used to talk face to face back in the Before Times when people got together and had discussions. Well even before the Before Times I was terrible at writing dialog because I was terrible at talking with people. In order to write convincing dialog, you have to have some kind of experience in being part of dialog. And I’m just anti-social enough that I don’t actually talk with people so much as I talk to people, on a good day. Other times the aphasia takes over and I just kinda make noises in their general direction that resemble words. Or I talk at them, which is even worse but at least the words make more sense than when the aphasia is running things.

The interesting thing is aphasia isn’t near as big a problem when I’m communicating verbally but not talking, like right now. I’m using words, making phrases and sentences, but I’m not speaking at all, just letting my fingers do the talking. It’s actually faster to communicate this way than to try to fight past the aphasia, because the words bypass my mouth and run directly to my fingers. Another interesting thing is when I’m typing I have to look back and see where I made a tone or subject change and insert paragraph breaks, like I did for this paragraph. I usually don’t see them as I write, but going back over what I wrote I see where I need to insert a paragraph break.

I saw this break coming because I knew I was going to make a tone change and a subject change, the subject change is this isn’t dialog practice, it’s monolog practice, and almost everything I have done in the last 2 years has been a monolog from me at my audience. I don’t even know who I’m communicating with here, so I’m machine-gunning words in your general direction instead of to you. I know that when I stopped doing the bike wrecks my readership dropped off a cliff for a long time and is just now starting to come back a little. I guess my attempts at writing about building a car amuse some of you and some are reading out of loyalty and some because I have a unique writing style or non-style, I just write bang on the keyboard and words come out and you read them. Or not, lately it has been mostly not.

But yeah another problem is romantic. I have been married for 43 years and to do that you have to be either romantic as hell, or stubborn as hell, and I’m not romantic. Sexy, I can be sexy as bananas to a monkey, but that is not romantic, it’s romantic-adjacent. I have the physical ability to create arousal and satisfy needs, but I’m not romantic. At best I’m the porn version of romantic. I make vagina-owners happy physically, but romance to satisfy them emotionally just ain’t gonna happen. Or to put it another way, unless they keep their heart and bits on the same shelf I’m not satisfying their hearts.

Now for some people, that’s good enough for a while. They want the porn equivalent of romance, some right up to the point that outside forces break up the relationship. I have lost count of the number of girlfriends who have had a job transfer, or died, or had gender reassignment surgery. Actually only the one had gender reassignment surgery, the rest moved or died. But for them I was romantic enough to maintain the relationship until it was no longer possible to have a relationship.

So, I’m not good at the romance thing, and I’m not good at dialog. And in this case two negatives do NOT make a positive, it’s additive, not multiplicative. But romantic dialog has been requested, nay DEMANDED! in all caps with multiple exclamation points. So how does a writer that has only rudimentary romantic skills and dialog skills learn to write romance. How does a broken bird learn to fly?

That is the question, how does a broken old man learn to be romantic? It’s not from a lack of wanting, I have wanted to be romantic since I was in high school wearing bell-bottom jeans. I thought I had somehow managed when I got married, or when women were after me after I got married, but as I wrote I was “romance-adjacent”. I was sexy, and thought I was romantic. And now I’m not even sexy anymore, I’m just a broken old man who used to be sexy and now is just sad.

It’s a kinda shit day

And I don’t know what to do with myself. My go-to when I’m having a shit day is either porn or writing, and since you’re reading this I’m not watching porn😇.

I have been doing lots of reading about tech stuff for cars, mostly the LS engine family, which was why I was making plans on building the carbon fiber intake manifold. If the stuff I have been reading is accurate, and it tracks with the data on the TPI L98 engine from the Richard Holdener videos on YouTube, I can get a very high average power with a stupid long and large cross section runner intake manifold for low and midrange power and a crazy long duration camshaft to push power out in the upper RPM range. The peak power won’t be super high like if I used a short runner manifold with the same cam, but the average power from off-idle to redline would be higher, and since autocross is more about average power across the whole RPM range… I think it might be worth a shot.

Also listening to my music app playing songs that soothe my soul like the one playing now (Taking a Ride on) Heavy Metal” by Don Felder from the movie soundtrack. There was some Tull, some Iron Maiden, some Infected Mushroom, some Jaime Berry (electro swing), some Wrecked Machines (techno, I think, might be techno-trance crossover), and some Blue Man Group “I Feel Love”.

One of the reasons why this is a shit day is we have a cold front moving through, the same front that went through CO yesterday and dropped their temps by 60°F overnight. This isn’t quite that drastic, we only dropped about 40°F, but we are having T-storms and overcast pretty much all day and it is pretty dreary. There’s an electro swing song on my playlist that has lyrics about not wanting things to be dreary. That song is so relentlessly positive, I can only take it at wide intervals. I forget the artist, otherwise I would let you know in case you wanted to either search it out or avoid it.

Other things I have been researching, because I have to keep up with the state of the art and also what’s available, is the tires for the Sprint-T. Specifically, the race tires for the series that require DOT 200 treadwear tires, because that is most definitely a moving target. The size that was “best” is still in limited availablity, but the research and development for cars in my horsepower range has gone to cars that are about twice as heavy as the Sprint-T. In other words right now I’m no longer sure of which tire is “best” anymore. The 245/40-15 size is still made, by more than one company, but it’s becoming a “competition-only” size even in the 200 treadwear class. Now I can live with this because I always planned on conserving the competition tires by only running them at the track and driving around on 255/60-15 500 treadwear tires from either Cooper or Goodrich. Those will last for years as long as I don’t get stupid with the gas pedal.

On the subject of tires the group that was doing the autocross series that was requiring the 300 treadwear tires has aligned their rules to other series that require 200 or better treadwear so that’s one less set of tires I need to find wheels for.👍

Speaking of the 255/60-15 Goodrich tires they are available in ¹/₂₅th scale for the model Mini Sprint-T for like $12 a set of 4, but I already have tires the same size, just with a different size label, L60-15 is within 0.1″ in every dimension in full scale. So I’m probably going to keep and use those tires, because I have them and don’t feel like getting more tires spending $12+tax and shipping more just to have a more accurate sidewall.

And it’s coming on dinner time and I have to proof the copy and put this post to bed.