Cars...
So we'll start with mine, which hasn't been sounding great lately. We've all been witness to the loud squealing car, and seen the embarrassed driver hunkered down in the seat. I'm proud to say I am now one of those people. I've only been a squealer for a couple weeks now but it has driven me nuts every single day.
As a quick background, I was raised by a gear head and knew how to rebuild a Chevy 350 before I was potty trained. Muscle cars ruled my world... well, until 1982 when Thomas Magnum rode into my home in Robin Master's Ferrari 308 GTS every week. From that point I was addicted to the automobile in all of it's nationalities.
Naturally, as a son of a gear head, I do what maintenance I can on my car. The squealing was definitely something I could fix and I ordered the new alternator that evening. Two days later my new shiny part arrived and I broke out the tools that would heal my car and bring back my dignity. I've replaced many of my car's stock parts with "hot" parts meant to raise the horsepower (ask my friend Jeff, those are his life or death finger holes in the dashboard lol). "The removal and installation of an alternator is nothing", I thought to myself. "I'll be done in under an hour". HA!!
I removed my accessory belt and, with only millimeters of extra space, managed to squeeze my hand in such a position as to remove the first bolt. I managed to loosen the second with no problem and the same would go for the third once I found it. I disconnected my battery, flipped my alternator on it's side and removed the main lead. I was ready to remove the the alternator and after awhile I had managed to cut my hand and utter most of the basic expletives in the English language.... they really don't give you much room to work.
With the help of gravity, I managed to get the new part in place in less time than it took to remove the old one. I put everything back together, set my clock again and started the car with a sort of cocky smirk on my face. SQUEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL. My smirk was gone. SON OF A...... I got out of the car and after a small reassessment, the problem was actually the A/C compressor. I took out the new, put in the old and reset my clock again.... and again after I took the alternator back out again to figure out why my battery light randomly lights up. I still have no clue why but it is charging so I'll figure it out after I replace the A/C compressor tomorrow.
While I'm on the subject of cars, I saw a 2008 Nissan Altima 3.5 SE today from the rear 3/4 view and instantly fell in love with the tail light styling. This got me thinking, Japanese car styling really has come a long way. At first they were, well, ugly. Then they started to copy everyone else. Seriously, look at the Toyota 2000GT and you see hints of the E-Type Jag. The Datsun 260Z has similar lines but more Corvette. The most blatant, IMO, is the second generation RX-7. The styling process was simple... a picture of a Porsche 944 Turbo and tracing paper. I think it started with the Nissan Skyline, but, the Japanese started doing things their own way and ya know what? I think the large majority of the cars coming from Japan now look great. In fact, I think they are getting better than the once dominant Germans.
So I started a new book as well, Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. I've been a long time fan of Wil as Stand By Me is my all time favorite movie. Very simply, the movie brings back memories since I lived in the country, next to train tracks and a bunch of us used to fib to our parents about were we were staying and take long walks down the tracks and camp out. I still recommend the book Different Seasons by Stephen King, where the original story The Body can be found.
