A couple of weeks ago I ordered some new door latches for the Bronco expecting to be able to remove the old ones and simply drop in the new ones. I couldn't have been farther from the truth.

At first glance I could tell they were not the same, and they had been ground down in order to fit in the allotted space within the door, so I set upon the path to get this project on its way. I pulled the old ones out and struggled quite a while with getting the latch & lock rods out of their little clips. After I removed the door assembly I cleaned and straightened the rods, and screwed the new latch into place. I set the rods into place and made the mistake of clipping them onto the latch. First mistake.

The latch didn't work at all. It wouldn't close and latch. The lock wouldn't push the lever in place to lock it. It just flat out didn't fit. Time to break out the grinder. I spent probably about a half hour between the die grinder and the Dremel getting the surfaces ground down to stop hitting the door skin. Finally that fixed the locking problem and the interior door latch, but the exterior latch wouldn't work; and what's more, it wouldn't stay latched with that rod attached. After messing about with the door latch, I figured I had to make a new rod that was longer.

Not knowing what the hardware store was going to be able to supply me with, I figured I might be able to use some braided cable instead - but they had steel rod stock - so I bought some of each. After I bent a new rod, it became clear that this was the easiest way to get the latch to work. The cable was a good idea, but after I pulled out the anvil/vice, it was simple enough to bend a rod, and clean it up.

This still seems like a lot of work just for a single door latch. I still can't get the striker post off, and have yet to even attempt to do the passenger side.

It's been so long since I have had an old car to work on regularly, I have obviously forgotten how much effort has to go into the simplest of things some times. I think I am going to get one of the those small Butane torches from Sears to help get some of the bolts off.

I think for the passenger side I will take some photos of the steps and post them after I am done.

I guess this is the latest and greatest way to annoy your fellow man with the ever popular chain letter - chain money. I got this bill the other day from the rather slow chicks at Subway (and I do mean slow, that and the store was suspiciously empty of the usual retail offerings, no cookies, no pop in the cooler, etc...) after lunch.

It states simply that if  I pass 10 more bills with the phrase written on it that I will get good fortune bestowed upon me.

Actually it says:

St. Lazarus Anyone who receives this bill will be blessed with money if they rewrite this phrase on 10 other bills

Well, I don't think I am going to go for it - but I will continue this one. Why? Because it's at least unique. I have received so many chain letters and fake email about how Microsoft is tracking this email and will pay a billion dollars to everyone who forwards it to 10 people - yada yada yada.

I wonder how many folks believe this garbage though? There are plenty of people out the who believe crazy shite right? Maybe it's less than they believe it, than they would like to believe it - sorta like playing the lottery on a spiritual and free level. Who knows. All I know is that I am glad I don't get chain letters any more and I have been removed from spam lists of friends and relatives who deal in this bandwidth wasting past-time.

Besides, would a Saint really bestow money on someone for writing ambiguous phrases on bills? Maybe if your wrote it on every bill that came into your wallet for 50 years with no slip-ups. That might actually be worth it. It's not like 10 bills could be considered in any way, shape, or form a sacrifice or self imposed hardship. Maybe if you are blind with no fingers - but for the average humanoid it's not really an issue.

It also reminds of the bill tracking site Where's George (now at 2.2), I have received several of these bills over the years - and now there are others; like mydollarbill. Just as useless, and just as goofy.

Donovan and I decided to take a walk down by the raging Tuna (Tunungwant) this afternoon after dinner, and actually ended up walking about 2 miles or so. There is a trail that goes between Bolivar Ave and Tuna Crossing (where they finally rebuilt the bridge after 5 + years of it being closed), and since Donovan is completely in awe of this new bridge we had to go all the way down from one end to the other. Which brings us to the title.

The first thing we drift past was the Sewage Treatment plant, or as Donovan called it - The Bradford Poop Factory. It was in full swing today too, and it did indeed have the smell of churning poo. Mike Rowe would be proud. Donovan was also fascinated by the corkscrew type machine churning the water up an incline, the name of which escapes me. The best part about this facility is the two football field size plot of land right next to it. What a great piece of property - if only I had a lawn that nice, large and level.

Continuing on our journey we came across some really old oil well machinery, apparently still in use, mass amount of duck, birds and other various wetland creatures. On the way back, we stopped down by a really "cute baby river", and commenced chunkin' rocks into the Tuna.

First thing we both noticed was rock pocking up that looked like a face, and right away it dawned on me that it looked like a sock puppet. Kinda funny. With so many rocks to throw the interest in this rock faded fast. We probably did that for another 20 minutes, and I built a small cairn in the baby creek. Since, if I see flat rocks, I have to pile them up. Well, either that or huck them into some random body of water.

As Donovan wanted a snack and a drive across the new bridge we got the hitch out of our giddy-up and made like a couple of trees.

We were making good time, even with the path hogs that decided we were so thin we must get out of their lumbering paths of doom - until the small hordes of really small frogs descended onto the path. Man are they small! I have no idea what kind of frog they are, but small indeed. the picture is of Donovan's hand. I tried convincing him that the best way to keep one was with a picture, but he didn't buy into that line of thinking - so now we have two baby frogs keeping his lizard happy on the porch.

It was a good walk, and I was surprised Donovan didn't start squeaking by the end of it. At least this went well, because everything else I did today was a complete bust.

I tried getting the new door latches on the Bronco, and either they sent me the wrong ones, or they just flat out don't fit for whatever reason - because they don't work. they are wider, and the outside latch will not function with them in place. I did manage to get the hardtop off with John and Litsa's help yesterday, and will get the soft top on this week - and hopefully figure out how to get the reverse light switch mounted, figure out why the passenger side tail light is not working right, figure out what the deal is with the damned door latches I have, and various other things in order to get it back on the road soon.

At least it's running well, and the top is in good shape.

I broke out the pool today and we started filling it up, and as one could easily imagine - things went into crazyland on the express. The boys were running around slipping and falling flat, sometimes face first into 2 inches of water.

It's always this way though. Especially since last year with Litsa and the boys off on the left coast for 3 weeks, we didn't set up the pool at all.

Hopefully it stays nice and the pool isn't ice cold all summer - but at this rate they don't seem to mind. We have submarines, snorkles, goggles and all sorts of other toys that don't get used without the pool up and full of the 1200 gallons of water. It's crazy, this pool isn't that big and I was surprised at what the actual volume is - which literally is something like 1200 gallons of water. I think..... Which is why it stays cold for so long.

I'm going to try and get some black hose to put in between the filter and pool to take advantage of some naturally heating - we'll see how that works. The filter for the pool isn't all that great - but hopefully it's up to the task.

it's at least going to be fun watching the crazies run around in the pool.

I don't know what to say... no, not true. I do.

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I've been on a little spending spree as of late, of which I am the direct recipient of. w00t!

MacBook Pro

This thing is amazing! Flat out. Hands down the very best computer I have ever purchased, I would almost say that I like it more and that it exceeds my desktop, but it doesn't. That would just be me being a mac fanboy - which I'm not. But it is sweet. If Windows machines were built to these sorts of standards, attention to detail; both within the OS and the actual construction of it, Apple would not have a dime to their name. Lucky for them (and me) they aren't. Keep it up Dell, Gateway and Billy! Doin' a great job.

I started out along this path a couple of months ago with my iBook, and it's nice - but really slow for what I want to be able to do with it. I haven't decided what I am going to do with it right now either, so I have two macs sitting on my desk, right next to my Windows box and my Ubuntu Server. I don't have enough computers. At least I have one machine that I know to be stable, unlike both my Windows and Ubuntu machine. Ubuntu is stable enough, but I could easily hose it installing something at the command line - I've done it before, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities. And we won't even go into Windows. meh.

So I bought the Mac-Daddy 2.4 gHrz, with 2 gb of RAM, 160 gb hard drive and 15.4 in ch display. It's a bit bigger than the iBook, but the extra real estate and power is worth it - and surprisingly enough, it's not much (if any) heavier than the iBook. These things are crazy thin. I love it!

Happy Fathers Day!

I just went to Best Buy and bought a DS Lite too (thank you Don & Donna for the gift card). hehehehehehe I've haven't had a chance to crank it yet, I just got it home. Just now actually. I only bought two games, naturally one is the New Super Mario Brothers, and the other is one of the Brain Games. Which is, honestly, one of the reasons I wanted one. My short term recollection is fairly poor, and I want to see if I can work at getting better - hell, I'd be happy to be back to what I was before I started getting sick before my transplant.

The other reason I bought it is so Donovan could play it too. His Nintendo games will work in it, and we can get new games for the DS Lite for him to play rather than for the old Gameboy Advanced.

Ryan, Beth and I went and saw Silver Surfer today too, and it was great. The Regal Cinemas in Orchard Park is an awesome new thaeter and makes me not want to see shows in our little back-water theater any more. My bro and I had been there before, so I knew it was awesome - but it really makes me miss real movie theaters. They had this cool life-size display of the surfer too - so I had to go up see what's what with Norin.... It isn't that great of a picture, but the whole display was cool.

Well, I can tell you at least one way. It takes Verizon more than 3 days to get your phone cable fixed! I don't know how many folks in our neck of the woods are living sans phone/DSL, but I haven't had it since sometime last Sunday evening. - I'm not sure when. I woke with no phone. Dead. Nothing.

At first I thought it might be us, so when I came home from work Monday, I goofed around at our decidedly ancient phone junction, and no signal. I even licked my fingers and completed the circuit on the 2 metals screw posts that you use to connect the phone line to. Nope. Not even a tingle. WTF?

It's funny though, I don't really miss not having an internet connection. I do... but at the same time I don't. It bugs me more when I want to look up info for some projects I want to start working on, but other than that - meh. It's only been 3 days. The killer is no phone. No contact with anyone in the outside world after I get home. Since we don't really get cell reception - it's like, well.... living out in the middle of nowhere.