Spent last Saturday helping Ryan with his new siding. We did the front of the garage. Neither one of us had put up vinyl siding before, so there was a lot of figuring and learning -- plus there was quite a bit of detail work. Only one course went up without making any special cuts.
Near the end of February, I ordered cruise control for my car from JC Whitney. Got the expedited shipping for an extra $5. And they very quickly shipped me the vaccum reservoir. The actual cruise control unit, I was informed the next day, was on backorder until the 17th.
I wanted to get it installed before this weekend. I called them to find out if that was an estimate or if that was really the date. They said that was really the date.
So I did a web search and read about a guy in Florida who bought one at AutoZone. So I called AutoZone. They said I could have one by the 7th. For $30 less.
I went down to AutoZone and paid for it so they'd order it, and the next morning I called to cancel the rest of the JC Whitney order. Well, they said they couldn't cancel the order because they got 20 in that morning and my order was on a "pick list" and there was nothing they could do. I could refuse the package when it came.
Only it was left by FedEx on my stoop, so I had to call and have them come pick it back up. Sheesh.
Anyway, last night Ryan, Daryl and I mounted the servo and vaccum reservoir, and drilled holes to get the wiring through the firewall into the car. Running the wires actually took half the 4 hours we spent on it. When I got home tonight, we wired up the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) and the break switch sensor. I also mounted the switch on the dash and ran the wires from that down behind the trim.
Can't find the tach sensor, so I'll ask Troy about that tomorrow. Tomorrow it's just hooking up the power, the tach, and putting the actual throttle mechanism on it. Got a long trip to Nashville coming up soon, followed by another to Chicago. I'd love to have the cruise on it.
I got the good speakers out of the back of Vicki's old Taurus and replaced the ones in my car. Her front speakers wouldn't fit my door speaker holes... and my door speakers were shot -- I think they had gotten wet. I bought some polypropylene replacements -- they won't be so succeptible to moisture -- and some door tweeters up by the dash on the door. Sounds muuuuuch better.
The new Taurus is running fine -- we did have a little scare there the day after we got it. It started running very rough. But it turned out (thanks to my handy dandy OBDII computer) that it was misfiring on 5&6, and they each had about 1/2" of water in them. Probably from when they powerwashed the engine before we got it. It's been fine ever since.
We went to Jazz (local New Orleans style restaurant) with the Williams' for Mardi Gras dinner. As always had a good time with them.
I found a new battery for Mom's old laptop and I'm borrowing a wireless network card for my conference trip and training trip. It's Win2K, and it's just a P-II with 160MB of memory with no possibility of expansion. So I don't want to run any extra software on it. Still -- you really ought to run a firewall. So I spent some time configuring IPSEC (part of Win2K) to act as a firewall. Seems to be working.
I sent the .22 pistol down to a gunsmith in Rolla. The cleaning did not fix the problem. He's dealt with these before. I really like the gun, so I'll be glad to get it back in working order.
So.... lots going on. I'll try to keep updating at more reasonable intervals.
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