For the first time since last winter I put on my cold weather duds today. It wasn't terribly cold, just in the forties, but chilly enough, especially in the shade, to persuade me it was time to dress up. I took yesterday's truck load of wood to the splitter, filled the tank, and attempted a start. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was an easy start, and I proceeded to split the whole load. I didn't have time to haul it to the garage and stack it inside, so I may do that in the morning if it isn't raining. If the rain arrives before it's predicted, I'll put a tarp over the wood and haul it later. One more job I did to prepare for cold weather was to put another electric blanket on my bed, then a couple of non-electric blankets, then the big comforter, and finally an army blanket on top for Shorty. She gets to sleep inside during the cold months.
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Tuesday, November 2,
2021 That was
nice. The rain held off until afternoon, so I
had plenty of time to get all the wood I split
yesterday under shelter, then go around with
the truck and load up the cut wood at various
places in the yard. I parked the truck by the
splitter and put a tarp over the wood to keep
it dry. The forecast says I'll have dry
weather tomorrow, and several more days to
split it and stack it and harvest some more.
This afternoon while the outdoors got wet, I
worked in the shop cutting and drilling the
new firewall for the runabout. I made the
holes for the coil box terminals and the
support rod, and the big hole for the steering
column, but will wait until I have the
mounting brackets before I make the holes for
those. I expect them to come in Thursday's
mail. Of course I have plenty of other things
to do while I wait for them to arrive.
Wednesday, November 3, 2021  About
an hour of my morning went onto an email. A
fellow Model T owner in India is having
trouble getting his T started, and I tried to
help with a few suggestions. It's a tough
situation. There are not a lot of Model T
folks in India to help him, and trying to
diagnose and solve the problems by email is
not ideal. I have the impression that he
doesn't have much mechanical experience
either. The old fridge in the kitchen has been
on the way out for months, and this afternoon
the appliance repair guy came and pronounced
it dead. So all the hamburger meat left over
from the family reunion in September was
thawed. It went to the dog and the cats. Most
of the other frozen stuff that thawed will
have to be tossed. I went to town and
bought ice to put in three coolers with the
refrigerated goods. Tomorrow I'll phone the
local salvage yard and see if they take old
refrigerators. And what shall I do for a
replacement? Before I go and spend hundreds on
a new fridge, I'll check the ads for upcoming
auctions. Estate sales often include
appliances, and they often sell for a fraction
of the retail price. Meanwhile, I'll keep the
refrigerated foods in ice chests and in the
little fridge in my shop where I keep drinks.
I'll make space taking out some of the pop and
the big water containers. This afternoon when
I went to get some kindling from under the
tarp, I found the guard cats on duty. |
Thursday, November 4, 2021
In the morning I sent another email to Sid in India with more suggestions about getting his Model T running, then did some cleaning up in the shop. In the afternoon I went to the clinic with a printout of my blood pressure readings since early August, which have been above 120/80 most days for the past couple of weeks. I saw a PA who told me most of my numbers weren't bad for an old guy, but he wanted me to come back and see my doc. So I have an appointment to do that next week. Today's mail brought me the correct mounting brackets for the 1915 runabout's new firewall. They were slightly bent, and if a firewall was installed with them like that it would lean forward a few degrees. By bolting them to a T frame in the yard and prying with a long piece of tubing, I was able to straighten them to stand upright.
Friday, November 5, 2021
Last night I set about doing the little chore I have done most days for many years: uploading this page to my website with the new post for the day. But the computer gods in their infinite whimsy suddenly decided that I should no longer be allowed to do that. The host file manager showed all files on my computer other than images grayed out, unreadable. Did I accidentally do something to cause this? If I did, I have no clue what it was. After three calls to the web hosting company help desk, I finally found a way around the problem. (I wish the helpers were better English speakers. All three had thick enough foreign accents that I had trouble understanding them.) After updating the blog on my iMac, I copy the file onto a flash drive which I then eject and plug into my laptop, then copy the file onto the laptop's desktop, open the host website on Google Chrome, log on and open the file manager, and upload the blog file to my website. I hope eventually I'll figure out how to make the file manager upload directly from my desktop computer, as I've been doing for years. So what else did I do today? Not much. I did go to town and buy celery for me and some canned dog food for Shorty. Every month I buy a can of Old Roy and bury Shorty's heart worm tablet in it. If I try to get her to swallow just the pill, she always spits it out.
Saturday, November 6, 2021
Well, apparently the problem I had uploading pages to my website was that the host server didn't like my browsers anymore. On Firefox it grayed out all my files except for images. On Safari it wouldn't even open the control panel so I could get to the file manager. So I downloaded Google Chrome on my desktop computer and tried that. It worked like Firefox did until two days ago, and I was able to upload this page without taking it to a different computer. Today began with a drive to the health department office in town for a Covid booster. While I was there I got my flu shot too. Then I was off to Winfield to check out the Defore auction. I didn't see anything that compelled me to stay. So I came home and split firewood, and stacked it all under cover. Saturday dinner in town this week was at La Fiesta where the food is always good. I was not sure I wanted to go to a movie this week, as I have seen the ones that look like something I would want to see. But Eternals was directed by Chloe Zhao, so I decided to give it a go. I found that unfortunately, even when made by a great director, comic book movies put me to sleep. All the flying people and fights with CGI monsters are lost on me. This is technically a very good movie, visually attractive, with a good score, good actors, and impossible things made to look real. But several times I found myself drowsing off. The bottom line is that comic book movies, even when critics and audiences like them, are a crashing bore for me.
Sunday, November 7, 2021
Since my refrigerator has gone south I've been keeping refrigerated stuff in a couple of ice chests. I will probably keep doing that until I find a replacement fridge at an auction for a fraction of the retail price. So my trip to town today was for a bag of ice for one of the chests. While I was there I stopped at the Pursuant machine for a blood pressure test. After so many high readings lately, it was a pleasant surprise to see 116/74. At home, a big part of my day was a couple of hours in front of the computer for a Zoom presentation on speedometers by Russ Furstnow, who has written two books on the subject. The first hour, before the program, was just a few of us getting familiar with the technology and how to use it. The program started with introductions, then Russ went into his talk. He hadn't been at it long when he was interrupted by an internet troll using naughty language and putting a porno video on the screen. Everything stopped while one of the hosts identified and removed the offending interloper, then the program continued. Unfortunately the interruption cut the audience about in half. Lesson learned. Next time the session will be private and require a password. After the Zoom adventure and the ice run, I had a little time to work on the new firewall. I used a belt sander to reduce the thickness of the edges enough to fit into the hood former. But the former itself has seen better days, and I need to make some repairs before I use it again. This was one of those days when I open the windows to let warmer air into the house, and I didn't need to light a fire in the evening. The forecast says tomorrow will be about the same, and it will probably be the last such day for quite a while.
Monday, November 8, 2021
I suppose I should have been outside today, taking advantage of the nice weather. But last night I got started cleaning off the pile of stuff on my desk, sorting out all the receipts I need to file. So I continued that this morning, putting all the receipts into folders by month. I'll enter them in computer files, and put them in monthly envelopes. Occasionally I need to look up an old receipt, and there's no way of knowing which ones I'll need, so I file and save them all. I ended up with folders for June, July, August, September, and October to file. I'm filing the November receipts as I get them, so I don't need a folder for those. This was the second evening in a row that I didn't light a fire in the kitchen, and it will probably be the last for a while.
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Tuesday,
November 9, 2021 The
centerpiece of today's
activity was sandblasting.
That's best done on an
overcast day like this, as
the dark shadows of bright
sunlight can make it hard
to see what you're doing.
The subject of this
operation was the hood
former from the runabout.
The paint came off fairly
easily, but the Bondo
under it was another
story. That was mighty
slow going. After
blasting, the reason for
the Bondo was very
apparent. The surface of
the metal is pretty
heavily pitted. I'm
thinking of using body
solder to fill the pits,
as it was the cracking and
peeling of the old Bondo
that prompted this project
to begin with. Today I got
the blasting done on about
two thirds of the front. I
may be able to finish it
tomorrow if the predicted
rain holds off until
afternoon. After the piece
is blasted, it will need
some repairs before I
start to prepare it for
painting.
Wednesday, November 10, 2021 The forecast threatened afternoon rain, so in the morning I set up the blasting equipment and worked on the hood former some more. I didn't want to risk rain starting before I was done, so I quit a little after eleven and put the equipment away under shelter. I laid fires in the fireplace and the kitchen stove, just in case the evening turned out cool enough for me to want some heat, and brought in some wood. I spent most of the afternoon writing. I'm starting a piece for one of the Model T magazines. If the editor doesn't want it I'll just post it on this website. When chow time came and I went in the house, the kitchen felt just cool enough that I lit a fire and let it start warming the room while I fed the precious adorable kitties. After dinner I retired to my office above the shop and spent the evening sorting and filing receipts. I got most of October done, and should finish that up tomorrow and move on to another month. After I get caught up on filing receipts, my next office job will be making an index of all the photos I've taken this year. |
Thursday, November 11, 2021
First on today's schedule was an appointment to see my doc about blood pressure. Most days I check my pressure and keep a record of it. I took three pages of almost daily readings going back to June. I was concerned about having so many readings higher than 120/80, which I have read is the beginning of hypertension. She told me that at my age readings up to 130 are OK. When I get over 140, that's not so good. Fortunately I don't get many readings that high. She said two Lisinopril tablets a day are too much and one may not be enough. We'll go with one a day for awhile and see how that goes. After doing laundry so I'll have some clean sox, my work at home was finishing up with filing October receipts, then more work on my magazine article.
Friday, November 12, 2021
Blustery is the word often used for days like this. A strong northwest wind kept the temperature below 50º, and I spent the day inside, working on the hood former. It seems that this body part was made with just an unreinforced hole in the sheet metal to hold the hood rod. The hole would get wallowed out from use. So my project today was fixing the hole. There are also a couple of bolt holes that need repair.
 The repair begins with a piece of
brass sheet metal with the pro[per sized hole in it,
clamped on the back of the hood former. |
 The wallowed out original hole shows a
lot of space to fill between the brass and the steel.
|
 Brass tubing will form the new hole.
The tubing and the brass sheet are brazed in place |
 The space around the tubing is filled
in with body solder.
|
 The extra tubing is cut off.
|
 With some grinding and buffing the new
hole is in place.
This poor old thing will take a lot of body filler to eliminate all the pitting. |
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Saturday, November 13,
2021 First up this morning was checking out an auction a few miles east. I didn't see anything that persuaded me to stay, so I came home and got some work done. I spent an hour or so on my magazine article, then spent the rest of the day on the hood former. When I removed the firewall from the car I encountered the inconvenience of spinning carriage bolts. So today I set about repairing the holes and making them square again. One of them ended up a little lopsided, but that doesn't matter as long as it's square and holds the bolt steady. I have a little more work to do on both holes, but they're pretty good so far. Dinner in town tonight was at the Chinese buffet, and this week's movie was Clifford the Big Red Dog. I have never read the book or seen the TV show, but the picture itself is a good kids' movie. The animators did a good job of making the dog look real. Sunday, November 14, 2021 After spending way too much time online this morning, I set up the blasting equipment and finished removing old paint and Bondo from the front of the hood former. I quit after that because before I do the back I want to dig into the sand blaster and find out why the air pressure is so low and the air flow from the nozzle is so weak. It makes the blasting much too slow to suit me. I also need to buy more sand. I laid the fires for the evening, then boxed up and brought in two boxes of wood from the yard. Some of the auction plunder I bought three weeks ago has been riding around in the Camry ever since. I'll need the trunk clear when I buy sand tomorrow, so I put all that stuff away. I may also need the space when I go to the big auction in Iola this Tuesday and Wednesday. Model T Haven owner Mark Freimiller is selling out and moving to Florida. He has acres of Model T stuff, and it will be a big sale. |
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Monday, November 15, 2021
In the morning I worked on my magazine article some more. In the afternoon I went to the gasino and filled up the Camry for tomorrow's drive to Iola, stopped at the lumber yard for four bags of blasting sand, at the market for groceries, and finally at the Walmart for paper towels, pins, jalapeño cheese, and pickles. After I got home and put things away it dawned on me that I had forgotten to get oil for the car, so I had to go back for that. I had planned to dig into the sand blaster and see why the air pressure in it has been so low, but by the time I got back from town and laid the fires for the evening the afternoon was pretty well shot, so the blaster will have to wait.
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 and Wednesday, November 17, 2021
I spent both days at the Model T Haven auction. The report and pictures are here.
Thursday, November 18, 2021
This morning I was off to the clinic for my annual free medicare wellness check. Except for a check of temperature and blood pressure it was mostly just answering questions. When I got home I brought the sandblaster into the shop to see if I could find why it has such low pressure at the nozzle. All the intake plumbing was clear, but air flow through the moisture trap seemed restricted, so I took it off. I have a separate tank for a moisture trap, so another one on the blaster isn't needed. Tomorrow I'll do some blasting and see if it goes any better. This afternoon when I laid fires for the evening I used the last of the cedar kindling pile east of the house, so I'll have to bring up another load tomorrow.
Friday, November 19, 2021
Most of the morning I worked on my magazine article. By 1:00PM the outdoors had warmed up above 50º, but a strong south wind persuaded me that I didn't want to do any blasting today. I'll wait for a calmer and perhaps warmer day. Putting on my winter outdoor duds, I unloaded and put away my Tuesday and Wednesday auction purchases, some in the barn and some in the shop building. I drove the truck down to the wood lot and hauled a load of cedar kindling up to the house. Finally I went to town for a new 44 pound bag of cat food. While I was there I stopped at the pursuant machine for a blood pressure test. I've been getting too many high scores lately, but today's reading was 95/71, so I was a happy camper.
Saturday, November 20, 2021
First up this morning was a drive to Winfield to check out two auctions. The Roth auction at the fairgrounds had only one item of any interest to me, an old time foot warmer used in buggies and early cars. I already have one somewhere, so I went downtown to see what was in the Defore auction to keep me there. Nada, zero, zilch. Not one thing. On the way home I stopped at the Winfield Walmart for a few groceries. That included a gallon can of corn. I wanted the can to hold some of the stuff when I sort out the box of hardware I bought at the Model T Haven auction. For a few weeks my breakfast routine will include corn in place of cereal. When I got home and put things away the day had warmed up to 50º F with no wind, so I set up the blasting equipment and almost finished the hood former. Removing the restrictive filter from the inlet got a stronger blast out the nozzle, with much improved results. One more session should finish the hood former. Saturday dinner in town was enchiladas blancas, which are served with spinach over them. I've loved spinach since I was a little kid. I've never understood that business about kids not liking spinach. It sure didn't apply to me.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
On a lazy Sunday morning I didn't get up until after eight, and fooled around on the internet until after noon. I watched a video on body solder, and realized there are a couple of items I'll need in order to finish the hood former. I went to the Eastwood website, hunted up the two things I wanted, and put them in the shopping cart. But when I tried to check out I got an error message stating that my email or my password were invalid. Baloney. I haven't changed either. I'll have to wait until tomorrow and order by phone. It was not a big day for achievement, other than a bit of cleaning up in the shop. Maybe I'll be more ambitious tomorrow.
Monday, November 22, 2021
Well, I wanted to get some outside work done today, but with paying bills, shopping in town and online, looking for things in the shop, looking for things in my office, etc., etc., I never got around to it. The forecast for tomorrow is sunny and 70º, so I''d better get out and take advantage of it.
One of the things I did this morning was repeat this Facebook post from two years ago:
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I was just
reminded that today is Friday,
November 22. Fifty-six years ago
this date was also a Friday. I was a
student at Pepperdine, which was
then a small college at 79th and
Vermont in Los Angeles. On
Fridays students were required to attend chapel, which was held in the 1937 modernistic auditorium at 10:00 AM. In the east end of the building, behind the stage, was the campus radio station where my buddy Herb Schmidt and I inflicted The Rot & Arnie Show on a vast audience that probably numbered in the single digits. Chapel had ended and I was crossing the stage, headed for the door to the station, when I heard somebody say, "Kennedy's been shot." I imagined a minor wound like movie heroes experience, but news from Dallas soon made it clear that this was something more serious. Station manager Lee Larson phoned KABC and got permission to air the network feed from ABC. Our station, KWAV, had a wire service teletype that brought news for local announcers to read on the air. Those who are old enough will remember the teletype as a typewriter powered by an electric motor. The whirring motor and the clattering keys made a distinctive sound heard in most newsrooms. The machine printed out the copy from wire service reporters on a continuous roll of paper, and the local announcer would tear off the story and read it on the air. Our teletype and thousands of others all over the country clattered out a continuous stream of reports from Dallas. Suddenly the clatter stopped and all you heard from the teletype was the whir of the motor. It may have been just a few seconds, but it seemed like a long time. Then the machine rolled up a few inches of blank paper. It typed a row of asterisks, then two words, and another row of asterisks, paused, and then resumed the constant clatter from Dallas. **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
PRESIDENT DEAD **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
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Tuesday, November 23, 2021
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Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Lethargy, ennui, and malaise? Just lazy. I spent most of the day in my office, most of it interacting online. One thing I did was add a dozen of my Korea photos to my screen savers and also post them in a Facebook album. I also griped about my miserable email system and received some suggestions on how to correct it. My cousin Wally dropped by for a visit, and I went to town for an onion because the stores will be closed tomorrow. I recalled Sunday, November 24, 1963. It was my buddy Herb's twenty-first birthday. We planned to celebrate by going bar hopping. We were sitting in the first saloon, Clyde's corner in Lomita. It was an old time beer joint with a big walnut bar in front of a big mirror. As we sat there having our first beer the TV was on with a live feed from Dallas. Oswald appeared, surrounded by plain clothes cops, and suddenly he was shot. That was the end of our bar hopping for the day.
Thursday, November 25, 2021
On this Thanksgiving Day I have a new reason to be thankful. Along with the usual blessings of a good roof, a warm dry bed, plenty to eat, and pretty good health, it seems I now have working email. Today I went to the Cox website and via chat got instructions on how to use my cox.net address on a gmail account. I can now send a message and don't have to wait several minutes or several hours for it to go out. Apple does a lot of things well, but email is not one of them, so I will enjoy not having to use Apple Mail. Thanksgiving dinner was non-traditional. Instead of turkey and the other usual stuff, I made tostadas — two with tuna and chopped onions, and three with chopped onions, frijoles refritos, pepper cheese, and jalapeño slices. Yummy. Dessert was a box of Crunch n Munch toffee popcorn. You can't beat that.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Well, that was interesting. None of my email since last night was showing up in my new gmail inbox with the Cox address. So I went to the Cox website for the help chat. The agent was getting information and giving advise, then he interrupted that and tried to sell me a service plan for $10 a month. When I expressed my disinterest in paying an extra $120 a year for something I would use rarely if ever, it suddenly became $5.80 a month. I told him, no thanks, that's still $70 a year, I'll see if I can figure it out on my own. I closed the chat window and figured I would work on the problem later. This evening after dinner I found that all the missing emails had showed up in that inbox. Did the agent feel sorry about trying to hold me up, and go ahead and fix the problem? I don't know, but I'm not complaining. My outside job this afternoon was splitting a big piece of tree trunk behind the shop. It was so heavy that I used wedges and an ax to break it into three easier-to-lift pieces. Last year I split one that was so heavy I set up a 2 x 12 board as a ramp and rolled it up to the splitter.
Saturday, November 27, 2021
The email situation, which I thought was resolved, isn't. I sent an email to my brother from gmail, and it showed up in the SENT box immediately instead of taking several minutes or several hours as it would have done in Apple Mail. So I assume it was actually sent. Great! But the last incoming message to show up in the gmail INBOX was today at noon. By this evening there should at least be some spam messages for me to delete. I suppose I'll have to use gmail for sending messages, and Apple Mail, as painfully slow as it is, for receiving them. What a crock. Oh, well. I'll think about that tomorrow. This being dine-out-and-movie night, I drove up to Wichita to see Belfast, one of those movies that's unlikely ever to play down here in Podunk. (On the way I stopped at the Asian market and stocked up with enough 김치 to last into the new year.) Belfast is written and directed by Kenneth Branagh based on his family's life in Northern Ireland until he was nine, when "The Troubles" made them leave. Jude Hill as Buddy (the Branagh character), Lewis McAskie as his brother Will, Caitriona Balfe as Ma, Jamie Dornan as Pa, Judy Dench as Granny, and Ciarán Hinds as Pop, all are wonderful. One might expect a picture set in Belfast in 1969 to be a downer, but this is the opposite. Branagh had me rooting for the characters, touched by their sorrows, and smiling at their humor. I have to confess that I didn't understand every line of dialogue because of the Northern Ireland accents, but the feelings came through. One of Branagh's directorial tricks is to have the camera completely circle a character so you see everything going on around them. Here he does that with Buddy in close-up in the first few minutes of the picture, and without a word spoken, Jude Hill's face speaks his thoughts. This is the best film I've seen in a long time, and some award nominations would not surprise me.
Sunday, November 28, 2021
This email thing is crazy. Apple Mail continued all day showing nothing new since noon yesterday. When I clicked Get Mail the words "Checking for mail..." would appear and usually stay for a long time. That would sometimes be followed by "Moving 1 of 12 messages", but no new messages ever appeared. Gmail has no Get Mail feature. It just remained empty of anything since noon yesterday. I checked both Apple and Gmail inboxes numerous times during the day until I went to the house to light a fire for the evening and get dinner. I haven't stayed with TV on Sunday evenings past 7:30 for years, but this evening I stayed with CBS to watch Tony Bennett. He sounds like he always has, but he's 95 and has Alzheimers, so this was his last public performance. He and Lady Gaga were in great form, separately and together. Lady Gaga called him the greatest voice of our lives. I consider Vicente Fernandez the greatest voice, but damn, Tony is great too. I stuck around for an episode of The Enforcer, which I have never watched, followed by a special on aging. The Enforcer, with Queen Latifa and former Law & Order cop Chris Noth, was well-done TV, better than I expected. The aging special had some interesting information padded with celebrity features and other fluff to fill out the hour. After my unaccustomed evening of network TV, I got back to my office about 10:30 and found that both inboxes contained all my messages since yesterday afternoon up to 9:30 this evening. Most of them were spam which I deleted, of course, but sometimes I get legitimate messages I'd like to receive without waiting until the next day.
Monday, November 29, 2021
First up today was another drive to Wichita. This was for a dermatological appointment. The PA froze several keratoses at various places on my head. She said they have about a ten percent chance of becoming cancers if you don't get rid of them. She also suggested that I come back in four months instead of six "to get ahead of these things". So I'll be going back in late March. As I knew I wouldn't be staying long, Shorty got to ride along on this trip. When she was a pup she was a reluctant Model T rider. I had to pick her up and put her in the car. Before long she was an eager Model T rider, but didn't care for the modern car. Now she's eager to go in whatever I'm driving. After we got home I got out the chain saw and cut up some of the wood I set out to dry last week, and did a little more mowing of the area where I was working last Tuesday. The email situation continues to be a mess. This afternoon all my messages since yesterday showed up in Apple Mail, but not a one in Gmail. I suppose I'll have to use Apple Mail for receiving messages, and Gmail for sending them.
| Tuesday, November 30, 2021 Among the stuff I brought home
from the Model
T Haven
auction a
couple of
weeks ago were
a 1926-27
engine block
and a 1926-27
hogshead
(transmission
cover). I
already had a
few earlier
blocks and
hogsheads, but
I wanted the
26-27 type
because they
bolt together.
I intend to
use them to
make a
pan-straightening
jig. Today I
started
removing the
unneeded parts
from the block
— valves &
valve
hardware, cam
shaft &
gear, front
cover,
generator
mount. Some of
the bolts that
appeared
rusted in
place were
surprisingly
easy to
remove. Others
are so well
stuck that I
may have to
turn them red
and let them
cool to break
them loose
from the rust
that's holding
them.
Meanwhile, the
adventure of
stupid email
tricks
continues.
Apple Mail
still delivers
messages with
a delay of
several hours.
Gmail hasn't
shown anything
new since
yesterday at
11:14 AM. If
anybody tried
to reach me
urgently by
email they'd
be out of
luck.
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