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Thursday, January 2, 2020
All morning I worked on old 8mm movies. Contemplating converting them to digital files, I had to figure out approximately how many feet of film there are. The equipment being considered takes a half hour to convert fifty feet of film, and at that rate I figure converting all my footage will take close to 100 hours. While figuring this out I watched some of the old films and found some shots I had forgotten. In the afternoon I fired up the splitter and spent an hour or so splitting more firewood.
Friday, January 3, 2020
For several months I've been telling people I have an original 1915 speedometer for my runabout, and I'd install it after I remember where I put it. Well, today when I was looking for something else in my shop I looked in a box on the shelf, and there was the speedometer. Now that I've found it I think I'll remember where it is. My outdoor work today was another session with the chain saw and the splitter, building the firewood supply. I may soon have enough stacked up to last until spring.
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Saturday, January 4, 2020 They're all gone. Jack, Bert, Judy, Frank, Ray, Billie and Maggie — all of them. And the Munchkins. Maybe that was a big part of the overwhelming nostalgia. As soon as Dorothy started singing "Over the Rainbow" I found myself wiping away tears. I usually go to a movie Saturday night, but this week it was a special matinee screening. I assume it was a new print, because it was gorgeous. I expect Victor Fleming and his crew would have been pleased and proud to see their work so beautifully displayed eighty years later. Seeing the Wizard in a theater again on the big screen was wonderful. Of course the screening was in Wichita, not here. So I stopped at the Korean market to buy Kimchi, and at a Dillons store to get diet Squirt, one of the many products not sold here. On the way home I stopped at the Defore auction in Winfield to bid on a shop vise, but didn't buy it because somebody else was willing to spend more on it than I was. For dinner I tried out Arkansas City's new pizza place. For many years the building was a steak house, Sirloin Stockade, then it became Kansas Buffet until it closed a year or two ago. Now it's a pizza buffet called Pizza Ranch. Some of the food is very good, and some of it I'll skip next time and thereafter. Over all I'd call it a good value for about $11. Sunday, January 5, 2020 After my usual Sunday morning internet bogdown, I spent the afternoon on piddly little chores like topping off brake fluid in the truck, watering seedlings, fetching kindling and laying the evening fires, etc. |
Monday, January 6, 2020
The centerpiece of today's activity was a couple of hours on the phone with Verizon support trying to remedy the lousy phone reception in my office. In recent months I've been experiencing a lot of dropped calls and "searching for service". After a session with second tier support the probable cause was declared to be something interfering with the signal somewhere between the nearest tower and here. The company won't attempt to fix it because the current 3-G equipment is about to be retired, to be replaced by 4-G. So I will be getting a free 4-G phone with the hope that the new network will solve the problem. We shall see.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Another day, another bout with technology. Today the problem was getting my scanner to work on my computer's new operating system. I started the day working on my roadster's broken top socket, but spent considerably more time on the scanner problem. Eventually my cousin Robert directed me to some software that looks like it will be the answer. Unfortunately it's not free, but at least it will cost less than a new scanner.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
This was a day for getting a few things done in the shop. I went to the barn and got a better vise than the one I've been using, and installed it on my work table. I washed some parts off the touring and put them in the box I'll be using to store stuff I take off when I pull the engine. And I removed a bad front perch from the runabout (not enough threads left to hold a nut) and replaced it with a good one. This evening I composed this meander for Facebook:
When you get old everything reminds you of something else. This evening I was on the MTFCA forum and noticed that one of the regulars there lives in Modesto. Dad's boyhood pal, Dow Tout, lived in Modesto with his wife Marguerite and daughter Sue, who was about my age. I was three, or maybe four, when we were on our way to visit the Touts and spent the night at a motel in Fresno. Across old US 99 from the motel were railroad tracks where the trains pulled by steam locomotives rumbled by all night. We seldom remember where or when we learned a particular word, but I remember learning a new word that night. Mom opened her suitcase and found that a bottle of perfume had leaked. She said, "Boy, that's potent stuff." That's how I learned potent.
Dow and Dad grew up together in Sedan. Their grandfathers were Civil War vets. Dad said great grandfather Jelf and Mr. Tout would get together and reminisce about what incompetent fools some of their officers were. Dad told me he remembered the first car in Sedan, owned by a doctor. I could kick myself for not asking what kind of car it was. He also saw the first plane that flew over Sedan. I could kick myself for not asking what year that was. He also saw two presidents in person. The first was when he was nine, and his grandpa took him the see Taft campaigning. The second was during the war, when we lived in Wilmington. Our house was beside the Pacific Coast Highway, and FDR's motorcade passed by.
Dad was raised Republican. His grandpa was GAR. But life turned him into a yellow dog Democrat. He told of a guy who worked with him at the Shell refinery in Arkansas City, who ran out of gas downtown and pushed his car into the White Eagle station at Summit and Chestnut. One of the bosses saw him and fired him for buying gas from the competition. Dad's opinion of the bosses was similar to his grandpa's opinion of those army officers. Old 99 was lined with oleander bushes. What were we talking about?
Thursday, January 9, 2020
The end of an era. For Christmas in 1954 Santa Claus brought a Kodak Pony 35mm camera. Mom took this picture with it. I was 13, Mike was almost 9, and Stoveoil was about 4. I soon took over the photographic duties and kept shooting slides into the next century. Even since we moved on to digital photography, I've still shot an occasional roll of slide film. That's over now. The two rolls of Fujichrome I bought last year are dated 1989, and cold storage for thirty years didn't save them. I just finished one and got it developed, and the old film was a waste of time and money. I'll toss the other. I guess I can still buy new color negative film and scan the negatives, but it won't be the same.
But here and now the forecast threatens rain and then snow, so after grocery shopping today I emptied the ashes out of the kitchen stove and the fireplace, brought in three boxes of wood to last into next week, and made sure I had tarps over the wood piles behind the shop. Bring it on.
Friday, January 10, 2020
Another morning eaten up by computer crap. This time it was trying to edit video. Earlier Apple operating systems included the iMovie editing program. This later OS has a sample of a program you can buy from another company, and it's not particularly user friendly. I ended up downloading the video to my laptop and using iMovie. In the afternoon I did a little more on the top socket for my runabout. I applied enough heat to the bronze base of the broken socket to melt out the body solder and remove the steel tube, and cut the new tube to the proper length. I may need to buy more solder to attach the new tube to the base, and I still need to get rivets to install the other pieces.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Snow! But only about an inch. I spent the day in the shop. The first job was soldering that new socket to the base. Luckily I had enough solder to put the pieces together, but the rest of the job will have to wait until I get more. The story and pictures are here. With the socket project at a standstill, I turned to the 1923 touring that's been sitting since last summer with a broken transmission. I removed the radiator, headlights, and other pieces to clear the road for pulling the engine/transmission. My Saturday evening in town was enchiladas blancas at La Fiesta, and 1917 at the theater. The food was great, as usual at La Fiesta, and the movie was excellent. I may go see it again.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Today I was going to get more done on the touring car, but I ended up doing precious little of that. It was a typical Sunday, mostly spent sogged down in my office playing online. I did take time to order more body solder so I can finish that top socket.
Monday, January 13, 2020
Back to work on the touring. The time study in the service manual says pulling the engine should take 38 minutes. Ha! It won't take me 38 hours to do the job, but it will be closer to that than to 38 minutes.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
It's out. I don't remember having to lift the front of the body off the frame before, but I sure did this time.
 One broken band, lots of
shredded band lining.
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 That broken low drum did the
shredding.
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 Removing the engine/transmission
pan.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2020
I spent most of the day taking that transmission apart. The broken drum cut the band in two and totally shredded the lining, but so far I haven't found much other damage. Band fuzz is everywhere, so there's a lof of cleaning up to do.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Nothing interesting today. I spent most of the day paying bills, driving to the county seat to pay the registration on my trailer, sending a check for a Chickasha swap meet space in March, renewing the newspaper subscription, and shopping for groceries.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Today's time waster was my new phone. The verizon website was useless. I was never able to reach an actual human with the so-called chat feature. The instructions that came in the box with the phone took me to a page that told me to choose my phone. Of course, none of the choices was my phone. I ended up driving to the Verizon store in Winfield to have the new phone activated and the contacts transfrerred from the old phone. Maybe I'll have time tomorrow to actually get something useful done.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
My depleted supply of clean sox made this laundry day. I cleaned up some of the transmision parts and the hardware from the touring car, and stripped the cad plating off a few dozen lock washers so paint will stick to them. I'll paint them tomrrow.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
On a typical Sunday morning I bogged down at the computer playing online. In the afternoon I paintd the washers I prepped yesterday, then attempted applying body solder to the new top socket for the runabout. That's a skill I have yet to master. I think the torch I was using spread the heat out over too large an area. I'll try it with a smaller tip and see if it goes better with the heat more concentrated in a smaller area.
Monday, January 20, 2020
One of life's minor annoyances is butter that's served rock hard so it can't be spread. I'm not in my house most of the time, so during the winter I don't heat it until I light a fire in the kitchen stove before dinner. That means most of the time the indoor temperature is from the mid-thirties to the high forties. So I keep butter in my heated shop until I'm ready to use it. I do the same with olive oil, which becomes cloudy and starts to congeal when it gets cold. I noticed that bananas stay green when they're cold, so they stay in the shop too. Today I took my Epson scanner to the computer shop to see if it can be fixed to work with my desktop computer's new operating system. Trying to keep all these wonderful electronic devices working is a major PITA. It was nice to end the day with a low-tech session of wielding the chain saw and the splitter to replenish the firewood supply.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Most of the day I worked on the new top socket for the runabout. I haven't acquired much skill with body solder, so it took much longer than it should have. By the time I wrapped it up it was time to bring in firewood for the evening.
 I clamped a strip of can around
the joint to stop the solder from leaking out as it did on the first
attempt.
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 After the joint cooled I pulled
off the strip.
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 The two parts were solidly stuck
together, but the joint looked pretty rough.
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 Using a 000 tip and the tiniest
flame I could manage I built a glob of solder around the seam.
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 Then came lots and lots of
filing.
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I called this good enough. A few applications of primer should fill the pits.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The idea of changing from a G3 phone to a G4 was that I might get better reception. Nope. In my office it's still poor enough to drop calls, and outside I get a weak signal that shows only one or two bars. When I went to town for shopping I checked there and found the same thing. It seems the coverage is poor all over this area. I phoned Verizon to report the problem, but after half an hour of bad hold music I gave up.
The only Model T work I got done today was removing the hardware from the old broken top socket and cleaning it up. Maybe I can assemble the thing tomorrow and get it ready to paint.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
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Friday, January 24, 2020
Assembled, but not ready to paint. Somehow during assembly I inflicted a small dent, so I had to apply body solder and file it.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Up at six and on the road at 6:45 AM, I was off to the midwinter Model T clinic at McPherson College, an eventg I always enjoy. Photos are here. On the way home I stopped in Wichita and stocked up on diet Squirt, which isn't sold down here in Podunk. After a tasty dinner at La Fiesta, my Saturday night movie was Clint Eastwood's latest, Richard Jewell. Eastwood is a good director, and showed it again with this film.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Another typical Sunday with too much time wasted playing online. I did edit the photos I took yesterday, and spent an hour preparing to post them on the forum. I was about to do that when my browser crashed and wiped out all my work. I was too disgusted to try again tonight.
Monday, January 27, 2020
First up was posting those photos. I used Safari instead of the Firefox that crashed last night. I finished up the new top socket, applying more body solder and filing it straight, then shot on a coat of primer. With the forecast predicting rain turning to snow overnight, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon bringing in lots of firewood. It's enough to last several days.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Shoot on the primer, let it dry, sand it down, shoot on more primer, let it dry, sand it down... I did it three times today, and will do more tomorrow. Eventually all the little pits are filled and you spray on the finish coats. The snow arrived in the afternoon and went into the early evening. It wasn't much, amounting finally to an inch or maybe two. It will be gone by the weekend.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
My California fans have been clammering for a personal appearence tour, so I'm heading west tomorrow to visit family and old friends. It will also be a break from the coldest part of winter here. So today I did some preparations. Laundry, shopping for a couple of food items to take, stopping the mail, airing up the tires on the car, and unloading some stuff out of the trunk that's been in there since an auction in November.
Thursday, January 20, 2020
On the road again. It was about 9:30 when I filled my tank ad set out from the gasino. All across Oklahoma there was snow on the ground, but the roads were dry and there were no delays. When I got to the Texas panhandle the snow was gone. The speed limit on US 60 uesd to be 65mph, but I found that now it's 75mph, so I zipped acoss the panhandle PDQ. New Mexico was the same. I stopped in Santa Rosa to eat, then drove on across New Mexico. I had planned to stay at the first Arizona rest area, but it was closed. So I parked in front of the closed tourist junk store and spent the night there.
Friday, January 31, 2020
Arizona also has a 75mph speed limit, and the only delay was waiting a few minutes for my turn to cross a bridge narrowed to one lane by repairs. That was the only construction delay. But I did waste a lot of time in Flagstaff hunting up the two Walmarts. I had lost my pocket knife and wanted to buy a replacement. But Walmart no longer sells the knife I've been buying there for decades, so I'll look for it online. In California I stopped at the Barstow Walmart and bought some groceries and dined in the parking lot at sundown. As I was leaving the store I had to wait behind some other people. Finally my turn came and I handed my receipt to the guy at the door so he could check to be sure I wasn't stealing anything. I told him, "This is one of the things I hate about coming to California." He didn't even look at the receipt. He just handed it back and said, "Have a good day." The rest of the way across California was uneventful and I arrived in Woodland Hills without getting lost. But after getting off the freeway it was a problem seeing street signs in the dark, so phoned Herb and he gave me directions for the last few blocks. We sat and blathered for a couple of hours, but old people need their sleep, so we turned in about eleven.
 Appoaching Flagstaff on old 66.
The first time I remember seeing this view of the San Francisco Peaks it was through the front window of a Studebaker about seventy years ago. |
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