The Spechtacle

A site for sharing information, dropping dimes and plotting overthrows...

Month: February 2009

My short lived time as a short order cook…

February 20, 2009 / / 0 Comments

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Back in 1969 I lost my draft deferment when I graduated from a local two year college. While I was waiting to get drafted, I realized that no one would hire you. Who wanted to invest training or whatever in some guy that would be in south east asia in 3 months. So when a friend who worked in a restaurant told me they needed a short order cook, I jumped at the chance.

What I knew about cooking at the time (and now) could be summed up in two words. Fish Sticks! I could cook anything at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Or so I thought.

Things went along kind of OK till the night of the Green Mayo. I didn’t realize at the time that mayonnaise had to be refrigerated and that green wasn’t it’s normal color. The next night the proverbial you know what hit the fan. About 25 people had called in wanting us to pay their hospital bills for food poisoning. Needless to say I got reamed pretty good.

About that time, My uncle Fred and aunt Boot dropped in to support their nephew and get something to eat. Pretty bad timing. The waitress told me they were there and wanted to see me, and see about what was best on the menu. I couldn’t take it. I confessed my abilities were a little less than stellar and convinced them to eat somewhere else.

They did… and I was drafted soon after that anyhow. Somehow I never got around to learning to cook. Its intricacies have always eluded me.

My wife is a pretty good cook though. Thank God!

greg

Pioneer and the aftermarket radio industry…

February 20, 2009 / / 0 Comments

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I heard in the news recently that Pioneer is getting out of the flat panel TV business and returning to it’s core business of selling aftermarket car radios… I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not.

Cars have been undergoing a transformation lately, and one the the things being transformed is the audio system. Traditionally, the car radio occupied a hole around 2 by 8 inches in the dash. This is called a DIN opening. Some upscale cars at first wanted to put more stuff in their radios, which led to the double DIN opening, or around 4 by 8 inches. Companies that sell aftermarket radios have traditionally made their wares to these sizes.

But, car companies being what they are, and progress being what it is, this is all over. The audio system now is spread all over the car. (This is not true for all cars, but increasingly so..) The picture above is a 2005 Saab 9-3 dash. At the bottom of the picture are the radio controls, and just the controls. The radio display is the other module at the top of the dash by the windsheild, and the radio itself in buried deep in the dash. (There actually is more, The Woofer amp is under the drivers seat, and the other amps are in the trunk.) No DIN openings here.

And it’s spreading. The current trend in radios is a control head that you see in the dash, and this usually incorportates the HVAC controls also. The guts of the radio is buried out of the way, and the display is also separate. This is not good news for the aftermarket radio industry. The DIN and double DIN openings are slowly disappearing. And so far, I’ve seen no response from the aftermarket radio industry. They have no solution to this problem so far.

The other loser in this scenario is the guy who bought the car. So far his audio options are pretty much fixing what’s in the car. You can use your ipod and whatever, but that solution relies on the factory radio working. The factory audio systems have proved to be pretty durable, but if a replacement unit is necessary, your going to wish you had those DIN openings in your dash….

greg

The best tool in the toolbox…

February 10, 2009 / / 0 Comments

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The one thing about being a mechanic is you need and accumulate tools throughout your career. Every year they introduce a new method to drive the humble screw, and of course you need a whole new set of tools to deal with it. And every year they build new cars with unaccessable items ( like oil filters) that need special tools to get to them. It never ends…

But there is one great tool that I have that can’t be replaced and hasn’t been updated. You’ve seen it in PDF’s and Photoshop. You guessed it, it’s the hand tool.

The hand tool is so good it can pick up stuff you can’t even see. And the hand tool has the sensation of touch, so that you can see what you’re doing without seeing it. The hand tool is covered in a skin like substance that is waterproof and impervious to a lot of chemicals. Sometimes the hand tool’s skin like substance gets a little rough from the wear and tear, but there are gloves available to cover them, but they are never as good as the original skin like substance. If you use latex gloves, any oily bolt will defeat their grip. If you use leather gloves, any small nut or spring will defeat their grip. None of this stuff defeats the hand tool’s original skin like substance.

The hand tool can adjust to grab any size tool handle, and they have great mobility, so good in fact that you can always get the hand tool into places you can’t always get it out of. In sum, the hand tool is the best tool in the toolbox…

greg

Economic woes for $100 please…

February 5, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Like most everyone, I have been sitting on the sidelines, biting my nails, listening to all the debates surrounding how to end the economic crisis. I am not comforted by anything I have heard up to now.

I am just not sure there is a sure-fire way to kick start the economy. The issue, at the end of the day, is about our thirst for stuff (to borrow a phrase from the late George Carlin). For a long time, we all were acquiring more and more stuff, borrowing more and more money to get bigger and bigger stuff. We were able to do this, because we were employed by companies making this stuff, or selling this stuff, or shipping addons and doodads for our stuff.

Somewhere along the line, a lot of people discovered they couldn’t pay for all their stuff. The cost increased (adjustable rate mortgage) and the value went down (home devaluation) so people defaulted on their loans. Someone woke up and realized “holy crap, I own all these loans!”. So when the word got out, no one would lend them or their friends any more money, and their company’s value plummeted. Investors panicked, and wanted their money. The holders of these “Toxic investments” lost value, and confidence, and investors, and so on. The fear spread, and confidence went into the toilet. Now, people are holding on to their money out of fear, so buying grinds to a halt. Catch 22 (thank you Joseph Heller).

So what’s the answer? Beats me. I don’t think that the rescue lies with Enterpreneurs creating new jobs in new industries. I think the answer is partially infusing money into existing businesses, so that they might add workers. The problem is they will not add workers until they know that demand has returned. Giving me a tax cut won’t convince me to buy a new car. I’ll bank it. But the bank won’t lend it, so were back to square one.

So GM, cut the price of your cars in half, and ship them to China and India. Government, chip away at trade restrictions in foreign markets. Banks, lend the money necessary to establish a larger beachhead in those markets. Let’s pack these cars with all the latest cellphone-gps-bluetooth technology. Volume sales will make the pricing profitable.

The point of this is to underline the fact that we have overproduced for ourselves, over purchased, under-saved, and now we don’t trust the future. That’s bad. We have too much stuff on the shelves. One solution is another market. But it won’t be there for long.

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Car guys in the Nam…

February 4, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I got dropped into Vietnam at the tender age of 21 or 22. Of course all the young guys were car guys, but mostly the talk was of hot american iron…. I was the weird guy who liked foreign stuff.

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But all the foreign stuff in Vietnam was old left overs from the French occupation. But it was still neat stuff.. Citroen Traction Avants from the 50’s were everywhere but was hard to find one in good shape. Those cars are still there. In fact, you can still hire restored examples of these cars from the Hotel Sofitel to tour Hanoi.

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All the trucks and buses were old French things too. All the big commercial trucks were worn out, sometimes you see them shaking violently when getting over 35 mph or so. It’s only natural I guess, when a 1st world country leaves all it’s stuff in a 3rd world country, it gets used till it quits. The buses were everywhere too.

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Neat little Renault Goelettes and Saviems puttering up and down Highway One.

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The Vietnamese could make a bus out of anything!

But the coolest Veitnamese drove (or were driven around in) American cars. The commander of the 1St ARVN, General Phu, had a black ’59 Chevy staff car. And it looked new. Another guy I used to hang around with had a ’57 Plymouth, and it had absolutely no glass left in it. But he didn’t care, cause he was the coolest guy in Hue city! Even a few of the white mice (civilian police) rode Harleys.

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Since then I rarely owned any American cars. I got my first MG when on leave in 1972 and never looked back. Now if only the French could work on adding a little reliability…

greg

Xenon headlights… A bridge too far?

February 4, 2009 / / 0 Comments

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Sometimes car companies outdo themselves to sell cars. Xenon bulbs comes to mind. I think it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. We all do need to see better at night, but the small contribution xenon bulbs give are not worth the cost or the safety concerns.

The old square sealed beam that got us into the seventies was replaced by the radical new halogen bulbs. They were brighter but at double the cost. Of course that cost was about 15 dollars as opposed to 6 dollars, but you did see better at night.

Since progress never stands still, we have a new solution. Xenon headlamps.. or high intensity discharge lamps (HID). They are brighter, and do allow you to see better (somewhat). They also put out more light per watt. But the complexity required is amazing, and there is the problem of oncoming drivers.

To get those HID lights to light up you need several things. You need a transformer that can generate about 30,000 volts to get it started… Then you need a ballast that can generate about 85 volts to keep it lit. All this stuff is pretty high energy and can hurt you if you get yourself crossed up in it. Finally, to keep from blinding oncoming drivers, you need a system for beam leveling, that usually includes suspension sensors and a control unit to keep it all together.

When your halogen headlight blinks out, the usual reason is the bulb. No problem, you go down to Autozone and get one for fifteen bucks and away you go. At your worst case scenario, the wiring has failed at the bulb or the relay quit. If you have to get someone to fix it the most it could cost you is a hundred bucks.

When your xenon headlight blinks out, it’s usually the bulb. That alone is a couple of hundred bucks for the part. If anything else goes wrong your in for an expensive fight. And to add to the headlight problem, is something goes wrong with the leveling system, and it does a lot, your headlights can be as bright to other drivers as airplane landing lights!

So, in conclusion, I like to live by the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid!). I’m just getting around to accepting power windows and power seats, mainly because you can hardly find a car without them anymore. Plus I like to save a buck when I can and I like cars that are easy to service. That kind of thing is getting increasingly hard to find.

greg

Observations on having no electric

February 2, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Electric going out briefly is not new; going out for several days is fairly rare. Here are some observations:

A generator is the ticket. It makes life relatively easy. You power the fridge, power some heat, and some hot water, and you are on easy street.

We were lucky. We have a gas stove, and a Rennai water heating system that runs on gas, and uses 115/60 hz 75 amps for the sensors. I ran that off an inverter hooked to a 12 volt battery.

Electricity also controls estrogen. I had no idea…

A fireplace doesn’t produce that much heat. An electric heater, the oil heating type, produces a little more. Your HDTV and TIVO system produces a lot, for not much electricity draw. You want to heat up a room? Watch TV.

Propane also makes life easy. A dual head propane heater atop a grill’s propane tank, and you are pretty comfortable.

A 400 watt power inverter will run several things, but has a hard time charging anything above a cellphone. If your cars charging system is unstable you may toast the inverter.

Cell phones go down for a while at the outset. Everyone jams the airwaves asking if electricity is out. The cell company adjust the network to only service emergency and police and fire users. You become cutoff.

The toughest part, is the time right after power fails. This is the assessment phase. If you are not ready to ride this out until places like Home Depot and Lowes come back to life, you join the scrambling masses.

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