I’d written about a self-funded documentary on the American Motors Corporation a couple of years back, and how they were running a GoFundMe to finance the production. At that point I donated and I’ve been getting regular updates since then. The producers finished production a couple of months ago and recently announced that it was available on PBS, and would be streaming on YouTube on May 22.
For the first time in 11 years, I went on a company retreat with my department outside the office. In years past, we have gathered in the office conference room for six to eight-hour days to talk about strategy and planning, with brief side trips to local restaurants or activity areas. This was the first time we’ve actually gone to a different city as a group.
The planning team chose Charlottesville for its proximity and easy access by train. We made it to our hotel before noon, had some lunch, and gathered for a kickoff, then took a short drive to go to Monticello for our afternoon activity. Splitting up into two groups, I chose to tour the house and was pleasantly surprised to see that Jefferson’s complicated history has not yet been erased by the revisionist white supremacists. It’s still as beautiful and disturbing as it was the last time we were there, and that’s a good thing.
Retreats are always a tough balance between focused strategy sessions and teambuilding, and in years past our group seemed to lead heavily into days of focus and a lot less on teambuilding, which got exhausting quickly. This time the balance was much more in favor of talking to and interacting with people we don’t normally get to see. As our group has gotten more global we have more people on our team living and working remotely, so it was good to meet people from different countries and get to know them.
We spent 2 1/2 days in Charlottesville and I would say it was by far the best retreat focus on my group that I’ve been to since I’ve been at WRI.
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While I was there I had two rolls of 35mm B/W developed from our trip to Portugal. Some of the highlights:
Four years ago, I knew just enough about engines and brakes and car stuff to do basic maintenance without getting myself into trouble. I was comfortable with the basics of a tune-up; I could swap spark plugs and wires and change oil and brake pads and do basic bodywork—mainly skimming Bondo over dents. I’d had enough experience in the repo lot, with my own cars, and with home renovations to know the ins and outs of most the tools and materials. But as the years went by, the guys willing to work on old iron started retiring, and it got harder and harder to source a reliable mechanic.
When I bought Darth Haul I knew I was going to have to take a lot of the work on myself, and that was the point. I’d already taken the welding class so I knew I was in good shape to try more serious bodywork, but the engine stuff—the deeper stuff beyond cleaning out a carburetor—that was the scary part. Over the course of the last two and a half years, between working on Darth, Bob’s Chrysler, and several of my friends’ trucks, I’ve learned a ton about how engines work, how to diagnose more complicated issues, and most importantly, how to not let the fear of breaking something stop me from trying.
A couple of weeks ago, I took the plunge and installed a fuel injection system on Darth. We’re not talking about something as serious as tearing the top of the engine off and getting down to the camshaft, but it was a lot more involved than swapping the plugs. My experience pulling off grotty old carburetors and cleaning them came in handy for bolting down a shiny new unit. Ordeals with clogged, leaking and absent fuel lines was vital for routing a fuel system not designed the way the EFI manufacturer was expecting. After getting everything installed, I was stymied by a weird electrical glitch—but I fixed that by installing a relay, something I’d recently learned how to do when I put an auxiliary fuse panel in. Then I couldn’t get it to start—and used my previous experience working through Bob’s ignition system to diagnose a burnt out condenser in the distributor, a result of me welding on the truck without disconnecting the battery.
Yesterday I swapped a new condenser into the distributor, switched the cameras on, and turned the key: the truck fired right up. She ran like dogshit, because the timing settings are way off, but she started. I’d been having a kind of shitty week up until that point, and that victory, plus a couple of wins at work was enough to turn my mood around.
It feels really good to work towards something and see the light at the end of the tunnel; if I can get the timing sorted out tomorrow and get the truck running smoothly, then I can try to break the clutch free from the flywheel and see if she’ll move.
The ol’ browser is getting clogged up with tabs, so let’s clear some of these out:
- Moby has renewed his catalog of free music tracks for creators to use in their projects; I’ve deliberately shied away from including long stretches of time-lapse footage because I had no good audio to put behind it, and this will be a nice addition to the YouTube tool belt.
- I rarely have the mental time to sit and watch a video of a guy talking about technical software settings, but this is a tutorial on how to fix underexposed nighttime shots in Lightroom.
- The AV Club profiles a couple of new shows to check out, including Duster, a period crime caper created by and featuring some people from Lost (Max), and Murderbot, which is a show about a sentient security android (AppleTV).
I was asked this question on a state application the other day, and thought it was funny. I had no idea this was the official definition of drunkard.
I’ve had Turnstile on heavy repeat in my head this past week. The end of this set from the Hurricane Festival in 2024 covers the highlights; they look like they would be awesome to see live.
Update: They played a show yesterday at Wyman Park here in Baltimore.
In my continuing quest to get current on all of my vaccinations before Bobby Brainworms makes it illegal, I got my shingles vaccine this morning at about 11 o’clock. By 2 o’clock my left arm felt like somebody had hit it with a baseball bat. I can’t tell, but I think I might have a low-grade fever. We’re going to see how this affects me tomorrow and that will tell whether or not I’m going to work. I’ve still got several more to go plus a booster for this and for hepatitis B upcoming. I’m trying to stretch them out every two weeks so that I give my immune system time to bounce back before I dose with something else.
Update: You thought I was wearing my tinfoil hat when I wrote this, but you’d be mistaken.
Redwood watches just released a new GMT model that looks beautiful. The price isn’t eye-wateringly high and I like the subtle details in the dial face—the numbers around the crown are perfectly imprecise, the ribs on the edges are just the right height, and the orange GMT hand is sharp. Plus, it’s got a date window. At 40mm it’s at the very top edge of sizing for my wrist, but it’s really pretty. The only thing I’d like to know is how thick it is; my solar Vaer diver is the tallest watch I own at 10mm and it verges on being annoying when it catches on my sleeves.
If the world was a normal place right now, I’d consider buying one of these.
I’ve had these tabs open in Safari for a while now, which is my cue to do something with them other than have them take up space in the menu bar. From the top:
- Vintage Truck Magazine does what it says in the title; they’ve got back issues available online for order, and they cover the gamut of brands and years and models. I don’t need more paper laying around the house, but I might buy an issue for $7 just to see how deep they go on some of the models I’m interested in.
- Choose Democracy has a list of actions you can do to fight the coup, starting with how to orient yourself and ending with reminders to take a breath and not try to do everything all at once.
- Because I haven’t finished this yet, this is a video on how to install a Holley Sniper EFI unit. I suspect my issues go deeper than the install—there’s still something not right with the engine itself. Further investigation is warranted.
- I’ve had two rolls of 120 film from the Yashica sitting on my desk waiting to be developed; I’m getting off my ass and sending these out to thedarkroom.com, who I’ve been using for years as my go-to large format development shop.