I stopped on the way home from work (the weatherguessers lied and claimed it would be in the low 60′s) and pulled my spare tire off. It’s changed the handling characteristics of the truck to the point where hitting expansion joints or non-parallel bumps in the road sends the whole truck into a sketchy front-to-back oscillation that I don’t like. I can see the tire vibrating back there and feel it in the handling; for a truck on springs this stiff, it’s not a good feeling. I’ve also noticed a lot more body creaking with the tire mounted out back, and the passenger door is getting harder to close securely.
I’m going to drive it a few more times with the tire off and we’ll see how it feels.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I did a little WordPress wrangling last night and added a class to syndicated Scout posts. Whenever I add a post on the Scout blog, Idiotking picks it up and syndicates it over here, including it inline. It’s been a little confusing because there hasn’t been any indication that the content is from somewhere else, so I wanted to add a visual cue. I’m still working out some of the issues, and eventually I’d like for there to be a larger indication of where the content is coming from, but right now I’m pleased with my wordpress-fu.
To follow up on some earlier posts, the speaker cones I refoamed sound excellent now that they’re dry and reinstalled. On a difficulty scale of 1-5 I’d say this project was about a 3, only because I was sawing with an X-Acto knife next to a fragile paper cone. But, then, I also think nothing of disassembling laptops as a paid professional. It’s a great way to have saved $150 over the long run, even if they’re destined to be backup speakers in the living room.
Our iPod interloper is back in the clink for reasons unknown; I got another subpoena to appear in January for another court date. He must have blown his program somehow, and sadly I think he’s destined for some serious time behind bars.
Finn busted out her new Legos over the break and I spent a couple of long afternoons building and playing with her. The set we got is geared specifically towards girls, so it features a girl minifig, a horse, and a car with plans to build houses and other structures. After we’d built a bunch of the structures, I got the feeling the minifig was lonely so I went into the basement and busted out a couple more from my stash. She seemed happy to see them, and for the rest of the afternoon we put wings on the horse, the car, and anything else that touched a red balloon on the couch (it was bestowing super powers, you see), then flew them from one end of the room to the other.
In the basement, I rearranged all of our shelving units and reorganized a bunch of stuff we had scattered in multiple places. Up in the ice room, I bought some 2×3″ studs and built shelves to hold rubbermaid bins, which effectively doubled the shelf space in there. That freed up a bunch of space in the main room to hold more important stuff and move dry goods closer to the foot of the stairs. I moved the bikes to the back so they’re out of the way, moved my brewing stand further away from the furnace to avoid temperature fluctuations, and consolidated large woodworking tools to the back wall. I also ditched a bunch of dried out paint, tossed unneeded junk, and made a pile of to-be-donated-or-tossed stuff for us to go through. Once that pile is gone, the room will be much bigger.
Here’s a story my father wrote for his local paper that has been a family legend since I was Finn’s age: A night on the Southampton hills with the 'snow custard'.
Found, inexplicably, in the parking lot at the Lowe’s this afternoon. Badge engineering at its finest: this was GM’s way of spreading the Nova love across their nameplates, at least from 1973-75. It was wearing Arkansas plates, which explains its stubborn grip on existence.
Via the Baltimore Sun: Baltimore darkrooms are re-developing.
Tonight’s dose of parenting zen: Listening to (and singing the chorus of) John Mayer’s Daughters on the radio while cutting Finn’s toenails after bathtime.