Monday, June 18, 2007

This is my latest misc ramblings.

I had a good Father's Day. Dianne and I worked around the house most of the time. On Saturday afternoon we took a brief look at a local car show. On Sunday Dianne made a shrimp pasta salad for dinner.

Saturday night I looked out our bathroom window through the screen and saw this sunset. This is no masterpiece, but it shows our view as we see it.


This year we had a plentiful crop of strawberries. A couple of weeks ago Dianne and I picked about 2 1/2 pounds mid week, and I picked another 3 pounds that weekend. The birds were eating berries that were outside of the main planting bed. I had planned on getting more berries, but after that the birds attacked the main bed, ripping though the plants literally and nearly wiping out the berries. This weekend I made a frame to cover the strawberry bed with netting. This is made out of PVC pipe.

Notice how invisible the netting is, though it will probably show more when it is actually on.

The Chrysler is finally back together with the new fuel filter. On Sunday Dianne and I filled the tank and took the car to get a coffee and stop by the grocery store. As we were leaving the store the car vapor locked. Someone in the parking lot said that when his bug vapor locked he would put ice on the fuel pump to cool it. I did and it worked.

My research has come up with ways to fix this problem.

Lastly, I ran across this picture from the movie Grease. The second car from the left is a 1955 Chrysler Windsor Blue Heron with the blue and white colors reversed from mine. It is rare to find pictures of 1955 Chrysler Windsors, and very rare to find pictures of Blue Herons.

Monday, June 11, 2007

It has been a couple of weeks, so here's the latest.

On the Chrysler, it is back on the road. I'm still waiting for the glass part of the fuel filter. I found one that the owner would sell me for $40. For just a few dollars more I bought 5 new ones in their original box from eBay.

If I'd written this before last night I would say that the car is running better than it has since we got it back to Colorado. Unfortunately we stopped for dessert last night, and it stumbled when we started driving again. The fuel line snakes between the engine block and part of the water pump. I think that replacing the fuel filter with the correct one will keep the gas line further away from these hot parts and the car will run better.

Garage Update
On May 14 I wrote that I was working on some of the decorative elements for the garage. In addition to putting things away in the new storage and sheet rock work around the window, some of the decorative items are ready to show.

The first picture is of my rolling seat and bookcase. This is one of the wine shipping crates that I got for free at Costco. The middle bookcase shelf is adjustable, and there is a lip at the front of the shelves to keep the books from sliding forwards. The front of the bookcase has a hinged Plexiglas door that is held shut with magnets. The handle to open the door matches the handles on all the cabinets. The color of the seat is similar to the blue on the Chrysler. Two of the wheel lock.


The next picture is of the rolling workbench in progress. The drawer and the work top are not mounted yet. Each tool that will be used will have bolt holes in the top, and many of the tools will be stored in the cupboard. The drawer will be shortened to allow access to the bottom of the bolt holes.


For years I have stored some wood trays that were originally used to deliver Pepsi bottles. This weekend I added to that collection with two coke cases. The Coke cases are (I think) older than my Pepsi cases, and have dividers for individual bottles. The last picture shows one of the Pepsi cases and the two "new" coke cases. They are in another of the wine shipping cases from Costco. This display is also intended to provide trays that can be grabbed to carry small parts to a project. I don't know which of the cases (trays) will be in this display, nor how I will display the others.

I also have some old Coke bottles that will be displayed somehow.

Lastly, I intellectually knew that a saw cuts on the edges of the saw blade, but last week I actually got to see how it cuts. The teeth of the saw alternate the side of the cut that it cuts on, the the rest of the tooth scrapes out the middle. I also learned that if you touch a jigsaw blade before it is completely stopped it makes two parallel cuts, one on each side of the blade. It also hurts. As a last lesson, it is hard to type with a bandage on your middle finger. (This was a week ago, and I'm healed.)