Dave’s Ramblings

It’s really alive again! After losing the engine block and water jacket on the exhaust manifold in our Bayliner to a snap freeze two years ago last April… wooo was I pissed, the weather turned beautiful for two weeks, so hooked her up to the water and did my annual tune up. That weekend it dropped to 20F on us and froze everything solid. When I found out the machine shops wanted $6,000+ for a short block…. and $8,000 for a long block to replace it, add in another $500 since my ‘core’ was dead, I just about did flips. Called several places around they were all about the same price… For a lousy Ford 4 banger, they are nuts, worse I had no idea that OMC folded up years ago, they made the stern drive.

Yeah I know there are supposed to be some differences between the automotive and marine engines, but not much. Found an ‘89 Ranger pickup that had the same 2.3L engine, separated it from the truck, tossing all of the electronics and fuel injection stuff in the scrap pile. Blocks and the heads were cast identically, the rest I was able to salvage from the original marine engine. A few weekends and a lot of cussing and bleeding later, I had to manufacture almost every gasket by hand to mate the marine parts.

Shorten this up a bit, finally got my tail in gear and put the key to her this morning for the first time to see how badly I messed up the build. I almost fell overboard (into the driveway) when she jumped to life… I had only guessed on the timing and everything during the build I’d guesstimated to within 3 degrees on the timing . The victory was short lived when I hauled her to the lake, it ran but really rough under load. Hauled her back home to see what could have gone wrong, of course I find it was just a stupid thing that could have been fixed while at the lake, of the dozens of wires and everything that could have (insert should have) gone wrong, I somehow managed to cross two spark plug wires… DUH!

Back out to the lake we go, and zoooooommmmmm… She’s alive and kicking Much more responsive than the old engine was, rebuilt the carburetor too. Jumps right up on plane in seconds and does she haul the mail! Figured if it was going to break I was gonna break it today, so I really pounded on her… top speed was over 42mph (up from 35) but there was still a bit of throttle left, but was pushing above 5000rpm where the onboard tachometer runs out, so I let her cruise there for a few miles….

Needless to say I’m very pleased…. our girl is back!

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America.

His answer was classic Schwartzkopf.

The General said, “I believe that forgiving them is God’s function. OUR job is to arrange the meeting.”

If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model. I’ve got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull, but that’s not the worst of it.

My fenders are too wide to be considered stylish. They were once as sleek as little MG; now they look more like an old Buick. My seat cushions have split open at the seams.

My seats are sagging. Seat belts? I gave up all belts when Krispy Cremes opened a shop in my neighborhood! Air bags? Forget it. The only bags I have these days are under my eyes. Not counting the saddlebags, of course.

I have soooooo many miles on my odometer. Sure, I’ve been many places and seen many things, but when’ s the last time an appraiser factored life experiences against depreciation? My headlights are out of focus and it’s especially hard to see things up close.

My traction is not as graceful as it once was. I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather. My whitewalls are stained with varicose veins. It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed.

My fuel rate burns inefficiently. But here’s the worst of it almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter….. either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!

originally entitled “Trade In Wanted” and published by the Ozark Senior Living Newspaper in November 2003 by Linda S Amstutz

Against all of the now deemed poor movie advice against ‘National Treasure’, I just finished watching it on PPV, tonight was the $.99 special on the satellite dish. Aside from some cheezy bits that were obviously a bit overdone, and others that could have and should have been done a bit differently. The movie shows some great creativity on the writers part, and the historical bits were accurate as far as I can remember from the pieces of hsitory I can recall reading and the brief period of time I lived in New England early in my childhood. Definately resparks a few notions to do some more research on some things.

Though not a real critic or movie buff, I give it a B+. Anyone else that was turned off by some of the reviews, it’d be worth your time to view it when you can.

National Public Radio, okay granted a lot of folks may wonder what this is, if your are under the age of lets say 30 or if you do not fall into the ‘target audience’. But I have a long commute to work each day, so I get a daily dose of about 3 hours worth of it, not much else on the radio. Ultimately over the span I drive requires switching stations a couple of times to avoid being driven crazy or asleep by static or that really annoying fading in and out of the station you are trying to listen to.

Ah to the point of this rambling….. Is NPR racially and economically biased…. By there own admission, you bet your ass they are. Okay so what is their target audience…. mid to upper middle-class whites, 35+ years of age. Now wait a second, this is PUBLIC radio right? Yup, and it receives the majority of its funding from just that the “public” aka their listeners. Taken a step further, the programming is targeted at the same class they seek funding from. How many 18-25 year old kids (kids used loosely here, not meant to be offensive) can even set still for an hour listening to people talk, let alone some things that can be as dry as politics, local events, ecology or whatever…. few if any at all would even care. Step up to the next age bracket, 26-25, now you’ll start gathering a few particularly towards the top but they are weeded out pretty quickly since the level of dedication to such topics will tend to increase with age, same thing with 35-50’s, except now you are looking at a segment of the population that has generally settled into their collective lives and actually cares about some issues and how they really effect both themselves and others around them more so that any previous groups highlighted here. But there is still yet another hook here, what group has the disposable income to donate to keep such things on the air? So programming is tailored to this specific audience, period.

In short, NPR receives very little government money, I believe the quoted amount was less than 2% in total, generally in the form of applied for grants. Unlike PBS television which is almost funded in whole by the govt. There is a fair amount of corporate sponsoring, with listeners making up the majority. Now we can toss in a bit of irony into the mix, it seems that Wal-Mart is actually a large contributor to NPR (actually amounts not publicly disclosed), however it seems every time they are in the news for this or that they remain fair game from both sides the supporters and bashers.

In all honesty I like it, and generally enjoy it, that’s where I get my news and stay somewhat current on events as they happen around me. It was around noon on 9/11/2001 that I discovered it driving to pull our children from school early while things sorted themselves out. They frankly had the best coverage going, from then I was hooked. Oddly enough I was just entering their target audience.