My New Coat · 4:20am Jan 19th, 2018
A random everything blog
Because I'm sitting at the laundromat, matting my laundros.*
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*Also, expect weird formatting changes, because two different computers and two different word processing processes. Also also I'm not sure the spellchecker was turned on, and my little Lenovo has a malfunctioning keyboard. . . .
First, I'm going to tell you about my new coat.
Now, y'all remember how to get a mechanic to spit in your oil, right? And I posited that a pony like Spoiled B
h (or whatever her name actually is) might have trouble getting services in Ponyville, because she's a spoiled . . . you get the point.
Anywho, yesterday I was on the tool truck. It had been broken for a while, and I kind of missed it, plus it's like being a kid in the toy store, but the toy store comes to you [and yes, I'm going to blog about tool trucks in the future].
I was poking around in the back of the truck and I noticed a big pile of coats. They were not quite copyright infringement Carhartt brown, with Matco Tools embroidered on the back, and they looked comfy, so I asked what they were all for—a lot of times there are promotions, where if you buy something expensive you get a free coat*.
The Matco guy said I could have one.
“Really?”
“Really. They're normally $105 . . . but you're a good customer. You pay me every week; just take one. But—if you do, you've got to tell your manager that you paid $105 for it. Otherwise he'll complain.”
Well, of course I had to buy some stuff on the truck that I hadn't planned to, because I couldn't just take a coat and go off the truck with nothing. And while I was looking, the tool guy and I got to talking.
He said that my manager had been bragging about how much money he spent on the truck. Maybe he thought that he'd impress the tool guy, I don't know, but apparently it never occurred to him that the tool truck guy not only has a good idea who spends money regularly on his truck and who doesn't, he also had a computer that keeps track of sales from now until the beginning of time.
It also shouldn't surprise you to know that this information is literally right at his fingertips.
So my manager claimed to have spent $40,000 on that tool truck. In actual fact, it was about $3,800.
[In case you're wondering, I've spent substantially more than $3,800, but less than $40,000.]
* * *
Predictably, when walked back into the shop wearing my new coat, the manager asked how I'd gotten it, and when I told him that it was $105, he said that I'd gotten ripped off, and I just had a little smile on my face as he ranted on.
I guess the moral of this little story is don't be a and get a free coat.
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*I have a lot of free coats. Probably a dozen or more.
So I was gonna have a new story for you tomorrow, but the owner surprised us with a mandatory class. What he most likes to do is call about an hour or two before the end of work and say something along the lines of “Oh, yeah, there's a class in Ann Arbor tonight, and I need you to go.”
Normally, I'm not surprised, because I download the class schedules beforehand and put them on my calendar, but this time I forgot.
It wasn't the best time for it, but I thought that worst case, I'd spend the time in class coming up with another masterpiece like Random Horse Fact. As it happened, though, it was a pretty good class, mostly about finding leaks in cars and how to fix them so they don't leak. There was stuff about torque and clamping force and gasket materials and so on, and I actually got to apply one of the leak-detection methods the very next day on a lovely Ford F350 dump truck, so that's a win, I guess.
And since I'm oozing with benevolence today, here's another teaser!
She had to sit on her rump to get the wheels back on the car—her field wasn't quite strong enough to lift them—but the lug nuts were plenty light enough, and it was a mark of pride that she could lift all six for each wheel and thread them down simultaneously.
Random interlude:
Source
Finally, here's two fun little stories about my cars that both happened in the last couple of weeks.
First, the Jeep.
I bought this Jeep Cherokee from ROBCakeran53 (author of My Little Dashie) as a winter beater or fun off-road toy, depending on how bad it turned out to be. And structurally, it's not bad; bodywise, it's not good, and in terms of maintenance . . . it needed a lot. Some of it critical; the brakes were rather iffy (rear brakes fell apart when I took off the drums) and the tires were completely bald. Some less critical—the heat doesn't work, rear shocks are blown, and everything in the steering linkage is a little loose. One of the rear parking lights doesn't work, and since the rear hatch doesn't open, I can't fix it until I fix the hatch.
Well, I got the vital stuff done to make it driveable, and figured I'd pick up on the rest in January and February.
Just last week, I decided to get more keys made for it, since it only came with one. So I went down to the hardware store and had some made. When I went to test out the first one, it jammed in the ignition cylinder and then when I tried to get it back out, it broke off.
The good news was that after that happened, it turned freely (when I stuck the stub of the key in).
The guy at the hardware store was really apologetic, and I wasn't mad. But I was annoyed; I'll have to pull the lock cylinder out to get the key stump out (on the plus side, I won't lose it).
Then, when I stopped at McDonalds to get a milkshake for to drown my sorrows, I noticed that both rear parking lights were suddenly working, so I guess overall it was a net win.
Also, the milkshake was delicious.
Second, my minivan.
Also of similar quality to the Jeep--cheaper, too.
One of the little things that I haven't fixed is an intermittent battery drain.
The door hinges are bad on the driver's side, and I suspect that's the cause. If the door isn't all the way closed (which happens sometimes), the BCM and possibly other modules stay awake until the battery dies. The previous owner addressed this problem by putting in a battery disconnect switch, which is about the worst thing you can do with a computerized vehicle, especially a Dodge product.
So of course instead of fixing it, whenever I park it for any extended period of time, I disconnect the battery.
Whether this is related or not, the instrument panel occasionally freaks out when I reconnect the battery, and the speedometer needle flails wildly back and forth for a little bit before settling back into normal operation.
Well, earlier this week, it flailed itself so far it went around the bottom and back up the other side.
Except, there's a peg there.
The idea, I presume, was that the peg is set at 0, and that's where the needle normally rests.
Problem is, now it's on the wrong side of the peg, and it wants to climb higher when I start driving, but it can't. There's a peg in the way.
So I resigned myself to having to take the front panel off the IPC, which is probably less fun than I'd imagine, and manually move the needle back to the other side of the peg so it would be happy again.
Of course, I've got other fish to fry, so that little project was postponed, and I just relied on the tachometer to give me a rough estimate of my actual speed, and the hope that if I got pulled over for speeding, I could convince the cop that the speedometer didn't work (which is true) and that I really had no idea how fast I was going.
Well, the good news is that it fixed itself. Just tonight, I was at Best Buy and when I went to start the van, the speedometer had another seizure, and it wound up turning itself back to the correct side of the peg.
Problem solved.
(Now all I need to do is fix the axle shaft that's on the cusp of failure)
Final thing, because it's funny.
A few people reading this will have had the pleasure of playing with Ford's rubber hoses. For the rest of you, Ford makes rubber hoses that leak carbon black.
Just yesterday, I got to put a fuel pump in a Ranger, and this is what happened from just taking off the fuel filler hose.
Is that disagreement still going on? Or were you addressing someone else?
High five.
So what new tools did you get?
You guy are still going at it? Wow. That is one huge disagreement.
Don't you have enough cars?
My dad's old truck (86 Ford Ranger) had that problem for a bit. It ended up being the aftermarket subwoofer draining power.
That's what my dad did. Except he didn't have a disconnect switch so he had to pop the hood and manually disconnect the battery.
The spedometer on my mechatronics professor's car once. His solution was to hook up a sensor the the drive shaft and make his own. ...He's an interesting person.
Today, I spent a couple hours fiddling with my network bridge adapter's DHCP settings since I accidentally bought a Ethernet-only Bluray player. I really don't care about streaming services and "smart" functions, but might need to upgrade firmware in the future, so need to get at least a temporary network link.
Also, spent plenty of time over the last week undoing the damage the Windows Fall Update caused. Purging all the worthless "Store" apps and the "Mixed Reality" bullshit, disabling the time service so it stops resetting the system clock to local instead of UTC, etc.
IT is not as grimy as mechanic work (unless you're clumsy with thermal compound or mineral oil coolant), but you have to slog through a lot of (figurative) shit.
Trouble is with hoses, because theyre layered, if you put a cheap thin protective coating on them, then they last for years and so dont sell as many replacements? Tht, and given how pencil that hand is, I suspect theyre putting in somewhat bit too much in the mix, given the fabric midlayer takes the actual pressure?
Should be law that any computer controlled system isnt dangerous and can be moved at least by emergancy services, as in pushed, pulled, etc, by removing the power. Like on PSV busses theres a big button marked Emergency Engine Stop, and another Emergency Battery Disconnect.
So, has PP bothered posting a coherent argument in favor of why he hates batponies, or does he just keep shouting 'never fuck the batpony' with no rhyme or reason?
Goddammit, you know exactly how to push all of my buttons, good and bad D: I guess we have to get married now.
(I like how everyone refers to it as a "disagreement".)
I'm hoping you'll make a pony car mechanic story where each chapter is a different car you worked on.
That last picture seems broken.
For the record, fashion designs are ineligible for copyright, as are recipes. That's why you see the big designers incorporating their trademarks into their designs as fundamentally as possible and why the U.K. "Home Taping is Killing Music" campaign from the 1980s has been mocked with T-Shirts like "Home Cooking is Killing Restaurants" and "Home Sewing is Killing Fashion".
(In fact, when the U.S. decided to repurpose copyright from being a censorship-for-monopoly pact with the crown to being something to enrich the public domain, it was only intended for "science and the useful arts", so the first copyright act only covers maps, charts, and books. Stuff like music and movies came around later via an "I can bind sheet music and fictional stories into books, therefore, I should be able to copyright non-book recordings of the same content too" argument which, had the founding father still been around, would have resulted in "You're right. Those books should never have been copyrightable in the first place.")
Speaking of coats...
I've lived where I am, near the southern Texas-Louisiana border, for five years. Prior to that, I lived in north-west Texas for eleven years. This explains why I own six different coats and/or jackets and an ushanka hat. In north-west Texas, it was cold and dry in the winter and hot and dry for the rest of the year.
Mostly.
Here, down by the Gulf of Mexico, it's hot and wet most of the year, and if any of you have been paying attention to the weather lately, there has been a freak bout of cold and snowy weather along the east coast and in the south, as well. This hasn't happened in this area since the 90s, as far as I've heard from friends and coworkers.
Point is, relatively cold weather is nothing new to me, I have a double-layer coat and ushanka hat, I walk to work every day, and people seem, to me, unjustly surprised about this. Part of it is that I never bothered getting a driver's license, but I think I would walk even if I did have a car. I enjoy it, even and especially in the cold.
Meanwhile, my neighbors tried to use their fireplace (or a fireplace at all) for the first time in their lives, I presume, two nights ago, and wound up filling their first-floor apartment with smoke. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. I don't know exactly what the cause of the fire was, only that it was related to the fireplace.
My guess is that they tried one of the cheap, accelerant-laden quick-start logs at the supermarket. Or the chimney was blocked. Or they added too much wood. Or they doused it with something not meant for use indoors. The smoke wasn't black, so no gasoline was involved.
The moral of the story? If you have never used something in your life, and that something involves fire, enclosed spaces, fumes or gases of any kind, or all of the above, look up how to do it safely or ask someone who is familiar with it...
... BEFORE you have the fire department on the line.
Wait, does Pinkie Pie read the blog and also she is attracted to Thestrals?
4777387
Probably short for Present Perfect.
4777414
That's crazy talk. Clearly Ponka has a thing for leathery wings.
I am wondering whats going to happen all around
Use that carbon black as war paint when you have to tackle a tough job. Also freak out the customers.
LOL fucking GOLD.
One time this random guy came to the shop peddling shitty Chinese tools. He had some crap that I kinda wanted, it was like 3 sets of sockets or whatever, and some screwdrivers. I talked him down from $150 to $80. Then one of my mechanics went out to him and came back with just two sets of tools, for $80, with a smile on his face a mile wide cuz he thought he made out like a bandit.
You know... why does Ford always have problems with rubber? I mean... there's the shitty vacuum hoses that collapse, Firestones on Explorers and this even stretches ALL the way back to the Fordlandia incident. Ford's just plain bad with rubber.
4776946
It is. Neither of us will quit, because we both think we're winning.
4776959
4776964
I got a set of line-blockers, which are meant to go over any kind of fluid line you've got open to avoid leaks on the floor, and diamond-infused tweezers for cleaning electrical connectors.
4777003
Well, I'm hardly going to back down when it's obvious he's wrong.
4777037
Yeah, probably, but when the snow melts, I'm going to sell a couple, probably.
It's possible it's the radio on this thing (aftermarket), but that seems unlikely. It's so intermittent, it's hard to know for sure.
I do still have to pop the hood, 'cause the disconnect switch is under the hood. Mostly 'cause the last person was too lazy to wire it to something further away from the battery, and I'm too lazy to change it.
There are aftermarket speedometers that work that way, as well as aftermarket cruise control. It'd be easier on my van--if it hadn't fixed itself--to take the front lens off the instrument cluster, and move the needle back where it belongs manually.
4777116
Yeah, and I bet that users can break a lot more software on a computer than they can on a car. Although there are aftermarket programming tools, and creative people can probably raise all kinds of havoc with them if they're determined.
4777131
That's an interesting call for automakers. It's complicated is the short answer; they love selling replacement parts, but they hate when things fail faster than they should and they've got to do a lot of warranty work, or even worse, it's a safety issue, and they have to issue a recall. And recalls sometimes don't have a statute of limitations; GM sent me recall notices on my 25-year-old pickups (sidesaddle fuel tanks), and my deathtrap Mercury also had an open recall for the brake switch. If it's a safety issue or an emissions issue, in many cases there is no limitation on the age or mileage when it comes to recalls.
Every system that I'm aware of on current vehicles can be depowered by cutting the 12v battery cables. Hybrids (and probably electric vehicles) also have a secondary HV battery disconnect, and the manufacturers try to get that information to all emergency services agencies. You can also--in theory--cut the HV cables without getting shocked, because of the way they're designed, although it's not something I'd want to try.
4777137
Mostly the second one, but he does make a worthwhile point about them being overused/used badly in many stories.
4777183
It's still legal, too , , , I'll bring my tux to Trotcon
Because we're all fine upstanding ladies and gentlemen here.
4777259
I could, I suppose. I'm not sure if that would actually be interesting, especially because if I wanted to get into specifics I'd probably lose a lot of people.
4777316
Really? It loads okay for me, and it's a Deviantart picture on my own account, so I don't think it's a problem with permissions.
4777351
Hmm, that's interesting. I thought that you could trademark certain colors (like Steelcase Blue or UPS brown). Although maybe that's trademark law that would apply there.
I don't know if Carhartt's brown color is actually trademarked, just that a lot of work coat makers seem to have coats in nearly the same color.
4777380
I always try to kick on my furnace sometime in October and make sure it's working right so I'm not paying through the nose for a furnace repairman on the first cold day of the year. . . .
There's a lot of stuff you've got to make sure about before you light up a fireplace, one of the most obvious being if the chimney's open. My grandma's house had a fireplace, and as far as I know, the flue had been blocked off (intentionally) in a remodel, since she never used it. But that could have been quite a surprise for a new owner.
Up here, every winter a few people get killed doing something dumb when their furnace is broken. Propane space heaters or using a gas oven to heat the house, that kind of thing . . . Carbon monoxide isn't very forgiving.
4777387
If anypony was reading my blog, it would be Pinkie Pie.
Also, Pinkie Pie loves nearly everypony.
4777572
I don't know. Some days I wish I did; other days I'm happier not knowing.
4777813
I've probably gone up front with just about any automotive fluid you care to name smeared on me somewhere. I do try to avoid going up front when I'm dripping blood, though; that does freak out customers.
4777863
I did get a good 'fell off the back of a truck deal' with a set of DeWalt tools, but for the most part I avoid people who are selling things out of their trunks, because they're either cheap, or stolen. Or, in some cases, both.
I don't know why they've got such a problem, to be honest. I can't think of any other manufacturer who has so much trouble with rubber hoses.
Then again, GM can't make wheel bearings that last, so. . . .
4779153
+25 Inspiration!
4779134
Sure you will.
well, at least it's better than manually disconnecting the battery.
4779265
Yay!
4779797
It could happen. I sold three cars in 2017 (well . . . technically two; I gave one away to a guy who was gonna do something really cool with it).
Agreed--I'd much rather have that switch than be futzing around with a wrench twice a day.
4780465
And how many have you bought?
Or even more than twice a day.
4780596
Only 2--the blue van and the Jeep (have I mentioned the Jeep in a blog post yet? I got it from the author of My Little Dashie.)
Although it turns out (as I discovered just today) the battery cutoff switches don't work forever, and I had to do a workaround in the parking lot.
Ugh... Electrical issues... I feel your pain! I have a 1998 Chevy Malibu that I bought from a farm. It wasn't up to date on it's tags, but that was fine for the previous owner, since they used it for farm use only. Apparently they hauled goats in the car... IN the car. Anyway, after extensive hay removal and interior cleaning,
I used it for about a year and half... The electrical faults were maddening! 
There's an intermittent fault that likes to happen if a fly so much as farts in the car's general direction. This fault causes the HVAC and cruise control to remain on, even if the key is removed from the ignition. Of course it drains the batteries. Cruise would sometimes work while driving, but trying to turn on the AC or heat INSTANTLY kills the cruise and sometimes the power windows... And it also randomly has all electrical go out, even when driving... Nothing like banging on a dash while coasting in neutral at 55 MPH, in the hopes you can restart your engine, once power is restored via percussive engineering. 
My solution for dealing with the HVAC issue was initially to pull a particular fuse. The fault was pretty high up in the hierarchy of power distribution. I could only reliably stop the battery drain by pulling one of the big ass fuses in the main ignition circuit. I eventually got some heavy wire and a 50 amp switch and made a kill switch for it. With a broken hood release handle, popping the fuse became a hassle, and forgetting it one too many times got to be a nuisance.
Between the infuriating electrical issues, and the transmission not functioning right, it just wasn't worth fixing. Any time the temperature was freezing or colder, the car could be driven a couple blocks, but it would quickly loose torque till the transmission just... slipped to the point where the car couldn't move at all... Only after the car FULLY warmed up, would it mostly work again...
NOT worth fixing!
Anyway, I've since replaced it with a $400 Malibu that's 6 years newer than the old one. No preference for the Malibu... Just random coincidence. Didn't learn my lesson from the first one! LOL... I figure I might get lucky and get another 40-50k to roll over on the odometer before it attains the same degree of shittyness as the older Malibu.
I'm considering salvaging a few parts off of it before scrapping it... once the soul crushing hours at work and the soul crushinger cold both abate. Uh... That's a whole story in and of itself... Short version... A job that requires three "stations" to maintain smooth workflow has been staffed by only me and one other poor unlucky soul, since October... It makes for a janky, stuttering pace that always drags out in our busiest times, and hours of idle time on the autoclaves, all thanks to the fact that two people can't do the job of three people in the same span of time. Combined with equipment idle time... It's pure stress!
It's even been cutting into my hours for my other job (which pays 40% MORE than this one, and is actually enjoyable, with half the work being stuff I can take home, but has fewer total hours). It's certainly cut into my energy reserves and free time... The only reason I haven't left, is it's the most stable job I've encountered in my entire life. Government mandated food testing doesn't get downturns.
Hay, at least your coat story made me smile!
I've only followed a handful of stories since January last year, when my motherboard died. Was playing catch up and remembered that I miss reading Onto the Pony Planet. Silver Glow's Journal was a highlight of my breaks at work when it was still going. I'd love to see more of Silver Glow in the future!
4781110
So only a net decrease of 1 then.
yes actually, you mentioned it this blog.
ouch, that's got to suck.
4783016
That's like a 10% decrease. That's a lot.
Cool! I couldn't remember if I had, or hadn't.
Luckily, I was in the work parking lot, so all I had to do was go back inside and grab some tools.
4782100
One of my vans is getting to that point, I think. I'm not entirely sure, since it also has an axle shaft that's about to fail (I've got a new one, but haven't had time to put it in).
That's usually my goal--to make the car last longer than a similar number of car payments would have. That, and keeping vehicles with interchangeable parts, so I can re-use good parts on the next vehicle.
That's one of the things that's sometimes hurting us at work, too. We generally don't have quite enough work to justify three people, but often a little too much for two people. So we put off some stuff as long as we can, which of course winds up making things take longer when they finally get done. For example, when I took out the garbage, it should have taken three trips but wound up taking eight since the wastebaskets were so overfilled, and extra stuff had just been stacked around them into a trash mountain.
I'm slowly progressing on the next chapter of OPP (I've got a huge story backlog at the moment, and I'm trying to work through it on a sensible schedule). As for Silver Glow, I miss her, too. I think we'll be seeing more of her in the future, but I can't say when.