On my way up Cobb Mountain I started hearing and feeling click/thump noises from somewhere in the middle of the truck. It turned out that the carrier shaft bearing's rubber isolator had failed, probably because of added vibration because a bolt was falling out. I was lucky enough to have an appropriate wrench handy, and made it home; as long as you are very gentle on the accelerator you can even go up hills with the isolator broken, but jam that pedal and THUMP THUMP THUMP as the bearing bounces around in the bracket.
Filled with dissatisfaction with windows, I set off on a quest to find a suitable Linux distribution for the Acer Aspire D250-1165. It came with Windows XP, but the performance was always less than impressive and Windows is a magnet for spyware and botnet clients. The machine is theoretically highly compatible and thus support should be simple, right?
My 1992 F250's radiator failed and (as per the link) I replaced the radiator and installed a custom coolant filter at the same time. I used parts ordered from International, and plumbing parts from a local agricultural pump and plumbing supply. All connections were sealed with blue RTV silicone sealant for its ideal compatibility with coolant and its high grip strength.
While I was gone, Rob was trying to use my truck to haul other trucks, with my permission of course. Unfortunately, every time he tried to take it out, it had some kind of problem. Notably, a bad ground produced smoke during an attempt to start, and the radiator failed around the cap neck. Luckily, at this time he had a parts truck, and so he replaced the ground and also set aside a radiator for me (as well as a winch mount bumper and a new tow hitch which isn't unusually long.) Yesterday I did this radiator swap.
Once upon a time it was fashionable to use windmills for pumping water. On flat ground, an elevated water storage tank was constructed; on terrain which included hills, houses could be situated below tanks, and tanks on high ground. When the wind blew too hard, the tail cocked sideways and caused wind to blow past the blades rather than through them as a governor.
Well, I went manually hacking and whacking my way through my comments and marked all the spam as such, so hopefully my pages will start to show up in google searches again. Also, a new header image; still haven't decided what to do about the font. For the meantime, it seems to be legible at a variety of sizes, so it will do. Now, off to delete more of the spam from the database...
We're back in Panama, and it's a mixed bag. Prices drop like crazy as soon as you get over the border; the quantity of trash goes directly through the roof. The air quality stays good until you get over the hills and start coming down towards David, at which point you can see precisely how disgusting the air really is. This should improve considerably as soon as we head up into the hills towards Santa Fe in our rented Toyota Yaris - what a shitpile. It takes FOREVER to get up in RPMs, and this one has a stick, so it's going to be a complete nightmare to drive.
My lady Anna-Maria ordered some shirts for me, for our trip to Panama, from the eBay user toddd3763. Because of the seller's incompetence, they did not arrive in time.
Sorry i had shipping problems (postage was wrong)and my son was admitted to the ER, my fault. Im sorry and hope you have a great New Year, God Bless
This resulted in negative feedback, as he deserved. But he apparently disagrees:
Today, we left Hotel Limbo in Bocas Town, Boca del Toro, Panama, and made our way across the border into Costa Rica via boat, taxi, and foot. The bridge is reminiscent of the trestle at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz before the foot bridge was added, but with planks across the outside of the ties for foot and vehicle traffic. Few vehicles actually cross the border, most of them being tractor-trailer rigs.
My last Panamanian blog entry came shortly after our arrival in the city of Panama; since then we've been to Santiago, Las Lajas, David, and Santa Fé; we're now in Bocas city in the province of Bocas Del Toro, and about to cross the water to Bastimiento to see what it's like over there. In addition to many kilometers in buses and taxis, we put about a thousand kilometers on a rental car, and spent a fair amount of time traipsing around a handful of promising farm properties (fincas).