I have a weird relationship with heights... No problem at all being a thousand feet up on a TV tower, but I hate climbing to the top of a 15' ladder.

maybe you have a problem with lack of engineering?

But yes, my neighbor's ratty old extension ladder gives me a serious case of the willies.

I don't like ladders either. A couple experiences stand out in my memory:

1. In junior high, we had a basketball gym with the big hanging light fixtures on the ceiling. I guess the maintenance guy normally replaced the bulbs, but for some reason we had to do it when we were prepping for some kind of school function, maybe a student play, in the gym. In order to reach those lights, the school had a wooden A-frame ladder -- in my memory it was at least 60 feet tall but probably was a 20 foot ladder. Regardless, it scared the shit out of me, as it creaked and wobbled with increasing volume and intensity the higher you climbed.

2. One summer in college I decided to work with a friend-of-a-friend roofing a house in the neighborhood. It was a 2 story house in front, but in the back it was 3 stories down as it was built into a hill and had a garage underneath the main house. I tried not to show any fear but climbing up the ladder on the front of the house with a 40 lb toolbox was not fun at all. I lasted a couple days working with them. On the third day we had gotten all the old shingles removed, and my foot slipped on the bare wood. I slipped a couple feet down the backside of the roof before catching myself. I quit about 20 minutes later.

Oh god, no. I took a friend on the tour of this amazing Frank Lloyd Wright building a few weeks ago.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1465335849

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower


At one point in the tour, you go out onto the 18th floor balcony, to go up to the 19th floor. This was the entrance to Mr. Price's office. The 19th floor.

Just turning the steps and having the wind hit me and looking over the side..................ugh. Couldn't handle it.

Yes, there's certainly an element of that. When I'm up on a stick, I'm wearing a harness and climbing something designed by Engineers, assembled under the supervision of other Engineers, and tested by yet more Engineers.

When I climb a ladder, I'm standing on something designed by Fred and assembled by Karen.

Still, I work with guys that'll scurry up that same ladder like a stripper on a pole, with a Source Four in one hand and a coffee in the other.




We had that exact same ladder at Charlotte High, in the auditorium which I (as the resident nerd of the drama dept who understood how lights and electricity worked) had to climb to re-lamp and adjust the instruments on the stage.

Hated it. Hate, hate, hate.

When I got a job at a real theater, with a scissor-lift, that was a whole different universe.




No shit? I had no idea FLW had ever done anything like that. Way cool.




Anyway, it turns out that Velveeta fan-fiction is a thing: The Velveeta Rabbit

I just watched the documentary "In search of Sugar Man" and was pretty impressed. It was about a man who wrote good music in the late sixties and seventies but never sold any albums here, was a huge seller in South Africa, but he lived in poverty in Detroit until comiting suicide on stage. Pretty cool documentary.

I've seen that too. It was quite interesting. I most most struck by the flagrant ripoff of his royalties by the guy behind the record label. Even when presented with seemingly irrefutable proof of what he was doing, he just shrugged it off and continued the practice. I had never even heard of the musician (Sixto Diaz Rodriguez) though, or his music, before the documentary.

The bit about his {spoiler redacted}.

I get to spend the rest of the week on a boom lift. Heights are not my favorite, I'll be sure to post pics 😉

I generally have no trouble with heights; ladders, roofs, trees, mountain ledges, makes no difference to me, as I have excellent balance (and ex hang glider pilot), but my wife won't even get near an edge. She claims she suffers from an irrational fear that she will spontaneously, but subconsciously, throw herself off. I just don't get how you could not trust your own mind/body. :dunno:

The "song" is garbage, but the title is amusingly relevant.

She already has a history of mental illness because she is a woman. Not kidding. I would imagine any woman who has spontaneously cried, thought of breaking objects, or thought of inflicting harm on others when experiencing hormonal fluctuations associated with menstruation might be able to shed some light on this. Y8s? Postpartum depression often generates thoughts of suicide or infanticide in otherwise average women. Women have a lot more reason to distrust their own minds and men have a lot more reason to distrust women.

Similarly alcoholics and junkies know they are engaging in self-harm and are still drawn to act in ways counter to their well being.

I get to climb shit like this all the time:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1465386975

My department has a 100 footer, which is tame compared to this monster I saw at a conference.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1465386975
200+ feet of ladder attached to a truck.

I once responded to a call from a man who thought he was suicidal.

He was a bit down on his luck having recently been laid off, but he wasn't in a terribly precarious financial situation. He said he wasn't having thoughts of killing himself, but was afraid that one day he'd be driving along the freeway and would involuntarily swerve into a bridge abutment to end his life.

We had to convince him that he wasn't actually suicidal - a little depressed maybe - but he seemed to be in good spirits while we visited with him.

I once laid on the edge of a 2-story roof - probably a 6/12 (though my mind says "that had to have been an 8/12"), in order to look over and paint the fascia board below a gutter which was inaccessible by ladder due to some pretty obscene vegetation/shrubs/trees. I ended up with some temporary scarring on my belly where the skin (which offered a more confident grip than my cotton t-shirt) had pulled downward across the asphalt shingles while I was cantilevered over the edge. It went away after about 2 years.

After several years of working as a framer, painter, gutter installer, and finally glazier, I'm pretty sure I've overcome most of the fear of falling from injurious, though generally less-than-lethal heights.

Presumably you're asking me if I'm familiar with pregnancy and postpartum-related hormonal changes in women's brains and not if I have menses-related mood swings.

It is a science fact that women's brains shrink during pregnancy.

It is also a science fact that people who are sleep-deprived even a few days will have severely impaired mental faculties. When you consider that new parents are often sleep deprived for weeks or months at a time, you see how mental people (men and women, but women typically lactate at night and men do not) will become.

That said, men can get "hormonal" and crazy too. Ever heard of roid rage? High levels of testosterone--even naturally occurring--can affect mood.

It was originally designed for NYC, but no one would build it. It's in Bartlesville, a town of about 35,000. The apartment side of it was an abysmal failure. In the late 50s/early 60s the apartments rented for $300/month, when you could rent a 3 bedroom house with a yard and garage for $75/month a block away.

FLW also built this house in Tulsa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westhope

What's up with the forum not fitting to screen?
Does this on my tablet and phone.
Haven't tried it with the laptop yet.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1465441029

Crummy CSS?

Or your stuff has the AIDZ.

Nah, my tablet was doing the same last night. And from my laptop this morning, the width is fine but something with the User box (top right where it says "Welcome, xxxxxx" and shows the number of PM's) is messed up.

Bar talk related... lol

So last night another 'regular' tried to call me out saying I'm a mooch. I'm thinking, wtf? :ugh2:

Had the ability to count my drinks on one hand and name all of the free shots that were given to me by others. When I tried to ask him what his example was that made a mooch, he couldn't answer. Then played victim and was saying to his buddy behind him "why is he in my ear?" because I was confronting his bs claim.

Thoughts?

I can't imagine where in NYC it would have been practical. The ratio of footprint to height and footprint to useful floor space seems quite poor. Maybe if you just built the tower part, without the rest, it would be useful to sneak some condos into a tiny corner lot uptown or something...

Cool looking building, though.

Mine too.
Work and home PC the fitment is fine. But on the tablet it squishes it.
Forum is acting weird, someones been changing things.

+1

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1465484842

Anyone else have this?

Our corporate overlords decided to "fix" a few bits of the forum code. The above was one of the many undesirable results.

I'm dying today. Company said I passed all of the interview stages and all that was left was the reference checks and CBC. I know that all of my references submitted their info early yesterday afternoon. Was really hoping to hear something today so that I could give my official notice.

I hate this in-between uncertainty. When I didn't know anything, that was okay -- I was hopeful but trying to remain open to other possibilities. Now that I think I have it, but I don't know for sure that I have it, it's killing me.

Pretend/assume you didn't get it. Then it will be a pleasant surprise when they make the offer.

My experience has been that they don't do a background check unless they intend to offer the job. Bigger companies, while not on the level of the Feds with security clearance, are doing more than a $29.99 background check and they don't want to pay for it if they aren't going to hire you.

If they tell you to go take a drug test, it's really yours (assuming you can agree on the salary).

Yeah, reference checks are really a formality. Nobody submits references who aren't going to say good things about them, so it's very unusual to have an offer get killed for that reason.

Getting HR to do all the paperwork can take a while, OTOH.

--Ian

I'd politely buy him a drink.
I can't think of a better way of telling him off than that.

That came to mind.... But since he was so much a drunk dick about it I'll grab a nasty tasting shot and not his favorite. Suggestions? :hatecat:

Order him a Cement Mixer: 3/4 shot of Bailey's Irish Cream and 3/4 shot of lime/lemon juice. Take one in your mouth and hold it there then add the second, mix, and swallow. If you can :giggle:

Sooooo...

Around 4 PM today I get a call from the recruiter, but not the call I wanted. She said that she had to apologize, but the department VP who gives final approval on new hire offers has been out of the country and won't be back until late next week, and once he returns they will be trying to tie things up for the 2nd quarter. Long and short, it will probably be a couple weeks before they can extend a formal offer.

On the positive side, she did say that all of the feedback and information she's received has been overwhelmingly positive, and asked that if I get any other offers before I hear back from them, to immediately call her so that she can see if things can be moved along any faster.

It could have been a much worse call, on balance. Just have to wait a bit longer.

So....tomorrow call back and say you received an offer? :)

Car update: I got it back! :yippee:

Everything feels good, a little wavey on bounce due to 1 new rear silver bilstein strut.

BUT... I hear a terrible noise when getting up to highway speeds. I've only driven it once on the way home but my first guess is the front wheel hub bearing :dunno:

That's where it sounds like 'most' of the sound is coming from (Front Left). I thought maybe it's the 4 brand new tires but I doubt it.

Going from a dodge dart rental back to the msm was night and day, I forgot how quick it was even not in boost. Missed the 6 speed too.

I'll post another update if I figure anything else out or it fails :dunno:

Annnd... It's the hub

Turn left, noise fades. Turn right and its MUCH louder :cry:

Will a regular NB2 hub with abs work with my MSM? I'm assuming 'yes' :dunno:

Genuine Mazda Miata OEM Front Wheel Hub with ABS

Sweet Jesus, $220 for a friggin hub? Get on Rock Auto or even Amazon and stop getting raped. You can buy a brand spaking new Timken hub AND a tube of Amsoil Dominator to repack it for less than $100, but some might call that overkill. Hell, last time I checked we have guys on this forum tracking $25 china eBay hubs packed with Amsoil grease with no issues.

AC stopped working on the NB. :(
Clutch won't engage, maybe I'm out of refrigerant.

Clutch should still engage. It just wouldn't get cold. It's gotta be the coil inside the clutch, or a fuse.

Had a bearing go on the Jeep. Caused the coil to rub, which then shorted out. All the parts places wanted big bucks for a new compressor. Ebay had just the bearings and coil for cheap. Saved me well over $100 bucks, plus whatever the cost of a recharge would have been.

Would it be a relay? The idle goes up and the other fan kicks on.

Yes, that's a definite possibility. Electrical stuff is certainly not one of my stronger areas, though.

Ya no way I was going to pay that price :likecat:

I did check rock auto and grabbed a TIMKEN.

Won't be able to repack since I don't have a garage or tools at the moment :dunno: Should be ok to just get me by and to work.

Since it'll be maybe a week or 2 before I get it installed... Any tips on making sure my current one lasts? It's only getting audible at 45mph+ and like I said, louder on right hand turns, quiet on left.

I have 4 of these sitting in my garage. I am planning on rebuilding them one day, but could mail one down to you for way cheap if you want it.

I dissembled and repacked 2 hubs on the kitchen island the other night... in front of the wife. Only need a hammer, 3 pennies and a decent sized flat blade screwdriver.

And a patient wife

Sounds like a typical Tuesday evening at the Casa de Pérez.

I appreciate it :likecat: but the timken was ordered already. I just need to put it in and be able to get to work without noise/busted bearing...

I've seen the tutorial around here somewhere... I know it's doable but I just need it now. I'll be doing a lot more 'projects' later on this year in the winter. Repacking all 4 is one of them :dealwithit:

:party:

Here, watch a robot sort pebbles which I cook black beans & rice for dinner:

Got busy this morning to try and install the cops setup I've had for well over a year. Whomever designed that bracket for the coilpacks should suffer the bites of a thousand fleas.

Went to reinstall the driveshaft and discovered the bearings on both ends are almost completely shot. Nothing like a month long clutch swap.

Called into work at 8pm on a Saturday.
Walk in door, punch in, hit "reset" on an overload, punch out, walk out door.
Such easy money.

Just a funny aside:

I clicked on shuiend's link above and since I am sitting in Lima, Peru the Ebay listing came up in Spanish. Damn technology is going to kill us all? Or should I worry that I am being followed?

I'm stuck in Amsterdam right now.

What for? Come say hi

I still can't get used to you being in the UK. In my mind, Oscar always = Nederlanden.

Haha I know it's weird. I flew back home to race in Spa this weekend and will be back in my new home in the UK on Tuesday

[QUOTE=EO2K;1338365]Fuck Off As A Service (FOAAS)[/QUOTE]

Needs an SNMP MIB.

--Ian

Its on github, FORK IT! FORK IT NOW! :giggle:

:bowrofl:

Someone needs to find a way to have a dependency upon this for next year's April 1 RFC.

New... issue. :vash:

Randomly my car is going very lean briefly for a few seconds. When it happens I let off the gas to engage decel fuel cut and it seems to fix it. Is my pump dying? Are one of my Five-O injectors going fubar? The motor still sorta runs just very lean during this time... :eggplant:

When it happened this morning on my way to work, 3k rpm, out of boost & cruising, had 14.7 or so AFR oscilating

14.7 in cruise is not lean at all

:facepalm: When it occurs.. it jumps to 19, 20... and the motor sounds weird.

Only lasts a few seconds.