Greybeards Gripes

Global Cool Down!! 

We’re on our 3rd day of grey foggy wet weather.   We’ve had varying amounts of rain,  with the most rain and the highest tempuratures today.  (49 degree’s this morning)

In two days it’s gone from looking like winter,  to early spring.   There’s still ice on the river,  but it has 6 inches or so of water running over it.   All this water,  and our house,  totally out of character, is bone dry??  Normally in mid winter,  our windows run with sweat,  but this year,  they’re dry as a bone,  and we’re waiting for the fog to clear up so we can make a trip to town to purchase a small humidifier for the bedroom.

Attributable to January thaw, I guess.  Or,  I suppose the Global Warming enthusiasts could start yelling “Global warmup“,  EXCEPT,  I just heard yesterday,  that NASA scientists have predicted a major cool down,  (mini-ice age in their words),  coming in the next couple of years,  due to the Sun’s long term cyclic heating and cooling patterns.  Confusing Eh?

>>GB  

Well,  I had a nice post going about taking the Alaskan out of the river today (Alaskan=17ft fishing boat).  But,  while reseaching in another browser window, I accidently opened a PDF file within my Browser.  For what ever reason,  when ever that happens,  when I close or switch away from the PDF,  it crashes my browser. 

So, I’m not writing it again,,,,  The Alaskan is out of the water,  boating season is over for this year,  the water is still REALLY low, a few Salmon and Trout are biting in the river,  and I’m going shooting tomorrow.

~~>GB

I just read and article by the “Boat Doctor”  in  “Go Boating” magazine.  It was called “Ethanol a trouble fuel”. 

Big trouble if you have an older vehicle.

Proponents of E-10 (10% enthanol) say it reduces our dependance of foriegn oil.. But,,  many experts disagree.

It has been stated that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol,  than a gallon of enthanol can produce!!!

Corn (used to make ethanol) is eaiser and less labor intensive to produce than cotton.  Result,  we now have unemployed cotton workers,  and the likelyhood that the price of cotton products is going to go through the roof. (Translation= 10 bucks per T-shirt)

Back to what Ethanol does to our (older) engines:  Ethanol will dissolve plastic and fiberglass gas tanks,  and likewise plastic fuel lines.  It turns them into a gooey sludge that winds up in your carberator or injectors.

Ethanol,  like Dri-Gas, will absorb water until it’s molecules are to full,  then the alcohol will separate from the ethanol,  drop to the bottom of the tank, mix with any water,  and start a real cornucopia of bacterial vegetation that becomes SLUDGE,  and get’s pumped into to carberator or injectors.  The water that separates will also surely eventually cause holes in the bottom of aluminum or steel  gas tanks.  Once this junk makes it way to the fuel mixing system,  you’re in for a lot of work or a lot of expense to get the machine running right again. 

I’ve seen this happen on lawn mower’s, motorcycles, boat motors, almost everthing with a gas tank.  (Last week I had to replace an internal fuel feed line on the remote fuel tank for my outboard,  it had turned into something that looked like clear snot,  and also necessitated a carb rebuild)

It’s been proven that today’s fuel deteriorates very rapidly, with the great percentage of deterioration in the first 30 days after filling the tank.     It would make sense not to fill a tank that isn’t going to be used right away.  Using a fuel stabilizer is a good idea,  (one the magazine recommends is call PRI-G)  It also makes good sense to use good fuel filters,  and change them often. 

Best advice,  just be aware that today’s gasoine is expensive crap!!!  If you haven’t had problems with a gasoline engines fuel system,  you soon will!!!!!   Try to head off as many of the problems as possible. 

Happy Motoring,

GB

I’m over half a century old,  and have owned three new refridgerators.  The first new one was left with the first house we sold,  the second,  left with the second house we sold.  Both were 15 to 20 years old and still running.

Our current home,  came with a 20 year old refridgerator.  Noisy,  but it was still running.   The wife decided we needed a new one,  something a little bigger, prettier, and quieter.

Yeah well,   it’s a bit bigger,  and a sight prettier,  but,  how about longevity?  This nice new Kenmore from the Sears store made it precisely 2 years and 5 months before blowing out it’s computerized brain.  (It’s also just as noisy as the old one)

So,  I call Sears and order an extended warranty at $240 per year.  Repair bill number one,  came to $400 with labor! (so the warranty covered itself this time)   Who’d a thunk you’d need an extended warranty on an appliance that SHOULD last a minimum of 18 years??????

Guess I better get busy and send out that extended warranty order on the wife’s 1 year old washing machine too!

So to answer my own question,,, NO!!!!!!!!!

Building all this tech stuff into washing machines, refridgerators, etc, etc,  is  a huge and expensive (to the consumer) Mistake!!!!!!!

Given my druther’s,  I’ll keep my PC,  but get the computers off of my Truck, my Bike, my Boat (doesn’t have one), and most of my household appliances!!!

~~GB

As I previously noted a few weeks ago,  I switched from phone company DSL to Charter Cable for Internet,  and also in the process from DirectTV to Cable TV with HD.

The Internet is a little bit faster,  thought nothing like you would expect considering I went for 256 kb to 3MB per minute!!!  The Cable HD picture is pretty nice,  and even the standard cable signal looks better that my Dish signal did.

HERE’S THE BIG BUG IN THE WORKS!!

I was originally told that the bill would be $86.80 per month for 1 year.  Once it was installed,  the service man told me it would be around $110 per month!  I complained and was told to call the office. 

Upon calling the office, (IN INDIA),  I reluctantly agreed to a monthly total of $92.29 per month for a year.   Now the second bill arrives and the amount owed is $143.80 !!

I have emailed Charter with an ultimatum,  they call me by 11 AM tomorrow morning to discuss this,  or I will hop in the truck and head for the Prosecuting Attorney’s office with all of my installation and billing paperwork.

Bottom Line,  the billing department as Charter is either:

1:  Crooked as a dog’s hind leg,

or

2: Completely incompetent!

In either case,  this is one bill I will not be paying!!!  So there’s a possibility that posts to this blog may soon reach an indetermined delay.

~~GB

It’s been a lot of work,  but the Cable is up and running.  It took three visits for the tech’s to get the video installed correctly,  and it took me about two day’s to get my network all back online.  (Mostly because I was trying to do it without using a router)

To say just a little about it right now;  I’m not totally happy with it.  The HD service isn’t that clear,  and Charter’s billing system SUCKS!  It seems that they’re wanting to bill  me a lot more that we agreed to when I ordered it on the phone.

Worst of all,  everyday that we’ve had the service,  3 days in a row,  some part of the video service has been down!!!

You’ll probably hear more on this later.

 ~~GB