$1100.00
Gah.
The rack and pinion assembly is bad on the Neon. Why does this stuff always break in the winter? If it was summer I would do this myself. But since it’s the middle of winter I need to have the shop do it.
Bah.
More car fun
So now that we have the van back and running (as well as it ever does) the car needs to go into the shop.
Sheesh.
For a while now the steering has been “loose”. There is a noticable amount of slop and the car tends to dart a bit and oversteer when changing lanes.
Now that the van is back, it’s time to get the car looked at as it’s starting to worry me. I’d hate to have the steering cut loose at 70 MPH on the freeway.
That would (to put it mildly) suck.
So hopefully it’s not going to be a huge repair bill.
Model Railroad Dilemma
Well, after reading some more of my Track Planning book and after a few comments from the kids, I’m not so sure I want to use a plan like the current design.
The current design is a point-to-point with lots of switching, which I think would be fun, but you can’t just fire up a train and let it run.
So I’ve been playing around with a plan that has loops at each end (a folded dog bone) but then there is not much room for switching. It also takes up a lot more space! The loops are a 24″ radius, so you need at least 4′ – 6″ to place one in.
I can make it fit in the available space, but access to the far side is problematic.
I’ll just have to play with it a bunch more to try and come up with a compromise that works.
It is kind of fun to mess about in 3rd PlanIt – it makes it easy to try stuff, but there are still some things that are frustrating to try and do in it.
Digital Photos
So I have this nice Fuji FinePix 1.3 MPixel camera that Charles gave me (thanks Charles!) a while ago. One of the reasons that I haven’t been using it is because I only have a 4MB memory card for it. That’s only 12 pictures. Silly.
I have an 8MB card too, but that’s getting flaky.
Anyway, for some reason Liz opened the purse strings a bit yesterday and I went to OfficeMax and bought a 128MB card for $40. I also got another set of NiMH batteries for it.
Now that I can take 390+ photos and have more battery life, I hope to use it more. I’m going to make a real effort to use it to document the house projects and the model railroad progress. (And other misc silly stuff.)
Since it’s only 1.3MP, and I have no photo quality printer (and I’m a luddite and prefer film) I’ll still use my film camera for important stuff that I want to archive.
But it’s sure an easy way to get photos on the web!
First Draft Track Plan
I have added a link to a pdf file for my first draft of a track plan that I am happy with in the Trains Section of my website.
Enjoy!
3rd PlanIt
I’ve been playing around with a copy of 3rd PlanIt, which is CAD software for designing model railroad layouts.
Saying that 3rd PlanIt is CAD software is like saying that Notepad is a Desktop Publishing System. You can do basic CAD type stuff for laying out the room and framework, but it’s not CAD. (And I know what I’m talking about because I used to be a CAD jockey.)
That said, when you start laying down the track there are some cool features there. It’s pretty slick for track design, but it’s not always intuitive about how things work.
It does a nice job lining up switches and creating curves with easements, but the error messages don’t always tell you why it can’t do something.
Ah well, it’s software, and all software sucks.
It’s pretty fun to try and stuff my space full of what I want, and it’s much easier to move stuff around and be sure that it fits using this software.
Now if I could just find a design that works…
Interesting Web Site
Some guy found an old 4-CD set of USGS photos at his local public library. He was bored (apparently) and decided to put them on the web.
Some nice images here: http://www.gliff.org/usgs/home
Fixing the floor
We have decided to get the floor refinished in the dining room and the kitchen. It’s probably about time as the finish is mostly gone in parts of the dining room and in most of the kitchen.
Anyway, there was a section of the inlayed border in the dining room that needed work. So this weekend I worked on it.
There is an entry on the House Page about it.
Review Time
I had my review yesterday. Apparently I’m doing an “Outstanding” job. Hmmm.
I feel that I’ve been doing a pretty damned good job, makes me feel better to have it recognized. Considering that I pretty much packaged up and built the NJ data center for the 2004 Olympics web site single handedly. I’d say that’s pretty outstanding. Not to mention all the other crap I’ve been doing around here. But at least someone has been paying attention to what I’ve been doing.
No raises yet because the board of directors hadn’t approved the budget until last night, but they have supposedly approved it now and we should hear about raises today.
I hope my raise is “outstanding”. If it’s not, I’m going to ask to be sent for RAS SecurID training and to get sent for CISSP training. If I don’t get that, then I may keep looking for a new job.
We’ll see.
Damned van – part 4
Okay. The shop just called. The lights stayed on this morning and they replaced the pump. Finally.
Sheesh.
So now we can go pick it up tonight. Yippie-ki-yay!