Well, momma said there’d be days like this ……
Yeh, I know this isn’t a blog which details my personal life, and I don’t typically like to share, but, sometimes they’re too awesome not to share. Other times, like today, well, they’re too …… something.
Happily, though, I did survive the huge winter storm Goliath which has swept across the Plains and Midwest. We were fortunate to miss the brunt of the storm. Many were not. My thoughts and prayers go out to the survivors who lost loved ones as a result of the storm. I think it’s important to count our blessings when we get frustrated with life.
Currently, I’m trying to figure out how to get inside my truck, which now has two broken opening mechanisms from the outside. My driver’s side door handle broke a while back. NBD for a spry and lithe young guy like me. I just crawled over from the passenger side. Well, until this morning. The storm dumped a lot of rain and then snow on top of us. Then, of course, it got cold. So, as I went to hop into my truck this morning I snapped the inside mechanism ….. whatever it is. When it happened to my driver’s side, I took the door panel off to see if I couldn’t fix it ……. forget fixing it, I couldn’t reach it! If and when I ever get one of the doors open, I’m going to have to cut some metal out just to get to the mechanism. But, that wasn’t running through my mind this morning. It wouldn’t have bothered me much, but, after a moment standing there processing the snapping sound I heard and the lack of tension on the door handle, I noticed I didn’t really park properly out of the way of my wife’s car. (Her fault!!! She parked too far to the north!!!) And, I saw where one of her tires was low ….. as far as I could tell, the sun doesn’t come up that early in the winter. So, I went in a brewed a pot of coffee and sat for a bit. Finally, when I could see, I figured I could limp the poor tire to the local gas station and air it out, but, getting out of the driveway would be a trick. After doing some nifty turning on a semi-frozen yard, I was able to angle out of my driveway and go on about my business.
Coming home, my son-in-law was on my steps taking to my wife. He needed a jump. I was able to take the same angle into the drive to park. Getting back out was another matter. Taking some of the same turns to get out, it became apparent that there had been some significant thawing of the ground ……… sigh. Down she went! Yep! The water was still there! Well, mixed with the ground to make some very soft mud. We tried the various fixes for getting unstuck to no avail. Son-in-law even did some shoveling. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but, where the front-wheel drive vehicle was it couldn’t really go forward because some jackass didn’t get the truck parked properly! Finally, Mrs. Suyts had to get behind the wheel so we could have two pushers. The woman knows not to stop when getting the car moving! The yard lost the war, though. Then, …………
Well, when comparing my minor inconveniences the storm brought to what many others went through, things don’t look so bad. I’m truly a blessed man!
I had thought some Stevie Ray for the post, but, how about some Van Morrison! It’s a special treat is that if you let the video play through you’ll get some other fantastic music!
suyts space 
Do you have power locks on your truck? If you do then make a wedge, drive it into the door and the body enough that you can hit the power lock button inside! As for low tires use a spray bottle with some soap mixture inside to spray your tire with, mark where you see the bubbles. Most tires are tubeless and you can buy a plug kit at the dollar stores now, they work just as good. Get the plug kit get a tire compressor, and get a battery charger, you will always have the basics covered.
Yep, beats manual pumping every time. Worth it’s weight many times over!
I have gone through two of those pumps. I keep one in my truck at all times.
Now, get a spray bottle, put window deicer inside it, the window seal outside, pry it open and spray down between your window and the seal, it will deice the inside of your door, but if it wasn’t frost and wet that did it then it is a crap product they are selling you, as I never had to ever do that.
Also good to buy lock deicer, it fits in your key hole of your door, It is mostly alcohol based anyway, but it can be refilled with window deicer, mostly alcohol base as well.
Have battery charger, have little air compressor like Lat’s pic. Don’t have power locks, nor is the lock the problem. I can lock and unlock all day long and the door handle still won’t pull the mechanism. But, the advice is good. I’ve done the plug kits, but, only use them in an extreme case.
My nephew says that there should be a lever, a pushrod, and a couple of latches holding the door on a pin. Can you take the inside door panel off?
Yes, but, even when I take the panel off I still can’t access the lever/pushrod, my hands and arms are not flexible enough to get to them. Sheet metal covers most of the door with a few openings. Can’t see them or feel them. But, yeh, I know they’re there! Somewhere.
I took the door panel off to see if I couldn’t fix it ……and then looked at the instructional youtube video that explains how
Yes that works very well if you have any mechanical inclination in you! But we all do, we just need to see it, do and then we never forget it!
Good pointer to youtube! It’s amazing how many good instructional videos there are on youtube. For example, you could do a youtube search or Google Videos search for:
(repair,install,replace,disassemble) Ford Ranger door (mechanism,latch)
Note: The parenthesis-and-commas are an “OR” construct, in Google/Youtube.
Nice, I didn’t know the “or” trick.
Also, “Tutorial” or “tut” is a nice keyword to add to such searches.
Just WOW! they are fainting because of their beliefs in that arse! Now you know how they get their jobs!
It’s odd how a series of about 4-6 small annoyances will drive a person just about to drink, even if that same person could handle one major catastrophe with aplomb, even if it were a major catastrophe 30x worse than all the small annoyances combined.
Troubles don’t add linearly, in their effect on our mental state. It’s more like they multiply each other.
I’m sure some psychologist has written a paper about it.
Dave, I’m really good a major catastrophes……but give me 2-4 little piss ant annoyances in a row and I’m ballistic!
Yeah, because that’s what they are and shouldn’t be.
Same here. I think that’s just human nature.
Knock the alarm clock off the table and break it, then cut yourself shaving, then accidentally drop the towel in the toilet (even w/ clean water in there), then spill your coffee, then walk outside and find a flat on your truck, making you late for your haircut, and you’ll probably be ready to scream, even though the sum dollar & time cost of all those problems might add to just $40 and one or two wasted hours.
But, on a day when nothing else goes wrong, if you total that same truck, costing yourself $5000 and at least 50 wasted hours, plus six weeks with your foot in cast, you’ll probably handle it just fine.
It’s hard to remember: Don’t sweat the small stuff… and it’s (almost) all small stuff.”
mine usually goes like this….
pour coffee…pick up pencil, drop on floor….reach to pick up pencil, standing on the toe or one sock….spill coffee……go to grab paper towel…entire roll comes off….try to grab it before it hits the floor…and splash coffee all over kitchen
scream…slam coffee cup down….and splash out the rest of the coffee
stand in corner and pant
Here is another tip, if you have a wercker compound near you it may be better to go there and just get the doors for your truck and replace them.
Providing you can get the keys that work or you can get the tumblers changeg out.
Scientists reveal the most accurate ocean sea level rise map ever made…
OH WAIT!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3378097/The-accurate-ocean-floor-map-Scientists-reveal-strange-alien-landscape-beneath-sea-incredible-detail.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3378097/The-accurate-ocean-floor-map-Scientists-reveal-strange-alien-landscape-beneath-sea-incredible-detail.html
Well satellite altimetry is the exact same measurement as measuring the gravity field.
The defunct John Dally was putting a lot of hope in the satellite altimetry.
If you go to the end of his post one finds the version of the satellite altimetry at the time:
http://www.john-daly.com/ges/msl-rept.htm
However it has been adjusted up, as it showed no warming – simply by calibrating it to selected tide gauges in 2003. The 2 before and after can be found in this post here:
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/was-nicht-passt-wird-passend-gemacht-esa-korigiert-daten-zum-meeresspiegel/007386/
James had a post about envisat adjustment here:
Your Ford Ranger was destroying the planet. The planet sent storm Goliath for revenge, obviously.
And, my condolences. My klunker VW Polo is currently working though it sounds somewhat asthmatic. I will have to make a doctors appointment I fear. Driving all the way from North to South of Germany every other week took its toll. Working in Munich currently.
We took a Viking river cruise up the Danube from Budapest to Nuremberg before Christmas. It was very enjoyable and interesting. We toured the BMW factory in Regensburg. Except for the robots, it reminded me of the Boeing factory in Everett.
Jim
I gotta explore Regensburg. Looked beautiful when I drove through it two weeks ago.
I went to see Star Wars VII–The Force Awakens last Tuesday. Han Solo is still boasting that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. The statement is still nonsense as a “parsec” is a unit of distance and not time. Notice how the sycophants try to rationalize this problem away by making up fanciful stories about how the Kessel run is really multiple distances–the shortest distance wins apparently.
Jim
Obviously those Star Wars fans lack the intellectual depth to really appreciate George Lucas’ vision.
Richard Wagner, Parsifal:
Gurnemanz: “Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit”
“Behold, here time becomes space!”
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woldemar_Voigt
who worked on precursors to Lorenz transformations.
Thank goodness there is an English translation link in the margin.
Jim
Yeah sorry, I didn’t even want to include that, just a remainder of editing.
Maybe Wagner knew about the debate.
Happy New Year to all, it’s midnight Berlin time here!
Thanks Dirk, and a Happy New to you and everyone else.
Jim
Oops, that should be Happy New Year. I hit the posting button too quickly.
Jim
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
Quit complaining. 🙂
You could have broke the handle on your way out of a Chipotles.