Zimmerman is screwed

He's obviously on the move. He got pulled over in Texas today which made the news as far away as formerly Great Britain in the Daily Mail.
James Nye wet his panties over the fact that Zimmerman got pulled over for, gasp, speeding and, omg, had a gun in his car. Nye even used the phrase "Zimmerman, 29, who is white and Hispanic".
Thanks James all the same, we have our own race baiters over here. Hows about you focus on destroying what's left of your own country soon to be third world shithole.
I have news for you Jimmy. In the state of Texas, you don't even need a library card to carry concealed in your vehicle.  You on the other hand have...a cricket bat with which to defend yourself. Except that if you do defend yourself you will go to prison.
 In addition, while the media convicted Zimmerman long before his trial started, the state of Florida did not. Being licensed to carry concealed in Florida, Zimmerman has reciprocal rights in the Lone Star State.
Must have been a slow day out on the highway for him to get pulled over and given nothing but a warning and sent on his way.

So, not only does Zimmerman have the race baiters, hood rats and democrats (is that redundant?) nationwide after him, now the media, as far away as that miserable little island off the left coast of Europe is on the Zimmerman watch with the sole hope that some dipshit will kill him.
cuz the media said he's guilty, and a jewish hispanic black white racist.
They are just sure there is some white blood  somewhere in his gene pool.  There just has to be...right?

World War Z

Boys day out.
The Sonnage and I saw it over the weekend.
We liked it.  However, the only things remotely similar to the book by the same title was, well, the title and there were zombies.
Other than those two things, the movie was nothing like the book. Which is a shame really because I think the plot and structure of the book could have easily been turned into an awesome movie.


Still, we had fun watching it.  But then, I like zombie movies.

RED 2

Just saw it at an actual movin piture theater.
The lovely Belle and I are on an afternoon matinee date.
I liked it. But then I liked the first one too. - have the DVD.
Anthony Hopkins was a great addition to the cast for the sequel.

I have not been to a movie theater in forever.  Now I remember why.
$$$$$$$$
And, the popcorn was stale to boot.
I enjoyed the movie nonetheless.
I will probably get the DVD for RED 2 as well.
We still watch the first one from time to time.

Everybody is complaining about the heat

And the humidity.
Uhm, it's SUMMER.
It's not like it's never happened before.

Six months from now everyone will be complaining about cold and snow.
We don't get that down here. It will be either "still summer", or "almost summer".

The irony is that we probably have the cheapest natural gas prices for heating in the entire country and our air conditioners run at least nine months out of the year.

Gun Geo Marker

Gary at the Guns Over Texas blog writes about the Gun Geo Marker App.
It's for teh childrens protection.

"The app itself, as mentioned earlier, is on the Google Apps Play Store and free to any user. Users, according to the developer’s website, are anonymous. And once a location is marked, IT CANNOT BE UNMARKED,"

Great, let's create another map showing criminals where guns are.

"Stalbaum says he can’t be held responsible for the criminal miss use of his app"

I don't think I'd be willing to bet the farm on that Stalbaum. Not if evidence of a direct link between your little progtard app and a theft can be shown.  

Anonymous. Hmmm.  It cannot be unmarked.  Hmmmm.

While we may not be able to do anything in particular about this invasion of privacy, it can certainly be obscured.  Suppose every 2nd amendment loving gun owner were to get this little app and say, oh I don't know, mark random locations.  Frequently. Very frequently.

You know, random field, empty lot, desolate stretch of highway, the local crak house, Stalbaum's residence...

Do you suppose the data in the app might become unusable?


UPDATE: So I went to check this out at the google play store.  It seems others had the same notion.  And, gasp, false data was entered into the database.  The harrah!

Interesting, I also see that there is a Gun Free Geo Marker, which as you might ascertain, marks gun free locations.  The description of the app calls out Stalbaum by name.  You can read it here.

blowing my hose

The drain hose from the condensate pan under the a/c evaporator clogged up a few days ago.  i became aware of this by way of wet carpet on the passenger side of my 18 mo. old scion.*
It took a while to find the drain tube. it comes out of the bottom of the firewall dead center in the vehicle.
A bit a design flaw I think, as the condensate water drips all over the uni-body frame at the bottom of the vehicle.
So me thinks I'm going to have to rig an extension to the hose.

As for my immediate problem, I am a pack rat. Amongst the rats I pack are random lengths of rubber hose left over from decades of shade tree auto repair.
So I held one end of a piece of hose to the drain tube and blew in the other end till I could hear bubbles in the condensate pane.  I even had presence of mind not to inhale post blow before removing the hose.
This worked perfectly well and the water drained just fine.
I have a big compressor and an air gun but for one, I didn't feel like messing with it, and two, I was afraid I'd blast the water in the pan right up under the dash inside the car.

Looks like I'm going to have to blow my hose every time I do an oil change just to make sure it stays clear.




* This is the first vehicle I've ever owned where this has happened, and after only 18 months.

There's some thinking outside to box....

The pine box you will be buried in.

Hyperloop

Evacuated Tube Transport. A mag-lev in vacuum tube.
You can go zinging along like the characters in the opening credits of Futurama.*
The article waxes lyrical about running these vacuum tubes under the ocean.  Considering that we cannot build a pipeline that does not occasionally leak...or explode, I don't think I'd want to be under hundreds of feet of water pressure in a vacuum tube.  A pinpoint leak that produces a water stream that will cut through steel due to extreme water pressure it just not enough. We need a better disaster.
I know, we'll put it under vacuum to suck the water in!
I can see the headlines now; " O-ring manufacturer sued over failure, Federal government considers criminal charges"
Wait, the back half of that is implausible. it's green technology dontchaknow, cuz the 'letricity to power the magnetic levitation system and ginormous vacuum pumps would be provided by solar panel arrays, or wind farms, or tidal current generators, or, or...unicorn farts!**


Oh screw it. I can't go on. Not enough snark left in the tank.
I know science fiction has predicted many scientific accomplishments by imagining the seemingly impossible, but this is just plain stupid.







* bad analogy, they are stuck in foot to head tube traffic.
** oh, wait, that probably has CO2 in it and that causes global worming. my bad.

.

Naked Injustice

Zimmerman is acquitted of the charge of second degree murder.
The Federal Injustice Department is now bringing the unlimited resources of the U.S. Government to bear on this travesty of white white-hispanic on black crime.  A meeting by our illustrious Attorney General has been held, reaching out to anyone and everyone that can find some little shred of evidence that would allow a Federal hate crime suit to be brought against Zimmerman.*
And you thought NSA leaker Snowden was a man without a country?
This is precisely the type of oppression and tyranny the Founding Fathers of this great nation fought against.

Zimmerman's best bet is to sneak into Mexico, throw away all his I.D., cross the border and enter into the U.S. as an illegal alien, wherein he will he will become part of the  protected and politically correct demographic.

Exactly where do you go when the Federal Government and every hood rat in the country is gunning for you, and you don't have the threatened release of the other half the NSA's secrets for protection?





* This will hit the blogosphere in a major way tomorrow. Mark Levin was talking about it on his radio show this evening.

In other news

Oh, I almost forgot.
As I arrived home from the auto parts store the news regarding the Zimmerman trial verdict came in over the radio.
Not guilty.
Let the riots begin.

It will not change a thing in your personal circumstances if you participate in a flash mob.
Only you can do that.
But,
you have to make that decision first.

If you decide you cannot, you cannot.
And odds being what they are, you never will.

grinding noise is a bad thing

So said Proud Hillbilly in comments the other day.
Yes.
Yes it is.


Wait, there's still a little friction material on that pad.  Belle didn't quite get 100% of her money's worth out that one. This is what's left of the outside pad from the driver's side of the vehicle.
The pad is sitting on wood boxes that originally contained pecan pies.
Mmmm pecan pie.  They were long ago re-purposed for brake caliper support during brake jobs.

Did a number on the rotor as well.
Interesting thing is the passenger side rotor was smooth and shiny as a mirror, and the pads still had quite a bit of friction material on them.
If you, as the driver, are the sole passenger in your vehicle 99% of the time, your front brakes will wear faster than the back, and the front left will wear the fastest of all four.

Belle's '07 Malibu has a caliper assembly I've not seen before. The caliper is separate from the bracket.  The brake pads fit into slots in the bracket.  When I removed the caliper, the pads stayed put. My first reaction was, "hmmmm, this may be much worse than I thought."
Two bolts mount the caliper and two bolts mount the bracket. Caliper bolts were torqued to 26 ft. lb.s, no problem.
Bracket bolts were torqued to 85 ft. lbs., wherein my forward progress was delayed.
I finally managed to maneuver a 24" breaker bar with a socket onto the bolts.


The first wheel always takes me 3/4 of the total time for any shade tree brake job.  By the time I get to the second wheel, I know which socket, wrench, cheater pipe, hammer, etc. I need to get the next step done.
I almost look like I know what I'm doing by that point. ;)

So far the disassembly requires nothing more than a combination of metric sockets and wrenches..and pie boxes to set the caliper on so as to not strain the brake line.

Everything removed, ready for new parts.
Almost.









Next step, pop the cap on the brake fluid reservoir and check the level.  The fluid level needs to be drawn down in preparation for the next step.
A turkey baster and mason jar work great for this, as long as you can make it out of the kitchen with the turkey baster in hand without getting whacked with a rolling pin.

To get the caliper to fit over the new brake pads, the caliper piston has to be depressed to zero.  A great big C clamp does the job just fine.
If you failed to do the previous step, you will have a corrosive mess in your engine compartment.
Fortunately, the dust seals on the pistons on both calipers were in serviceable condition. So the calipers were not replaced and the brake system did not need bleeding.






And POOF!, just like magic, there it is all put back together with no extra parts or bolts.
I did not have sufficient room to get my big torque wrench on the caliper  bracket bolts with only one wheel lifted at a time. So, I snugged them up as best I could.  When both wheels were back on the car, I drove it up on my rhino-ramps and crawled up underneath to torque the bolts to spec.

$124 in parts and four hours including the trip to the auto parts store.
Hey, I've never claimed to be a fast shade tree mechanic. I apply the Hippocratic oath, well part of it, "first, do no harm".
I go slow and don't force things. (pay no attention to that hammer in the pic).
Doing harm can turn a four hour job into two days.*








* or a turn a twenty minute light fixture change out into two days if you happen to drill through a water pipe :(
Fools tread where angels fear to go.

Sharknado?

Who saw that?
I'm scanning through the cable tv guide and there's a movie on with a worse title:
"Mega Python vs. Gatoroid"*
Sharknado has been burning up the intertubes for a few days now.
Based on the movie titles I'm not watching either of them.






* I did not make that up.

Perry is not running for governor of TX again

My predictions from 30,000 feet:
Perry is going to take a really hard run at the presidency again. Hopefully not recovering from back surgery hopped up on pain killers this time.

The libtards will bring out the long knives. God forbid the governor of the one state that is providing half the new jobs in the entire country should be elected to the President's office.*

Our Lt. Governor is sure to take a shot at the Guv's office.  Seeing as Ted Cruz bitch slapped Dewhurst in the Texas race for the US Senate. And now, fortunately, Ted is up there kicking the shins of country club republicrats.  Dewhurst would have been another John McCain.

Our Attorney General, Greg Abbott, will make a run for the Governor's office.  He will, metaphorically,  eat David Dewhurst on the campaign trail.
I will snort, snark and laugh heartily. (not a prediction, a fact)

I will also never forgive my state senator, Dan Patrick, for endorsing David Dewhurst. The speed with which Dan's bible thumping, deeply religious pious soul got corrupted I found shocking. (that is also a fact, not a prediction)







*Just a friendly note to all you recent transplants with out of state plates still on your cars.  You shit your bed where you were. If you did not check your liberal politics at the border, please kindly deposit them in the refuse container prior to the next collection day. Do not, I repeat, do not place them in the recycle bin.  Liberal politics have been repeatedly recycled and they still do not work. I know, it's very hard, but it's time for the landfill.

Oh, By the way

Says Belle at the tail end of a conversation this afternoon.
"My brakes are making a grinding noise".
"Front or back", I asked.
"Front"
So it looks like I'm doing a brake job tomorrow, or Sunday. Whichever day I can muster the inspiration.
I think I'll snap some pics and turn it into a post, seeing as Borepatch was asking about this a short while ago.
 Lord knows I haven't had the energy to write lately.  Work, work, work..more work. No weekends off.
Deadline today. Major Deadline last Friday. Another deadline next Friday.
One nostril came above the waterline this afternoon and I took off a little early.
The forecast for tomorrow is sweaty, dirty and greasy.

You know you're old when..............

You are Bad Company on stage and people are waving canes instead of cigarette lighters in the audience!!!

Yes that IS Bad Company with Paul Rogers on the stage.... and YES that is a cane being waved from someone in the front row.

Last night, I took Bootsie to her first rock concert and she was thrilled to be there.  She's a huge Bad Company and Lynyrd Skynyrd fan.  Bad Company really rocked the house, it was great!  I'm not a huge Skynyrd fan but they did well also.

Bootsie was the one that pointed out the cane waving to me and we both got quite a laugh out of that.  It was a great night though it was really hot and the venue is outdoors.  We had excellent seats and Bootsie learned that even us 'old folks' know how to rock n roll!!

So a thank you to my beautiful daughter for asking me to take her to the concert.  It was a great mother/daughter outing that I will cherish forever!