On 3/24/2021 8:10 PM, Bruce wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Mar 2021 19:56:01 -0500, BryanGSimmons
> > wrote:
>
>> I used to have a 1992 Metro. It was supposed to get 51MPG highway.
>> It got better than that. It was powered by a 998cc 3-cyl engine.
>> We blew out one of the the piston rings on one of the cylinders
>> going 85+MPH on the Turner Turnpike in Oklahoma, so then it was down
>> to two cylinders. A mechanic told us that those engines are sealed,
>> and could only be replaced, not repaired, but that the control module
>> had sensed that the defective cylinder was ****ed up, and had disabled
>> the fuel injector to it, so now we were down to two cylinders, and the
>> displacement? Do the math. I hath understanding enough to count. The
>> number of cubic centimeters of displacement of that little beast was
>> "Six hundred threescore and six."
>>
>> Yes. And you would have thought that it would have been the end times
>> for that little Geo (Geo does relate to Earth), and that there would be
>> horsemen, rather than horsepower in its future, but that little car ran
>> for 2 more years like that, and when we replaced it because it wouldn't
>> pass emissions testing in that condition, I sold it to a junkyard for
>> $50, where they intended to use it as an onsite vehicle for ferrying
>> parts around. When we got rid of it, it was still getting spectacular
>> mileage, and ran well. It merited an afterlife. All true.
>>
>> In retrospect, I should have realized that the Geo Metro was a *city
>> car*, and we shouldn't have pushed it to turnpike speeds. We also
>> shouldn't have driven it out to the Missouri Ozarks, and driven it down
>> a poorly maintained county gravel road, because it had inadequate
>> ground clearance, and try as I did to keep one side of the vehicle on
>> the crown of the road, I punctured the oil pan, and it took several
>> quarts of added oil to make it back to St. Louis, where we got the oil
>> pan replaced, yet the beast of an engine made it another year until its
>> repurposing as a junkyard ferry.
>>
>> These days, subcompacts sold in the USA are, TTBOMK, invariably powered
>> by 1.4 liter engines, and no non-hybrid gets anywhere near the MPG that
>> the 3-cyl Metros and Suzuki Swifts got in the early 1990s. Fiat even
>> manufactured a turbo 2-cyl that was available in Europe, but not here.
>>
>> EVs like the Nissan Leaf have their place as city cars, but only as city
>> cars. Hybrids are great, and plug in hybrids make the most sense for
>> compact/subcompact cars, but they didn't sell well because of the price.
>> The prices were high because they were outfitted with too much battery
>> storage, instead of being sold with minimal batteries, and empty slots
>> for adding additional battery modules as needed/preferred by the
>> consumer. That would have made the transition to EVs far more
>> practical.
>>
>> Standardized battery modules make sense, and we have a model for that,
>> the USB 5 volt that has become ubiquitous. Proprietary, oddball
>> batteries and charging systems need to go away, as do the extant
>> variations of USB plugs--one standard for 5V, and one standard for 20V
>> connectors would save a lot of time and trouble.
>>
>> For those of you who have read this far, I probably won't be posting
>> here much for a while.
>
> To be honest, I skipped this far. Car talk... meh.
>
>> I have a lot of other things toward which I need to devote my time and attention.
>
> You have to renovate your son's new house.
>
I'm doing very little of the actual labor. He's watching me do
repairs so he can do the rest. Today, I changed out a GFCI outlet,
but now he knows how. Most of my work over there will be outdoors.
Same thing here, and the rental property next door. Yesterday I cut
down lots of little trees, ivy and these nasty bush honeysuckles. I
cut them down, then drill a hole into the trunk and put in undiluted
Roundup. Were going to get all three yards looking lovely.

My son's back yard already has an apple tree, a peach tree, a sour
cherry tree, a red raspberry patch, blueberry bushes, and an asparagus
patch. I've already added black raspberries and blackberries, and
sowed tomato seeds directly into the ground. The peach and apple trees
have blossoms, and the blueberry bushes are budding out.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/361781...57718521847140

We're also doing a lot of work on our back yard, including having a
truckload of compost dumped on it. Before we bought the house, previous
owners had used a bagging lawnmower, and had put out the grass with yard
waste, which resulted in the back yard having only a thin layer of soil
over the gravel put down when the house was built in 1925. We're also
going to do simple repairs on the outside, spot tuckpointing and
scraping and repainting the wood on the windows, which has been
neglected for several years, including removing the storm windows,
painting and reglazing them and putting them back on. Plus, this year
I'm going to stay on top of keeping the apple trees in the front yard
sprayed. We planted a variety that has delicious apples (Pixie Crunch),
but which are very susceptible to a disease called Cedar Apple Rust that
is endemic in this neighborhood. Planting that variety here was a
mistake, but the trees are large and will be healthy and productive as
long as they're sprayed regularly, which I didn't do last year.

We're also removing the bush honeysuckles and all of the trees other
than the fruit trees (sweet cherries, a sour cherry, a plum and a peach)
and the one huge maple tree in the back yard of the rental property next
door. We're also going to change the rental terms, such that I will
assume responsibility for lawn care, and we will share use of that yard,
meaning that we will also share the harvest from the trees, and I'll be
putting tomatoes into the extant raised bed that I put in at the request
of a previous tenant. Next door also has grape vines that were put in
15 or so years ago, but never tended, so they have great roots, but need
hours of careful pruning to produce grapes worth harvesting.
>
>> I got my first Covid shot yesterday, and it's time to refocus.
>
> That's a side effect I hadn't heard of. Does a covid shot make you
> lose your focus?
>
What it has left me with is arthritis in my neck. Obviously it was
already there, but it was never noticeable until after having Covid.
Another thing is that the previous store director scheduled me just
enough hours to get my tasks done and keep my average hours high enough
to get the bargain priced health insurance, but the new one wants me to
work close to 40 hours, and has given me additional responsibilities to
increase my workload accordingly. It's not what I wanted, but she's the
boss, and they're well within their rights to schedule me up to 40
hours, and my hourly pay rate has more than doubled since I started
working there 5-1/2 years ago, so I guess I have no right to complain.
As I assume you know, able bodied persons are not eligible for
*socialized medical insurance* until age 65 unless they are poor--which
means both low income, and not having tangible wealth--so it looks like
4-1/2 years more of working full time.

I swore off Facebook last August, but I've spent a lot of time on this
NG since then, much of which has been engaging in the pettiness of
personal conflicts, and that's where I'm altering my "focus." I'm not
leaving, but just disengaging from the flame war crap, and recouping
that time and energy to devote to stuff that I should have been doing
all along.

--
--Bryan
For your safety and protection, this sig. has been thoroughly
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