Archive for 2017

Cold Things

It was about 25-30 degrees below freezing here yesterday, so I tried to make good use of the opportunities.

First: defrost the freezer

We have a standalone freezer in the basement. It holds extra food, which doesn’t stay extra long when there are four growing boys in the house. This freezer has needed defrosting for a few months. The main indicator of that was a dish that I wanted to get out of the freezer but I couldn’t – a thick layer of frost was securing it to the shelf.

But with the temperature outside the house being approximately the same as inside the freezer, I simply moved all the food outside, turned off the freezer, melted the ice, and the freezer was good as new again.

Second: teach the kids the dangers of frozen metal

The younger two boys were joking about licking a lamp post. I thought it would be good for them to see a demonstration, to quell their interest in the subject.

I gave Gamma a wet paper towel and brought them outside to the lamp post. I explained a little bit about what would happen and then I had him touch the post with the paper towel. He was surprised how quickly it stuck, which was the point of the demonstration. Usually you have to wait for things to freeze, and I didn’t want them thinking that about licking a flagpole, or touching any frozen metal with damp skin. It freezes immediately, so don’t think you’ll get away with anything.

I’ll assume they learned their lesson. In case they didn’t, I also warned them that it is very hard to yell for help when your tongue is being held hostage.

He casts forth His ice as fragments; Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17

Merry Christmas

No blog post today – we’re celebrating Christmas with the other side of the family.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Spring Compressor Tip

If you’re ever in the market for a coil spring compressor kit, get the kind intended for MacPherson struts or coilovers – not the kind intended for individual coils.

The way I see it, the spring compressors that attach to the outside of the coil can be used for any application, whereas the spring compressors that operate inside of a coil can be used only for standalone coils. It may be better at that one application, but it has limited applications. It doesn’t even work in all standalone coil situations – on my vehicle it couldn’t fit due to the bump stops. But the strut-style compressors worked.

So many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?”

2 Chronicles 32:4

Product Pitching After Retirement

My main memories of Dan Marino are of him in commercials for Isotoner gloves. It wasn’t until a couple years after that association was cemented that I learned he used to be a quarterback. But that doesn’t matter – if I see a picture of him my first thought is of Isotoner gloves.

Which I suppose means their advertising worked. Kind of. I never bought their gloves, but I certainly remember their ads.

And that brings me to today. I’m betting that the kids around the age of my youngest are going to remember Peyton Manning as the Nationwide guy.

And no, I will not buy Nationwide insurance either.

Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Genesis 40:23

All-Haiku Bowl Predictions, 2017

Based on the popularity existence of last year’s article predicting bowl games in haiku form, I present to you this year’s all-haiku bowl game predictions. Still America’s only all-haiku college football bowl game predictions.

These are listed in order of date (earliest first). Some picks are whom I think will win, and some picks are whom I want to win. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide which is which.
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Every Problem

As the saying goes, when you have a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.

In my case, I got an angle grinder earlier this year, and now every problem looks like too much metal.

The angle grinder is much more fun than a hammer. The kids like seeing the showers of sparks.

So far, the angle grinder has helped me replace ball joints, brake pads, struts, and shocks. Plus it sharpened my mower blades.

Also note: the angle grinder will take care of a variety of problems with nails too.

Young men worked at the grinding mill, And youths stumbled under loads of wood.

Lamentations 5:13

I Switched to Bing

I had Google setup as my default search engine for the Safari browser on my iPhone. I edited the link so that it disabled the autocomplete function, which gave a bunch of search suggestions as you were typing. I did not like that, mainly because my kids will use my phone from time to time and some of the suggestions were inappropriate. Plus I felt it was distracting and contributes to ADHD.

It was easy enough to disable – just add a string of “complete=0” to the URL and you’re good to go, just a plain search engine with no too-eager-to-please additional help popups. See my previous blog post on the topic of disabling Google autocomplete for details.

But Google changed something on Thanksgiving. I looked up something and noticed that Google was throwing possible search terms at me. “Is this what you meant to type?” “Maybe this?” “Look, a lot of people are searching for these words, would they interest you?”

No, Google, I am not interested in what other people are looking up. If I were interested, I would search for that.

At first I thought I opened the plain Google URL. So I made sure to use the special link. But no, the special link didn’t do anything anymore.

I poked around on the internet, but there were no suggestions. Changing the settings using the link at the bottom of Google didn’t do anything either.

I figured I might as well try Bing. Alas, Bing also wanted to tell me what other people liked searching for.

Lo and behold though, the Bing settings let me disable that. And it worked. I have set my default search engine on my iPhone to Bing.

Now when my kids want to look something up, I do not have to worry about hearing a question along the lines of “Dad, what does such-and-such mean?” Or even worse, not getting asked that question and having them click the Google suggestion.

I’m not a fan of Microsoft products, but I will gladly use Bing since it’s behaving like I want my search engine to behave.

Now a word was brought to me stealthily, And my ear received a whisper of it.

Job 4:12