Some Blog Site

For some reason or another, the song Baby Shark is very popular with our kids. All our kids, from the high-schooler down to the second-grader.

The problem is, after hearing one or more of them singing/humming/whistling Baby Shark, I find it is easily stuck in my head too.

In order to share this wonderful experience with all of you, I present ways to help keep the song foremost in one’s mind.

Try asking your kids the following questions:

• What’s the best Mario Kart track?
• Why is that room scary?
• How do you know which tree is a dogwood tree?
• Why won’t my car start?
• What do the herald angels sing?

Trust me, after a few of those questions, the kids will be begging you to stop.

If you want the answers, scroll down.

• Baby Park
• Cause it’s dark
• By its bark
• There’s no spark
• They sing hark

Okay, okay, it is 2019 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2018 because they match with the 2018 predictions made in 2018 for the 2018 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2018”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.
Read the rest of this entry »

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.

The 2018 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• MPWHFA: 63%
• MPW: 61%
• HTW/ITP/DP: 60%

No new prediction methods this year. Either no one could find a better method, or they did but they have moved to Vegas instead of commenting on this blog.

And if you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 63.3% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

We have a corn stove to help heat the house. It’s like a pellet stove, but instead of wood pellets it uses corn.

Because of that, I need to buy a decent supply of corn. Local feed stores have it in 50 lb. bags, so I buy several of those at a time and fill up the bins in the garage. This last time I had a couple extra bags that didn’t fit in the garage, so I just left them in the Jeep.

For those unfamiliar with winter driving in the Midwest, it helps to have extra weight over the rear axle for rear-wheel-drive vehicles. My Jeep (97 ZJ, in case you’re wondering) can be shifted into 4WD, but I leave it in 2WD until I actually need 4WD.

A lot of people get extra bags of something they’ll need anyway and just leave them in the back of the vehicle all winter. Dad used to leave 40 lb. bags of softener salt in the van. I figured I’d leave the corn in the back of the Jeep all winter unless we ran low and I couldn’t get to the store, in which case I’d use that then just leave some of the next batch in the Jeep.

Fast forward a week or two. The Jeep had been sitting unused that whole time. I got in it and needed to get something out of the glovebox, and I discovered a handful of corn in there. I know I didn’t put any corn in the glovebox – it’s all supposed to be in the back of the vehicle.

I went to the back and checked. Sure enough, there’s a hole chewed in the bag of corn and some small critter had been helping himself to my generous supply of his winter food. I immediately unloaded the corn into the garage bins, finding remnants of corn underneath the back seats.

I went back to the Jeep, and drove it as I originally intended. I noted, however, that the heater wasn’t blowing right and sounded bad.

So, the next day that I had some time for it, I went out to the Jeep and got some tools and took apart the blower.

On a side note, if you need to take the blower motor off a ZJ and you got the three screws out and it’s not cooperating, it’s not clearing the relay. Take the fuse panel off, unplug the topmost relay, and then you’ll be able to get it out.

Anyway, back to the story. Once I got the blower out from under the dashboard, it was easy to see why it sounded bad.

I cleaned the mouse nest out of the fan. Funny enough, it’s a squirrel-cage type fan design. But I doubt it was a squirrel that found its way into there.

I put the fan back in place and turned it on. It still sounded wrong. Certainly better than it did before though.

I took the fan out again. I poked the screwdriver up into the ductwork to see if I could dislodge any more nesting material. I got some, but the screwdriver wasn’t the best tool for grabbing stuff. So, very carefully, I reached up into the ductwork with my hand. I was able to pull some more out, and I think I got it all. At least all that was in that area.

I put it all back together (after I shot some WD-40 into the fan assembly because that helps just about anything that moves in a vehicle – notable exceptions being brake pads/rotors and the serpentine belt) and there was a slight clicking sound once I turned it back on. I turned the fan up a notch, and the clicking got louder. I turned the fan up all the way and the clicking got even louder, then I heard a small thunk and the fan was quiet again.

I’m not going to check. Everything is working now so I’m just going to leave it.

Moral of the story: don’t leave bags of anything in your vehicle that mice consider food.

One of the memorable quotes I like is “If you are doing something for the right reason, you will probably be doing the right thing.”

That might not be an exact quote, but I think I got the concept right. The context of the quote was an experienced engineer (Lyle D. Feisel, in Lyle’s Laws) advising a younger engineer on how to know if he was doing the right thing. The setting was engineering, of course, but I think it applies to much of life.

For example: if one child is wondering whether he should tattle on another child, ask him to apply this reasoning. Why does he want to tell on him – to get him in trouble or to keep him safe? This might not work, depending on the age of the child, since kids can be devious. But if someone can be honest with himself when answering the question, it works well.

There are some people who may not be satisfied with that rule of thumb, because there is not an objective standard for “the right reason”. And in some areas that may be true. In my line of engineering, I can ask myself “Would I be able to answer the customer if they questioned this decision?” or “Would I be able to defend this action if the federal regulatory agency inquired about it?”

In my case, I have years of working with the same customer, so I can reasonably ask that question to myself. Not everyone might have that same luxury, so their role-playing questions might not be able to provide guidance.

Even outside of engineering, this rule of thumb should work well. Not everything is going to be cut and dried, of course. But if you’re wondering how to decide on what the right thing is to do, then chances are good that you’re on the right path. If you’re asking yourself how to get out of doing something, then this line of reasoning probably is not for you.

I decided to have winter/snow tires for the minivan this year. They’re like insurance – you probably won’t need them, but if you do need them you must already have them installed.

To make life easier, I wanted dedicated rims for the tires. I have no problem keeping a spare set of tires in the barn when they are not being used, and I didn’t want to pay twice a year to have winter tires swapped and unswapped off the one set of rims for the vehicle. I’d rather pay a little extra up front for another set of rims and then it’s all set.

Then I started looking at purchasing rims.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »