Joe Handley

That's what that was?! That was kinda freaking me out in the middle of the night when this house was doing that! I don't remember it happening in 2014 and it's been so long since it got this cold back in the 80's that I don't remember that noise at that time either!

I poked my head out the second story bathroom window at home about 10:45am for no more than a couple seconds and felt my beard start to freeze over. We're not working today and my Sister and her husband are also off work. According to Accuweather, we are currently at -22°f ambient and -55°f with the wind chill factored it

We're around 4° right now, but tomorrow may be more like -14°- to -29°, with a wind chill of -41° or lower

Haven't run across this with our two Samung TV's, hopefully they're too old for it.

You would think, this one might just not be smart enough, it was on the lower end of the price spectrum, from what I understand.

Not sure which of the above versions it is, but I just discovered that the original movie can now be watched on Amazon Prime!

This bugs me too, different YouTube videos are all over the place and on my SmartTV it can range anywhere from 15-45 on a volume scale of 0-100. There are cases if the video has ads at the begining or end, those can be way louder than the video itself, or in the case of Jay Leno's Garage videos, the audio can be difficult, especially if his guest isn't used to having to "project" any while talking. When I actually watch TV on it, I have to crank it up to 35+ to be able to hear that, since for some reason the program volumes are way off compared to most of YT. Then there's people like Mom, who will have a similar TV cranked to 70%-80% at all times. If we can't hear her or have a TV or YT video in another room loud enough that we can hear it over the TV she watches and she can hear it she thinks we're the ones going deaf, or I can hear what Hallmark movie she's watching over the phone because it's so loud

The History Guy on YouTube just did a video on that blizzard, sounded like it was a mild hurricane with a lot of snow, from what he described. Funny thing about what you suggested about the streetlights, I think I read somewhere that London was going to add street side chargers (that the car owner has to pay to use, of course) to light poles to help with charging while the cars are parked on the street.

I wouldn't waste my time or money on alcohol free gas, we've left fuel in small engines without issue in recent years without issue, and being in the Chicago Suburburbs, E10 is the lowest alcohol blend that's around.

My office closed early today and may open late tomorrow due to the weather (freezing rain right now)...........kinda nice to have a job that closes before the weather gets bad so we can get home safely vs one that closes "early" since staying open would cost money due to lack of customers coming in.........if the store closes at all. We had one DM when I was at Toy's "R" Us that let other TRU's in the area close due to a pre-Christmas snowstorm around '99-'00, but decided the one I worked at could stay open since it was in a wealthy suburb and a lot of residents could afford to buy and operate SUVs.........not so sadly, he was fired in the year following that decision.....

If your emissions testers are like ours, they don't always know much about cars beyond what it takes to do the job......which got easier with the elimination of pre OBD2 vehicles from testing, now all they have to do is plug into the OBD2 port and cycle the key on.

That was their owner, Hobbico/Great Planes, but you never know who from their had input on Revell's production.

It would have neen interesting to see how electricity and alcohol fueled vehicles could have evolved without WW1 and the 18th Amendment, or the continued ban on hemp growth, since that was Ford's preferred feed stock.

Wonder how fast an electric belly tanker would go with today's tech.........

Dad and I are in the process of bring my semi-neglected '98 XJ Cherokee back from the brink and in the last year have spent around a $1k to do so, It started simply enough last year with a new battery from the now closed Sam's store that wasn't far from here, but discovered a fuel leak, so instead of airing up the tires I left it parked until it was too close to our bi-annual emissions test (basically drive to the station, they plug into the OBD2 port and so long as it doesn't show any recent codes, you pass). When looking for that leak, Dad found a rotted fuel line connection that is in the direct line of the winter salt spray had broken in two......by where the exhaust header attached to the crossover pipe. Fixed that and found that it wanted to over heat more than normal, considering the leaky radiator, but it passed the emissions test while overheating in the building the computer was getting read in! Finally looked into that and found that besides the leaky radiator, that leak also rusted up the second, electric fan all 4.0l XJ's have so bad it would barely turn when forced and sounded like it was full of sand! Well Dad managed to fine a beautiful, nicely made 3 row aluminum radiator for a shocking $100 and aux fan for less than $80 on Amazon, picked up a new water pump, just in case, from Napa and put those in over the course of a month (winter in Chicago with a garage that is less than great sucks) got those swapped in after I got new tires put on it before the work was started, only to find voltage and misfire issues. I ordered an Accel Super Tune-Up Kit and Dad swapped out the bad plug for now and put the rest of the tune up kit on it plus used some belt conditioner in case the belt was just shot (the tune up, radiator, and belt were installed at least a decade ago by us) and there is still an intermittent voltage issue that could be a combination of belt slip and dying alternator, but it works well enough and stays cool like it should. I took it to work on 1/18/19 and it worked great until I decided to take an extended drive home, only to have the brake pedal go straight to the floor in an emergency like situation (unexpected red light without time to stop normally or hammer down and make the yellow) and the warning light come on! Luckily I was able to get it home with a combination of manual shifting the AW4 and using the hand brake to create enough drag to further slow and then hold the truck still! Took a couple hours to get my heart rate back to a not elevated level, even though I got the truck home safely. SInce a storm has blown in, we haven't had a chance to see what failed yet, but the below is a pretty good description of dealing with things on this truck lately, and likely the same for a similar project that you might buy. If you look at the spot on the concrete by the left front tire in this pic, I should have put more thought into what that being there meant in relation to the brakes...................... IMG_20190106_125140_793 by bjoehandley, on Flickr

That about has me in tears

Just thought of something that makes me really happy, now that I'm no longer at my old job, I don't have to spend an hour mopping the floor every night when it snows! This is the third winter that I don't have to try and mop salty water off that ********** epoxy coated floor

Look up the "Dog Fart/Cat Puke" video on Youtube, your Wife might consider herself lucky

Had some new Jeep parts arrive today

Finally got one of Mom's Christmas presents I ordered a week and a half before Christmas and paid extra for expedited shipping. It didn't ship until the weekend before New Years, according to the email I got, then finally arrived today. I'm considering contacting the company I bought it through and requesting a refund on the expedited shipping right now.

When we did it on my '98, Dad wanted nothing to do with the airbags and said he'd rather pay somebody to do the work vs deal with bags going off. Just had it replaced on my 200, but since I bought the lifetime extended warranty, I paid the $100 deductable and let the dealer do the work. I don't think they went that far on the 200, the center console is better reinstalled and the dust on the dash was the same as when I dropped it off.

Never got around to taking the pic, let alone mentioning this with the holidays, but got new tires for my '98 XJ just before Thanksgiving........now it's time to chase a misfire........

What was the torque curve like? the Pentastar starts pulling hard around 1500rpm and doesn't seem to let up, and if I'm just cruising, I can more or less leave the tach at 3k and the car still accelerates. I swear the curve must be more of a big flat, fat plateau than a curve

Here's pone that still has a PRV motor in it, now making about 220 N/A HP and weighing in at 2500lbs!

Speaking of weight out back, instead of an LS, why not look at the modern V-6 engines, way more than enough power, especially when compared to the PRV and should be lighter than the LS. The 3.6l Pentastar in my 200 is plenty powerful for the car's 3600lbs and plenty quick for a stock FWD, stick that in a car that is lighter and can better put that power down. From what I've hear, people are starting to look at GM's 3.6l LFX V-6 and swapping them into Miatas and while they don't have the biiig shove that the LS Swapped cars have, the make for a better balanced car and have more than enough reliable N/A power for such a little, light car, plus, much like the Pentastar, they stick them in dang near everything they sell including RWD applications! http://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/gm-engines/lfx/ https://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=610911 And the Pentastar. https://www.pentastars.com/ Most useful part of this swap beyond the commonality, is that both engines use single outlet exhaust ports on the heads, which makes things easier when dealing with getting the fumes out of the engine and into the rest of the exhaust system Did a little looking, looks like these engines are both under 350lbs, can't find weight for the N/A Ford Duratec V-6 yet though