Rodent

Maybe true, maybe not true, but I have always heard that the black paint they used dried faster than the other colors and Henry decided to make them black to move them along the line faster.

and windshield wipers

I received the kit and the paint a few days ago. I have a set of HMW wheels and Wilwood brakes on the way, and a Model Behavior RS conversion is on the way as well. I really wish they hadn't molded a bunch of the kit in black.

no, false alarm https://kevinmullin.house.gov/2025/12/11/false-earthquake-alert-mullin-committee-leaders-seek-information-from-usgs/

a vodka bottle

I am very happy that our good friend and forum member @RSchnell escaped California with his '55 Customline and no apparent injuries from the red (ish) '57 Plymouth lurking nearby, ready to pounce. 🤣

I bought a giant bag (31 'murican ounces) of Chex Party Mix a couple weeks ago for $2.99. I told myself that I could not eat any of it in the house, but I would put a handful in a Ziplock to snack on during days at the office. I have held true to that, and am not buying garbage in the break room to snack on instead.

Sorry Joel, I ordered the Model Behavior one already. Yours looks very nice though. I would have messaged you but you were away.

Thanks Raoul. I saw the LS conversions on FleaPay. They look pretty nice as well.

The price of an LFA and the quality of a Viper? 🤣

and the bill

My "old school" LHS used to carry "both" magazines. I enjoyed looking over the new issues when they came in, and I usually purchased one, the other, or both. They closed quite a few years ago because they wanted to retire and they refused to believe that it wasn't 1965 anymore. The surviving shop doesn't carry magazines.

Finally done it enough times to beat flat rate, and there is an easier way to do it than the Ford S.I. says, with less chance of breaking things (other than fingers). Cleared all the low voltage DTCs and reset the battery life with my handy-dandy Innova bi-directional scan tool 🙂 Tomorrow is the spousal unit's birthday. Happy Birthday Dear, I got you a battery for your present this year!

Focus has a dead battery (again) today. This one isn't even two years old. Any of y'all ever changed a battery in a 2012-2018 Focus? It's not the most pleasant task....

I didn't have much respect for Uncle Tony to start with, but the things he said about NASTF were somewhere between uninformed and outright ignorant. They are definitely on the side of the independent repair shops and locksmiths. ETI (Equipment and Tool Institute) as well. Without their support and lobbying, and work with the manufacturers, independent repair shops wouldn't be able to work on newer cars, and "smart" keys would be dealer-only items. I understand secure gateways, but I am a little surprised that Hyundai didn't supply a hack to retract the rear calipers without a scan tool. Most cars with electric parking brakes have a sequence of some type that puts the calipers in service mode.