Netpurgatory

I’ve been going through old photos to scan so we can print some out to use for my grandpa’s wake tomorrow. I may write something about that or about him later (as in after the funeral on Tuesday), but this is actually about old pictures.

I came across some pictures of a Halloween from more than two decades ago. In it, I am wearing one of the plastic costumes from the 80s complete with the plastic mask.

And it is an Ewok costume (which I will not be providing pictures of).

I guess I sort of assumed I always knew the Ewoks were a pretty poor addition to Star Wars. I mean they were damned muppets.

Apparently, that was not the case. And if I can extrapolate from this to a general principle:

You probably think you were cooler in the past than you really were.

And even worse, you will probably never be that cool again (although I don’t have any evidence for that right now).

My wife, Beth, finally has her new webpage up.

Definitely cleaner and better organized than my page. You can probably find our wedding and honeymoon pictures on her pages. Good luck hunting things down on mine.

(And, it is all Valid XHTML1.0 with no frames or anything).

A few weeks ago, the clock on my 2002 Subaru Forester stopped working. It would usually show a blank screen, but would occasionally turn back on (usually with the correct time). Based on previous experience with Subaru and things I’ve read online, it seemed liked that this would not be under my warranty (they once said that the metal cover to gas cap was “not part of the car” and therefore was not under warranty) and would be very expensive to fix.

So, with a a lot of help from Beth’s father, we fixed it ourselves. I had trouble finding anything about this online, so I’m going to put up some pictures of what we did. Since most of the Subaru is held together by flimsy plastic tabs that break very easily and since soldering is involved, do this at your own risk.

First, you have to get the clock face out of the car. I can’t provide much advice other than do it carefully and use some flat too like a flat head screwdriver. Once that is done, unplug the clock from the car.

Now that the clock has been removed, you need to get the clock part out of the plastic housing. Once again, this involved little plastic tabs that break easily. Things still hold together even with one or two of them broken.

Here are pictures of the two plastic pieces that come off the clock:

Circled in red is the resistor that wasn’t connected well. Just solder it back on (luckily Beth’s dad is better with a soldering iron than I am), but everything back together, and it works again,

And finally, here it is put back together and in the car:

I never bother with these quizzes, but I liked this one. And I kind of like the result. I think.

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity. 

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

The best thing about New Year’s day is definitely watching The Twilight Zone all day (and eating some leftover turkey).