The New Commuter

ScottDate: Sept., 2008

After living in Seattle for so long, I really got used to taking the bus everywhere. My move back to the Midwest has reminded me of how much you really do need to drive to get around. My commute alone is 30 miles round trip. Thus, 150 miles per week, 50 weeks per year, so if you do the math (which you know I will) means I will be driving a minimum of 7500 miles to and fro work. Yikes. Well my trusted Explorer is running fine, but getting 18-19 miles per gallon (which is rockin' for an Explorer) was hitting my pocket book really hard when gas was $3.50-5 per gallon. Not to mention the Explorer is 14 years old with 150K miles, a major repair is looming after driving it on a daily basis. Thus, a search for a commuter car has been underway since January of 2008. 

After long and hard searches on numerous websites, car dealers, scalpers at auto shows, and back alley economy car deals, I finally found a car on Craigslist that met most of my criteria for a new commuter car. I was looking for a car that was going to get at least 30 MPG, not too many miles, a manual, and somewhat sporty (after all, got to look good some of the time). I found this hail damaged 2001 Honda Civic with only 77K miles on it. Because of the hail damage and its...obvious appearance...it was in my price range. So I cashed in some of my savings and now I have a new commuter car.

The purchase of this new cruiser happened on the eve of an almost 3 week trip to the UK for work where I was going to be working four different projects in four different cities around the UK. I did allocate some time to see my best friend Vinay and his family who live outside London for a few days. Thus my new purchase sat idle in my garage with my Explorer having to sit outside, oh the tragedy. The very next week, the market crashed while I was in London. It was very surreal to be in a foreign country while watching the news that the US economy was dropping like a rock. There was about a week delay and then the market in the UK started to crash all the time everything was blamed on the US for the cause of it all. Which we all know, is sort of true and not. Anyway, the longer I was in the UK, the better the exchange rate got. It actually fell 15% in just over 10 days. Interesting times....

Bosses, we don't need no Stinkin' Bosses...

ScottDate: July 2008

Working for a company rather than an academic institution has had required me to make many, well a s@#$load of adjustments on how I try to perform cutting edge ideas and fabrication ideas. One of the biggest adjustments involves now I have a "Boss" to my work. Now, in academia, you are pretty much your own boss when it comes to many of the technical aspects of work, but now I am subjected to the whims of someone else. My experience in industry has provided me with some very critical traits that are good or bad  when it comes to bosses/managers, (i.e., I've had crappy bosses, good bosses, and even crappy good ones). But it really comes down to if can you work with the individual or not. This was a deciding factor for my decision between taking a job in Minneapolis with a heck of a lot more money which was exactly the type of research position I wanted vs. coming to this huge corporate giant with less pay, more exposure to different technologies, working with more universities, and just...bigger. The manager decision was a deciding factor. Guess what...I chose wrong...the manager was crap.

I found out immediately after my AZ canyoning trip that my manager was leaving the company, and to all places, the company I had a previous offer from in Minneapolis! This really left me worrying about my time at my present position. While my manager was crap, he was good at getting and obtaining really neat projects for our group to work on. But when it came to actual "managing," well there was none of that, it was a free for all. He had a very different view on how to assign projects to his subordinates and I was one of the massive casualties of his lack of managing skills. So much, that a number was placed on my board signifying how many more days I was going to remain at the company. The poor managing lead to the majority of my stress and was a main reason why I did not even want to update my blog to let you all know how bad things were actually going....we'll get to that.

So while waiting to see who would replace my manager/boss, I started looking for new positions just in case. To my surprise and anger, an exact duplicate of my position had opened up in Seattle. You can only imagine how angered I was. It had already been filled so I was still in a holding pattern while interviews were conducted and I went manager-less for 3 month. My projects span out of control, political lines were drawn within our group and I wondered more and more about my decision to leave academia. 

Luckily the hiring committee selected a new manager who is working out just fine. Things within the group have settled down and I am doing much better. During my performance evaluation which is done in 3 stages throughout the year (for me by 3 different people) I learned that even someone with my background is not usually placed as a PI (principle investigator) on a project their first year of hire (allows you time to get to know the company). My response was, "So it is unusual for me to be the PI on 3? Where each 3 are on non-related technologies?" I was even able to write a proposal and get external funding during that time. Not too shabby for a "new hire." 

I am the PI on 3 projects for 2009, but I am used to it now. The new manager has worked out fine and my travel for this year should be more under control. I estimated that I was on the road a total of 2.5-3 months in 2008. Hence the emptiness of my house! I have been able to see some very interesting places in the UK and the country. It is pretty cool to be able to get this close to a multi-million dollar vehicle. I guess my job does have some perks....

Messin' in MESA

ScottDate: July 2008

I was lucky enough to get to work with some people out in Mesa, AZ who had a similar love for the outdoors as myself. One of them was planning a week long backpacking trip at the same time I was heading out there for some work. Unfortunately for them, they had some cancellations on a backpacking/canyoning trip. Fortunately for me, I was able to join them for a shortened trip through a canyon in norther AZ. Ironically, this is the same area where all of the alien abductions occur and where a particularly famous one in which they based a movie on the event, "Fire in the Sky." Luckily for me, I have not seen the movie, but my two traveling companions had. They were not too happy to be reminded of the possibility of alien abduction, it's their own fault for bringing it up! The first night camping by the truck made for interesting interpretations of the massive humming of the mosquitoes, shrieking of owls, and drone of the hummingbirds. I slept great. Thanks to a friend for the use of his bivy sack. I'll have to pick one up, that was way cool.

This would represent my first ever overnight trip through a canyon where I would be spending more time hiking through water rather than on a trail. Actually, using the term "trail" here is over stating what we were hiking through, bushwhacking and being whacked is more accurate. I've hiked through areas where bears were a factor, but not where stepping on a poisonous snake was more probable. Actually, about 50% of the time, I have no idea what I was going to step on (water, grass, mud, solid rock, moving rock, weeds, sand, gravel, my foot, slippery rock, etc.) I guess you can get the idea. Bears are easier, you just have to yell out "Hey Bear!" often, (i.e., see Sept. 2007 posts for reference). Needless to say, no one was bitten or even saw a snake, way cool.

The hike/trek was great and I forgot all about work, which is tough to do for me, 'cause I like thinking of new crap, which is part of my job. And yes, a lot of my thought do turn out to be crap, but I got my PhD to PROVE it is crap, that is harder than you may think (or maybe not and I am just making myself feel good).

I only have pictures of the aftermath of the trip right now, so I will up load more pictures later. Thanks to my traveling companions to have purchased water proof digital cameras. My camera was displaced (thought I lost it) in the truck, but I only had a water proof container for it. After the trip, I am confident that it would have been destroyed due to all of the water we trekking through. We even got to swim through one portion. Way cool. 

I was dropped off at the Phoenix airport to take the shuttle to pick up my rental car. Nothing like sitting on a crowded shuttle bus when I have been hiking for 3 days through dirty, algae infested, crawdad populated, swamp water.  So I'd like to apologize to everyone on the shuttle bus to the rental car facility. I am sure I was a lovely sight and...ummm smell. 

You can see from the pictures of my bony ass legs, that the blackberry bushes had very sharp thorns which like to cut flesh. Lucky for me  do very well with discomfort on the trail. It's discomfort in the hotel which is tough.

More pictures of the actual trek will be posted later...stay tuned.

Mustang, Oh you pain in the @$$

Enter time travel effects here....ScottDate: August 2008

I thought the move to the Midwest would offer me numerous opportunities to take the Mustang out on the roads. I soon found that every time I went out for a drive, the mustang was overheating. Now for those of you that know a lot about the 1960's mustangs, they are notorious for overheating problems. My baby was no exception to this problematic design of an all but too cool classic muscle car. I had even upgraded every part of the cooling system to mitigate this troublesome problem, but in kept creeping up at every opportunity. After replacing all the hoses, coolant, thermostat, flushing the radiator, and a bit of praying (I am after all in the Bible belt) I was getting desperate! After  consulting a restoration manual, I concluded that my baby was leaking combustion into the coolant (thus adding super heated gas to liquid) which was causing the overheating problem. 

Remedy: Replace the head gaskets. If you plan to tear an engine that far down, its not too much more trouble to just yank the engine.....and transmission.....Yeah, well it sounded good at one point, trust me. But hey, I have my own garage now (sorry Mike, your place didn't get to see this one). Time to call the parents, grab the cherry picker (apple pickers are too bulky) and pulled the engine with the help of my brother, we'll call him Eric.

Next came the rebuild. If you have an engine out of your car, the car Gods demand you take it apart and make it better, which I did. That effort on the engine made me $1000 poorer. But all of that work seems to have paid off. The new valves, guides, timing chain, paint, gaskets, and love has made the engine so much more responsive. It also gave me the opportunity to clean and detail the engine compartment so I don't have to feel embarrassed to have the hood up when I let her strut her stuff at car shows.

The next step was to find a new Automatic Over Drive (AOD) transmission. New tranny? Scott, I thought you said that the car was overheating, not having problems with shifting...Well you are right, the transmission was working just fine and dandy, but since it is out of the car, might as well replace it, right? Well.....sort of. The real reason for putting a more modern transmission in the car was to go from a 3 speed transmission to a 4 speed, thus a highway gear. My MPG was expected to go up about 30% (Peder would be so proud of me) and the gearing for gears 1-2-3 would not change, it's a win-win, well....maybe not. But let's keep going with the story. So after long searches on ebay, multiple craigslists (yes all over MO), and even mustang websites, I located a AOD transmission out of a 89 mustang with a 5.0L (that's a 302 for all you old timers like me) for a $100. I thought it was in Lebanon, IL, but it turned out to be in Lebanon, MO. Hmm....about 16o miles from me, but hey, I didn't have anything going on that saturday. I get the transmission and to my surprise, it looks to be in very good shape on the outside and even signs of a recent rebuild. I got it all cleaned up...see...all nice and pretty to install (please God let it be ok). Here is the universal tool used to clean automotive parts (just make sure it's your wife's)

You guessed it, the transmission was fried. After taking it to a local transmission shop, it would lock up completely when it tried to shift into second gear. Equivalently slamming on the brakes when it shifted. Not good. So guess what, the transmission needed to be rebuilt.  Darn, my gamble to buy a cheap working transmission on craigslist has blown up in my face. Well, it was a $1400 explosion. With all of the new linkage, yoke, u-joints, and misc. parts, my estimated $1200 work has turned into about  $3400 ordeal spanning 6 months (instead of 2). Luckily, Mom & Dad bought me a new transmission for X-mas (it even has a 12 month 12K mile warranty). This is ironic since I haven't driven the car 5K miles in the 7 years I have owned it. But hey, new engine, new transmission, new brakes, new....other things, it is all ready for the fun in spring, which is only 2 months away here. 

The mustang is now all back together and running strong. Not everything is working though. Somehow all of the instrument gauges that were functioning before I took everything apart, are not functioning. No worries there. What is worrying, is the instrument gauges that were not working before ARE now working. I really haven't been able to figure that one out. But hey, it's a cool car!

Back by Popular Demand!

Ok, I have had sooooo many people asking why I have not been updating my Blog that I have decided to reactivate the account and start to update the status of things here in St. Louis. Since it apparently has been almost exactly one year since my last posting, I guess a few things have happened since then. I will be "retroactively" making postings over the next few days/weeks to get up to activities that are happening in the present time. Luckily, I will not have to go to far back, but I will have to go to a land far far away...Yes, here in St. Louis, Missouri. For all of you that have not made it east of the Rockies on land, Missouri is pronounced: me-'zur-ee NOT me'zur-a (those that do we call hicks).

First of all, I am actually surprised to see the picture of my house with nothing in it, mainly because it actually looks almost exactly the same...i know it is sad, but my efforts have been focused elsewhere...Yes, you guessed it,  my baby...the Mustang (yes it deserves to be capitalized). But we will get to that later. Now off to the next postings...and don't forget to strap in since you will be taking a ride of your life (well actually my life).

It's amazing at how busy things can get. I have finally gotten some time to update the blog. So here are the long awaited pictures of my home, the front and the crowded living room.

Work is going fine and next weekend I will have my house warming party. Not too shabby, considering I don't believe Mike D. has had his housewarming party and he has been there over five years. Anyway, just trying to get things in order at home and in life, so I'll have to see what I can post for everyone. Of course, feel free to call if you want your own personal update. Cheers.

Money...what's that....

Today is the day that I have been preparing to tackle for the past 2 months. Of all things to do, I have approached today with great anxiety and force of will, but when you get right down to it, I've been just down right scared. Yes, I need to establish residency in Missouri, which includes having my Explorer inspected and changing my drivers license. The state of Missouri only has 7 simple documents that you need to present in order to pay money to allow your vehicle to wear the stately badge of "Show Me State" on its front and rear (licence plates for those of you that are not following). First and foremost is obtaining a state safety & emission inspection of the vehicle. Which until recently, you had to go to two separate places to obtain. Well, now you can go to one place! Yippie. Next, I head to city hall to prove that I don't owe any personal property tax on my vehicle in the state of MO, which is funny, considering I can easily prove that it has been registered in Washington state for the past 7 years. Then I need to prove, that I am who I say I am with a passport, social security card, out of state drivers license, and I believe a segment of my umbilical chord from birth. Finally, show proof of insurance, have a speedometer inspection, and something else. With all that said....

I am having the safety inspection and it turns out that all four ball joints on my Explorer are completely shot. To the point where it was very likely that I would have lost my front spindle while driving. Actually the mechanic is surprised that I am still alive after driving across the country! Just by jacking up the vehicle, we could almost separate them on our own...not good. Considering it takes months for the joints to deteriorate that much, I am puzzled as how Sears was able to do a front end alignment without noticing almost an inch of play in something that is suppose to be tight as a drum. So there goes $1K which was going to buy a couch. So anyone planning on visiting, be sure to bring your camping gear!

I have had a lot of requests for pictures of the house, so I will be sure to get those up on the next posting. Take care and later....Dude.