Saturday Stuff

Welcome to Saturday! Another week gone by. Sort of. It all depends on when your week starts I suppose.

Sometimes Saturday can be your Monday. If you have Thursday and Fridays off. Or you may have Tuesday and Wednesday off - making Monday Friday!

Confusing huh? I thought so.

What was I talking about again??

Oh yea. Saturday.

I am going to some weather spotting class. Why not. It is free and I have nothing better to do. I just have to show up at the appointed place at the appointed time. I think I can handle that. I just wish the appointed time was a little later.

NOBODY schedules things with people who are nocturnal in mind. It is like I am some kind of freak of nature or something.

Well I say NO! I am not a freak! Everyone else is. How do you know that humans are NOT supposed to be up all night? How do you know we are not supposed to roam the world when the sun is nowhere to be seen?

Oh yea, the whole "humans do not see well in the dark" thing. OK so you got me there. Maybe my schedule is a little screwed up.

At any rate, FREE WEATHER SPOTTING CLASS! If its free its for me. They will have FREE COFFEE too. Always a plus.

They better have free coffee. The class is at a police station. Have you ever heard of a police station that did not have coffee?

Me either.

BOAT NEWS! I have two more courtesy lights to install. And I have to run a new transducer cable. The lights will be easy to install. Just drill a couple of 2 inch holes (one for each light) and then some pilot holes for the screws that hold the lights in place. Then wire them in. Simple as can be.

The transducer cable on the other hand will require more effort. First I have to pull out the old transducer cable. This will be a pain in the ass.

And then I have to pull the new cable through. This means under the deck. There are some conduits under the deck for wires and cables and stuff.

Anyhow long story short - the unit was supposed to have a quad beam transducer, it seems to have either come with a dual beam transducer or the thing does not work properly, I send the head unit back in, they sent it back to me with a new quad beam transducer. I tested the new transducer and now the side looking sonar thing works.

Trust me here - you DO NOT want the long version. It is full of stuff about 455 khz beams and 200 khz beams and 83 khz beams and degrees of coverage and so on. VERY BORING! Even puts me to sleep.

The fish laugh at my stuff anyway. The sonar does not seem to find fish, and even when it does I do not seem to catch them.

How I Got Ford Motor Company To Give Me Free Food.

This post is inspired by a post on another blog about how renting a Ford Focus allows you to avoid tickets on road trips. Depending on the model you rent anyway. I suppose some of the GTX or whatever Ford calls them can be fairly quick for a 4 banger.

Anyhow I was a senior at Florida International University. One day while leaving a class, I think it was economics or some boring ass banking class or some shit, I noticed that some idiot had parked some car on the lawn by the Student Union, where I was going to grab some lunch and a beer. I had to walk past car man to get there.

As I got closer, I noticed a few more things. Like one of those self supporting tarp things. And then by brain kicked in. Why would someone be parked next to a walkway on the lawn by the student union? Something had to be going on. Otherwise the University Police would be clubbing someone like they were a baby harp seal. Nothing ever happens at FIU and the cops have to get bored doing nothing but parking enforcement and traffic directing.

And I was right! Something was up! As I got closer I saw what appeared to be propaganda, a very large cooler, AND a hot dog stand.

BINGO! My free stuff detector started to go wild. Yes, there would be the best of all kinds of free stuff - free food and drinks. All I had to do was play the situation just right.

So I got up to the guy. Hey is that the all new Ford Focus?!?!

At that point the guy was hooked. I had him. OH YEA! So you know about the all new 2001 Focus? Here, take some literature! The guy was a rep from Ford. Perfect. A sucker. Then he asked what kind of car I drive.

"I drive a 1987 Honda Accord. It runs OK but the AC broke and I really need a new car. My little Honda is starting to get body cancer (car talk for rust holes) and the trunk smells when it rains (water was getting in through the body cancer). Also the AC is broken". Now the hook was set. I pretty much said I was going to get an new car, which was true. I look like the sucker now.

So I take the propaganda and move closer to the large cooler. Man it is hot today!

HERE! Have a soda! Just open the cooler! Jackpot. I open the cooler and every kind of soda known to man is in there. So I grab a Coke. Then I go to look at the tricked out Focus that is parked there.

It had an upgraded sound system that actually sounded pretty good. Of course any car can have a good sound system if you put in premium speakers, a sub, and a large amp. According to the guy, all this was available as dealer option. But it was a total scam. You paid the dealer, then the dealer called a local stereo install shop which then sent some guys to the dealership to install the upgraded stuff. So why not save a few darn dollars and just go to the shop yourself?!?! Mr. Ford guy was probably sorry he said anything at all.

At this point I had to up the ante and fast. So I say "well I have to go! I need to get lunch". Lunch?! I have a hot dog cart right here - help yourself. PAY DIRT! All I really wanted was the free food anyway. This way I would have more money for beer. It is a simple matter of economics, which I had just finished hearing about for an hour or so. So I grab a hot dog. And another soda, which I stashed in the backpack. Free lunch = more cash to pay for beer.

So what other features does this car have? Then I learn about all sorts of stuff. Like the intermittent wipers. And the built in power inverter. And the cool rear spoiler thing as part of the "GT" package upgrade. And the engine with its whole whopping massive 130 hp engine - which is not really bad for what is supposed to be an "economy car". It is probably fairly quick for a 4 cylinder car in its class.

Meanwhile I scarf down another hot dog or two. And stuff another few sodas into ye old backpack when the guy was not looking. And scarf another hot dog. I was fairly hungry.

So now I am full, and not thirsty anymore. So I have to ditch the guy.

"How much will this car tow"? What do you mean how much will it tow? Like in the hatchback?

No, I mean tow. Pull. Can I get a class III towing hitch for it? Because I plan to get a jet ski and possibly a 17 - 21 foot boat. The boat will weigh at least 3,000 pounds. Will this car tow a 3,000 pound load?

Uh, I do not think so. But why do you want to pull 3,000 pounds?

Well you see, I like boats and the water. So therefore I need a boat. And since I can not afford to keep my boat in a wet or dry slip, I have to trailer it. Therefore I need something that can tow a boat. But really, if this car can at least pull a pair of jet skis on a small lightweight trailer I can probably deal with that. I would estimate a pair of jet skis would weigh at last 1500 pounds, so a 2,000 tow rating will work. I can always borrow a Dodge Durango 4x4 to pull a full size boat.

So the guy consults the owners manual in the glove box. Bad news. The Focus is rated at 1,000 pounds towing capacity. Or something like that. It probably could tow a pair of skis, but it probably would not like it very much. It all depends on the transmission really. With 130 horsepower it should be able to pull skis.

Ahhh. Too bad! I kind of like this little car, what with its cool built in power inverter and such. I guess I will just have to get that 2002 Toyota Tacoma Pre-Runner 4 door pickup truck with the v-6 engine and the 5,000 pound tow rating. And I already have a 1,000 watt inverter I am going to install in my truck (I still have not done this yet - the Focus inverter was something like 150 or 200 watts - enough to power a laptop computer).

And then I leave. Full, not thirsty, and with three or four extra sodas stashed in the backpack. All for free. Thanks Ford people!

Also it should be noted that in 2000 there was a massive mega rain storm that hit Miami. Everything flooded. I was at FIU that day and just as one class was letting out the rain started. I had another class to go to, but I skipped it and bailed for my little Honda because I did not like what I was seeing. I know rain, but this was RAIN! Anyway the campus flooded and lots of cars stalled out and class was canceled anyway. The parking lots and roads went under water to the point where nobody could tell where the roads were. People ended up in the middle of fields, and cars were in standing water up to the windows. Had I stayed on campus the Honda would have been toast. As it was I parked it as close to the house as possible and water still got into the trunk - creating a wet sock smell for a few days.

With the memory of the great flood of 2000 in my mind, and the perceived need to pull jet skis, I got the Tacoma Pre-Runner. It has enough ground clearance to drive through almost 2 feet of flood water without any getting in under the door. The air intake is high enough that the engine would not stall either. As long as I went slow I would get home. The Focus would be dead in 2 feet of flood water. Of course it has not flooded that bad here since then, but whatever. If I had bought a little car it would have.

I do not know if the guy going there resulted in a single sale or not. But Ford was pushing the hell out of this car to the "younger first time car buyer" crowd. That is what their marketing department said would be the most likely market segment to buy the thing.

Musings.

So you may recall something about some mystery good news! Well I can not contain myself anymore. So here it is! The revealing of the good news!

I got FREE TICKETS to the Miami Boat Show. Yes, while all the other people suckers had to pay to get in, I got in for free. I have the hook up. I got in last year for free too. When I say I have many minions I mean it. My operatives are everywhere, and are always on the lookout for free stuff I may want. Which is almost anything. If it is free, it is for me.

See how things work out? I wanted to go to the boat show for free, and I went to the boat show for free.

In totally unrelated news, do you brew your own beer at home? Well, do you? Cause the Boston Beer Company is sponsoring a homebrew contest! So if you are a homebrewer, enter your best brew. You may just win one of many fabulous prizes. Samuel Adams himself may even make a batch of your beer and distribute it! How cool is that? If my homebrewing stuff were not put away somewhere in storage I would enter this contest. I need to dig my stuff up and start brewing again. It is a lot of fun. It is a lot like cooking, only it takes several weeks and it gets you drunk. But it rules to have your friends come to your house and hang out drinking beer. You usually make 5 gallon batches at a time, so there is usually enough. That is FIFTY TWO 12 ounce bottles. If your buddies and yourself are heavy hitters you can make multiple batches.

Now for a little about today's sea shanty. The Sailor's Hornpipe. The hornpipe is a simple British woodwind musical instrument, consisting of a single reed and an animal horn. Think of a very primitive clarinet. Or a recorder with a real reed. Something like that.

Anyway, it was perfect for a life at sea. No metal parts to corrode. Simple to play. And so on.

There was a dance that went along with this tune. But sailors did not dance to this tune while ashore, so the exact steps seem to be lost to history. But the word on the streets is that sailors would preform dance moves to mimic the daily routine of a life at sea. Dance steps included "hoisting the sail", "swabbing the deck", "weighing the anchor", "drinking the daily ration of grog", and so on.

Oh another thing. For hundreds of years the British Royal Navy issued a daily ration of rum to all sailors. And in a strange coincidence the British were a mighty naval power for hundreds of years. They made the sea their bitch after Sir Francis Drake kicked the shit out of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

However, in 1970 the Royal Navy stopped the daily ration of rum. It was a sad day. Hundreds of years of naval tradition - gone forever. Silly Limeys.

Speaking of Limeys, we all know that means "the British". But do you know how this term came to be? Well I happen to know. I do not know why I know, I just do.

Sailors were prone to get scurvy. This is a condition caused by a lack of vitamin C. It causes your teeth to fall out, skin legions, and bloody mucus membranes. Your body can not produce collagen, so your skin looses its elastic properties and is prone to simply fall apart. So the British Royal Navy provided each sailor a daily ration of limes or lime juice. If I were British, I would not consider being called a "Limey" to be an insult. The term hearkens back to a day when the sun never set on the Empire.