Frivolous At Heart

So I was going to Borders to get some coffee and as I was getting a parking spot- I hear this shredding sound of metal to metal contact. I look over and it looks to me, a young teen scraping the side of this poor defenseless truck.

I hop out of my truck and assist the bloke on how to remove his car from the truck. It was beautiful! I felt bad for the teen because he was just being careless. The ironic thing is, he didn’t know if he had insurance?

So anywho, I took two shots of the accident scene and handed the owner of the truck my card and if he needed these photos, he could e-mail me and I would send them to him.

Fender Bender, Car Scratch, Damaged Bumper

I’m sick as a dog. This has been the first that I have actually lost my voice. I was down for a week because I felt so terrible. I wish sometimes I can do what Jimmy Neutron did: shrink down to a germ size coodie and go battle the coodies that have afflicted me this terrible cold. Yesh- I watch Jimmy Neutron=) My friend’s name is JIMBOB as well=)

Anywho- my sister asked me to do her window treatment now that the blinds have come in via Home Depot special order. The blinds are beautiful. Installing them was pretty easy too! I do have a few complaints though… The company that we ordered it from, cut some of the blinds a little shorter than I had asked. There had to be shims installed and that created more work than I had anticipated.

The valances that came with each blind set were a little shy for fitment. It was the actually size of the rail blinds but the company didn’t take into account that the window widths are varying sizes and by covering only the rail width, this leaves the shims exposed ultimately creating an eye sore.

I will call the company this week to see if they can make amends. If not, I’ll go complain to

I could account to the many times I’ve needed a table rip saw. I’m pro-RYOBI because I believe in the product and for the price, you won’t miss a heart beat! I’ve spoken to all types of associates in HOME DEPOT and LOWES and they all prefer Dewalt or Makita. I come with little funds and prefer RYOBI.Why? Price. Reliability. Proven. I’ve used Ryobi for all of my projects. I’ve only had the reciprocating saw fail on me (wall unit and not the battery powered). It was partially my fault. Okay, maybe not. Ryobi needs to improve on their reciprocating saw units because they damn right suck. I had to go to Wal-Mart and purchase a Black & Decker one. I’ve put it through so much abuse it’s literally funny.

Anywho back on subject. I have a handheld 7inch circular saw- also Ryobi but any handheld saw isn’t that smooth and accurate and I really wanted a table saw that was portable. I’m going to be purchasing the portable unit Ryobi has at Home Depot. I simply can’t wait to get my hands on one.

I’m so not happy with the thought or purchasing ink cartridges over and over again. They cost 20-50USD a pop and I already went through 5. Arbitrarily speaking, that’s more than 100USD spent on ink alone and the darn printer was even that much!

I was on the verge of buying a Brother color laser printer because of the savings. 600USD for the printer and another 600 for the toner. The toners are 120-150USD per toner but that beats spending what I did because I know in the long run, I would be saving a lot of money going the laser route. I can’t even print 100 letter documents before running low on ink. I hate that!

I did some research on t-shirt transfer mediums and ended up buying a new printer and CIS (continuous ink systems). I purchased a brand new Epson R340 & the CIS system. I’m chucking my old Epson Stylus 925 printer STAT! I figure, every time I print something, it’s twenty pages in black/color, so why not waste the money on some new toys!

It’s a 95% savings on inks alone because you fill the mediums with the proper inks purchased from any retailer provided you purchase good ink. The CIS system is equivalent to 700 ink cartridge(s) changes. (700×35(median of 20+50)) – yeah, you do the math! This will be wonderful for my t-shirt transfer hobby! Now all is needed are sublimation transfer papers and an iron! Look out! I’m going to be adding a page dedicated to this hobby! You can be cool like me and use them too! You go HERE

Added few images:

I was quite nostalgic the other day… Do you ever get the feeling that you are missing something from the pass? I did that one particular day. I had the rhyme, the ring, and the reason: I was delving in the past and how I missed the innocent years. The song that reminded me of this was sung by Merril Bainbridge – Mouth.

During my commute, I was trying to remember this song and thinking of the beat that went with the lyrics- google is your friend because that is how I found her! I was so pleased I paid 0.25cent to download the song! Yay! Now I can delve in the past. I felt as though I was whole again in some distant years ago.

Odd isn’t it? I found it odd and quite fascinating at the very least. I could have just forgotten it and lost the chance of feeling whole? I’ve been writing a lot of things down lately because I want to keep mental notes of everything just in case I forget.

Very simple lyrics:
Mouth
Written by – Merril Bainbridge
From – The Garden
I feel like I’ve been blown apart
There are pieces here
I don’t know where they go
I don’t know where they go
Kiss me on my salty lips
I bet you feel little crazy but for me
We’ll be famous on TV
Would it be my fault if I could turn you on?

Chorus:
Would I be so bad if I could turn you on?
When I kiss your mouth
I want to taste it
Turn you upside down
Don’t want to waste it

I jump on you, you jump on me
You push me out and even though you know
I love you I’d be inclined to slap you in the mouth
When I kiss your salty lips
You will feel a little crazy, but for me
I’ll be famous on TV

So I got sick of using my water filter that was supposed to lasts 5 years. Boy how the heck did I fall into such a gimmick! I was being cheap plus it would last for five years?!!! Makes me angry because I still have crappy tasting water and ice with residue in it? Yuck!

So on to Home Depot I went. I compared the said water filtration system to its larger cousin which might I add, was fifty more dollars! Same brand, same design but (yeah, there is always a “but”) the thing you don’t pay attention to is that they utilize the same device but different filters. So I said to myself, “why buy the 150USD model when I can buy the 99USD model; when the provided filters expires, I’ll go ahead and purchase the filters designed for the 150USD model”. A stroke of genius I tell ya!

Just picture this filter instead of being yellow, its green. No magical difference in the way it works or hooks up to the device. The only difference is the price. Yellow filter equals 30USD; green filter equals 35USD. The green filter filters like 3 more particles than the yellow one does.

The whole thing cost me 160USD (parts to hook up to my fridge). Now I dont need to go buy bottled water as my main source of water any longer! Yay!

Funny how refridge water lines are 5/16inch and Home Depot and Lowes do not sell these “special” parts. Ace Hardware supplies all these parts at a “PREMIUM”. The connection you see below is 5/16 tube mated to 1/4 tube. The misc. parts in-between make this connection conversion possible!

These are misc shots of the installed filter a few feet above the floor so the young ones don’t get to messing things up.

fridge hook-up water filtration system hook up

I’ve been researching for quite a bit; round town and the internet. I wanted the best setup for the best dollar. Who doesn’t? I went to three venues in search of a deal on wheels but to no avail. All three places wanted 300USD and up. That to me, is very ridiculous and outrageous. So what if my vehicle is newer? It only takes a few tweaks to make fit for my vehicle let alone, mass produce it! Reese needs to do something about this!

A remedy? Sure, there are always other routines to draw from and achieve the same results. So what I did was measure my rear support beams (frame). Trucks have two steel beams running parallel to each other from the front to the back, north to south. It was roughly 37.5in. with two bolt holes spaced approximately 4in. apart.

The kit I purchased, was designed for domestic and foreign vehicles. Namely the Tundra, the larger brother of my Tacoma. I went to Wal-Mart with the measurements, opened up one of the boxes, … hotdog! It will fit! I was so happy I cried for joy at 109.00USD!!! I purchased that, the wiring harness (6USD) and a starter hitch ball and mount (20USD). It came out to a total of 145USD after taxes. Can’t beat that with a stick! I saved 150USD!!! I’m so proud of myself… Yes!

The easiest way I found installing it was by first installing the first piece. Let’s just call it the starter piece.

After you have that loosely bolted on, you can than slide the last piece on and adjust the length accordingly.

After cooking up a storm and filling a swear jar full of nickels, you are finally done.

The reason you see the long bracket hanging like so is because this was designed for the Tundra and the Tundra required a brace that would connect from the bottom bracket to the frame of the truck. I did not use it because it won’t fit and its not required. The Tundra requires such a brace (in theory) because the whole hitch assembly is only held on with two bolts (the other two bolt attaches to the brace than to the frame). Besides, I see kits designed for the Tacoma (2006), do not require a brace nor is a brace provided!!!

Take into consideration that I could not use the bolts provided with the kit because the Tacoma comes with four nuts already welded to the four holes. I had to purchase that separately at the hardware store (8USD for hardened bolts and washers).

Here is a misc. shot of the hitch. Pay close attention. The brand is “Bully”

Toyota Tacoma Hitch Walmart Hitch Hitch Wiring

“We are best of friends; our love is beyond that the love of lovers; we are friends at heart.”

-L.Nguyen

Through shallows a heart reaching beyond cinder core. Glow in light leaves ashy trails of distant forever more. A friend such I no more no less, thinks thy like dandelion; a signature in lock of shadows of imprint in letters and notes of yesteryears. A bee like I has plucked and plundered, nested cove: found I a home within…a heart… her heart.

Look high above and dream a tale of tall tales. Winds from east and dust from West. A music box lie just atop of windows’ ledge. Beyond the edges sprinkled with ashy dust. Holes of worms’ scattered around the box show sign of age. A tune springs lively as it ajar. Thus too, my friendship wakens when called. Like a good music box I am, you’ll always hear a tune you yearn .

Nestled in bosom; a place I lie. Dormant and alone I’ve always been. Never asked nor ached for better. Know less this that lie beyond no bounds, a love that contours and shifts like the many shadows plastered upon the brilliant sky that my love for thy are like the sands found upon natures’ soles. Simple, lasting, and enduring. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just close to extraordinary.

I was trimming my hedges and I have a hedger attachment to make my life a little easier. If you haven’t noticed, the trimmers are pretty lengthy. To say its cumbersome is to say the least. If you live in gated communities with houses that are five feet apart from each other, you’ll know what I mean by mobility when it comes to mowing or working on the sides of your house.

Anywho, the trimmer is 65 inches long or around there. Its a little long when you add the hedger attachment to it. So I got to thinking, “Now wouldn’t it be nice if it were a little shorter”. So I did just that. I had to cut it down to the length I desired. It took some welding and grinding to get things to fit nicely. Two hours later and I am done! It looks good so far! A total of 39 inches with the hedger attachment attached. No handle for grip but its fairly light and easily maneuverable. I think my six yr old nephew can start using it from now on=) Who knows, I might shrink the lawn mower, edger and the likes so that he can start doing my chores!

I have to mention though that the shaft is hollow and inside it, is a flexible steel wire that spins the tool(s). The wire is covered by a heavy nylon shell and its separated from ever touching the shaft by rubber bushings that slide over the nylon shell. The only way I could cut that is with my trusty bolt cutter. I cut it as close as I could to the head and welded the rest on very carefully as not to interrupt the engineering of the components.

I did not include all the photos step-by-step but you’ll understand the concept of what it took to complete such a wonderful feat. It only took a little of ingenuity and lots of patience. I’m going to rebuild this motor later on. Its very old I admit, about 6 yrs old 31CC Ryobi weed eater. I will take apart this motor and probably make a scooter for my nephew to play with. I’ll cap the speed to 3 mph for safety.

short Ryobi trimmer : Ryobi weed eater : 31CC Ryobi motor

What a list. I am doing a little upgrade to my current system: AMD 2.4ghz socket 754. The OEM CPU fan is a little noisy and raises my room temperature by 7-8 degrees F. I was a little annoyed by its loud fan noise. It was like a wind tunnel but except in my room! I wanted a new silent fan so went with the Thermaltake CL-P0220 100mm. I didn’t need a GPU fan but I wanted one anyways because it looked so snazzy so I went with the ZALMAN VF900.

The install went quite well. It took me about 4 hours to install and configure everything. The GPU did not clear a transistor so I had to use a dremel to remedy that quickly! The SATA drive was a breeze to install but a little loud. Louder than my IDE drives. Its okay though because I purchased it for speed and performance.

To install the SATA drive, I had to remove my primary IDE drive and set my second IDE drive that I had as [slave] to [master]. Once I had that hooked up, I had to boot from a Nortons Ghost cd and restore my backup to the new drive. The backup file was 10gigs. With IDE, to restore was 11minutes. With SATA, the restore was only 5.5minutes. I could only imagine if I was restoring from SATA to SATA. It would be blazing fast mind you!!!

Anyhow, temperatures dropped from the CPU about 10degrees Celsius. Plus, its much, much quieter- fans running at 1700rpm vs. the stock 5500rpm. I don’t know about the GPU improvements but I know its working! The ATI 1600 video cards don’t come with temperature sensing. Sucks but O well.