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As promised here are the pictures of the manual choke control I added. Had to do this because the hot-water controlled choke was stuck closed. The thermostatic coil that causes the choke to open did not get hot enough to open, presumably because not enough water was passing through the crossover in the intake manifold. The two options were to 1) pull the manifold and scrape out the garbage plugging it up and 2) add the manual choke control. I was all set to pull the manifold till I read a newsgroup post warning that quite often the manifold material itself corrodes away and can get so thin that it will develop holes while you scrape away the crud. That helped me decide to leave the intake the way it was and put in the manual choke. My brother also suggested it would probably be easier and quicker to do it this way.
Continue reading ‘Adding a Manual Choke to the Truck’ »

Thought I’d do a post with a bit more information about my truck and a few pictures of what I have done with it so far. First off are a couple of pictures from when I first bought the beast:

The truck had a camper shell initially and I got that off of it pretty quick. I thought it made it look even more like a clunker than it really was. You can also see here that I pulled off the chrome trim from the sides. It was pretty bent up and I knew I would have to do a lot of work on the side panels if I was ever to restore the truck, so I guess removing the trim was the first step. I planned on getting rid of all the mounting hardware for the trim as well. Most of it is adhesive stuff while at the end points and in the smaller sections it is sort of riveted to the body. The front of the truck including the hood, grill, front bumper and trim is all in pretty good shape, won’t have to do much work there. That’s about the only place where it is in good shape though.
Continue reading ‘Some more about my truck’ »

Well I found this at my local library on VHS and though I really hate watching movies on VHS I didn’t want to wait till the DVD comes out to see this film. It was good. It was not as good as Three Colors. I felt sort of detached from Veronique, like I was not really emotionally involved with what was going on in the movie. It is without a doubt a superbly crafted film, however. I think I’ll need to see it again on DVD before I pass a final judgement. I feel bad, but the limitations in the VHS format really distract me when I watch a movie that way. They also have Decalogue on VHS, but I will wait for the new DVD release to see that one.

I’ve been reading and watching a lot of stuff on WWII the past few weeks… Band of Brothers (the book and mini-series), Cryptonomicon, Black Cross. Though some of it has been fiction I think the fiction I’ve read has been fairly true to life. I had never had a real appreciation for what the men and boys of the U.S. armed forces experienced before now. I guess I never had a really big interest in it either. I had seen Saving Private Ryan and read the book… the same with Schindler’s List. I had WWII units in several history classes in school, of course. I think what opened my eyes to the bigger picture of what really happened at that time was when I thought about how things have changed since then… in particular, would I or many of the men that I work with or live around be able to do the things that our forefathers did? Is American society in general anything like the society that proudly sent its sons to Europe and the Pacific knowing the enormous chance that they would not come back alive… if at all? Do our leaders inspire the sort of confidence today that FDR inspired then? I doubt the answer to any of these questions is yes.
Continue reading ‘WWII’ »

I just purchased the Three Colors tilogy, which I had rented from Netflix and watched over the past week or so. I don’t know if I completely understand these movies, but I am enthralled by them. Sometimes a piece of media like a film or a book just will not leave my mind. That’s how these are. I’ve read all the reviews I can find on them and it seems other viewers are of a similar opinion. I vaguely remember when the films were released. I was in Italy on a mission and of course I couldn’t go and see them. I don’t imagine I would have enjoyed them at that point anyway. I don’t think I was mature enough then. It’s obvious I am not much of a writer as I can’t seem to describe what I really think of these movies. I keep thinking of things others have said and I don’t want to steal that. Maybe I’ll just quote directly from Roger Ebert’s review of the trilogy as it rang very familiar to me:

“I connect strongly with Kieslowski because I sometimes seek a whiff of transcendence by revisiting places from earlier years. I am thinking now of a cafe in Venice, a low cliff overlooking the sea near Donegal, a bookstore in Cape Town and Sir John Soane’s breakfast room in London. I am drawn to them in the spirit of pilgrimage. No one else can see the shadows of my former and future visits there, or know how they are the touchstones of my mortality, but if some day as I approach the cafe, I see myself just getting up to leave, I will not be surprised to have missed myself by so little.”

Read the review

I feel the same way about places I have visited and remember strongly and I get the same sort of nostalgic feeling when watching Three Colors. I’m now eagerly awaiting the rerelease of Decalogue on DVD so I can further my exploration of Kieslowski’s work. I rented the first disc of Decalogue a couple of years ago and watched the first two films, but couldn’t go any further. I guess I still wasn’t ready. Now I am anxious for more.

My daughter Marissa was born on April 12th. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to have an infant around. Yes it is a lot of work, but I am still of the belief that we have barely scratched the surface of the time and effort it will take to be good parents. I’m sure it will start to increase logarithmically once Jonathan hits age 5 or 6. Then the chauffering to school and piano lessons and sports and birthday parties and friends houses starts. Then the help with homework and extra curricular projects and scouts starts. Then the questions about life start! For now I am focusing on enjoying both my kids and especially my sweet little ‘rissa! She and I both love to babble at each other and she is getting really good at it. I’ve noticed that she is much more vocally interactive than Jonathan was at 3 months. Jonathan, on the other hand, used his hands a lot more. I guess that’s one of the fundamental developmental differences between males and females. She talks… he fiddles….

Together with Erica, I manage the little apartment complex where I live. It’s eight units which need occasional repairs, mostly to do with blocked plumbing it seems, and the upkeep of the grounds. Luckily we don’t have to deal with collecting rent or anything like that. The tenants are all young folks like us and seem to be pretty good people. so it’s a good little side job. The landlord gives us a discount on our rent in return for our services. During the summer months when there is plenty of mowing and trimming and weeding and watering to do on top of all the various handyman jobs it isn’t really worth what we get paid. The winter months are pretty easy, though, so that tends to make up for the summer busy time. At least we are not paying full rent while we try to save for getting a house. When we moved in we decided that we would not move again unless we were moving into a house of our own. That was 5 years ago this past March. We are slowly but surely making progress toward being able to get into that house… and none too soon, either, since with two kids now our apartment is starting to get a little cramped. I would like to be able to take advantage of the low interest rates currently available, but we just can’t afford to make that payments on a house in our current situation. We also don’t have much saved for a down payment. Another year or maybe two of saving for the down payment and paying down our other debts should help considerably, though, so as long as we keep focused we should be in good shape.

I’m currently serving as First Counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency of my ward. This entails making sure there is a teacher with a lesson prepared for our Sunday meetings and helping out with planning and execution of activities and service projects for the members of the quorum. I work with Matt Avila who is serving as president, Cory Kingston-1st counselor and David Jackman-secretary. The calling doesn’t currently take a huge amount of time, but I do spend at least a few hours each week working on it.

I bought a 1974 Chevrolet 1/2 ton Pickup truck in February of 2002. It replaced my 1988 Honda Civic CRX, which I was extremely fond of. I was sad to see little Rex go, but we really needed a truck to help with this and that. At the time I thought I would name the truck Rex II in honor of my first vehicle, but I still don’t call it that. I don’t think it has quite earned enough of a place in my heart to be able to take over that name yet. All I have left of the original Rex now is a license plate. Kinda sad.
Continue reading ‘What I’m up to these days, Part III’ »

In the afternoons Erica works at Sylvan Learning Center as a teacher/administrator and I get to spend time with the kiddies. I get home about 3:30 and she takes of for work till 7:30. We have all sorts of fun while Mom is gone. Sometimes we go to the toy store, sometimes we play outside or watch movies, sometimes we go to Nanna’s house or Unlce James and Aunt Chevon’s house to play. I try to make sure the kids get plenty of variety in what we do during the afternoons. Hopefully it’ll help build a good base of memories for them with their father. I’m glad Erica has her current job schedule so I get the opportunity to spend so much time alone with my guys!