Spring bloom

I have a couple of pictures of the sideyard to share as it is beginning to bloom nicely now.  The sages are all in bloom, the lavender has started as well as the orange bulbine in the foreground, however the germander, may night sage and penstemon are still working on it. 

Here's a crop of the same photo with more detail. 

I finished this project October 22nd of 2010, so it took a year to establish and at the ripe old age of 1.5 years it is finally beginning to fill in the space.  I can't wait for the front yard Hanna and I planted late last year to do the same.

Unfortunately the weeping willow tree on the corner had to come out.  It looked nice and provided excellent shade, but it was a very poor choice on behalf of whomever planted it--weeping willow trees grow in riparian stream corridors, usually with their roots submerged in a stream or lake.  When you plant them in an arid climate with only lawn irrigation water, the roots go crazy and surface all over the place.  Not only that, the tree was growing too big for where it was placed, it was a gutter-cleaning nightmare and I constantly had to trim it to keep it out of the street sign/light.  So my dad graciously volunteered to strap on his climbing equipment from his PG&E days and cut it down.

And off it goes to the Placer County greenwaste facility:

I will be planting at least two new trees in the sideyard.  This side is west-facing, so any trees planted here will shade the house in the summer.  I want deciduous trees so the house also receives sun in the winter.  They must not have invasive roots, must not grow too full in diameter and also not too excessively tall.  The trees I am targeting are the male ginko biloba near the corner of the lot:

and possibly an eastern or western redbud between it and the existing liquid amber trees.

Any other suggestions are gladly taken.

A few things we have done in the past month:
- Hanna bought Maria's full suspension mountain bike, so we're both riding a little now and plan to ride a bunch when it isn't raining every day.
- Hiking at New Bullard's Bar
- Got to see some of the best driver's from all over the world test their new Indy cars at Infineon Raceway.
- Spent a day in Petaluma.
- Visits with friends and family.

We have some fun stuff coming up soon, so stay tuned.

Where has February gone?

Wow, has it been a month already!?!  The past thirty days has pretty much consisted entirely of visiting with friends, something I obviously enjoy very much.  I had yet another birthday this month as did Rose and Michael.  I have also been pretty consistent about making it to the gym three days per week. 

Aside from good times, I finally made time to do the big repair that the Volvo needed to pass smog.  The intake manifold had to come off so I could replace the oil trap, part of the crankcase ventilation system.  The little black box straight down and to the left of the oil filler cap needed to be replaced, along with all of the associated hoses.

In the photo above you will note I was able to swing the intake manifold over to the driver's side with most everything still connected (throttle body, injectors, fuel rail, etc,) which made the job much simpler.

For anyone that knows engines, take a look at the intake valves in the pic below?  I didn't touch them, they were simply spotless!  I got lucky, this engine is in great shape.

Here it is all clean and back together.

Is now smogged and registered--no more ghetto-looking temporary tags for me.  The car is running great and I love squeezing it into the tightest parking spaces and not worrying about door dents or anything else for that matter.

Not much has been accomplished on the house, aside from dropping a couple of plants in the ground next to the entryway:

I added a GFCI outlet to the side of the house for landscape lighting.  Had I not done this I would have had the ugly low voltage transformer and photo eye in my entryway by the front door.  Now it's behind a gate and hidden from view.  The pipe coming from the transformer routes the cable under the walkway and toward the front. I plan to shorten the power cord to make it more presentable.

And finally, here is the front of the house with four LED path lights and two LED spot lights illuminating the front yard trees.  There isn't much to see right now since the Chinese Pistache is deciduous and currently has no leaves, but it should look great the rest of the year, and particularly in the fall when this tree is bright red.

I have received more complements on the lighting than any other aspect of the home improvement I have done, and quite frankly, it was probably the easiest project to-date.

Palm Springs

Hanna and I spent some time in Palm Springs over the holidays--what a neat place!  We hit the Palm Springs Living Desert Museum, which has a good sized zoo, native desert landscaping gardens and an HO-scale railroad with authentic-looking and sounding trains, buildings, tressel bridges and tunnels. 

I am starting to get why they call this place "Palm Springs."

Golden Eagle

With lunch

One very bored Wolf. 

Here kitty kitty

 

I haven't seen one of these in Roseville for a while; you forget how amazing their markings are.

HO-Scale Train

 

The detail was very realistic.  Just like real life, the paint is peeling off this Chevrolet product

Is that a Ford Pinto I see?

Heading south-east on Hwy 111 there isn't much of the town of to see; the really neat part of Palm Springs is on the 3-lane north-west bound side.  After visiting the museum we walked around downtown Palm Springs and had a really great Italian dinner on an outside patio.  The temperature was in the high-70s; gotta love winters in California!

Downtown Palm Springs at night

Holiday happenings

The holidays were a whirlwind...Christmas (a week early) at my house with Mom and my sister and Joe, Christmas Day at my father's in the central valley with my sister and Joe and Grandparents, followed by a trip to Los Angeles to spend time with Hanna's family, then a progressive New Year's party that started at my house with appetizers, followed by dinner at Maria's and then Ricardo's house for dessert.  My favorite is the new year's predictions we do each year.  Everyone makes predictions about what each other will or will not do over the coming year, then we look back what actually happened over the course of the year.  Everyone predicted that I would not fall off another cliff in 2010 (thankfully, that was true), that I secretly wanted Sara's (the roommate I had when I first bought my house) cat to go missing (not true!) and for 2011 they predicted I would still have blue tape on my ceiling marking the recessed lighting I never installed (that may end up true too).  They predicted I would work for the Department of Fish and Game in 2012 (many of the people at the party work there now) and also predicted Hanna and I would get married and have four children in 2012...I think the red sangria I made must have kicked in because that's a tall order for one year.  Anyways, it's great fun. 

Other than prepare for the holidays I have done little else other than tool around the house when free time presents itself.  I learned on YouTube of all places how to service a household heating and air conditioning system (HVAC).  The outside air conditioner condensing unit sucks in leaves, pet hair and dirt, which greatly reduces its efficiency.  I removed the lid, shop vac'd about 6" of leaves out, then rinsed the condensing coils with condenser cleaner and hose water.  The pool of mud that formed afterward was evidence enough that this maintenance was needed.  In the attic I entirely removed the blower wheel and motor for cleaning.  If you replace your return air filter every couple of months, you may not ever have to do this.  The blower is much quieter now and should push more air through the system.  When summer approaches I will do the final service--open up the air conditioning evaporator coil (sits just behind the blower and furnace in the attic--it's the device that gets cold to cool the house) and clean it like I did the blower wheel.  When the evaporator is covered in dust, the air passing over the cold evaporator coil is not effectively cooled, wasting energy.  I really enjoy learning new skills and I feel like I am becoming quite handy these days.  :)

Blower wheel out for cleaning:

I like tinkering with LED lights, so I hand-built some modules for the house to softly illuminate the perimeter at night.  I used metal spice tins with clear lids, mounted aluminum C-channel inside to act as a heatsink, a single 1 watt Cree LED in each housing, then strung wire between each light and connected them to a driver that drops household electrical current down to low voltage/amperage.  This is how each module turned out.  There are 11 in total--a few down each side of the house, two illuminating the driveway out front and one in the entryway.

They really aren't noticeable unless you know what you're looking for.  See what I mean?

And here is how it looks at night:  (front)

Side:

The pictures are slightly overexposed...the light is a very pleasing soft light and are placed on both sides of each backyard sidegate and along the entire length of the sideyards.  This also provides the benefit of acting as security lighting as well.

I have worked a little on the Volvo too, fixing some of the little annoying problems.  Many of the dashboard cluster lights were burned out as well as the lights that illuminate the switches.  Volvo wants $14 per bulb (!!), however thanks to the internet I read how easy it was to buy microbulbs from RadioShack for $1 each and wire them into the Volvo bulb holders.  I partially fixed the portion of the dashboard cover that had delaminated and pulled away from the rest of the dash.  It's much better than it was but still not to my satisfaction.  I will keep my eyes open for a used replacement.  Finally I did some more cleanup...the sunroof drip tray, insides of the door frames/trunk drip rail, etc., were all very dirty; now the car feels 10 years newer.  I installed used trunk struts so the heavy trunk lid stays open on its own and replaced yet more burned out bulbs--corner marker lamp, a license plate bulb, etc.  Volvo spent all of their research and development money on airbags rather than decent bulbs.  That said, I do like how every single switch, no matter how unimportant, is illuminated at night, the overhead lights are actually aimed so any passenger including the rear seat passengers could read at night and even the floorboards, center consoles and storage bins are illuminated.  Or at least they are now that I replaced a million burned out bulbs. 

Car masked off for rubber trim re-glazing:

With the trim now re-glazed black I will use the leftover product to turn the chrome grill pure black.  It would defeat my entire purpose of buying this car if I dumped a bunch of money into it, so I'm only willing to do inexpensive things to improve its appearance.  Here's someone else's car that also did the black-out work...I really like the boxy shape of these cars:

My total investment in this car so far is $45 including some bulbs, black body trim glazing, used trunk struts, adhesive for dash repair, etc.

The $1,000 car challenge

The goal, buy a decent car for $1,000.  Something to spare the 4Runner from the abuses of daily commuting including door dents from fat, lazy and disrespectful peeps, the damage that a 2-mile daily commute does to a car (cold starts followed by shutting down the engine before it reaches operating temperature), and the potential of vandalism/theft from leaving a car at park & rides and in downtown Sacramento or sitting at the airport.

A craigslist search for sub-$2,000 cars reveals these beauties:

A 1998 Cavalier for $1500.  Lots of dents and only one person was murdered in the backseat.

A 1970 Buick Riviera with no engine and transmission for $1,000.  While it would be fun to park this battle axe at the park and ride, pushing it there would get old quick.

An 89 S10 for $1,000.  Amazing photographer, I wonder if it has a front end.

This fine Accord for $1,200.  "It'll buff out."

$1200.  Rust included for no extra charge.

$1100.  Dented and ugly but runs.

$1300.  Most cars have to make due with a catalytic converter, while this one uses a "Cadillac" converter.

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So here's what I ended up with, a 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo for one grand.  

The good:  it has a very nice running and powerful 5 cylinder turbocharged engine, it has had a reasonable level of maintenance performed such as oil changes, belt and hose replacements, transmission flush, timing belt and a few other odds and ends.  Everything works, even all of the electrics.  No leaks of any kind and has brand new tires.  Mileage is a reasonable 129,000 miles.  Depending on which engine model I have it makes either 222 or 240 horsepower, making it fun to drive.  Gas mileage is okay at 19/26.  It has an airbag to coddle each and every organ and limb in my body in the event that someone fails at the art of driving.  The bad:  Front leather seats are trashed and covered with seat covers, the dashboard cover isn’t really attached to the top of the dash anymore (something I may be able to fix) and accordingly the interior has rattles, a crack in the windshield, the exterior isn't perfect and it needs a few maintenance items—driver’s side CV boot and the PCV and EGR (emissions system) need cleaning. The body metal on this car is so thick that you can barely open the trunk without the trunk struts, so that gets one check in the “bad” category and another check in the “good” category.  With proper maintenance these cars last a very long time.  Allegedly.

I brought the car home and did some cleaning.  Without even touching polish or wax of any sort, the body cleaned up way nicer than I had expected.  Things I assumed were scratches, discoloration and blemishes disappeared.  There is a crease in the passenger door and in front of the rear fender, but it’s hard to notice due to the color.  There’s a dent in the trunk lid as a reminder that talking on a cel phone while applying make-up and driving is a bad idea (was rear-ended) and the trunk-mounted spoiler needs paint.  Our fellow motorists are sure to bang it up even more, but honestly, I don’t think it looks too bad.  Someone at the park and ride saw it this morning and said it was “sporty looking.”  Sporty + Volvo do not belong in the same discussion.

I am daily driving it now, however after the holiday craziness is over I will pull it into the garage and catch it up on maintenance.  The driver’s side CV boot gets replaced first, then the intake manifold comes off so I can clean the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) and nearby EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valve that both clog at higher mileage.  When that happens it causes other expensive problems.  I don't like expensive problems. 

I admit though, I may have missed out on this $1500 Ford Econoline motorhome deal.  I could have made coffee or cooked up a batch of meth while I sit in the park & ride lot waiting for the bus.

Supercharged

The 4Runner got a boost in power last month via a Toyota factory supercharger.  These units were available starting in 1997 from the performance division of Toyota, TRD (Toyota Racing Development).  The supercharger does not affect the factory powertrain warranty and is 50-state emissions legal.  I got word that there were only 33 of these superchargers left in the country, so I decided to pick one up before they were gone.

On the workbench and ready for installation:

 The supercharger is basically a belt-driven air pump that forces air into the engine rather than relying on engine vacuum, which is the long way of saying it adds power to an engine without the inefficiencies that a really large engine would have.  Because the air gets thinner at altitude, a supercharged engine does not loose power at elevation like a non supercharged one. 

The old 1997 ad for the supercharger states "the TRD Supercharged 3.4L V6 makes more torque at 1,800 RPMs as the normally aspirated engine does at its torque peak."  The graph below is for 1st generation TRD Supercharger, which boosted the stock horsepower from 183 to 265.  The second generation that I have produces five more horsepower (total of 270) and 12 foot pounds more torque than shown below:

It adds 87 horsepower to the engine, but torque is what you feel in a truck.  If you look at the bottom graph, the red on top of the black is the amount of added torque, which is significant.  Once I complete installation of the kit that improves the fuel system, horsepower will be around 295.  And of course then I can add a smaller supercharger pulley and make over 300...nice.

I had an install party and Scott and Molly and Mike showed up to help.  Scott has had a supercharger on his 4Runner for four years now.  Install took about five hours and dare I say it was easy.

Here is the stock engine:

Off comes the intake manifold:

Manifold removed.  Everything looks clean and good:

Here is the final product:

So what do I think?  It's not fast (per se) from 0 to 60; it accelerates really well for a truck but it's nothing that would impress any sports car owner.  I have owned much quicker cars (a 430 hp Supra turbo), but that said this is the most powerful truck/SUV I have driven.  (That makes me happy because my old Supra is still the most powerful car I have ever driven.)  The big bump in torque means it goes up hills exceedingly well without slowing down, it has gobs of passing power and most important for me, it will take high elevation grades while loaded with ease.  It added as much power to the existing engine as some economy cars make in total.

Economy-wise, most owners claim anywhere from a 1 mile per gallon (mpg) loss to a 1 mpg gain, or basically a wash.  So far that's about where I am.  I seem to be about 1/2 mpg down, but that might be related to my heavier right foot as I get used to a much more powerful engine.  :)

I have owned nothing but Toyota trucks and 4Runners since 1994, but the new ones have gone downhill big time.  The last good year of the 4Runner is 2009.  The 2010+ 4Runners are so bad that it just made Consumer Report's list for vehicles that scored low or "don't measure up to the standards set by previous models" and was summarized with the words "a clear disappointment." 

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/03/2011-annual-auto-issue-new-cars-consumer-reports-car-ratings.html

I made a big investment into a 12-year old truck, which doesn't really seem like the most intelligent move, however the 4Runner is a long term vehicle for me...it's perfect for my lifestyle, it's probably one of the most dependable trucks made in the past century and quite simply, I like it and plan to keep it.  Oh, it's also paid for.  If I had to guess the future I would say that in ten years our cars won't be powered by gas.  Each American garage will contain an all-electric car or perhaps a hydrogen fuel cell car AND one truck for Home Depot, camping, hauling, towing, etc.  That's where the 4Runner comes in.