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Unfortunatey I'll never buy another GM vehicle because of On-Star. My LeSabre is (was) exuipped with it. I never needed it, therfore never used it, and in many parts of Montana is totally useluss due to the lack of cell service in many areas. I refuse to pay for features on vehicles that I don't want.
I hear you there! My mothers Pontiac G6 hardtop convertible has On-Star. Totally useless here! My father and I tried programming it from out here. no dice. No reception. We took it into town on a hill top and tried again. No reception. We took it three quarters of the way to Alexandria and tried again. No reception. Totally useless! Well now that my mother is gone there's no point in keeping the car. There's still $15K owing on it. My father can't see any reason to pay for something he's mot going to use. Another point is it reminds him of her every time he sees it. I look the little car (one of a very few I like) but I have a bit of a hard time driving it due to my foot. I make heavy use of the cruise control. I can count the GM vehicles I've owned on one hand. 1969 Impala 4-door (jokingly called the Batmobile. It had a 327 V8 and two speed power glide tranny. It was a beat-up oil burning dog. It was just a fill-in car while I got a 68 Dodge Coronet ready for the road. The next was a 1982 Blazer that was a lemon from the day I got it. It NEVER worked in four wheel drive. I did everything by the book and every time it would blow the transfer the instant it moved. After I got that fixed twice I put a 'For Sale' sign on it and sold it to the first joker who came along with a strict warning about it's appetite for transfer cases. Next was a 1986 Pontiac Sunbird that I picked up used in 1995. I used it for two years then traded it in on a 1993 Buick Skylark in 97. In 99 I got into a head-on low speed collision with an 88 Century. Wiped the front of the Century out. The Skylark had a busted out lrft turn signal and a corner of the bumper was ripped off. It was still drivable so I drove it home. It handled well enough. O-dark-thirty the next morning I started it up to go to work. Turned the headlights on and the wiring under the dash shorts out and the car burned to the ground in five minutes. I didn't bother opening the door. I bailed out through the window! Next and not least with a 1994 Buick Century that I bought the same morning the Skylark burned down. I drove that car for eleven years. It was sixteen years old when I sold it for scrap. It was have still been useable if I replaced the fuel pump, but the car had too many problems, most of them concerning worn out electronics on the engine. It was on it's second engine. Original was a 3.1L V6. The second was also a 3.1L V6 but had been bored and modified to an over-cranked 3.3L V6. Lots of torque. Among the dangerous issues were three cracks in the bottom of the chassis. They'd been welded several times but kept breaking apart again. It was a break-up looking for a time and place to happen and I couldn't sell it to someone to drive knowing that's what would happen. So I crippled the engine and had the scrap yard come pick the car up. They happily gave me $100 for it and I gave them the title.
Got part of the layout vacuumed this morning, around a quarter of it. Then the rest of my day got knocked into a bicorne (cocked hat)! My father needed help sorting through some stuff (somebody has to do it) so I went to help. I had lunch AND dinner there. Salmon patties for lunch, cheese burgers for dinner, all homemade. Now I'm wiped out. My foot hurts, my knees hurt, my back hurts! Even my neck hurts. As far as layout work goes today was a total drag.
The forecast icon from the NWS says "Overcast, and Breezy"@ 30° F. In reality, its a steady snowfall, with about 1"+ already on the ground. Hopefully, the accumulation will not be as great as predicted, but what do they know?????
I'll have to deal with whatever snowfall there is in the morning.
Actually spent some time working on my railroad today, fixed two cars, and ran some trains. Not a bad way to spend a rain filled afternoon.
Wherein we are seeing sun and a high of 28F today...
I had a good day of rest yesterday....and we did take a walk around the neighbourhood...which was wonderful.
Today I get to go with a friend to the grocery store to buy some supplies...and see just how much energy I recooped here...taking it kinda slow...is the name of the game here
Well, got a few things need done here...better go do dis....
Good morning. It's 43° with 100% humidity. It'll be cloudy with a high of 68°.
My plan today is to get more vacuuming done on the layout. For this reason I got the Shop-Vac detail vacuum brushes out so I can get into those small areas where the regular Shop-Vac brushes just can't get to. Yeah it's slow going with those but it's easier than teasing out the dust with a small paint brush. Hopefully I'll have half the layout done today.
It's 27° F and sunny in Central Jersey this morning. There is some snow that needs to be removed from my driveway and sidewalk, about 6" or so, looking out. Some evergreens across the street are bent over, so it's a wet and heavy snow.
Otherwise, there was no loss of power, flooding or pestilence as predicted on the weather channel, so...........I guess we made out ok.
Unfortunately, I stopped watching the Weather Channel when they stopped being a weather channel, and started being an entertainment channel.
Now, instead of "one stop shopping" to find out what the weather is doing, I have to go to several different places.
Well I latched onto two 70's era Atlas FP7's today (UP and BN). The owner says they're in good condition and both run. I'll find out when they arrive here in a couple of weeks. Didn't do much on the layout today but I did get my cell phone and video camera recharged and the F unit trio of Frankenlocos were run for several laps around the layout. I also took photos of some rolling stock that may be used in a potential trade. So at least I got something done.
Well it's that time again and I have to call it a night. See y'all tomorrow.
Funny I mentioned the Jeep earlier. This is what it looks like now. Yesterday, after 360,096 miles, it blew a head gasket and spun a rod bearing. Time to bore it out and stroke it from a 4.0 to a 4.7
Plenty of sunshine here this morning..going up to ...tada!!...36F later on...yay!!!
Got a few things to do myself today..such as replacing popped bulbs and resetting clocks and such...seemed a power surge decided to come long and make my day...
Good morning. It's 69°F with 99% humidity and a tornado watch! Ugly, rainy and cloudy. The high will be 72°F.
Well we're under a tornado watch until 2pm. Currently radar shows a very ugly line of storms moving across central and east Texas in an easterly direction. I'm hoping that a super-cell doesn't use this area as a bulls-eye. My old trailer shrugs off lightning strikes fairly well but it has no defense against high winds. It'll either ride it out or some model trains will be scattered across the landscape. I will have already bugged out in search of a more substantial structure, most likely my fathers place. I'll be keeping an eye on the storms with this weather radar link that updates automatically.
No plans for any layout work other than a bit of vacuuming. No sense engaging in something complex just to have the power go off in the middle of it.
Funny I mentioned the Jeep earlier. This is what it looks like now. Yesterday, after 360,096 miles, it blew a head gasket and spun a rod bearing. Time to bore it out and stroke it from a 4.0 to a 4.7
That looks like a four door jeep cherokee 4WD. I've always thought those would make a good back-country explorer rig. Solid axles front and rear, 4 coil springs, good looking body. Yeah, I like those alot.
Well the weather was pretty ugly yesterday, and not just one part of the day. All day. At times the rain was so heavy I could hardly hear myself think over the noise of the rain coming down on the roof. There's more coming today. I lost track of how many times the power went out yesterday. My internet service was down at least half the day and then it went down last night. Now here's the funny thing, my satellite TV service was up most of the day except of course during the heaviest parts of the storms. It was down maybe a total of twenty-five minutes all day while the cable was out close to seven hours all told. Over the entire day the power was out maybe a total of eight minutes. The power outages were just quick flickers, just long enough to make everything shut down. This occurred throughout the day. So naturally I didn't get much done as there was the constant threat of the power going off and staying off for a while. I hate days like that. According to the weather guesser the chance of rain today is 60%, significantly less than what we got yesterday.
I had typed this post for my sign off last night but the cable went down again and this time was out until past midnight. See y'all later today.
