Blogger

 Got a new phone and am trying to sign in to my blog. It acts like I'm signed in, but if I try to comment on another blog it comes up anonymous. This post is a test to see if I'm signed in or not.

Roy Clark "Thank God And Greyhound"

   A couple months ago we were talking and The Old Lady asked, "Why can't some men live alone? Their wife dies and a year or two later they are married to someone else."

I said, "I have no problem living alone."

Then she said, "You'll be singing Thank God And Greyhound.

 

I'm going to miss that "crazy old broad in Texas"!

 Crazy old broad in Texas, saw that on another blog and it piqued my interest. I checked out her blog and I was hooked. We became blogging friends. One of our trips to Tejas we went to West and met Jackiesue at the Pizza House for lunch. She talked me into having a Skunk Egg, which you can only get at the Pizza House. We visited her several times and each time we would meet at the Pizza House before taking in the sites in West.

She called herself and her blog Yellowdog Granny after the old saying, "I'd vote for a yellow dog if it ran as a Democrat". She volunteered at a number of organizations in West. She really loved her town of West!

The last time we met was January of last year. She gave me a keyring and I will cherish it forever.

The keyring 

She led an interesting life. It must have been very interesting to have known her in her earlier life. 

Like the title of the post says, I'm going to miss that crazy old broad in Tejas! 

Going Solar

  In September we were living off the grid most days. We were campground hosts at a campground with no hookups. We had to use solar for our power. Below are the solar powered things we used.

When I say we were off the grid, I mean we were really off the grid. The campsite was just a place to park the RV with a tent pad and a fire ring. No power, no cell service, the Park Service gave us a walkie-talkie, but even that was hit or miss on whether or not you'd get a signal. There was water available, but it was on the other end of the campground. There was a water fountain with a spigot on the side that you could fill a container, no hose hookup. 

The Park Service gave us the solar powered radio (weather radio) and the solar generator to use. Mostly we used the generator to charge our phones and power our TV. When we were where we had cell service we'd download shows to our phones and then stream them to the TV to watch in the evenings.

 The campsite was surrounded by trees so I spent a lot of time chasing sunlight to charge the solar generator. The light and radio I just put next to the window to charge. I tried moving the solar panels on the roof around, but gave up on trying to find a good position for sunlight.

The closest place to get a cell signal was the Au Sable Lighthouse a mile and a half hike down the trail. Otherwise it was 5-6 miles down the road towards town. One day we took a drive to the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point and Nancy's phone kept alternating between "Welcome to Canada and Welcome to US". Whitefish Point is close enough to Canada that you can see it across the lake.

Solar powered light 

Solar powered radio 

Solar generator 

Solar panels on roof 

     
                      I started this post while we were still camping, but had trouble getting the photos from my phone to blogger. Recently I finally was able to do a work-around and got the photos on the post.                                              

I Got a Warning Label on a Post from 9 Years Ago

 While checking my email today I got a message from blogger that one of my posts now had a warning label. I found the offending post and looked at the video. I couldn't figure out why it got put behind a warning label. If you're interested check out the link.

http://mannikko.blogspot.com/2014/01/christies-top-five-excuses.html?m=0&zx=2c1916b975a5bc88

It's Done

 Got the truck put back together today. Temp in the low teens with a Northwest wind blowing snow around.

Ran into several problems while working on the truck. Got everything put back together and put the wheel on and discovered the new lugs were coarse threads and the old lug nuts were fine threads. Luckily I have a wrecked 2001 F150 and it had coarse thread lug nuts so I was able to get 8 lug nuts to put the wheel on. Just have to remember that 1 wheel has different lug nuts. Then when I lowered the jack I couldn't get it out. The ground must have started to heave with the cold weather.

Everything is fine now, maybe tomorrow I'll take it for a test drive.

Working on Old Vehicles is Fun

Old Bearing Assembly Removed 

Broken Stud Removal Tool 

The truck has had noise at highway speeds that led me to think it had a bad wheel bearing. Recently I checked the front brakes because I'd had to replace the rear brakes and thought I'd better check the front ones. While the wheel was off I tried moving the hub. I could move it up and down and side to side. Yesterday the weather was barely above freezing so I started working on the truck. Got the assembly removed and 1 of the studs that attach it to the front end. Today I tried removing the rest of the studs. Had trouble holding the assembly while trying to remove the studs. When I was able to hold it and using my longest breaker bar I broke the stud removal tool. Tomorrow I'll see if I can buy new studs. 
 

Naming Stuff

Our RVs have names and how they get names is different for each one. The motorhome was The Guppy, the travel trailer was The Bobber, and now the 5th wheel is Magee. 

My older brother had a class A motorhome and The Old Lady said it was a leviathan, so when we got a class C she said it's smaller so it's The Guppy.

When we brought the travel trailer home it was bob, bobbing along so it became The Bobber.

When we got the 5th wheel it was the new one (new to us) or the newbie as in Tim Magee on NCIS ( he was the newbie for 5-6 or more seasons). The Old Lady started calling it Tim, finally I said if we going to name it according to a character on NCIS, we should call it Magee as that is what he is called most of the time.

Magee 

The Bobber

This post was done entirely on my phone. Trying to learn how to do the things I've been using my confuser for.

Twitter-Bots are Fucking Ignorant

 Last month I did a tweet that got me locked out. After almost a month without being able to contact a human, I gave in and deleted the tweet to unlock my account.

The tweet that got me locked out was:

@thegoodgodabove It's not that politicians love guns, they love the money they get from the NRA and ammosexuals. They are just whores who do it for the money, cheap whores at that!

I immediately did another tweet with a couple of minor changes.

Ray Männikkö

@YooperKulkuri

·

Aug 3

It's not that politicians love guns, they love the money they get from the NRA and Ammo-sexuals. They are whores that do it for the money, cheap whores at that!

Can you boys and girls see what is different?

No Humans At Twitter

 

Post I did on Facebook after my Twitter account got locked out.

Been trying for over a week to get Twitter to tell me what about this tweet is against their rules. I guess there are no humans at Twitter, just bots. As near as I can tell the bot can't tell the difference between Ammosexual and Homosexual. I have appealed and been denied. I have responded to the email denying my appeal to no avail. Have yet to receive any response to my question of what exactly is against their rules about my tweet. 

Was about to add my phone number to get a code to get back into my account, but this morning saw a post about Twitter being down, something about maybe Elon Musk and Jewish Space Lasers knocking it out?

Hopefully This Experiment Will Work Out Better

Two years ago I tried an AT&T plan with unlimited data, talk, and text. That didn't work out like I would have hoped. When AT&T didn't work out (couldn't figure out how to connect the phone to my confuser and/or TV without doing a hotspot) I went back to TracFone. For me TracFone works OK, but The Old Lady kept running out of minutes.

http://mannikko.blogspot.com/2020/11/well-that-experiment-didnt-go-as.html 

 Kept seeing ads for T-Mobile's geezer plan (2 lines, unlimited data, talk, and text for $70 a month), but there isn't a store within 200 miles. Did my research and figured out T-Mobile has coverage where we live, so when we were in Hot Springs in April I signed us up. It is actually about $80 a month as my phone is $4 something a month for 24 months and T-Mobile pays half the Netflix bill and I pay the other half. We've been home for a couple months and the phones have been working fine. Had a couple of outages, but so did Verizon last week.

The reason I gave up on AT&T was not being able to connect the phone to my confuser and/or TV. I spent the last couple months trying to figure out how to connect my new phone to the confuser and/or TV and all the apps required WiFi and an internet connection. I'm trying to get rid of the DSL for internet because it sucks. We experience "rain fade", whenever there is rain or melting snow or a kid walks by the phone box with a juicebox, we have problems with the internet. Then a week or so ago we had a thunderstorm so we unplugged the phone line so the modem wouldn't get fried. She used her old TracFone phone to mirror to the Firestick a show that was downloaded to the phone. The phone had a built-in app for mirroring. Decided to check my phone and discovered it had the same app built-in.

The phone already had apps for Prime and Netflix. I installed Kodi and an add-on just like on the Firestick to watch the shows we like that aren't on Prime or Netflix. Now all I have to do is figure out how to livestream NASCAR and football in the fall.

The phone I have, a Samsung A53 5G.

Nice Day To Work On The Plowtruck

 The temp got above freezing if you call 32.9F above freezing. Sun was shining and I was able to work bare handed. 

A step I built several years ago to overcome
an eye problem, they are too close to the ground.

When I opened the hood on the plowtruck I discovered a problem that I hadn't noticed before. The vacuum line going to the power brake booster looked like it was dry rotted or cracked.

When I pushed the line back, this is what it looked like.

The first thing I had to do was replace the vacuum line. It had been running a little erratically lately and this may be the reason why. I happened to have a hose that would slip on the the fittings. It was labeled as transmission coolant line, but I figure it'll work as a vacuum hose, it shouldn't collapse.

New distributor cap and new sparkplug wires.

  

After getting the new cap on and the wires in place I fired it up. I could tell right away the I had some wires crossed. Dug out the repair manual, looked up the firing order and checked the wire locations. I did have some in the wrong place even tho I tried to be careful replacing one wire at a time. Would look at the old cap when I pulled a wire off and put the new one on the new cap in the same place. Anywho, it is running good now, which is a good thing because they are predicting snow for tomorrow.

A Funny Thing Happened While Perusing The Intratubes Last Night

 Last night after checking my emails I decided to look at old emails. When I found one from 8 years ago about a photo of mine being on a K.I.Sawyer site. Took a look at the site and in the photo section there was the photo that I was promised over 8 years ago would be removed. At the time I did a blog post about the photo.

http://mannikko.blogspot.com/2012/02/funny-thing-happened-while-perusing.html

The photo. It was taken the winter of '67-'68 at Dow Airplane Patch, Bangor, ME.

I went to their website this morning and sent them a message about the photo still being on their website over 8 years after I was assured it would be removed. I wouldn't have a problem with the photo being used, BUT IT WAS NOT TAKEN AT K.I.SAWYER!

I know for a fact this picture was not taken at K.I.Sawyer, The second car to the right of the guy walking is my '58 T-Bird and that car was never on K.I.Sawyer as it died on my way home and had to be towed the last 5-6 miles. It did make a trip to Alaska a few years later, but that's another story after I sold it to a friend.

I had done a post on my other blog about winters at the bases I was stationed at during my tour. Besides Dow Airplane Patch I mentioned K.I.Sawyer and Cape Cod as those were the places I was stationed. Someone must have done a google search for K.I.Sawyer and one of the hits was my blog. 

http://kulkurisjourneysandwanderings.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-dow-airplane-patch.html

It's clear that whoever sucked my photo off my blog didn't read the fucking post. The paragraph under the photo explained where it was taken.

It'll be interesting to see what happens about my photo. I didn't say what photo was the one in question, but I did copy and paste some of the emails back and forth from 8+ years ago. Let them figure out what photo I'm talking about!

Well, That Experiment Didn't Go As Expected

 Last April I decided to switch from TracFone to AT&T. AT&T had a prepaid plan where you get unlimited data, talk, and text for $50 a month with autopay. There was 5 something in taxes etc on top of that. I don't talk or text much so that wasn't the attraction, it was the data. I was looking for something better than the DSL we had at home. We were in AZ at the time and I had to buy the phone at Walmart as there wasn't an AT&T store where we were. If there had been a store it would have been closed because of Covid like the Verizon store was. Anywho, I looked online and decided on the phone and went to Walmart and bought one. 

This is the phone I bought a Samsung J2. When I went to activate it I put in the zip code where it would be used the most. The bastards gave me a new number before I could indicate I already had a phone number. Finally after 3 days of talking to Bangalore I got my number transferred. Then I couldn't get autopay set up and I was not going to pay $75+tax a month. Finally before the month was up I called the AT&T store close to where we live in Michigan and got help in setting up the autopay. 

While we were in AZ about all could do online was check emails, facebook, twitter, etc... Thought when we got home I'd be able to download TV shows to the phone and then watch on the TV, WRONG!!! The fucking phone would not mirror to either the laptop or the firestick. Googled it and the answer was download an app for mirroring.  All the apps said the phone and laptop or firestick have to be on the same wifi. I have 2 routers and tried using both. The message I got when I had both the phone and the firestick on the same wifi was no internet. Well, DUH! The internet was on the phone, but you have to turn off mobile data when you turn on wifi. If I had internet at the house I wouldn't need the fucking phone to watch TV shows! Tried connecting the phone to the laptop and all I accomplished was I could look at pictures and messages from the phone on the laptop. Also now I have to enter a pin number to access Windows 10. Pain in the ass!

There are 2 AT&T stores within easy driving distance of where we live (within an hour). I went to both and didn't get any help whatsofuckingever. First one told me to go the Walmart because that's where I bought the phone. Second one said they don't sell phones for the prepaid plan outright, go to Walmart. Went to Walmart and bought a different phone, not only didn't it do what I wanted it was less user friendly than the one I had. Returned it and got my money back. It's like they purposely restrict mirroring to LIMIT you unlimited data!

Anywho, we went back to the phone company for DSL and I went back to TracFone. Again I had trouble transferring my number. It asked for my AT&T account number and pin. The only account number I knew was the phone number and I had set up a pin so I used that. WRONG! On the day my service was about to expire I had to call AT&T and get the account number and a temporary pin. Finally got the number transferred to TracFone, but when I tried calling The Old Lady's phone got an error message and transferred to Straight Talk. After trying to fix it by calling, texting, online chatting with tech support I finally tried calling a different number and it worked. The problem was The Old Lady's phone was out of minutes. Funny part is I had been using her phone to talk to AT&T and TracFone to get my number transferred and then several hours later when my phone was supposed to work hers didn't.

Hopefully the Mileage Will Improve

Last year when we came back from campground hosting at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore The Guppy started running rough. Thought it was the O2 sensor and ordered a new one. Spent what good weather there was trying to remove the old one. Then in the Spring when I was waiting for the snow to melt, The Old Lady's niece and her family came to stay with us. They were living in The Guppy so I couldn't work on it. When they found a place of their own I started trying to remove the O2 sensor again. Finally I gave up and decided to get a nut that would fit the O2 sensor, drill a hole in the exhaust pipe and weld the nut on. That worked and I was finally able to install the new sensor.

New O2 sensor on exhaust pipe.

It still wasn't running right, so I thought I need to replace the EGR valve. By then we were campground hosts again at Pictured Rocks and living in a tent. On my way to Pictured Rocks I stopped at a parts store and ordered the EGR valve. When it came in I picked it up and went home. I replaced the EGR valve, but while I was doing that I noticed a elbow on a vacuum line that had a hole worn in it. Didn't have time to fix because I needed to bring The Guppy to the campground because living in a tent was getting old.

 After things cleared out and the black smoke lessened to the point where I could hardly notice, it cruised right along. The Guppy ran decent there and back. I think it got about the same mileage as before I did the work, maybe even a slight improvement. 

The part after it was removed.

After I got The Guppy home again I asked my neighbor who is a mechanic to look at the part and tell me what it was. He looked at the part on the top of the engine after I had removed the air cleaner and ducting so could see the problem part. He didn't know (he's not a Ford man, prefers Chevys), so I did a lot of googling of things like vacuum schematics for '89 E-350. Found what I thought might be it, but it was listed as "FPR". What the fuck is FPR? Finally found out it was Fuel Pressure Regulator. It allows excess gas from the fuel rail to go back the gas tank. Bought one, then came the fun of removing the old one.

This is the new part in place after removing the old one.

 There are 3 screws that hold the part on. They are allen head 4mm or 5/32. I had a set with a 5/32 allen wrench. In order to get at the screws I had to reach under the part and one of them I had to reach under fuel lines. I lost the wrench a couple times and found it again. Then I lost it and could not find it. I have lots of allen wrenches, but none the right size and shape. It needed to be a small L-shaped one. So I bought another set.

The Old Lady said why don't you put a leash on the wrench so you won't lost this one? I have some waxed lace that is used to tie wire bundles together on aircraft and thought that would be perfect for making a leash for the wrench.

With the new wrench I was able to remove the old part and install the new one. One of the screws was very hard to get at because I had to reach under the fuel lines and feel around until I get the wrench in the screw. Getting it out was easy compared to putting the screw back in. Two of the screws I could reach and start with my fingers fairly easily. The third one not so easy. I thought maybe a longer screw would be easier to install, found the right size metric screw and got it started. After tightening it about half way I realized it was too long, so I had to take it out and put the original screw in. I did manage to get it in and all the screws tight, put all the parts I removed for access back in place and got it running again. Hopefully the mileage will improve, but won't know until after we hit the road again some time next month.

Follow the Fucking Rubles

Recently I posted a video of Buck Owens song "I've got a tiger by the tail". On facebook I said for some reason it reminded me of the GOP. Now I'm not saying tRump is a tiger, more like a rabid skunk, in that if you are holding a skunk by the tail you better keep it off the ground. If you let it go, you'll either get sprayed or bitten or both. They are afraid to let go of tRump, because they know if tRump goes down they all go down. Not like that would be a bad thing, my fondest wish is to see the GOP become the Whigs of the 21st century!

The reason I say the FuckingRepublican'ts have a problem is they or most of them took so much Borscht-tainted money that now it's the reason their party color is Red! FOLLOW THE FUCKING RUBLES!

I have been saying for a couple years now #FollowtheRubles. How much you want to bet the real reason tRump is fighting so hard to keep his tax returns secret is that much of his income is in Rubles. tRump has been laundering Russian money for decades thru his various properties. FOLLOW THE FUCKING RUBLES!

The NRA (Now Russian Affiliate) laundered $30M of Russian money in the 2016 election. Many GOP Super Pacs accepted Russian money. And I wonder why the GOP is now a bunch of Russophiles? There are several reasons why I'm befuddled by this. 1. I grew up during the Cold War when the USSR (Russia) was the enemy. 2. When I was in the Air Force one of the units I served in was a predecessor to AWACS that tracked Russian bombers to make sure they were not going to attack us. 3. My heritage is Finnish, the Finns have many centuries of hating and not trusting the Russians. FOLLOW THE FUCKING RUBLES!

Linux

For a long time I've had an internet problem, several internet problems. Not sure which is the cause, the ISP, or Windows fucking number 10. Called tech support for the ISP a number of times last year to no avail. Once the phone repairman found a burnt spot in the wires, cut a short piece out and spliced it back together. Didn't make any difference. Lately I've done a lot of googling and it seems that Windows fucking 10 has a lot of internet connectivity problems. Tried some of the fixes and still have the problem. It's really frustrating when you click on a link and the internet goes away, or you go to leave a comment on facebook or Twitter and no internet.

Anywho, I decided I'd try Linux OS. I've been curious about it for more than 10 years. I googled how to install Linux. Found how to download Linux to a flash drive and try Linux from the flash drive before installing it. I did that and did a couple of test drives. Linux didn't seem to have the problems I had with Windows fucking 10 as far as connectivity went. Here is where I found the download.  https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Now I have it installed along side Windows fucking 10. Am writing this post using Linux, so we'll see how it goes.

Now I have to bookmark the porn sites all over again!

Finally Got To Use A Tool I Bought 10 Years Ago

Biscuit Joiner

Just finished a project where I used a biscuit joiner for the first time since I bought it. I spotted a biscuit cutter at Goodwill about 10 years ago, the price was right ($15 I think), so I bought it thinking I will use this someday. Well, that day finally arrived. Other than doing a few test cuts I hadn't used it until this project. Used it to cut slots for biscuits to glue a trim piece on the front of a countertop I made using flooring.

Biscuits

This countertop is in an awkward space under the stairs. Trying to fit a countertop in there would have been a lot of work. I decided to make it out of flooring as I could do it piece by piece. It worked out pretty good.

Trim across front clamped for gluing. 

I left it clamped overnight and today I applied the finish. Now have to wait for it to dry before I can put the microwave and other things back on the counter.

The finished project.

Solar Panels

I figured out where to put the solar panels where they would be out of the way.

After I removed the window on the front of the cab-over there was this flat area where I could hang the solar panels. I had an old piano type hinge that was on the door of the single wide trailer I disassembled a dozen years ago. I attached the solar panels to it so I could use it to hang them. At first I screwed a couple hooks into a 2x2 that goes across where the top of the window was. Then I had a better idea. I had some plant hanger parts, like a screw where one end had wood screw threads and the other end had 10/24 threads. That way I could secure the panels to The Guppy.

Front view

Side view

The set-up was working fine for a few days and then it quit charging. At first I thought the controller might be bad, but when I checked for voltage coming from the panels there wasn't any. There was a 4 into 1 connector to connect the 4 panels to the controller. When I disconnected the 4 into 1 connector and tried ohming it, I discovered that I had continuity across both terminals on the end.  So now I need to get a new 4 into 1 connector.

 

This is a picture of the 4 into 1 connectors that we ordered to replace the defective one. These are shorter than the one that came with the solar panels, but they will work as the panels have fairly long wires. Also I made an extension from the old 4 into 1 connector as the problem seems to be where the 4 wires connect to the 1. I wasn't able to open that area, but I've narrowed it down to that's where the problem is.

Recently Someone Accused Me of Being Bitter

Am I bitter, HELL NO! I'm FUCKING PISSED! I'm PISSED at the accuser and the 60 million others that voted to put the ORANGE BUFFOON in the White House. From day one he did everything possible to show he was not fit to manage a Blockbuster store let alone be President. I have a hunch that even if he had came right out and said "I'm just shitting you, I don't want the job" the MAGAts would have still voted for the asshole because he represents what they are.

I'm old enough to remember when the Russians were the enemy, not the benefactors of the GOP! Every fucking day there are new revelations about Russian interference in the 2016 election. Every time you turn around there is another Russian in the woodpile!

 

There's the gun nut from Russia who infiltrated the NRA (Now Russian Affiliate) and funneled millions of dollars that the NRA laundered and used for campaign ads. Then there are the Russians that gave money to PACs of various GOP politicians. Like I said there's always another Russian in the woodpile! Where did this lovefest with Russia come from on the Never-Right? #FollowtheRubles

As someone who worked on planes that tracked the Russian bombers to make sure they weren't coming to bomb US, I find the laissez faire attitude of most of the people towards Russia and Putin very disturbing. While I don't think we should go back to the days of Tailgunner Joe finding Commies under every bed, we should be very skeptical of everything that involves Russia.

Just like there is the saying, "Once a Marine, always a Marine", well Putin was KGB and once you are KGB you are always KGB! It may no longer be called KGB, but it is still around and Putin is the MMFWIC (Mean Mother Fucker What's In Charge)!



I am FUCKING PISSED that more people aren't FUCKING PISSED!