General Forum

ian.nospamplease@nospam.radix.net — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:20:13 EST

A hammer?

Just kidding. How's it going? Can you tell if it's still latched? Wouldn't want it popping up suddenly when you hit a bump on the highway.

Aside from lots of bumping, pushing and jimmying, if you knew just where the catch was you might be able to spray some WD-40 or oil in there to loosen it up. I assume you tried pulling up on it and it wouldn't go. Dunno. Let us know how it works out.

What kind of truck do you have? Didn't you have a Ford Ranger way back when?

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:45:08 EST

How do I open a stuck hood?

I went to open the hood on my truck and it wouldn't open. I pulled the release, it made the sound it normally makes, but the hood didn't release and pop up like normal. Any suggestions?

revmicro.nospamplease@nospam.saintupid.net — Sat, 12 May 2012 02:04:01 EST

Don't get me started on this.
I will be good and not launch into the rants this causes in a recorded format...

lance.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:23:43 EST

All Delegates are unbound ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&am...

lance.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:40:10 EST

End of the World Averted: New Archeological Find Proves Mayan Calendar Doesn't End

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/2125/492/End_of_the_Worl...

yml.nospamplease@nospam.yml.com — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:15:37 EST

http://www.itworld.com/hardware/270936/living-computing...

ian.nospamplease@nospam.radix.net — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:16:49 EST

Today I had a need to customize the sorting of results from a query to a MySQL database. Normally you order by "ascending" or "descending", which orders things either alphabetically or numerically, depending on the field(s) being sorted.

I needed to order according to "primary", "secondary", "tertiary", etc. What to do? Given a field name of 'user_role', you specify your ORDER BY clause as follows:

ORDER BY Field(user_role,'Primary','Secondary','Tertiary','Other')

I haven't seen this in the MySQL documentation, but only in comments and posts elsewhere.

ian.nospamplease@nospam.radix.net — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:28:33 EST

Here's something you don't see every day. A Giant Octopus grabbed a seagull that was floating on the water next to the large breakwater at the entrance to the harbor in Victoria, BC. It drowned the bird, then pulled it down and disappeared. Wow! Check out the pictures:

At breakwater's edge, a giant octopus makes a quick meal of a seagull

yml.nospamplease@nospam.yml.com — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:57:00 EST

LAUGH! Yea, I agree.

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:17:48 EST

Yermo wrote

So, as I've mentioned, I have rot and delamination

That sounds about right.

yml.nospamplease@nospam.yml.com — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:31:53 EST

So, as I've mentioned, I have rot and delamination in the transom.

I've drilled a bunch of holes and let the trapped water drain out.

I've injected CPES (Clear Penetrating Expoxy Sealer) into several places in transom. In some areas the wood was solid and would not accept any. In other place I could get a good amount in. In other places it looks like I pierced a void and was able to pump endless amounts in with little resistance eventually causing it to drain out the holes I had drilled in the bottom.

The drain hole fiberglass had separated by about 1/4" causing bilge sauce to leech into the transom wood, so the wood around and below the drain plug hole is saturated with oil. Prior to injecting CPES I had injected acetone liberally in the hopes that it might pull out some of the oil. I do not believe this worked.

After several days liquid CPES was still slowly leaking out of the bottom hole. I'm guessing the oil was somehow preventing it from curing correctly. I had mixed equal parts of the two parts and stirred vigorously for some extended period of time. Hopefully I didn't make a mistake with the CPES.

I used water-proof kneedable epoxy to fill in the gap around the drain hole. It seems to have made a solid seal over the crack. If water continues to intrude it'll split again eventually forcing some more permanent and correct repairs to the transom.

It looks like the water originally got in around the swim platform mount screws which were simple short wood screws. There was next to no evidence of caulk on them. The wood behind the mounts is severely degraded. Per Billy's suggestion, I through drilled the holes and used stainless machine screws with large washers along with an aluminum backing plate I fabricated to shore up the mounts. Installing these plates in the far corners of the transom on the inside is one of the more challenging jobs I've done. Obviously the aluminum will degrade over time but getting stainless plates back there would have taken too much time and the aluminum ones should hold. Everything was caulked carefully using 3M 5200.

I've also replaced the wiper arm that broke with a high-quality stainless one. Unfortunately it looks like the port side wiper motor has failed. The anchor light has also failed and I don't think it's the bulb. Those two items will need to be tracked down.

I will be bolting on the trim tabs in the next session using new stainless hardware and liberal amounts of 5200. I'll use the kneadble epoxy to fill the holes I drilled.

The deck has been cleaned and 7 coats of poliglow applied. While not perfect, it looks pretty good. The hull and sides have been cleaned and prepped and I'll start with the poliglow on that soon.

Then it's just a matter of replacing some zincs and the boat will be ready to put back into the water. I will need to track down the port carb issue and also install the Flo-Scan's but that can be done after the boat is in the water.

My hope/plan is to host a dinner cruise soon after the boat is operational.

lance.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:04:38 EST

The Environmental Protection Agency said it approved the first applications to register ethanol to make E15,

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/us-usa-ethano...

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/04/02/epa-gives-e15-go-a...

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:57:31 EST

<grinning like an idiot>Cool. I remember doing a version of the candle and flour experiment in 5th grade science.

schapin.nospamplease@nospam.perpend.net — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:47:30 EST

And other fun things to pass the time. At 2500 FPS.
Boys will be boys

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:17:02 EST

UPS ground shipments from Newegg show up the next day so why go to Best Buy? The last time I was in there I was looking for a DVD and they didn't have what wanted. The selection is certainly not what it used to be.

mjb.nospamplease@nospam.hazmat.com — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:12:12 EST

And the public is expected to notice by July.

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 21:12:21 EST

Best Buy press release listing the 50 stores to close by May 12th

Best Buy Press Release

buffalo.nospamplease@nospam.icarus.yml.com — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:37:36 EST

John Cleese On How To Be Creative (seriously)

revmicro.nospamplease@nospam.saintupid.net — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:18:48 EST

http://www.youtube.com/v/Q34z5dCmC4M

Is existential

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:28:08 EST

Following is the posted I saw on NRL's internal announcement site:

Event Date(s): 04/14/2012 06:30 PM to 10:00 PM Eastern Time

Mid-Atlantic Fireworks Festival, 14 April 2012
12667 Grosstown Rd., Hughesville, MD

The fourth annual spring MAFF will be held this Saturday, April 14th.
Top professional and hobbyist pyrotechnicians from across the country will be gathering to put up an incredible array of fireworks and displays. The sun will be setting at ~7:45, after which the pyrotechnicians will be lighting up the night sky.

This event is free and open to public. Get there early to get a good spot and make sure to bring a blanket or some chairs. Of course, ear plugs might also be a wise thing to bring.

The displays will include the following:

-Open Shooting: opening of the show, duration of 45 minutes to 1 hour. This is when the pyrotechnicians get to set off fireworks in a safe, but unorganized fashion. They use this time to test new product, test the timing or effects of various devices, or set off firework just for the pure enjoyment of it. Items fired during this time will include everything from the smallest and most basic consumer fireworks up through 10" specialty commercial fireworks shells (the largest that are fired on the DC Mall for the 4th of July).

-Salute Salvos: The pyrotechnicians have arranged a special treat. They will be putting up a "4 decade salvo" of salutes - the shells that are only a white flash with a huge bang. The salvos will be of 1 salute, 10 salutes shot simultaneously, 100 salutes shot simultaneously, and 1000 salutes shot simultaneously. This will be loud!

-Displays: There will be eight (8) displays ranging in length from 5-12 minutes. Several of the displays will be pyromusicals (computer fired and choreographed with music), with the final two displays rivaling (or besting) a large city's 4th of July display.

Please visit http://www.maff.ws for more information.

buffalo.nospamplease@nospam.icarus.yml.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:10:53 EST

On the eastern shore of MD in Centerville:

MDRA Launch Schedule

buffalo.nospamplease@nospam.icarus.yml.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:05:02 EST

Looks cool, but they don't specify exactly where the event is...

mspath.nospamplease@nospam.vetsclub.umd.org — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:28:47 EST

4th Annual Spring Mid-Atlantic Fireworks Festival

Mid-Atlantic Fireworks Festival

buffalo.nospamplease@nospam.icarus.yml.com — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:23:46 EST

Coming To Annapolis 14 April

buffalo.nospamplease@nospam.icarus.yml.com — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 08:43:51 EST

OK, that's impressive.