Getting anxious

My oldest is in the Navy, and he'll be moving with his boat to Hawaii soon. I wish I knew what to do for him. I know full well he's in a world of busy right now; everything is going to pile up at the last minute. It always does. Big Navy, local Navy. Gotta get going on some ideas for stuff to accompany him.

BSG finale was disappointing

It seemed quite a lot like Ron Moore and the cast had a big party, wore body armour and fired heavy weapons, then said good bye to each other, turned out the lights and oh, by the bye here's a not at all disguised morality lesson on the dangers of technology for technology's sake.

Or something.

He certainly didn't work on any resolution of the major tensions of the series, the season or even the final episode arc.

I might feel differently given some time.

Missing 'Safely remove hardware' icon

I was playing with my USB portable hard drive and found to my horror that the icon in the Windows task bar that allows me to safely remove hardware was gone. I didn't want to unplug the cable before choosing that option because I wanted to make sure my data were intact.

I did a bunch of searching, but the proper keywords eluded me. A bunch of people suggested using File Explorer and choosing 'Eject' as though it were a CD/DVD but I didn't have an eject option.

Finally, I came across the answer here: http://blog.monkeyless.com/2006/03/12/safely-removing-hardware-when-the-icon-is-gone/ The secret keyword is hotplug, and so I can find it again, here is the DLL to invoke from Start->Run %windir%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll Alternately, make a shortcut by right clicking on the desktop.

WDSC on a portable drive

Well I loaded WDSC 7.0.0.6 on my USB portable drive. I stupidly could not locate the Code/400 CDs, so I didn't get that loaded :-( I was able to get Eclipse Monkey installed, which made me very happy. WDSC is sort of Eclipse 3.2 (Ganymede) and Monkey is in the Europa distro (sort of 3.3) but it did go in via the normal Help->Software updates->Install new software.

Hurrah!

The box is the best part!

In the style of the Mythbusters, I set out to determine if the myth that children prefer the box to the present contained therein. I'm pleased to report that with a sample size of one, the myth is plausible.

Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Wikipedia entry has more information on MBTI than I could give here, except to say that it's intended as a measure of your personality. It isn't a test, or a good-bad determiner, it's a quantified assessment of how you're put together. One of the more interesting parts about getting an MBTI done isn't to find out what you are like; presumably you have a reasonable idea already - it's to find out how other's percieve you, and more practically, how to communicate better with them.

For instance, I personally assess as an INTJ or INTP depending on who's giving the test. However, a fellow blogger mentioned a website called Typealizer which will analyse your blog and run an assessment based on your posts. It assesses this blog as an ESTP; just about the opposite of the assessments I've had elsewhere. One of the main character traits of an INTJ is an almost rigid adherence to logical correctness. Trying to have a conversation with an ESTP by use of logic is almost guaranteed to be a waste of time - the ESTP is a realist almost completely uninterested in the theoretical. Examples work best, and therefore it isn't surprising that this blog, laden with examples, seems like it was written by an ESTP.

Leland reads to Sebastian

My brother was here from Japan and this is a short video of him reading a book to Sebastian before bed.

A visitor from Japan

It's my brother, Lee! He surprised me by just dropping by on a whirlwind tour of the family here in the 'states. His daughter is on her way to university in Hawaii. How exotic is that?

More car repair

Not only do I drive, but so does She Who Must Be Obeyed. Her 1998 Chevy Venture has a passenger side power sliding door. That door (hereafter known as the PSD) stopped sliding. I vaguely recalled something about the radio fuse, and when I called the mechanic he told me it would cost more to have him look it up than it was worth to get it sliding again.

Can't say I disagree with that.

But my time is cheap, and with a little research, I came up with this:

Perform this procedure in order to re-initialize the PSD:

1. Set the PSD on/off switch in the overhead console to the OFF position
2. Manually open the PSD completely
3. Manually close and latch the PSD
4. Remove the radio fuse - this is the fuse under the hood, in the Fuse Relay Panel on the passenger side of the engine. I tried the one just inside the passenger front door - no joy there.
5. Wait 30 seconds
6. Reinstall the radio fuse
7. Wait 10 seconds
8. Set the PSD on/off switch in the overhead console to the ON position
9. Press, then release either PSD open/close switch (on the overhead console or the one on the 'B' pillar) in order to completely open the PSD
10. Wait 5 seconds
11. Press, then release either PSD open/close switch (on the overhead console or the one on the 'B' pillar) to allow the PSD to close completely
12. Wait 5 seconds
13. Repeat steps 8 through 11 and re-check for proper PSD operation

That worked! If someone else is reading this, do like I did and put some white lithium grease on the door tracks (not too much; just a thin layer is plenty! Too much and you'll attract dirt which will clog it up.)

2004 Lumina APV rear wiper

So my 1994 Chevy Lumina APV minivan's rear wiper has been... stiff for some time. If I pull it away from the window, it stays pulled away. It will do one wipe from bottom to top, but on the return stroke it stays clear of the glass. Not an optimum situation to say the least!

It's definitely corroded. Looking at the hinge, where the rivet passes through from top to bottom (as installed) I can clearly see the oxidation built up. I tried penetrating spray, but it only got a teeny bit freer, nothing like it is supposed to act.

I looked at it for a bit but could not figure out how to pull the wiper arm off the shaft. After looking at WikiAnswers for a bit, I came across a post that made the Aha! light come on. There's a clip that's part of the arm (it does NOT come off) that you can slide out of the way.


This is a photo from the bottom (as installed) of the wiper arm. See that little tab sticking down? That's part of the clip that you can use to pull the clip out of the was, but wait a second!

Get a large, flat screwdriver. Pull the wiper arm as far away from the window as it will go. This is important - there is an intentional 'lock' that holds the clip in when the wiper blade is pressed against the window.

Now that the arm is pulled away from the glass, pry the tab against the bottom of the wiper arm and pull the clip down as far as it will go. It isn't much; maybe a quarter of an inch. A pair of needle nose pliers might help, but I didn't need them.

This is what it looks like with the clip all the way down. The wiper arm is ready to remove from the wiper motor shaft.

Once that clip is down, the arm should pull straight off the shaft. It's splined, and not attached in any way other than a friction fit on the matching splines on the shaft. Mine came off with some gentle rocking ans a teeny bit of prying with the large screwdriver backed with some wood scraps against the rear door. If you squeeze the arm against the shaft (like with a pair of vise grips) you'll probably never get it off. If you become desperate, get a Dremel-style tool and cut a slit in the base of the wiper arm opposite the arm. You'll need a new wiper arm, but the motor shaft will be intact.

This is what the arm looks like once it's been removed. Note the way the clip slides behind the motor shaft. As for the obvious damage (all the gouges and scratches) those came from me trying to wiggle the frozen, corroded joint by holding the end with pliers and wiggling the arm.

Not a good plan.

In order to loosen that up, I used a wire brush to remove a bunch of corrosion, a soak in penetrating oil and then held the end (this time with some paper towel to protect the remaining splines) and wiggled some more. No good.

I used a small flat screwdriver to scrape away all the corrosion I could from the area with the arm in it's 'away from the glass' position, and also by moving the clip back and scraping when the arm is in it's 'against the glass' position. That helped some, as did squirting some graphite powder all round the area.

Ultimately, I decided I had nothing to lose, and so with the hole facing down, I drove a tiny screwdriver into the hinge area to open up the space between the arm and the 'socket.' That worked! I don't know for how long, but I dumped more graphite into the area, worked it back and forth and was satisfied enough to put it back. Before replacing it, I put some general purpose machine oil on the motor splines. Hopefully, if I have to get it off again, it'll come easy!