I thought about that show too, in addition to Midnight Express.
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Looks beautiful. We went for a short walk today on a trail, pretty much in the city, but still has a forest feel to it. We passed by the Baltimore National Cemetery, and I thought of my parents. Both are interred there. I hoped to see an exit from the trail so that we could find the entrance and visit their graves, but didn’t find one.
I hope you’re vaccinated. It isn’t a complete elixir for COVID-19, especially the delta variant, but worth having IMO. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Georgia, as well as your home in Mississippi have extraordinarily high rates of COVID infection. Not usually said, but high rates of infection lead to high rates of death. Ssssstuff happens. You’re a great guy, and a definite plus on the board. I only mention it because I hope to keep you around. I’m watching Le Mans right now, and maybe you can watch with me. Even if we are several hundred miles apart.
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Thanks for the kind words. I’ve actually already had COVID once, or at least I tested positive for it (twice), but symptoms were…almost nonexistent. So, I’m not sure if I had false positives, if I had a “lesser strain” (if such a thing exists), or what. We think my entire household had it at that time. A couple of days of being tired, light fever (for some), and short term loss of taste and smell (for my wife) was (luckily) all it amounted to for us. Very strange how it affects people differently.
I have a work friend in Florida, and she has had COVID twice. I believe her husband has had it twice too. She is a long hauler, and developed atrial fibrillation from it after the second infection. She can’t even walk to the mailbox without getting out of breath. Her head is a mess as well. Having had COVID-19 doesn’t prevent reinfection or the level of infection you experience. And the rain is causing a lot of problems for the drivers at Le Mans. Only 8 hours are past, and there’s a lot of time for the men and women that experience setbacks to get back on track and move up in the standings.
If you took I20 into Georgia you was only a little over 20 miles from my house.
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My wife gave me directions. I just drive and look at things! I have a crap sense of direction, to be honest. So I couldn’t tell you for sure.
My wife, on the other hand, does pretty well with directions. I’d be lost without her.
I am good at bad puns, though.
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My wife is just the opposite if she has to someplace she has never been and I can’t go with her I have to tell her how to go and she has to write the directoin’s down I on the other have always had a good sense of direction say we were going on a trip someone else could be driving while I was sleeping you could get tired and wake me to drive if I did not rec0gnize where we were at it would only take me a few miles and I would know where we were at.
Not to change the subject as long as you are on hiking, I noticed they closed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area due to wild fires. It’s been spreading in Northern Minnesota for a while and jumped the road. Yeah pretty dry depending on where you are but some years ago there was a lot of blow down and they wouldn’t let anyone clean it up. So lots of kindling in dem dar woods. Between bears and fires gotta be safe out there.
Kinda Covid related. Looks like things have loosened up a little at the drive throughs. I clicked on the wrong button and up popped a John Deere tractor going through the drive though. No problem. I noticed at the DQ they still have their inside dining closed so they have a sign on the speaker that if you are walking, just yell into the speaker so they know you are there. Hotel next door so trucks etc. prolly don’t want to/can’t drive through. I was there a month or so ago and about four guys just trotted along like they were a car. There was a time when you’d be refused service walking, biking, on a horse etc.
Could be Covid related but at least one place here has a sign saying they don’t have enough help to open the dining area, encouraging you to use the drive through. I don’t think any of the fast food places actually have their dining room’s open at the moment.
Culvers around here has their dining area open but I don’t know about the rest of them. I bet I haven’t eaten inside more than 5 times in the last 1 1/2 years. We eat on the patio but it’ll be getting cold soon.
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Most of the restaurants in my recent trip to Cali were open, but the Fosters only served drive up orders, and they had a sign saying no walk ups. My hotel was next door, and I wasn’t going to drive there for ice cream.
Back to the original topic, I heard this weekend , radio news, that the price of steel has nearly tripled over the course of the pandemic. The price is expected to scale back a little as the problem subsides, to double the the price of the pre-pandemic level. This can’t be good for automakers and auto-buyers. They said the price has increased so much in part b/c the steel companies are having difficulties finding appropriately-skilled employees.
I haven’t bought any steel lately and normally get it from a steel supply house. I was looking at a piece of sheet metal at Menards lately though and they wanted something like $50 for it.
Shame that some areas are still not fully opened.
Around here, in the early prevaccine days we got hit pretty hard by Covid which locked down practically everything and spread the fear of God so when the vaccine arrived most folks were fighting to get in line. Also helped by a fairly even Party split which avoided the political BS and got the vaccine rates high.
Since then it’s been mostly back to mask free everywhere normal with the exception of the local Cars & Coffee that’s still waiting for insurance and property landlord’s approval.
My A/C compressor failed and it took over a month to get a replacement. In July, with 90+ degree temps. Dealer complained of supply chain issues with many parts.
Here’s something. My early 90’s experienced what I believe to be a Covid-related car problem just the other day. Huge clouds of black smoke out the tailpipe at idle. Like a smudge pot. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen from this vehicle. The smoke out the tailpipe reduced as the engine warmed up, but not much. Oil, coolant, both check ok. Dash gauges normal. No check engine light. No gasoline in vacuum port of fuel pressure regulator. After letting engine sit for 2 hours, started normally, no smoke out the tailpipe. It seems to have fixed itself somehow.
History: This vehicle has been unused for 18 months. Before that, daily driver. The only recent repair is replacing the water pump. The first 9 months, engine never started. The second 9 months, engine started every two weeks, and idled until the engine cooling fan turned on a off a couple of times. About 20 minutes of idling every two weeks. Always idled fine, no smoke. The only unusual thing I noted during this period was occasionally cranking took considerably longer than usual before popping & running.
So what’s up? I’ve got a theory. Any ideas?
I don’t know about the black smoke but I’d start our Aurora about once a month or so after just sitting in the garage (7 miles a year). Sometimes it would be running very rough for about 5 minutes because the lifters had leaked down and took a while for them to pump up again. Never noticed smoke but suppose it was possible.
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You must drive your car on the highway once a week or face 7 years of bad luck.
All that cold idling is not good for the spark plugs or engine oil.
Do you still water the car once a week?
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Washing cars in driveway not allowed due to drought problems here. Corolla pretty dusty indeed. One of my neighbors now washes his car inside his garage, I can see the water pouring out from underneath his garage door … lol … I expect both you and Bing (above) are correct, this problem is a symptom of the lack of regular road-driving. My guess is the first incident (of abundant dark smoke) was a sticking fuel injector, which has become mostly unstuck now. I still think it is partially stuck b/c the idle rpm is a little higher than normal. I tried removing the electrical control to the cold start injector, no effect, so if it is cold start injector leaking, it’s the injector itself, not the gadget that screws into the water jacket & decides whether and for how long to turn the cold start injector on. I’ll try some injector cleaner next.