Snip, snip, snippets
I think this is about as long as I've ever gone without blogging since I started last summer. These are just snippets of things on my mind in the last week.
They made three or four small, barely visible incisions. That's all. I'm gonna guess they used one for a laparoscope, another for a clamping tool and another for a working tool of some sort. Maybe another for irrigation (clean and wash away the blood, etc.). My mother went in to remove her gall bladder Thursday morning, they operated about 1pm and she left around 6:30pm. She's now well enough to drive and walk about a bit. Truly amazing.
I like to scare my mother by telling her I'm thinking of going back to school to become an M.D. Someone asked me the other day what kind of doctor I would be if I could. Probably some sort of surgeon. I'm squeamish about blood and needles, though. I wonder if they can train that out of you.
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My sister's car--the one that gave me so much trouble--appears to be fixed. After swapping components I found the distributor was intermittently flaking out--weak or no spark. I took it apart, checked the wiring and coils (for angular position and triggering as well as the ignition coil) and put it back together. No problems since. Amazing. And it only took a week....
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My computer--the one with the bad hard drive--is fixed. I won't complain too much here (but see here) about why it took so long except to say this. Microsoft and other vendors, by insisting on flawed and unworkable copy protection and DRM (digital rights management) schemes are teaching Joe User how to become sophisticated pirates out of necessity. I am running a legit license which I paid for, mind you, but I had to do some sketchy things to get it going. What's the solution? A combination of technological and legal tools, probably. I certainly have some ideas on the legal side of things.
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Barbecued Sunday afternoon. It was cold. I was sleepy. Folks were unnecessarily uncouth. It wasn't one of our best barbeques.
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My friend said her boyfriend has a sister who can "find you a woman" in a couple weeks, easy. My friend tells me the sister's a member of some big church out here so I laugh and say sure, go for it. "Oh, but wait, find out what church it is first." It was the Los Angeles Church of Christ. I've had some experience with these folks and I believe they trend toward being sort of a cult.
...which got me thinking and reading more about my own church. Now that I've been there a few months I'm reevaluating and thinking about whether it's the best place for me. Not sure yet. There are some things about the leadership structure and the way folks hold in too high esteem some of the leaders that bother me. Less Chuck Smith, please. The guy's just plain wrong on some doctrinal stuff, as I understand scripture, anyway. Is it major enough to matter? Not now. Besides, the church is too big to develop a sense of community. I only attend the singles group regularly at this point. This group and the pastor are right-on, though.
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I finally fixed my fix-it ticket. All in all it only took $85 to replace the windshield and $25 in administrative fees. Someone has to pay the wages of our hard-working state employees.
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They made three or four small, barely visible incisions. That's all. I'm gonna guess they used one for a laparoscope, another for a clamping tool and another for a working tool of some sort. Maybe another for irrigation (clean and wash away the blood, etc.). My mother went in to remove her gall bladder Thursday morning, they operated about 1pm and she left around 6:30pm. She's now well enough to drive and walk about a bit. Truly amazing.
I like to scare my mother by telling her I'm thinking of going back to school to become an M.D. Someone asked me the other day what kind of doctor I would be if I could. Probably some sort of surgeon. I'm squeamish about blood and needles, though. I wonder if they can train that out of you.
___________________________________
My sister's car--the one that gave me so much trouble--appears to be fixed. After swapping components I found the distributor was intermittently flaking out--weak or no spark. I took it apart, checked the wiring and coils (for angular position and triggering as well as the ignition coil) and put it back together. No problems since. Amazing. And it only took a week....
___________________________________
My computer--the one with the bad hard drive--is fixed. I won't complain too much here (but see here) about why it took so long except to say this. Microsoft and other vendors, by insisting on flawed and unworkable copy protection and DRM (digital rights management) schemes are teaching Joe User how to become sophisticated pirates out of necessity. I am running a legit license which I paid for, mind you, but I had to do some sketchy things to get it going. What's the solution? A combination of technological and legal tools, probably. I certainly have some ideas on the legal side of things.
___________________________________
Barbecued Sunday afternoon. It was cold. I was sleepy. Folks were unnecessarily uncouth. It wasn't one of our best barbeques.
___________________________________
My friend said her boyfriend has a sister who can "find you a woman" in a couple weeks, easy. My friend tells me the sister's a member of some big church out here so I laugh and say sure, go for it. "Oh, but wait, find out what church it is first." It was the Los Angeles Church of Christ. I've had some experience with these folks and I believe they trend toward being sort of a cult.
...which got me thinking and reading more about my own church. Now that I've been there a few months I'm reevaluating and thinking about whether it's the best place for me. Not sure yet. There are some things about the leadership structure and the way folks hold in too high esteem some of the leaders that bother me. Less Chuck Smith, please. The guy's just plain wrong on some doctrinal stuff, as I understand scripture, anyway. Is it major enough to matter? Not now. Besides, the church is too big to develop a sense of community. I only attend the singles group regularly at this point. This group and the pastor are right-on, though.
___________________________________
I finally fixed my fix-it ticket. All in all it only took $85 to replace the windshield and $25 in administrative fees. Someone has to pay the wages of our hard-working state employees.
___________________________________
posted by anchovy @ 4:43 PM
5 Comments:
At 5:05 AM,
mal said…
yup,,,I can pass on the cults too. LA does have their share of them.
Hard to believe Chuck Smith is still around. I remember him running a youth ministry at the beach when I was a teen ager. That was before he got into building that "compound" in Costa Mesa. "Thars money in Them thar religions!": Jed Clampett.
Sooooooo, what exactly was wrong with the distributor?
At 4:11 PM,
anchovy said…
The scientology building off the 101 in Hollywood sure is nice looking, though! I've been thinking, when does leadership become demagoguery? As with everything else in life, it depends....
Funny about the distributor. I have no bloomin' idea what was wrong with it! There are several components contained within: several coils for position sensing that tell the computer when to send a spark signal, a large step-up ignition coil and an "igniter module" that receives the spark signal from the computer and drives the ignition coil. The module also does some signal conditioning of the position sensor outputs before feeding them to the computer. I checked resistance through the sensing coils, the ignition coil (primary and secondary) and continuity between all the wires. Everything looked fine. By process of elimination I thought the igniter was bad, but it's nothing more than a sealed, solid state device that's completely unserviceable. I had my doubts, though, since things like that usually fail outright; they don't go intermittent. I just cleaned everything up, put it back together and now it works. Go figure.
I have to change the front wheel bearings on that car. I’m thinking next time I have it in my garage I’ll take the distributor apart and go over everything again more carefully. I just might find a wire on the verge of breaking or something like that. Oh, get this, on ebay dealers are selling igniter modules for $100 or more, but private individuals are selling the whole distributor for about $40! Reminds me of the time I bought a phone that came with an earpiece, threw away the phone, kept the earpiece and stilled saved money in the end. Dumb.
At 6:02 AM,
mal said…
when is a cult not a cult? no clue, maybe the LDS can answer that one?
I do remember the 4 square gospel, the hare Krishnas, the Scientologists etc California really does know how to grow them.
As regards the distributor, I do not what is worse "it works and I don't know why" or "ain't broke, dont' fix" major conundrum there! better thee than me *S*
At 6:24 PM,
Anonymous said…
good to avoid the LA Church of Christ, I have a good friend in it so have done my research on it. So, stay away. :)
Glad the car and computure are fixed.
At 2:54 AM,
anchovy said…
fawn deer, feel free to give me a slap upside the head anytime you see me about to walk over a cliff! ("If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?!" Um...maybe.)
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