Am I the only person who really doesn’t care for Instructables?
I mean, the concept is good (sharing project ideas step by step), but the execution is rotten. It’s a mishmash of external ads, ads for other pages on the site, comments, hard to save / reference photos (which are often too low res), and YouTube-ish comments.
Uggh.
2006 Honda Civic Cabin Air Filter after 46,344 MilesWhile removing the Honda Music Link cable (head unit to interface box cable, specifically) from my car so that I may list the HML on eBay tonight, I happened to have the glove box flipped down. Remembering that the cabin air filter is back there and knowing that I’d never changed it, I decided to give it a look.
I’m really glad I did. After 46,344 miles of driving in all sorts of conditions, it was pretty dirty. As you can see there was everything from cotton wood seeds to a dead bee, an odd lump of something, and loads of road dust packed into it. Even the back side of it looked dirty. Oops.
Oh, yeah, and when brand new those filters are brilliant white.
Here (full res) is a photo of it straight on, if you want to try and figure out what all the gunk in it really is. It looks worse from that angle because the edges of the fins are completely dirty, but the sides of some of them are still (relatively) clean.
Gah. I’d forgotten what a chore it is to open a Civic’s dash, particularly in cold weather when the clips are harder.
At least I’m now half done. The old Honda Music Link cable has been removed from my dash, and now I can begin the process of selling a second one (my first, original one). Then I’ll be completely done with any HML-related work.
Working Panasonic PV-D4743S Found In TrashTwo weeks ago I mentioned a DVD player / VCR combo I found in the trash. As I thought, it works great. This afternoon I gave it a test, and both the DVD and VCR halves work great. While there isn’t a remote, it doesn’t really seem to be needed. Or, one could easily purchase a universal remote to use with it.
So, that said, would any of you like it? Obviously, you’d have to come get it, but I’d like to be rid of it. I don’t have a need for it, but hopefully someone I know does. And yes, I mean actually use, not just have to add to a pile of other stuff.
If no one here wants it I’ll just take it to the Salvation Army. I’m sure they can find someone who could make good use of it.
Anyway, let me know if you want it…
So, the note I sent to VG’s yesterday? I got a response this afternoon, and it’s good:
Dear Mr. Vigneau....
Thank you for your email. Your request is an excellent one. It seems that in the scramble to get the store open, we missed installing a bike rack. I have ordered one and it should arrive at the store within the next week or so. We'll get it installed as soon as it arrives. We look forward to having you shop at the store and thank you again for the great suggestion.
Have a good weekend!
Regards....
Bill Ogle
VG's Food Centerphone 810.629.xxxx
fax 866.706.xxxx
This is excellent. Here is the route from my house to there, and as you can see, it’s pretty darn short. Very, very bikable. I will be avoiding riding in Schoenherr, as it is a 50MPH road with no shoulders (only curbs) and loads of people driving really, really horrible. (If you know this area, you know the sort… it’s >60% SUVs and trucks, swerving around the people making turns, with ~20% of drivers talking on cell phones.)
But, anyway, yeah. This is good!
Today Danielle and I did a bunch of running around as well. I ended up getting a rack for the back of my bike, the Explorer w/ disc brake mounts. I was going to get a smallish bag for holding the small, necessary bits, but instead I think I’ll get the RX Trunk Bag EX instead. It’s only about $10 more than a small underseat bag and should provide plenty of room for lunch or whatever.
Then again, there’s always the possibility of folding grocery bag holders…
UPDATE: Oooh! This, a basket which clips right into the rack I just installed, is $25.80 via Amazon. I think that’ll do. That should hold a hand-held basket full of groceries, which is exactly the quantity I normally buy when going shopping. Yay!
I just sent the following to VG’s via their contact form. It’s a bit over the top, and I’m not really a cyclist, but I would like bike racks there. As it’s only ~1 mile from my house, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to ride up there when needing to pick up something small.
Hello,
I live not far from your store in Shelby Township, located at 22 Mile and Schoenherr. I regularly ride past the store on a bicycle, and I'd love to stop and pick up groceries, but I haven't seen anywhere to secure my bike. That is, no bike racks around the store.
If I just haven't noticed them, could you tell me where they are located? Or, if there aren't any bike racks, would you please consider installing secure bike racks somewhere along the front of the store so that cyclists like myself can secure a bike while shopping?
Thanks very much!
-Steve Vigneau
c0nsumer@nuxx.net
Huh, so I’ve just been informed that Michigan has all the Chilton’s manuals online for free now.
Just take this link and punch in your MI driver’s license number.
Nice, eh?
So, I’ve switched my terminal and editors to using a rather nifty new(ish) font from Microsoft called Consolas.
It’s a monospaced font designed specifically to look good with ClearType on, for code or terminals.
To be honest, I really quite like it.
Have any of you ever used any induction cooking stuffs? Or, better yet, do you have any?
I’m contemplating acquiring an induction cooktop for more efficient cooking and whatnot, but I’ve never actually used one. It seems to me like it would be just as responsive as gas, as the moment the current is cut the cookware will begin cooling. It is far more efficient than either electric coil or gas. It would also likely be much easier to clean.
My On Christmas Eve of 1994 my parents gave me a HP LaserJet 5L. At the time it cost somewhere around $400 – $500, but was one of the most affordable laser printers for home use. Over the years it’s been particularly helpful to have a laser printer around home. With the wonders of toner (over ink) it’s been a great, reliable printer, except for back in 2001-2002 when I had to replace the rollers because they were no longer picking up paper. Tonight the pickup rollers stopped picking up paper again. I haven’t investigated if it is possibly something more than the rubber on the rollers, but I hope not.
I’ll probably first try to clean the rollers with alcohol, but I may just have to buy a kit like this one and replace them. I’m tempted to give the printer up to the gods, but that’d be a bit wasteful, so even if I give it away I’ll probably get it into a working state first.
It’s a great PCL printer and works great with Windows, but as OS X uses Gimp-Print / Gutenprint for its generic drivers, dithered images tend to look like poo. That all makes me want a PostScript printer, but one of those won’t be very cheap. It would be really nice to have one with a built in print server so that I could finally stop using the (as old as the printer) 10baseT / 10base2 JetDirect EX Plus. Although that thing works great too, and any OS which can do any sort of network printing at all can find a way to send data to it…
So, I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but I do know that I can’t quite afford a new printer. Ah well, at least it’s had a good run.
