isom.usDave Isom | Arbitrary thoughts from a systematically chaotic mind

-- Skip to primary content Skip to secondary content Dave Isom Arbitrary thoughts from a systematically chaotic mind Search Main menu Home Family Music 6ix 5ive 9ine Pro Tips Quotes Stories High Tech Gaming ESO Star Wars: The Old Republic Post navigation ← Older posts Lost and Found Posted on May 16, 2020 by Dave Isom Reply I have lots of data. I was fumbling my way through the archives, looking for an old VST plugin, when I happened across a file named “Fort Wayne Chronicles.TXT” I had nearly forgotten this tale until I read this. I shouldn’t have forgotten it. I should remember it every time I use my giant Craftsman floor jack or jack stands. I don’t remember how long ago this was. Best guess, it was somewhere around 2000 – 2002, since I was driving the ’86 Suburban. In fact, this was likely the event that caused the eventual failure of my wheel bearing, thus ending the reign of the Urban Assault Vehicle. It was the tale of a time that I drove out to Fort Wayne to visit Phil and go see Sunny Taylor play a show at Mad Anthony’s, and instead ended up spending the weekend changing a tire. My weekend was NUTS! I went out to Ft. Wayne to see a band that I’ve been wanting to see for months now. They were playing Saturday night at a place not more than 6 or 7 blocks from my friend Phil’s apartment. I picked him up a little late, but we were only going to miss a few minutes of the act. We pulled into the parking lot, and I heard a lout banging noise. I didn’t think much of it, as I always hear loud banging noises in the truck. We pulled into a parking space, and when Phil opened his door, I heard a hissing noise. Bad… Very bad… My right rear tire had blown. I said fuck it, we’ll fix it after the band plays. We walk into the bar, and it’s quiet. There’s no band! They cancelled at the last minute. Fuck it, lets get a drink. I had a few beers, and then decided I’d better fix the flat before drinking any more. We went outside, only to discover that I didn’t have a lug-nut wrench. We found a dude in the bar that had one, so he let us borrow it. Then we couldn’t get the lug nuts loose. I was standing on the wrench – no, I was jumping on the wrench. Still, they wouldn’t budge. We finally got one loose, and proceeded to do the same thing on the other 4. It took us about an hour to get the lug nuts off. In the mean time, the guy that owned the wrench told us to keep it, and he left! Its a good thing, too, because by the time we were done jumping on it, it had become so twisted and bent out of shape, that it looked like a damned pretzel! After all the lug nuts were removed, we then tried to remove the tire from the axle. It didn’t work. It was seized up so tight, that no matter how hard we kicked at it, it wouldn’t budge. Not even a little! We walked back to his apartment, and got his car, drove to Meijer and bought a huge pry-bar and a new lug-nut wrench), and headed back out. Even with the prybar, we couldn’t get the tire off! I was bending the shit out of the axle, and the damned rim just wouldn’t pop off. We worked at it until about 1:30am, and finally decided to call it quits for the night. We went back out there Sunday morning, and unfortunately, it hadn’t spontaneously fallen off during the night. We then went to Sears, and bought a few items, including another prybar, 2 cans of WD-40 and a 3 ½ ton hydraulic floor jack. (By this time, I was disgusted with the factory screw jack.) I drenched that thing in oil, and pried until my arms hurt, and we still couldn’t get the damned wheel off! Finally, I got a brainstorm. I borrowed the scissor jack from Phil’s car, and wedged it in between the frame and the wheel rim. I had to crank that thing so hard that it bent the shit out of my rim. Finally, in one huge explosion, the rim went flying one direction, the jack flew another direction, and luckily, none of my fingers went flying anywhere! (The first thing I did was count them all!) Then we put on the spare, and drove away. But that is the first time in history, that it has taken me 19 hours and almost $200 to change a flat tire! Facebook Twitter More Email Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Print Like this: Like Loading... Posted in Randomness , Stories | Tagged Fort Wayne , Phil , Suburban , Sunny Taylor | Leave a reply Football Players are Not Important People Posted on February 4, 2018 by Dave Isom Reply I’m not what you might call an avid sports fan, but I do enjoy watching my 1 football game per year. Well, not this year. It’s a bit about the kneeling thing, but not entirely that. It goes way beyond that. It’s about priorities. These asshole athletes think they’re important. They think that by being controversial, they’ll make a change. Not that they’ll actually do anything actively to affect whatever change they wish to bring about, but they’ll sure act a fool in front of a TV camera for their cause. The problem isn’t so much that they think they’re important. Why on Earth should some disrespectful dipshit, who’s only job is to play a game, be the center of everyone’s attention? The problem is that they’re made to be important by the mass of sports fans, spectators, television networks, team owners, stadium owners, stadium vendors, etc… So many people will lend credence to the athlete’s sense of self-importance by tuning in and watching the game, or by buying the merchandise, or by paying $12 for a sub-par beer at a stadium. It’s through these actions that these athletes are made important. The problem is misplaced priorities. So many people put these assholes up on a pedestal. These morons get paid millions of dollars to play a game, while people who are EMTs, paramedics and fire fighters struggle to pay their bills. Hell, volunteer fire fighters don’t even get paid to risk their lives to save others. And yet, these athletes have the audacity to think they’re important. Well fuck them. Today we’re having our Superbowl party, but we’re doing it without the Superbowl. I don’t give a rat’s ass who’s playing, who’s winning, or what commercials they’re airing. We’re having our nachos, and tacos and other Superbowl fare, but we’re watching a movie instead. I doubt any professional athletes are heartbroken over my protest, but I feel better about it. Facebook Twitter More Email Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Print Like this: Like Loading... Posted in Shit That Pisses Me Off , Uncategorized | Leave a reply How to Resuscitate a Dead Jeep 4.0 Inline 6 Posted on June 1, 2016 by Dave Isom Reply Computers are wondrous and glorious things… except when they malfunction and prevent our vehicles from operating, of course. I’ve been working on cars since before I was licensed to drive them. I’ve rebuilt countless Rochester Quadrajunks, I’ve replaced ignition points (with a swiss army knife in a parking lot during a snow storm), I’ve used a flashing light and a vacuum pump to time an engine’s ignition. None of these things matter anymore because all of these functions have been taken over by the mysterious Engine Control Unit. That’s all fine and dandy until the ECU starts to misbehave in strange and unusual ways that make us think the problem isn’t the ECU. And thus begins my tale of Jeep woe. Continue reading → Facebook Twitter More Email Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Print Like this: Like Loading... Posted in Motorized Stuff , Science and Technology | Tagged auto-shutoff , board level repair , buzzer , ECU , Engine Control Unit , fuel pump , Jeep , no start , relay , seat belt | Leave a reply Pro Tip #12 Posted on December 23, 2015 by Dave Isom 1 Open letter to all European IT people respectfully sent from every IT person in the United States: STOP EMAILING FILES COMPRESSED WITH WINRAR! So 20 years ago, every Windows 95 PC in the US probably had a trial installation of WinRAR that complained about being 120 days past the 30 day trial. Americans could readily extract files compressed in the RAR format. We also used programs like RealPlayer, WinAmp , Napster , and we used...