On Car Repair and Duct Tape

 It's always struck me as strange that a lot of folks will, when they learn that my day job involves fixing stuff, make some remark about how I must use a lot of duct tape. I also get a particular Internet meme shared with me: It's a guide to fixes of all kinds, consisting of two questions:

1. Does it GO and it's supposed to stay put? (Answer: Use duct tape!)

2. Does it STAY PUT and it needs to go? (Answer: Use WD-40!)

Now, I do use WD-40 and other penetrating greases on occasion, but I have to admit: I hate using duct tape for general repairs, and I generally refuse to use it at work for any purpose other than taping thick rugs down over spots where our tile floor breaks. As a means of fastening things together, I personally feel that if I resort to duct tape, I've failed as a professional. Yeah, it's one of those weird "honor" things. We've all got an honor thing about something, and duct tape is one of mine. (Another? Papermate and Bic pens. Yuck!)

But there is one repair for which I used duct tape without regret. It was a repair--you know what, let's put quotes on that, because even I can't call this a genuine repair--there's one "repair" I made using duct tape. One time my car door wasn't closing all the way. It would feel closed, but it wouldn't be registering as closed. The "Door Ajar" warning light would come on, and even more annoyingly, the dome light would come on as well. I find the dome light enormously distracting when I'm driving in darkness, so this was a frustration. This went on for a few days until I realized what the problem was. It was related to...the seatbelt.

There's this weird thing that tends to happen to me in cars: the seat belt doesn't retract all the way, like it's supposed to. This happens to me a lot. I don't know if it's something about the shape of my body or something, if the belt twists in such a way when I use it that it doesn't snap all the way back, or if it's a thing that happens to everybody. But once in a while, the seat belt will stop retracting and just kind of hang loose. More often than not, then, the belt hangs into the damned door frame, so when I go to shut the door I close it on the seat belt itself, sometimes catching the entire buckle between the door and the frame. This in turn results in the door not closing properly, but latching enough that I have to unlock the door to fix things.

So: I turn the car off, unlatch the seatbelt and flick it to my left, from where its spring-loaded mechanism is supposed to retract it. Then I pay no attention as I grab whatever I need and get out of the car. Most times I shut the door and go about things normally...but once in a while, I hear an obnoxious metallic CRUNCH sound and notice that the door is not closed. The damned seatbelt has caught in the door frame again! I swear a few times, take care of business by opening the door and untwisting the belt so it can do its thing correctly, and then close the door again.

But.

One time, the buckle managed to get in between the door and the frame at the exact spot where the door's shape is supposed to depress the door switch that tells the car that the door ain't open. And of course the damned buckle dented the door at that exact spot. It's a tiny dent, so tiny you can't even see it unless you're poring over the door itself trying to figure out why the door-close switch isn't working. The switch itself is working just fine, see! With the car turned on and the door open, you can press it with your finger and make the car think the door is shut!

Yup. That tiny dent, barely a fingernail's thickness in depth? That was sufficient to make the door not click the switch. I couldn't see any feasible way of repairing the door to make the switch work myself, and I sure as hell wasn't taking the car to the shop for this dumb repair, which I could see resulting in a whole new door. Screw that.

So...enter the duct tape.

A disposable wipe cloth, folded up and taped to the door at that spot? That worked wonders.

Stupid duct tape.

I hope this doesn't come up too much when I'm sitting around the fires in the halls of Repair Valhalla.

Screws fall out all the time, the world's an imperfect place.

xkcd nails it on screws!

In my day job I see a lot of different screws. There are way more screws out there in the wonderful world of mechanical fasteners than Randall Munroe even bothered to depict here, but the reactions to the existence of those other non-Philips or non-flathead (or "straight blade") screws tend to run like this. I don't know how many times in my years at this job it's happened, but if I had a dollar for every time I'd had this conversation:

"Uh, Kelly? I was gonna do this job myself but then I saw the screws and they look like normal screws but they're got this square thing in the head instead of Philips and is that a real thing and do they even make a driver for those?!"

This is when I say "Why yes," and I pull my from pocket my trusty Klein 11-in-1 driver, and for one brief moment, I achieve a status in their eyes that is absolutely Gandalfian or Dumbledoresque.

Now, when I encounter a screw that I do not have a driver for, that's when my command of expletives comes in handy, because really, there's just no need to use a screw that obscure!

All the tools in all the world....

This is truly astonishing. With exactly two tools, this guy carves a block of wood into a beautiful chess piece. Watch. It's amazing.





(via)

Remissful blogger is remissful.

I've been remiss (!) in noting that MD Jackson of Skylarking has awarded me one of those blogging award things, this one called the "Versatility Award". This is because I'm a versatile blogger. (I know, it's just like the title of the award!)

So, as is usual with this type of thing, I'm supposed to provide seven facts about myself and then give the award to several other bloggers. I usually skip these steps, but what the hey...only problem is, after nine-plus years of blogging, I'm almost at a loss as to what facts I still can 'reveal' about myself that aren't common knowledge to those who read this blog on any kind of basis, regular or not.

By way of a bit of navel-gazing, I've noticed a substantial drop in traffic round these parts lately. What I think has happened is that Google may have shuffled its image hit results, because those seem to be the hits that I'm not getting as much of anymore. I don't expect traffic to ever jump here again, really -- it may fluctuate upward a bit, but I suspect that my average number of viewers is pretty much calcified in place. That kind of bums me out, but as I've noted, it's also a bit liberating in a way. I've wondered occasionally over the years if it's my blogging versatility that's kept this blog from ever becoming highly trafficked, but now...well, who cares.

Anyway, seven facts!

1. My first-ever job, as I've noted before, was as a technical-services assistant at the library at St Bonaventure University. I was one of several people who did things like put new card pockets in the backs of books, weeded cards from the card catalog, and stuff like that. I don't imagine very many of those tasks are the same now...but that was my first real job. I went from never having worked to suddenly working eight-hour shifts during summer after my senior year. That was quite a shock to the system. I probably should have had a part-time job at some point before that, but in high school I was a social stick-in-the-mud and thus didn't really need a whole lot of money over and above my allowance from my parents.

2. My current job at The Store, as I've noted before, involves the use of a lot of power tools, and I've grown quite proficient and knowledgeable about tools and their uses in seven years. I can do a lot of stuff, and it's been a thrill learning it all and continuing to learn. I'm enormously lucky to have scored a job that provides literally years of learning opportunities and skills which will serve me well in other areas of life. And boy howdy, did I have a lot to learn. When I first got hired, in my first few days a manager asked me to put some paper towel dispensers up on several walls. He handed me a drill with a driver bit and some drywall screws and sent me off...but I had to go back to him for help, because the screws were Philips head and the bit in the drill was for slotted screws, and I didn't know how to change a bit in a drill.

3. I have an odd fascination, as I've noted before, with pies in faces. I think a pie in the face is all kinds of awesome...but I hate seeing newly-married brides and grooms smearing wedding cake all over one another. This irritates me to no end. It strikes me as godawfully inappropriate and never makes me laugh. The Wife and I did not do this. Neither of us wanted to do it.

4. I'm not a fan, as I've noted before, of mashed potatoes. I don't like the flavor or the texture, and gravy doesn't save them, either. But mashed potatoes do fall into that odd category of "Foods I don't like but yet always look really good to me when I see them". Mashed potatoes on someone else's plate look so yummy! So does pineapple on pizza, and so does sauerkraut. But I'm not a fan of any of these. (I do think that cooking meat in sauerkraut does wonderful things to the meat. The 'kraut itself, I can take or leave. Like it on Reuben sandwiches, though. And just today I tried some on a hot dog, and that was OK.) And no, broccoli does not fall into one of those categories. Broccoli looks, to me, like it tastes: the Food of the Devil.

5. I realized a while back that in my current work-in-progress, the space opera novel, I'm envisioning one of my characters as Nichelle Nichols in the Star Trek III-IV-V era. I thought that the older Uhura really had this sexy, "Don't make light of my opening and closing hailing frequencies because I can kick your ass without so much as reaching for my phaser" thing going on.

6. Vegetarianism isn't for me, but I do like to explore vegetarian options now and again and am planning to do more of it. Veganism strikes me as an approach that makes some fairly odd assumptions regarding the suffering and 'exploitation' of animals. The 'raw food' movement? That's the one that makes me want to eat a bacon cheeseburger out of spite. Judgmental? Sure. Hey, I've got limitations, same as everybody else.

7. To this very day I have never attended a single rock concert. The closest I've come was "Classical Mystery Tour", a Beatles tribute band that performed with the BPO a year ago. (Which was, truly, a wonderful concert.) In all honesty, I don't really think I've missed anything -- except for Van Halen.

OK, there are seven facts about me. All of them are certified true, or your money back. Now to give the Versatile Blogger award to others! As always, this comes with absolutely no obligation to play along.

Jason Bennion of Simple Tricks and Nonsense blogs about his difficult relationship with his father, his sadness over the space shuttle program ending, his thoughts on movies, and occasionally his experiences as a fairly liberal guy with a beard living in deeply conservative, facial-hair-free Salt Lake City. I just wish he could post more, but judging by how often I see him post things on Facebook like "Yeah, it's 7:00 and I'm still at the office", I can totally understand why he is limited.

Lynn Sislo of Violins and Starships has been a daily read of mine for years, and I see no sign of that ending. She'll put up a post about a sewing project and then blog about the science fiction book she's just read, and other topics in between. Endlessly fascinating blogging from the wilds of Oklahoma!

SK Waller of Incurable Insomniac is also a fantastic blogger from the wilds of Oklahoma. She's had a tough go of it through life, but she writes openly and honestly about it all. Hers is a musical soul, and she's got a lot of songs to sing. I constantly wish for her to have a big success story.

Roger Owen Green of Rambling with Roger is the very picture of intellectual curiosity. He's one of those folks who engages with the world in such a way as to always have something new and interesting to say. And he blogs every day. That's amazing in itself, these days in Blogistan!

In truth, I could pass out two dozen of these and still have room for more; most of my favorite bloggers now are the "versatile" types. Single-subject blogs have to be very fascinating or well-written to keep my interest, and I've almost completely given up on political blogs entirely (I still have four favorites that I check in on, once or twice a week). I get the sense that blogging is settling into a niche hobby, like all others. But it's still my hobby! Thanks for all the versatility out there, Blogistan!

I am Locutus!

Locutus, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

You will service me. All your power tools will be added to my own!

I bought a Brinkmann LED headlamp the other day, for use when I'm on the scissor-lift at work -- oft times I'm doing work up there above the level of our lights and occasionally a little light would be helpful. Now, I'll have it, by strapping this thing to my hard hat. Interestingly, it has a red light for night vision. Cool!

Wow, do I love tools!

Carpenterizin'

Occasionally at work I get to do some carpentry by myself. Now, I'm really pretty green as far as carpentry goes, but I'm learning as quickly as I can given that my only real opportunities to practice come at work (but when we get a house, hoo boy, then it's Carpentry Central!). When there are big projects to do -- building of cabinets, for instance -- I tend to wait until one of the more experienced carpenters in the company division is in residence, and then I pay as much attention as possible whilst helping. On simpler jobs, though, I go at it myself. Two weeks ago I had to build three of those A-frame type signs, which were intended for display along the street during special events.

A-frames aren't hard to make, really -- just time-consuming, as they involve quite a bit of cutting and joining. I had to cut six 3*5 sections of plywood out of full-sized, 4*8 sheets, using my circular saw:



My weapon there is a fairly cheap Ryobi saw, which gets the job done for my purposes. If and when I get more serious about this stuff, I may upgrade to a higher quality saw, but for now, this one's just fine for me. (Although, when I bought it a couple of years ago, the first thing I did was to replace the enclosed blade with a better one, a blade that had twice the number of teeth and a thinner kerf to boot.)

The 3*5 plywood sheets were for the faces of the signs; I built the frames themselves out of 2*4s which I cut down to proper sizes using a miter saw. I then joined the 2*4s together using one of my favorite gizmos, my pocket-hole jig. Pocket-hole joining is amazing to me: not only do they result in strong joints, but they're amazingly easy to do. Here's the jig in action:



You just clamp your workpiece in the jig and then use the bit that comes with the jig to drill your pocket holes. Then, afterwards, you simply drive your screws through the pocket holes into the piece you're joining to the pre-drilled piece, and everything gets pulled together really nicely. I love the pocket-hole jig. Long live the pocket-hole jig!

Unfortunately, I didn't think to actually take photos of my finished signs, so imagine they look kinda like this, but with better carpentry and no skateboard dude.