Month: July 2024

Sometimes a hero is just a sandwich

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 31 Comments
Well, maybe not so much.

One of those weeks, I guess.

We watched Joe Biden’s presser and I felt as though I should weigh in, but Charlie Pierce beat me to it with his remembrance of how Laughin’ Joe knuckle-chuckled Lyin’ Paul Ryan right off the stage during their 2012 veep debate, in which “he effectively demolished Ryan as a political figure simply through good old Irish barroom bonhomie.”

Like Charlie, I always had a soft spot in my heart for José after he gave that empty suit the old one-two, the hee and the haw.

Next, my APC Back-UPS NS 1080 went loudly sideways, presenting various error messages overlaid by a soundtrack from the Nostromo on self-destruct in “Alien.” This caused me to spend the better part of quite some time online with tech support, trying to diagnose what I suspected — and the tech eventually confirmed — was a terminal case of old age, the unit being 7 years old, the short end of this battery backup’s lifespan.

Speaking of old age, in the course of unplugging and inplugging laptop, monitor, dock, speakers, backup drives, backup battery, and what have you during the diagnostic process I was reminded that the fans in my 2014 MacBook Pro 15-incher seemed to be running all the time, no matter how light the workload. Also, its trackpad was largely inoperable again.

The first time the trackpad issue cropped up, the cause was a swelling battery. I had Apple replace that and give the innards a wash and brushup. But this time I didn’t see any telltale bulge in the case, and some casual nosing around the Innertubes led to the usual potential suspects — old, dried-up thermal paste, other failing critical bits, filth and clutter, demonic possession, Cthulhu awakening, and why not just buy a nice new MacBook and shitcan that 10-year-old relic, you penny-pinching eejit, etc.

Well, we’re not quite there yet. I unplugged all my gear again, set the 15-incher aside, and swapped in its little brother, the 2014 13-incher, which has gone mostly unused since I sidelined my Radio Free Dogpatch podcast and seems as quiet as a mouse.

Naturally, there’s a downside to that maneuver. When I bought the 13-incher I went for 8GB of memory and the 128GB SSD for reasons that elude me now (possibly penury; more likely stupidity). And that drive is pretty close to full. Happily, I had a 480GB OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini external drive lying around doing not much, so, yay, problem solved. Or at least avoided. For now.

I know, I know. I should sack up, crack the Big Mac’s clamshell, get in there with my little toolkit and root around like I know what the hell I’m doing.

But I’m gonna take my cue from Joe here. Pass the torch to the Vice-MacBook Pro. It’s not so much the big fella’s age; it’s the hours it’s been on and running hot.

There may be a better candidate out there somewhere, but so what? I got shit to do, man.

The dog days of summer, part 2

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Doggone it. …

From Wikipedia:

The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius (known colloquially as the “Dog Star”), which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. (emphasis mine)

So, there I was, JRA, when I heard the squelchy sound of my Nobilette’s front tire going flat despite its sealant-filled inner tube.

I was en route to the meetup for the twice-weekly Geezer Ride, so I pulled over, drew my phone, and texted my fellow graybeards to advise that I had had a mechanical and was returning to base. I had only the one spare tube, Herself was at work, and it had been too hot for one of those long walks home in Sidis from a previous millennium.

When I got back to El Rancho Pendejo and opened the garage door I was reminded that I had all these other bikes hanging around. Thinking I could still catch up with the lads if I took a quick, dirty shortcut over to High Desert via the Embudito trailhead, I grabbed a Steelman Eurocross and did exactly that.

We rode around and about for a while, solving the knotty problems of the world, and as I had been denied some of the early miles I decided to tack on a few at the end, riding two of the brothers home and then picking up Trail 365 at Rebonito Road for a little more dirty fun.

Hanging a 90-degree left onto the bridge at the Piedra Lisa Canyon trailhead south of Candelaria I felt the front tire try to squirm out from under its rim. Judas Priest! Another front flat? Indeed.

Happily, I had thought to reload the saddlebag with a fresh spare tube, so I quickly returned the Steelman to working order and rode home.

Back at the ranch, I took the opportunity to give the Nobilette a fresh goopy tube, which went smoove like butta. But when I tried to do likewise with the Steelman the freshly installed tube refused to inflate for some reason.

Defective tube, maybe? Or pump head clogged with old sealant? I disassembled that, gave it a cursory cleaning (which means cursing while cleaning it), put it back together, and had another go. Still bupkis.

“I should ring up the Fed, tell them I’ve found a solution to their inflation problem,” I muttered. Then I grabbed another tube, one not installed in a tire, and tried pumping it up to see if anything happened.

And something did. The fucking thing exploded, launching huge gobs of yellowish sealant throughout the living room. Because of course I work on my bikes in the living room. That’s where the air conditioning is.

You will recall “The Exorcist?” This made Regan’s eruptions look like a sneeze that missed the Kleenex.

I gave the living room a very cursory cleaning, replaced the Steelman on its hook sans a reloaded front wheel (the pump head apparently perished in the explosion), and — not for the first time — considered taking up bowling.