So Long, A-TRAC, and thanks for all the fish. Wait, what?

I have come to the conclusion that technology’s solutions to problems typically fail in comparison to an actual solution to the problem. I rail against things most of the time, yes I admit it. Hey look, going on and on and on about how pretty the flowers are and how lovely the bacon was this morning doesn’t make them any better or worse, and f*ck, it’s boring OK? I complain. That’s what blogs are for. It’s an acronym that stands for Boy i Like cOmplaining, Golly! Really. Look it up.

So what are we railing against today? Active Traction Control. Toyota instituted it in their newer Tacoma models, and they tout it in videos and stuff as the next best thing to sliced cheese. It’s better than anything else ever. It makes an off-road vehicle much much better than all these silly simpler, less technical solutions ever could, like a locker or good tires or something. But it’s not the truth, it’s marketing. It’s $100 worth of technical cost that they can tell you is too complicated for you to understand anyway, but trust us it totally jacks up the price $2,500 and it’s worth it. As if.

What they don’t tell you is the truth: while it’s better than nothing, it’s worse than an actual solution. It stinks. It’s twice the cost and half the effectiveness of the simpler, less technical solutions.

I had the time to try it out in all it’s glory last weekend. I’ve had it engage before from time to time off-roading, but never had I felt that I was in a situation that required it. But no sooner than I find myself in that situation, it fails. Coincidence? We had gone up to the mountains to play in the snow, and doggone it, if there wasn’t snow. White, wet, icy, traction-challenged snow. Lots of it. Of course 4-wheel drive became a must, hell they had signs posted “chains required, NO EXCEPTIONS” even, but I’m lazy and a figured I have decent tires, and a well-equipped Toyota 4x4; it has ATRAC after all!

We made it to our destination without any fuss. No problems to report. But again, I wasn’t relying on the traction control anyway, I was relying on good tires & prudent, awesome driving skills (“mad skillz,” as the kids say). We eventually landed at a makeshift parking lot filled with people who recognized that continuing along a road with 4’ of snow over it was probably not going to happen, and everyone was skiing, sledding, hiking, and had at least 1.5 dogs with them (we brought 3). It was fun.

As we were getting ready to leave, we saw some big, lifted, new Chevy’s try to arrive. I want to emphasize try here, OK? All the trucks that had arrived at this spot were either a) older models with good tires, b) small trucks, c) AWD cars, d) Toyotas, or e) some logical combination of the above. What we saw out of this big poser truck was some crazy slippage that was not under control. And I chided to The Girl, so much for spending $40K on the truck & $10K on the lift and tires, there’s no fix for quality components & lighter weight.” As we exited down the road a bit later, a turn or two away just in case so we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves, I hit the gas hard to see if even trying, I could get slippage like that poser Chevy was having trouble with.

Eventually, we came to rest against a snowbank.

It’s not quite like it sounds. We actually didn’t get the truck to slip the tires and lose control with the gas, it was just that since it didn’t slip, we gained all that energy as forward motion and momentum, which sort of f*cked us coming downhill into that turn we were headed to.

So the thing was, 2-½ wheels were firmly planted on the pavement at first. I locked the rear and managed to get THREE whole wheels on the pavement; all but the passenger front were on solid ground. That passenger front though, was on the shoulder, slightly lower and snow-covered. And ATRAC failed me.

It’s supposed to brake the wheel that’s spinning and divert torque to the other side, so in my case it would brake the passenger front so that the driver front would turn — the one that was on the pavement — and pull me out. However, it uses the ABS system to function and relies on braking power to perform. So, when the brakes get hot, the whole system stops functioning at all. I was stuck like this, with three tires having as firm a grip on snow-covered pavement as they could, and the wheel that would get me out of the mess, my driver front, wouldn’t turn because ATRAC wouldn’t let it. Because it was an overly-technical solution to a simple problem: how do you get the tires with grip to turn?

The simple answer is that you lock the differential, so that no matter what, when you hit the gas, both wheels turn at the same speed. It’s simple, but here’s the thing: it’s f*cking failproof. It works. It doesn’t need all this technical mumbo-jumbo, it doesn’t have a million links in its system that could cause failure, the differential simply turns both because it mechanically has to.

The complicated answer, is you apply a computer that has no eyes or ears to be in charge of determining when what tire should be turning or being braked, in order to do what YOU want it to do, regardless that you have no way to communicate with it what your needs & intentions are. This computer will rely on sensors to tell it which tire is spinning and then brake the wheel for a set amount of time to get the other wheel spinning. It of course will have to let go because you can’t go forward too far with a non-turning wheel, and it has to let it go so it can again gauge to see if the wheel is indeed still slipping or not, which if it is, then oh well, you just lost traction again for a second while it tried to figure that out.

What it amounts to is the computer generational equivalent of a Rube Goldberg contraption: a big, convoluted, messy, jumbled, confusing, failure-inducing contraption that solves in 20 forehead-slapping steps what a simple stick could do in one. And I’m through with it.

Simple is better. A locker is better. Good tires are better. I’m through with the hype. I’m going to find me a 1^st generation Tacoma, and make it simple and great. Hold me to that.

Hey! Earthquake!

So, I said I’d be back here & again to post updates when big stuff happened. Does a 6.5 earthquake count? It does? Good.

Just over a week ago we were rocked by that 6.5 earthquake I mentioned not two seconds ago. I was at work, with two hours left to go, and suddenly the world shook. I’ve seen the security tape, and all I have to say is, it’s amazing the amount of thoughts you can have in such a short amount of time, because in reality the “major” shaking lasted a whopping 5 seconds at best. And anyway I lied; I have more to say than just that.

First thing I thought of? “Why didn’t I get that earthquake insurance on the house. it was offered to us as the house was turned over to us, and we turned it down. At the time we figured the house had already stood strongly for 70 years and survived some big quakes, it seemed like money wasted. But during the shaking, that was suddenly a bad idea. Turns out though, that there’s a good reason we didn’t get it: deductibles of $40-50K. Yeah. You pay the monthly premium, and then you get to pay out-of-pocket $50K before they pitch in. Quite the deal, right?

It makes you realize the fragility of our “modern” society, though. One quick disaster, and everything about us halts. No power? Then no commerce. No gas at the station. Food in the supermarkets & your fridge go bad, and if you don’t have your own self-sustaining supply (read: garden, animals for harvest) then you’re going to be hungry until it’s restored. I could write a whole book on the absurdity of our “modern” existence, about how we’re so disconnected from all that sustains us that it’s not even funny, and that in reality a large percentage of the population is dependent upon technologies they don’t understand to give them things that are so simple they should be doing it themselves, and that one disaster later (a BIG disaster) their very lives are in danger.

Instead, I will just say that I realized that we had been being frugal to a fault. Now, I have no plans to spend more money, but as everyone was freaking out about the possibility of a tsunami coming next, and as I told The Girl to take my truck, load the dogs, and just be prepared to drive “up,” I was thinking about how much gas I had in the tank: less than a quarter-tank. Her truck that she left with me? Less than a quarter tank. Because all these ages ago, we decided to just fill up with the amount of gas we’re actually going to use in our monthly budget. Doesn’t make sense, I argued at the time, to put in $60 of gas near the end of the month if I only plan to do $10 of driving. Because then I’ve killed my budget by $50, and what’s more, now I feel as though I have free gas to burn.

I still plan on doing half-tank driving, but it dawned on me that perhaps the other half-tank is the one to be using; from now on, we’ll be driving on the top-half of the tank, filling up when it gets do half, so there’s always a reserve. 

You know, in case of emergencies. Like 6.5 quakes and possible tsunamis.

New Year's resolution: F*ck the internet

It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s not that I don’t plan to use it still. Hey, a guy needs his porn. Anyway, for me it’s just that I don’t feel like I’m getting my time out of it. 

The internet & Football are the same in that they invariably just suck you in; there you are, on the precipice of doing something wholly productive, and the next thing you know you’re 3 hours into the future and haven’t done a damned thing. And that sucks.

I like to write. But it feels like I have an obligation to it or something when I make myself concerned for the internet. Who cares? My site gets this much traffic a day: 2-7 visits. Wow. And I’m not selling anything. I don’t have anything on the line. And I’m not going to gain in popularity. One common thread I notice among “popular” websites & blogs especially, is that they all focus solely on one, single, solitary thing. I can’t do that. I mean, hey guys & gals, I like my porn, right? I can’t blog about nothing but porn. I’m a ‘jack of all trades’ personality, even in writing.

So my New Year’s resolution is to be less involved in the internet. I may put up a post or two, if I have nothing else to do, my legs are broken, and I’m sick. But otherwise, I think that this time — for real though — I am pretty much saying bon voyage to the dear ol’ internet. You wanna know what the Bob is up to? Gimme a call man. Or Babe (if you’re hot).

Lift question answered: The decider has decided

So the answer is thus: a 2001-2004 Tacoma 4-door, lifted 6 inches.

Wow, not what you were expecting, right? What went wrong? WTF, right? Let me explain how we arrived here:

We got out of the 4Runner because as it stood, it was barely big enough for us all, what with 2 full-sized people, a 70lb Labrador, and a 35lb mutt. Then it happened that we found 2 labrador puppies — brothers no less! — wondering the street, pretty much holding up a “pweez adopt us mr. Bob” sign, right? Well these two pups grow up to be 90lbs each. Where the 4Runner could barely stand 110lbs of dog, it was straining under the weight of 300lbs of dog. 

Not only that, but we go out and the dogs get wet. The 4Runner was starting to stank a little, with all that carpet & insulation holding the water in and gettin’ all musty on us; we needed to give them their own compartment, that was bigger, and could be hosed down. A 4-door Tacoma seemed like a good choice.

So then why didn’t we get an older one to begin with? Well, here’s the real story then, huh? Because The Girl didn’t like the way they looked. No, in a way I’m dead serious. I actually prefer the old ones to the new ones, but they were still pricey two years ago. I didn’t want to buy anything pre-2002, and the difference in cost between a used Tacoma & a brand-new one was literally pennies on the dollar. It didn’t make cents (har har) to spend the dough on a truck with ‘questionable’ mileage when we could get a newbie and break it in ourselves for just a few grand more. And since The Girl preferred the new ones, there was little argument against the idea. And it seemed that a lot of people were talking up the new ones, they DID have bigger motors, some new-fangled off-road options that sounded really cool, and hell I hear that the 2010 models actually give you head on road trips (I lie).

So. I had no plans to lift the truck, I was familiar with my old 4Runner, and obviously since the new model wore the same size shoes and was better, I’d have no issues, right? Well recently I got curious: was it really better? I had decided some time ago that indeed, I DID want to lift the truck and get us some better obstacle clearance. But why in the new truck but not in the old 4Runner? I began to look at the issue. Old Tacomas — built on the 4Runner frame and pretty damned identical — seemed to have me on the ground clearance front quite easily, and I am running 1.5” taller tires than stock to begin with. At least, that’s how it seemed. And then instead of observing, I decided to test. I carried around measuring tools, and when I’d find a Tacoma 4-door that was bone-stock, I’d measure. Sure enough, by as much as 2 inches, they had me. And keep in mind, I’ve got ¾” of extra ground clearance because of the larger tires! 

So. All this talk of 3” or 6” lifts on the 2^nd gen Tacomas, right? Which way to go? Well it turns out a 3” lift on a 2^nd gen is damned near the ground clearance equivalent of the 1^st gen BONE STOCK. I’d have to go 6” to even compete with the ground clearance of the 1^st gens. And you know what? That’d only gain me about ½” over a 1^st gen with a 3” lift!

So then the mice are turning full-speed ahead here. I don’t want to pour money into the wrong thing. And I start fondly recalling my 4Runner. I miss it. It was not as powerful as the new truck, but it was more nimble, lighter, and taller apparently. I felt like I could go places in it on worse tires than I can in the new one with better tread. And maybe that’s really true after all. It’s lighter by a few hundred pounds at least, taller, and more handsomer — trust me being handsome helps off-road, any expert can corroborate.

I didn’t want to just take my own word on the matter of which would be better, so I decided to post the question online. Turns out that it’s not a question many have bothered to ask. And not just that, but the measurements that matter, no one had taken them. I posed the question to the internets, and was met with “dude totally get a 1978 toyota solid-axle, it’s the bomb ha ha” and “ the new ones are the best lol I got one and lifted it 3” and I can do anything that anyone else can do lol dude.”

Turns out, the internet is full of stupid people who like to congratulate themselves, and possibly can’t read. No point trying to get advice from the looney bin I decide, I will go and ask some people that actually do the sh!t, insteasd of just taking poser pictures of their trucks next to a construction site rock pile: the local off-road shop.

The conversation starts out confusing enough: “I have a 2009 Tacoma double cab —” 

“good truck.” 

“— thanks. Anyway, I want to build a moderate expedition rig, I need something with a good amount of space so I have confined my choices to what I have, and the 1^st gen 4-door model. Which is a better starting point for that?”

“If I were building out a Tacoma for an off-road rig, I’d go with the 1^st gen, no doubt.”

“I thought you said my truck was… never mind”

We talked about it some, and it came to pass that we understood that the new trucks are good for some things, but when you start doing any moderate modding, their weaknesses shine through. Good on-road multi-purpose trucks if you don’t plan on doing anything to them, but if you want to get equipped, best to start with a different base: it’s predecessor.

Which is pretty much the conclusion I had come to. I just needed someone with knowledge to verify that fact for me, assure me that I was on the right path.

That path now consists of selling the Tundra (eventually), letting The Girl inherit the newer, fresher vehicle, and equipping myself with all the tool I need to conquer all terrains with family in tow: a 1^st gen Tacoma double cab TRD.

Snarling dogs at 3 o'clock, wingman

3am, I am awake and running down the hall full-speed. Naked. What, you haven’t tried it? No I was not warming up for the naked olympics, I was rushing toward snarling dogs. 

Typing that out, I realize that maybe that’s the opposite of what a normal person would do; run towards snarling dogs with their ‘junk’ flopping around like a treat or something. Ahem. Anyway.

They were our dogs however, and around that time I was awakened simultaneously by their sudden pissy fit over each other and by The Girl’s screech that they were having a hissy fit over each other. So you see, no time to waste here, right? Naked’s the way to go. 

So yes, a little over a week later and there was another fight. It wasn’t very fruitful, there was a little blood from Chase’s ear, but other than that & a scrape by Hunter’s eye, nothing. I think I actually got the worst of it. I came in a-runnin’ and hit the carpet with my knees at damned near full-speed ahead. Been years but MAN! Rug burn still hurts like a bitch. Especially with both knees & an ankle joining in on the fun.

We’ve decided that we are just going to have to deal with this on a as-served basis. They get along fabulously 99% of the time. After I got to them and they stopped fighting, the first thing they did was to start licking each other’s wounds. Like, almost surprised that one another were hurt, you know? “how’d this happen, brother? You OK? I gotta take care of you!” if they were at each other’s throats constantly, didn’t get along, fought every time one of them did XYZ or the other did ABC, then we’d have a different take on the situation. But as it stands, they’re brothers, they get along wonderfully and play together and love each other, but just occasionally, they decide they are just too pissed at the other to let it slide.

This time? I think one got off the couch and the other took all of the space. The other came back, tried to crawl up onto the couch-bound one, and anger ensued. Normally they all share the couch without problems. Last night? Someone didn’t want butt in their face, I guess.

Can’t say as I blame them.

Lifting the Tacoma: going with… ?

So I think that for the most part, the 6” or 3” lift question has been answered, at least in one of two parts. These parts conflict, but I have answers to questions. I’ll explain.

In the initial installment, I posed the query of whether the 6” lift really *is* better. I had been browsing around tacomaworld forums for a while before I made my post and have continued to do so. However, I was much more a lurker than a poster. I was just sort of waiting to find the answer, for someone to post it it plain as day, that yes, this or that is better and here’s definitive proof. Problem was, MOST of the people on the site have 3” lifts, and MOST of the people on that site say a 3” lift is better for off-roading. Coincidence? Probably not. The question for me was, which was cause and what which effect? There was a lot of statements but not a lot of proof. Eventually I really began to question whether it was a case of buyer’s remorse, so-to-speak: everyone with 3” lifts say’s their ‘the tits’ because you’d hate to say you spend $2k and didn’t get what you really wanted, right? Same reason people still use Windows, too; hate to admit the other’s better and you’d been duped for so long.

Recently I saw an opening, and actually posed my questions. I stuck it to them, you could say, giving them my rationale for thinking that perhaps 3” is only half as good as 6” off-road. “If 3-inches is better off-road,” I said, “prove it.” I got a lot of statements, but no actual proof. The reasoning was invalid, and eventually people started to see what I was getting at, the logic behind the problem & the solutions. And then some 6” lifted guys chimed in as well. It seems then, that the question of a) is it really better, is solved: yes, 6” is really better off-road. There’s little doubt about that.

The other half of that debate now takes center stage: b) is it better for our needs? Included in our needs is budgetary concerns, of course. 6” may be/is now hence proven to be better off-road, but that doesn’t mean that it’s automatically better enough to warrant the cost. Example: My bicycle. Yes the Competitive XC Moutain Bikes are “better” bikes than the Hardrock model I actually bought. The thing was, for my needs, the competitive XC models don’t improve my biking experience enough to warrant the extra $2,300 in cost to get into— 3x the price of the bike I actually purchased — and nowhere near the amount better to justify the $8,800 MSRP for the top-tier model. Just no way.

The truck lift is like that. 6” is definitely better than 3” off-road. But for ME, for OUR needs & use, is it enough better to justify an additional $1,500-$2,000 in cost?

I’m just thinking out loud here. More to come.

Shot in the Face! And you're to blame! You give…

For those that don’t know — what, you’re not following my every action on my blog, my facebook, twitter, myspace, and SMS messages? — I have been riding my bike to work & back for the better part of a couple of months now, weather permitting (and sometimes not). Don’t start praising me all at once now, I only live like maybe a mile from my work, so… it’s not like it’s a great exercise routine or anything, it just happens to be close enough to be time-wise, I can actually do it faster on bike that in the truck. There’s other pluses too, actually: Being the manager at work means sometimes having to escort angry people out. Angry people don’t care that the situation’s their fault, they just want to get even. Hard to key a truck when it’s not there, right? Right?

Anyway, the bike I bought was a Specialized mountain bike. Nothing too serious, I’m not racing, just having fun. I didn’t want to spend more than $400-$500 and get more than a mid-level bike, BUT I did want to get the most features at that price point. I got it, in the way of Disc Brakes (yeah, on a bicycle) and front tunable suspension forks. It’s great in theory, but just recently I found myself ouching over the suspension.

I was riding to work and hopped up over a curb. When I landed, I heard a ruckus and felt a sharp jolt/pain attack my right shoulder & face. What the hell was that? What the f*ck just happened? I stop the bike and turn around to see a coil spring and accompanying hardware rolling around on the ground behind me. I look down at my front tire and what do I see? A disassembled front tunable suspension fork.

The adjustment mechanism for the suspension is basically a nut you turn on the top of the right fork tube to compress or decompress the spring a little. Well I guess it worked its way loose on the ride to work, and when I came down on top of it full-force, it popped, and my weight + the pressure of the compression sent it all sailing towards me. Towards my face. I mean hell, you sat on a bike recently? The fork tubes point right at your friggin’ face, man. They need a damned safety catch or something. 

I mean, I could have shot my eye out!

Anyway. Don’t worry about me, I got it all back together. It was sort of my fault because I was trying to increase the dampening which means loosening the adjustment mechanism. I guess I adjusted it a little too loose, eh? Looks that way.

Still though: safety catch. Preferrably not with the customer’s face. That’d be my overall recommendation, Specialized… 

To Cell or not to Cell

The reason for the afore-linked Apple vs Windows, Numbers vs Excel showdown was that we’re unhappy with our phone situation. I may have mentioned it before, that we’re looking at a better/cheaper/better way to do it. I don’t have the answer yet, but I have the pricing. It’s this same thing though, I have the lists of pros & cons, but I’m not sure the weight of each point quite yet.

Currently we’re running Vonage for home phone through at&t DSL service, with prepaid, low-rung cell phones through Virgin Mobile. The total cost currently works out to about $85 a month. 

We ended up here to save costs over at&t’s service plans, and it worked out in our favor in every way, because when we dropped at&t’s phone service, they didn’t touch our DSL service cost. In reality though, at&t charges two different prices for the same service; a $45 charge if you’re NOT an at&t phone customer, and a mere $35 if you are. So essentially, if we use at&t as a gateway to VoIP phone service, it tacks on $10 to the total cost of whatever you go with.

Enter our move. There’s another catch with “Dry-Loop DSL,” as they call it. When you move, you can’t “transfer service,” they terminate your current service and start you up again. Awesome, right? I know, totally. It really only mattered to us in that they “corrected” their error, and made our setup $10 more expensive than it used to be. 

What’s $10? It’s a stone’s throw away from where we were, that’s what it is. And there’s the whole pros/cons things to deal with. And honestly, while we’re happy overall with the “phone service” we get from Vonage, we’re not that satisfied with some of the unanticipated, non-cash costs of using them. A Pros/Cons list, you say? Why SURE, I can do that!

Vonage through at&t DSL, Pros

• It IS the cheapest ($86)
• Easy access to phone features from any computer. I can forward calls, change the amount of rings to voicemail, have my voicemail messages sent to my email, all very quickly and easily.

Vonage through at&t DSL, Cons

• Only cheaper by about $10
• Plan is not unlimited, so we have to watch our minutes in order to keep it cheaper.
• Phone must be located by modem. Only ONE phone jack throughout entire house can be used, then
• Phone must be located by modem. Wireless interference makes phone almost useless unless you’re right next to it.

At&t Home phone & DSL service, Pros

• Total cost with discounted DSL service: ~$95.
• All the same features as Vonage
• Unlimited minutes any direction, in the US (all my calls are US)
• Can use ALL phone jacks in house, separate modem from phones, lose most all interference.

At&t Home phone & DSL service, cons

• It’s more expensive
• Features are harder to get to; must access through phone, dialing #’s and whatnot in order to access features. Takes longer, more demanding, less likely to happen.

Cell phone as main phone, Pros

• Always-on status (where’s Random bob? Call him! You have HIS PERSONAL NUMBER! HE’S THERE).
• No wireless network interference, freedom to move about anywhere while having a conversation. Want to talk while out in the shed? Not with our wireless house phone, you cannot.
• I won’t keep forgetting to charge my phone (that I never use so I forget about it all the freakin’ time).
• “Call Features” of the home phone are lost, but become pointless anyway, so who cares?

Cell phone as main phone, Cons

• Most expensive option ($105, before taxes & surcharges)
• Limited minutes still
• Really, do I want to be contactable all the time?
• No “unified” phone number for our family. Who you gonna call? If you need to talk to “us”?
• Did I mention it’s the most expensive option?

There IS a dark-horse option I haven’t mentioned yet: Getting our internet connection through the local cable company. It’s the same cost as through at&t without phone service, so the same cost, and most of the same pros/cons as we currently have. Except that we would possibly be able to separate the at&t line-in from our box, and shove the phone line out of the modem into a jack in our house and push the dial tone to ALL the rest of the jacks, thereby eliminating probably our most annoying con: having essentially one interference-ridden phone for the house.

…of course, this would require that a phone jack be near a cable outlet. Which currently I do not see being the case at our house. Which would mean far more work than I would ever do to rectify what is essentially a very small issue. Which would mean changing things for the sake of keeping them the same.

I don’t know. What do you guys think? Give me holler, let me know. What am I missing?

Round 4: Chase vs Hunter

Yesterday when I got home, I was greeted by a limping dog, and a blood-soaked dog. Yes, again. This marks the fourth time we’ve had to deal with this, since about mid-August. This was also the worst thus far.

Chase got a good hold on Hunter’s left arm and left some pretty deep & long lacerations, and it looks like Hunter came down on top of Chase’s head & neck in return, and pretty much swallowed his whole head, rather ferociously I might add. Chase’s face looks like crap to match Hunter’s arm. He’s got what looks like a blood-filled swell under his right eye, and I will be keeping an eye on it (no pun intended) because I’m worried it’s not going to drain itself and will need to be lanced. But we’ll see.

Now the fight didn’t just consist of those wounds, however. Hunter also has scrapes & teeth marks on his head & ears, and we found some good-sized puncture wounds on chase’s elbow, so it seems at some point they traded spots to see who could do the most damage.

Turns out it was a tie. Who knew? Two 90lb brothers of the same age, same basic build & strength… when they fight it gets ugly fast. I mean, we doctored them up for an hour or so, to cleanse wounds that took maybe 20 seconds to make. They’re so damned equal that there’s not really an “alpha” when it comes down to the wire, ya know?

I wish this was an easy problem to solve. We love them both, and what’s more, they love each other. They’ve done nothing but lick each other’s wounds clean in the time since. It’s not like there’s some known trigger, it’s not like they don’t get along, it’s not like there’s something they just can’t stand but to fight over. They love each other and protect & defend each other! It seems that occasionally, they start to play a little rough, someone gets a little rougher than the other thinks they should, and it escalates, fast, and with weeks-long consequences.

I don’t want to have to crate them when we go. Seems cruel. Plus, how are they gonna defend the property from inside a box? No I don't think that's the solution. They love each other too much to be separated like that. We'll just have to make do I suppose, and hope the figure it out before they really do some damage. Here's to hoping that this one hurt them both enough that avoidance sounds like a good plan in the future.

Lifting the Tacoma: going with 3-inches (or 6)

So I’ve had the truck a little more than a year now. It’s a nice truck! But to be honest, I didn’t expect it would stay stock forever. It’s our expedition vehicle. When we go out into the nature around us, it’s the one we take. I want it to be superior at that, you know? The question wasn’t ever “are we going to lift it,” the question has always been “how much do we lift it?”

This question remains unanswered as of yet.

There’s a slew of options out there for the Tacomas, but a lot of them are sh!t and really, the way I see it there’s really only TWO options: a 3-inch or a 6-inch. There’s pros & cons to both I guess, cost is a slight factor but not completely prohibitive. The problem I’ve had in deciding is whether or not the 6-inch lift is worth the extra cost, and whether I’d make use of it. You know, is it actually a) better, and b) better for our needs? Does it justify the added cons for the pro of an addition 3-inches of ground clearance? That’s really the only question in the matter, but it’s not an easy one to answer.

A 3-incher costs, let’s say $2k by the time all’s said & done. What do I get? 3 extra inches of ground clearance for the frame, and with a little finagling I can put on 33” tires and gain an extra ½-inch clearance over my current 32” tires as well. A 6-incher however costs twice this amount. I gain 6 inches of clearance at the frame, minus a couple of inches just after the front tires for the subframes that support this lift. So at points I get 6-inches of additional lift, at others I get just 3- or 4-inches (though I’ve been assured that I can use those as sliders and just pretend they’re not there in that respect). I also have the option of running 35” tires which would give me an additional 1-½” of lift on top of that, and a most-important 1-½ inches at the axle & front suspension. But there’s a chance I’d stay at 33” anyway, as I hear that 35” requires “trimming” of the frame. I refuse to trim my frame.

A pro & con list, you say? Yeah, I can do that. Here you go:

3-inch pros

• More affordable
• Gain at least 3” of lift at all points (no subframe rails)
• More accessible entry
• Won’t void warranty locally

3-inch cons

• Can’t run bigger than 33” tires (little added ground clearance for axles)
• Extends suspension for lift (less “flex” for the suspension; it’s already extended)
• ONLY 3” of lift

6-inch pros

• Additional 3” of lift provides better obstacle clearance through middle of truck, better approach & departure angles
• Can run 35” tires (?)

6-inch cons

• Probably can’t run 35” tires, have to stick with 33” anyway (frame trimming)
• Costs at least twice as much (parts, additional necessary parts, etc)
• Actually only gain 3” of ground clearance after the front tires for about 1-½ foot of length
• Possibly void warranty (local dealership frowns upon 6-inch lifts)

Clearly then, the 3” is the better option, right? Not so sure. That’s the problem with pro/con lists for me, they don’t take into account the weight of particular points, they just assign a point for each. There’s a chance that actually, that additional 3” of lift — the one true Pro of the 6-incher — is weighted so heavily that it bests the laundry list of its cons & the 3-incher’s Pros. Which is why the argument still unfolds.

I’ve yet to find the weighted scale for these points yet.

To be continued…

Organizing the Kitchen

These are my new babies. Go ahead, click the picture to see a larger version. What’s so special, you ask? Well, it turns out I am most definitely an obsessive-compulsive personality. Those jars you see? They turned me on. Why? Organization. Ughghhgh…

What you see are four 2-liter jars and four 1-liter jars. There’s more on the way, however, as we plan to add a few 3-liter jars to the mix to hold our bulk quantities items (sugar, flour, prostitutes… what?), as well as some smaller ones to hold other, often-used items in easy-to-reach, easy-to-use sizes.

I know I shouldn’t be so amorous over some glass jars, but c’mon… ORGANIZATION!

We had been just putting the overstock sugar, flour, coffee and the like in the freezer to keep it fresh/safe from ants, but the paper & plastic containers make a royal mess of the freezer unnecessarily. The prostitutes, you ask? No, we didn’t keep them in the freezer, that’s just cruel. Now the stuff can sit in the cupboard, sealed for freshness/ant protection, ORGANIZED, and is easier to get to and manipulate when we need to.

The kitchen’s coming along. We’re getting our systems down, we’re getting it to click, and make it as easy to work in and clean up. Obsessive-compulsive? Yes. So yes, the kitchen must be clean; I’m a big fan of staging areas, I love to have them all around. The jars are a big help in the big ORGANIZATION scheme in a big way. When we come up with & implement some of our other ideas, I’ll get you up-to-date.

In the meantime however, remember: treat your prostitutes well! I mean it.

Adventures in de-carpeting

So yeah, there was more to the “Miles was put down” story yesterday than I told you about initially. Now, I don’t want you to hate me or think that he made a bad so I killed him: I swear to you, he was very very ill, in mucho pain and just generally hanging on so as to sleep uncomfortably and sh!t himself to death anyway. So, yeah. Really.

But anyway. He had been sleeping with us for awhile before the day came, because the boys were loving on him so much as to not ever let him have a moment’s rest, right? I was initially concerned about this arrangement, because I like my sleep, and I was envisioning having to constantly get up and let him out to go potty (piss & sh!t). Surprisingly, this didn’t happen. Much. Well, at all, until two nights before his scheduled “appointment” at the vet. Sunday he had started to crap (sh!t) out his insides. Explosive diarrhea? It exists, apparently. I had no idea. The stuff comin’ out of him? Wasn’t poop, it was liquified death. Straight out of his butt.

Yes this is gross. And it gets worse.

So two nights before his “Appointment” at the vet, he had to go. Luckily I was roused enough to hear it and figure out he wasn’t just looking for a good spot to lie down, he was hoping to god that the door would magically open so he could go outside and spew liquified death from his nether regions. Not once! Not twice! Three times that night. After going weeks without having to do potty breaks during the night, suddenly he couldn’t hold himself. The night before his “appointment” at the vet, it continued. Except this time, I wasn’t fast enough. Despite being faster because I was half-expecting it, he didn’t make it out of the bedroom before he unleashed his liquified death upon the carpet.

So at 2am in the morning, there we were, trying not to puke as we boiled water and mixed pet stain odor destroyers together to form a concoction so powerful the world damned-near knelt before us, quivering with fear. Turns out? Still no match for the liquified death that had been slathered richly over the entry to the bedroom. We struggled in vain for a full day to try and get the smell gone. And then we gave up on that, and got smart:

So we were gonna rip up all the carpet anyway, right? Why not start right now, then? Right. So we put our magical rings together and formed Voltron or something, and got to cutting the carpet out of the bedroom. For the night we just started with the strip that contained the — yeah, you get it — stuff. It was the best idea. That smell permeated the whole of the carpet, the padding underneath, and possibly the first three layers of the earth’s crust.

I’ll be back with more of the carpet adventures. For now, enjoy the picture of the finely-crafted wood floor that some stupid f*ckers oversprayed the hell out of because they’d never heard of drop cloths, the mother f*ckers. Oh, and the f*cking staples everywhere that they stapled down the crappy-ass carpet padding with in the middle of the f*cking floor… 

Ahem. Not bitter. Not at all. Why do you ask?

And then there were Three:

So the day finally came: Miles has left us. It came fast, from being happy & content, to being gimp & sad. He wasn’t doing well his last couple of weeks; in fact, Miles didn’t just randomly pass, I scheduled this day late last week. It seemed bad of me at the time, and in fact the day after I thought to myself that I might have jumped the gun. Butd Sunday solidified it for me, it was the right decision, if a hard one.

He couldn’t got potty. OK fine, laugh, you want me to not say it kiddie? Fine. He couldn’t SH!T, OK? He danced around four or five times before he could even get into position to do it without falling over first. And then, it took him three passes after he started to get to the finish. And then with just a day or two to go, he started pooping out his insides on top of it all. Never a good sign, right? I mean, typically, you want to keep your insides inside & vice versa.

It was time. Clearly. Miles will be missed. My first ever Favorite Dog.

Ding Dong, the witch is dead, the witch is dead... ;-)

Back to normal

After a week of mother-in-law in town, we’re back alone, back to normal, and back to sex! No, not really. Too damned tired for that right now. Which, I guess is back to normal! Yay!

Sleepy because: bad news

Miles isn’t doing hot. Luckily he has made it long enough to see everyone he knew from the old days that he’s going to get to see before he goes; I think the time draws near, unfortunately. 

He’s been sleeping in my room for the last three weeks. We started this because the pups were just all over the guy trying to take care of him and basically just caring so much that it was an annoyance to poor ol’ Miles. Sleeping behind a closed door with his daddy had been a nice, peaceful break. However, that seemed to stop a few nights ago, as he’s now too uncomfortable to make it through much of the night actually sleeping.

Instead, most of our nights together consist of him dragging his self around and panting loudly, and us (me especially) sitting up to make sure he’s doing “OK”  — as OK as a cancer-stricken 13y/o dog with a broken him can be — and doesn’t need to go out to use the bathroom. And I mean it, too — this is most of our night. I felt bad, but at some point this morning I had to kick him out of the room, because I needed more than 45 minutes of consecutive sleep, dammit.

I put his bed out in the hallway corner, let him out to pee, and when I eventually got up two hours later, where did I find him? Outside still.

And I’ll mention too that he didn’t eat this morning. I poured him some food, he just laid down and looked away instead. Miles, okay? Miles doesn’t turn down food. This is obviously serious business.

Quick movie update

While mom-in-law was here, we watched something called National Geographic: Extreme, which was supposed to be Hi-Def heaven, following around extreme sportsmen (and women!) into the wilds of our planet, thrill seeking. Let me save you the trouble: it sucked. The music was corny 90% of the time, I didn’t care to hear voiceovers from the lame as though they were great wisdom sources or something, and I can only watch a snowboarder carve a mountain path so many times before I a) can’t tell the difference between the cutscenes, and b) just don’t care anymore.

Also watched The International last night. Stars Clive Owen. How was it? Well, I had thought that perhaps it would be a suspenseful movie full of suspense ‘n’ stuff, what with the look on Clive Owen’s face on the trailers and such. Little did I know beforehand that Clive Owen always looks like that, apparently. It, too, sucked, and actually sucked much harder, because it was a) longer, and b) I still didn’t care anymore.

I didn’t bother giving either of these movies their own blog, because? Well, they don’t deserve it. They’re both b-rate entertainment that isn’t bad enough to warrant their own narrative nor were they good enough to deserve praise. They are b-rate mediocrity and proud to be.

Battlestar Galactica Finale

I watched this and just wanted to let you know I did. I have an opinion on it and plan to share, but for now just wanted to say: I can’t wait for Lost to come out on disc so I can continue watching. Love these types of shows, Lost especially. 

OK, Peace out.