planetkris

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the crash…

Location: Route 495, Massachusetts
Miles traveled: 10
Cost of gas: $2.05 / gal
Weather: hot / muggy
Mood: pleased
Tunes: Robert Plant - Now and Zen

We are headed to Maine this weekend, for the Maine Forest Rally. I loaded up the Subaru with the gear that we would be using to cross the country. After several minutes of setting wires, switches, and cable ties, I booted up the laptop. I had to re-locate the GPS once (more towards the center of the rear window) and play with the sequence of “startup” and “shutdown.” Once the GPS was tracking, the USB hard drive spinning, and the WiFi adapter beeping, I was ready to give her a full test.

Started up Street Atlas USA 2004. Started up WinAmp. Connected to the Internet over WiFi. “Lift off!” We are now in Beta! Testing should continue this weekend. I hopefully will get some Maine pictures posted to rallynotes.com. I’m curious to wardrive rural Rumford, Maine.

So, this little p0cketb1ke is zooming up and down the street outside Christine’s apartment last night. A busy city street is no place for these things. Don’t take me for some p0ket b1ke hater. I grew up with motorcycles. I’ve even ridden one of these in a closed off parking lot before. On private tracks or closed areas they can be fun - but they need to be taken off the streets.

The cops show up after the kid makes about 100 passes up and down the street. I snap the above picture and watch in horror as he is let go shortly after to continue his car dodging exploits. They are still street legal in MA.

Don’t worry kids - CA, AZ, and other states have banned them. Soon…
(I broke p0ektb1k3 into leet - so I don’t get googled 1.2 bajillion times from kids looking for them.)

We almost messed up. We almost got our stuff taken, lost, held for ransom. We almost allowed Road Runner Moving and Storage to screw us. At the last minute I slammed my hand down on the ABORT button and came up with an alternate plan.

Simple to me, confusing to others: Everything that Christine and I want to end up in California went to my Manchester apartment. Everything else went to my parents’ house, Christine’s parents house, or Christine’s apartment in Massachusetts. This was done because my lease ends this week, and we won’t be leaving for Irvine until the end of August. The original plan was to have the movers grab all of our stuff in Manchvegas and bring it to storage, then deliver it to Irvine in September. Meanwhile Christine and I would live out of suitcases and household items that need to go to back to her parents’ house in NJ. To the outsider we have been moving in and out, back and forth from two apartments. We have completely confused our neighbors as to whether we are moving IN or OUT of either apartment.

Saturday I get a call from the movers. It’s an 818 number. (what’s that? NY, PA, NJ?) They tell us that the truck is going to be there at 2 o’clock Sunday. They originally said 9:00. “Okay, whatever, more time to prep.” Sunday morning. Final preparation. 2:00 comes and goes. Then 3:00. I call the company; “What’s going on?” The driver calls me back and explains that they have been pulled over by the state police, and that they may need to do some “maintenance” on the truck. “Right. Okay. So, when will you get here?” They will call me back in an hour. 5 o’clock comes and goes. I call the driver again. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to be tonight.” Furious, I call the main number and get a recording. I leave a message to that extent and Christine and I head back to Hudson, with my apartment still full of boxes ready to go.

Monday morning. No call. I spend from eight to ten looking up information on this company and formulating a backup plan. Keep in mind I have until the end of this week to get my stuff out, and then a month to find another mover. This was good planning on my part. Who I chose for a mover was not. After I read this on the “Movers Blacklist.” Remember the 818 area code? It’s a California number. Not a MA, NJ, NY number like I was expecting.

Doing more research I found that there are several moving companies named “Roadrunner Moving and Storage”. I cross referenced a phone number they gave us and did another bbb.org search. It turns out the moving company we hired did not have a clean Better Business Bureau record. It had a horible one. I call up my Dad to get a “sanity check.” Then I call Christine at work. Plan “B” is to move our stuff into a local storage place and then have movers pick it up there. It also seems like a good idea at this time to look into the “you pack it, we move it” type of movers. The one caveat with that is, not all storage places will let you drop off 2 giant shipping containers on their property, even for a day.

After several phone calls, I contacted State of the Art Storage in Hooksett, NH. They were very helpful and said that it wouldn’t be a problem to have a moving company drop off a container for a couple of days. This way we could move our items from their storage unit into the shipping container, or have a moving company retrieve our items right from storage. Plus the cost of the 15X5 unit was less then the other places I called. These guys are great! If you are in the Manchester or Concord, NH area, call them up!

So we rallied the troops. Christine contacted City to City movers and setup a time in August to deliver containers to State of the Art Storage, while I called, emailed, and irc’d some help. We got a moving crew together and headed back to Manchester, rented a U-Haul van, and got sweaty.

I want to give a huge “Thank You!” and shouts out to the following people: Dad - “Yes, tell them to shove it.” Brian Callahan - “I just need a ride.” James Mackey - “I’m out at 7:00.” Ian Bowers - “I’ll help as much as I can.” Sean Sosik-Hamor - “No traffic. So, I’ll be there in an hour.” Of course Christine “I may not have brought it down the stairs, but I touched every box in there.” Peggy from State of the Art Storage - “Sure, not a problem.” Dawn from City to City movers - “That’s your reward for calling in April.”

Biggie size your music! This baby comes with a 120GB disk, it’s underportable, and requires AC to power it at all times. Big music without the big price tag. Build yours today!

Okay - so it’s nothing like the original. How ever much I want an iPod, the price of one verses other geek toys always seems too high. Today I bought a DeLorme USB GPS w/Software, a USB-Firewire External Drive Enclosure, a USB powered hub, and a data cable for my cellphone. Even if you include the 120GB drive I bought for $90 you still don’t own a 40GB iPod.

This is a CompUSA 3.5″ Aluminum External Enclosure with a 120GB hard disk popped inside. The sticker was made with bumper sticker sheets printed on my ink-jet printer. Here’s a link to the big image if you want to make one too!

I was up in Maine setting up the server and dropping off some stuff. My brothers and I were laughing about one of the latest shorts from homestarrunner.com. They are planning the release of a new game called Peasant’s Quest. It looks hilarious! Towards the end of the trailer they include the original “tune” from the Trogdor game. “I want that as a ringtone!” One of us said. Korey challenged me to program our Motorola v120’s to play the Trogdor theme music.

After futzing with the interface, Korey told me to press the up or down buttons while in the “Create” mode. It steps you through a scale of notes. A few revisions and a few changes with the note length - here’s what I got!

For my Motorola v120
*3C4 *3C4 *3C3 *3#F2
*3C4 *3C4 *3C3 *3#D2
*3C4 *3C4 *3C3 *3#F3
*3C3 *3#D3 *3C3 *3#C3 *3#D3
“Trogdor the ringtone by Kristopher Marciniak”.

It should only take you a few moments to pump this into your phone. Then you’ll have the coolest ringtone ev4r. At least for a month or two…

Update: Click here to see the planetkris.com unofficial Peasant’s Quest guide!

Tomorrow I will be re-locating the planetkris.com server. In the meantime the sites will stay up, but no changes can be made, comments added, and the gallery will be down. You will notice a little drag as a Windows 2K desktop attempts to hand out web pages.

Look for that to happen as soon as midnight tonight, or early tomorrow morning, and last until Wednesday afternoon.

This is in final preparation for the move to California. With the server re-located, we will be able to blog from the road, add pictures, and document our cross country trip.

Update: If you can read this - the server is back up and chugging.

screwvenir (skrew-von-eer) ; 1. A collectible item or souvenir that, by obtaining it, screwed you over in some way or another. 2. A trophy for “dead last but finished.” 3. Any simple bolt, fastener or clamp that takes longer then 1 hour to remove. 4. See Figure.

I was going to call this “The stupid’ist thing ever.”, but after doing a patent search for 3307731 & 3604591 (The numbers I found on the device. Thanks Google and uspto.gov) I have upgraded it to “A severe pain in the ass.” It looks like some sort of weird unmentionable marital aid, but actually it was shoved into the oil pan of my Ford F-150 Pimp Van. I had just finished some major repair work on the old girl and I was ready to do a oil change, when I came upon this piece sticking out of where a nice drain plug bolt should be. James and I determined that it was rubber and tried to quickly pry it out of the hole whilst we getting covered in 3 year old motor oil. ‘Quickly’ and ‘pry’ are not what happened. You see this baby is designed never to come out again. Ever. The concept is: You, or your stupid mechanic, strips the threads of the oil pan drain plug. Seeing as an oil pan is like $200 they decide to shove this “device” in. It is supposed to have a wing nut on it to compress the “bulb” into the “washer.” About 2 months after you bought this $2 piece of silliness, the wing nut and bolt have rusted and broken off.

Now, here’s why it’s silly. You can’t really drain the oil anymore with this thing stopped up in there. It will “leak” no problem, but there’s no more “draining” ever to be had. It just kind of runs down your hand when you try to pry at the rubber. I bet no one reading this could sit still for the time it would take 6 quarts of oil to slurp through. It also never seals tight again because of the lost rusty wing nut.

The universe could go in two directions here. Both of them will send me screaming into the woods. 1. “We lost the oil pan plug and decided to shove one of these things in here.” 2. “We stripped the threads a little and decided to shove one of these babies in.” It’s 50/50 for me. I know the previous owner well enough to know that “maybe” he tried one of these gizmos, but he didn’t do work on the van in the first place, so I’ll lay blame on some random Ford mechanic.

So, How did I get it out? Answer: Pliers, Vice Grips, screwdriver, 700 Ft/Lbs. of downward force. I have never been completely coated up to my elbows in oil. I have done countless suspension installs, 2 head gaskets, and a MOTOR SWAP. Still not this dirty. I guess I should have wedged the pliers in, waited for the 2 gallons of oil to seep through, and pried at it in the morning… Now way was I going to let it win. “James - Hand me a towel!” It doesn’t look it, but this sucker can stretch 3″ out. After about 30 minutes of prying it popped out, spewing oil into my face and hair.

Are the threads stripped THAT badly? We’ll see. A proper tool to fix them is about six more dollars then that rubber plug. Are they stripped AT ALL? I’m going to pick up a new bolt tomorrow and see. Let me say this: The threads better be destroyed. As if marred by a tractor blade, in some fluke accident, where the van was undamaged besides the gash into the oil pan drain plug threads. This is the only acceptable level for me not to go into a wooded rampage.
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I just finished book four “Wizard and Glass” and I’m heading onto “Wolves of the Calla.” Christine graciously reserved it for me at the library.

“Wizard and Glass” was a great read. I’m almost sorry I didn’t read it sooner. Almost. Based on some of the opinions over at thedarktower.net, I think I understood it’s place in the series better then most. I really enjoyed it.

Last time, I mentioned that I read books one through three while listening to “Nirvana - Nevermind.” Well, with this book I stumbled upon another album that seemed to go quite well with what was going on. “The Future Sound of London - Dead Cities.” It’s got a industrial zip-zap western feel. One minute you think you hear the sound of the thinny, the next you are riding into town with your Ka-tet. With tracks like “Heard Killing” and “My Kingdom,” I’m instantly transported under the kissing moon in Mejis. “We Have Explosive” fits perfectly here as well.

I hope Christine has some time to read the first few books and catch up with Ray and I. I’ve added a handful of “Dark Tower’isms” to my vocabulary and I don’t want to give away anything she hasn’t read. Mmmm. This tooter-fish popkin tastes great!

Today on Route 93 in Manchester I spied a DeLorean heading North. I find this car silly for a few reasons. Now don’t get me wrong - it is a cool car and I could probably repeat pages 1 through 156 of the “Back to the Future” script. But it’s 2900 pounds of irreplaceable body panels. The “good” motor has 190HP. It sticks out more then my rallycar on the highway and you probably shouldn’t drive it in the rain. All good reasons to make it a daily driver.

Heh - well I’m a bit of an attention whore myself. So, why not?!

I was driving down Route 3 (The Everett Turnpike in New Hampshire) last night. There is a nice giant sign on the side of the highway in Nashua that reads: Route 93 CLOSED July 25th - 31st - SEEK ALTERNATE ROUTES. My first expression was: “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Today, I was driving up Route 9 in Massachusetts. There is a giant billboard going East exclaiming: NASCAR Winston Cup Races at New Hampsire International Speedway July 28th - 30th. “Awesome.”

For those who have never driven in New England, done the commute into Boston from New Hampsire, or seen Exit 1 in NH on a “Winston Cup” weekend: You can forget going anywhere around here that weekend, just forget about it.

Now to add insult to injury. Our republican controlled goverment has announced that: “Credible reporting now indicates that Al-Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out large scale attacks in the United States in an effort to disrupt our Democratic process.” But guess what? By closing down 93 and going to fruity colored alert, we HAVE disrupted our Democratic process!

Terrorism wins. Thanks Homeland security…