Hard to Dispose, More Difficult to Discard (Government Doesn't Get It)

I saw a news story a few weeks ago that the City of Cincinnati has set very strict rules about what can be thrown in the garbage, and more importantly, how this garbage must be attractively displayed for pick-up by what must be very discerning Solid Waste Engineers.
Most people will probably try to comply.  But with significant fines for violations, the laws of unintended consequences means that alternate disposal methods are likely.

When I get in the mood to clean and purge, I really get in the mood to clean and purge.  Since moving into this house nearly five years ago, there was quite a bit of electronic paraphernalia that I had never used, and other sundries which were likely never going to be used again.  Having a few hours last weekend, I went through much of this stuff to do a cathartic purge.
I had several storage areas where old computer hardware and software was collected and it was time to get rid of it.  After deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, I had a few piles to throw away, recycle, and unknown.  In the unknown pile were things like my palm pilot - I was unsure if it still had my information on it.  A hammer solved that dilemma, and it went into the trash pile.
I similarly destroyed the dual hard drives in my old desktop computer.  One saw several death blows with a hammer, the other was disassembled and the magnetic platter removed and shattered.
While destroying the hard drives, my memory was brought back (pun intended) to some relatively inexpensive Sun Sparc stations that the federal government was selling about 18 years ago.  These were such a good deal, that the research lab I was working in at the time looked into them.  As government computers, they had to have the hard drives removed which was understandable.  However, the bureaucrats also required the volatile RAM to be removed.  I can only surmise some ignorant government idiot manager was worried that RAM may secretly retain information.  Unfortunately, Sparc-compatible RAM was very expensive and cost nearly as much as the computers were worth.  Our lab chose not to buy these very expensive, cheap computers.

In my piles of electronic stuff to get rid of were two CRT monitors.  These went along with my older desktop computer.  I really don't see value in a desktop computer anymore as I don't play computer games.  I used to be an avid gamer, but like a quantum switch, one day I couldn't take it anymore and stopped, nearly overnight.
I also had several computer games to get rid of.  Some of these go back to Windows 3.1 days (Sam n' Max Hit the Road).  There is minimal value of these on Ebay, and I'm not sure that a disadvantaged kid somewhere will have his life improved by a good copy of Outlaws (circa 1998), so these were discarded.  As so much of my life was spent playing Doom II, Quake, Quake II and Unreal, I kept these - likely to be discarded at some future purge...

Which brings me back to my CRT computer monitors and what is the "right thing" to do with them.  There is a very limited market for reuse as monitors.  The world is now flat.  The CRT market is probably on the same scale as reuse for artistic purposes.  While creative, I'm not sure how many monitor fish tanks the world really needs.
The best option for these monitors was to recycle them appropriately.  I went to the county's website to see what options are available.  There were several listed options for computer monitors, even specifically denoting CRT monitors.  Sadly, the website is, at best, very out of date.  After traipsing around with two heavy monitors, nobody would take them for recycling, despite my willingness to also accompany them by a nominal fee to dispose of them properly.  One place listed on the county website, which may have been where I dropped off an old TV a few years ago, was apparently not quite as conscientious as they claimed to be...

After trying to do "the right thing," for quite some time, I was frustrated.  I (thankfully) do not live under the authoritative regime of Cincinnati.  I called my local refuse company and they said they will happily take and landfill CRT monitors and televisions.  I won't know until I get my next solid waste disposal bill whether this option came with a charge for it, but the nice woman I talked to on the phone said that if there wasn't very much trash and they weren't that big, the monitors would be picked up for free.  I'm often surprised at the mountains of trash some people leave out on garbage day; at my house, I usually have one very nearly empty, skinny, plastic garbage can.  The cost for this seems ridiculous compared to my neighbor's piles, as the garbage company charges a set fee per week per house.  I guess being able to throw away mountains comes at a cost.

I really don't feel too good about landfilling two old, working computer monitors.  But my options were limited.  I could:
a)  put it in the basement where it will be harder and more expensive to throw away some time in the future.
b)  continue to drive these monitors all over the world trying to find somewhere to take them, while realizing they still may never be taken care of appropriately.
c)  legally dispose of them in the landfill thanks to the benevolence of the solid waste company that serves my rural township.

I suppose there is also a d) option.  I could, under the dark cover of night, throw them into an adhoc dump.  There is a ravine created by a small creek about two miles from where I live.  Jack-wad disgusting people dump all manner of stuff there.  About a year ago, the county government cleaned it all up and put a sign telling people not to recreate the pile of garbage (with apologies to Arlo Guthrie), but it is growing once again.
I never even thought of choosing this option, but this WILL BE  the result of Cincinnati's new Draconian garbage policy.  Nearly all people want to do the right thing, but every barrier put in front of the right thing will lower the relative energy needed for people to do the wrong thing.  When it is easier and cheaper to risk dumping that old ratty couch behind an abandoned building, it will happen.  It is sad that high and mighty city government, such as Cincinnati City Council, is too blind to see this irrefutable law of unintended consequences.

I remember when I got my first really big CRT computer monitor.  I had just built my computer system after researching and buying all individual components.  It was a dual boot system - OS/2 and Windows NT - I guess I was really a glutton for punishment then.  I spent countless hours staring at that monitor while I played Quake II and Unreal.  That first large monitor died many years ago and was recycled at a time when it was relatively easy to do so.
Now, I can't imagine ever buying another CRT screen.  My personal laptop is an old derided netbook, but it is small, robust and does everything I need.

The two monitors will likely live on under a mountain of garbage.  If there is any solace in this poor, but legal, option, it is only that they may be resurrected one day when we turn to mining landfills for the materials they contain in a future post-apocalypse.  And maybe that future will look just like Quake II.

MGB Rod Bearings and Toyota Spark Plugs (why doing vehicle service myself is preferable)

I normally do most of my own vehicle service.  There are some things I don't do because they require special tools or are frankly to much of a pain to do.
There were several recalls for my 2009 Toyota Tacoma that I hadn't bothered to do.  There was also an extended warranty on the truck's headlight lenses which the vehicle showed poster child issues of.

This warranty was going to expire in November, so it was a good time to get it done while I was thinking about it and before December rolls around and I kick myself for not getting it done.
I'm relatively busy at the moment, so I decided to do other maintenance at the same time:  spark plugs, coolant change, oil change, etc.  These are things I would normally do myself, but it just made sense to do them all at once (and despite the county's suggestion that coolant can be recycled, there is no one willing to take this, and I hate disposing it locally).

After the truck was done, I drove home and popped the hood open.  The three bolts that hold the air cleaner "connector" to the top of the engine were missing.  I don't mind using the Toyota dealer for service, but since there is a slight price premium when taking it there, there is an absolute expectation that work be done 100% correctly.  While the air connector bolts are probably not the three most critical bolts on the vehicle, not having them there is completely unacceptable and it makes me question the competence of all the work done.  It was late Saturday, too late to do anything about it, my frustration must wait until Monday.

The oil pressure on my 1972 MGB has slowly been dropping with general engine wear over the years.  The vehicle isn't in the danger area yet and there was  no rattling or rod knocking, etc.  There was around 25 pounds at idle and at speed oil pressure was 60 pounds on a good day, but sometimes 50 when really warm.
This is really a case where "a stitch in time saves nine" and rod bearings with the engine in the car is not too heinously difficult, if a bit messy.
I dropped the oil pan and was pleasantly happy with what I found.  In the bottom of the oil pan, there was a bit of gasket material (pretty common) but only a trace of sludgey goo.  When I was working as a mechanic at a British car shop, it wasn't uncommon to drop an oil pan and find an inch of thick grey sludge, suggesting much in the way of metal erosion and general contamination.
Pulling the rod caps revealed 0.010 over rod bearings with just a taste of copper showing on three of the four top bearings.  This is "good" engine wear and suggests no significant issues, especially since the rod journals looked nearly perfect.

The oil pump looked quite bad with clearances well in excess of what should be expected.  I almost suspect that on a previous rebuild/repair, the oil pump was not replaced or rebuilt.  I ordered most parts from Moss Motors, with an oil pump rebuild kit from Engel Imports.  I've read various reports on the quality of the new oil pumps, but replacing the guts almost always works satisfactorily.  I actually had a new oil pump of unknown origin which I decided not to use - due to the unknown origin part.
Since I think engine work must be done with scrupulously clean parts, I was scouring the oil pan when I noticed the pan was cracked.  This explains at least part of the reason why the car leaked so much oil; it is British, so some leaking just serves as rust proofing.  I'm actually surprised it wasn't leaking more with the crack in the pan.  Ebay to the rescue, I was able to find a good pan at a fair price, although it was mislabeled on Ebay, saying it was an 18G pan, which would have had 19 mounting bolts instead of the 18GB-on 18 bolts.

It has been a few years since I've been waist deep in an engine, so I was extra careful reassembling everything.  But everything went together well and it was only a short time until I refilled the engine with oil, pulled the spark plugs out and spun the engine over to get oil pressure prior to starting it.
Once oil pressure was achieved, I started the engine.  Happily, but with a twinge of worry, the oil pressure topped out near 100 pounds - a bit more than I would have wanted.  I let the car idle before driving it, and as the oil heated, the pressure dropped, but not by much.
I had all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why the oil pressure was so high, but Occam's razor suggests the simplest explanation is almost always right.  I had previously (maybe a year ago?) installed Moss' "uprated" oil pressure relief valve (329-235) to help push the lowering pressure up.  With fresh rod bearings and, more critically, a rebuilt oil pump, this might have been too much.
I removed the oil pressure relief valve and removed the shim.  Installing this valve, especially with the uprated spring, is a bitch with the engine in the car, but after a little cursing I got it back in.  The oil pressure is still a bit high, but now at an acceptable level.  I'll need to drive the car for a couple hundred miles first, but I may replace the oil pressure relief spring with the standard one in the future.

On the Monday after my Toyota Tacoma service, I got an automated email from the dealership service supervisor that he expects 100% satisfaction and to email him if I wasn't 100% satisfied.  I don't expect he really wants any emails, but I let him know, in very polite terms, I was displeased.  I never heard back from him.
I returned to the Toyota dealership after work and showed where the three bolts were missing.  The first reaction of the service writer, and it was the wrong reaction, was, "We weren't even anywhere near there."  When I pointed out the spark plugs were directly underneath the bolts, she just made a funny face and got the mechanic.  The mechanic looked at it, walked back to his bench and said something about rusty bolts but replaced the three prodigal fasteners.
I would have preferred if the service writer would have looked at the missing bolts, looked back at me and said, "We screwed up."  But I guess this is too hard to admit even a minor mistake.

I've got a few tens of miles on the MGB at this point.  I won't claim success yet - it is always possible a piece of dirt will end up being in the wrong place or a bearing will spin (or something), but several hours of time and a very messy oily garage floor gives the engine on the MGB a new lease on life.  I did notice that the oil cooler lines have some suspicious cracks in them, along with minor weeping of oil.  This is not due to the recent work, but more likely is exasperated by the higher oil pressure.  I suspect the oil lines are original to the car, and I'll be happily replacing the 40-something year old lines shortly, before an extended test drive is in order.  There is no reason to do this much work to an engine, only to have it undone by an exploding oil line.

One of the Rules of Life is "If you are very concerned with how something is going to be done, do it yourself."  Doing the engine work on the MGB was fun.  There is always a risk something inadvertent may go wrong.  Yet, I'm quite certain that everything was done well and there are not three bolts missing on the top of the MGB engine.

At least my shiny new Tacoma headlights are nice...

Not a Drop, Day 1826

I've thought a lot about whether I should even write this and, subsequently, a lot about this disjointed, non sequitur blog in general.  I've pondered what five years means, and what five years does not mean.  I've ruminated how unscripted events could have come together to reach 1826 days after day 1 with a different outcome and the possibility I could have been in a different place.
Perhaps, I should be thinking about the future.

"It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past." - Jim Bishop

I've been reading about various individuals' experiences in quitting drinking.  These weren't the writings in some of the excellent books on the subject like Neil Steinberg's Drunkard.  These are the average Jane and Joe writing about quitting drinking or cutting back.   
I'm not sure it is healthy to perpetually (or for years) write about the topic.  If it remains something constantly at the forefront, then the "new normal" won't ever have been achieved - and I believe strongly that a new normal is required.  Years writing about one subject also seems painfully trite.  To be fair, years writing about anything and everything might seem almost manic.  If nothing else, writing about anything and everything is a good way to remain contentedly anonymous.  Anonymity is highly underrated.
I'll separate the experience from quitting from what is written as a "how-to."  The change can be difficult, so no fault for attempts to help.  But, any one way to stop will likely only work for a very small amount of people.  Lay-person or even uninformed expert advice runs the risk of being unhelpful.  Some would almost be funny if they were simultaneously so dangerous.

The 2-year milestone seems almost delusionally real.  2012 in general was an odd year.  The old house had sold the previous fall;  the new house was still new enough that it was a natural euphoria, although that exhilaration was tempering.  The four worst months of my career had been survived - "efficiency experts" are the two most terrifying words in the corporate language.
But, reaching two years felt real, maybe not as normal as I wanted it to then, but real enough.

One writer talked about a milestone I hadn't ever previously thought about.  She wrote about approaching a point where more of her life was spent not drinking, than drinking.  I'm not really sure where that mark would be for me, since I'm not really sure where to start the time zero point.  After the first time I drank, it was a looooonnnnggggg time before I could even smell booze again without getting queezy.  That evocative saccharin scent of schnapps probably remains to this day.  Some rough estimations suggest I'm probably near the half-way point as well.  It was interesting to contemplate the half life as a milestone.  It was also a little depressing, so much of that time was spent in infancy through childhood.

I didn't think much about the 3-year time point.  Year 3 was a phantasmagoria, everyone takes a twisted contorted path to where they are, but where we are is just another stop in twisted contorted path to where we will be.
The lessons from year 3 demonstrated that even though more of life was under control, much of it remained unchained.

There were several people writing about the slip-ups as much as any successes, or about xx drinks as a positive (implying less than normal).  There is empathy in reading these; because there has to be.  A few of these alternate between brief periods of well-written prose discussing the repeated early efforts of quitting, with long periods without postings.  The saddest blogs are the ones that start out sincere and intense, but are very brief.  The end writes a final assumed chapter of failure.

Reaching 4 years was as much about the break I took from the online writing for other writing I wanted to do.  This points to the ongoing normalcy of not drinking.  Which leads to this 5-year posting; very possibly my last dedicated to the subject.
The last year has become normal in a way I previously would have had a hard time imagining.

One other writer calculates the time regained by not drinking.  The amount of time was pretty fantastic in his/her case (I couldn't tell from the blog which sex the author was).  In my own case, the number may be surprising only in the aggregate of five years.  I still squander much of that time in front of the TV, but enough of it is spent doing things that are fulfilling in a very real sense.

I've been putting fingers to keyboard, thoughts to digits, over the last few weeks as I knew this 5-year milestone was imminent.  In that same time, my Father died.  This was not unexpected as he was diagnosed with what almost assuredly was a terminal illness early in the year.  But it was unexpected as the end seemed to come very quickly; maybe it always does.  I can't image going through the emotional roller coaster of my Dad's passing with the mental distention of alcohol hanging over me.
Over the last several months, I got to know my dad in way that I hadn't previously.  I believe he would have said the same about me.  I don't know if we become omniscient in death.  But if we do, then I am slightly comforted in knowing that I am more honestly the person he knew.

There are still times I miss it a little bit but in the same way as I miss lots of things that are gone forever.
"Once you experience nostalgia, the thing you are nostalgic about is long dead." - Jen
Alcohol is the great equalizer for introverts in an extroverted world.  Where the last five years has brought me to is caring much less about that extroverted world.

Quitting drinking has enabled so many of the other positive changes over the past years that any negatives seem more and more like unnecessary footnotes:
I have never, ever - even once - woken up on a Saturday morning and wished I had a hangover!  Never...
I already touched on the time I've taken back by stopping, but the positive repercussions of this shouldn't be understated.  Time is one of the few fixed commodities in life.  I don't know if I'll die tomorrow or 60 years from now, but my time on the earth is absolutely fixed.  This has become unquestionably personal recently.
Much like time, the amount of money I would have spent on various consumable bottled liquids is quite real.  On the small scale this isn't much, but aggregated over five years (and more in the future) it amounts to real money.  Add in occasional questionable purchases from Amazon or Ebay after drinking and the number gets frighteningly larger.
I'm writing more, even self-published my book.  Yeah, it was excessively simple and one chapter is even about a guy who quits drinking.  But, this is just one example (of many) of something which probably never would have happened without the changes over the last five years.
Once I unlearned some of my bad habits, my time away from work is infinitely better.  No more do I look forward to vacation as a time to cope and unwind.  Yet, I probably need vacation more now than ever; I crave it because it is now my own time.  It doesn't belong to something else altogether.

I look forward to mornings now.  I like waking early and having time, sometimes just minutes and other times hours, quiet contemplative time to stand back and look at everything with some clarity.  Early morning with a book is better than late night with a glass.

Arbitary though it may be, five years does seem like a milestone.  As a reminder of all the changes over the last five years, I got a tattoo of a broken bottle.  Unlearning the habit of booze was only one slow, deliberate life change, but it was an enabling change.  The permanence of the tattoo has significance.  There is also significance in the placement on my upper arm where few others will ever see it (you'll never see me in a wife-beater and I'm not a lay-around-the-beach kind of person).

When Steve was giving me the tattoo, we were talking about why I made the design that I did and he asked me if I had quit drinking.  After responding positively, he paused and looked up at me, "How do you sleep at night?"
"Much better ... much better."

The bottles continue breaking.