Better Safe Than Sorry -or- Little Boy Who Cried Wolf

Well Tropical Depression Dennis is drifting along west of here. I lost one bamboo cane and a few
oak leaves. He really did not do too much this far inland, not even as much as a good late
afternoon July thunderstorm. What was more disruptive was the 3 days of preparation. The constant
harping on the TV about the dangerous nature of this storm. The likelihood of sustained power
outages, the need for serious preparation and the influx of thousands of people and vehicles from
South Alabama. There was even one unconfirmed report of a curfew in Alabaster.

I realize that it is better to be prepared and there is a lot of truth in the old saying "better
safe than sorry". However, humans are strange animals. They become jaded very, very quickly. False
alarms and needless hysteria make them discount future warnings a la "The Little Boy Who Cried
Wolf". I think we are all still a little sensitive because of what we experienced with Hurricane
Ivan and I will chalk this over prep to that plus a little tinge of puffing of goods by NOAA. In
the future, it might be wise to take a deep breath, take one step back, and prepare prudently
rather than hysterically.

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Found a pump that works

After two failed attempts with electric pumps, I have found a pump that works for collecting oil.
Originally, I intend to use a vacuum pump to draw the oil into a tank, but to date I have not
found a suitable tank. Since I had a 55 gallon drum filling up behind a local restaurant, I had to
start pumping. With the failure of the second electric pump, I went to the McMaster-Carr website
and did some searching. I found hand operated diaphragm pumps and purchased the model 400-H for
under $50. Took it to the restaurant yesterday and was able to pump out the barrel with ease. It
has a capacity of 10 gpm so the pumping was surprisingly fast. I don't know how long this pump
will hold up, but so far it looks good.

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Victors Muffler Bandage

During the time that I have been modifying the Mercedes, I noticed
that it had started to have a small but annoying exhaust leak. The
hole was in the pipe from the manifold to the muffler, just before the
muffler. Several weeks ago, I ordered a Victor's Muffler Bandage kit
from someone on the Internet. I think it was AceHardware.com. Anyway,
day before yesterday I finally made time to put it on the leaking
pipe. Although the location of the leak made it some what difficult
to apply the bandage, with a little time and effort I was able to get
the leak covered. I know this is just a temporary fix and that I will
eventually need to replace the front pipe if not the complete exhaust
system, but this was quick, easy, cheap and for the time being quite
effective.

Iraq 2005 = Vietnam 1968

All these excuses about why we can't get our troops out of Iraq sound awful familiar. I heard this same stuff back in the late 60's and early 70's about Vietnam. I was fooled back then and thought we had to stay the course or...

Now I know better. We need our troops out of Iraq NOW. Let the citizens of Iraq work out their own problems. I say bring our men and women home ASAP.

Pumping Oil

Last week I received the oil pump that I ordered off ebay. They sent the 115 volt model instead of the 12 volt model. No matter, I just fired up my little 1750 Coleman generator and it worked fine. When I got down to Columbiana Saturday, I did encounter a slight problem with the wand on the end of the pickup line. It was sucking air. Finally I took it off and put the end of the hose in the
55 gallon drum and the little pump pumped the drum dry in a matter of minutes.

Before my next pumping session, I suppose I will have to find and stop the air leak in the wand.In lieu of the wand, the seller where I bought the pump has a check valve, but it is $24 plus shipping and that seems like a bit of overkill just to keep the pump primed. Some how a $24 check valve on a $79 pump does not compute.

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Diesel Purge is Great!

A few days ago I ordered a can of Lubro-Moly Diesel Purge. I had read
about how good it was supposed to be. Yesterday afternoon the UPS man
delivered it. Later in the afternoon I went out and used it according
to the instructions. After I used the Diesel Purge, I noticed that the engine seemed to be idling better, but I knew the real test would be this morning when
the engine was cold.

I just got back from a trip down to Wal-mart and the change in the car
is amazing. No nailing, smoother idling and it seems to have more
power. It is hard to believe that 500 ml of Diesel Purge could
make that much difference in an engine, but seeing is believing.

Hwy 11 Antique Alley Sale

Friday I went from Trussville, AL to Chattanooga, TN on the Hwy 11 Antique Alley Sale, or as we call it around here, 'the springtime sale.' That distinguishes it form the big one in the fall, The World's Longest Yard Sale, aka The 450 mile sale or Hwy 127 Corridor Sale. Of course around here (Central Alabama) we call it 'the fall sale.'

I always go the full distance on the WLYS, but have only gone the entire lenght of the Hwy 11 sale once. This year I only went for one day on the Hwy 11 sale as I had no one to keep the dogs. Crowds and vendors seemed to be off a bit, I suspect due to higher fuel prices. It will take a while for folks budgets to accomodate the higher fuel cost.

If anybody out there took in the other parts of this years Hwy 11 sale, I would love to hear from you. Anything happening between Birmingham and Meridian?

First Filtering Today

Today I put the 32 inch 0.5 micron bag filter that I got from Greasel
in my plastic 55 gallon barrel and poured in the first of the oil that
I got from Beverly's. The oil was prefiltered through a 100 micron
poly filter first into a 5 gallon pail before pouring it into the
Greasel filter. I am still working on the 55 gallon steel barrel and
filter and hope to have it set up next week. I intend to incorporate
the 5 gallon pail and 100 micron filter in to that setup as a
prefilter.

Filtering Oil

Still working on filtering the oil I am collecting. Ordered Dana
Linscotts plans for the hand pump filtering system. Just about got it
set up using a plastic barrel. Also working on a different setup using
a smaller bag filter in a closed pvc container. It is based on a
modification of a design that I saw on one of the forums. If it works,
I will post a diagram somewhere on the net.

Post from email

This is an attempt to post from email. If it is at Pentonville.blogspot.com, then the posting was
a success.

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Another Oil Article by George Crispin

Last month (April 6th) I listed a link to an article by George Crispin about Professor Gold's theory of the origins of oil. Well Geroge is at it again. This article gives additional information about alternate theories of the origin of oil. I find this very thought provoking.

The Radical Environmental Movement

I just read an article by Eric Englund that does a good job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the radical environmental movement. It is a short article and worth reading.

Veggie Car Success

Yesterday I drove the Mercedes to Coosa County. UPS delivered the last part (the coolant pump) last week and I had installed it so the 'veggie car' was ready for a test. Just below Alabaster, the operating temp had gotten high enough that I felt comfortable switching to vegetable oil. There was no noticeable change in operation. I stopped at the Calera exit to look under to hood to make sure everything was ok. Then I walked around to the back and checked the exhaust. I can't say that it smelled like 'french fries' but it definitely had that hot cooking oil smell. I drove on toward Clanton and switched back to diesel at the Lake Mitchell exit. The maiden voyage was a success.

Professor Thomas Gold's Theory On Crude Oil.

I have heard of Professor Gold's theory before. This article by George Crispin gives some information on additional support for the theory. Very interesting to say the least. If you want to read about it in the professor's own words, look at http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html from 1993. [Sorry, Cornell seems to have deleted or moved the subject paper.]

Canadian Adscam

When I was growing up in the '50s and '60s, I always admired Canada. I wasn't much on cold weather, but Canada had a certain attraction nonetheless. In 1963 I got to go along on a fishing trip to Kenora, beautiful country in that part of Canada. When they started their lottery, I was thrilled. I even played it by mail for a while until someone stopped the company that was selling the subscriptions. Somewhere between then and now, our northern cousins have taken the wrong turn in the road. I realize that they are not by themselves. We in the USA have made our share of bad turns. In fact we may be just following their lead in some cases. The first really big falling out I had with them was when they enacted their draconian gun laws. Now, when I read about stuff like this , I can't help but be even more troubled. What has happened to send our friends in the north off in the direction of totalitarian socialism. I know that with some of the campaign reform and anti-terrorist legislation we have now, we are not too far behind. In fact, we may already be on the same page and we just don't know about it because of secrecy or censorship or court orders or what have you. They say the pendulum swings both ways, I certainly hope this one has about reached it's limit and is ready to start back the other way.

Making Progress On Veggie Car

Everything is hooked up and ready to go except for the filter and fuel lines under the hood. I am currently waiting on deliver of some plate steel to fabricate a bracket for the filter. When that bracket is fabricated and the filter and lines are connected, it will be time for a road test.

The Easter Bunny and Global Warming

What do they have in common? They are both myths. How are they different? The mythical Easter Bunny is cute, cuddly and gets credit for Easter Baskets. The myth of Global Warming is making otherwise sane, intelligent people do things that are distructive, stupid and hurtful.

I just read a great article by Doctor Donald Miller (no relation). He was critiquing Michael Crichton's book 'State of Fear'. The article Toro! Toro! Michael Crichton links to some interesting information about the myth of Global Warming. If you are like me and just don't believe the currently accepted 'facts' of Global Warming you will enjoy this article. If you do believe in global warming, give this article a read and see if you can find where it went wrong and you are right. Have a nice day.

Did you see me on WTTO last night?

Yesterday morning I got a call from the guy at Greasel. He wanted to know how my conversion was running. I told him that I had made very little progress due to the weather. He said that a local Birmingham TV station had called him to see if anyone in their area was doing a conversion. He asked if he could give them my number. I told him OK. Soon thereafter, I got a call from a lady from WTTO. They wanted to interview me and see the car. I agreed. We met at the shop in Stewartville. The taped interview ran during the 9:00 PM news on WTTO last night (Mar 14, 2005). Oh well, my 15 seconds of fame are done, now back to the work at hand.

Yet Another Linux Distro

Well I have discovered another Linux Distrubution that I really like. It is Puppy Linux. It is only about 50 megs and boots from a cd. Loads into Ram and releases the CD where it can be used for other things. It is amazingly complete. I did have a little problem with the planmaker spreadsheet that came with it. I opened an existing excel spreadsheet in planmaker and when I tried to update it, planmaker informed me that the spreadsheet was larger than the free version of planmaker would accomodate. I checked the planmaker website and the pay version is about 49 euros. A little more than I am able to pay right now. No problem, I still use Excel 97 on my W98 installation and OfficeOrg works real nice on windows and linux. All and all, the Puppy Linux CD works real well. I down loaded the version with Firefox which has become about the only browser I use. I don't have the URL for Puppy Linux at have but a Google search will pop it right up.

Charley Reese

One of my favorite syndicated columist is Charley Reese. Nearly ever time I read one of his articles, I agree with it. Most of the time it will be something political but this morning, I read his article "Hope Never Dies." I don't believe I have ever read anything that so aptly describes how I feel about life. Thanks to Charley for this fine article.