Welcome to the IHoP v.2

[///M5 2,833]

Not staying at the beach this time.  Chose a bed and better hot tub so I can work more instead of the view.

[///M5 2,833]

Something wrong with me....but i would way rather be in MN.

Had a great swim today.  Soccer practice and a Mexican meal in Spanish with the boys.  I am so lost, they can speak so far over my head.

[///M5 2,833]

Woah.  Barely made my plane.  Few too many margaritas.

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

4 hours ago, ///M5 said:

Not staying at the beach this time.  Chose a bed and better hot tub so I can work more instead of the view.

Still in Orange County I assume. I went the other way out of LA this year and stayed in Oxnard. Lots of cool dock houses. Shit for food.

Was in Oxford the prior week. So could say I’ve been from Oxford to Oxnard haha

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

3 hours ago, ///M5 said:

Something wrong with me....but i would way rather be in MN.

Had a great swim today.  Soccer practice and a Mexican meal in Spanish with the boys.  I am so lost, they can speak so far over my head.

Annikya kills it with the Spanish. Is embarrassing to order when I’m with her. 

Speaking of she magically showed up here today! Guess she was homesick, so jumped a plane. Had a short, but nice chat, before she ran off for the night to hang out with a friend.

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

1 hour ago, ///M5 said:

Woah.  Barely made my plane.  Few too many margaritas.

Drink a couple for me. 

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

 I’ve been asked at least a couple dozen times in the last month how we disciplined Annikya growing up. The answer. She had to write an essay every time to reflect. Length depended on severity.

 About the only other thing I ever say is she has always had to make her own choices. The example I give is choosing clothes to wear. She would be given three outfits and had to choose which one. 

Was unexpected so many people asked me that. From kids she graduated with to other parents. 

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

Changed my 02 sensors a couple tanks of gas ago. Check engine light was driving me nuts. Well gained about a gallon and a half increase in mileage so far.

All was good until I ditched work Friday and went 4x’ing/light rock crawling. Check engine lights back. Haven’t pulled the code yet, but fear I’m going to be doing the manifold gaskets. 

[dem beats 1,223]

On 9/15/2019 at 9:32 AM, j-roadtatts said:

 Flogging Molly and Social Distortion played last night in Denver. Would’ve loved to of went and made a memory.

I met them with some of the offspring on the salty dog cruise. 

 

It was a hoot.  Vandals played the best show the whole trip IMO other than punk rock Karaoke.   I walked into wedding ceremony at some point trying to find out if Millencolen was playing but I had the day/time wrong.

 

Grown folk punk shows are the bomb and if you EVER get the chance, take the W on the Salty Dog Cruise.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

So, I started tearing the T-bird apart a few months ago to restore it.  Two weeks ago, I had to replace some exhaust parts on the Mustang, and upon removing some stuff, I broke the bolts at the manifold.  YAY!.  Went to jack it up, and found a broken ball joint on the PS, and the DS was worn to the point of breaking.  Ironically, neither of them showed any signs of wear whilst driving.  So I have the Mustang up on jack stands with the entire front end torn out.  Ordered a new clutch since I figured why not since I'm this far into it.  Fast forward to today and I'm coming home from picking Gavin up and my truck starts to make this atrocious noise.  I knew immediately what it was.  So we limp home, I get under the truck, and sure as shit, the carrier bearing for the driveshaft it shot.  I get online to check on prices, and they're $5-$15 through Rock Auto, so I am not too upset.  I start doing some more price checking, and I find out that my particular truck has a non-serviceable driveshaft which includes the shaft itself, the the U-joints, and the bearing.  So now, I stuck with spending $800 on an entire new shaft, which thankfully replaces the non-serviceable parts with serviceable parts, but WTF?  I have NO luck with used vehicles.

[///M5 2,833]

OMG, you aren't kidding.  Sorry dude

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

Damn, that bites a dick Ryan. Is the truck the only ride currently?

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

18 hours ago, dem beats said:

I met them with some of the offspring on the salty dog cruise. 

 

It was a hoot.  Vandals played the best show the whole trip IMO other than punk rock Karaoke.   I walked into wedding ceremony at some point trying to find out if Millencolen was playing but I had the day/time wrong.

 

Grown folk punk shows are the bomb and if you EVER get the chance, take the W on the Salty Dog Cruise.

 I remember you talking about that. And I’m still Jelly. 

 I’d probably have to fly that one solo. Don’t know that the wife would want anything to do with it. Lol

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

 Speaking of concerts, I have two tickets to the Grand Ole Opry for Friday October 4th. That I am not going to be able to use. Going to a college football game instead.

 I have them listed on stub hub but have had no bites. I have a feeling they may not sell, so I would be more than willing to give them to one of you guys if you will use them. They are front row guaranteed seats. Basically the best one could get.  Also have a parking pass I purchased as well. 

@mikel7829 @Tirefryr @topgun   Or anyone else that is interested. Let me know and I will figure out how to transfer them, if no one buys them first. 

 

[j-roadtatts 1,129]

 Had planned on a tour of the Gibson factory this trip. But it appears to be closed and moved to Nashville. Boo

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Wishing the newsletters used to have the same impact.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

Those days when I had no chance at keeping up with the traffic.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

When we actually needed moderators due to all the new people.

[nigel 148]

It's hard Aaron.  The generation and apps are making it all about social media anymore.

I personally despise the switch.  Trying to locate specific posts or content on most social media platforms is atrocious.  They filter what they show you based on what the think you should be seeing.

Whereas here I can still go direct to a specific sub-forum section and scroll through posts chronologically to find content.

But alas, the focus has switched to a point where booty pics and selfies on Instagram for likes is all anyone cares about.

And with modern vehicle technology becoming more and more complicated and interconnected, it's getting harder for the average person to become a do it yourself type in the car audio domain.

[dem beats 1,223]

4 hours ago, j-roadtatts said:

 I remember you talking about that. And I’m still Jelly. 

 I’d probably have to fly that one solo. Don’t know that the wife would want anything to do with it. Lol

Let me know, if you wanna go one year, I know some people and can probably get extremely reduced rates.  Or at least we can stag it up.

[dem beats 1,223]

48 minutes ago, nigel said:

It's hard Aaron.  The generation and apps are making it all about social media anymore.

I personally despise the switch.  Trying to locate specific posts or content on most social media platforms is atrocious.  They filter what they show you based on what the think you should be seeing.

Whereas here I can still go direct to a specific sub-forum section and scroll through posts chronologically to find content.

But alas, the focus has switched to a point where booty pics and selfies on Instagram for likes is all anyone cares about.

And with modern vehicle technology becoming more and more complicated and interconnected, it's getting harder for the average person to become a do it yourself type in the car audio domain.

None of this is wrong.

 

The industry has to be flexible. Develop override software, and ways to just completely disable the factory set up with a tiny black box.  We only don't have that in "our" industry because at some point the industry pushed away programmers and IT people 'en masse and they decided to just work for the big tech companies selling the stuff you hate to car manufacturers. 

 

I am not saying anyone did something wrong.  Those dorks were not interested in speakers or DIY with their hands, MDF, and tools.  But in 2019, the new DIY is programming. If you can engineer it, someone can CNC/3D print anything for dort cheep.  Especially SE Asia.

Edited September 17, 2019 by dem beats

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

1 hour ago, nigel said:

It's hard Aaron.  The generation and apps are making it all about social media anymore.

I personally despise the switch.  Trying to locate specific posts or content on most social media platforms is atrocious.  They filter what they show you based on what the think you should be seeing.

Whereas here I can still go direct to a specific sub-forum section and scroll through posts chronologically to find content.

But alas, the focus has switched to a point where booty pics and selfies on Instagram for likes is all anyone cares about.

And with modern vehicle technology becoming more and more complicated and interconnected, it's getting harder for the average person to become a do it yourself type in the car audio domain.

Here is always going to be a better set up for information.  But, that is not today's market. 

[nigel 148]

I love it here.  The people and the knowledge make it my favourite corner of the internet.  I don't always post much, but I'm always reading the forum.

[Tirefryr 1,742]

Car #3 is down now too.  Fuck me. . . . .  Only have two more left running.  Hope my driveshaft is done tomorrow.

[nigel 148]

Damn.  Wish I had 5 to choose from...  Sucks to have 3 down and out though.  Hope they get back up and running soon.

Keep on the grind.