One side of the coin, I’m an avid technologist.    I own an obscene number of computers, both Mac and PC.   I’ve got an iPhone, and owned one of each generation.   I cancelled my cable nearly a year ago and stream Netflix and local channels via Windows Media Center on a computer hooked up to my television.   I don’t own a landline; all my telephone service is wireless or VoIP.    Even my business is completely done on the web with Quickbooks Online and Google Sites, Gmail, and Docs.

Now flip that coin over:    I have three, yes three, apps on my iPhone.   I don’t use LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.   I have no desire whatsoever for a tablet PC or an iPad.   I’m seriously considering purchasing an older (pre-1975) car to re-build as a daily driver and dumping my 2007 Aveo.   I still write checks, fill out forms with a ball point pen,  and do my bills via snail mail.    I’ll call someone instead of texting them.

So what gives?  Why the dual personalities?

I’ve been wondering that myself lately, and started keeping track of why I tend to do things a certain way versus another.   For instance, I’ll not think twice  in allowing Quickbooks Online (which is great, by the way) automatically post transactions in our business account directly from Chase, but minutes later I’ll be writing a check and affixing postage to an envelope addressed to the office insurance company.   Insanity perhaps?

Well, no, as a matter of fact.   You see my moment of clarification resulted from an airbag light and an accelerator pump.   Let’s back up six months, and put our gearhead hat (or welding visor, for you true hardcore grease monkeys) on for a few moments.

I’ve had a lingering problem with the Camaro that anyone with old-car experience has probably felt before.   When dropping the gas pedal to the floor, the car would stutter and hesitate for a moment (kind of embarassing in a muscle car!) and then finally pick up steam and roar ahead.   The reason for this is due to the carburetor’s throttle plates suddenly opening all the way, and all the vacuum in the engine’s intake system disappearing for a moment while the engine’s RPMs spool up.  For those not-quite-car-savvy readers out there, vacuum in the engine is what pulls the gas/air mix in and allows it to go ‘vroom’!  No vacuum, no vroom.

Over the decades carburetor designers figured out that if a small syringe-like pump–called an accelerator pump–was physically hooked up to the cabling coming from the gas pedal, they could preempt this pause with a small squirt of straight gasoline into the throat of the engine. This provided some temporary “oomph” for a few seconds while the vacuum caught up with the driver’s right foot.  Clever thinking, to be sure.

Now, let’s fast forward back to modern-day.   My 2007 Aveo has an Airbag light on.   Much to my chagrin, it is completely undiagnosable sitting in my garage.  You must take it to a service center with the appropriate code scanners to even know what’s wrong.

So here comes my epiphany.

As an engineer and a tinkerer, I want control.   However, I’m also lazy.  What I’ve found is that if something  just works, I’m willing to allow it to work behind a set of curtains–even if that means raising an eyebrow and surrendering a bit of control.   However,  if something is problematic nothing angers me more than not being able to fix it myself.  In fact, I’ll even stop using it or throw it away.

I own the 2007 Aveo.  I have the title, and it is lien-free.   However, I couldn’t even obtain the specifications on how to diagnose the airbag system on the car even if I wanted to.   Chevrolet doesn’t make them available, I’m sure because they’re afraid someone will set the airbags off by accident.    So the question is, do I really own it?   I’m still subservient to the manufacturer, even though I’ve paid for the product.

I also own my Camaro, and last weekend I finally fixed the hesitation problem by bending a piece of wire on the carburetor with a pair of pliers.

I’ve realized that this same disparity lack of control and trust is my issue with software and technology in general.   As software is getting more and more complex, and nearly everything is online 100% of the time, quality and control  is seemingly going south along with it.  I doubt this is intentional by software developers;  more likely its just the vast task of maintaining and QA’ing gigantic amount of source code.   I’ve recently noted that when software or a piece of digital tech fails me, I get very bitter and don’t often go back and use it again.   The same thing is happening with my 2007 Aveo, and I’m once again behaving irrationally about it.

So for all you software developers out there:   Take a lesson from the carburetor designers of an era past.   It’s cute to be clever, but simplicity and reliability are true genius. It seems software is going the wrong direction–placing features higher in importance over function and reliably.

Get back to to basics, and just write damn tight code.   Your user base will thank you.

I’ll keep the Haynes manual handy, if you need to borrow it.

As some may know, we have a project 1968 Camaro that I’ve spent time restoring over the past few years. The initial job was pulling the entire interior and restoring it to like-new condition. That’s just about done.

The second job was to pull the engine and transmission, and rebuild it back up the way we’d like it. Well, that started last weekend. I made a trip up with my mom to Crescent City, where most of the work is done on our car. After about four hour’s worth of work, we had the engine and trans pulled, and ripped most of the way down to the short block.

Not only were there a bunch of mismatched bolts (and some just plain missing!), finger tight-only bolts (like the entire intake manifold!), and sloppy gasket installs, after removing the oil pan we discovered that the oil pump had a considerable amount of old gasket material stuffed up in it. No wonder she was running hot! Luckily we haven’t put much mileage on the car at all, so damage from low oil pressure was kept to a minimum and only consisted of some lightly scored journal bearings.

Much to our luck, we found from the serial number stamping that the 454 was originally a crate motor of ’80s vintage! Awesome! Sure enough, the cylinder walls look good, the pistons are of the forged type–good for horsepower–and the rest of the engine looks clean. Unfortunate that the sloppy original assembly sapped so much power from it.

But that’ll change soon! After we finish pricing out some top-end parts for the block, we’ll put it back together and give another update. Ballpark figures with the Edelbrock parts we’ve chosen are around 500HP peak. Vroom, indeed…

The nice thing about working up there is having all the tools and equipment to do the job right. The Mustang will be a “nice looking” car, but the 442 will be close to a Conours one. Having the body on the rotisserie makes things easy to examine and work on.

Anyway, I’m looking for the “Interior Assembly Manual” for 1969 Mustang model year. Apparently not many places even stock it (though 68 and 70 are everywhere). I’m just not sure if Ford didn’t produce one that year, or if it’s just that rare.

If you know where to get one, let me know!

The Tundra, common name “super-ultra-truck”, or also occasionally known as “The Silver Bullet”, was found dead by a tow-truck guy on the side of Airport Road early this morning.

Apparently someone managed to break into it–right in our driveway–and then take it out and have a little fun. They ended that fun by doing some jousting with a tree. The tree won.

The Van also suffered a minor molesting, but nothing horrible: just some change thrown on the floor.

We haven’t been able to see it yet as it is the weekend and the tow-truck guy is “out of service”, but according to the office personnel we won’t be driving it any time soon.

Truck: You were a good truck, a bit underpowered at times, but a good tow vehicle nonetheless. But I’m still sorry I blew a couple hundred bucks in new brakes for you a month ago.

UPDATE:

We just heard back from the insurance company:

Being this is my first “Ford project”, I’m having fun noting the differences from General Motors stuff. In some ways, it’s much easier to take apart.