June Update

Since I keep seeing my "friend" from Ashburn, VA and Canada keeps coming to the site, I figured I would update them on what's going on.

I traveled to Elkhorn, Nebraska for my niece's graduation party. I saw my immediate family and caught up with my best friend. My brother took me to his new house and showed me around. My sister and brother-in-law took me to their weekend campsite they own. I had lunch with my best friend and we could have talked the rest of the day and probably on into the night.

After getting back, the light fixture in my dining room broke and almost crashed to the table. I was able to take it down before that happened. The parts I ordered back in March for my car finally arrived. A new Yperion titanium oil filler cap and titanium strut towner nuts. Before my trip, I put the VS Forged wheels back on my car along with the titanium lug nuts. It looks fantastic.

This weekend I was productive. I put a new ceiling box up in the dining room since the old one fell apart from being put up rather shitty. It was cracked and the mounting part came apart. Two separate shipments from Amazon came into today as well. A ceiling fan for my office and a new sputnik light fixture for the dining room. Only two extra trips to Home Depot were involved after getting the ceiling box.

Tomorrow I may do some yard work. I added grass seed to the front yard, which is taking and looking better. The freak snow storm earlier in the year looks to have killed the bushes I have in front of my house. I may need to cut those out.

The Elkhorn water tower from my parent's house

My sister, brother-in-law and myself riding in their golf cart at their campground

My best friend Mary Beth and myself getting a selfie together. I am so glad I got to see and talk to her

A not so great shot of my car

Yperion Titanium oil filler cap

A shot of the titanium strut tower nut (rainbow color) next to the OEM strut tower nuts. They not only look good, but I saved ounces of weight. OUNCES!

The busted ceiling box after I took down the light fixture.

The light fixture that almost crashed on the table

The inside of the ceiling to show the mounting area broke. It was just barely holding together as I took it down.

Another shot of the broken ceiling box

The new ceiling box. This was a pain in the ass to install. I had to zip tie the mounting bracket so it would not move or fall off as I tried to put the screws in

For some reason the ceiling fan showed up before the dining room light fixture. I installed it and now my office is so much cooler to be in. This fan has a remote which is convenient

My new sputnik light fixture. Not as fancy as the previous fixture, but it works for me

Local Car Show

There was a car show at the local airport Saturday, March 6th. It was called "Stephanie Nichols' 10th Annual Car & Vintage Plane Show-Georgetown Airport".

I had thought about entering my car, but I just do not think anyone would care to see a Lexus, so I did not enter. I did wash my car because it was dirty. I feel good about getting my car cleaned up. It looks fantastic now. I did not take pictures of my car, but I got a few of cars at the show I found interesting.

1924 Cadillac

1932 Ford(?) with a supercharged hemi engine

Camaro drag car with a huge supercharger

Two 1940/41 Willys coupes next to each other. I love Willys coupes. My dad has one. His looked similar to the black one.

The gigantic brakes on a Porsche GT3 RS

Another Willys, but this one is pretty much a show car. It has a big engine, but has a fake fuel injection system on top of the carburetor. I just shook my head. I think the fender well exhaust was fake too. It did not have any signs of use. Also, under the fender where the exhaust comes out, you can kind of see it looks fake.

Lamborghini Mira, 1970, I think. This is something I have never seen before in person.

Two cars I have not seen in person again. The Panoz Esperante and a Morgan Area coupe.

 

What's going on update

The last couple of weeks have been busy and crazy. Work has been busy with a project that is coming to an end. I finally got word on how an API from our CRM works so that I can actually use it. Then there was the weather. The last ten days have been cold and either rain, ice or snow or a combination of all three. The temperatures were the lowest I have seen since moving to Texas in 2005. I left Nebraska in January of 2005 and it was below zero. I arrived in Georgetown and it was 50-ish degrees. I honestly never would have thought the temperature would get as low as it did. Plus all of the snow and ice. There was snow on the ground for seven days. I was fortunate enough that I did not lose power or water for any amount of time. I am super thankful for that. This whole mess has made realize how unprepared we as a society are for natural disasters. I am going to prepare a little bit in the coming months. I'm not going full on "prepper", but I am going to get some basic things to have on hand. On a different note, I received the front rigid collar parts from Japan before the bad weather hit. I'm going to wait to buy more parts to see if there is anything that pops up from this bad weather that needs repairs.

Taken from my office window at 2:15 AM, Monday February 15th, 2021. It may be the phone camera, but it felt like there was a lot of light outside for it being the middle of the night. It is what caused me to wake up. My room was bright from the snow.

Taken from my office window at 2:15 AM, Monday February 15th, 2021. 

A snowdrift outside my front door. I think there was an average of 4 inches of snow that fell in the area.

A field near my house that is frozen. I snapped this pic after taking Gaby to school

Icicles on the pergola in my backyard. This was the start of the freezing 

Spoon Rigid Collars from RHD Japan for the front of my Lexus RC F

Getting ready for some car maintenance

My 2015 Lexus RC F is approaching the 60,000 mile service. I still have a couple thousand miles, but I decided to get ready ahead of time. I purchased the differential fluid when I did the oil change over Christmas. I have been purchasing ignition coils periodically one at a time to have them ready. Although, it seems I do not need to change them when I change the spark plugs unless the coil is bad. They are there for just in case now. Late last week, I purchased an air filter to replace the K&N filter I have. It's been in there since I purchased the car. I have "refreshed" it twice, but I feel it's time to replace it altogether. Along with the air filter I purchased spark plugs too. Odds and ends are the gaskets for the differential plugs and a new battery bar I purchased from Figs Engineering. There's a transfer pump I picked up from Amazon, but I then saw it at my local Harbor Freight for half the price. I saw that when I picked up a half inch Allen key socket set and socket swivels for changing the spark plugs. Oh well on the price difference. There's a few other parts I plan to pick up before I need to change everything. I need socket extensions and I plan to pick up some more titanium nuts and bolts to replace pieces in the engine bay. I may purchase the RR Racing carbon fiber intake package along with their AOS (air oil separator). I'll see how things go here in the next few weeks.

I worked on my car

Over the weekend I decided to install the final Tom's brace I have had sitting around for the last three years. I knew it was going to be more than a simple install, so I never wanted to do it. With having a decent garage and believing I can actually do it, I went ahead with the install. I had purchased a drill bit that makes holes. If I remember correctly, the size for that was almost two inches in diameter. I pulled up the Chilton's manual, which is still not the best of help since some of the illustrations are vague and the instructions are basically "Remove fasteners on LH side of car". The biggest pain in the ass was that I had to remove the rear seat bottom and two pieces on each side in order to remove a panel fastener in the trunk. All in all, it was not the hardest thing, just a pain to figure out what needs to be removed. Once the panels were out, the brace went in quickly and the holes drilled into the panels look decent too. I need to do a little clean up to remove some of the padding that is showing. I'm happy with the install and it was maybe two hours from start to finish.