Arnold, Clint: Meet Your Match!

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I don't like showing up kids like the Gov or Make My Day Eastwood, who's actually a couple of years older than me (which probably explains why he's in such terrible shape), which is why I seldom discuss my superb physical condition -- and how it got that way. As for me, as you can see, I tipped the scales a 167 pounds this morning and decided it was time to double the number of reps in my daily series of Physical Jerks. Given the warmth of the day (Januaries in California are known for their harsh weather. The thermometer plummeted to a chilly sixty-eight degrees in the patio) I was forced to remove some of my garments to stave off heat prostration.


I was just getting into my routine
when our phone began to ring. We ignored it, since calls of any importance are placed by personal cell phones but after a time even those began to ring!


It seems that performing my usual round of physical fitness activities was causing the ladies of the neighborhood who could see into our patio, to ignore their duties in favor of bird-watching. Husbands and other members of the ladies families were calling to ask... No, to plead with me in many cases, to please take my physical fitness exercises in-doors. Barring that, to beg me to at least don a garment of some sort that would hide the sight of my powerful physique.

Apparently housekeeping and other chores had come to a halt in the homes having a view of our patio.

I felt really terrible about this and suggested that, it being a Saturday, the husbands give their wives some money and allow them to go shopping, something most women are quite willing to do.

For those who are interested, the exercise in the photos is done using cast-iron dumbells weighing a solid FIVE POUNDS (!) each. They are slowly lifted to above my head then returned to below the level of my waist. This is done FIVE TIMES, followed by a short period of REST.

I have performed this particular exercise as often as 25 times(!) without stopping even once.

-R.S.Hoover
10 January 2009

HEAD DRAWINGS

Okay, here ya' go, as promised: Basic VW cylinder head. The one to the left is your basic three-view. Keep in mind, you are looking at ILLUSTRATIONS rather than DRAWINGS. If these were DRAWINGS they would be in DeltaCAD's native format, file code .dc This is worth mentioning because as a DRAWING the heads are reasonably accurate, diminsion-wise, allowing you to move things around.

The last of the three will give you some idea of the 'Fat Fin' modification. The green line shows were extensions were welded to the existing fins.


As a point of interest, take a look at the DATES on the drawings. That's when the DRAWING was made. The 'Fat Fin' mod goes all the way back to the mid-1970's.











-R.S.Hoover

Cancer Report 03

Hi, guys.

The picture on the right is a bit of a joke. It was taken today, the 7th of January 2009, in approximately the same location and pose as a similar photograph taken in September, 2008.

In the 2008 photo I weighed about 185 lbs, having dropped nearly fifty pounds (!!) from my weight before I was diagnosed with cancer. That is, I was diagnosed in June, 2008, meaning I lost about 10 pounds per month. Then things sort of settled down and I think my weight stayed about the same, although it has continued to drop but at a much slower rate.

The last visit to the physician I weighed 171 and he thought I'd dropped enough weight, telling me it was time to add a few pounds, which I've been trying to do. Just prior to taking the photo I weighed myself on a balance-type scale (ie, that is, an accurate scale) and my weight was 174. that's when I got the idea of posing in the same place as I did for the September photo, the result of which you can see above. And just for kicks, I went back into the blog and pasted the above photo onto the end of the report in which I posted the original. ( ie, 'Cancer Report 02' dtd 28 September 2008 )

I've got a major medical conference coming up in a few days and I've got a hunch it will contain a bit of good news, in that the tumor appears to be backing down; the chemotherapy is working. I know I'm feeling a bit better although I don't have much appetite. I'm doing some exercises, trying to improve my physical condition so I can spend more time in the shop.

There's no 'cure' for Multiple Myeloma -- in the long run it always wins -- but if the drugs can keep it from spreading... and if I can endure the drugs... there's a good chance that I will be able to slowly resume my usual activities, although at a slower pace than before. Then too, cancer is a very tricky little bastard when it comes to adaptation. Given enough time, the tumor will get used to the drugs, develop a resistance to them, and begin to grow anew. How long that takes is anyone's guess but it's virtually a sure-thing that it WILL happen -- that's what this brand of cancer is known for. When that happens they will begin experimenting with a mix of new drugs and increasing the dosages of the old ones. The ability of the cancer to develop a tolerance to ANY drug is a given; what they need to find out is how well I can tolerate the new drugs & higher dosages.

All in all, it isn't a very happy picture but it's a step up from a funeral notice.

What I'm hoping for is a bit more TIME. I need time to finish the projects I've started, and to get several partially assembled engines out of the shop.

-Bob Hoover

NOTE: 8 JANUARY 2009:
One of my physicians called this afternoon. He had just received the computerized output of my blood tests from Monday, the 6th. The results were more than he had hoped for and he was giving me a sneak preview. -- rsh

1P = 1000W

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Chill wind kicking out of the north. Low clouds scudding along. Sun is up but the temperature is only 46F. It's past 0800 on a Sunday morning and a friend has stopped by in Emergency-Mode to borrow a battery charger and a hundred-foot extension cord, both of which I've got to spare and so does he, except his is fifty one-way miles away and mine's not.

Have to dig for it, through. Extension cord is buried under a ton of crap in the breeze-way that's been accumulating ever since this cancer business has shot me down.

One of the things that has to be moved is a jig for making ribs, which my friend recognizes because he's made one too. Except his is prettier. And made on real lumber whereas mine is made on a piece of Particle Board -- which is another term for a kind of super-thick paper. Which means it's heavy as hell and warps like a bitch, unless you do something about it. And there it is, stored outside, not exactly in a mud puddle but damn near and my friend has picked it up to move it and is standing there, flipping it back & forth like he's never seen a rib jig before and the wind is finding all the holes in my pants. And my friend is STILL flipping the thing back & forth...

"So... WHAT?" I finally yell at him and he starts to hand me the rib jig and I'm backing away because the thing weighs enough to break my arm-bones, thanks to them being chewed upon by Madam Myeloma and the Cancer Quartet.

"This is Particle Board!" he says, giving me one of those... looks as if it's supposed to be something else.

"So? Didn't I tell you to use Particle Board?" I'm pretty sure I did. Particle Board is inexpensive and I use it -- and a lot of MDF -- for form-blocks... for shaping aluminum. And for jigs, like the one shown in the pictures here, and for lotsa other stuff. In fact, I got some MDF standing right there, just waiting to be used for something as soon as I think up what.

Then he turns the jig over and glares at me. I mean a real Death & Taxes, Women & Children First kinda glare, as if I'm just slipped on my wife's nighty so I could sneak into the lifeboat. "You didn't tell me about that," and he glares at me some more.

The that is a couple of pieces of 1x2 I've glued & air-nailed to the piece of particle board to keep it from warping, which is what it does. So does MDF. So you don't let it.

"You never mentioned... that," he says, sounding hurt, turning his head and looking away.

I'm about to laugh when I realize he's serious! "Gee, I'm sorry..." but I can see the pain runs deep.

We finally clear the junk off the 100 foot extension cord and he's on his way back out to the airport, a couple hours saved but a friendship slightly damaged (...and even more so when he reads this :-)

The rib jig is where it's at because I can scrape off the little blocks that make it a rib-jig, sand it down with some #80 and I've got my piece of particle-board back again, to use for a different rib-jig... or to cut up for something else. Building on the Cheap often means salvaging and re-using materials once they are no longer needed for a specific task.

Building on the Cheap also means pressing inappropriate materials into service now & then, such as making a rib-jig on a piece of MDF... or particle board. Normally, you wouldn't do that because both of those materials like to warp, with MDF being the leader of the pack. But to get a piece of wood that won't warp you're going to need 3/4" plywood... or 1-1/2" plywood... (!!) which is actually two pieces of 1 x 12 shelving glue TOGETHER center-to-center, meaning the trunks of their repective TREES are glued together. And if that didn't come across, take a couple of planks of 1 by 12 pine shelving and look at their end-grain.

Knowing how to prevent warpage is part of the package when you're building on the cheap.

-R.S.Hoover

What Every Woman Wants (No, Seriously!)

I've got what every woman wants.

It's due to the Dexamethasone of course. ('Dexy' to the trade.) Dexy is one of those horrifically potent steroids that flat EATS cancerous tumors. Along with everything else, alas. Which is why I've managed to shed a few pounds, going from a chubbily pleasant 254 to a cadaverous 171.

I've no way of knowing how much of that 83 pounds consisted of tumorous tissue. And there at the start, following LAST New Years, I promised myself it was time to shed a few pounds and did, which got me into the 230-ish range, at which point I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and began the more serious business of chemotherapy, which whisked away the pounds, along with patches of hair (it's coming in CURLY, of all things!) and tumorous tissue.

But I now possess what every woman wants: To hear a physician say: 'It's time for you to put ON a few pounds.' And I thought of all the women I've known without being able to recall a single one of them who was not wishing just the opposite: to LOSE a few pounds, often with EXACTLY the same life and death fervor I've felt with regard to the cancerous tissue which has done such a swell job of digesting my spine that it actually BROKE... from nothing more than a sneeze or some other incidental stress. A compression fracture, so damaging that it would be unwise for me to attempt to lift the amount of weight I've now lost.

Put that all together -- the fervent ladies wish to lose as I have lost, then to fracture what I have broken, and you must admit there IS a certain element of humor... that struck me as the physician delivered the good news, and I began to laugh. And still haven't stopped. Not completely. But it certainly scared the hell out of the doctor.

"Time for you to put ON a few pounds, Chief."

"Aye-aye, sir!"

And I began to laugh. Because it struck me that, whatever else this cancer has done, it has given me what every woman longs for, as if it were a topic of polite conversation, suitable for those awkward moments when strangers are forced to spend a whisp of time together and a polite smile simply isn't enough, as in the elevator between 1 and 12, or the check-out line at the local supermarket. First, the friendly smile, then the casual: "I've got what you want," perhaps with another smile, depending on the lady's physique. Then back to listening to the elevator music or casually examining the contents of her shopping cart, my eye peeled for ice cream and Danish.

It gives you a nice boost, knowing you have what they want. Makes you want to flex your stick-like arms or show your turkey's neck to best advantage. Yup. Things are definitely looking up. Which is why I'm still laughing now & then.

-Bob Hoover

The Wire Tracker

Happy New Year to you all.

One of the more troublesome aspects of aviation electrical work is the fact our wires are usually NOT color-coded. That means you can have a bundle of twenty wires and before you can do any useful work you will need to figure out which one of the twenty at the equipment rack is the frayed one you've spotted behind the instrument panel.

How to do it? The good ol' fashioned way, which I described in an article some time ago, is to use a continuity tester. That is, a hunka wire long enough to run from here to there, a couple of flashlight batteries, and a flashlight bulb. You know you've found the correct lead when the bulb lights up. I even described a do-it- yourself tester based on an old-style Navy flashlight.

Alas, while 3 volts ain't all that much, you could be connecting those 'unimportant' three volts to a meter-circuit that blows it's top at two volts.

Whatcha REALLY want is a cable tracker.t

A cable tracker is a little oscillator that puts a warbling TONE on the wire under test, which you can then hear by waving a matching receiver at the other end of the wire.

Harbor Freight's gottem. Item #94181 about $20 US, probably less if you can find a Sale. (But Santa brought me this one :-)

-R.S.Hoover

Rib File