May 07, 2005
Humanity Restored
The other evening, I was driving around town to pick up a few cleaning supplies for the apartment when something odd began happening. I approached a traffic light, and my brakes slowly sank to the floor. I managed to pump them up and stop. Opting not to take chances, I turned around and drove home, slowly and avoiding hills. By the time I got to my driveway, I had to use the e-brake to stop.
No stranger to how brakes work, I took a look at my undercarriage to find brake fluid everywhere on one of my wheels. Apparently a wheel cylinder blew a seal. Great, I had to be somewhere at 6am the following day.
I've only ever really worked on disc brakes before, so I wasn't sure what the deal was with getting the drum off. That, and I couldn't get to the parts store -- I sold my Subaru for my friend Dustin for a song and a dance last week.
Dustin to the rescue. Turns out that giving friends good deals on things is good karma. I gave Dustin a ring that night, and he picked up a new cylinder for me. Then he came over this evening and took a look at my drum. After about 30 seconds with it and a lever, he got the pads backed off and the drum removed. A few more minutes and had the whole brake disassembled.
A few more trips to the parts store (once to get a new brake line, we had to brake the old one to get it off, another trip to get the right fitting for the brake line as the original line had the wrong size), some brake line bending, cutting, and re-tapering, and a bleed job (total time: 4 hours) later, my brakes were restored.
This car repair was about a little more than just cars to me, though. This dude Dustin is an amazing character. Raised up near Rome by the classic country Ma and Pa, he is the antithesis of all that is wrong with cities. I find myself wondering how people are even raised like him anymore -- incredibly mechanically inclined, patient, polite. In short, no jerk-like properties. It puts me to shame, and reminds me how unhuman humans are becoming these days, when money, power, and sex seem to be the prime motivations and prime motives for doing everything. Sometimes it's just about helping a friend in a tight spot, and sometimes you have to go all-out to do it.
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Further back...
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Previous Trips...
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Hiking Mount Whitney, 2007 
Spring Break in West Virginia, 2005
New Year's in Paris, 2003-2004
Coming to America, 2003
Protesting in Berlin, 2003
Prague Bier-Tour, 2002
Dresden, 2002
Recent Reading
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The Curve of Binding Energy
John McPhee follows famous physicist Ted Taylor in this piece that was -- and probably still -- ahead of its time.
Originally published in 1973, McPhee outlined the coming security and environmental issues surrounding the plutonium enrichment processes. For the most part, though, McPhee invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, although he does point out the ease with which any number of people could obtain the material (though not necessarily the manufacturing prowess) to make an atomic weapon.
The question still sits in my mind after reading -- are we being too paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
Rated 
by reid
on October 01, 2007
by reid
on October 01, 2007
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Zodiac
Zodiac touts itself as an 'eco-thriller,' and it is just that. Told from the first-person perspective of ST (or Sangamon Taylor), the book recounts a roughly six-month period of his life busting big corporations for violating environmental laws.
Not the tree-hugging political activist type, ST is equipped with chem labs, scuba divers, maps, and an organization (GEE International, the Group of Environmental Extremists) that masterfully brings the press into the fold to scare the public with the very real dangers posed by illegal dumping. It's sort of a Sierra Club member's wet dream -- a band of ecowarriors that actually get things done.
ST finds something odd happening in Boston Harbor during his tale: a new form of pollution that could poison everyone on the planet in a matter of weeks. His quest to uncover exactly who and what is causing the latest spike in toxins goes all the way up to the President of the United States, and could end up costing him his own life.
While a neat and fast-paced tale, the novel drags on a bit toward the end, begging disbelief from even the most forgiving sci-fi folk. While not as good as his latest offerings, it's still a great read for those that enjoy a good Stephenson novel (or even those who don't).
Rated 
by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005
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Cat's Cradle
A few years ago, I attempted to woo an online datee, and she immediately criticized me for my politics. I protested the war on Iraq, which was "a shame." She defended her position of complete noninvolvement by standing behind Vonnegut.
It may seem odd to open a review that way. My assumption is now not that she was an idiot, but that she had only read Cat's Cradle, and only with a rather odd viewpoint.
Cat's Cradle looks at a cold-war world where the personifications of religious, political, and scientific single-mindedness collide to destroy the world.
Vonnegut tells a masterful tale, but it makes me wonder what one person's indifference would do to prevent us from all dying? So for now I will continue to unblindly stop unjust wars, even while I'm only reading.
Rated by reid
on July 17, 2005
by reid
on July 17, 2005
You are aware that if one brakeline was that bad, you should probably be looking at all of them for the same problem working itself up the courage to happen again.
Posted by: Saiph on May 10, 2005 02:36 AM