Gassavers.org

So I've been getting advice from this website gassavers.org on how to get my car in tip top shape. One of the guys on the site agreed to help me out so Ben and I drove to Dartmouth college last weekend where the guy SVOboy from the site futzed around with the car, cleaning this, poking that, prodding and probing and tweaking and more or less not accomplishing anything. But the drive was fun. We drove 75-80 the whole way there and back and averaged 44mpg. Respectable. About what the Prius manages at those speeds.

It's gotta be the EGR valve. Just plug the IACV and blow on the PCV or something.


Now we're getting somewhere.


Maye there's a vacuum leak


Just gotta clean out the IACV


In the end we got the idle to stay at 500RPM for about 2 minutes, but then the sticking idle and roaming idle returned. I brought it to the mechanic and after some head scratching and but crack scratching and whatever other scratching mechanics do while trying to figure out the problem, he decided to clean the throttle body out completely for $180 as well as replacing the fuse for my headlight. Problems solved. Another mechanic had offered to replace the throttle body for $200 so I guess I came out of it okay. Just need to get a cluster from the junkyard to fix the odometer and speedometer and the car will be in tip top shape. Love the little gas miser. But don't be under any illusions of the car's incapabilities. Ben and I did a 0-60mph sprint in 12.6 seconds. But that was with a very bad start and less that swift gear shifts.

1984 Ford Thunderbird (he wouldn't let me take a picture of his car so I found one on google that is what it looked like.)


So this mechanic I brought my car to. He's an interesting guy. I tell him there's still a hesitation problem while driving at low RPMs. He tells me cars aren't designed to be driven at 1100RPMs. After twice around the block down route 71 to demonstrate how I should be driving my car, his answer to the problem is to keep it above 1700RPM: "the car doesn't *like* to be at 1100RPM. Listen to the car, it will tell you what gear it wants to be in." I tried to explain to him that I like to get 60mpg from the car. He tells me no car was ever designed to get 60mpg except maybe hybrids. He then demonstrates how *his* car also doesn't like to be driven at low RPMs. This was quite an experience. His car is an old 1984 Ford Thundercrap or whatever, all modded out for bare bones performance. The car has been stripped down to a weight of 2200 pounds, just 100lbs more than mine. The rear seats have been taken out and the fronts replaced with bucket seats equipped with race seat belts that don't work. This, after lecturing me about how concerned he is about safety. (I had asked his opinion of coasting down hills in neutral, which he saw as a good recipe for getting killed.) He then demonstrated the RPMs his car likes to be driven at. So we're ambling along at a modest pace. We turn down route 71 and we're putting along and I'm waiting for him to do something, or say something... for something to happen. All of a sudden (but I was half expecting this) he let's the car rip. The already loud engine roars to life as the speedo and RPMs fly northward then southward as I feel myself get pushed back in my seat, the cabin noise increases, the engine starts to make a high pitched jet engine sound and just before take off I glance a look out the window to see the airport go whizzing passed when he slows down and asks... "feel the difference?" Yes... got it... car likes the high RPMs... won't soon forget it. At this point I feel like I am in one of those B horror movies from the late 70s or early 80s that never got made because I'm living it now, two and a half decades later.... He claims we just hit 130mph. I'm skeptical but don't say anything. I'm pretty sure his speedo is off by a good 15-20%, but maybe we hit 100mph. He claims 4000RPM in 4th gear is 130mph. (His speedo only goes up to 95.)

Well, maybe any other sane person would slowly walk away at this point and say thank you very much and never return again down that dirt road to the mechanic shop hidden from view (sorry, again, about that Dan) but I somehow like the guy and he offers to give me 1/2 hour of his time to look at my rear brakes which are making a clicking noise. We jack the car up, get the wheels off and he takes a look at the brakes and immediately starts doing the "oh jeez, do you guys have *any* idea what you were doing" routine about Ben and my brake job. He then asks me to look at the brakes and tell him what is wrong. I fail it. With some leading questions I finally see it. The backing plate has been bent. How did that happen!? All I can say is Oopss... He then goes round to the other side and points out some brake fluid that has leaked from the brake cylinder and some excessive brake pad shavings. Back to the left side he starts to disassemble the brakes. He discovers the clevis or adjuster has been worn down--all the way down to the threads. Will need to be replaced. While taking the brakes apart to fix the problem, the other cylinder starts leaking fluid badly. He then proceeds to lecture me on why you don't work on cars yourself when you're not a mechanic, especially something like brakes, and why there are professionals that charge what they do to do the job right and to *please* bring the car to a professional the next time it needs work. So I have no option now but to pay him to fix the brakes. The car isn't in any shape to drive. New brake cylinders need to be installed as well as new brake hardware and a new adjuster/clevis.

So I call Dan to get a ride but I don't take into consideration maybe he doesn't know where the place is. Like I said, you cannot see the shop from the road because it is down a little driveway and hidden. So I start to walk to Dan's house from town and keep expecting to see him on the way. About 1/2 mile from Dan's house, by the airport, I hear a car slow down behind me: poor Dan spent the last 45 minutes driving around town looking for this phantom mechanic shop and finally gave up. Moral of the story, if you want something done right, hire a professional.

Field Methods

So I am taking this class called Field Methods where you go out in the field and pond and wood and flora and stream, and muck about in the mire and pretend to do scientific study of the populations of the fishes or the turtles or the whoolly bears. Mostly it's just goofin' around tho.

Nori, if you want to know what the howling is behind your house... look no further for the answer: here we have a dead coyote in a freezer box.


Umm... this attractive speicimen is a skinned bear head. Apparently bear meat is tasty.


Here's another picture of it since I know you want to see how big and sharp its teeth are. I can post more pics of it if you like. Just let me know.

Tee Putt Putt Birdie Par Bogie Bah

Dan and I went to a golf course in Worcester and walked around it shortly after I bought my car. It was pretty. Later we went to the club house and sat down to wait for some burgers, but left before they were ready. But I made off with a Gatorade. Not sure if they realized we weren't part of the club. Seemed happy enough to give us drinks and burgers tho.



Some hot rod bikes we saw in da parknig lot.


Grecian like theater in the round:


Dan puts on a show...


Dan is having a gay and merry time.


Something of a view of downtown Worcster. Dan swears there are worseter cities than Worceter and that there is no "h" in worcester sauce, but please, know better than to call it "worseter" sauce, ya?



The golf course. The stragglers were finishing up. We were just strolling through, waving at the golfers.


A tree that changed color because of seasonal dystrophy... or something.


The last hole. Going for Bogie.


I promise the next update will be a little more interesting and not so long in coming.

Mcdonalds in the Australian Outback?

You may recognize this photo from my Australia blog. Despite protests from the Aborigines, it would appear Mcdonald's now has a restaurant conveniently located at the top of Uluru. If it wasn't bad enough that tourists like me were climbing the sacred site against the will of the Aborignes, now the tourists can find an air conditioned haven from the 120 degree heat and enjoy a McFlurry after they've struggled up Ayers Rock.

Just Joshing around

Just Joshin' around in the Josh Billings Runaground. I signed up for this Triathlon slightly against my better judgment as cyclist along with teammates Ben and Gio canoing and Dan finishing up with the run. I was pleasantly surprised that my reservations were unfounded. I hung in their tough and didn't let my team down.

Steffen charging up Taconic Avenue at the beginning of the race before going down the hill passed Simon's Rock.

Jacinto grunts his way up the hill.

Gio strong arms it home while Ben rangoons the tennis ball handoff to Dan.

Last but not least, Dan heaves and hoes across the finish line.

Test Results!! I mean... Race Results!!

Place: 172 Dynamight cat: 02 cat place: 18 Total Time: 3:11:22

Person place split
Jake 121 1:17:35
Ben/Geo 205 1:01:47 canoe place: 149
Dan 260 52:00

Steffen placed solidly at 51st place with a time of 1:11 and Mario De Ris had an impressive finish of 1:07 putting him in 21st place.

Steve says:

I'm guessing the "canoe place" is excluding the kayaks, but don't know
for sure.

If you'd been in the recreational canoe cat, you'd have been 5th in that
category.

For what it's worth, Ben ran it in 45:39 last year, so he gets bragging
rights amongst the Schmolze boys. The field was faster this year though,
so places for the same running time are worse.

In other news. My little snazzle toothed squat little sasquatched gassipper of a car gets better gas mileage than any Prius owner this side of the moon. 63mpg anyone? Thank you and have a nice day. 62.6mpg was my average over two tanks of gas. That's 1026.64 miles on 16.4 gallons of gas (about an average tank for most cars)

Bird Watching

Today had Field Methods lab where we watched hawks with binoculars. No way to get pictures of them, but here is an amazing video of some pretty spectacular bird formations.

click here, and make sure you watch the entire thing -- some parts are pretty amazing

In other news, been half-assing the training for the Josh Billings Runaground. Ben, Dan, Jake and Gio all competing as a team. Dan is running. Jake is cycling. Gio and Ben are hoofing it in the canoe. Rode up Mt. Washington today as a last ditch effort to prepare. Was a splendid ride. Flying Moseses.

I got a "new" car!

yessum yessums! A 1993 Honda Civic VX hatchback! Why am I so excited you ask? Because this little gem is the most fuel efficient car Honda made during the 1990s. Along with the teeny Geo Metro XFi which has much less utility and comfort than the VX, it was the most fuel efficient car made during the entire decade.

Ride it like you stole it

that's the sort of image endorsed by Berkshire Bike and Blade. Racing through 6 (yes six) towns in 2 hours for a total of nearly 40 miles I did my first road ride. It wasn't as demanding as I thought it would be and I didn't have anything to eat before the ride and nothing to keep me powered up during it. Despite this, I was able to keep up and even helped some others out who were struggling a little toward the end by "pulling" in front.

We started at the bike shop in G.B. went through Alford to West Stockbridge (the same back route I took to BCC) and then we rode up 102 to Stockbridge. From Stockbridge we went by the Stockbridge Bowl and Tanglewood in Lenox and then rode to Housatonic via 183 and then back to the bikeshope via Vandeusenville road to 41.

The reason the ride wasn't as demanding as I feared it would be was because, one, the five days of sprinting to work and back conditioned me more than I realized and, secondly, I wasn't aware how much drafting improved performance. By following close behind the rider in front of you, you have to work much less in order to maintain speed as you are cutting through much less air. The real challenge is in keeping in line maintaining a constant speed. I kept going too fast and then falling behind, and then sprinting to catch up again, struggling to maintain a foot or two between me and the guy in front of me. Everyone was very forgiving of my amateurish riding and a certain flashy rider in pink trim coached me in the strategy and technique of the road ride (that would be of course the big bro, who by the end of the summer I intend to smoke). I found it most fun to tuck really low down hills and just coast by other people pedaling. Road riding is all about aerodynamics. Cutting down your drag coefficient. But it's also riding smart, conserving energy and riding as evenly and smoothly as possible. Well, I managed 1 out of 3... I got the aerodynamics part down but I am not efficient... struggling to maintain a uniform speed and sprinting a lot (it's just more fun)

I can't wait for the next ride. I couldn't believe I was maintaining speeds upwards of 20 miles per hour. At the end of the ride when leading two others I maintained an average of 23 to 24 miles per hour without the aid of dragging behind someone else. On some down hills we approached the 45mph speed limit. It was actually a pretty mellow ride but for someone who is new to road cycling the second half was pretty intense. (more VA Beach update coming soon)

VA Beach, Part I: 25 hour day

Vadim from work and I drove down to VA Beach for July 4th extended weekend.

We left late Tuesday night the third at 11pm and arrived at 7am. Then we went to the beach and frolicked in the waves. We went to bed at 12am. 25 hour day. It was a very long day.

7am at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Vadim showing the early signs of needing to get some sleep.


Sunrise over the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is the longest bridge tunnel in the world.



Just as we approach the end of the pier located near the VA Beach end of the bridge tunnel we see a man pull up a skate that inadvertently got caught on the hook.


The hook is removed and the skate is released back into the bay with a belly flop.


This concludes part one of our trip. Stay tuned for more coming soon.

Driving in Great Barrington

I was on my lunch break today and went around the castle street block after picking up the Instant Karma: Save Darfur CD at Tune Street which is a bunch of covers of John Lennon songs to raise money to stop the genocide in Darfur. I wanted something to listen to while painting the interior of Steffen's new bike shop location on State Rd. across from The Pizza House. Town was über-mobbed and coming out onto main street by Berkshire Bank the person two cars before me wasn't inching forward or anything--waiting for a magic traffic light to suddenly appear or something--so I got impatient and honked the guy in front of me and motioned for him to do something about the tentative driver in front of him but he didn't care to extend an encouraging honk to the girl in front of him, just looked at me dumbly as if to say "what am I supposed to do?" so I got of the car, covered in paint, paint in my hair, paint everywhere, and marched into traffic (the traffic was so bad the cars were only going 5-10mph) and put my hands up to stop both lanes of traffic and motioned the little lady to go. She smiled sheepishly and I ran back to my car (there were now cars behind me), giving the guy in front of me a passing glance. He got the picture and followed the girl in front of him into traffic. People's inability to look at a traffic situation and improvise accordingly--especially in overly congested Great Barrington--is a little irksome. I mean, I can't sit around all day and let bad drivers ruin my gas mileage, sheesh!

Trish doing a professional job of cutting in while painting Stoof's new, spiffy bike shop:

Bash Bish Falls after hard rain

If you remember this spring we had a little flood. Well, being the Intrepid Dr. Root that I am, I ventured to places where I thought the water would be impressive: Bash Bish Falls. Apparently I wasn't the only adventurous soul in search of ferocious water. I didn't bring my camera but I met a very nice man with his wife taking photos of the falls and he offered to send me copies of the photos. Few people will ever get the opportunity to see the falls the way they were on April 16th. You'll want to click on the images to see them in full size. Remember that in normal conditions, you can walk across the bottom of the falls where there is usually a pool lined with boulders that you can hop from one to another. But here you can see there is no longer even a pool, just a mad torrent of foaming water.





Getting to the falls was a bit of a challenge. I approached from the parking lot above and streams had sprung up everywhere. The creek feeding the bottom of the falls had swelled to a remarkable torrent and I was barely able to cross it by stepping along the metal fence that goes over it where it normally is passable by a small hop over the creek. This was a full on raging river and the bottoms of my feet were nearly being splashed by the rapids. Alas, no pics of the descent to the falls since I didn't have my cam.

The spray from the falls was so bad that you could not go down the steps to take a closer photo. You would be soaking wet in seconds from the tremendous spray pluming outwards with tremendous force.

Barbecue at Jake's

Nori in rare fashion complying to a photo shoot in Guy's Memorial. His birthday was last week.


If I'm the best root above ground, then Harbinder has to be the best Indian this side of... of India. Although it looks like Dan isn't so sure.


It was a beautiful afternoon for a barbecue. (sorry, I don't have photoshop to lighten the foreground)


Nori and Avi loving the spotlight of the camera.


If you would like to know why any pictures of me are conspicuously missing from this entry, perhaps a visit over to Dan's complementary blog is in order... Plus, there are some very nice pictures. Very impressive one of the sky. Wow.

In other news, Vadim and I went for a bike ride up that killer hill by Camp Eisner. Then we hiked up the Appalachian trail a ways and Vadim took 42 thousand pictures. I took a few but I was more interested in just being in the moment than capturing it on my camera for twice. (there was another time but it was a long time ago and I don't really remember when.) On the bike ride back I got up to 43mph. But this is on a mountain bike with knobby tires and my bike wouldn't go into my top gear. I think I will have to borrow a road bike from Berkshire Bike and Blade some time and see if I can't top 60mph.

Vadim clambers up the rocky face.


This wild flower on the trail caught my eye. Do you think it's pretty? I think it's lovely.


I like the halo around the sun in this rather lovely but typical sunset. I remember the sunsets in India. Particularly the ones in Kovalam in the south. Loverly, but the ones in the good ol' Berkshires are nice too.


Stay tuned for 42 thousand more pictures of Vadim and our little excursion coming soon.

Keep the paint where it belongs!

Okay? Don't put it on surfaces it doesn't belong. That is how you end up buying roofs and floors that you can't afford.

Doug walks the plank... (Vadim and my plot failed to get rid of the boss, alas.)


Vadim and Bret.


Doug shows how it's done


In other news...

Sold a couple shawls at the tag sale... but only AFTER I packed them away before the thunder storm came. Nina Thayer was very kind to mention my shawls in the advert for her and my mother's tag sale.


It's important to have a professional presentation when selling high value products.

8 hours of the sandpaper shimmy

and other adventures with paint and ladders coming soon!

For now we turn to some pre-season swimming.

A week or so ago we biked to the stream by Rowe Road.

Nora is pretty enthusiastic about being in the frigid spring water.


Jake is a little less excited.



Yep, this basically sums it up. That's about as far in as I was willing to go.


Nori did end up going all the way in. But I never went beyond my ankles.


Then Dan decided I should go in too.