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Tag: books (Page 28 of 128)

Feels so good when repairs work!

April 26, 2015 /

I have a new hero. I know he’ll never see this, but his name is Greg Crowe.

Some of the people we call heroes are those who keep their cool under fire, or use their adrenaline in an emergency to overcome the odds. There are those whose jobs put them in situations that might call for the hero in them to emerge at any moment.

Then, there are those who use their intelligence and expertise to provide assistance to others in need. That is Mr. Crowe’s contribution. He figured out a solution for hundreds of us. And even though it isn’t a New York Times, front-page-report sort of deal, in my book, he’s still a hero.

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Here’s what came about. You know you can’t drive down the road without spotting a Camaro or Firebird, and you certainly can’t see the expressions of the drivers. But hundreds of frustrated GM car owners have been scowling from having experienced what I’ve been going through. Without warning or provocation, the radio shuts off. It may come right back on, or it might stay off for ten minutes. Sometimes I’ll get to my destination and the thing still would be dead in the dash.

Here’s the other thing. When the radio quits, the electric windows won’t work either.

I bought the Firebird used, and it had a Pioneer radio/CD player installed by the previous owner. I figured he must have wired it up crazy, so I dug around in the fuses. Nope. They are wired separately. That would have been too simple. Next, I crawled low enough to get my head under the dashboard and found a bare, loose wire. Wrapped it in electrical tape. Nope. Wasn’t the problem and wasn’t the solution.

It had to be some electrical cross-connection and I was ready to rip the radio out, when I decided to Google it.

BAM!

Mr. Crowe is apparently an electrical engineer and I found his post on a General Motors related forum. He had found a schematic drawing of the car’s electrical system and – using clues between the radio and the windows – found a relay on a circuit board under the dash where the two functions connect.

Man.

Not only that, he points out the exact relay on the board AND the single solder-joint that is faulty. From the dozens upon dozens of postings by frustrated Firebird and Camaro owners (they are basically the same car with different bodies), it must have been a factory problem that was never addressed, and car owners across the US have been bewildered about the ghost in the machine.

Over the years, I’ve tackled quite a few projects. Some of them completed with greater success than others. (I’ve called in the professionals to correct my screw-ups more than once.) I’m usually not too nervous to try my luck, but the idea of taking an electrical circuit board out of my car and holding a hot soldering iron to it – well, that gave me pause for thought.

What could go wrong?

Just about anything! Already we’ve got the dead radio killing the power windows. I might connect the dots wrong and wind up with a continually honking horn or something. But – sunny afternoon adventures call!

Got the module out with minimal difficulty, most of it related to my troubles getting far enough under the dashboard. The circuit board popped out of the plastic case. The soldering iron was preheated and ready. The actual repair took about thirty seconds on the workbench and about a half-hour all together.

Before I returned all the pieces back to their proper places, I connected the module to the wiring harnesses and took the car for a spin. Radio – working. Windows – working. Drive, drive, driving. Still working. Washed the car. Started it up. Radio and windows working.

BAM!

A hero is born! A tip of the driver’s cap to Mr. Crowe, whose investigative efforts and posting of the solution helped out hundreds of folks, and – no doubt – will help many more in the future as those circuit board joints continue to fail like mine did.

A simple repair job that I would have never, ever, been able to even diagnose the problem on my own.

Here’s cranking up the radio to you, sir!

Now, it’s off to prep for tomorrow’s business. Dustin will be cookin’ it up for Monday’s lunch, so…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Can you hear it?

April 22, 2015 /

Calvin heard the rebel yell and felt the ambition and passion of youth. It was 1861 and he was 24 years old. Not much excitement for a young man, working on his father’s farm in the rolling hills of Dickson County, Tennessee.

But now, there was a war on.

His mother was called Dicey, and he said goodbye to her on that morning in the latter part of May. The air was cool, but blood was running hot throughout the South. Calvin Alexander waved in departing from his father William and the farm; he grabbed up his rifle and marched off to find Captain Thedford, who had sent word to the men of Dickson County. Thedford was forming a company that would join with the 11th Regiment of Tennessee’s Infantry.

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No hesitation on the part of Calvin. The call for men was the first to fill the Army of Tennessee, and his brethren were clotting the roadways making their way to Camp Cheatham, set up weeks earlier on Spring Creek northwest of Nashville. Not far from the Kentucky line. A distance from the farm in Dickson County that Calvin Alexander had never traveled.

It was 1861 and there was a war on.

Not every private who marched from Dickson County found their way back to their farms. There were years in between for some who returned. The boys of Company K marched long days, long months. Years.

Prospects were beginning to look poor by the time the 11th regiment found themselves caught up in the Atlanta Campaign. 1864, and Sherman’s forces had already run through Calvin’s home state and the Army of Tennessee was falling back into Georgia. When Atlanta fell, the Dickson County boys and the remainder of the 11th joined with the Tennessee 29th.

Things got a little crazy after that.

Calvin Alexander later learned that his regiment and company were part of the surrender in April, ’65 – a month after he left them. For him, it was six of one, a half-dozen of another. He could almost hear his mother’s voice calling him home to the farm. The cause might have seemed noble, but the stakes were high. So many boys lost. So many nights spent under the stars. Or in the rain. The mud. The illness and grievous injury.

The dream was over on March 24th. At least it was for Calvin Alexander. The march was on but the glow of glory was off and he fell back and he fell away and eventually he fell into the hands of those blue-coats.

It was a different way of thinking back then, back during the American Civil War. Some troops were taken prisoner, but camps got filled and provisions were expensive. And, back then, a man’s word was his bond.

Calvin gave his word; he would never again take up arms against the United States. He gave his word in the form of the X-mark that represented his signature on a form printed especially for those whose enthusiasm for war had waned to the point of desertion.

And Calvin, of fair complexion, dark hair, and blue eyes; standing 5 feet 11 inches high, who was formerly a private in Co. K, 11th Regiment Tennessee, in the Rebel Army, went back to the farm in Dickson County. And there he married Luranie Thomas and lived another 33 years farming the rolling hillsides of the family farm, and where he is buried still.

So many stories in the books on the shelves, and I’m always amazed at the stories that come into the bookstore tucked in between the pages. Tales like that of Calvin Franklin Austin, related in the form of his Oath of Allegiance on a paper signed and sworn at Nashville, which – next month – will have been 150 years ago.

We have a history section, and lunch while you shop, so…

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

There’s a danger. Somewhere.

April 13, 2015 /

My parents would have spent their lives in prison. I roamed the countryside so much as a kid, it’s likely my parents couldn’t have found me with a bloodhound. Police in Maryland picked up a ten year old and a six year old for walking home from the park. A mile from their home. The parents may be charged. As I say, my own parents would have been repeat offenders in letting me wander.

“Free range” kids, they are calling them these days. Like the kids are just out there clucking and pecking grain aimlessly. Can it be that walking from the park is so high risk as to rate a ride in a squad car?

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I walked a mile uphill – both directions – just to get to school (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), in the snow and rain, so I could get learned up. Did it unattended much of the time. Unsupervised. And during the summer months?

The hills were alive with bugs and snakes and rocks and the curiosity of a ten year old kid.

Now, it seems amazing that any of my generation survived. All that wandering around like marooned survivors. Enjoying it, too. Back in my day (which I had promised to never say, but – rebel that I am – rules are made to be broken. Excepting, of course, that walking home from the park rule). Yes, back in my day we described all the walking and wandering around by a quaint term.

Playing.

Sure, that was then. A different era. We were out playing. I get it that things are not the same as when I was a kid, even if I don’t really understand why it has to be that way. But – it is also true that kids were lost and hurt and heaven forbid! got into trouble even back in my yuteful youth. It just didn’t make the national news. Unfortunately, kidnapping wasn’t invented this past decade. There was a risk then just like there is now, and I’m guessing it is still an inherently small percentage of children taken by strangers in any given year.

I’m not saying bad things can’t happen.

When my kids were younger the debate was over the mall. How old? That was the most-posed question for a good year’s time, sometimes posed differently. As in, “Why can’t I go to the mall? All my friends can go.” That second line was usually delivered petulantly, guilt-inducingly. ALL the friends can go.

Well, I wasn’t going to have child services called on me. So they stayed supervised until they reached adulthood, at which point I now accompany them only about half the time. (I’m kidding, of course. It’s much less than half.) My reluctance was valid. No sooner did they get to the mall with all their friends, than they returned home as victims of violence. Ear piercings, for example.

That was in the general time-frame when I would have PAID them to walk a mile, so I wouldn’t have to stop my project to drive them across the neighborhood to the friend’s house, so they could be driven to the mall, so they could walk around and hang out. (Probably putting more than a mile of mall-walking on those name-brand tennis shoes that wouldn’t traverse our neighborhood.)

The Maryland kids spent hours with child protective services officers before finally being released, and now the parents are being investigated. Child neglect or endangerment or something.

I’m hoping there is more to the story than just walking home from the park. Maybe it’s gang-infested territory. Maybe wild dogs roam in packs through there. Could be an asteroid impact zone, for all I know.

But if the kids are walking home on the sidewalk after playing outdoors – without battery-backed-video-stimulation – I’m thinking the parents deserve a medal.

It’s not a long walk this direction, so… Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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