McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: new books (Page 28 of 91)

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.

aRadio2

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!

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?

aKidWalk

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!

Time for a change.

April 9, 2015 /

Never have considered myself a clock watcher. Most of the jobs I’ve worked at over the years have been fast-paced enough or entertaining enough that the passage of time was never important. I still believe that to be true.

bankClock3

But I’ve looked over several times – out the front glass – and came away without the time. The big-handed clock on the front of 1st National Bank is gone, along with the arrowheads that marked each five minutes around the clock face. I still don’t consider myself a clock watcher, but I do realize how I had come to rely on that big timekeeper to gauge the day’s progress.

1st National is getting a make-over, inside and out. They told me that everyone inside has had to move their offices to the south end of the building interior while workers remodel the north half. Later, they’ll swap back while the other half is completed. They have to be jammed up just a little bit inside.

bankClock2

The time piece came down quickly and in case you missed seeing it for one final time, you can click on the image – one of the last that will have been taken of the bank façade. Since the bank is directly across the street and we have glass windows here at the book shop, I imagine I’ve looked at those fading awnings and dull siding more times over the past few years than anyone.

It’s going to be a nice new front – one that will fit in nicely with the turn-of-the-century-feel that the Rose District has come to represent. Messy now. Magnificent later. That’s how the bank’s excuse-our-mess sign reads. And if it winds up anything like the artist’s rendition, I don’t doubt it.

bankClock1

In the meantime, plastic is flapping against the chain link construction barrier, siding is being chipped away, and awnings are being pulled down.

Another sign of the continuing evolution of our little district. Shaping up, looking toward the future.

A rosy one, without question.

Come visit!

McHuston

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

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 McHuston Booksellers

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑