Eric Bergen

The number of cars I saw off the road between ripon, ca and mountain view, ca due to over heating. I went up to ripon today to check out the Stanislaus river as a possible new fishing spot. According to my truck’s thermometer the high temp I saw today was 106F. There are a few steep grades on 580 going through pleasanton. People were working their cars too hard and simply overheated. One of the cars I saw pulled over was a convertible with a couch upside down in the back seat. I’m not sure what they were thinking but they paid for it. Here are some tips to prepare you for the summer heat.

If you see your car over heating turn on the heater and roll your windows down until it cools off. The heater works by running hot coolant from the engine through a little radiator. By turning on your heater with the fan on high you can help cool down the engine faster. Driving down the road with the heater on and windows down is much better than stopped on the side waiting for your car to cool off.
Change your radiator cap and thermostat. These two parts combined may cost you $10. They are well worth it. Radiator caps can wear out and blow prematurely. Thermostats can get stuck closed. Both of these parts are cheap to buy and easy to change yourself.

Check your coolant. Coolant testers are only a few dollars and can save you from a cracked block in the winter or overheating in the summer. Car coolant is a mixture of anti-freeze and water. The ratio of the mix determines the freezing point of the coolant. Coolant testers will tell you the approximate freezing point of coolant. During the hot summer months you can mix your coolant with a little more water to be a little more protected against overheating. Cheap testers will have several colored balls in them. Coolant testers are nothing more than a turkey baster with a few colored balls in them. The balls are a different weight and thus will float with higher density coolant. The number of floating or the color of the floating balls determines the freezing point.

If your going to be driving over hot mountains pack a few gallons of water (no need for anti-freeze) and some rags. If you do over heat pull over, shutdown the engine and wait for the car to cool down. This is important. If you radiator depressurized the water/steam coming out was well over 200F. WARNING!! IF YOU TRY TO OPEN THE RADIATOR CAP WHEN IT’S HOT THE RESULTING STEAM BLAST WILL BURN YOUR SKIN OFF. After the car is cooled down remove the cap with the rags and fill the radiator with water. Close the cap and you should be good to go. If you do fill your radiator with mostly water be sure to have your coolant flushed before winter. Waking up on a cold morning with a cracked block or all your freeze plugs on the ground is no fun.
It also helps to have a truck with a tow package (oversized radiator and transmission cooler)

This post should be a (hopefully good) review of the chili served today. It’s not because there was no chili. Instead of $25,000 chili I was offered seafood chowder. My review of the chowder?

The quality was good but it just didn’t appeal to me.

Expect a longer post in the near future on upgrade procedures. For now enjoy this quote from a gentoo user illustrating the worst way to upgrade.

linolium: is there a way to wipe every single table and start over from scratch?
linolium: ( the upgrade from mysql 4 to 5 didn’t go as smoothly as planned
me: did you read the upgrade notes?
linolium: no, I just hoped that portage would be kind enough to do those things for me

Am I going to try it? Hell no. The full menu entry is “Cock-A-Leekie Soup - Chicken and Leek Soup” Somtimes we get strange items on the lunch menu here at Yahoo! but that one has to be the worst.

Photo_060305_001

Originally uploaded by Eric Bergen.

The Tied House in Mountain View has a very strange price structure. Apparently they want their bar tenders to get a lot of two cent tips because he charged me $2.98 for this beer. Very strange but still good beer.

Being new to california I still don’t know about all of the local natural wonders that this area has to offer (except the wonder of high real estate ) Jeremy is planning a camping trip to death valley. He assures me that the tempuratures will be mild enough so we won’t die. One of the wonders of death valley is the moving rocks. No one knows excatly how these rocks move but it’s fun to think about. Here is an interesting article and some pictures to entertain you.

Today’s out of context quote. I baited this one but it’s still funny:

Eric Bergen: are you flashing people?
Jeremy Cole: i flashed justin

All week there have been posters around the Yahoo campus about a naked celebrity photoshoot. Jeremy captured the action.

[update: 10/7/2005 - photoshoot is one word. Jeremy sent me a link to the poster ]

I heard this over the wall of my cube today:

Guy A: Computer or Paperweight?
Guy B: Huh?
Guy A: I’m going to the hardware giveaway. Am I going to get a computer or paperweight?
Guy B: *Mumbles something*
Guy A: It’s a heavy object used to keep papers from blowing away.

After the initial shock of learning someone didn’t know what a paperweight was my brain started to drift away.
*wavy flashback lines lines*
Imagine working in an office long ago before air conditioning. In a time where stuffy wool suits were the only fashion and air moved by the grace of god or by your hand powered fan. Your sitting at your desk writing numbers on a ledger with a quill wet with fresh ink from the well on your desk. It’s 105F outside but you can’t go down to the creek for a swim because your boss demands the accounts be balanced by quitting time. The only water comes from a wooden bucket that was hauled from the well hours before so it’s almost as hot as you are. Sweat pours out of you where it feeds a thriving culture of bacteria in your suit creating a pungent oder that drifts throughout the room. The two small windows in your office are open wide in hopes of a blessing. Then it comes. A small gust of wind. Just enough to give you a second of relief from the heat and rustle a few papers on your desk. Previous experience tells you what to do next. You look for and adjust your paperweight.

That’s it. I give up. I have tried every pen ever made and I can’t write with any of them. I’ve been fighting this battle for years. I finally got sick of not being able to read any of my notes about two weeks ago and went hunting, once again for a solution. I found it in the form of a device that I once used almost exclusively in grade school. The PENCIL! More precisely the mechanical pencil. Amazing! This device, with the ability to have it’s marks erased instead of scratched out has saved me much frustration over the past weeks. If I focus and write slowly I can actually read my notes. It’s amazing. I do still catch myself writing to quickly and smearing words but when I do this I simply erase it and write it again slower.