Month: June 2007

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Chrysler Cirrus redux.

Two months ago we had a transmission issue with the Cirrus. I wrote about that here.

Well after about 2 months and approx 3000 more miles the baby cloud car decided the transmission no longer was acceptable and rejected it.

It started with a high pitch whine, then quickly deteriorated into gnashing, grinding and the inability to shift gears.

I limped it back to the Chrysler dealership on Tuesday. They started their diagnosis for which they waived the fee since we just had the transmission looked at.

That escalated into, “Uh, this is bad, the next step would be a $200 transmission service” Drop the pan, check the filter and see what’s in there.

OK.

That led to, uhm, it’s toast, and needs to be rebuilt, which was pretty much what I had figured based upon the audio clues given by the transmission a day earlier.

A remanufactured unit started at around $2300 with labor to install it, would put the ticket at $3200. That’s a little much for this car. (a 1999 with 120k miles).

A used unit is cheaper, $1300, but same labor and you don’t know what you’re going to get.

We negotiated and thought about it some more. $2350 later we have a rebuilt tranny with 12k mile warranty, as well as both axle’s replaced.

Kings Chrysler service department was very reasonable to deal with, although if you want to give me $2300 I’ll be very reasonable with you too.

Am I happy about this? no, but considering the car is otherwise mechanically sound, the body is in great shape, the interior good, and the AC still works, it’s paid for and I don’t think we could replace it for that.

Yippe!

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All you can eat meat.

Once a month we have a maintenance night at work. This means work is generally over at 5pm, but we have to wait until 8pm or so to start updating machines with patches, installing software, and making configuration changes.

I normally take the guys out to eat since we generally work late (till midnight or so). We’ve been hitting Outback since it’s close and generally not to expensive. This week we had a special guest for maintenance night so we decided to do something different.

“All you can eat Meat, at Amor de Brazil.”

If you haven’t been you should go. It’s not cheap. For the 4 of us the bill was $250 and we didn’t drink much, in fact I’m the only one who had a beer. Perrier water apparently costs the same as beer.

We arrived early about ten minutes until 5pm. They technically don’t open until 5 so we were invited to hang out in the “wine resort” which is a fancy name for the bar.

Jason filled us in on what to expect, and layed down the rules.

Rule 1: Don’t fall for the salad bar. Like all all you can eat places they entice you to fill up at the salad bar so you’ll eat less.

Rule 2: Don’t fill up on bread either. They have these awesome bite size cheezy bread things to of course fill you up.

Rule 3: Go green or go home. You’re given this coaster that has two sides a green side and a red side. Green means “bring me some meat”, red means “No more”. Keep it on green.

Of course we all started with a fairly simple salad bar trip. They have some pretty amazing things on the bar; fresh shrimp, salmon; good cheeses, some other uncooked things, and stuff I can’t pronounce or even describe. It was all good though. None the less we didn’t fill up on any of this.

For the sides, they bring you some fancy triangle shaped corn bread, some mashed potatoes and some magical fried banana things that were awesome.

And then of course the meet.

Rule 4: Anything wrapped in bacon is good.

Bacon wrapped filet, and bacon wrapped chicken, all good.

They had some flank steak, garlic steak, top sirloin and some other steak which I forgot.

At least three different pork offerings, and of course lamb.

The finely dressed gaucho fellas bring the skewer of meat to your table, if you’re green, you get a slice or a piece or two or three. If you’re read, they don’t.

Between the 4 of us I bet we consumed about 8lbs of meat. We ate until we couldn’t then we ate a little more. Had to get our money’s worth and we did just that.

Amor de Brazil is worth the trip. Go hungry, go green or go home. 🙂

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Mo betta server hardware.

www.dishers.com has moved. The hardware that www.dishers.com was hosted on was an old 1ghz, AMD Athlon. It was the ‘stuff’ back in the day almost 10 years ago? It was originally my hot machine for playing Tribes!, (there’s 2 years of my life I’ll never get back).

But as we’ve gotten to the world of Internet 2.0 with graphically rich web sites, and more .php processing required for things like the gallery. It was time to move this site to something a little better. The box it’s on now is 3 years old, but it’s still about 4x the power (if not more) than the box that replaced it.

Things should be mo betta, and mo faster.

DNS’s around the world are updating as we speak. Life is good.

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Pirates:At Worlds End

C was house sitting tonight so I took Maria, Molly and Michael out to see Pirates, At Worlds End.

AtWorldsEnd

Now being a family of 6 we don’t go out and see that many first run movies, at least not as a family and tonight just reinforced that.

1) The movie experience, as good as it can be in digital at the theaters really isn’t any better than DVD on our plasma TV, in our own home.

2) There are no screaming kids or babies as was the case tonight, but to be fair they were only a mild disturbance and Maria (being 7) was fidgety as well and I’m sure bothered a few folks, but at least she was quiet.

3) The cost, holy-moly, the cost. $30 bucks for two adults and 2 kids, just for tickets. Now we brought bottle watter, but two drinks and two large popcorns tallied another $24. So darn near $60 to take 3 kids to the movies and we were light at the concession stand.

The movie was very good, the special effects were just down right beautiful, as good as Lord of the Rings, the detail was amazing.

I’d rank it ahead of #2, but not quite as good as number one, which, given it’s time is still better but not by much.

And you thought there were only going to be 3 movies? They certainly left it open for a 4th 🙂

As we’ve come to expect, this is an excellent trillogy, and they could easily get away with adding another one or more.

Looking forward to owning it on DVD, HDDVD for that matter.

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1998 ZX11D for Sale

OK, here’s the dealio…

Zed, is a Black 1998 ZX11

It’s most recent configuration looked like:

(Full Size Photo here: Clicky) More Photos of this bike here: Click

It’s a 98 with approx 25k miles.

Valves were adusted at 20k and were all in spec. I’ve always used synthec oil and good gas.

What’s wrong with it now?

Zed was parked when I got the FJR last year. It had carb issues. I’d had them rebuilt but something still wasn’t right. I purchased a new set on ebay and they are mostly installed. She runs great, but… (it’s leaking gas between two of the carbs). If your mechanically minded, this is a $.50 cent 0-ring that needs to be replaced.

Zed is currently sporting Micky Pilot roads that have about 3/4 of their life left in them.

The bike has been down on the left side (former owner) who replaced all the plastic, but the left can is a little rashed, not enough though for me to have replaced it.

I dropped it in the driveway on the other side, the right side turn signal mounting tab is gone. That light is currently held in with a piece of black duct-tape.

It runs, and runs good.

Differences from this pic include:

It’s a little dirtier 🙂
I’m keeping the top box, but will leave the Givi Wing Rack (or remove it if you wish).
I can negotiate on the e421’s, these bags rock and at some point I’ll put them on the Feejer for their superior storage ability and eas of access to said stuff in them.

Goodies that go with it:

Corbin Seat.
Stock screen, black-smoke speed screen (flip) and the Givi screen pictured.
There are a couple of powerlet power outlets that are installed as well, one in the dash, one behind the riders left leg.
Kawi Service manual.

I bought Zed with 2400 miles, and put a happy 22k on it. Side graded to the FJR becuase Zed is not comfortable at all for my wife.

It would make someone on a budget a very fine ride. I’ve done a couple of saddle sore rides with it. One bone stock and it’s actually pretty comfy, the other in touring trim, which affects its handling a bit when totally loaded down.

$3000 firm, as is.

It’s currently Not ready for the road, it’s top half is apart and mostly re-assembled from the carb issues. I can (and will) put it back together if that’s what someone wants, or give you the parts and show you where everything goes.

I’d probably do better parting it out but I don’t have time.

I can also deliver within 200 miles of Cincy Ohio, give or take.

email: matt (at) dishers.com if you have any questions.