And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Boy, don’t you worry… you’ll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

well, abt time for some pictars huh?

Here’s when I did the oil pump (checked clearances on the old one, they were in spec) to try and cure low psi @ idle:
the little shit area to work in:

oil pump housing:

zee pump:

the relief valve I was going to replace, but obviously no the right part and I couldn’t even get it form the dealer… :gaytard:

Making a new gasket, weeeeeee (no they do not sell or make a gasket for this, suppose to use RTV, gay):

First I tried swapping the lifters from the old head (supposedly rebuilt) to the news head, just to see what the difference would be. At this time I didn’t do any reading up on lifters or how this shit works so I just assumed it would be ok. Turns out all the lifters were collapsed (stuck) and my car sounded like a fucking diesel from hell or a clackity old train or some shit.
Here’s a pic of the old ones for reference:

Then I “rebuilt” the lifters from the news head because I couldn’t get the old ones unstuck. The only thing to do with these really is to clean them really well. Here’s one lifter exploded:

exploded even more:

I broke each one down like this and then soaked them in acetone overnight. As you know acetone is clear, well here’s all the varnish and shit that came off:

the dirt and chunks and shit (there was a hunk of rtv too):

cleaning:


laying the parts out:

Almost done reassembling, just missing the snap rings to hold the lifter down:

with the snap rings on, this was a huge pain the ass due to it being slippery as hell with all the lube:

Pic of the snap ring:

It still sounded like an [b]80s Mercedes diesel[/b], but it seemed to do a little better. Emissions was coming up and I was worried I wouldn’t pass, plus my poor saturn was in pretty bad disrepair after only 8,000mi of being back on the road. So I bought a bunch of shit to fix a bunch of bullshit issues.
Pictures here is:

- New Spark Plugs. I was running platinums, but I was told that the car some how measures resistance on the #4 plug/wire and using platinum throws it off. It uses this measurement to determine CAM position instead of having a CPS.
- Crank position sensor. I was told when these fail the car won’t crank and if it is running when it fails it completely stops. The car uses this to know the engine is on, w/o it, no go joe.
- Top passenger engine mount. Mine was ripped in half, so I figured I’d replace it. MADE IN KOREA!
- Two rear wheel cylinders, a set of rear pads, and a brake hardware kit. My brakes suck and still do after this work. I think my drums may be out of spec since my e-brake doesn’t catch. That or my master cylinder is dying, who the fuck knows.
- PCV valve, just a routine maintenance thing.
- Radiator, my plastic end tank had a big crack in it and was leaking pretty fierce.
- EGR gasket, because I wanted to take the EGR off to clean the pindle.
- Two new ACCEL Coils
- Set of ACCEL plug wires.
- O2 sensor
- Not pictured is a new catalytic converted from Magnaflow (it did not fit)

the old radiator, pretty beat up:

Old brakes shoes, worn pretty unevenly:

New assembly:


This press fit shit is hard to fucking do without fucking shit up:

Also at this time I had purchased a AC/PS delete belt so I went ahead and took that shit out. It opened the engine bay to work in nicely. before:


After:

Here’s the nice (was a nice piece) catalytic converter that did not fit but was made for my car ( :gaytard: ):



Flanges obviously in different positions, was probably made on a friday:

Bend in pipe is different:

So I gutted my existing catalytic converter (I thought it was clogged)

I installed the other shit but didn’t really take pics. Here’s the coils installed without the new wires (wanted to see the different between each item):

Then I went to emissions:
[code] 25/25 50/15
Reading Allowed Reading Allowed
HC ppm - 133 - 153 88 - 159
CO % - 0.39 - 0.86 0.44 - 0.89
NOx ppm - 469 - 1123 684 - 1242
CO+CO2 % 14.64 - 6.00 (Min) 14.66 - 6.00 (Min)
[/code]

Pass, within pretty good margins considering I didn’t have a catalytic converter.

Then my car started taking a terrible shit upon itself only 3 or 4 days later. I couldn’t idle, I couldn’t rev past 4,000 rpm, I couldn’t go WOT or the car would seemingly flood (the car would literally SLOW down) and backfire a crap ton. Initial look @ the spark plugs told me a lean condition (white plugs). I checked for vacuum leaks, couldn’t find any. Did some research and it seemed like a plugged up exhaust would cause some or these problems so I disconnected the exhaust at the manifold, was loud, but no improvement.

Then I read a failing/leaky EGR could be at fault, so I pulled the plug on it, no change. Read that just pulling the plug might not work. It was recommended to stick nickles over the ports of the EGR on the intake manifold, I did that, no change.

At this point I am thinking it is a fueling issue so I suspect the FPR. But first I wanted to try cleaning all my grounds. So I did. I also added in two ground straps, none of it helped though :(. I sanded off the paint on the body grounds and then covered it in vaseline to prevent rust and corrosion:



There were quite a few more grounds on the block that I cleaned and linked with grounding straps but I didn’t take pics. This also did not make a difference

So I did the FPR. No pics of that, but it took nearly two hours because the fucker is hard to get to and it’s just a stupid tension clip that holds it on so it’s a near fucking impossible job of getting the fucker back on.

This didn’t help either and since I did the Fuel Filter back in March/April I decided to attack the fuel pump:
It came from carter but it’s actually a walbro unit (190lph) GS300:

The tank was a real bitch to get down, especially considering all the fucking mud that was falling into my eyes:


I like the quick disconnects they have all over this car:

A little beer and elbow grease and it’s looking better:

Hey look the germans (bosch) made it:

the retarded contraption inside:

The bosch pump:

So back in it went. Still had the same problem. Uggggggggh.

At this point I went and purchased the fuel pressure tester, fuel filter and compression tester (just because I wanted to know, but I haven’t used it yet. I have my suspicions though). Fuel pressure checked out at 45psi with the key on/engine off (spec is 40psi). It holds pressure here with no problem.

It has 40psi @ idle (spec is 25psi). It does seems to flucuate a little, like between 38psi and 42psi or maybe even a smaller variation. With these variations you can feel the motor adjusting with each fluctuation up and down. I don’t know if this is the FPR/IAC controlling idle and it’s just noticeable?

Even though Fuel pressure checked out I replaced the filter anyways. Still was having the same issues

At this point I did some more reading. Seems like it could have been that my timing chain jumped the sprocket. There’s no way to tell timing on these cars other than physically verifying on the chain and sprockets/gears. So I figured I’d try to tell by looking in the spark plug hole and the top of the cam sprocket w/ the valve cover off.

So I pulled the valve cover off to discover something bad, something real bad:

HOLY SHIT WTF. Damn. Something went wrong here. My first thought is that the timing IS OFF and the valve ran into the piston. I went ahead and fixed this with the other rocker bars I had from the other head. had to tap the hole because the bolt sheared the threads. here you can see the aluminum in the threads:

Here’s the tapping:

end result (focus is kind of off, it’s the ugly non-black bolt :)):

I took the Timing Chain Cover off again and the cam and crank sprockets are still in alignment, so my timing chain hasn’t jumped the gears…

Well, now it sure as hell runs better, but it still won’t rev past 4,000 rpm. I don’t know WHAT THE HELL that shit is about. I have no ideas left.

And my veggies are coming along:

Here is some video of how soft and crumbly it was:
http://kelog.net/videos/rot1.MOV
http://kelog.net/videos/rot2.MOV

I also planted a small winter garden for this year. One of my rows has no sprouts yet though But it might take longer as some plants germinate faster.

I’ve got two rows of Touchon Carrots, one row of Looseleaf blend Lettuce (Black-seeded Simpson, Lollo Rossa, Red Salad Bowl, Royal Oak Leaf and Regular Salad Bowl), one row of a spinach Hybrid, one row of Chioggia Beets, one row of Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard, and one row of Green Goliath Broccoli.

Also cooked a wicked tostada with Carolina the other night:

Cleaned my mom’s barn weekend before last since the Fiero is now out of her hair. I left a lot of trash though

And then there are the parts that need to be sold to fund MacKellogs race team:

I was working on getting the Saturn back to being less of a POS and being able to pass emissions and caught my finger between a live wire and a brake line. Normally not a problem, but I had my ring on:

And here you can see the damage to the ring:

Saturn needs more parts, but it’s a dealer only specialty piece, so I got to visit Saturn of Southlake tomorrow. Hopefully I get this thing done soon and this solves my issues…

http://kelog.net/videos/a_%20004.MOV

Now I just need to pull one of these off and we are gonna be good to go:

Carolina got free tickets to see Zac Brown Band the other night.  That shit was glorious.  We were front & center at the foot of the stage.  When they played their rendition of Devil came down to Georgia and dude was hittin’ the fiddle hard, I was just in awe.

I bought a house in Henry Co.  It’s cozy, got 3 acres and a shop so I ain’t complainin’.   We are still settling in.  Yard work, house work, fixing things and all that sort of thing.

Went to a bbq the other night at my Aunt’s house.  My Uncle Ernie and his cousins were tellin’ me how they grew up with dirt floors, floors with 3 inchs between boards, feeding the chickens through the floor, working all day for a handful of change, raising crops, playing football inside a barb-wired cage, no running water, no electricity, not knowing what a urinal looks like until your 14, never seeing a pizza until your 12, fighting, getting whooped etc.  Was good times.

My transitions here are lacking, but Republicans suck.  Don’t fucking yell “You Lie!” to the President of the United States (especially when you are a member of Congress, you stupid shit).  If I was President I’d have your sorry ass on a plate.  But that’s why he’s President and I ain’t.

Guess my days of traveling are over before they begun, but maybe someday I’ll get to do it.

I’m sure people face more difficult things everyday, but I truly believe you just can’t worry about that. Look at what’s around you, who you influence, who matters to you and go with that. Become self-immersed and make sure you preserve, not just for yourself but for those who matter most to you. Keep that list small unless you’ve got a lot of yourself to pass around. I don’t have a whole lot of people on that list as I find it hard to uphold my end of the deal already. Hell, I have a hard time keeping promises I make to myself why should I burden so many others with promises I can’t keep.

I hate to consider that divinity has anything to do with how I get through life, but more and more I come to realize that someone is watching over me. I don’t know who it is, nor do I care so much to know who it is. I change who they are from day to day. I talk to this person, who I can’t see or actually communicate with. Hell, I might be crazy, who knows. Maybe it is the fact that I want someone to be there, making sure I am alright, helping me through the trenches.

I don’t even think it matters. Why should it. If I feel like someone is there, like someone is helping me, picking me up, giving me a break, why should it matter. I hate being “philosophical” or the term that this non-sense I am talking might be considered. I just feel that way though. I just know people will read this and think about how silly I might sound, but again I ask, why does it matter how silly I am being?

Maybe that’s just something you figure out when you start to get older? That it just doesn’t matter as much as you thought it did? The things that don’t matter, haha. That is, I think it means a lot to try and keep your word, even if you can’t keep it, but if you do everything in your power to try and stay true to that. However, I don’t think it is that important for people to understand you or how they might perceive you.

Hell, what do I know. I am young and still growing into manhood. I don’t even know if I will ever make it there. It seems like a far fetched dream. I don’t ever think I can live up to being my ideal man, I think that it might just be an ever changing, unreachable goal for me. I think every step I might take towards being that idea that the idea itself takes on a new meaning and steps further away.

The world tried to destroy me today, but I persevered because of my own fortitude and because someone was watching over me. For some reason I feel good about it, but maybe that’s the Evan Williams talking.

Yeah, I talk to him. Mostly when I see a plane in the sky and I am feeling the urge to let him know how things are going…

1. Wake up early (even on weekends!)
Currently I wake up around 5am during the week, but I love to sleep forever and stay up late on the weekends.  I’d like to break this habit so I can get more packed in on the weekend.

2. Sweat
I do not work out everyday and when I do I just lift weights and doesn’t really get me in a huge huff puff.

3. Sit, walk, go outside.
My outside time is usually pretty limited.  Walk to the car, walk into work, walk to the car, rinse and repeat.  Very few times I’ve gone to the gardens here at work and walked around, but not enough.

4. Do a good deed.
Not sure what to make of this one, but I think it is good to help someone every day or even something that nobody might notice.  I guess these even boils down to helping around the house and that sort of thing.

5. Entertainment.
Some days I work, work, work and don’t get to enjoy myself.  I come home, shower, eat and sleep.  Sometimes I don’t shower or eat, just hit the hay.  Sometime I come home and do more work or take care of some other business.  I think it’s good to have some entertainment.  There are other days when I come home and watch tv or play a game, those days I usually feel more at balance.

… I ran out of ideas, maybe I should change this to 5 things to try to do everyday

To me, at first, it did not appear to be a huge issue if some guy gets on the hotel network and pulls up our app.  However the more I talked about it and thought on I realized this could prove to be a very useful tool in stealing information.

Every hotel has a Property Management System (PMS) that allows the hotel employees to retrieve guest records, reservations, memberships, charge credit cards, perform check-in’s and check-outs, set the status of rooms (clean, dirty, disabled etc) and the list goes on and on.  Now, most of this functionality is not exposed to us through the PMS web service nor is exposed to me through the backend to the javascript.  We have very few functions which are exposed and even fewer that are actually used, but I won’t discuss them here for security reasons.

Our first attempt was with Opera’s UserJS which I blogged about before, but I think I’ve switched blogs since then.  You can read more about UserJS @ http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/userjs/.  It’s a very cool tool if you are in environment like mine where you choose the tools We use Opera because we have the ability to set the security permissions of the Applet to allow full system control and thus it works much like a normal Java Application would.   In case you don’t go to the above link, UserJS is run client side and stored client side and does not have to be downloaded, this is what makes it secure in our case.

UserJS proved to be unuseful in this scenario however.  While I was able to execute the script at load-time and send a request to the loginController on the backend and thus render the JSP, UserJS when run over HTTPS prompts the user for input “Do you want to allow local JavaScript files to control secure pages? You should only allow this if you know what your JavaScript files contain and understand the security implications.”   This was a downer, but I figured there would be a way to get around it, however I would be wrong.

Ohh take your time… Don’t live too fast,
Troubles will come, and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you’ll find love,
And don’t forget son,
There is someone up above.

And be a simple kind of man.
And maybe some day you’ll love and understand.
Baby be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Forget your lust for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
And maybe some day you’ll love and understand.
Baby be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Boy, don’t you worry… you’ll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

And be a simple kind of man.
And maybe some day you’ll love and understand.
Baby be a simple kind of man.
Won’t you do this for me son,
If you can?

Right now, I am more concerned where I am going.  The dust seems to be settling and while it’s nice to have some stability in life I don’t know how much I really like it.  I know everyone never has enough time in the day but you can’t help but to compare yourself to those people who get so much more done in a day.  Motivation, drive, energy, no-sleep, fire and sweat.  I feel like I am still lacking a true passion in life.  It is hard to know where you belog, for so many generations now, so many of us have been lost.

Time tells a good story, but it’s always about those people who did something.  Those men and women who made something of their lives.  Not every man can get their name in the book.  I understand that, I don’t really want that.  And honestly I don’t idolize those kind of men.  I don’t want to be a president or an astronaught.

I don’t look very far, my father and his father, they were men who did something, went places, raised a family.  My grandfather was working before he even went to high school.  He worked in his grandfather’s tavern, then in a soda shop, a delivery boy, then the navy, as a chemist, and finally in the airlines where he spent the next 40 years of his life dedicated to Eastern.  All the while, he got married young, raised five kids, traveled the world, served his country, lost a brother, lost a son.  It makes me feel so small.  He’s got a lifetime on me, but he also had done so much more by the time he was my age.  He faced so many more hardships.

I can’t help but feel how weak my generation is.  The American generation at least, I know there are some places with hardship beyond my imagining.  That’s not my world though, it isn’t real to me.  Is experience reality?  I guess for me it is.  Does that mean I am faithless?  Confusion, that’s something I have in common with a lot of people here today.  Lost and looking for direction.  Some people find it, in different places.  It’s hard to know where to look.

My father, he was no different.  Hopped a train, made his way across the country, brought a free car to life, became an A&P mechanic, became a pilot, got married, crashed a plane, built a barn, raised chickens, planted corn, had a son, went fishing, dug a pond, fixed a house, went camping, played with his boy, buzzed the house, became a diesel mechanic, and I hope he found God.

Life doesn’t find you, you find it.  A missed opportunity should be just that, missed.  Just like I always end up, not sure where I was headed, but I’ll be damned if I ain’t chasing it.