Comments, Thoughts and randomness that doesn't deserve its own thread

I got two new neighbors recently. Stopped to introduce myself to one that I was excited to meet because someone told me he was Australian and I thought maybe @Andy the Aussie had moved here. Plus he pulled an old truck out of the woods and I am interested in buying it. Turns out that he is Australian by way of Canada and Austin, Texas and may be the polar opposite of @Andy the Aussie.

The other guy I met online and then realized he's a new neighbor. He popped up on another forum last weekend and bought something I wanted so I messaged him to see if he wanted to sell it to me. Turns out that he and I used to converse regularly on Pirate4x4 back when it was still rocking 15+ years ago.
He agreed to sell me the item and asked for my info and then sent me a PM wondering if he could just bring it over since he now lives two miles from me. He and his wife retired, packed their stuff and moved from California to Georgia last month.

 

That's awesome... I haven't spent any time on Pirate4x4 in years, not that a college student trying to keep a baby from starving could really afford to build anything worthy of their standards anyways when it was "the place".

I helped a buddy build a F150 that got some attention there. Mainly a string of comments from a Dana 60 or Nothing boi that kept hassling my buddy over his D44.

 

Unfortunately Pirate went downhill and then was sold to one of these companies that just buy up Internet forums and run them into the ground with ads, etc.

Many of the members have moved over to Irate4x4 to try to recreate the Pirate's original magic.

At its peak I think Pirate was the perfect public internet forum. There were so many good members and so much good information that you would find what you were looking for or someone would figure it out for you.
They were rough on new members and there were several in house trolls and jerks, but if folks weren't thin skinned or asked questions that had been answered a thousand times (how much lift do I need to run 33s on _______) usually they accepted you and would do anything for you.

If you went there for tech stuff, information or just to hangout and talk 4WD stuff and stayed out of two sub forums it was like having access to an insane library of constantly evolving knowledge.

And if you chose to spend time in those two forums you could still ask questions, they might just ask for pics of a wife, girlfriend or sister before you got an answer.

 

I think I've lost my RAT-7. The middle girl finished her homework before the others so I took her outside and taught her to baton and make feather sticks. Then we started a little fire in the washer drum and burned some sticks from the yard.

 

I was thinking yay, he'll show me his stuffed kangaroo, we'll talk about Landcruisers and then we'll go kill something.

What I got was a lot of bitching about the dirt tractors had left on the highway, the constant gunshots (deer season in the rural south) and the lack of response from "the authorities" to his complaints about them. And those were the highlights of the conversation.

Maybe he'll settle down, hang out and embrace his new community. Or he'll try to make it more like Austin or Vancouver and then move when he fails. I've seen both happen the last few years.

 

Vancouver folk ... yuck

 

Black friday sales have kind of sucked this year. Maybe cyber Monday will be better, but I doubt it, it's still 2020 after all.

The commute to my new job motivated me to finally upgrade the stereo in my truck. I tend to collect old American made amps and subwoofers, so I have already had the gear for years. I knew I wanted to use one 15" sub and I have 8 of them counting the 3 that are still in my suburban. Out of the 5 that I had in storage only two were currently usable. I really wanted to use my cerwin vega but I am going to have to replace the surround on it. My second choice was my jl audio but the surround is so soft I don't think it would hold up for long.

So I decided on using a Crystal mobile sound that has a rubber surround. I decided to power it with an old US amps USA-150 high voltage since I am only running one 4 ohm sub. It's rated at 75 watts x 2, but puts out around 600 cleanly when bridged. It will get down for 1 sub and a 150 watt rated amp.

After about a week it started to distort at about half power. I didn't think it was the amp and I knew I hadn't cooked the sub, it was really clean sounding up to that point, but started making farting sounds when I would crank it hard. I figured out that it must be an air leak, so I got to checking and found the dust cap was coming ungluded.

It's amazing the difference a bead of elmer's glue made. Elmer's wasn't my first choice but I couldn't find my good craft glue since I moved all my tools and things from my old job. I didn't feel like making the trip to Walmart for more, so I went to see what DG had. They had a small bottle of tacky craft glue but it was made in China. They had 2 different types of elmer's glue, one was school glue and the other was more of a multi purpose glue. I don't know if there's any difference besides the labels but it was $1 and USA made, so I went with it. So far so good, we will see how it holds up.

 

Family is all here.

I put vodka in my lemonade an hour ago.

Gonna be a great day!