Anthony’s Ramblings

“I’m hoping you’re still interested in the position and would like to reschedule your interview…”
“When you didn’t show up…the interview panel and myself were rather disappointed.”
“You and your resume were the pieces I was most interested in out of everybody.”
“You’ll probably start in August…”
(after I admitted to falling apart in panel interviews) “You’ve got nothing to worry about, we’re a great group to work with.”

Those, my friend, are the best lines I’ve ever heard from a future employer.  I will elaborate…

I was supposed to go to Berkeley, CA today to do the second portion of the 3 part interviewing process the Berkeley Unified School District has.  I was feeling a bit nervous and “I don’t know shit I can’t do this”, so I didn’t go.  Well, later today I got a call from BUSD and ignored it.  I checked my voicemail later and it was the head of IT calling me asking if I could reschedule.  I was like, “oh shit!” so I called him back.

Apparently they were really looking forward to interviewing me.  He sorta interviewed me over the phone at that time too, and for some odd reason I was given a bigass boost of confidance and was able to talk to him without “umm-ing” or “uhh-ing” at all.  And from what I got out of the conversation was that they want me.  So, I am re-scheduled for Thursday at 1 PM.

YouTube has recently added a feature to where you can post videos via your cell phone. All you need to do is set up a “mobile profile”. When you create your mobile profile, it’ll give you an e-mail-like address to send your videos to. You can create multiple profiles to separate your mobile videos into categories and whatnot, if you don’t feel like going back later and editing the video info. You also have the option of having the video public or private by default.

Out of sheer boredom, here’s an AWESOME video I posted a little while ago. I call it, ‘LX in the Garage’

Unfortunately, my cell phone only does 15 second clips and the quality isn’t awesome. Although…if I was to ever run into something that I must show the world instantly, it works.

I installed a nifty plugin that allows me to configure Wordpress to send e-mail through an SMTP server, rather than through PHP’s ‘mail()’ function. So now I have e-mail bliss! I will be e-mailed when anyone leaves a comment. I’ll be able to keep on top of the comments easier . Also, for those of you who are regular visitors and are annoyed by the “captcha” when leaving a comment, you can now create an account on my blog. Registered viewers are able to bypass the name, e-mail, and captcha fields (they’re auto-completed for you). Nifty, eh?

I’m also looking into setting up e-mailed updates. If you leave a comment on an entry and somebody comments after you, you will be notified about the new comments. I can’t find any obvious settings for this in the Wordpress admin page…but I may be blind. Soo, I asked about it on the Wordpress support page and am awaiting a response.

I have finally (hopefully) reached the end of my T-Bird service spree for the time being. Whoo hoo!

Transmission Work

I decided to tackle the job of flushing the transmission fluid, replacing the transmission filter, and installing an auxiliary transmission cooler. The job went very well. I got a nice Mercon V ATF fluid bath. When they said that the transmission is electronically controlled…boy they were right. There are wires going every way behind the transmission pan.

To empty the transmission, all you do is disconnect the upper transmission cooling line, connect a rubber hose on the radiator end, start the car and stick the hose in a bucket. Once the flow of oil slows or burps, shut the car off and remove the transmission oil pan. The oil pan will be pretty close to empty, which is very handy. You don’t have to worry about balancing the pan while laying under the car.

Once you remove the oil pan, be prepared for the transmission to drip everywhere. The filter will be right there. It’s a pressed fit, so you just gently pull it off. Whip out your new filter and push it in keeping the same orientation as the old filter. Clean the oil pan with brake cleaner to remove any stray particles. The gasket is re-usable, so unless it has a break or is cracking anywhere, clean it off and re-install it along with the pan. Fill ‘er up with tranny oil and you’re good to go! Don’t forget to cycle through the gear selector and check the fluid a few times. Also, after driving around for a while you should check the fluid, just in case.

The auxiliary transmission cooler install went very smoothly, as well. All it took was some ruber hose, an oil cooler, the right fittings to tap between the upper radiator connector and upper transmission line, and hose clamps. You can mount it however you like, but I was lazy and used the zip tie mounting straps that came with my cooler kit. With these, you pretty much “zip tie” the tranny cooler to the A/C condenser. If you’re really picky you’d remove the front nose and give it a “proper” mounting. I didn’t feel like removing the nose. lol This way works just fine, anyway. You’ll just need new straps if you ever have to do a radiator replacement.

I did notice improvement in shifting, and the torque converter doesn’t “shudder” at lockup, either. I’ve also noticed that the car cools down a little faster than it used to…but that could be in my head.

Front Wheel Bearings

After my tranny work, something posessed me to spin my drivers front tire. As I did this, I heard this slight knocking sound. Hmm…the bearings must be dry. The wheel bearings on this car are sealed, so when the bearings go out be prepared to replace the whole hub and spindle nut. They’re about $85+ a piece. So I did both. If you have a torque wrench that goes up to 250 ft-lbs and a 36mm socket, changing the front wheel hub assembly is easy. If you don’t have those, stop by your nearest Autozone…they’ll rent them to you for free.