Month: January 2024

Come on Jack

Oh boy, some more Reacher talk coming your way. I am going to try and refrain from my usual long winded recap of my Reacher problem, but if you are interested, hit this link and read about it in reverse order.

I watched the last episode of season two a week and a half ago and it left a sour taste in my mouth. Last year’s Season 1 show, like any book to film transfer, changed some things, but it still felt like a very true representation of the book and character. Season 2, in my opinion, strayed a bit too far from the Jack Reacher ethos. The setting was changed from LA to New York, but this wasn’t an issue because Atlantic City worked for the Las Vegas location in the book.

My main problem with the adaptation came from the what I felt was a lot more bang bang shoot ’em up that I don’t remember from the book. Like they decided to increase the gun play to cater to American’s love of guns. Also, the Jack Reacher I know is an expert shot from my memory, usually a couple trigger pulls handles it. This series seemed to have a lot of gun battles where I’d swear both sides were firing enough times that the bangs were so many that it was way more than any gun could hold. And WTF, a car chase scene, this Jason Bourne stuff, not Reacher.

The big kicker for me was the final recuse of the last two reaming members of their old Army unit, the Special Investigators of the 110th, by Reacher & Neagley. They called in some reinforcements, where in the book these two do the job just fine on their own. Also this created a huge gun fight in a dark building with a fusillade bullets and it is a wonder how the good guy didn’t take each other out.

I’m not the only one who didn’t particularly like season two, go read some IMDB reviews and there are a lot of 3/10 ratings which probably come from the book readers like me. The few 10/10 ratings in there are probably from the non-book readers.

I probably won’t rewatch this season like I did for the first, I’ll will probably reread the book though, just to cleanse my palate. The show wasn’t all bad and the one thing I have to give props to the producers for was one little throw off line. Reacher is famous for checking into hotels under an assumed name, usually a New York Yankee second-string shortstop. He does that here, and when our big bad guy, probably a native New Yorker hears that name he recognizes it. Neagley, Reacher’s female compatriot, checks in using the name Sarah Conner of Terminator fame, but our evil bad guy doesn’t know that one, he says, “Never heard of her.” The actor playing to bad guy was Robert Patrick who played the T-1000 in the second Terminator movie.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

More of the Same Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 29, 2024 at 2:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1973 Porsche
914		 1977 Toyota
Land Cruiser		 2015 Land Rover
Range Rover
Another Porsche? But this is a different model. Another Toyota? But this is a different pick up. Okay, I admit, this is nothing like last week’s entry.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1974 Porsche 911 Sold for $62,500 on 1/24/24
Off-Road: 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser Sold for $20,500 on 1/25/24
Touring: 1993 Mazda RX-7 Sold for $46,000 on 1/24/24

So That’s What That Switch Is For

When we first moved into our home here in Fairview three months ago I went around testing each light switch to see what they controlled. There was one on a side wall of the main bedroom’s closet that was placed pretty high up. The closet light switch was at the right height and right by the door into there, so this second switch was a mystery.

I had the phone number of the previous owner, so I called him up to ask if he knew what that switch was for. He replied, “I have no idea what it does.” I told him, “I was going to get an electrician in for something else and when I did I’d get him to figure it out.” The previous owner’s response was, “Call and tell me, then we’ll both know.” I have never gotten around to the electrician thing. I had a hunch it was for the water heater because in that closet was a bump out that was perfect sized for one and close by to it was a whole house water shut off.

During our winter storm last week when we were close to losing power I got down a heavy blanket we had on the top shelf of the main closet in case we had to huddle under something to stay warm. The very next day when Donna went to shower she shouted, I have no hot water. I tried a different faucet or two and there wasn’t any hot water there either. With all the flickering and near misses at a power failure my first thought was a tripped breaker. The one labeled water heater was fine, but I cycled it anyway. My next thought was to see if there was a separate breaker on the water heater itself. As I was unscrewing the fasteners on that bump out I looked up and that mystery switch was in the down position! Aha!

I must have turned the switch to the down position when I dragged down that blanket, flipped it up and 20 minutes later we had hot water.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

The Reds and the Black Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 22, 2024 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1974 Porsche 911 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser 1993 Mazda RX-7
Just phoning this one in, maybe next week I’ll have more to say about the cars I pick.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: Modified 1955 Volkswagen Beetle Sold for $22,500 on 1/21/24
Off-Road: 1963 Volkswagen Dune Buggy Bid to $8,800 on 1/21/24
Touring: 1961 Volkswagen Type 2 Panel Van Bid to $29,000 on 1/20/24

Winter Wonderland

Last Friday during the day it was doing the usual northwest winter weather thing, i.e. cool and misting. That cool was the last time it was above freeing for 5 days. Saturday the rain shifted to snow and it kept falling until late Sunday afternoon leaving behind an inch or so on the ground. On Monday I made a quick run to the grocery store to get some essentials because now there was freezing rain headed our way.

The freezing rain came down Monday night through Thursday morning leaving everything coated in a sheath of ice. The city came to a standstill. Trees came down knocking out power to thousands. We were very lucky in that ours never really went out. But believe me there were at least ten times from Wednesday evening until Friday morning that it flickered or blipped off momentarily making us hold our breath. Our cable stayed on the whole time except for one brief outage on Friday evening.

The weather folks say it got it 35 degrees on Thursday, but you couldn’t tell it if you poked your head outside. It really wasn’t until Friday that the temps peeked above freezing and moist rain fell. Friday afternoon I went outside and found some ice melt stuff in the shed that the previous owner left behind. When I looked at Portland’s usual winter weather before we moved I opted to leave behind the melt stuff I had in Klamath Falls along with the snow shovels. I poked around inside the shed and did find an 8 x 24 piece of floor tile that became my impromptu shove that I used to clean the driveway until it broke in half.

Because we are the first house as you come into the subdivision off the main drag and it is all slightly uphill after us, our driveway was kind of ice locked and I figured I could get out if needed but getting back in was probably not going to happen, so we skipped the usual Friday grocery shopping trip. Fortunately once it got above freezing on Friday it has stayed that way since. Then the rain that fell that night and on Saturday was now helping get rid of all that ice. Probably by Monday morning there will be very little evidence left of any of the snow and ice.

2002 All Over Again?

I started blogging in January of 2002 and if I remember right the first few posts I wrote back then were about the cold weather in Aiken, so here is a throw back to those early days:

Last weekend we had some uncharacteristic weather for Portland, snow. Maybe an inch with two inch drifts, we really didn’t need to go anywhere, so we didn’t. The Mini would not have had a problem in it. I kept the snow tires we bought for Klamath Falls living and mounted them on the car back in December. But, the chance of finding another driver out there with something other than all-seasons and snow driving experience were pretty slim, so we stayed at home. Along with that snow came bitter cold and then a couple days later on Tuesday we got freezing rain which continued all the way through Thursday morning.

Yesterday the high, for the first time in nearly a week, made it a couple degrees above freezing. Today, Friday, we made it to around 35 and actually got some melting. Tomorrow, hopefully it will actually get to the predicted 41° and maybe we can get out and do some grocery shopping.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Air-Cooled Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 15, 2024 at 11:00 AM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
Modified 1955 Volkswagen Beetle 1963 Volkswagen Dune Buggy 1961 Volkswagen Type 2 Panel Van
Been awhile since I did an all air-cooled VW SORT. And as usual when I do, I have to stretch the category definitions a bit because there are hundreds of other options to choose from that nail the category.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2005 Honda S2000 Sold for $22,250 on 1/9/24
Off-Road: 1996 Toyota Mega Cruiser Sold for $167,500 on 1/10/24
Touring: 2007 Aston Martin Vantage Sold for $45,500 on 1/9/24