Memento mori

The Ricardipus-mobile, prophetically parked in a cemetary.

Friday morning, an enforced day off to deal with the sadly-stricken vehicle. Having been suffering from a mild case of throttle-lag over the last half-year or so, it decided yesterday that enough was enough.

About ten minutes from home, the CD player decided to cut in and out. At first I wasn't too surprised, since it skips from time to time, but fairly quickly it became obvious that this was an electrical, not mechanical, problem. Next, the car did something really weird - it refused to change gear. I'm pretty sure I was stuck in third, and nothing I did with the shifter (ok, you standard drivers, I know it's not really a shifter per se) would make it change - off with the overdrive button, which should have moved it from fourth to third, or into either second or first with the stick. Neutral, it could do fine, but that's hardly helpful for forward momentum.


Not so useful.

Nursing it around the last set of streets on the way home, all kinds of electrical gremlins started creeping in - the windshield wipers stopped working, the indicators started flashing at double-speed, which is usually indicative of a failed bulb, and the car was distinctly lacking in "get-up-and-go" (or, at this point, "keep-going-please"). Flipping off the headlights helped a little, but by the time I actually wheeled into the driveway, it was done. Just for fun, I shut it all down and then tried to re-start it... you could hear the crickets chirping.


That would be about right. Zero kph.

Maddeningly, it started just fine this morning and I was able to drive it down to the local dealership, a nice bunch of people who just opened, and are only taking delivery of their diagnostic service equipment today.


Maybe they'll lend me this one instead?

They are optimistic, but I rather suspect that the poor old Protege is not going to be ready to go for the annual cottage weekend, which is approaching fast. And, for added fun and games, with a train strike likely to start today, finding a rental car next week will likely be nigh impossible.

Cars. Stupid things. Too bad I love them so much.


This is where I need to get to.

Vroooooom!

The race winner.

What a great day. Very tired now and should have been in bed a long time ago.

More pictures to follow, believe me. Have a look in the ALMS Mosport 2008 set, if you like.

Development mule

It has been a while since I first leaked word of The Light Car, an R&D project of Junior Ricardipus #1 Motor Works, Inc. For those of you who a) don't remember, b) didn't read the first post, or c) have no idea what I'm talking about for any other reason at all, a brief update. When last we saw it, the Light Car had reached the stage of being built into a development "mule", capable of something less than the targeted three trillion kilometres per hour.

Following an extensive design process which you can read about at length, some careful calculations were performed:


Very hard math was required.

And then the hard work of engineering the prototype began. After many hours of labour, the prototype was completed!


Not exactly as shown in the plans.

Preliminary testing has been very positive so far, although we are not convinced that the power transfer from the solar panels to the drivetrain is quite where it should be. At a top speed of about 5 kph, the prototype is adequate for shaking out some of the early design bugs, but there is a great deal of work to do in order to achieve the desired performance. The 14-cylinder gasoline engine is also turning out considerably less than the anticipated 2,000 horsepower. The addition of the flames on the side has certainly helped to speed it up, however.

We at Junior Ricardipus #1 Motor Works continue to be enthusiastic about this project, and will work hard to make the Light Car a reality. Coming soon, to a galaxy near you.

This random collection of thoughts is brought to you by a large set of unrelated products and services that we strongly recommend you purchase.

First off, congratulations are in order for fellow blogger hwiegand, one of my partners in crime over at the Life Science Tools of the Trade blog, who has apparently a) gotten married, b) embarked on some kind of most excellent-sounding European honeymoon adventure, and c) thereby avoided posting anything on LSTOTT for an entire month.

Like I should be talking.

Fun fact: hwiegand is one of three people I know from over at that place who have the same first name. Which is pretty taxing for me, since I am blatantly unable to remember people's names at the best of times.

In other news, I have gotten back to reading the excellent, Lego-based, multi-threaded webcomic that is The Irregular Webcomic, slightly horrified to find that it's been long enough that I've missed over a hundred strips. All caught up now, fortunately. And an even better development is that the science geekery that is Casey and Andy is now back, after a protracted hiatus. I may never get anything useful done again.

As for the upcoming weekend... well, gardening I suppose; working on a scientific manuscript that is long, long overdue; cleaning up a weekly report; some buffing and polishing of the minutes from another meeting; and maybe getting the car's oil changed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this rock 'n roll lifestyle, it's killin' me. Killin' me to death, I tells ya.


P.S. Speaking of which, I forgot to mention in last week's post that I also almost-fixed the kitchen faucet. Now it only leaks a bit. I'd call that a qualified success.

Another Holiday weekend, continued

It seems the long weekend, which consisted mainly of work, has continued into Tuesday night with a trip to Ikea. Okay, technically, a trip to a point roughly five percent of the way to Ikea, followed by a trip home, followed by removing the kids' car seats so that there would actually be room for furniture, followed by a trip to Ikea. There was also a trip home, but that came later. I was on my own, so oh yes, there was loud music.

All of which was followed by the assembly of a new kitchen table, round this time instead of oblong. And the matching chairs, which I smuggled into the house knowing full well that Mrs. Ricardipus had resigned herself to the fact that they would never, ever fit in the car along with the table. Hah! Never underestimate my l33t p4ck1n6 sk1LLz!!!

We'll see what she says when she comes upstairs...