Why guys should not do hedge trimming

By admin | July 7, 2008

Here is another reason guys shouldn’t do hedge trimming.

Manuals for BMW 524td

By admin | June 17, 2008

I’ve had my grease car for over a year now and I’ve thoroughly searched for technical resources supporting the rare 524td. Although there are a lot of general manuals, a few resources provide the most accurate and valuable information.

The Bentley manual

All the forums and car KBs online talk about the Bentley manual as being the premier manual. Compared to the other printed manuals, I would have to agree. But this manual specifically doesn’t cover the 524td, just the gas cars. It is helpful for general repair and maintenance, but not worth the 30$ you’ll pay on ebay.

Chilton’s General BMW repair manual for 1970-1988

$Chilton\'s general repair manual$

This is not the greatest manual either. Probably the worst you can get for the 524td, just too general for most stuff and you’re constantly trying to find your model in each section.

Haynes Repair manual for 3 & 5 series

There is a PDF of this manual on almost every torrent site. Again, broken record, but this is a general manual which doesn’t cover the TD engine. Worth torrenting, but not buying a paper copy.

OnDemand5 software from Mitchell1

This software is available on torrents also. Large files due to the extensive coverage. I just DLed the imports DVDs, not domestic. Installation is pretty tricky. First you have to copy the DVDs to disk, in certain directories within the first DVD’s directory tree. On my laptop I needed to install a floppy disk emulator to install the license while I configured the repair manuals. So install was a pain, but this was definitely worth it. Good directions for diagnostics and repair. Tables, Graphs, Diagrams are invaluable.

1984 Lincoln shop manual

The Mark VII has the M21 engine also, so this manual is great for engine related stuff. Best diagrams of the engine I’ve seen anywhere. The engine rebuilding section is very thorough.

BMW shop manual for 524td/535i

There is a copy available online (appears the domain is down right now). This is the best overall source you can get. The quality of the photos is pretty bad, but it’s directly from BMW so the information is great. This manual coupled with OnDemand5 makes for a better fight against tough to solve problems, or if you’re just a noob like me.

Topics: GreaseCar | 1 Comment »

Colorado Trip: Day 6

By admin | June 17, 2008

Started day @ 5:30am mountain time in Boulder, CO. We headed up through Wyoming to Keystone, SD. Heidi had never seen the “four faces” in person, so we stopped by to check it out. Here is Heidi crushing the head of George Washington!

I think the ice cream cone was more exciting than the monument. BTW, I wonder how they will fit G.W. Bush’s face on the mountain?

Nothing like a romantic dinner the last day of a week long trip. I planned it out perfectly.

The setting: historic and beautiful Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. A band was playing outside at the bar next door We ate Taco John’s….in our car.

Back in Owatonna, MN at 12:15am CST. LONG day.

In summary:

Colorado is a must see. I highly recommend camping in RMNP, hiking for sure. Estes Park is a nice place to grab food and a shower if camping. Boulder is at least a day’s worth also of eating/drinking/shopping/hiking.

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Colorado Trip: Day 5

By admin | June 17, 2008

We stayed in Boulder a few miles from downtown. This day was basically set aside for Heidi to shop :) and me to drink good beer. And that’s what we did. If you’re on Pearl Street, check out these places to eat:

Boston Celtics had amazing comeback in Finals. It’s always nice to see the Lakers lose.

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Colorado Trip: Day 3

By admin | June 17, 2008

With temperature in the 80s, we set off to hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. We started at Bear Lake’s trailhead.

The hike was probably 6 miles roundtrip. Unbelievable views at Alberta Falls & Mills Lake.

The night ended back in Moraine Park with Fat Tires around campfire.

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Colorado Trip: Day 4

By admin | June 17, 2008

Woke up to 40mph winds and light snow at Moraine campground. Took us awhile to repack everything and get into our car. On our way out of the park, we stopped on the side of the road to photograph some large elk. Heidi busted out the camera and was filming a short video clip when I happened to look in the rear view mirror for cars behind us. I didn’t see any cars, only a black bear scampering across the street about 50 yards behind our car. After that excitement we headed into Estes Park for breakfast and the free downtown internet access so I could post more pics/video. Eventually we ate at The Egg and I which is a small chain we found out afterwards. Good food and great service.

With the crappy weather conditions, Trail Ridge road was closed which sucked since that was our plan for the morning. We decided to head to Fort Collins on our way to Boulder. Fort Collins has many things to do, but we were primarly there for one reason: New Belgium Brewery, the 3rd largest craft brewery in the US (behind Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada).

New Belgium Brewery was interesting. Huge on the marketing side. Tons of mercandise to buy, lots of modern/eco-friendly memorabilia and oh, beer on tap. The tour was fun, but I’d actually agrue Summit’s tour was better. Sure, New Belgium has a huge 60 acre campus, fancy nik-naks hanging everywhere, blah, blah…but not much was really mentioned about their brewing process or yeast strains, etc.

On our way into Boulder, we decided to stop by Left Hand brewery in Longmont. Tried their Sawtooth Ale and Porter, both were fantastic. Left the bar with a sixer of the Sawtooth. (We later found a sampler pack with 4 different beers)

Drove to boulder, stayed at the Days Inn. The place needs a remodel! But it was clean and cheap.

Foolish Craig’s for dinner(Thanks Shern). Had a great vegan sandwich which lit my mouth on fire…awesome.

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Colorado Trip: Day 2

By admin | June 11, 2008

Day 2 started off with great weather and a gorgeous drive to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Getting into the park and into Moraine campground was a breeze. 20$ for us, 20$/night to camp. Great deal. Our campsite was on Loop B, very quiet, great view. Here is a shot right behind our campsite:

We didn’t want to cook in the park due to Heidi’s fear of animals. :) So we headed into Estes Park, a big tourist town right outside the park. Pizza and Fat Tire was great @ Poppy’s.

The rest of the night was back at the campsite. A nice warm fire and a game of cribbage (a lucky game for Heidi) kept us busy. The view of the stars was spectular.

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Colorado Trip: Day 1

By admin | June 9, 2008

Heidi and I woke up at 3:30am in Owatonna. On the road by 4:00am! We could summarize most of the ride as crappy. Throughout southern MN and all of Iowa it was raining, at times a down pour. Nebraska was, well, Nebraska. Pretty boring.

13 hours in all with a few quick stops and a nap at a rest stop in Iowa (they have wifi at most rest stops!). We got into Denver early evening with enough time to go eat at Breckenridge Brewery. Wow, the food was good and the beer was GREAT! I tried their Vanilla Porter and Pale Ale. I’ll be looking to pickup some Vanilla Porter before we leave.

Barack Obama is supposed to be at the Pepsi Center today planning the DNC convention which will be in August. We might stop by to see if anything is happening.

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Stone Temple Pilots concert

By admin | June 9, 2008

On Friday night STP rocked the Roy Wilkens auditorium. The whole band is back together again and it’s apparent when you hear them play. I was pleasantly surprised to see the band play with cohesion after years apart. Weiland was his usual goofy self, dancing all over the stage. The DeLeo brothers had great stage presence as always. Tickets were about 65$ with all the lame Ticketmaster fees, but it was well worth it. Check out their schedule and go see them!

Weiland from STP

( photo from Tom Wallace, Star Tribune )

Set list:

Big Empty / Wicked Garden / Big Bang Baby / ?? / Vasoline / Lounge Fly / Lady Picture Show / Soul Girl / Creep / Crackerman / Plush / Interstate Love Song / Too Cool Queenie / ?? / Sex Type Thing / Sin

Encore: Dead & Bloated / Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart

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