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Showing posts from September 14, 2008

The Nissan Leaf Gets a New Rear Axle

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Well, I finally have a salvage title for the 2013 Nissan LEAF (Actually I dont have the title yet, but I think they mail it to me. We are far from settled with the insurance company for sure. It has been six months since Angie was rear ended. The following chart shows a very sad and disturbing trend. Insurance companies aren't paying out. It should be criminal. I went shopping for a new rear axle so I can get the car driving again. The rear ended axle was so bent, the car couldn't move. The new one with no connecting bits was over a thousand dollars. The cheapest used ones I could find on ebay were over 500 dollars. I finally scored at a local used parts place for 95 dollars (removed) and with associated bits such as bearings, bushings, parts of the brakes. It took me a concentrated day with cancelled and moved meetings to get the axle replaced and the car running again. The accomplishment felt good. I am now configuring the car with tractor tires and other modifications t...
The conference is going well. I will be flying back to NY on Thursday. Santa Fe is nice. It turns out the solar panel can get damaged by not having water in it when it exposed to the sun. It gets that hot. "Hot-Liquid Solar" energy is here. It is everywhere else in the world, why not the US? Energy is energy. I saw this moose sculpture getting loaded onto a truck this morning. I was a bit jealous. I have hauled some weird stuff with my truck over the years, but nothing quite like what this guy was towing with his truck.
I am in Santa Fe New Mexico for most of this week for the Center for Information Development (CIDM) conference. This is where I hob nob with all the Technical Information Development movers and shakers from large corporations. The conference is always good. I was reflecting on what has changed in the last five years in this area and it is quite staggering. 5 years ago most participants were musing about information component management systems. Now everyone has one. It is a way of life today, DITA, XML. Then there is the emergence of new problems of integration with SOA, content ownership, and communications between collaborators. It is nice to have respect from large intrepid businesses in the area on content development management.