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Showing posts from January 16, 2011

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...
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I am in Bavaria. It is quite nice here. We have about three inches of snow on the ground. Of course, the food and beer is great. One of the things that I enjoy when I travel is the weirdness that is exposed about my own native language. I am traveling between about 10 or so different languages. I wish I could learn them all. The best I can hope for is to learn one or two to an intermediate or beginner level and grow my vocabulary a few words at every opportunity. Here is a selection on a coffee machine in Germany. I see similar things in every country. Truth is stranger than fiction.
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I had a quiet weekend in Duluth. Actually, too quiet. The ice is almost gone from the roads around here. It was quite a spectacle for me. One of the images that I remember vividly is that 4 days after the snow storm they showed a snow plow on the news ripping the ice off the interstate. The plow was going about 15 miles an hour. Can you imagine if the plows only went 15 miles an hour up North? That is where all that Northern aggression comes from, well kind of. I rented the DVD "Encounters At the End of the World" Directed by Werner Herzog. It was filmed when I was on the ice. I was disappointed. The story or message might have appealed to someone, but certainly not me. Most of it was downright boring and I knew and spent time with almost everyone who was interviewed. I guess the thing that bothered me the most was that this is a big name director, Werner Herzog, of "Grizzly Man" and "Rescue Dawn" fame. The camera work was even terrible, amateurism at be...