Twice the Months for Twice the Update!
Alright, so I was late a month. I’ll make up for it though, and combine them both into one awesome post! September and October were great months, and we certainly saw a lot of cool stuff! We had some awesome classic Porsches, a Fisker, our final workstation showed up (yes, we ordered 7 but only 6 showed up), baseball season ended, Husky football season started (and some might argue ended), and I enjoyed all of it!
Double the months, double the Porsche
You may be surprised to hear I’m not a huge Porsche fan. I even say it poor-shhh, which means I can hear you screaming at me from here. I’ll even take it a little further and say they are just squished VW Beetles, but I can respect some of these models. From the wide body models, to the crazy turbo flat 6 engines, some of them are very cool. Both of these came in over September and October for some end of the summer attention. One was for an overall inspection while the other was getting short shifter upgrades.
Karma? That's the name!
I’m not sure if you have good karma by owning a Karma, but it probably can’t hurt. The Fisker Karma is a luxury hybrid electric car, designed by the famous Henrik Fisker. It’s a hybrid because it uses a GM turbo 4 cylinder as a generator for range extension by charging the battery. The gas engine isn’t hooked up to the wheels though, so if the battery dies, you have to rely on the engine as a generator to charge the battery. So what was up with this one? There was an individual cell within the battery pack that had gone out, so that cell needed to be replaced. The battery pack is made up of a bunch of 24v car batteries strung together, which was an interesting sight to see. The person working on the car was a certified Fisker tech, so this was not an amateur job, and we would not suggest trying it on your own. These batteries mean business, and if you touch the wrong parts you may not live to tell the story.
Getting to see one of these up close was very cool though! They have a lot of interesting little quirks and design features. For example, they have side dump exhaust! Instead of running the exhaust for the generator down the entire car, they dump just in front of the front doors. The car also has speakers in front and back that make noise when the car is in drive that is mostly just obnoxious. I guess Henrik thought that’s what the future would sound like 6 years ago.
Bay 7 is complete!
No longer does this bay have the ‘old setup’ as we called it. Now with the fully fledged new workstation we are happy to say it is complete. The upgrade sadly took another 6 months due to an error in production, which is why it was left with the old setup while all the other bays had the new ones. I’m certainly happy to have this project done, now we can move onto phase 2 of the new workstations. Identify what to put into the 5th drawer, as well as improving upon our foam layouts. We’ve been testing different tools, and working on a labeling system to make tools even easier to find and put back. Your feedback has been awesome, and we have been listening. Keep telling us what you want to see different with them, we are still perfecting them!
What's up with the crazy cut?
As you should know, I’m a huge Mariners fan. This season Mariners closer Edwin Diaz, aka Electric Eddie, reached 50 saves, which meant he won a bet with the manager. That bet was the manager would have to get Diaz’s signature cut. The Mariners then spun it into a promo night, which I of course took part in. You purchased a ticket which got you a shirt, and a hair cut (if you wanted). I am not one to shy away from goofy promos, so I was all over this. So I may have gotten some funny looks for a week or so, but it was worth it.
The Mariners season still ended with disappointment though as it usually does. No playoffs, Diaz didn’t break the saves record, and less promise for next year. October came and I got to watch some awesome playoff baseball, as well as 2 game 163s. I was happy to see the Astros eliminated by the Red Sox, mainly because I don’t like division rivals. I rooted for the Brewers to be the Dodgers (Yankees West), but they just couldn’t get it together in game 7 of the NLCS. The Braves burst onto the NL scene, perhaps a season too early. That is a team to watch out for in the coming years. The AL wild card game was lame, I strongly disliked both teams. In the end I was fine with the Red Sox winning another World Series, better than Yankees West. My way too early to predict prediction for next year is the Mariners once again miss the playoffs and finish +/- 2 games of 75 wins.
Go Dawgs!
I didn’t go to UW, but Ally my girlfriend (pictured right) graduated from there. We have football season tickets and tailgate in E1. When baseball season comes winding down, we start getting fired up on Saturdays. We will typically make all of the home games, and unless it’s a 7:30pm start we are tailgating. While the season hasn’t exactly gone the way we had hoped, the Dawgs are still in it for the Pac12 North. I’m excited for the last home game being a good start time in the early afternoon, and then the Apple cup after Thanksgiving. Be warned Coug fans, I enjoy some mad smack talking.
Ready To Be Your Own Mechanic?
Have a project that you’ve been putting off? With winter approaching, make sure to get it taken care of. Being broken down in the rain isn’t nearly as fun as being broken down in the sun.