alexjones.biz

It’s been a while since I’ve written any car posts. Frankly I got to the point of really getting annoyed while working on the cars. Wes and his car-buds have a shop that they spend a good amount of time in with their Talon race car. Laziness keeps me from getting out and working on them.

However when things break you have to take the time to stop and fix them. As I pulled into the office yesterday morning it sounded as if I had driven over something such as a stick or similar and it was caught under the front-end. Once I parked and placed the car in park, the sound was still there.

Leaving it running I checked under the hood and found that the accessory belt partially shredded. Don’t you love those “Crap!” moments? By the end of the day I decided I would attempt to drive it home as it was to keep from working on it in the office parking lot. The belt was mostly intact and had just shredded on the edges. I made it home and began the arduous task.

The thoughtful engineers at GM thought it was a great idea to design the route of the one-and-only belt around the motor mount. Yes! You have to remove part of the motor mount to replace the belt. Joy-gasm! First it is best to remove the passenger side tire and place the car on a jack-stand. Then remove the plastic wheel well cover near the front of the wheel well. This will give you plenty of room to access the bottom motor mount nut/bolt. Remove the nut from the bolt and then place a floor jack under the motor (protecting it from damage) and lift the motor just a little. Then remove the bolt from the mount. (NOTE) I did not know that the GM star pattern bolts can be removed/inserted using a standard socket.

Once the bolt is removed you will need to remove the plug from the crank position sensor. This will give you room to remove the thick metal bolt spacer between the motor mount and the motor. This will take a little elbow grease to get out and back in. Bring it down to remove it. Once out then run the new belt though the opening you’ve made and reverse the process to install the spacer, bolt and nut back in place.

Now the easy part. Dress the new belt in position as indicated in the owners manual. Place your ratchet/socket on to the pulley tensioner and release the existing belt and install the new. Whew! Your done.

USER BEWARE!

Look folks, enjoy Facebook. Just don’t trust it, or any other social media, with your confidential information. If you want your FB information to not go public then the ONLY option is for you to not use them at all. Please do not be credulous and believe that placing your confidential information is going to be safe. FB was started by a bunch of college kids who promised your privacy is important to them. Then break that trust by allowing the latest torrent of leaks known to social networking. You must have known this could happen when a few hundred million is dangled in front of them! They’ll sell you out.

I agree with J. Brad Hicks when he wrote, “I’ve known that Facebook is the high-crime neighborhood of the Internet. I handle myself there the way I handle myself in any high-crime neighborhood: politely, but circumspectly.”

Here is a very good interview with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

Most of you have probably never heard the name Valentino Balboni. Valentino Balboni is the former chief test driver of Lamborghini. He retired in 2009 due to Italian government work regulations, after having served the company for 40 years. He started working for Lamborghini on April 21, 1968 at the age of 19 as a mechanic apprentice in the company. Eventually he was personally asked by the founder of the company, Ferruccio Lamborghini, to test-drive the newly built cars. Together with Bob Wallace, they became the test-driving team of Lamborghini. Valentino Balboni has reportedly driven about 80% of all Lamborghinis ever built; among the marque aficionados, Balboni has risen to cult status.

In 2008 Balboni was still active for the company as the chief test-driver and ambassador: he often appeared at different Lamborghini-related events, like the unveiling of new models. In July 2009 Lamborghini announced a special edition run of 250 Gallardo LP550-2 “Valentino Balboni edition” supercars; the company stated that the new car was to be rear-wheel driven in accordance with Balboni’s preference for the thrill of cornering a rear-wheel driven vehicle. Balboni, even though officially retired as chief test driver, has signed a two year contract with Lamborghini as a consultant through 2010 that can be renewed multiple times, and probably will.

Very interesting article on CNN.com this morning. I was there and remember the first website. Surfed to it via dial-up thought AOL was the neatest thing. Anyone else remember the banner links on AOLs main page that took you to all sort of things? I do. I remember being awe struck.

Wes and his Car buddies with the 92′ Eagle Talon at the Circuit Grand Bayou.

I love this one of outtakes.

This year I have been asked to play Santa for the annual Pet Photos with Santa at the MS Animal Rescue League. I was asked last year as well but someone else volunteered that really wanted to do it.

Pet Photos with Santa will be held at the MARL shelter located on 5221 Greenway Drive Ext. Jackson, MS. The dates are Saturday, December 5th and 12th from 10:30 a.m. til 3:30 p.m. For $15 you will receive 6 photos of your pet with Santa with easy pick up at Deville Camera.

For more about MARL go to www.msarl.org or call (601) 969-1631. Hope to see you there!

Now believe it or not I am not the most perfect Husband in this world! I know it is hard to believe but I’m big enough to admit it. (Literally!) Yet still in this world there is a woman that has been with me through all the triumphs, tragedies and mistakes over the past 22 years. She has loved me sometimes more than I’ve loved myself. A few things I’ve learned that helps me keep it together is to understand the basics and trust in God that he will take care of us.

1. Marriage Takes Teamwork.
If you could imagine, the person you married as a gift from God, then the things you do would begin to work towards building up the gift you have been blessed with, instead of doing things that would tear down your relationship.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24

2. Marriage Takes Commitment
When you stood at the altar, making promises and stating your vows to the person you love, that was the starting point for your commitment to stay married for life! How well you keep those promises and vows shows your level of commitment to the marriage. Commitment is not difficult to achieve when you make marriage an important aspect of your life.

God’s intention for marriage is a commitment for life. At the beginning of the world God created the union of marriage between a man and a woman to be permanent until death. Treat your gift with the commitment it deserves.

3. Marriage Takes Respect
Respect is submission, humility and appreciation all rolled into one. The flawed view of the world is that these things should be earned. Building up points in your marriage simply to be treated with respect is wrong. This is what conditional love is all about. God’s design for marriage is based upon unconditional love for each other. Submission is voluntarily cooperating with your spouse out of love and respect for them.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10

Of course this is my main reason. What else is there? They say that love conquers all so why should there be more. After 21 years of marriage I’ve learned there is!

My wife is incredible. She works, takes care of the family, house, etc. I know that I sometimes forget the things that she does and rarely thank her for them. Even if I try to hide it, it is there and it is unfair. With two kids and our jobs that we really like and we work hard, Life gets in the way because I let it.

But, lately I’ve had this need to renew the deep love and desire to be close to her again. She is everything to me. I had written a story for her not too long ago and one of the sentences in the story states I will tell her all the reasons why I married her. When I wrote that I thought, “it can’t be hard.” It’s not, but it’s so much easier to say than to do.

So I started writing them down. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be. I mean so far I have 17 things written I love about her. That’s a good start I thought but what is the meaning behind the reason? I don’t just want to say them without a meaning behind them. Doesn’t seem to matter much if I can’t express why I feel the way I do.

So here I go posting the first one which is the easiest to portray and the following reasons will simply be posted over time.