Swift likely heard the same.

Likely. Knew you'd get the reference.

He must be semi-retarded to not understand that you didn't try to say something absurd....you most certainly did say something absurd. Which pointedly illustrated another absurdity.

Problem is that they seriously discuss that absurdity as a means to an end on that board.

Course the flip side is that when idiocy is subsidized as a matter of policy, the Joshes of this world do tend to proliferate. So what to do?

One would think that someone who presides over as big a joke as that board would have a more attuned sense of humor.

I believe he has no more of a sense of humor than a hog.

He's likely industrious enough....but industrious and dull is perhaps the most dangerous combination.

Did you reply to him XXMag? I can't find the thread as RF didn't post the link. I think a dangerous combination is posting quotes with no references. It could be hearsay. Hell it could be fabricated for all I know. You 2 could be in cahoots just trying to start some shit here.

I resent the allegation. You're going to hurt my feelings.
http://www.envirolink.org/forum/viewtopic....936&start=0

Help me out Grace. I thought the infamous essay "A Modest Proposal" was pretty common knowledge. Was out in left field with that one? I learned about it in the 7th grade and never forgot it. The suggestion of feeding children to aristrocrats is pretty unforgettable.

First things first. I honest to god thought you were referring to Josh here.

But it Seems rather silly and two-faced to me to call for open mindedness and discussion when you have the whip hand and have already used it (OK, only kinda/sorta depending) with an executive order. And he seems to me to be willing, if not eager, to use it some more

Damn if it ain't applicable. I wouldn't put it past XXMag's subtle ways.

XXMag


Josh


And for the most astute calling out statement of the year...drumroll


SD

I'm sorry. I never heard of A Modest Proposal. I was probably smoking in the girls room. But to your defense, you're never out in left field. Unless there's corn to be picked.

Accidental, but damn appropriate. I wish I had planned it, or even noticed it first.

See, I'm clever without even trying.

Damn, I misspelled absurd

I'm betting no one even noticed, until now.

I just sped read the satirical A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and have to reiterate I never heard of it before, probably because it wasn't considered suitable readomg for Catholic students. Josh apparently never heard of it either. Can't say what his ignorance entails. You should go back there & post the link to it.

On the contrary, I think that at least knowledge of it would be very appropriate for Catholic students. Swift's aim being to shock people into considering the plight of the (mostly Catholic) Irish.

If I'm remembering that correctly. But I think I'm placing it in the right historical context.


I encountered it in composition as a prime example of using satire as a persuasive arguement. I've forgtton all of that persuasive wrighting crap. You know, the usefull stuff. But I'll never forget about the essay compelling people to eat poor Irish kids. That grabs one's attention, as was obviously intended.

I just thought most everyone knew of it. RF was obviously quite familiar with it. I guess that's what I get for hanging around history buffs, I just assume people know about a 300 year old essay. It's delicious that a certian someone didn't get the reference.

I did.

What was more delicious was that he haughtily accused you of making absurd comments, ignorant of the fact that was the point and it is a well respected way to make a point.

BTW, I wouldn't consider myself "quite familiar" with A Modest Proposal. Aside from knowing of it, knowing who wrote it, and having a general idea of the gist of it, I've never done much more than scan it like Grace.

Yep he sure showed me. I think I'll slink away into the dark recesses in which ignorant swine such as myself dwell.

You can hang out with us DACWs. Sometimes we allow that for the cooler engineers.

I am by no means cool, but I bet we could get along very well.

I could have used you the past couple weeks while I swapped motors on my yard sale boat. At first I figured it was an easy little project and then later, while doing it, I figured it wasn't easy at all. Now that it's done I figure it really was easy...I just didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Well, I missed class on boat maintenance day. I wouldn't know what I was doing either. But, pardon my hubris, figuring mechanical shit out is kinda my knack.

That project would have probably sent me into a fury of frustration at some point, but that's part of the fun of it. And if all else fails; it ain't broke, it lacks tape.

XXMag


Iowa


SiberD


This shit is hilarious. I think I'm about to fall victim to Josh's because I fucking feel like it rule. I'm paraphrasing a little, of course.

Then again. I really think he knows better. Removing the scapegoats has it's disadvantages. Especially when the guy with his head on the block calls you an indiscriminate head-chopper every chance he gets. Even the retards he allows to live will start to question at some point.

I think that rule is more likely invoked when he is bombarded with sufficient complaints from other posters there.

Currently, the gun crews don't seem to be manned sufficiently to put up much of a bombardment.

Probably where I made my mistake. I never bothered with him much at all, considering him rather dull and uninteresting.

I mean...c'mon....someone who brags about driving a Prius? Gimme a break.

"I hit the quarter mile in a quarter of an hour" isn't very manly, that's true.



Really, he is dull. He's so dull I never noticed the overwhelming underwhelmingness.

As far as your supposed mistake, the way that place has been run has stuck in my craw for a long time. By the time I showed up for the party he was the only one left dancing. I think that has a certain advantage.

On it's spec sheet it says, Top Speed: Yes.

Actually, I have no idea how a Prius performs. It might be an Electronic Muscle Car for all I know.

But he was bragging about it with the distinct sub-context that he was doing something Very Important to Save the World. Yawn.

That just couldn't be, considering his offense at my attemt to save the world.




You're going to piss my boss off, because that's a great philosophy.

I just can't help myself. What was the complication? I'm curious at this point.

In general, I'm curious to a fault. I'm really a mechanical guy, but I work as and with a bunch of dirt shoving civil engineers. A co-worker got into a bind trying to maintain his riding lawn mower. One big hurdle was his near total lack of tools. (I din't look, I bet he's got plenty of shovels, damn dirt pushers ) Like I told him, they'll revoke my mechanical engineer's secret decoder ring if I don't own a basic tool kit.

Long story short, I spent an afternoon fixing another guy's lawnmower. And I know jack shit about mowers, but I actually enjoyed myself immensely. If only I liked doing my own chores so much.

You know what they say about curiousity. I don't mind telling boat stories if you don't mind listening.

This yard sale boat is an older boat. Pretty much a classic these days from back when boats purpose built for bass fishing were first being seen. What attracted me to it was that it was in nearly mint condition. Obviously garage kept since new, because it still has its original, 30 year old interior with no sun or water damage and not a stitch out of place. What's more, these old bass boats were more utilitarian in some ways than the modern 70 mph run and gun rigs. Lots of storage compartments, two of which can work as either wet wells or dry storage...or built in coolers if you prefer. It has a very large aerated live well. A concealed rod locker. Also had a newer trolling motor, a fairly up to date sonar unit, and a nice radio installed. It was powered by a 65 hp Mercury. I knew I was taking a chance on the motor, because the near-80 yo guy selling it said he hadn't really used the boat at all in the past few years.

It started right up when I got it home, albeit with a little stumble at idle that I attributed to old gas and dirty carbs. Given how well it started though, I decided to pour some Seafoam in the tank and try it out at a lake that very day. Well, it overheated badly on the water. I took it home and pulled the exhaust cover and noted that pistons 1 and 2 were melted and their respective cylinders scored badly. I dropped the lower unit and noted the water pump was completely shot. I concluded the motor was fucked. And damnit, I know that an old water pump impellor that has sat dry a few years is bad news. I generally have the one on my Nissan changed yearly as cheap insurance. Anyway, I couldn't really say the old guy had screwed me over. Hell...it's an old boat and buyer beware is an old story. Besides, I think it was really me who finished off the motor in my eagerness to try it out on the water. But no matter...I obviously needed a different motor or a rebuild on the toasted 65 hp.

Well a rebuild of the 65 might make sense for some of those guys who just absolutely have to have a period correct motor to hang on their vintage boat, but I could find late model, low hour motors for not a great deal more than it would cost. Made no sense to my utilitarian mind.

My son happened to know a guy who fishes bass and catfish tournaments though, and he happened to have a 40 hp Mercury that he had taken off his catfish boat. It would be a cut in power and in fact the guy had taken it off his boat to repower to 120 hp....but he said it had pushed his catfish boat about 25 mph. Not really fast enough for tournament fishing I guess, but it was priced reasonable and the guy said he would stand behind it to the point that if I just wasn't satisfied he would give me my money back. What was best about the deal though, was that in looking at it, it seemed that Mercury had made very few changes between their mid size motors from year to year and even model to model. The 65 hp and 40 hp motors were very alike with the exception that the 65 had an extra cylinder and an extra carb. A motor swap looked to be a straight forward proposition.

My idea was to take the 65 off my boat while leaving its mounting brackets in place since my motor had power trim/ tilt and the replacement didn't. I definately wanted to retain that feature, and it seemed like the easiest thing would be to just remove the motor from its pivot point or whatever the hell they call it.

So I took the boat to work and put it in our shop, figuring the overhead crane would be the thing to use in removing the motor. I unhooked lots of stuff and kept finding more stuff that needed unhooked or removed in order to remove that pivot post. Now it doesn't take long to tell, but there were several hours of unhooking, removing, head scratching, standing back and pondering....

I finally came to the unavoidable conclusion that the outboard engineers at Mercury Marine had fiendishly designed their product so that pivot post couldn't be removed without virtually disassembling the motor. At least the power head had to come off the top of the motor. And that's obviously easier to do if the lower unit is first removed. Oh well...I was going to have to take that off the replacement motor to put a new water pump impellor in it anyway. I learned my lesson on that score.

I did the disassembly on the 65 first since it was already scrap. I fabricated a stand to hold the 40 while it waited its turn. Surprisingly, the powerhead wasn't that difficult to take off though it was heavy as a bitch and the overhead crane came in handy. So all that was left on the boat was the middle exhaust leg of the motor. Then I had a brainstorm. The middle exhaust legs of the 65 and 40 looked identical. Why not just put the 40's powerhead and lower unit on the 65's exhaust leg and forget about that damnable pivot thingamajig? (It being attached to the middle exhaust leg.)

Well everything looked identical enough...but it wasn't because the 40 hp powerhead wouldn't bolt down all the way to the exhaust leg. Further examination proved that the lower cowling of the powerhead was very slightly different. Okay...I was still wanting to avoid fucking with that pivot thing if I didn't have to, so I figured I would just unbolt the four mounting shocks from the exhaust leg and install it that way. I wasn't out anything since the powerhead had to be removed to get to two of those also, their nuts being cleverly hidden inside the exhaust leg instead of stupidly the other way 'round where any fool could get to them. Wrong answer again. While unbolting them I noticed I had to use a different wrench on the 40. Its mounting shocks were slightly smaller and the holes they went through in the exhaust leg were also smaller. They would be a way sloppy fit on the bracket on the boat I needed to bolt them to and that's part of the power trim that I wanted to retain and which is the whole point of this clusterfuck exercise.

So I finally compared the exhaust legs very closely and I see that the cowling is only interfering because on the 65 leg the front corners are squared off and on the 40 they're slightly rounded. It was done only for the cosmetic reason of the newer, more modern looking cowling on the 40. What the hell....I only have to take an angle grinder and remove about a 16th of an inch of aluminum to radius those corners so it will fit, and I do, and damn if it don't.

The power head being on, I made mental note to not forget to put a little plastic thing called a shifter rod guide back in the lower unit when I put it on and went about putting in the new water pump impellor. After that was done, I bolted the lower unit on and lo and behold I had a complete motor back on the boat. Which wouldn't shift because I forgot to put the shifter rod guide back in. That was enough for that night.

The next day I rectified the shifter rod guide error and then set about hooking up all the peripherals. The shifter linkage and throttle linkage were pretty straightforward though finicky as fuck for my fumbly fingers to fiddle with. I noticed I had to adjust the hell out of the throttle linkage to get it in right. The electrical connection on the 65 was a square plug and it was round on the 40 so that couldn't be just simply plugged in. The wiring was the same though and the 6 or 7 wires were even color coded identically so I just switched the plug ends.

At last it was time to fire the new motor. It fired right up. And immediately screamed to full throttle because I had installed the throttle linkage so that the throttle handle was at idle while the carb was wide open. I turned the key but the motor didn't die because some dumbass who switched the electrical plugs hadn't securely crimped the orange wire....and that was the one that kills the motor. Some dumbass kept his wits enough to stab the choke button though and kill the motor that way. Then that dumbass took another hour or so to do some more finicky fumble fucking with the throttle linkage to put it back the way it was in the first place.

That all sorted out, I started it again and it leaked water all over the place. Oh shit...I first figured the powerhead gasket was leaking even though it was a new one I had just installed. But looking closer, I found a little water hose that was split. Of course you can't get to one end of it without taking half the motor apart. However that end is in good shape so I cut off the bad end intending to just splice in a new piece. That's when I found out why the hose was split. It goes on a bigger fitting at one end than at the other. Some special part that someone replaced with a regular hose by splitting the one end enough to get it on the bigger fitting. It worked for a long time I guess but eventually the split widened and started leaking. I went to the hardware store and got some fittings to fabricate connecting a larger hose to the smaller one and that worked fine though it was awful fumblefucky to get in place.

Well it's on the boat and ready to go now. I've been over it plenty checking and re-checking. It idles great, pumps water beautifully, and doesn't run hot. All that's left is the maiden voyage, scheduled for tomorrow or the next day.

Ain't you glad you asked?

Coincidentally I just drove a Prius this week. I had to make a slave run to Kinko's and my husband had our car that day, so the former owner of the building I'm working in (wealthy woman) lent me "her nanny's car" she had that day...the Prius. She quickly ran through instructions (press the power button on the dash to start it and where reverse was). I thought I was in for a treat. After driving a block I realized I was in a piece of crap. The ride might be akin to riding on top of a vacuum cleaner. The interior reminded me of my 1970's somethin Opal I once owned. I also felt like a dork. I'm sure it has it's benefits like when gas is $5.00/gal, but that's as far as it goes. It made me appreciate my Murano, which is luxurious in comparison with a solid, comfortable ride. I'd never want to commute more than a block in a Prius. I also wasn't impressed with the dashboard display showing the grade-school-like diagram of the electric motor's pointing arrow to burning weeds arrow to the gas usage.

I enjoyed your boat story. And I assume it was worth it and the price fair. It also stirred some memories of my husband spending days trying to fix the Evenrude (sp?) motor on our RIB (12' rigid inflatable boat). He rigged some contraption with 2 x 4's to cradle it over a barrel of water. He spent the better part of 2 weekends trouble shooting that thing. Eventually he got it to run, for a while. Then soon after he sold the boat, trailer and motor for a fair sum. Sometimes I miss it. We explored countless canals here, some of which were seemingly remote. Made you feel like an explorer 100 yrs ago. I'll never forget one ride. We were coming back in, on the homeward stretch to the dock we rented. It was dark but a full moon, clear and countless stars which created an amazing optical illusion. The water was flat, calm and transformed from the reflection. We were motoring through the treetops, skies and stars. It was a surreal experience we'll not soon forget.



PS - Josh was bragging about owning a Prius??

I like your review of the Prius. You should consider working for Car and Driver or some such. I would purchase a subscription.

A girl and I fell asleep in my old ski boat years ago. When I woke, we had drifted a long way on a rather largish lake. There didn't seem to be another soul on the lake so it must have been a week night. I had no idea which way was the ramp. It was a fifty-fifty shot either way though, so I fired up a nice joint and then fired up the Larson and put it on plane. Full moon night as you described except there was a very slight chop to the water. The moonlight reflection made the effect of running across the tops of clouds. As you said...surreal. The herbal enhancement probably wasn't necessary at all. Talk about romantic. I chose the right way and we had about a 10 mile run back to the ramp, but we probably should have stayed out there the rest of the night.

And you should write a book. I'd purchase a copy.

I sure do miss lakes and their cool, watery but earthy smell. When you wrote put it on a plane I was there, front and back.

I think I miss being 19 on a lake.

I originally met my wife at the lake on someone else's boat. She came with him but left with me. That used to happen sometimes and I usually didn't get a repeat invitation and so eventually had to get my own boat.

If I win the powerball tonight ($192 mil) I'm buying myself a lake.

I assume they have lakes in Florida. Buy yourself a boat and go to the lake. Won't take a powerball win to accomplish.

I don't think there are any lakes in S. Fla. And if so, they're infested with alligators and water moccasins. I believe they call them ponds here. There's a few stagnant 100 degree ponds around I'm sure. Central and northern Fla. lakes are probably a little closer to mountain lakes, but they're a 4 hour+ drive. Not convenient. If I had a choice to live on the ocean or a lake, the later woulld be my favor.

I suppose now isn't the best time to mention to Josh my efforts to charter Enmity International. Though I doub't he's in a hurry to chastise me.





RF, that was one hell of a yarn. Did you ever consider that instead of trying to swap the engine, it might have been simpler to disassemble the entire boat and piece it back together around the new powerplant? I started to get that notion.

I've never dicked with an outboard before, so I can bring that level of experience to bear. But that would have been fun to mess with.

This is a good time to mention that it's a lot more fun to dick around with machinery that I'm not paying, or am in no way responsible for.

Of course, it goes without saying that not worring about money or responsiblities is a hell of a lot of fun. So I've heard.

The replacement motor ran pretty good except the carb leaks a little. I guess that's the next phase of the project.

As a matter of coincidence, the float was stuck in my Nissan outboard's carb this weekend. I fixed it pretty quick, but I really do need to run that motor more often. Ran across something interesting in Nissan engineering in the process though. When I removed the carb, I saw that instead of a regular gasket between carb and cylinders, it had a restrictor plate. I also noticed that the carb doesn't open fully even when the tiller handle is moved to full throttle. A little research later, I learned that the 25 and 30 horse Nissans share the same parts catalog. The only difference is that restrictor plate in the 25's. A little more research confirmed they are the exact same motor. The 25 can be made into a 30 by removing the restrictor and setting the throttle stop so the carb can open fully. The 30 isn't a souped up 25....the 25 is a de-tuned 30. They were selling the same motor for two different prices.

I just want you to know that I'm alternating fits of hilarity with fits of outrage.

If that's not enough, all Nissan motors are actually made by Tohatsu....and command maybe a 10% premium over the ones that are branded Tohatsu. Except for the branding there is no difference in the motors. Currently, the smaller Mercury motors....30 hp and under I believe....are also Tohatsus in actuality. And are a little more expensive than either Nissan or Tohatsu branded motors.

In the case of my motor it didn't work out too bad for me, since I can easily have a 30 for the price of a 25. Sometimes I fish a lake with a 25 hp limit. If I wanted, I could have five extra free horsepower while my motor legally is still a 25.

Marketing is a funny thing. I know some older guys who swear by a GMC pickup over a Chevy. They're identical with the exception of nameplates.

RF

Oh don't get me started! Drug store make up brands vs. upscale dept. store brands. No difference except the packaging. Same with perfumes. You're paying for the celebrity name and bottle. What's inside took no more to make than Jean Nate. Tell 'im XXMag.