No punchbacks

Maybe it’s just me, but by far one of the greatest things about driving a Beetle is the Punch Buggy Game.

I recently traveled to Kansas City with a couple of friends with whom I had never driven in my car before. At our first rest stop just across the Kansas state line, some other people noticed my yellow Beetle. Even through the windshield you can tell the exchange that’s going on.

Person 1: [punches the other person in the shoulder]
Person 2: mouths “Ow”
Person 1: [laughs] “No punchbacks.”

At that point my shotgun realized that she was a passenger in a Beetle and started intermittently hitting me. As a result, inside the Beetle quickly became a no punchbuggy zone.

This delightful schadenfreude phenomenon happens everywhere I go. Not my passengers attempting to wail on their defenseless driver, but other people smacking their companions when they see my car. This isn’t something people out-grow either. You’d think that once people consider themselves adults and start paying their own bills that shouting “Yellow punchbuggy, no punchbacks” would become too juvenile. You’d be wrong.

I’ve witnessed groups of college students pounding on one another as I drive past. Even serious, nicely dressed folks going out to dinner will politely swat at their dinner companions when going out to dinner.

It makes me very happy that the simple presence of my little yellow car can make people drop their inhibitions and resort to feeling like a kid again.

 

Babies everywhere! or how we tell the time

Well, not really. And not yet. Also, not yet for the pirate and I.

But in our little world there are a fair number of babies on the horizon (Miss Anna Mae, Baby Brown, and Baby Tami-John). Three sets of friends we know are expecting this summer and I’ve begun knitting madly so that maybe their baby hats will done before they are born. This will be a feat as most little people who come into my life don’t get their first knitted item until after they are done incubating.

These are happy and exciting times folks.

In other news:
My dad recently sent me a picture of my poorly remembered youth. I’m on my 82-year-old grandfather’s lap and my sister (9 at the time) is sitting next to him. We’re in the backyard in Brighton and both he and she look so happy.

Me?

I look vaguely peeved. Or confused.

It’s a good picture though and I’m happy he sent it to me. Most of the pictures of me as a small person are still in the photo albums at home. This though came from a bunch of slides that my dad recently acquired through the wonders of the technology.

Growing up I often heard of these slides. My family referenced them as others might give directions to Shangri-la.

“The pictures of the Kris Kringle Mart? They’re on the slides. But that was BA.”

BA-Before Ninjamechanic. A time that usually referred to the 9 years or so that my family was incomplete before I finally decided to show up.

They lived in Germany. My sister played golf on the Arsenal. We had a guinea pig. They participated in Volksmarches and our poodle went for bike rides.

Plenty happened after Ninjamechanic hit the scene … We moved to Northern Virginia. My dad and sister built the deck. We almost burned the kitchen down that one time in Indian Princesses.

Grade school. College. Georgia. Pirate-Ninja Wedding. Life stuff.

All just normal everyday things, but all things of which I have seen photographs. I’m a visual learner which I think contributes to my love of photography. You can express things in photographs or snapshots that other mediums sometimes struggle to articulate.

Moments in time that are fragile. Echoes of people who are no longer here and places that are out of reach.

I look forward to seeing what other things Dad digs up as he reclaims the slides. Especially the BA ones.

 

May the VW be with you

Volkswagen’s Super Bowl commercial for the 2012 Passat rocked my world on so many levels.

Level 1:
-I’m a VW champion/nerd.

Level 2:
-Huzzah for “The Imperial March”!

I didn’t exactly watch the Super Bowl this year. More like, I caught glimpses of it while super bowl-ing.

However — in between sets and achieving a score that would be admirable only in golf — the car commercials definitely caught my attention. Kudos to Chevrolet for debuting the Volt’s spicy little 30-second slot. It’s exciting to finally see them surging forward and giving their electric line some attention.

In class we’re currently discussing the differences between diesels and gasoline engines which made BMW’s diesel commercial relevant. But dang if they didn’t hit below the belt.

Okay, I’ll give them that semi-trucks are often viewed as gross emitters.

Did they really need to single out Mercedes and Volvo though?

Sure, both companies have come a long way from their signature 1980s diesels, particularly since emissions standards have required the automotive industry to sit up and listen. But the Mercedes 300 series happens to be the body style of the 1984 Benz I learned to drive on. Furthermore Volvo’s iconic 240 station wagon is the first image that always comes to mind when I recall my childhood and all the times Mom schlepped us around town.

Way to go BMW. Just label my formative years gross and disgusting. See if I care.

[cough] Bring More Wallet [cough]

 

Dear 2011: Where is my flying car and my robo maid?

It’s kind of crazy, but we’re living in the future.

We have robot vacuum cleaners and the conversation continues about improving an automobile’s fuel economy. But there are some instances where we might as well still live in 1951.

Like cooking.

Why do we tell men they can’t cook?

It’s as bad as telling little girls they’re not as smart as boys. And yet, it’s something that we continue to reinforce.

We reinforce it with novelty calendars such as “Porn for Women” that depicts buff and/or scantily clad men doing house work.

Last year Quirk Publishing released a cookbook titled “Recipes Every Man Should Know.” It’s a cookbook intended for the man in the bookstore who may otherwise walk past the cooking section. Never mind that there are plenty of male celebrity chefs and foodies (Jamie Oliver, Alton Brown, Wolfgang Puck, Sam Zien, etc.).

What makes me wonder is this: why do we as a society continue to encourage such sexist expectations?

Just by referring to it as “women’s porn” suggests that it’s illicit or inappropriate for men to cook, clean, or do things around the house. Muscular men without their shirts are titillating, sure. But calling it porn implies that it’s still not something to talk about in polite conversation. A cookbook marketed toward men leads me to believe that there’s something inherently feminine about the cookbooks I’ve collected over the years and that honestly makes me a little uncomfortable.

My pirate husband and I tend to eschew gender roles.

I have an interest in cars, so automotive maintenance in our house is my job. Before we were married, he’s the one who went out and bought a sewing machine because he wanted to patch his own clothes and make costumes for DragonCon in Atlanta.

We both enjoy cooking so it’s only natural that it should be something that we both do.

Growing up, it never occurred to me that it should be one gender or the other’s job to cook. Both my parents cooked. My dad makes a mean stir fry and if there’s a pie in the house, it’s because my dad made it. No one beats my mom’s spaghetti and I can’t eat fast food burgers because her hamburger patties are by far the most succulent slabs of meat you’ve ever encountered.

In eighth grade, my friend Jimmy joined the Future Homemakers of America and he was ridiculed for it. He was teased because he enjoyed to bake. I guess that’s just what you do in the eighth grade, tease someone because they’re brave enough to do something in which you might have a hidden interest. Now, some 13 years later he has his own business, Jimmy Cakes, where he makes specialty cakes for all manner of celebrations.

Plenty of folks put as little stock in gender roles as you’d put in Betty Crocker’s recipe for chicken soup (about 4 cups). But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s 2011 and a person’s abilities continue to be judged based on their sex.

It might be the future soon, but we all still have a fair bit of housework to do.

tags: cooking, gender, sexism

 

Intake 2011…exhaust 2010

This is just to say that Ninjamechanic is going on hiatus from its regular automotive centric programming for part of 2011.

This fall while working 3.5 jobs, I had the opportunity to reflect on what this blog is and where it’s going. It’s all my younger brother’s fault, honestly. He’s a senior philosophy major at university and for his final semesters has taken classes on digital media, digital storytelling and is crafting an independent study on specific video game content and the role of their political undertones. His course load makes me jealous primarily because:

a) those sorts of classes weren’t available when I went there
and b) they’re offered in the English department. My home turf. [grumble gripe]

What this has to do with this blog is that I realized I have no bloody idea what I’m doing with this thing. I don’t update it regularly and I don’t feel as though I have a competent grasp of my authorial voice. As such I’m going to take a step back and spend a bit of time just expanding on my content in an effort to become a better blogger. Consider this Ninjamechanic’s New Year’s resolution.

In 2011 I will:

-Blog more [woe to the Interwebs]
-Finish projects that I start [cue massive family history endeavor]
-Figure out a way to have a physical outlet [belly dancing? akido? yoga with a reference librarian?]
-Obtain my big girl toolbox

So here’s to trying daily to do things better.

 

No punch backs

It is several degrees of awful and vaguely sadistic, but I get such a kick out of driving past groups of kids and teens who then wail on each other after I pass.

Even college students and adults get into the act sometimes. It’s still nice enough out that I drive with my windows rolled down and I can hear the familiar mantra.

“Yellow punch buggy, no punch backs.”

In my family though, hitting one another was not acceptable. My mom took a preemptive strike against fighting in the car and we could only watch for Beetles and VW buses, accumulating points as we ran errands around town. One point for Beetles, two points for vans.

Giggling over the number of friendly riots my Beetle sparks, it made me wonder if any other vehicle incites this sort of competitive car spotting? Sure you can try and get a trucker to honk his horn by pumping your arm up and down as you pass, but I’m not sure if there are any other car-make specific game.

Does anyone else have any car-spotting games I’m missing?

 

That’s a wrap

My internship concluded two weeks ago in a flurry of engine disassembly and excited documentation. Then a road-trip to Virginia happened to get some folks from College Part I (also known as my stint as an undergrad) married off. Huzzah to KT & DJ Chazzy Chuck, and Mischief & Paddy, and Samwise & Ian!!!

As a result I’ve sort of had a car heavy past few weeks just not enough time to blog.

However, my internship completely rocked my summer for so many reasons:
-hands-on experience
-really great mechanic team
-Bobcat driving lessons
-but also my engine project

One of the mechanics at the garage had purchased a truck on Craigslist that gave him nothing but trouble from the word go. He started having radiator trouble about a month before the engine started giving him fits. When he replaced the spark plugs he found that two of the six were rusted in place (That’s red flag number one). The oil circulated poorly throughout the engine and it leaked antifreeze out the tailpipe (That’s red flag number two).

Shortly before my last day, he scrapped the engine and let me have a go at taking it apart and seeing what went wrong with it.

This beauty had a variety of troubles. Formerly a V6 out of a 1997 Dodge Dakota, this is the laundry list of an engine gone bad.

Uncovered engine problems
-cracked cylinder head as evidenced by the hairline crack between all of the intake and exhaust valves
-blown headgasket
-worn rod bearing inserts
-burned valves
-clogged oil pickup screen … which would have contributed to the poor oil circulation

It would have been great if I had the time and finances to put it all back together but the exercise gave me a critical insight into all the things that can go wrong. When I took engine disassembly and repair last fall we discussed the sort of things that can lead to poor engine performance. Things like a cracked cylinder head or burned valves.

But I had no context for what it looked like and very little idea of how big a crack it would have to be to cause a problem. In this case, we saw that a thin crack no longer than the distance between your pinky fingernail and its first joint can be enough to cause some serious damage. Same for the rod bearing inserts. Okay. So they’re worn. What does that even look like?

Turns out it look like this:

The inserts are parts that are intended to be replaced anyway if you were doing a major engine overhaul but you really shouldn’t be able to see the copper. The construction of the rod bearings is kind of like a flaky pastry. There’s a whole bunch of layers and that make it all up but the copper part is like the crisp golden bottom. You don’t see it, it just provides a base for everything else.

I’ll put more pictures up on flickr because I’m just this weird menagerie of news hound meets grease monkey meets shutter bug. Right now though, more road-trip recovery in the form of Pirate-Ninja laundry needs to happen.

 

Girly vs. Burly

Ever have one of those super productive days where you stop and sit at the end of it all and can’t remember a blasted thing you did?

That was this morning at the garage for me.

Highlights as they make sense in my fuzzy brain:
-Drove the Bobcat in order to get my project engine to and from the wash bay.
-Discovered that diluted oil looks like brownie batter.
-Replaced a resisting resistor.
-Shagged cars.
-Puttered around at Master Chief’s elbow all morning.

Etc. Etc.

Did I mention the Bobcat? I kind of geek out whenever I see a Bobcat now. Johnny likened it to a set of video game controls. Only bigger. And diesel. Apparently you can also do tricks with them. This may in fact be one of my new aspirations in life. Doing tricks with a heavy piece of machinery.

Replacing the resistor, however, demonstrated that in the automotive industry, size really doesn’t matter.

After her route this morning one of the drivers brought in a Suburban with a complaint about the truck’s fan settings. The A/C worked on high but at no other point. Based on his previous experiences, Master Chief surmised that a resistor had gone bad and set me to work at removing it.

On these older Suburbans, the fan motor is behind the glovebox in a nest of wires and relays. With the glovebox insert out, it presented little trouble for me to remove the series of relays bolted in front of the resistor in question. It took me a good 15 minutes longer than it would have taken Master Chief, but because of the confined area I could get both hands in there to finesse the old resistor out and the new one in. Whereas he would have found it a bit more of a tight fit.

Sometimes wrench turning’s like that. My transmissions instructor often made a point of that. In some situations a bigger hammer is necessary. But others require more of a soft paws approach.

When torquing down the wheels of the Suburbans to 120 foot pounds, I need to be a burly. But on other things, having small hands and slender forearms — essentially being just a bit girly — is more of an asset. It’s all about learning how to get the job done with the tools you have.

In this field I’m always going to be slight in stature in comparison to my male counterparts. It’s just going to be a matter of figuring out how to work it without being mistaken for being weak.

Ninjamechanic does not do weak.

 

The Man Card and the Minivan

Recently, the Chicago Tribune printed an editorial about “Chrysler’s manly minivan.” In it, Chrysler’s vague rumblings about introducing a new contender, a man van, in the minivan category are discussed and dissed.

Here’s the rationale:
-It’s not macho enough.
-It’s not sporty enough.
-It’s not ballsy enough.

Never mind that SUVs effectively replaced minivans as the way to shuttle the family around. Never mind that with today’s technology Chrysler stands a good chance of producing a more fuel economic vehicle in this size vehicle class.

I guess this is why I’m into cars on the wrench-turning side of things rather than sitting down at the drawing board. I’m just too dang practical.

The minivan seems forever cast as the vehicle of soccer moms and even though it’s the 21st century this is the conversation we’re having.

I’m a proud VW owner but my Beetle is often referred to as a “girl car.” In my case, it’s true. The yellow Beetle is just so dang chipper I always have to do a double take whenever I see a man behind the wheel of one. But I wouldn’t classify the Beetle as an outright “girl car.”

It is compact but does petite stature necessitate such a designation? What about the MINI Cooper then? Or any other compact with aerodynamic design?

When I worked as a reporter in Georgia my co-worker and friend, Michael, also had a Beetle for which he received a trunkload of flak from our city point of contact. He went as far as to suggest revocation of Michael’s Man Card because of his “girl car.” To which Michael responded by driving to city hall in his 2001 Mustang Bullitt GT and promptly ending any future Beetle sass.

If Chrysler wants to roll out a minivan that appeals to the mass male market then there’s nothing a Ninja Mechanic to do to stop them. I’d just rather stereotypes and other unrealistic expectations not play such a large role in determining what a buyer wants.

Bring on the man van with a hemi I guess.

 

Cleanliness is Mechanically Awesome

This is just to say that mechanics are not filthy human beings.

In fact, I am of the opinion that any mechanic worth his or her snuff probably has a cleaner and more organized bay/garage/workspace than clothes closet. I’m not a full mechanic yet but my closet is a disaster area. Meanwhile at the garage, I’m very aware of putting everything in its place and fastidiously cleaning once a job is done.

Beyond the safety element of maintaining a clean garage it’s also a really great way to save hassle further down the line.

Today I saw a great example of why this practice is far more common and more productive than you might expect. We started another annual on a Suburban today, but about halfway through the morning one of the maintenance team’s vans came in needing a brake job. Since the other light fleet mechanic is out on holiday this week we planned to pull the van into his bay rather than work in the yard and the hot sun. The other mechanic had just finished a job before the long weekend, but hadn’t had time to spit-shine his bay so we did some prep sweeping of his area.

Although the van’s just in to have its front brakes inspected, it now has a ticket in to replace the water pump as well. While I removed its tires for the brake job, the van dripped antifreeze onto the freshly swept floor — a detail we would have missed had we not taken the time to clean up.

Since I’m interning in a fleet environment this will be a relatively painless fix. The maintenance team will be down a vehicle for a few days but in the long run the problem’s been identified and caught before it could lead to a much more expensive repair. In a dealership or independent garage environment, however, Mr. Customer might get his finger waggling and accuse that dirty rotten mechanic of breaking things on his car and expecting him to foot the bill. This isn’t necessarily so but would be a bit more arduous to explain that sometimes having a clean parking surface can uncover a lot of hidden problems.

So yes. When your car’s in the shop for routine maintenance and the service writer comes back with a grocery list of things to fix, don’t be too quick to think the mechanic is out to get you. Chances are the troubles were just lurking under the hood like gremlins waiting to sully up the clean garage floor rather than creations of the greasy mechanic’s devious mind.