Cellphone pic Thursday 10-24-13.

Beach view, Picnic Point. 

Cellphone pic Thursday 10-17-13

A view of the train tracks, Picnic Point. (Not touched up.)

Weekend review 10-12-13 - 10-13-13.

 It's Monday, it's time for the weekend review. Let's get right into it. This past Thursday was Melissa and I's three year wedding anniversary. Last year we went to Seattle and P.F. Chang's. Melissa was really sick while we went on our trip. We decided we were going back to P.F. Chang's. I made a reservation online on Friday night and we were good to go for Saturday. We sat down and started ordering our four course meal.

Course one:

Egg drop soup.

Spring rolls.

  Course two:

Lettuce wrap.

  Course three:

Mongolian beef.

  We also had orange chicken but I didn't take a picture of it. Course four:

Berry cheesecake. This cheesecake is the best I have ever had. 

  This cheesecake is better than the cheesecake factory cheesecake.

Pumpkin wontons. These were amazing also.

 P.F. Chang's has some amazing food. I would go back again and again. I want a whole cheesecake to myself. I would stab someones hand if they tried to take it from me tell someone to not touch my cheesecake. Sunday, Melissa took a overnight trip to Oregon, so I got a Manday (I guess manday is a unit of measurement?) I had a Sunday to myself. First things first. Fed the kitties.

 
 Next breakfast.

Yeah, I do still eat cereal. What?

 Next after some chores and crap. Lunch.

This is a man lunch if I ever saw one.

 I marathoned some anime. Streamed some movies. And played some Saints Row IV. Next was dinner.

 After dinner, I watched some more Netflix and decided to watch The Expendables 2. What other movie would you watch for a man Sunday?

I had some company for my movie. She was irritated with all the shooting and explosions.

 All in all, I had a great weekend. I did miss Melissa, but it was nice to do whatever I wanted on Sunday. I will have to try and figure out another weekend to do this again. Till next time.

Picture Thursday 10-10-13.

 Today is my three year wedding anniversary. I cannot believe it's already been three years for us being married. This is our thirteenth year together. It seems like it's not even been that long. I am so lucky to have Melissa, my beautiful wife in my life. Yes, yes, the pictures below you have see numerous times before, but I love these pictures and it floods my mind with all the good memories we have shared.

 Happy anniversary babe, I love you. To many more years to come. 

Weekend review 10/5/13 - 10/6/13

 This weekend we went to the pumpkin patch. This is our yearly tradition. We like to go down and see all the bins filled with all the different pumpkins, searching for the perfect one.

I've never seen these before. Normally the one's with warts are the gourd type.

 The obligatory "artistic fall color composition shot".

Pumpkin spice M&M's. 

Melissa's decorating idea. It turned out really good. 

 We had a lot of fun. I actually can't wait to go again. This post was supposed to be a lot bigger and go into more detail, but I didn't take any pictures of the stuff we got from Walgreen's and I didn't take any pictures of the decorations. Basically, I slacked and was being lazy. Ha ha. Maybe more later, Till next time. 

Cellphone pic Thursday 10-3-13.

Gum Wall, Seattle.

Flip alarm clock repair.

 So Melissa's mom is having her birthday soon. She had recently told Melissa her alarm clock died. I guess she bought this clock back in the late 60's or early 70's. So obviously this has had a long life. It older than I am. Melissa started doing some searches for vintage flip number styled clock radio. Do a quick Google search and you will inundated by the results. She found just what she was looking for on Etsy.com. She ordered one from Texas. It arrived within a couple of days. When we opened it up, I plugged it in and nothing happened. Like at all. The little light on the inside worked but nothing else. The radio didn't work, the numbers didn't flip. Nothing. We thought we got a dud. Well after about ten minutes, we heard a little static coming through on the speaker. I turned the dial and what do you know, out came some old rock and roll. Hey it wasn't a dud after all. We took it inside and I placed it on the counter plugged it back in. I set the clock to what time it was and went off and did something else. I came back the radio was till playing and the numbers started flipping. I reset the time to what is was, set the alarm to see if it worked and we started to eat dinner. I kept watching and the clock kept really good time. The alarm went off and we're good. I go over o the clock, unplug it and plug it back in. No dice. There is a small white wheel with a red stripe on it. We noticed that this would spin and the numbers would change. So when I plugged the clock back in, the white wheel wasn't spinning anymore. We kept it plugged in for 30 more minutes and nothing. We knew it was done for. Very disappointed I packed the clock back in it's box and put it on the table. Now we were going to have to send it back, wait for a refund, if it was even possible and try and find another working clock radio in time for her mom's upcoming birthday.

 In the morning I decided to do some research on repair manuals or parts. Pssh, that's not any kind of happening. I found a post on Instructables.com about a repair someone did. They tried spraying the white wheel (Which it turns out is actually a motor.) with WD40. They said that did not work for them and they had to take the motor housing apart and buy a new gear. I did not think the process of dis assembly was bad at all. I said I am going to try this myself. I told Melissa I was going to work on the radio but there was no guarantee I can or will be able to fix it. Below is a pretty good step by step of what I did.

The culprit. The white and red striped wheel of  destruction.

I hate rolling screws, so I put duct tape down.

Got it open.

The motor. My target to fix.

Still not spinning.

What I didn't show, was the 4 bolts holding this assembly together.

I didn't want to wreck the motor assembly. So I tried the WD 40.

 I doused the motor 3 times with WD 40. I wiped the excess off before I put the motor back into the assembly.

Trying to see if the WD 40 worked. I was trying to count the teeth moving on the motor.

I thought the motor was seized.

Ha ha, that's right. You're working now.

 As you can see the WD 40 worked. I normally don't like using WD 40 for stuff like this. It dries out quick and you wind up using more later. I need to try and find some other lubricating oil. I'm think worst case, if this stops working again, I can try a different type of oil for it. So we waited a few days without having it plugged in. When we plugged in, it started spinning and clicking right away. All it needed was a good dousing of oil. Hopefully this helped you a little bit, if not, sorry. Now I want to find another flip clock and fix it. Also, this shows you the craftsmanship of these old products. 40 years and it still works! Till next time.