What's made you smile today?

Currently reading:
What's made you smile today?

Well, I got a direct flight to Chicago from Savannah, Georgia yesterday. I've flown almost 13,000 miles on AA since 8 January and this was the first one this year, to or fro, that an airport sprint wasn't involved.
 
Bit of back ground, my son is at that phase where having eaten everything as a baby he just wants to live on chicken nuggets and chips. Thankfully he loves fruit at least but even potato waffles are a no because they aren't chips

Anyway I was tactical earlier took him for a walk to the park to knacker him, had a light lunch so as soon as he went for nap I could sneak in a 6 mile run. Plan worked perfectly but it's 4pm I had soup for lunch and I've burned about 1000 calories so starving.

If I have a bag of crisps or a sandwich or an apple or a banana he'll be over like unfed puppy. So got tactical again, found some curry flavoured noodles in the cupboard. Captain Bland food won't be over to steal those...and they aren't very fatty etc.

Winning!...except I'm not as he came over I offered him some thinking he'll have one taste and wander off...the boy who likes anything in bread crumbs is over licks it then wipes his tongue with his hand pulls a face and wanders off. But then he's back..same thing, 3rd time he just grabs the fork and shovels it in. So apparently partial to curry.

He's now dyed his fingers and face curry yellow stealing off my plate :ROFLMAO:..

Children are very odd creatures...
 
Back home after a few days in hospital out of the blue. Blocked kidney caused a bit of a stir. I thought it was going to have to go but hopefully it can be sorted out. Doctors didn't think my idea of taking it home for culinary use was so sound....

That morphine stuff is amazing maaaaan. 63 years of aches and pains gone in an instant. Although stuffed, I actually felt 20 again. Down side is they have all come home again.

Hospital and ALL the staff were simply amazing and all the more so in light of the current pressure by which they were all clearly affected. Wow, how have things changed since the last time I was in hospital.
 
Back home after a few days in hospital out of the blue. Blocked kidney caused a bit of a stir. I thought it was going to have to go but hopefully it can be sorted out. Doctors didn't think my idea of taking it home for culinary use was so sound....

That morphine stuff is amazing maaaaan. 63 years of aches and pains gone in an instant. Although stuffed, I actually felt 20 again. Down side is they have all come home again.

Hospital and ALL the staff were simply amazing and all the more so in light of the current pressure by which they were all clearly affected. Wow, how have things changed since the last time I was in hospital.

Sorry to hear you had to visit the hospital, you make light of it but it sounds quite Nasty to me?

I've had more than my money's worth from the NHS over the years including several stays for big ops. Some docs seem to find comments like your's quite funny and then others don't. I like to make light of things, probably my way of coping? but you never can really predict who is going to laugh. The best I had was an Aussie surgeon, over here on a teaching secondment. Apparently he was quite a "big cheese" down under and he shocked them over here by doing both my complete knee replacements in one go! I really liked him, sort of bloke who called a pail a "bucket"

In fact I was in a lot of pain for a few days following the knee job and they put me on intravenous morphine with a doser I could control myself. I was as high as a kite for the first day, then they put a time based maximum limiter on it and the fun was over. Wonderful stuff though as you say, I felt I was capable of doing anything and thought the floor was a moving pattern! Wonder if that's what LSD was like back in the '60s? I never got involved! I especially liked the night staff. I couldn't sleep because of the pain and they would sit for ages talking with me about this and that.
 
Last edited:
What made me smile? Seeing that the cam cover joint on the Panda was nice and dry today whilst doing her thermostat. - written up in "What did you do with your Panda today:

P1090604.JPG

P1090606.JPG

I had the cover off maybe 2 years ago when I did the cam belt and decided to use a new rubber gasket with sealant applied only to the corners, as recommended by Fiat and Haynes and our forum. Certainly looks like you don't need to apply sealant all way round?

By the way that little threaded hole above the thermostat is the hole where that awkward to get at 3rd bolt lives.- mentioned in the bigger text in "What did you"

PS anyone know if the blue paint splodge on the head means anything?
 
Last edited:
PS anyone know if the blue paint splodge on the head means anything?

'Adds 20 BHP' :p


Thinking back..

Our light blue panda 169 has stickets on in that colour

It could be a production mark..

Newly builts now have QR codes.. but you need more than your eyes to decipher those :)
 
Last edited:
Well, I got a direct flight to Chicago from Savannah, Georgia yesterday. I've flown almost 13,000 miles on AA since 8 January and this was the first one this year, to or fro, that an airport sprint wasn't involved.

At least it landed with as many engines as it had when departing :)
 
Another big smile today. Becky, the Panda, behaved like a perfect lady and her cooling system was bled out in no time at all - Using my "patent DIY snorkel". One thing I hadn't thought about is that because I saved the old, but still serviceable, coolant I knew that with it all reinstalled I definitely didn't have any undiscovered air locks. The temp needle is now sitting bang on the half way mark and the cooling fan actually fired up while I was running her as if to say, "yes, I'm still working too"! Can't really remember when I heard it last. Wonderful to have heat again!

Flushed with the success of this and knowing the MOT is due, I decided to check the brakes over. No surprises with the fronts, just a wee clean up and lub. The rears, I'm embarrassed to say, still have the slightly weeping cylinders which I think I first mentioned 18 months to two years ago! They are still just weeping under the dust rubbers - all dry inside the drums - but this time the O/S/R rearward facing piston is a little tight in it's bore. I pushed both pistons back into the cylinder and then "shuttled" them back and forwards a few time and it freed off quite nicely. I'm really going to have to get a grip though and do a rear brake rebuild - cylinders, shoes and probably drums too as they are very rusty externally (like big chunks falling off!) free off the self adjusters (which look siezed!) and replace the metal pipes - I would almost place a bet that now I've "fiddled" with them they'll start leaking properly. I'll be keeping an eagle eye on the reservoir level and getting stuck in at the first sign of decent weather.

I then remembered about the broken fence post from yesterday - it's down beside my shed - and thought I should install a temporary bracing bar from the side of my shed to stop it flapping about and damaging the panel. Having successfully assaulted that hose clip without personal injury yesterday I promptly drilled a bit of a hole in my left hand middle finger! Tired and not paying attention! It's only a little hole but it bled magnificently on our light coloured kitchen laminate, which seemed to trouble Mrs J much more than the fact I was standing there with a hole in my finger!
 
paj you have just reminded me one of our nieces use to bight her nails parents could not stop her . sat down one evening drinking coffee said to her i use to do that and this is what happens (back in the sixtys lost my middle finger motorcycle accident) she stopped on her 40 birthday party she came over showed both hands , never bit them since that day oh it makes me fill old 75 next month
 
Jab my jab, what was most worrying is having two clearly in qualified people both poking my arm trying to work out where to give it, but thankfully between them they worked it out, before I offered to do it myself.

Got my sticker !! (Most important part) no lollypop though !


Anyway flying is still massively safer than driving and when you have a two of 4 engines plane with a failed engine that’s no biggy, in the case of the last two events mentioned you where more safe in the plan than on the ground.

Hopefully once lockdown restrictions lift I can get back in the air and maybe get over the other side of the channel
 
Hopefully once lockdown restrictions lift I can get back in the air and maybe get over the other side of the channel

That's what I'm looking forward to the most. I'm one of the "lucky" few at my place working through both lockdowns doing the workload of multiple staff :rolleyes:. Need a proper break! I hear "my Microsoft Teams isn't working" in my sleep.
 
That's what I'm looking forward to the most. I'm one of the "lucky" few at my place working through both lockdowns doing the workload of multiple staff :rolleyes:. Need a proper break! I hear "my Microsoft Teams isn't working" in my sleep.

I thought it was a given that any sentence containing 'Microsoft' is likely also to contain the phrase 'isn't working'.:D
 
Back
Top