terrawombat

I have not personally published a book but at my old company we had hired a shipping/receiving clerk and when he left for another job word got around the company that he may have left because he had just recently published a book. Not knowing any better, I went along with he story and did the "good for him" thing, but unlike everyone else, I dug deeper into this rumor and found his book on Amazon. It wasn't too difficult, I just used his name and found the only book published under that name. I present to you, The Celestial Prophecies : Luna's Revenge My curiosity got the better of me and I paid the $3.99 for the book and what we received was a four page story (that includes the front cover) that was littered with spelling and grammatical errors. It was literally 2.5 pages of text that seemed like it was written while the guy had just taken a huge bong rip. Normally I give people the benefit of the doubt and applaud them for trying something new, but this was just bad. I do hope he enjoyed the royalty off my order of his book, though!

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that we stripped it down so much that we could do anything we wanted. No in the sense that we can do anything we wanted and my wife is very indecisive. The planning stage was exhausting...

Here is a shot looking from the other wall. You can see on the floor in the center of the picture that there used to be two walls that separated these rooms so there was an isolated kitchen and dining room with a weird hallway that separated them. We decided to knock those down as much as we could to open it all up.

My wife checked the account this weekend and said there was a "pending" deposit for the expected amount. It's already as good as spent with our kitchen remodel. I do agree that I need to game plan with our finances when the Gov't asks for this money back, whatever form that may be. My wife sees it as money to spend, which is exactly why they handed it out, but I look at it and think how and when are they going to ask for this back?

Sorry about that. Thought it would be an easy copy/paste.

If current outstanding student loans are forgiven, then I want a big check for all of the student loans my wife and I have paid over the last 15 years!

My wife and I decided to do a "quick" kitchen remodel once our offices finally shut down for a month and we were both working from home. Was supposed to be a quick jobber - rip down the ugly tile drop ceiling, repaint the cabinets and refinish the countertops. Maybe get a new oven and fridge and call it a day. Once we ripped the ceiling down and found some hidden structural issues, things kind of spiraled out of control. The new remodel consisted of gutting the kitchen, knocking down two walls and getting all new cabinets, appliances, flooring, electrical, the works... The more we pulled back, the more issues we found. We're currently in the process of trying to level the floor. It has been challenging but I think we'll have the majority of the floor sorted out by this weekend. 80 year old house + multiple additions + shoddy craftsmanship = a nightmare for me and my wife. Ideally, I would have liked to rip this room down to the joists and start over, but that would have cost us way more time and money. It's getting there slowly and the end product is going to be life changing.

I thought Congress was still bickering over this COVID relief bill? Either way, I don't expect mine to show up any time soon - not even sure if I qualify, to be honest. I opt for paper checks so I'm always behind when it comes to the Feds giving me money. If I do get one it'll go directly to my kitchen remodel.

We have been wearing masks in my office for several months now. I believe May was when it became mandatory. One guy got COVID from a family member and brought it into the office, then gave it to 5 others, one of which has been in the hospital since last Thursday. I'm not saying the masks don't work and I wear mine wherever required, just stating my experience.

I wasn't there prior to the rule change so I don't have a good comparison, but there was still plenty of people not following the new rules to the letter. I'm guilty of it myself while holding a beer in line for a ride and pulling my mask down to take a sip here and there. To be honest, I wasn't even aware of the no drinking in line rule until you mentioned it but I was never called out by a staff member for doing so. Regardless, the fact that they were put on blast for opening and there have been no known outbreaks means they're either doing a good job of mitigating it or a great job of covering it up.

I just got back from DisneyWorld with my family. Was there from Nov 3 - 10. We all got tested two days after we got back home in MD. We all received a negative test. To be fair, DisneyWorld is doing their best to comply with all of the COVID rules and regulations, but their customers are not doing a great job. Hollywood Studios theme park was by far the worst with people shoulder to shoulder and very little social distancing happening. Sure, all of the rides and stores have the 6ft markings on the ground you need to wait at, but once you're wandering around in the park, social distancing isn't a thing anymore. The mask wearing there is better than anywhere I have seen elsewhere in the country (I'm still traveling a lot for work), with kids 2 and older having to wear masks anytime you're outside of your hotel room. A lot of people will get around the mask wearing mandate by always having a drink in their hand or food so they can pull the mask down to take a drink or bite. Overall, DisneyWorld is doing a great job with containing it, but they're only as good as the compliance of their customers.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been looking at replacing the stock unit in my Suburban and want to go with something similar to what you used, but just want to make sure it will continue to be supported and updated for the foreseeable future. I think I might just be asking for too much...

Thanks for the information. I had a Dual-brand headunit in my old 01XJ many years ago and I absolutely loved it. It had all of the features of the high-end models, but at the price of the low-end stuff. I imagine that the new owner of my XJ is still using it to this day. Do you know the operating system of your Dual head unit is? The one thing that stinks about these new touchscreen units that act like your phone with apps, messaging, maps, etc is that they typically run on Android-based software. I bought one of these headunits about 6-7 years ago that was running on Android version 4, I believe. It worked great at the time, but all of the apps it needed to run were constantly updating and eventually wouldn't update anymore because the Android OS was obsolete and updating the OS was difficult and the hardware inside the headunit couldn't support any OS beyond what it was shipped with. The headunit quickly became obsolete within 3 years and I had to yank it out because it became unusable.

Your MJ is looking fantastic. I drove an XJ with no windshield for a day and it was miserable - just a constant stream of bugs smacking my face. The touchscreen head unit you purchased looks great. Is it catered to Apple devices or will it handle Android as well? I stopped being an Apple guy after the iPhone 4. I loved the Apple devices for their simplicity and performance but became infuriated when I couldn't use them as a general storage device for any and all files that I needed to transfer between home and work. This was before the days of the "cloud" so physical hardware transfer was necessary. I needed to transfer 2D (.dwg and .dxf) and 3D (.stp and .igs) CAD files between work and home and the iPhone wouldn't let me do it so I jumped ship to Android and never looked back. Final question: does the MJ Wildernest topper not need vertical support legs when it is open? I didn't see any built-in legs that could be folded out. When I look at it in its full "open" position is just seems like it needs to have some kind of support legs. I looked up photos of the Wildernest on various other pickups and it seems that most people use at least one support leg when it's open, but the legs look like they're aftermarket parts and are not part of the original design. Not saying you need it, just curious what the Wildernest folks said was required.

Was going to snap a few photos of the current state of the diesel MJ this afternoon, but instead spent the time preparing for Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaias that is currently projected to run right through my area. I made sure the diesel MJ is safe so unless this storm levels my shop to the ground everything should be good to go. I spent about 2 hours picking up all of my children's toys in the back yard that could become flying projectiles if the winds they are predicting actually happen. I think this will be the second major tropical storm/hurricane to pass through this region since i moved here in 2011. The last one was Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which wound up shifting its track and only giving us a bunch of rain and some wind. This current storm looks to be much more intense and is going to deliver a lot of high, sustained winds. I've got my generators on the ready and my family sleeping in an area of the house that has no trees in the vicinity. Good luck to anyone else in this storm's path. Stay safe and stay vigilant.

Love it! You never know I might just take you up on that...maybe in five more years when I get around to it!

Wow, it's been a few years since I made an update. Life comes at you fast. I now have two little ones and have been getting rid of some projects and other have just been on hold. But, I still have the factory diesel MJ! I actually did a little bit of work to it recently and it jarred my memory to give an update. So, a couple weeks ago I get a letter in the mail from my town office. Apparently some nosy neighbors didn't like that I had two vehicles parked in my backyard that had not moved for quite some time - one of those was the diesel MJ. They got me on a technicality in that the vehicles did not have plates. Per town rules I need to have all visible vehicles on my property tagged and registered. So I sold one of the two vehicles - a 2001 XJ - and needed to get the diesel MJ into the garage so it was no longer visible. Problem was that the truck had been sitting for quite some time and the diesel in the tank smelled like lacquer thinner. I drained that out the best I could using a transfer pump, put about 5 gallons of fresh diesel in the tank, installed a charged battery and she fired up after some cranking. I decided that while I had the old girl running that I'd take her up and down the side street next to my house. Engine ran OK and idled fine, but definitely smoked out my neighbors as I was driving by. I think the smoke is a combination of the injection pump timing being off and a possible cylinder that is low on compression. When it was cranking over for a while before it fired up, I could definitely hear the starter speed up a little bit like one of the cylinders was easier to crank than the rest. I planned on pulling the engine anyway and going over it all and have been gathering parts to do so for years. Whenever I see something pop up on eBay I snatch it up. Sorry for the rest of the diesel MJ owners. I am hoarding NOS parts... Once I get my '89 Pioneer squared away (brake lines, floor pans and other odds and ends), I'll get back to work on the diesel MJ. Pics to follow tomorrow.

Horrible Freight

Selling?

I was watching the movie 'O.G' tonight and spotted an MJ. It plays a pretty important role in the movie, but only gets a few minutes of air time.

RIP Don

My family and I send Don our best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

I was down in Raleigh last week for work the day before it made landfall. The evacuation process was pretty crazy and Raleigh is pretty far inland. I know it's always better to be safe than sorry, but the news stations and meteorologists really got on my nerves during this one. Every station is trying to be the first one to break important news and their fact-checking is non-existent and they just wind up spreading misinformation. I remember watching Fox News and they posted a headline at the bottom of the screen that said "More than 500 million without power in NC." I guess there must be a lot of undocumented citizens there that the US Census is unable to count when calculating the total population of the USA. A friend of my family lives in Morehead, NC and we just made contact with him a couple days ago. He didn't say much, but by the sounds of it he lost his home and everything in it to the flooding. He also just bought himself a nice retirement gift - a 50+' Viking Sportfish. He hasn't been able to get to it to determine its fate, but he fears the worst. I extended an offer to drive down this weekend to help with whatever he needs but he said there's nothing he can do right now. With the amount of damage caused by flooding it's going to take forever for the insurance companies to sort this all out. Going to be lots of people that the insurance company's will leave high and dry too. Donations are probably the best bet for many.

The front bumper is missing the drivers endcap and there's a whole mess of bent up brackets under there.

Glad to see you made it back without any hiccups, but I knew she would get you there safely except maybe for a quick top-off on the clutch slave cylinder. A couple years ago, Maryland changed the laws regarding vehicles tagged "Historic" and put tougher restrictions on when and how they could be used. They essentially made it illegal for me to use my "Historic" tagged MJ to get me to and from work. It was around this time that the utilization of the MJ dropped off significantly. It was also around this time that I began taking my infant son to daycare in the mornings and the MJ bench seat is not the ideal setup for a car seat! It was real cool to meet another fellow member and my wife and I both thank you for helping us transport all those boxes of vinyl plank to our second floor - you saved me a bunch of time and back pain so thanks again! Looking forward to seeing your build based on your plans. I had contemplated converting her to 4WD but couldn't justify the need to since I have always had other 4x4 vehicles available. I was always torn on the Leer topper as it hinders drive-ability, but it's always nice to have if you need to transport something in the rain or something lightweight that would fly out the back if not properly strapped. I bought it from another member on here who lives up in North NJ and I didn't want it at first, but then I found out how difficult it is to actually find MJ-specific tops so I decided to grab it.