My "busy season" just spread across the calendar. The company I work for spent many millions of dollars on fancy-schmancy high-tech wiz-bang electronic fruit sorting equipment over the last six years, and now that stuff is aging. Do you still have your smart phone from 2013? If not , why not?

We can't just call the phone company and get a free upgrade on our tech by signing a contract - we have to maintain our stuff. I have no assistant, it's just me.. or I call the vendor that represents the equipment if I don't have time. We tried to hire an assistant, but he couldn't pass the pee test (pot is legal here, but there is no test to separate if you used it a week ago or an hour ago). Our service call budget has shot through the roof - maybe the company will try again to get me an assistant.

Back to the 7.3L - Frankenstinky has none of the weird noises or vibrations I was experiencing on Stinky - Frankenstinky has been a very solid truck for the last year. Just add fuel, filters, and oil. I have the parts to restore the EBPV to full function (Paul removed it), because I use engine braking so much with our steep grades around here. My Engine Oil Temp sensor was reading nonsense, so I replaced it. I was working with my EOT PID on TP (how's that for acronyms?), and now I can't get the oil temp to show up on Torque Pro - I might have to do a re-install. The spare tire was completely shot from age, the rim was rusted, and the spare tire hoist cable was frayed and locked up - so everything under there is brand new now. That is the most expensive inspection of a spare tire in my life - but I now have the same 33" tire under there as I do on the truck.

I traveled to Balwin MO before Christmas and had a mini GTG with @eyyu, I'll have a full report on that later - it was a great trip, but our visit was "sabotaged" by a family of squirrels.

 

Its good to be busy! thanks for stopping in!

 

Great to hear from you Tug. Your ears must have lit up cuz I was just asking about you the other day....er, maybe it was that nifty "tag a member" tool I used LOL! Glad to hear all is well on the truck front. And yes, its always good to be busy, especially with most losing jobs or sitting home with no pay while their companies wait for the all safe shout to get back to normal.

 

Good to hear from you! It can feel good to be needed and valued at work.

Did Paul gut the EBPV or go with a blank pedestal and high flow outlet flange? If the latter and you're restoring back to stock, I may be interested in your blank pedestal and flange if you'd be looking to get rid of.

 

When Byron asked about you recently, I looked at your profile and had seen you were on here just a day or two before, so I was not too concerned. Good to see you were busy with work and not other life happenings that sometimes arise.

Smart move to check your spare tire and the hoist. I did all of that a couple of years ago and bought new parts including a load E tire because when you need a spare, you typically NEED a spare.

You know better than anyone here that TP can be temperamental at times. It is a good thing the display is as visually appealing as it is or we would all be running Forscan Lite on our mobile devices.

Good to see you pop back in though sir!

 

Glad you're ok Rich, and I'll give thanks to you when I am eating the cherry pie my wife is making for my birthday. Warm cherry pie with Bryer's vanilla bean ice cream......it just doesn't get much better than that.

 

I can't remember if Paul crippled the existing pedestal of installed the non-EBPV... I just know I have all the parts sitting on the bench to revive the EBPV.

I've been escaping the real world and visiting the virtual universe. You heard it here first - "Star Citizen" will be a new social craze in the coming years. Take Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, all the First Person Shooters (like Call of Duty, Halo, and Battlefield) and roll it into one "simulation" (not just a game) - that's Star Citizen. I have a ship not unlike Frankenstinky (about the same capabilities in space, and I've modded the bejeezus out of it), and I tool around making deliveries, shoot bad guys, spelunk with a mining tool, mine big rocks or asteroids with my other ship (mining ship), or just explore the amazing scenery in there. It's a big universe, but the system is still in Alpha (not even developed enough to be beta tested - let alone released.)

Most of you likely know flight and space simulators have come a long way since the days of Atari:



Or Nintendo:





Flight simulator controls now take up a bit more desk space.

 

Praise unto you for working diligently at your job!

Curses unto you for introducing me to a cool game that could suck away untold hours of my finite existence.

 

Yeah... when this thing fully hits the market, it's gunna be a real craze.

 

@Tugly , isn't that the same developer that made Skyrim and is waiting to make Skyrim 2 until they are done and finished with Star Citizen?

I used to be a PC gamer to the point that it was an obsession. Now, I play PS4 games casually and am looking forward to the PS5 to come out at the end of the year (maybe).

 

Never played a computer game in my life, don't really want to either, my luck I'd get hooked. I did play Pacman at the bar when it came out.

 

This is the same guy that did Wing Commander.

As for addiction - The old stuff was pretty addicting, but this new one gives you so many options of play that it's easy to avoid too much repetition. Bored with mining? Do deliveries (not as boring as it sounds when you have to manage cross-star system navigation, orbital re-entry, and pinpoint landing without crashing to pick up and deliver a box). Too tame? Get in a dogfight. Don't like the joystick action? Get into a first-person shooter on the ground. Just wanna see the sights? They have that too - complete with changing weather, sunrises and sunsets, and interesting cities - from utopian to dystopian. Ride a sky bus or a tube tram and see the city.

 

I'm with you, I have enough sins already.

Tugly, glad to hear you are doing well and not MIA for a bad reason.

 

Will Frankenstinky make a cameo appearance somewhere in the game? I can see myself spending hours exploring the ground to hunt for him. Able to take a ride in him? Even better.

I'm not much of a serious gamer, myself, but am enticed to play this one knowing it's ties to a member here in the brotherhood.

 

My ID in the game is Frankenstinky, and here is one of my rides: