Greg In The Desert

• jfleck at inkstain » What a Housing Bubble Looks Like – Here’s what a housing bubble looks like. Housing prices. Red is Arizona, green is Nevada, blue is us here in New Mexico. The three states track together since the 1970s (off to the left of what’s displayed in this graph). Prices in Arizona and Nevada shoot up beginning around 2004, then collapse pretty dramatically. Click through for larger image. Data from St. Louis Fed.
• Little Tikes Cozy Coupe Tops U.S. Car Sales – Auto – FOXNews.com – The Cozy Coupe sold 457,000 units in 2008, topping the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. In the '90s, it outsold both the Accord and Ford Taurus.
• Lightyear Sunken Bath Episode 6 – Storage from Nothing – Most Arizona houses are slab on grade. This means that changing plumbing is challenging or expensive. Slab on Grade houses are laid out, and the plumbing, both waste and supply lines are buried in the ground before the slab is poured. You see some interesting bottom plates here. On the remodeling end, this means that you either get creative or you get to spend really large amounts of money time and noise to move things around. (Nothing screams remodeling to the neighbors like someone with a concrete slab saw in your bathroom.)
• The Official Site of Rio Rancho, NM – June 20th: Hazardous Waste – Saturday, June 20, 2009 Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful will hold a Pharmaceutical Take Back and Household Hazardous Waste Collection from 9am to 2pm at at the Santa Ana Star Event Center upper west parking lot. This event is for Rio Rancho Residents only, please remember to bring proof of residency, such as a drivers license with Rio Rancho address!
• Oprah responds to Newsweek cover story | TV, movie and music news | Current Affairs | EW.com – In a statement today, Oprah Winfrey responded to a Newsweek cover story which suggested that some of the non-traditional medical advice advocated on her show poses a danger to her legions of viewers
• Final release of Safari 4 tweaks interface from beta version | E-mail and Internet | MacUser | Macworld – The most controversial new feature of Safari 4 was the placement of tabs on the top of the Safari browser window instead of below the bookmarks bar. At first, I was against this new UI quirk, but the more I used the Safari 4 Beta the more I liked the placement of the tabs on top of the window. Sadly, in the shipping version of Safari 4 tabs have returned to their traditional place
• Wild horses victims of recession, too – The Denver Post – Wild horses are feeling the effects of recession, as federal authorities find fewer horse owners willing to take on extra animals.
  At a wild horse auction run by the Bureau of Land Management in Eagle Saturday, only 10 of 39 horses were adopted. Most went for the minimum bid of $125.
• McCullough-Price House – This 1938 Pueblo Revival style home was donated to the City by the Price-Propstra family, renovated and opened to the public in 2007. It is home to the Chandler Visitors Center and includes gallery, office and meeting spaces, plus a catering kitchen. The facility can be rented for intimate weddings and receptions, luncheons and banquets, meetings and seminars.
• Chandler cuts access to historic ‘38 home – Doors will be locked at Chandler's historic McCullough-Price House after June 30.

  The move comes two years after the city spent $850,000 to renovate the 1938 pueblo revival-style home near Chandler Fashion Center to open it to the public as a visitors center and museum.

  The building at 300 S. Chandler Village Drive will remain available for special events, tours and private-party rentals, city officials said. It didn't attract enough visitors to justify 40-hour-a-week staffing in tough economic times.

• Review: NeatDesk and NeatWorks for Mac | Unclutterer – A few weeks ago, the Neat company sent me their new NeatDesk for Mac scanner and its NeatWorks software to review. I have been a Fujitsu ScanSnap loyalist for the past two years, so I wasn’t super excited about doing the NeatDesk review. In fact, I tested one of their mobile scanners a year ago and was so disappointed with it that I didn’t even post the review to the site (why clutter up your time with an awful review?).

  To my surprise, however, I liked the NeatDesk for Mac. Specifically, I really liked the NeatWorks software. (If you buy the scanner, the software comes with it. The software also sells as a stand-alone product.)

One Project Closer is giving away $100 Home Depot gift certificate. To enter you can use one of the following methods:

• 1 entries: Leave a comment.
• 10 entries: Subscribe via e-mail.
• 50 Entries: Blog about the Giveaway.

Please, go over and leave a comment to get your one entry, but please to not create a blog post. I would like to keep my 50 entry advantage.

Actually One Project Closer is a great site. Their radiant floor heating installation was a great resource for my own master bathroom radiant floor installation.

• KOB.com – HP to break ground on Rio Rancho center
• Intel feels pain from dropping revenue, WiMAX investment
  This morning, in advance of its official earnings announcement next week, the company released preliminary earnings figures that indicate the situation has gotten worse over the holiday season. It now looks like Intel's revenue came in another billion dollars below the November estimate, or nearly $2 billion below what the company was predicting in October. The $8.2 billion it expects to see represents a 20 percent drop from the prior quarter, and a full 23 percent year-over-year. The same factors that were blamed in the November announcement are fingered in the preliminary earnings report. Gross margins dropped to roughly 55 percent.
• Rio Rancho Police Launch Online Crime Alert And Mapping Service – Albuquerque News Story – KOAT Albuquerque
  The service provides mapped neighborhood crime data in near real-time and is available now.
  The service is free to the public and allows citizens to receive automatic daily, weekly or monthly e-mail alerts if and/or when a crime occurs near a location of their interest such as home, office, or school. Citizens can also review reported crime activity on a map for any location within Rio Rancho boundaries.

Amazon’s new Subscribe & Save beta sounds like a terrific idea. It would save me a trip to the warehouse club for less interesting things.

Our new Subscribe & Save program is a great way to save an extra 15% on items you use routinely–coffee, shampoo, laundry detergent, and more–while helping to make sure you don’t run out. Benefits include:

• A delivery schedule that fits your needs–every one, two, three, or six months
• Extra 15% discounts on our everyday price, whether you subscribe for a single month or for years
• Free shipping on every order
• E-mail reminders of upcoming shipments
• The flexibility to change your schedule or cancel at any time–no risks, no fees

I’ve started using Amazon’s grocery service over the last 6 months and have liked it so far. This seems like a great extension.

The Mayor of Albuquerque wants free WiFi for everyone in the city.

a two-tiered wireless Internet signal covering the entire city that will support not just the basics of Web surfing, e-mail and the like, but phone service and video. Those two tiers are a free, 1 megabit signal for anyone and a premium service at 3 Mb for a “reasonable” cost.

Of course Comcast and Qwest don’t like it. I say screw ‘em. Qwest especially doesn’t seem interested in offering extra services and Comcast would probably force everyone to pay $10/month for cable before you can use it. It’s the technical issues and money that will keep this from happening.

One wireless provider estimates it would cost $25 million and would require a access point on every building in the city, I think that’s overblown. They cite the problems that Rio Rancho has had completing it’s network. I thought Rio Rancho had completed it’s network.

I hope they try it anyways. I could use some free wifi when I have to drive into Albuquerque

Oh, those jokesters over at Fox News. John Loftus gave out some slightly incorrect information about the location of some terrorists in Orange County. When he gave out the address of these terrorists on TV, the information was 3 years old and put some poor family that now owns the house in danger.

What’s worse is their pathetic attempt at a apology.

The Voricks said they had made several unsuccessful attempts to contact Fox News and Loftus by telephone and e-mail. They want a public apology and correction. Both have issued apologies — Fox in a one-line statement to the Los Angeles Times and Loftus in an e-mail to the family — after being contacted by the newspaper. The Voricks say they have yet to see or hear a correction. “John Loftus has been reprimanded for his careless error, and we sincerely apologize to the family,” said Fox spokeswoman Irena Brigante.

If they were really sorry they would show up at the house with their TV crew and apologize live on air. A email? Give me a break!

“The virus arrives in a compressed file via e-mail with a subject line of “our private photos.” The message text says: “All our photos which i’ve made at the beach … ” and is signed “Kiss, James.” according to this article . It’s being called “Mimail.C”. It appears that it turns the victims machines into Spamming machines. Since my PC stays turned off most of the time and I don’t use it for email I’m not to worried. Normally I would say if you open the email you got what’s coming to you but I will probably be the one to get the spam.

[Update:] Turns out that this virus does not generate spam but tries DDOS attacks on anti-spam sites.

This article orginally appeared on fordmaverick.com.

To the left is the diagram sent to me by Joe Roberts(Your browser may not view the graphic correctly. I suggest that you save it to disk then you can print it out). He has done a Rack & Pinion conversion. The following information is from excerpts sent via e-mail from him.

“I drew plans for a cross member to mount the Rack where the stock linkages are. It is basically a U shaped thing with ussets. Very nice and sturdy, it slid perfectly between the frame rails where it bolted on. Cost me about $100 plus the rack and pinion unit and the die for shortening the tie rod ends took me for another hundred. Also made a neat little universal joint bearing to connect the column to the R&P. It worked great, except for one problem……”

He goes on to tell me how you need to get the correct R&P unit that steers in the correct direction. This bracket is designed for a rear mounting R&P unit. It mounts where the existing steering system is. This would be the easiest. Be sure that you get a R&P unit that is designed for the back or front. If you put a front mounting unit in the back the wheels will steer in the wrong direction. I believe this will work with a Mustang II R&P unit. These are the most common.

I also know of a person that used a lo-ratio unit out of a GM Celebrity Euro sport on a ‘70 Ranchero. Adapted instructions follow:

“It’s the same set up. Belt sizes are very much universal. Pressure is important. Use a GM pump as close to OEM pressure as possible. R&P and pump from same car. Make or adapt bracket as needed. Mount pump as FORD OEM would . Hot rod companies also make pressure relief valves, to raise or lower pressure as needed. SAGINAW pumps work the best. just change the relief valve to match the R&P. SAGINAW is not just GM.

The Celebrity is a rear steer car. The Ranchero has a cross member that the lower control arms are mounted to. I adapted off of that. The cross member does not have to be very heavy, as long as there is NO side to side movement. Centerline of R&P must be the same as centerline of original drag/center link. Use OEM R&P mounting holes. This R&P does not have to be sandwiched between separate mounting ears, like OEM. bolted up against one side is ok.

Obviously you must remove all steering linkage, including OEM steering box. Inner tie rods on new R&P must be machined and rethreaded to use OEM adjusting sleeves and outer tie rods. Hot rod companies make hundreds of U-joints and shaft adapters. find the right ones for the OEM steering column, and the R&P. Join them with a length of steel rod. Hoses are easily custom made. Car can be aligned to OEM specs.

Test movement of everything in the driveway before driving it on the road. Remember keep it simple, do not over engineer, use as many OEM type parts as possible. If it ever fails or breaks, it will not be in the driveway.

I am working on a Ford Taurus unit. I haven’t actually gotten the unit, but I did get the Steering column and was able to wire it up to the existing wiring with little problem. See ‘86 Ford Taurus steering column upgrade for more info on this end. When i get the unit and figure out how I’m going to do this I’ll be sure to post it here.