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So you turn up, at the school, here's my turbo.
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Hello,
I'm rubbish at this. You'd think paying the money I do to keep this thing running I'd actually use it more. But I believe work is getting in the way more than anything. Although I do still make use of the domain and e-mail.
So I finally made a decision on vehicles at the back end of October. I got the Range Rover, part of my thinks I should've got the Subaru Forester, as I could've had more fun hooning it than the Range Rover (damn she is slow, not much faster than Vanessa). Especially when the bills started coming in, thick and fast. But she is running now, one more big bill so that I sail through the MoT in September, which is a new driver side light cluster plus frame (damn pheasants). She is a nice mile muncher. Since getting her I've done squllians of miles, in fact I need to get my insurance amended if I keep up this sort of mileage.
But I can't help but wish for something faster, petrol powered, 2 litre, can actually overtake slow cars when there is a gap. In short, I'm looking for a hooner to keep me entertained and the Range Rover for luggury.
Work is going okay, but I'm still not completely confident it is a secure job, as such I've got an eye on the job market. Just in case. I don't fancy looking too hard right now as that is probably bad mojo.
I'll have to get some photos edited for posting on here. Sure I will soon enough.
Take care,
~Jordan |
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How does it work? The futures not happened yet.
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Hello,
Seems I've been letting this slide a lot. Not much has changed, other than finding out I am quite a bit in over my head doing this job. Windows XP to Windows 7 was a big enough jump, but having to do the vast majority of my work under Windows Server, it turns out I am starting from scratch. A lot of the work is still just password resets and pushing out patches, but when something software goes wrong all I think is "shit", hardware problems, no worries, setting up networking equipment, I can sort of guess my way through. But software... I've already started reading various books on Windows Server, but most are pdf's which is a pain on the old peepers, nothing quite like hard copy when studying up.
Of course, since I need to start gaining some Microsoft Certificates, the outlay on a couple of their books would be an investment in my career, so worth it. Although the book worming has to step up a notch since the lead server tech has handed in his notice, which naturally is a worry as the company has now lost two very experienced techies in a very short amount of time. Hopefully the agency we're using can find us someone just as experienced in a hurry. Obviously location doesn't help, as most people want to be in a big city, not a coastal town. But who knows, we might get lucky.
I end my probationary period on the 22nd of November (3 months after starting) and the plan is to buy a P38 Range Rover, but I don't want the extra expense if the job isn't secure and what with staff dropping left right and centre, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly worried. I could get my backup vehicle and buy a Subaru Forester, as a nice one can be had for a fraction of the price and insurance wise isn't much difference to what I'm paying now, so it'd be less of a worry if the job doesn't work out.
But I shouldn't be negative, because I really want the Range Rover, sure I'll feel it in the pockets as I am going to be getting half of my current miles per gallon and almost double on the insurance, but it is a Range Rover. Totally worth it and I've always wanted a P38, they just look so nice. If I took out a loan I could go mental and buy an early all BMW model Range Rover, which would be really nice. But I'm still a novice driver and I'd be so worried about going off the road. Don't fancy having to pay off a loan for a vehicle I no longer have. By buying with cash, it is my vehicle.
Who knows though, only time will tell.
Take care,
~Jordan |
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Is it plugged in?
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Hello,
So it seems the quiet times at work give me a little extra time to take care of this sort of thing, which is nice. I'm currently learning how to use a lovely piece of software called Kaseya, which should make the job easier to spot any developing faults with the systems we monitor. Right now it is stealthy rolling out a collection of patches to a test system, mostly so if I cockup I can reset and start again. It is quite good though, because the features built into this software are incredible, although the "language" used to create scripts leaves something to be desired, you have to use xml formatting, but you can use various command shell features in it.
It leaves something to be desired, but I'm sure with time I'll get there.
It is getting to the point now where Vanessa isn't looking likely to survive her next MoT test without quite a large amount of money invested in her and unfortunately, I'm not really sure she is worth the hassle, I'd be better buying a better van to start with or give up the van plan and go to a petrol driven car.
Currently I'm looking at a Vauxhall Astra Coupe Bertone, or a Mazda MX-5 Mk1. A good example of either can be had for around £900 and both would be so much more fun to drive. So we'll have to see what the pay cheque does. Either would leave me very happy, though I suspect the Bertone would be slightly more practical. Man alive, I'm spending it before I even have it.
I am tempted to take the van off the road, fix her up in my spare time and either put her back on the road or sell her on. Having another vehicle means I could fix so many faults I've got in the van which will require more than a day do sort. Would be nice to get her factory fresh.
But back to work for now, busy busy busy.
Take care,
~Jordan |
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Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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Hello,
So it would appear I am now a working man, which is interesting, because I cannot say I am doing all that much work, but there you go. It does mean I'll have more time to do this sort of thing though, as I have gone from working 6 and a half days a week for the family to working just 5 a week, plus I get all holidays now too as it is an office job, not a tourist job. Which means I get Monday off because it is a bank holiday.
Suppose this means I have no excuse now to not start work on the handbrake on my van, or maybe touch up some more of the rusty bits. Although I imagine it wouldn't be long before I am being called upon to spend time in the shop, which I think takes the piss because they actually want me to work 5 days a week with my new employer and then every other free day working for them, because they will be working hard and it is only fair. Not sure I see the logic in that, but I'm sure the logic goes along the lines of anything that makes Jordan's life a bastard and their life easier. Well I say their life, but really my sister is as much a prisoner to the shop as I was.
I haven't mentioned it on here given over 7 months have lapsed since my last update, but have everywhere else, but I am now volunteering with Scarborough & Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team which means I am now training up to be apart of the call out list. So far it has been a refresh of things I already know, but haven't used for years (such as map reading with a compass), but one of the new and exciting things was probably on the 31st of July 2011. When the RAF turned up with a Sea King and we had quite a lot of fun.
Building my kit up. So that I could take part in a very fun training day.
I've always wanted to go up in a Sea King and I enjoyed every second of it. Although I have to remind people that even though I had fun, it was a training event and not a fun event.
The other changes worth nothing are rice for my van. Both changes were done for a specific reason, but only part of the reason required parts changing.
First up, new wheels. The tyres were getting bald so needed sorting out, now each corner was looking to set me back £35 which was quite a lot, especially because I was looking at budget value cheapo tyres that tend to be made of an extremely hard compound so they last an age, but are almost impossible to turn on when fitted to a road car. So using EODC (RIP, you was a short lived service) again, I was able to pick up 5x RS2000 Mk6 alloys with virtually unused Toyo Proxies all round. Not only did this improve traction in all conditions, the slightly smaller wheels are what Ford calibrated the speedo on before fitting large van wheels. This means my speedo is now accurate for once. Which is nice. Plus it makes the whole vehicle look vastly better.
Next up was brakes, my FL caliper has had a habit of blinding on, a lot. This was extremely annoying and had to be fixed, but not wanted to spend huge amounts (I am a cheap bastard and money was tight at the time), I picked up a used set of calipers which had been painted RED! which makes you go faster. But more importantly, it gave me back feel in the brake pedal, as I actually had brakes that worked, rather than a solid brake pedal that would constantly make the van try to do a 180.
So there you go. There are other things I could report on, but I have already been writing this for 30 minutes, so it is best I do that another day... or months.
Take care,
~Jordan |
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You gimboid.
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Hello,
It is that time again, where I get round to updating this. Which leads me to think I should have a little make over on this place, mostly because I get moderately paranoid about potential employers following the jbush.co.uk part of my e-mail and finding the inane ramblings of a mad man.
Since the last update snow came and went, Christmas came and went and my 25th birthday came and went. The snow became the most eventful part as it arrived back in November so all vehicles had to be parked half a mile away and then left early January so vehicles could be brought back down the hill to the house again. Still get the odd bits of ice on a 16% hill, which was worrying when going up until I remembered that due to an offset differential the power is biased to the left wheel so as long as I kept it on solid grippy surface I could drop the right wheel in whatever I felt like and still make it up the hill.
However going down hill on ice is still scary as hell. Not being able to use your brakes going down a narrow rough hill with many binds spots and used by tractors a lot defiantly makes you defecate diamonds, even if first gear is limited to 20MPH.
Then we come to Vanessa. She still has some faults, front left brake has started to bind, fuel pump or sender is getting leggy and the cam cover gasket is spewing oil like no ones business. If you didn't know better you'd think I painted the gearbox bell housing black it has found itself coated in so much spent oil.
But that doesn't stop my trying to improve the old girl. First on my list of updates was a front upper strut brace from FoMoCo and it made huge amounts of difference to how she handled. Which says that the bodywork is so poorly made it flexed rather than the suspension doing its job.
Took some time to get used to, but now I have, I am glad I chucked it on. Next came the fly in my soup, the roof rack. I had put off removing this for a long time for a couple of reasons. One, the screw heads had become ruined by an old owner trying to remove the roof rack and years of rust. So would need cutting off, I had no blank plates to put over where the roof rack was and I didn't feel like it. Not the best reasons in the world, but there you go. But after one motorway drive filled with ear piercing wind noise too many, the rack had to go.
Although it did take a fortnight to get the covers, I was glad I took the thing off, made her look younger and cut down on wind noise. The above parts were all acquired from EODC so naturally I had to show my gratitude by giving the club some free advertising. I really wanted to place the stickers on the wiper arm, but two reasons stopped me. One they were slightly too big and two, it turned out they were static cling. Some creative thinking was required, so after digging out some of the bits and bobs I had left over from my RC days, I was able to glue the logo in place, isn't quite perfect but I can work on the finish at my leasure.
The fact the edges didn't quite stick down properly ruins the overall look, but it gets the job done. The last thing I did was order some paint to match the colour of Vanessa (BT Grey) and have started the process of rust removal and touching up the paintwork. It is a slow process, but I am getting there.
Take care,
~Jordan |
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©2005-2009 Jordan Bush.
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