SMOKE DETECTORS VS. FIRE EXTINGUISHERS

Part of performing insurance inspections involves asking homeowners some pretty basic questions. Among these questions are: 1) do you have any smoke detectors, 2) do you have any carbon monoxide detectors, and 3) do you have any fire extinguishers?

85% of all interviews result in a “yes” to #1. Carbon monoxide detectors lag a bit, but my memory puts them at 50-60%.

Fire extinguishers, on the other hand, appear to be more of a generational thing. When the age of the insured is 60+, then I would put the percentage of those having extinguishers at 60%. And not just one extinguisher—if a 60+ insured has one, then he or she often comes out and indicates (without prompting) that there's an extinguisher in the kitchen, basement, attic, and garage.

As an aside—care to guess which group makes up a lot of the 15% who don't have smoke detectors?

As for younger insureds, stating that 25% having a single fire extinguisher would be a generous estimation, but generosity is acceptable to this story. The point is that a gap exists, and it appears to be age-related.

What to make of this gap? An oversimplification is that younger people seem to be more inclined to dial 911, GTFO, and let the authorities deal with a problem. Older folks prefer to have the ability to take action before following the same pattern, even if such an ability is more of an illusion. While one can't put out every fire with a fire extinguisher, I've yet to hear of anyone who can successfully fight a fire with a cell phone. When seconds count and the fire station is minutes away—or when a fire is still small enough to spare a house—at least having the option would seem prudent.

ROOMBA NOT LIKING BLACK CARPET? THE FIX!

Roomba wasn't liking the black carpet. Roomba seemed to think that the black carpet was either 1) a hole in the ground, or 2) a bunch of stairs that it was about to fall down.

The fix according to iRobot? There's nothing you can do.

The fix according to those own screwdrivers? Get out the screwdriver!

There's multiple sets of LED-looking sensors that need to see each other in order for Roomba to move forward, and black carpet apparently prevents these sensors from seeing each other. So you have a choice to make--do you want your Roomba to not fall down the stairs while avoiding black carpet like the plague, or do you want Roomba to vacuum all of your carpet while risking a tumble down the stairs?

If you want the latter, the fix involves removing the aforementioned sensors from their holders and making sure that they can see each other. In my case, I simply taped them together:

The result is a Roomba that goes anywhere. Fearlessly. So if you've got a house with stairs and you do this, consider yourself warned--and your black carpet clean!

HOME STRETCH 2013

Now we enter the home stretch for exterior house projects in 2013.

Three things define this time. It starts when the weather turns cooler, ends either on or very close to Thanksgiving Day, and it involves attempting to fit a year of work into that time span.

LAMBRECHT AUCTION: EXPENSIVE, LOW MILEAGE JUNK

Welcome to the world's most expensive auto recycling center.

Several of the people interviewed on the History Channel's Wheels of Fortune show described Ray Lambrecht as “eccentric.” Fine. Maybe he was eccentric. Without knowing anything else, I'm inclined to describe him as nothing more than a hoarder who happened to have a lot of space. But regardless of personality traits, I walked away from the Lambrecht auction with one feeling:

What a waste. What an absolute waste.

The Lamrecht auction should have happened at least twenty years ago, if not sooner. Regardless of mileage, none of the cars at the auction were new. The interiors had a million miles, there was more rust than paint on the bodies, and the cars are mechanically worthless—nothing would run or drive without significant work.

BO KNOWS NEBRASKA FANS

I always hoped someone would say it, but never in my wildest dreams did it even occur to me that it would come from Nebraska's own head coach. Bo Pelini isn't angry--he just understands what he's working with in Nebraska fans. The guy should get a new stick of gum for being honest. The swearing just makes it more entertaining.

Nebraska fans have been patting themselves on the back since at least the early 90's—maybe before then, but that's when I moved to Nebraska. Nebraska fans are the best. Nebraska fans are the nicest. Nebraska fans are the classiest, sweetest, most devoted bunch. Anywhere. Of all time. And for a while, many outsiders believed it. Many probably still do.

I WANT A QUIET PICKUP

A quiet pickup? It's a 3.0 Ranger. If you can hear it, it's a bad thing.

Two years ago, I replaced the original muffler with a Thrush turbo muffler. I did that because the original muffler had a few too many rust holes, and because the Thrush muffler it was what I had on hand--it was either that, or a Flowmaster 50 muffler, which would have been even louder. The plan was to live with the results, and to come back with a better plan...later.

The plan didn't involve drone at every speed above 50 mile per hour. And the plan certainly didn't involve headaches after only a few hours of daily driving.

So...later is now!

From front to back: original exhaust, new exhaust.

It is strange to say that I am so excited about a muffler, but it is what it is. The old man in me--who am I kidding, that's pretty much all of me--is excited about the prospect of a quiet car again. The Fiero was never quiet anyway.

The original Ranger exhaust system had 2" piping from the second catalytic converter pipe (there are four converters in a stock '98 Ranger--one on each side of the crossover/Y pipe, and two in the pipe immediately following that pipe). The odd thing is that the second pipe is a 2.25" pipe, which then feeds into the 2" piping that runs to the muffler and through the tailpipe. Why a smaller pipe? Probably for sound control. 2" pipe is quieter than 2.25" pipe. But it also more restrictive.

But, given a vehicle where an aftermarket exists, that isn't an issue. Dynomax makes (what they claim to be) 2.5" intermediate and tailpipes for the Ranger, and everyone makes 2.5" inlet/outlet mufflers--including Walker, which makes multiple Quiet Flow muffler models for that application.

Using Dynomax part numbers 52085 (intermediate pipe) and 55038 (tailepipe) and Walker part number 22648 (muffler)--and a small section of pipe to extend the intermediate pipe, since the pickup in question is an extended cab--the result is a relatively open but quiet exhaust. And one happy driver.

HOW TO RUN A 5K WHEN YOU'RE OUT OF SHAPE

Somehow Runner's World never writes about this specific topic.

You signed up for this weekend's race four months ago. Four months in which you told yourself you were going to bust your ass and show up in shape. That was four months ago. And now you can't find your running shoes because you forgot where you put them last fall.