Air filters!

Car manual says I should change my filters every 20k-30k miles or so. Supposedly, the dealership charges $100+ for labor for changing air filters... I thought, how hard could it be? You slide out the old ones, and put in the new ones.

Intake filter took 5 minutes. Remove battery intake, unclip intake cover. Slide out old filter, slide in filter. Done.

The cabin air filter though was a major pain in the ass. For starters, here is where the panel to access the filter is.


So, its basically on the left side of the passenger foot well. It's there cause my car was made in Japan, and they're right hand drive, so the filter stayed on the side of the driver, where it's supposed to be.

To access the filter form the passenger side, I had to remove the trim that covers the glove box fasteners, remove the glove box, remove all the trim covering the fuse board, detach fuse board connections, remove the fuse board, remove the fuse board bracket, unscrew the filter panel, take out the filter and replace.

It was all fine and dandy until I reached the nuts holding down the fuse board bracket. My socket wrenches were not deep enough to reach the nut... so I had to find a normal wrench. Turns out my dad probably lost his 12mm wrench... and probably 4 of them cause I found 4 different 13mm and 17mm wrenches.

So I reattached the fuse board and battery and went to Home Depot to buy wrenches! My interior looked super ghetto with all the trim and glove box missing. Oh well.

When I got the wrench, I found out the nuts were on really really tight. No seriously, not only is there not enough room to really use the wrench, it would not turn the nut at all. Eventually it came loose when I used a hammer to bang on the end of the wrench repeatedly very very hard, or as hard as I could considering the space I was in.

Of course when I put the nuts back on, I didn't even bother tightening them with the wrench. It's job is to hold up a one pound fuse board, it doesn't need all that torque.

Old filters looked like this:

No picture of new intake filter cause it's purple/black. Really, the filters were still pretty clean. It probably could have lasted another 2 years of abuse.

Since my I already got the fuse board out, I also rewired some things so I could turn on my fog lights with my parking lights instead of only being able to turn them on with my low beams. That wasn't too bad, except for removing the electrical tape on top of the shrink wrap which was over even more electrical tape. They really don't want you messing with those wires. I'll update with pictures later...

Oh, and the best part is I spent all afternoon in 103F weather in the garage doing this. So I had nosebleeds afterwards. Fun fact: sneezing while nosebleeding = paintings of fireworks!

Spike realized that I was busy all afternoon and took the time to bite off a big chunk of his flesh to almost get a hidden splinter out. Nasty as hell. It looked like someone got a knife and kept poking a piece of flesh until it made a thumb sized volcano spewing out puss and blood and fat, surrounded by hair and saliva... and I had to dig through that to find the splinter, pull it out, and poke around some more to make sure all of it came out. Then disinfect with tons of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, which I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to use on open flesh wounds, but better than nothing. Bandaged him up and put his head cone back on. Spike seems pretty relaxed right now so I'm assuming I did an OK job. He's probably still angry at me cause I put the cone back on his head.

ghetto dash cover

It's summer! I'm jobless with not much planned to do. That means my car pretty much stays at home with me... in the hot summer sun.

I figured, I kinda want my dashboard to be in good condition for a long long time, so I need something to block the sun from baking it everyday. Dash cover sounds like a good idea. The Mazda one costs $40... just a little bit expensive for what is essentially a big piece of foil. Then one day on my normal household shopping runs, they had the generic ones for $7.

Now the problem with the generic one is that it does not have very good fitting. For starters it's a rectangle.. and most windshields are not rectangles. It ended up being too wide and not long enough.

Ghetto solution time--using scissors and duct tape. So I grabbed the nearest tape measure, just to find out it wasn't long enough... so I just guesstimated on the dimensions.

I put it into the car to test fit, marked a few points, then cut cut cut! Which quickly solved my too wide issue. Now about that not long enough issues.... I did just cut off a bunch of extra foil. I taped it to the bottom. Turns out the area of the generic cover is pretty similar to the area of my windshield.

The generic came with little elastic ties to keep the thing folded up when not in use. They were on the edge piece I cut off, so I needed to reattach them to the sides. Originally they were sewn on... too much effort. So I used the quick man method of sewing--a stapler.

It holds pretty well.. took about 5 seconds each. Job well done.

Final product.. fits decently well. Important part is it covers all of the dash.

Of course, my advice is... just buy the OEM one. It'll look better. But I figured since I would only use it when I'm parked at home, I really don't care. Besides, making the car cheaper looking makes it less attractive to break into... or all the Mexicans poorly modding their cars in Monterey Park is rubbing off on me D:

wisdom teeth

Mine have grown out for a while now. Three of the four have been pretty tame and painless... but my bottom left one is just hell.

If it wasn't for finals week it would be out by now.

I hate you finals week.

front yard bunny

This is the bunny that has been living under all our cars here in SB.

I spent my past few afternoons chasing this bunny around in attempts to catch it.... no luck so far.

It's smart.

my spring quarter mess

So changing majors is always kind of messy, especially when one is planning on graduating within 4 years... in engineering. So I figured, at the time computer engineering pays 10% more than computer science, 60% of the coursework overlaps, and I'm 2 quarters ahead of schedule; worth the risk of trying to switch over.

Spring09 worked out well. Fall09 went smoothly as well. Winter 10 ended up being pretty bad (probably cause I spent most of it being sick.. or at a concert).

Normally, at the end of the last quarter, I need to petition for ECE classes cause they are only open to electric and computer engineering majors only. So, as a spaceholder, and plan B, I enroll in an equivalent amount of computer science classes in the case that I don't get my ECE classes. Winter10, they approved my petition, and gave me my add code around week 3. But told me to go as if I was already enrolled in the class before.

They told me to do the same thing for spring. Except this time, when week 3 rollled around, they were like, "No you petition did not pass. " Great, so I've been attending classes I didn't need, and didn't attend the ones I now need.

Their reasoning was... I only had average ECE grades, and the only reason I was still alive in ECE was cause I had very good CS grades. So they wanted me to stop wasting my time playing around in ECE cause they were a chance that I would not be admitted into the major, whereas I have a pretty good safely net for CS and I'm still on schedule, despite playing around for 3 quarters.

Now compounding to my issues.. I can't stay enrolled in my CS30 class cause the system thinks I already took the class and am repeating it without authorization. Also, some of my grades came out super late last quarter, so after the deadline for grades passed, they were like, oh, your GPA isn't high enough, so we're putting you on AP. Of course my GPA isn't high enough, I don't have grades for half my units. Then my grades came out a week after the deadline, and it was crap, but still high enough to keep me off AP. So on the system, I'm not on AP. In my paper file, I am.

So my problems are simply: I can't enroll in CS30, AP, and I'm 3 weeks behind in work.... and the fact that I'm taking 19 units doesn't help either. These problems also leads to further problems.

The CS30 problem. First, I talked to the College of Engineering (CoE) adviser. He looks at my history, consults the master course listing book, calls the ECE adviser, and then calls the CS adviser, still doesn't know what to do, so he refers me to my CS adviser.

My CS adviser does the same thing, consult book, make phone calls, scratch head. He tells me he'll fix it before the end of the next week. Then he moves on to get permission from my dean, pester the office of the registrar to fix the problem, and email my professor explaining why he's adding a student into her class mid-week3.

While he's working on that, my CoE adviser wants me to fill out AP agreements. It involves that I list all my current classes, and I stay under 16 units, among other crap. Since I am technically not qualified for AP, and I don't even have all my courses. CoE adviser didn't believe me, and called my CS adviser, who just responded with, "I'm working on it, it'll work when it does." They didn't want me to put classes I was not enrolled in on the paper, so they just told me to complete it when I get officially enrolled. Good stall is a good stall.

Then there are professors that are not too happy with me joining lecture week 3. They can't really do anything about it cause I'm being added in by my adviser. But they can still pull me into conferences to discuss my progress in the course. At least I'm allowed to makeup some of my work.. in some cases anyways.

So I'm playing catch-up for 3 weeks worth of work in 12 of my 19 units. Busy busy...

On the plus side. CS easier to me than ECE, sure it's kind of dry sometimes, but ECE was getting boring too. My schedule is now officially morning/night class free, though I have a bunch of annoying 1 hr gaps in between classes now. It's also spread throughout the week better too. Most important part is 2009 employment data shows that CS pays about 10% better than ECE now. I'm switching into an easier major that has tons more job availability that pays better. Awesome.

stick shift

I learned how to drive stick today! Or... well enough to move the car in a moderately safe manner in an emergency.

Only took a whole bunch of stalling before I kinda got the hang of it. I occasionally try to launch the car in 3rd instead of 1st. I've braked without fully disengaging the clutch once or twice too. I've also released the clutch without putting the car into neutral. Most of it was from learning the clutch engagement point, and how to control the throttle.

I could use a bit of practice for smoother shifting. But since that varies by car, I might not be great at this until I have my own.

I'll wait till I have the money to buy a weekend sports car.

dead week; mind dump

Avocados seem to go well with just about anything.

Pokemon.. my solution to staying awake during boring lectures.

I have an actual dead week... I spent it out running and in the gym. Now everything... hurts. Still beats academics.

I think I might actually fail a class or two this quarter. Time to pray to the engineering gods.

WEEEEEV BEEEEEN EEEEEEEE EEEM PEEEED. EEEEHLEECKTROONICKS AAAAR DOOOWN!

Atheros2317 chip still needs some fine tuning before it can handle heavy traffic.

I want a PS3. Pretty pink haired chick is alluring.

I can't remember the last time I watered my bamboo plant...

Oranges make great metabolism boosting snacks... I kill them too fast.

Thankfully toilets don't break as often as they do in Sims.

Just water.... and orange juice! Mmmmm

"you make meeeee, you make me yeahhhh, you make me want to OOOHHHH... *thumpthump* *THUMP* *THUMP *thumpthump* *THUMP* *THUMP*..."

Running yellow light in a car: Usually safe. On a bike? Bad bad bad idea.