Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure.

Since no one will actually read this today . . . . . .Oh Well. BRING ON THE COFFEE!

I had a 1990 VW Vanagon five years ago. Had the pop top and a refrigerator and an awesome sound system (12 inch sub woofer) and a perfect body. The only problem was that it leaked fluid out of the Master Cylinder. It seems that the wrong coolant was put in at some time and it corrodes stuff. Something unique to Vanagons I guess. I was content with filling it up on a regular basis because it was a sweet ride. So sweet that I was looking around and ready to pay major bucks to fix it.

Upon further investigation and after consulting a number if VW experts I found that it would actually be CHEAPER to replace the entire engine rather then to replace the Master Cylinder (something about being impossible to get at it while the van is right side up - seriously)! OK - let's go that route.

Then once I had made the decision to go the "new engine" route I find that there are no new engines to be had that did not have the same problem. It seems ALL Vanagons at this age have this problem. When I see a vintage Vanagon owner and ask him if his Master Cylinder is leaking and it is always "yes".

SO! I started wondering what happens, how long can I go adding fluid. How will I know when it's time to give up "Yahoo #1" (it's name). The answer?

As one VW expert said "You will know when it's time when you have a catastrophic event and your van no longer moves".

DANG!! That's not good is it. DJ is not really into catastrophic event's.

I bring this all up because the final results about my hard drive news came to me today. Even after my computer geek friend did all he could and even after HIS "Forensic Child Pornography can see anything in your computer expert" looked at it the result was . . Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure.

Dang!!! There were a lot of Public Enemies photos on that drive. I wonder if Universal had something to do with this. Did they sneak into my house and pour peanut butter on my drive?

So this is a warning. Back up your hard drives.
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Packers - so how odd is this season? VERY odd. Only 3 teams have ever lost 8 games by 4 points or less since the merger. The Pack have lost 7 but here is another odd stat. Using Pythagorean wins which looks at points scored and points given up and tells you how many wins you SHOULD have (8.2), the Packers are the 3rd most underachieving team in the last 39 years.

OH - and Football Outsiders predict a 100% chance for the Packers to win Sunday. They also rank Rogers as the #9 QB in the NFL. Favre is ranked 23rd and MAN has he looked bad the last 5 games. remember - the Jets have not only played the easiest schedule in the NFL this year - they have played the easiest schedule of ANY team in the last TEN year

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Enough blah blah = I would like to say Hi and Thank you to all the readers around the world. To the reader in Columbia (weird, a guy writing in Columbus in Columbia County is read BY a person in Columbia the country), to my friends in California (who ever you are). to the Qatar person who has been around for a few months and of course my buds in Australia (don't let the Bunyip's get ya) . Merry Christmas to all you guys in Germany and France and Spain and Turkey (there are a few of you, do you know each other?) Hungrey and Sweden of course the United Kingdom.

I hope I did not miss any of you other regular readers. OH Canada (as I burst out into song).

I even see someone on main land China has been logging on in the last few weeks. And SOMEBODY has been a long time reader somewhere in Africa. I can't tell the country but thank you.

I truly am humbled that you have stuck around and read this blog three hundred and twenty thousand times (and saddened as you must be terribly bored).

Have a Merry Christmas and tell them Rod from little Columbus Wisconsin (population about 5000) says Happy Holidays and scratch your pets on the head for me, in fact give them a little treat.

and to all
A good Day
Rod and DJ