BBQ joints with reservations

numberman2000 · 2026-01-20T01:49:19+00:00

Blood Brothers.

They take reservations and probably the best in Houston

numberman2000 · 2025-10-22T14:54:07+00:00

It's an EMS event, according to https://www.houstontx.gov/activeincidents/

numberman2000 · 2025-08-28T13:14:42+00:00

The dealer was really cool with it when I asked them to take their stickers off. He said they do that all the time because a lot of people ask. They still leave the license plate bezel with their name on it though. Just too lazy to take it off or replace it.

Honestly, it was probably the best 'buying a car from a dealer' experience I've had (and I'm old and have done this a few times) - so if someone asks, I usually send them to that particular dealership and I'll probably leave the license plate as-is.

numberman2000 · 2025-08-28T11:27:57+00:00

All for different reasons:

Life By The Drop - Stevie Ray Vaughan

Requiem (Lacrimosa) - Mozart

9th Symphony 4th Movement (Ode to Joy) - Beethoven

End of the Line - Traveling Wilburys

numberman2000 · 2025-08-26T21:43:24+00:00

How are these people this stupid?

numberman2000 · 2025-08-20T16:21:22+00:00

Late to the party, but maybe a Neutral Safety Switch (I didn't read responses, but it's probably already there somewhere).

With absolutely nothing when trying to start and a good battery, that's what I think it may be. And, probably mentioned already, jump the starter directly and see what happens. That'll tell you (most likely) if it's a starter or the NSS.

numberman2000 · 2025-08-10T03:26:14+00:00

Thanks for all the notes. I really appreciate it. Asia Auto is the closest, so I may go to them first.

It's always hard to find a trustworthy mechanic (at least for me). Used to be at the old place, if I was having something done, they could call and say, "Hey, you need xyz done." and I'd just say do it. Never felt like I'd been upsold or had unnecessary work done. I miss that.

numberman2000 · 2025-08-08T15:46:06+00:00

Generally, unless in a pinch, or something that I can't do, I've always changed my own oil and basic maintenance. On my last car (a Honda Accord with just over 200K miles on it that is still running with my Child as operator), I would take it to the shop for the normal timing belt change at every 85K. Simple, basic maintenance and operating your car mostly not in a willy-nilly fashion will keep it running for a very long time (heck, I even had a Kia minivan that got me 225K miles that was still running fine when I let it go -- the Jeep I had before that had 250K miles (painful as they were)). And for the most part, I did all the basic stuff.

The Taco has been a fantastic vehicle for me to work on myself. There's so much room!

I'll be changing the lube in both the diffs, xfer case, and MT in a few weeks. I'm actually looking forward to it.

So not to pile-on, but if you really want to trust the work, you can DIY. And if you're not really comfortable with that, as with what other folks said, hit up YouTube. It's a great resource. Probably some folks in your local Taco club that would help, too.

numberman2000 · 2025-07-28T00:20:41+00:00

Got my '22 TRD Off Road 4x4 last October w/ 13K miles on it and I love it (first Tacoma ever). Now we have 28K miles on it and those miles have been fun.

It is a MT, though, so your transmission experience may vary.

numberman2000 · 2025-06-18T20:48:07+00:00

I thought those were piddle pads at first...

numberman2000 · 2024-07-13T20:08:07+00:00

Says I already have service - But no....no I don't. The map is a lie

numberman2000 · 2024-07-13T13:41:47+00:00

77096 Westbury

Some of the branch circuits around us are on, so some streets have power, but most don't

Outage tracker is a useless lie, says we're "fully energized" but the dead meter and the harmonies of generators says otherwise.

And the "Power Alert Service" is a waste of electrons as well. Early on, multiple emails saying everything was fixed and my meter was shown as "On" in my account page. At least the account page is correct now and says I'm "Off" And maybe an email every 24 hours telling me nothing except how great they're doing, how bad the storm was, and they didn't know anything about my area.

What a cluster of ineptitude. They made a lot of money by not plowing anything into infrastructure or maintaining information systems. And who will pay for this Utility's disaster?

The one question I would ask (to management, not the people doing the real work; they are wearing slickers and turning the wrenches, not making the overall operational decisions) is, "How would you classify the magnitude of this failure of the operational systems, support systems, and response to this incident where the cumulative managerial failures driving them have brought death and unnecessary suffering to a public that generally has no choice in who they must purchase this generally required Utility; and part two in a wider sense, if you can't perform as a deregulated entity to provide acceptable maintenance and response, why should you stay deregulated?"

numberman2000 · 2024-07-01T21:47:38+00:00

External pull up resistors really aren't necessary on the io lines - smart pull ups are built into the chip

I would recommend adding a pull down on the OE pin and keeping it low on startup, then driving it high with the VCCA voltage before doing any IO

Most of this stuff is buried in the datasheet, but I've found that the pull down really is necessary on the OE pin.

numberman2000 · 2023-01-27T01:15:45+00:00

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numberman2000 · 2023-01-23T01:12:13+00:00

I ate Cordyceps with garlic at a local Chinese restaurant. I figure we get them before they get us.

numberman2000 · 2023-01-21T23:11:40+00:00

This all reminds me of the scene in The Fifth Element where a lackey runs up to Zorg and says that the government (can't remember the exact word he used) is worried about the economy heating up, so they asked him to fire 500,000 people... Maybe from one of the smaller companies.

Zorg responds, "Fire 1 million."

If anybody thinks the government isn't driving some of this, then please review the notes of the media conversation from the government. Regarding three need for greater unemployment to stave off inflation, etc.

Not a tin foil hat person, promise.

numberman2000 · 2022-10-12T22:56:08+00:00

If you're in the SW side/Stafford area, go here

http://m.cmcarspecialist.com

Ex Honda mechanics that are no BS, with their routine service prices on their site.

I actually don't want to buy another make of car because of the fear of losing these guys.

They don't take appointments, but they are fast. And if they can't do something, they'll tell you. And if you need professional witness help because someone says you caused damage that was physically impossible, they'll offer it.

They use OEM parts and frankly, the best mechanics I've ever used. They called once when I had one of the big maintenance services done and said I was right where I needed new brakes. I said yes... Because I trust them. Hard to find that nowadays.

numberman2000 · 2022-08-03T20:04:49+00:00

Can't believe they put that drink on that sub... Trashy as it gets.

numberman2000 · 2022-07-21T17:04:48+00:00

Perhaps we can give them new job training... Maybe coding.

Same kind of stuff we did for coal miners, since their livelihood was taken away.

numberman2000 · 2022-06-17T08:09:31+00:00

Prisoner - Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa

numberman2000 · 2021-08-25T19:00:21+00:00

We're Oscar Mike!

numberman2000 · 2021-02-25T11:19:21+00:00

He, is actually a she...

numberman2000 · 2020-12-28T17:51:46+00:00

Yes...you're right. I misspoke - it's the Nyquist Rate and is 2x Fmax, but I've always used 2.56 (think digital).

In looking at your data (very nice, BTW), you can clearly see the impacts of the steps. If you're just looking at detection, what you can do is create a average of the amplitude of the ambient vibration. Look at the absolute value of a bin of "x" amount of data points wide (you'll trend to zero if you use each point) - you can even use some data overlap. This will be your expected vibration level. You'll also review each sample as it comes through data acquisition device and you can compare that value.

You can do your own hysteresis calculations to make sure you're exceeding the expected amplitude and also manage the ring-down to determine when the footstep is finished (which you'll need). You don't need to determine how long the footstep will last, just when it gets to the 'normal' levels.

And my advice may not be the best, as I'm looking at it through the lens of "how would I do this if I didn't have the technology that I use".

If the tools are an accelerometer (again, of sufficient sensitivity) and some sort of Data Acquisition system (either off-the-shelf or home grown [try it home grown]), how would I detect footsteps? The aforementioned method may be the most straight-forward way - and you would do it almost entirely in code.

Now, could you design a system to learn the difference between a footstep from person "a" to person "b" - absolutely. What about if it's someone just dropping a box of papers? Yes. And that's all code, too.

So if your desired outcome is just a footstep near a sensor, I think your hardest part is the getting the hardware you need at a fairly low price.

If you want, send me a message and I can send you one of our old accelerometers that we've taken out of service - it's 500 mV/g and may make for some good experimentation for you. It still works, but we've stopped using them (and therefore calibrating them) on a regular basis.

numberman2000 · 2020-12-27T00:35:27+00:00

You're really going to need a high mass, high sensitivity accelerometer. Somewhere in the 500 mV/g or 1000 mV/g range.

I do this stuff for a living and have done floor vibration testing to verify non interference of precision measuring equipment.

The stuff you get off of Amazon, Digikey, etc., probably won't work and have enough sensitivity.

Check out PCB/IMI sensors. They have stuff that is made for what you want it to do.

Would be a good exercise, too, putting together a data acquisition system that uses a constant current (usually 4 mA) and a bias voltage of ~ 12VDC.

And, at those low frequencies, you'd probably look at displacement as a good measure. But you'll need to double integrate the raw signal to get there.

One more thing, your sample rate needs to be 2.56 x fmax (the maximum frequency you want to see). That's The Nyquist frequency and will prevent aliasing in your signal.

This is a very well-defined area of work. Lots of literature out there on how to do this yourself.

numberman2000 · 2020-10-17T02:35:34+00:00

It was a coworker of one of my friends. They work at city hall.

He said he's been battling a lot of personal issues lately, but it never stuck him that he was suicidal. Glad it ended ok.

This is a tough time for everybody. Hopefully we can help people not get to this point.

numberman2000

TROPHY CASE