Posts

The Old Car Files: Is this Goodbye?

-
Image
The days may be numbered on our 2003 Honda Element that we have owned since 2006 when it was just a pup.  This is a picture of my actual car, not a stock photo, on a camping trip in 2007, shortly after we got it.  It's about the only picture I have of the whole car.  Maybe I need to take some more before it is too late.  Rust, the cancer of cars, is ready to send it off the great scrapyard in the sky.  Or maybe a farm upstate if you prefer. You may recall a post from about a year ago where I dealt with an  exhaust hole .  Well, the patch job with the JB Weld Exhaust Wrap has failed and I can smell exhaust gas getting into the cabin again when stopped at lights.  My first thought was to take the easy way out and just quit stopping at lights.  I started doing some research and figured I could put in a cheap catalytic converter and take my original one to a welder to have it fixed properly and then put it back on when the cheap one failed.  (An OEM Honda Cat costs $1947.71 at an onlin
Post a Comment
Read more

Backpack Counterpoint: Teton Sports Explorer 85L

-
Image
  Once again, I find myself with an unpopular opinion and feel the need to create a post explaining why everyone else is wrong 😁.  This time it is regarding design trends in backpacking packs.  It seems ultralighters are in control of the market and pack designers are catering to their wants and desires, or rather singular desire for extreme low weight and nothing else and ignoring the functionality rest of us would like in a pack.  This all came to a head a few months ago when I decided I needed a larger pack for some of my trips after struggling to fit all the gear and food needed for a 3-day weekend trip with my family in my 65L Osprey Atmos AG.  I struggled to find a new pack with the features I wanted.  Almost all of the options out there are just big sausage tubes with no external pockets or organization. For example, this Hyperlite 85L pack weighs only 2.7lbs but has almost no functionality or convenience features:     Every major pack brand apparently aspires to this target an
Post a Comment
Read more

Car Shopping in 2023

-
Image
It's new car buying time in the Wisdumb household.  Well, not "new" new (you've read my financial advice on cars , right?).  And not exactly "buying time".  Rather, it is time for the prep work to figure out what steed to add to our stable when the first Wisdumb young'n reaches driving age next year.  Boy am glad I'm starting early; finding the right car seems more difficult now than it has ever been.  This post is going to explore why I'm having such a hard time finding the perfect car. Is it me? You have likely figured out by now that I am very particular about product features, and my desires often run counter to the mainstream.  I blame the mainstream for that, not me!  Things I want in no particular order: Good Highway Gas Mileage Reliability Good towing capacity (3500lb min, 5000lb preferred) Minimum 35 cu ft usable cargo capacity with 4 passengers.  >40 preferred. Wireless Android Auto Heated and Ventilated Seats Adaptive Cruise Control
Post a Comment
Read more

Dolphin S200 Pool Cleaning Robot Drive Motor Repair

-
Image
 I've spent the past two weeks doing battle with my pool cleaning robot and want to share what I've learned so others can fix their own if they run into the same problem. My robot is a Maytronics Dolphin S200.  The internals are probably very similar or identical to other models, and I think there are even rebranded versions, so the details below likely apply to a fair amount of the population.  These robots are pretty expensive to buy, but they are, in my opinion, the best way to clean my pool.  My pool is surrounded by pine trees and they are always dropping stuff in the water, so I keep my robot in the pool and it runs daily on its timer with little intervention from me and uses much, much less electricity than my previous pressure-side pool cleaner. Rant on Robot Manufacturer Greed There is a lot of markup on these robots.  The S200 I got for $600 in 2017 (and its equivalents) now sell for more than $1000.  The exact same design.  No new technology in it.  No new R&D to
2 comments
Read more

The Old Car Files: Failure to Start

-
Image
  It's time for another installment in the Old Car Files series.  This week, the old Element treated me to a guessing game I like to call "Why won't you start?".  The game began on Monday night around 8:30 as I was trying to leave my son's Boy Scout meeting.  The engine attempted to start but died immediately.  After that it wouldn't even crank at all.  It just made a little buzzing sound.  My natural first thought is a battery problem, though a few clues did not support that theory.  For one, the headlights and electronics all seemed to work fine, and there was no weak crank attempt.  Since I wasn't too far from home, I called Mrs. Wisdom to bring a battery pack for jump starting.  We hooked that up and it still wouldn't crank.  So, we tried jumping it directly from her car.  Still nothing.  Maybe her old Prius doesn't have enough juice to jump the Element. At this point, some nice men were leaving a meeting at the church parking lot where all thi
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

What does a post-growth society look like?

-
Image
  A recent article in The Morning newsletter from the New York Times rekindled a smoldering ember of thought that resides in a corner of my mind.  It has never burned hot enough to inspire me to serious study on the subject, but this time it has at least motivated me enough to write about it.  The topic is growth; how our society and economy are dependent on it, why I think that is problematic, and how it can change.  My thoughts on this subject are not well formed at this time and, unusually for Wisdumb, I offer no answers, only more questions. The Times article covered the aging population of Japan and showed the chart below projecting other major economies and the world as a whole being on the brink of a rapidly aging populous. The article primarily focused on the social impacts of this aging population, in particular that Japan is running out of workers.  It posits the only solution is to bring in more immigrants.  This is what bothers me and stokes that ember in the back of my min
Read more

Dolphin S200 Pool Cleaning Robot Drive Motor Repair

-
Image
 I've spent the past two weeks doing battle with my pool cleaning robot and want to share what I've learned so others can fix their own if they run into the same problem. My robot is a Maytronics Dolphin S200.  The internals are probably very similar or identical to other models, and I think there are even rebranded versions, so the details below likely apply to a fair amount of the population.  These robots are pretty expensive to buy, but they are, in my opinion, the best way to clean my pool.  My pool is surrounded by pine trees and they are always dropping stuff in the water, so I keep my robot in the pool and it runs daily on its timer with little intervention from me and uses much, much less electricity than my previous pressure-side pool cleaner. Rant on Robot Manufacturer Greed There is a lot of markup on these robots.  The S200 I got for $600 in 2017 (and its equivalents) now sell for more than $1000.  The exact same design.  No new technology in it.  No new R&D to
Read more

Car Shopping in 2023: The Exciting Conclusion!

-
Image
  If you recall my August post on starting a car search, I presented a list of requirements that I wanted my new car to meet.  If you don't recall, go ahead and reread it.  I'll wait.  I had to do that to remember what I wrote as I can't remember what happened yesterday, much less four months ago! As expected, I had to compromise on some of my requirements.  After test driving most of the cars on my list of options, I ended up buying a 2018 Nissan Pathfinder Platinum, shown here after hauling a bunch of scouts up to Vermont for a backpacking trip just hours after I drove it off the lot.   Incidentally, this photo has an easter egg for a future backpacking product review. Now that I have had the car for a month or so, let's check out the score card and see how I did: Good Highway Gas Mileage (7 out of 10) Reliability (7 out of 10) Good towing capacity (10 out of 10) Cargo Capacity  >40 preferred. (10 out of 10) Wireless Android Auto (3 out of 10) Heated and Ventilate
Read more