Daily Struggles

[sheepdog 10]

Is it just my lousy luck or does everyone else seem to have constant screw up and problems at every turn? We are always so busy, time is valuable, but it seems no matter what we do or how hard we try nothing ever gets done because something or someone else screws up. Nothing, not the simplest little chore comes easy around here. This past week has been particularly bad. It's not just the major projects, it seems like every little thing we try to get acomplised around here. We wanted to get four new tires put on the car this week, finally after months of piddling with it the transmission was back in and it's almost fitting to drive again. This is the "new" car, the one with only 150,000 miles on it, we've still been driving the old car, it has almost 350,000 on it. Hubby drives two towns over to go to his favorite tire shop, they only have 1 tire our size in stock. He still had them go ahead and put it on since the others were so bad he didn't think he would make it home on them. So that means another trip to the tire shop in a few days when the new tires are in. I had a boy here working, painting up and repairing the dog houses, went in to Walmart strictly to get a gallon of barn red paint. Plain old ordinary common barn red. We've bought many gallons of it there. So today they are out of stock! You would think a company as big and establised as Walmart would be able to control their inventory well enough to keep a can of paint on the shelves.

The real topper of annoyances for this week though has been my new computer. I've struggled with it all week long, had just pretty much gotten everything installed and was starting to get used to it. Got up yesterday morning to a blank black screen that just said missing operating system. I tried a few things, reboot, control alt delete, nothing worked, the brand new one week old compter was dead as a doornail. Ended up having to drive all the way back to the big city, 50 miles one way to take it back and get another. Now my whole weeks work is down the toilet. Have to get all my favorites back in, my passwords and programs. Just this morning it took me 20 minutes to log in here, I'd managed to forget my password for here...word of advice, make sure you know your password for Xisto, the capchas are a royal pain and almost impossible to read, took me about a dozen tries to get one right. I can't believe I have to start all over now. I also can't believe how bad my memory is. The games in the other computer didn't show in programs, I didn't think they were even here, but they were, I just had to do something to install them, and now I don't remember what I did. I got another computer just like the other one. A little scary, hopefully the other one was just some weird glitch and this one won't do the same dang thing next week.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Whenever I had to get a set of tyres, I would drive to a street with automotive accessory stores right from one of the street to the other and there are three consecutive tyre stores owned by the same individual but sellin different brands of tyres - one sold Bridgestone, the other had Michellin, and yet another had Apollo. They actually needed the space because they provided wheel balancing services and their staff is quite sluggish. They would have been able to make do with lesser space if they managed to train and motivate their staff to get the job done sooner. When buying tyres, I always manage to get Bridgestone to drive on rough roads. Apparently, Michellin makes their tyres of a compound that provides better grip but their tyres have thinner sidewalls when compared to Bridgestone so if you were to drive on roads that seem like they are built for SUVs instead of sedans, you ought to get a set of Bridgestone tyres. Common tyres sizes are for 13, 14, and 15 inch rims. Many cars are sold in different parts of the world with one size larger rim sizes as the top-end variant so it is possible to fit a rim and tyre that is a size larger than that used on the base variant, depending on whether the vehicle was bought.

The recommended approach is to replace tyres in pairs so you can get both front tyres with the same level of wear and use the old front tyres for the rear. Some people question the convention wisdom and suggest using the newer tyres on the rear instead, but having the wheels used for steering continue to function was the intended goal. The wisdom of newer rear tyres comes from the specific scenario when cornering on ice or slippery roads but what's the likelihood of a tyre bursting at that exact moment? Most of the driving is on straight roads and having the front tyres intact would help avoid spinning off the road.

[sheepdog 10]

A lot of the reason for placing the new tires on the rear for I always assumed was the power to propel the car forward in most cars comes from the rear tires. Therefor you would need the better traction on the rear tires. However, there a lot of cars on the road these days that have front wheel drive. In which case it would make more sense to have the better tires on the front.

 

It would certainly make more financial sense to only buy 2 tires at a time, they are certainly not cheap. However, we just ran the whole set of 4 down to where they were not just treadless, but the steel cords where showing, and one even was threw the steel belts and to the inner core. Tires have been a real expense here this year. Had to replace the tires on the old Massey Ferguson tractor. Crazy as it may sound, the new tires cost almost half of what he paid for the tractor to start with. Of course, he did by it nearly 40 years ago, but still, that's pretty crazy expensive. We even had to replace all 4 tires on my 4 wheeler. We put 2 new back tires on it, and it wasn't a week until the front tires started going flat. That sure didn't make me very happy. However, now that that are all new on it, I'm really happy with the way it drives and handles. It cuts much sharper corners and doesn't spin out any more.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Most of the cars I have seen are front wheel drive cars with only the sporty vehicles being sold with a rear wheel drive configuration. BTW, if you watch Top Gear USA, did you notice how Tanner always picks rear wheel drive cars even when they are totally not suited to the terrain that they are driving on? It's probably a thing the producers of the show did to keep things interesting. I also noticed that Tanner is never the one hosting the Big-Star-Small-Car segment of the show.

Tyres for cars are quite reasonably priced, with Bridgestone tyres delivering the most value on roads that are ridden with pot holes, especially the ones that can even put swiss cheese to shame. Michellin is preferred for driving within the city, especially if it involves a lot of highway travel or high speed driving. However, a single tyre for some heavy earth moving vehicle can cost as much as a Toyota Corolla! That's some serious cash to spend for just the rubber.

Driving a vehicle that lose their tread is frightening enough, but ones with steel cords showing is taking it to the extreme. Your husband must have been a stuntman in his previous birth! Tyre manufacturers have a block inserted within the tread to indicate the minimum treat needed for safe use. Some of the three-wheeled taxis in India run on almost bald tyres and seem unsafe but you can see them weaving in and out of traffic like those formula one cars that race on treadless slick tyres. I have never had a tyre burst while I was driving so I do not know what one would experience at that moment, but I imagine that it would involve skidding from a lack of grip between the tyre and the rim.

I see some earth moving equipment that have tracks instead of tyres. Because of all the flexing, I imagine the tracks would wear out quicker than tyres do. Would using a tractor with tracks have an advantage over a tractor with tyres in terms of cost in any case? I believe the tractors with tracks would have a more bumpy ride on rough surfaces while providing better traction in mud.

Edited October 25, 2013 by k_nitin_r (see edit history)

[sheepdog 10]

Yes, tracks wear out too, and probably faster than tires, since a tire is basically a solid one piece item. Tracks have multiple pieces that work together, and have a lot of movement to them. Hence they wear out quickly. Equipment that use tracks were never built to cover long distances. Earthmovers are used on a site and then loaded up on a trailer and hauled to the next site. The real benefit of tracks is that they go anywhere, threw any thing, or over it if it can't go threw. Mud, jungle growth or forest timber are not a problem with tracks.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Everybody goes through struggles every day, including the more spiritual folk who seek to elevate others and chant the name of God. One particular incident from Oxford street in London comes to mind.

A group of Iskcon devotees (members of the "Hare Krishna" group) were passing through the Piccadilly Circus area and Regent street, and were returning to the temple through Oxford street. While they chanted the name of God ("Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare" - each word is a name used to refer to a different form of God), plain-clothed policemen arrested them, presented them before the magistrate, and created a false report of the incidents leading to the arrest. The constable of the law, lying under oath, probably had not rehearsed his version enough and contradicted himself, leading the magistrate to dismiss the case. As a means of demonstrating respect to the falsely accused devotees, the magistrate accepted from them the book titled Sri Isopanisad to the court library.

[sheepdog 10]

One of the problems, or perhaps I should say advantages of living in a free country is that you have to allow everyone to have their freedoms too. (although it seems like at times more and more often, one persons freedom is sacrificed for someone else's but that's a whole nother topic.) Granted, some of us find these folks annoying, but we have to respect their rights to express their beliefs just as we express ours. I am glad they were found to be innocent. And some good did at least come of it.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Apart from the incident in London involving the policemen making a false testimony about the group, there have been attempts to defraud them as well. When they tried to acquire land to build a temple, they made payment for the land but then the landowner refused to hand over the land. Attempts were made to portray them as some kind of organized crime cult as well and they didn't retaliate in any way. Think of them as Buddhist monks who spread the joy like people do during Christmas, except that for them every day is like Christmas because they are constantly engaged in religious service.