The Hounds Start A New Week Of Warm Weather

Even though it will be in the high 50's by late afternoon that does not meat that Heidi is changing her recent routine. She is outside first thing in the morning with the bloodhounds while I pour the breakfast kibble. As soon as she eats its back to 'her' sleeping bag and she will stay there most of the morning until lunch is served around 11am, adjusted for DST. Her routine will not change much this winter.

It's hard to believe by this afternoon I'll be hand washing my car along with changing the oil filter. Yes, I found the correct tool ... not online but at O'Reilly's Auto Parts just 12 miles away and open on Sundays. I decided to do more research online for the correct tool that would remove the cap to the oil filter. The Z4 has a different type of oil filter where the filter itself slips into a permanent casing on the engine. So removing the cap on top was the tool I needed.

Many of the online auto parts stores agreed their part would fit my 2003 BMW Z4 3.0i, but they were showing the same incorrect part that I was shipped twice and was the wrong one. The diameter was too small and would not slide down over the 86mm cap. Only by a description for that part on Amazon noted it would not fit the Z4 but if you needed that part to click here. I clicked the link to find my answer.

Since Amazon also lists other sources for the product you are looking for, there was a picture for a 36mm socket that would fit over the nut on top of the cap that is built into the cap. A quick phone call to O'Reilly's, speaking to someone finally that 'knew' cars ... he confirmed not only would that part work on my car but had one on the shelf for $9.99. I drove right over and bought the part, after checking to see if it would fit in their parking lot. When I got home I let the engine cool while I watched the Colts blow another 4th quarter lead and then used the new tool to loosen the oil filter cap.

Sadie seems to be getting more demanding (by staring) as she gets older for the times she wants to go on a walk. That is a minimum of 2x per day and most of the time 3x per day. She and Stella was go outside for short roaming trips around the yard or the front of the field near the yard, in-between those walks. So this morning she is sitting in the doorway staring me down for the first walk at a little past 8am. My first cup of coffee had not been consumed yet, so the earth's rotation had not started in my world.

She waited.

The temperature was great for an early Monday morning walk. Stella let me know soon into the walk that she was on her own schedule as was Sadie. I kept walking with my camera ready for any action shots. There wasn't a lot of action this morning but it was a good walk.

I wrote about it on my other blog yesterday how Sadie and I changed our path for the afternoon walk. Stella was left behind just like this morning but I heard the neighbor mowing his yard for the last time this year. I thought that mower would entice her to check him out to see if he needed any help and I didn't want her tempted in leaving the field. So Sadie and I cut our walk off before the first turn and walked toward the corner of the woods behind the neighbor's house to wait on Stella to migrate over to us.

If she would follow her past trips while Sadie and I walked up ahead ... if we stood there a while, Stella would eventually show up by walking right to us with her nose to the ground. She didn't disappoint us and that decision worked out well. By that time the neighbor was in his part of the yard that borders the field.

This morning Sadie and I moved on. She didn't hardly raise her head today as she explored the edge of the field. She was walking a constant pace as these photos were taken.

As I walked along the back edge of the field I saw a shadow moving up behind me at a rapid rate. Sadie was sprinting by me and then put her nose back to the ground to collect more information about who, when and what had been in 'her' field while she slept.

As I looked at the horizon I did not see Stella anywhere. She blends in well amongst the dead light brown hay.

In times like these I always ask Sadie "where's Stella" ... she will always stop what she is doing, scan the air with her nose and then take off running in Stella's direction.

It was not until Sadie was almost to Stella did I see her through the lens.

Once the job of locating her is over, Sadie moves to her own exploring.

Even with Stella within 5' of the path I am walking, she will not come when called, ignores me and then slowly walks to the yard on her own time. She has taught me how to have patience in the short 27 months I've had her.

She has another walk in the books, another new week starting and a new 40# bag of kibble to be opened for lunch. Life is good in her eyes.

After our morning hound walk yesterday I took the Z4 out on my 42 mile loop through the country side. It has country highways along with a state highway where you can see forever and a good spot to do a high speed run. I wanted to push the limits on my newly installed grille and that was the highway to try it on. Luckily there is plenty of clear space where I can see if any State Patrol cars are parked on the side of the road with their radar locked in on me.

I got home, laid down in front of the car and checked every piece I installed last week. Everything was tight and that's a good sign. I even had a few rough spots on the country highway that I went over doing 60mph. So the new installed parts have a little over a 100 miles on them and everything seems to be okay.

As Sunday moved on I kept feeling better after my short intense sickness. I knew I was back to normal late last night as I decided to change all of my spreadsheets back to Microsoft Excel from Apple Numbers. It was just a few months ago that I moved them from Excel to Numbers.

Why the change??

It's that time of year where I make new sheets for the upcoming year (2018). For those that don't know, I love spreadsheets, just short of the line of addiction. I've had these personal spreadsheets for at least 19 years, all the way back where Lotus 1,2,3 was THE spreadsheet software to use. So why the change? I was setting up new ones for the new year in advance. When I started inserting simple charts and adding their data source Apple Numbers was too long to do and too confusing.

I had to Google to find ways of setting up the data sources for the charts so I was already spending more time than I wanted and I still could not figure out how to do it. I tired copying the Numbers 2017 sheet and pasting it for 2018 but that did not work like it does on Excel.

In the amount of time I spent looking for answers online, I converted 24 spreadsheets back to Excel and set up data sources with a click of the mouse, or in my case a tap on my mouse pad. I found the few short months I used Numbers there are things that I like where one program uses it but the other doesn't ... yet overall I like Excel. Since my spreadsheets never leave my computer, sent to anyone via mail or messages, I am still using the Microsoft Office for Macs 2011.

Microsoft announced last summer they would stop supporting that version with updates "leading the sheep" to buy their 2016 or newer versions. I'm not going to do that since I only use Excel for very simple designed spreadsheets only on my computer.

Social Media was in action last night and may have set history outside the Presidential Election last year. The University of Tennessee was about to announce their new football coach on Sunday night when Vol fans caught the information online about who was being hired ... a Twitter storm erupted. Even state congressmen got involved. Long story short ... by the end of Sunday night the university let the coach and his reps know they had changed their mind and the offer to be their head football coach was being rescinded.

When I look at my iPhone weather app it is showing temps in the mid to high 50's for the next week. I'll take it without complaint.

Could be 3 walks today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and that could mean another post sometime later this afternoon right after another Z4 drive.

A Missing Glove & The Z4 Is Ready

We started the daily morning walk in cold crisp air, somewhere around 35° and cold wind blowing. It wasn't long after starting the walk that I found I was missing my left hand glove. I was pretty sure it was back at the house or in the backyard. I usually don't put them on until after I take the first two pictures from the house and start the Garmin timer for the walk. Stella took off like the last few days, getting way ahead of Sadie and I.

There was nothing out of the ordinary this morning, so I'll talk about something different than the photos show. Both hounds had a lot of energy, did a lot of tracking and toward the end they seemed to understand we were retracing our steps and looking for my missing glove.

I mentioned yesterday that I 'might' put the Z4 up on jack stands in preparation to install the 5 new parts that are due to arrive sometime Monday. UPS usually delivers in the late afternoon so the work most likely will not start until Tuesday. As usual, things change as the job progresses. I didn't panic but I was close to it yesterday when I realized that both bottle jacks I had were not short enough to get under the jack point of the low sitting Z4.

Since the standard option for that car is 'run flat' tires, a jack is not needed nor is a spare tire, consequently the car comes with neither one. I have a small flat tire kit in the trunk just in case because over the years the previous and only owner of the car changed from 'run flat' tires to regular steel belted radials. You might remember that last winter, maybe spring, I jacked up the rear of the car to get some work done on the right side rear wheel.

I used the jack from the Mini Cooper Countryman at the time. It was a scissor jack and sat low enough to the ground where I was able to slide it under the Z4 jack point. The jack in the FJ, which I was planning to use, was a bottle jack and taller than the one I had on the shelf. Was I going to have to buy a floor jack for $150 or more just for this one job?

I remained calm enough while thinking that my old brain cells then let me know that I had bought a scissor jack years ago for my other Z4 and most likely it was in the small shed. It was, in the original box out in the open and in mint condition.

I guess I need to back up a little for new readers, to let them know what I am talking about. I took a road trip in late September to see an old friend 96 miles away. It was all freeway driving until I got to his town. On the way back as I pull off the freeway exit ramp 6 miles from home, I hear something dragging and it's my plastic grill that sits low to the ground. I'd had trouble with it before but on this occasion plastic parts had broke and the grill was dragging the highway as I drove. You can read about it here if you are interested, toward the bottom of the post.

I was in for a pleasant surprise as I raised the car with the scissor jack. I had some brand new ramps that I thought I could not use because the edge of the front bumper was too low. I was not even close to getting the tires onto the ramp when I tried last week because the low bumper hit the ramps before the tires could reach it.  Since I had jacked up the car a little, it gave me enough bumper clearance to slide the ramps to the front tires ... now I could drive up on the ramps, giving me more room to work under the car than the jack stands I had.

I put the car in gear, set the emergency brake and slide tire chalks behind each rear tire. I crawled under the front of the car to look around, take some pictures with my iPhone and decided why not start by taking off the parts that were damaged. It would give me a little head start on the repair.

So with an 8mm socket wrench and an 8mm closed wrench, 6 screws later I had 3 of the damaged parts (in pieces) off the car. I had pulled out the damaged grille a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity.

I also have some new black lug nuts to replace those with surface rust, while doing this job. Nothing like changing them out in 30° weather when I could have done it in 80° weather last summer.

All of this took only 55 minutes. Now I know that it will take longer to put things back together. I am expecting some 'hiccups' along the way but one thing I am hoping to avoid is having to take off the front bumper. I've read on the forum of Z4 owners it is possible to change out the grille without taking the bumper off, but it would make the job easier if I spent the the time taking the bumper off.

I've looked at videos on how to take the bumper off. It's simple and about a 15 minute job but one I am really not enthused about doing. I hate breaking the integrity of the car body and taking a chance that bumper does not fit as well once it's put back on. Could something else break if I were to take it off? So I'll try doing the job first with the bumper on and go from there.

I also have new hardware arriving today to replace the old rusty screws and washers.

The insurance estimate had 8 parts listed, 2 I did not need to replace, 1 is being shipped from Germany and 1 other one may not be needed but I'll not know that until I start putting the new parts back on. Those are not whole parts below. The last small junction between the bridge and highway, had a loud explosion at 55mph and small back parts flying out the back from under the car ... my view in the rear view mirror seemed to see them all in slow motion.

After the job is complete I'll either do a specific blog post with pictures included or I might just link a folder of all the photos I'll export to my Flickr account, so anyone interested can see all the pictures I took from start to finish.

Just as I guessed the first time I looked under the car, it should be and is so far, a simple repair although I am nowhere close to being a professional mechanic or auto body repairman.

Stella had her tail up and curled a lot this morning. She seemed to be on her own mission of tracking scent and covered a lot of area, even with her late start.

I thought both hounds would stay in this spot like they have recently but before I could get there, Stella took off running for the 'far right corner' and Sadie veered left to search the middle of the field.

I decided I'd follow Stella once I got to the corner and then herd her back to the direction of the path we take. Instead, Sadie did that for me.

Sadie was moving in different directions in the middle of the field to the point that I thought she might take off on me while I went to get Stella.

About that time she realized that Stella was not out in the field with her. She stopped and studied the air with her nose, turned looking for Stella and then realized that Stella had snuck off to the 'far right corner' without her. She sprinted faster than my camera could react ... doing the normal 'nose touch' telling Stella to head back with her.

It's amazing how Sadie can be sprinting full speed and stop within inches of Stella's nose without a collision.

And as directed by Sadie with that 'nose tap' ... Stella followed her command, both running along the edge of the field.

With the wind blowing stronger than I have felt in a while the deer scent must have been stronger than previous days. By the way they were reacting I was certain I would be sprinting after them by the time I got to the area where we turn to go home.

Can you tell from this picture it's 35° and not 80° ?? I guess the condition of the field is a dead give a way.

It took some stern verbal commands of "come on" a few times to get these two partners in crime to move. Stubborn stubborn stubborn.

Reluctantly Stella headed back and Sadie sprinted ahead of both of us.

With my glove missing, I wanted to make sure it was not in the field where we started our walk. I did this with the most expensive Sony Erickson flip phone many years ago when they first came out and couldn't find it. Luckily, I had a second phone from work that I could call my personal phone and track the ringing in the field to find it.

Today was different ... I told the two bloodhounds with the infamous strong noses "we have to find my glove" ... it was funny as they reacted as if they understood what I was talking about ... putting their noses to the ground and their tails curled upward.

Sadie searched and searched as Stella and I walked into the backyard. She added some additional radar with her ears rolled up together as if they were tied. That's what happens when a bloodhound is sprinting while she is sniffing.

Or ... it's cold and it's time to get back inside.

It's nice to have the sunshine because that mentally takes away some thoughts of just how cold it was this morning. A high of 51° will arrive late afternoon. All the small twigs and one tree limb were picked up out of the yard yesterday and the 2018 burn pile has been started. I may have to drive over to the grocery isle to pick up the rest of the food needed for Thursday, before the shelves are empty from a mass panic from last minute shoppers.

I am going to stick to only two pies this year, pumpkin of coarse and pecan. It's hard to cook for just one person so there will be plenty left over that will get me through 4 days of college football and some college basketball mixed in.

Heidi is in her all out winter hibernation. She doesn't want to go outside, doesn't like having her picture taken and will only appear alive with a pulse to eat breakfast and lunch. There is no depression involved with her, just her normal cold weather routine.

A lot of progress the last few days inside and out .. all is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.