What made me happy today?

This evening I was feeling somewhat sullen when walking back from the store (weeks of being sick, months of gloomy and unpleasant weather, and various stuff, all adding up to a kind of ambient distemper). Then I see this big, beautiful puppy coming towards me with a loooooooong stick in his mouth, long enough to constitute a traffic hazard (no, not really, but damn long, this stick was). I'm hardly an expert on canine body language, but what I picked up was bouncy happiness and pride. Couldn't for the life of me keep from smiling. But it gets better! Stopped for a little chat with the owner, and the dog trots over to me, so I get to give the good lad some pets and scratches, and congratulate him on his very lovely stick. I was assured he'd get to take his treasure all the way home and keep it. Man, talk about an instant mood boost!
 
Yoshi Takaoka, manager and head sommelier at Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Masaki Sushi, has become one of 46 people in the world – and the only Canadian – to earn a master sake sommelier designation.

Used to have a several Junmais and Diaginjos on the menu at my sushi joint, then three or four, then one, then basically none. Couldn't sell it anymore. Even the hipster joints in town started dropping it eventually.
 
I caught a scammer at work yesterday. This person (whoever he/she is) sent two identical emails to my work email within 30 minutes of each other, and the same email to customer service and to another department, within two minutes of that, asking me for a financial statement. Now:

1. He sent these emails on Monday, which was a public holiday here;
2. He signed the emails "Rachel Skye", but the email address was "at******@ptd.com" (email address censored by me, to protect this person's identity);
3. The business he was pretending to be emailing from is one we haven't dealt with in 8 years, so it makes no sense to ask for a statement now; and
4. When I googled "What is ptd.com", I found it's an ISP in Pennsylvania ... and the company I work at is in Australia. And we do no business in the USA.

Sigh. More red flags than a May Day rally. ;) Obviously, I reported this direct to IT, deleted and blocked this email, and warned my department and everyone else not to do anything for this guy.

It felt good to catch someone in the act like that. :)
 
I'm not the right person to comment on this, since my range is roughly B2 to F4 (give or take a couple of notes either way), so anything approaching F6 seems impressively otherworldly to me. ;) Well done!

I can approximate mezzo if I use my falsetto (did "The Sound of Music" easily the other day), but I'm far more comfortable in the lower octaves, naturally.
 
(Hits the F three octaves above middle C on my piano)

Me too!
Congratulations! You are very skilled at button pushing. :)
I'm not the right person to comment on this, since my range is roughly B2 to F4 (give or take a couple of notes either way), so anything approaching F6 seems impressively otherworldly to me. ;) Well done!

I can approximate mezzo if I use my falsetto (did "The Sound of Music" easily the other day), but I'm far more comfortable in the lower octaves, naturally.
Thank you! And B2 is amazingly low. You should be proud of it. I know I have been posting a lot about my singing lately, but it makes me so happy to realize I can still grow. Because I was really worried D#6 would be the very top of my range. While it is still impressive, I wanted to figure out if I had a whistle register. I have heard some people don't? So, finally feeling like I got over the singing bump makes me SO happy. But like D6, F6 when I bubble (because I can't SING it right now), seems easier than the transition note before it.

And oh! That sounds cool. Would love to hear that.
 
I ordered a new gas tank for the car since the current one looks like something straight out of Chernobyl. It's a big tank from a Polish company, sold through a German eBay storefront at retail price... with just a five euro shipping price from Poland to Greece.
It arrived today. I honestly expected to open the box and find bricks, but it really, really was the proper gas tank. I still cannot for the life of me comprehend how they shipped it for five euros. And it only took a week to arrive!

Seriously, how...? I just don't understand it. But I am certainly not complaining! Now once the new pump gets here, I can finally do away with the rotted fuel system.
 
did this in singing practice. I think I figured out my whistle register. Finally! Did this with bubbles, so my voice is okay.
Wow, just... wow!
well done.
 
It arrived today. I honestly expected to open the box and find bricks, but it really, really was the proper gas tank. I still cannot for the life of me comprehend how they shipped it for five euros. And it only took a week to arrive!

Seriously, how...? I just don't understand it. But I am certainly not complaining! Now once the new pump gets here, I can finally do away with the rotted fuel system.
Glad to hear it. RockAuto? I bought a gasket set that came with cylinder head bolts, but just learned yesterday the particular vendor I chose sent me the wrong ones. I double checked that I had ordered it for the correct car (Mercury Sable 1997 OHV). Oh well. I'm not going to chase after them about a $30 thing when I'm saving a bit more than that on the whole.

Do you have to replace the whole pump assembly, or can you get away with just changing the pump itself? Bit of a price difference. I did the latter on my Corolla some years back, but nothing was rotten or anything.
 
Glad to hear it. RockAuto?
No RockAuto in Greece. We have the French Autodoc and a couple of others. Autodoc did have the exact tank in stock but they couldn't ship it because of its size.

Do you have to replace the whole pump assembly, or can you get away with just changing the pump itself? Bit of a price difference.
I did replace just the pump out of necessity. The fuel sender was destroyed by the black tar 10 year old gas converted to. The market didn't have any OEM replacements for the assembly so I just cleaned it and dropped a new pump inside. The sender was beyond repair so I just threw it away and figured I'd just have to make due without one.

However, after a lot of research, I figured out that a Chinese company makes replacement pump assemblies for my Corsa B, just for ones that have single-point injection systems.

The actual pump won't work because of that (it won't produce enough pressure for my four-point injection system). But the sender and assembly should be compatible. It should be just a case of: swap 1 bar pump with my current 3 bar pump to the Chinese assembly and hopefully I have a fuel gauge again.

I bought a gasket set that came with cylinder head bolts
Car parts can be a nightmare. The fuel filter I installed along with the pump had to be changed five times from the place I bought it from, and it STILL didn't fit! It just kind of popped off while the engine was running. That could have, er, been bad if the fuel sprayed on the hot exhaust. I ended up having to zip tie it into place because I was done playing part lottery.

I'm guessing you have a blown head gasket if you're doing all that.
 
No RockAuto in Greece. We have the French Autodoc and a couple of others. Autodoc did have the exact tank in stock but they couldn't ship it because of its size.

I did replace just the pump out of necessity. The fuel sender was destroyed by the black tar 10 year old gas converted to. The market didn't have any OEM replacements for the assembly so I just cleaned it and dropped a new pump inside. The sender was beyond repair so I just threw it away and figured I'd just have to make due without one.

However, after a lot of research, I figured out that a Chinese company makes replacement pump assemblies for my Corsa B, just for ones that have single-point injection systems.

The actual pump won't work because of that (it won't produce enough pressure for my four-point injection system). But the sender and assembly should be compatible. It should be just a case of: swap 1 bar pump with my current 3 bar pump to the Chinese assembly and hopefully I have a fuel gauge again.

Car parts can be a nightmare. The fuel filter I installed along with the pump had to be changed five times from the place I bought it from, and it STILL didn't fit! It just kind of popped off while the engine was running. That could have, er, been bad if the fuel sprayed on the hot exhaust. I ended up having to zip tie it into place because I was done playing part lottery.
Haha fuel going everywhere is kind of scary.

Dude, lack of OEM sucks. Or sometimes it's labelled as OEM but it still isn't really. There's sort of a helpless shrug from the vendor when it comes to basic compatibility as well as machining quality (e.g. if I had to buy new heads, are they good out of the box? Apparently not). And you only really find out when when you're putting that damn thing in/on, or worse, when you start the motor. Doesn't help that it's probably not a job you do every Tuesday, so the question of "Am I the problem?" comes up too.

I'm guessing you have a blown head gasket if you're doing all that.
Yes, and I'm hoping it ends there. It's my first head gasket job, which makes me wish it had been a simple four cylinder car.

I do take my cars in to the shop annually for checkup, but it never occurred to them or me to change the coolant. I think the thing had the same coolant in it for 15+ years :(. Coolant leak + coolant in exhaust and drastic loss of compression in cylinders 5 and 6, but they were all about to go. No sign of milky oil though.

So I've done the water pump, a friend machined down the heads, I replaced the expansion plugs in the head for good luck, and I've just reinstalled said heads yesterday (had to pay a premium for the local auto supply to ship me the correct bolts but I need to get this done). Will have to run some cleaner through the coolant system afterwards and hope for the best.

I'm not taking the whole engine out and completely disassembling for crud. Likewise I'm not bother with the timing chain cover and oil pan. If it's that messed up, I'm out. Just cleaning gasket surfaces has made me want to run around the Overlook Hotel with an axe.

If I had a lot to lose, I wouldn't let Stuart near it, but it's a 1997 American car: sort of DNR in my mind.
 
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