I posted that I was going to Blackhat with nothing more than my iPhone. Since someone found that interesting (and linked to my article) I figured I’d throw out my fidings:

The Good:

There was Nothing I couldn’t do that I needed to. The iPhone provided me with entertainment (music, movies, books), kept me in the loop at work (email, appointments, IM) and kept me in touch with my other friends at the con (blew waaay through my 200 SMS cap). I flat LOVE this phone.

The Bad:

Blackhat/DEFCON is all about hacking. Being a security professional, It kinda sucked not being able to slurp evil packets with the rest of my comrades.When I return (and I WILL return), I’ll have a sacrificial lamb in tow for doing nasty networky things.

The Ugly:

Both conventions announced that schedule updates would occur via twitter. No problem, in fact, there’s a coulple of cool twitter iPhone apps. I downloaded twitteriffic and created an account.

My email is secure, I’m making sure I’m using https where I can, I’m making sure I have WiFi off when I use twitteriffic (it doesn’t appear to use a secure connection.) Guess what makes it to the sheepwall? Me! :O

Now, Racecar drivers know if you never ever wreck, you’re not racing fast enough. I’m not sure if that happens in the Security realm, but hey, I’ve seen and participated in enough ‘events’ that it doesn’t bug me much anymore. The account was a throwaway account, and the simple, easily cracked password was a gimmie. The Sheep Wall operators offer to take your name off the wall, but really, if THEY know your name and password, a dozen OTHER folks in the same room do too.

So, can a guy spend a week with an iPhone, the sync cable, and the USB charger? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Without reservations. Would I return to Defcon so equipped? Naw man, I wanna roll around in the mud with everybody else.

I’m running off to a week at Blackhat/DEFCON, in what may be a VERY misplaced idea, I’ll be living entirely out of my iPhone for the week. We’ll see how THAT goes.

If I don’t get this pictures linked to the homepage, I’ll never send them out to friends and family…then they’ll never be seen. That would be bad.

So: Parkerdays 2008

Hammonds Candies Tour

2008 GoldenSupercruise

My OLD ANCIENT WEBSITE, circa 1997 (WITH WEDDING PICTURES!)

The Highlands Ranch Hotrod show 2008

There. Lots of pictures. Go look at em!

Nothing to see here, just posting from an iPhone…that’s just so friggen sweet!

In the off hope that someone actually _subscribed_ to the RSS feed, I figured I’d update you on whay you hvan’t heard anything from me for awhile. Truth is, the server’s been broken for a bit. If you’re in the industry, you’ll know about, and can peg the reason on Debian and their problems with OpenSSL.

Turns out the fix is as bad as the problem when you’re not physically sitting at the box. Updating the conf files turns off password authentication…meaning, if you’re not sitting at the console and you update the configuration…you’re locked out.

So, two weeks of downtime while I got around to fixing the problem. And I’ve got three weeks for news, photos and events to catch up on….when I get around to it.

Just ignore this, it’s subliminal.

Picture Gallery Here

I bought a 1 Tb external drive about 6 months ago. It’s two 500 gb drives in a single box, with a controller, and a $0.60 fan.

The fan failed at some point in time. I went down to the file server one day to find that the unit was almost too hot to handle. 

I replaced the fan with a $7 fan from microcenter, but in doing so, noticed a couple of things:

• It would have cost the manufacturer $2 to install a better fan
• the fan would be a heckuva lot more efficient if there wasn’t a GREAT BIG CIRCUITBOARD blocking the airflow.
• If I set the drives upright and left an airgap, the drives stay almost as cool as if I used a fan.
• If the fan works AND there’s an airgap, the drives are cold to the touch.

It’s stable, abstracts the distances between the mounting holes (so absolute dimensions were less important) uses a minimum of materials, and did everything I needed it to. Now the drive array is COLD, and I know that when (not if) the fan fails, the drives will happily hum along until such time as a power surge or failed bearing ends their service. In the meantime, I have a second set of backups.

PhotoGallery

Release. The sudden relief of pressure that comes from the end of something. The last exam, the successful dinnerparty, Hearsecon 08.

(Click the above, eventually you’ll get to a great 3000×10000 panorama of the day)

The run-up to last weekend was a 6 week journey into the unknown. We’ve got a new to us car, unfamiliar technology, and a dead…uh…deadline as it were. Axle in, drum brakes bled, various fluids filled (and refilled), and success. Belfry ran great! I never got that call. (’That Call’ being something along the lines of ‘the Hearse is dead, I’ve called AAA, get a hole made in the garage’) Don’t get me wrong, I love working on cars. I take great satisfaction in conquering problems. But when it’s not _my_ car, and there’s a looming date on the horizon, and I’ve torn into three or four major subsystems. I was nervous. But that’s not what this entry is about. This entry is about

HEARSECON!

(all images link to progressively larger pics. If you like something, keep going - they keep getting bigger, but have a care for my limited bandwidth. ) 

A long (and I do mean long) weekend of people, cars, shows, movies, and friendship, Hearsecon seemed a lot like the other car club shows I’ve attended, with some slight differences. In every group I’ve been in in the past, there’s the usual spectrum of people, the aloof, the obsessive-compulsive, the dedicated - pinching every penny possible to celebrate the hobby they love. Hearsecon was the same way…they just moved the boundaries a little further in every direction.

It’s the first car gathering I’ve been to with belly dancers, a cappella, and people blowing fire. 

It’s the first gathering where the average gas milage was less than 10 mpg.

The first gathering where the only candy-apple-metalfleck was in the lipstick. 

The first gathering where I discovered that a casket makes a pretty damn good speakerbox. 

And looking through the windshield of a hearse makes for a pretty good Drive-In experience. 

Several more great pictures here!

Update: It made Jalopnik too: http://jalopnik.com/389936/hearse-convention-defies-convention

The official Hearsecon website is here: http://www.hearseclub.com/hearsecon/hearsecon.htm 

I mentioned to some folks that our hearse got it’s picture took, the behind the scenes pics (heretofore unreleased) are here: http://www.millertwinracing.com/photoshoot

The original announcment is here:

In a completely unexpected turn of events, our Hearse was requested for a photoshoot. Some of you know this already, some don’t. Whelp, here are the results:

http://www.hearseclub.com/hearsegirls/natasha_rae/natasha_rae.htm

(My wife says you’re to ignore ‘Natasha’.)

A 42 year old car, that’s spent some time at rest, will have….issues. While a mid 60’s car is pretty dead simple to work on, a new-to-you dead simple car still takes some effort to figure out. In the 250 miles or so we’ve put on the car, a noise started making itself known. It was a howl that changed with road speed, from 0-30 mph or so, until the rest of the noises at speed drowned it out. There’s no radio to turn up and drown it out, and there’s not enough sound deadener to ignore the noise.

Based on some advice, we had to determine _where_ the noise was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from up front, but some sage advice from the Hearse Club president had me jacking the car up, front and back, testing for the noise. The front bearings were smooth and in good shape. The back end, while it made noise while up in the air, it wasn’t the same noise it made under load. 

I pulled the drain plug on the diff and dipped a coat hanger in….the oil that came out had glisteny bits. That’s never a good sign. (except this time, live and learn. But I’m getting ahead of myself)

The Axle was rusty, wet, and at this time I’d assumed that it was eating itself up. The car’s been stored a long time, no telling what shape it was in. The car’s in the garage, it’s up in the air, and I think there’s shavings in the diff lube. My copy of the 1966 Service Manual says:

NOTE: Whenever a carrier is removed because of scored gears, worn bearings, or any failure that might cause dirt or metal chips, remove axle housing from car for thorough cleaning before new carrier is installed. Also check axle shaft assemblies and clean as necessary. 

That means I’ve gotta pull the axles and fully clean the whole rear end. No problem…I’ll just cut a 1 foot square hole in the wall so I can pull the driver’s side axle. Nope. Sucker’s comin’ out. If it’s coming out, I’m having an expert look at it.

Cut off wheel, a sprained wrist, and a softball sized bruise on my wife’s upper arm later, the axle’s in the truck and on it’s way to the driveline shop.

Two days later I discover NOBODY knows ANYTHING about Cadillac Controlled Differentials. Nobody. Google, Classic car forums, my go-to GM rear-end guy, nobody. The driveline shop doesn’t even have a clue on how to begin the disassembly of the carrier and is afraid to do so. (With good reason.) One of the driveline guys has a pretty good point: “Maybe nobody knows about them because they don’t break?”

That said, the diff looks like it’s in good shape. The bearings are smooth, the gears look fine, and there’s minimal lash. I must have scraped the bottom of the carrier and picked up the shavings on the bottom from it’s initial break-in period. They diptank it, charge me a reasonable diagnostic fee and it’s back in the truck for reinstallation. (Thanks Front Range driveline, I’ll send more work your way when I have it) Worse comes to worse, I found an axle assembly at a junkyard, I can get it if necessary, but my gut is saying the noise isn’t coming from the axle. There’s still the size long segmented driveshaft and a carrier bearing, but that’s for later diagnosis. (Like I said, I couldn’t get the noise to happen with the car in the air and no load.

Which comes to the reassembly. Let’s get the out of the way: POR15 Rocks! I bought a sixpack of the paint and was a little concerned when they were these little 4 oz jobbies. Turns out I needed about 4 1/4 oz to paint everything.

Before:  After:

Before:  

After:  

Big Picture here (you really should, they’re in much higher detail…and there’s a spinning bannana)

I just have to get a few u-bolts, a shackle, some break lines, and the car’ll be back on the road.

Lessons learned: Wear eye protection and a respirator when grinding away at rust, the respirator pucks were nicely orange when I was done…and POR15 is _nasty_, don’t get it on you, and fer chrissakes, don’t breathe it!