As promised here is an update on my car:

• I have a new rack and pinion steering rack.
• My coolant system is now functioning normally needs a little more work.
• My air conditioning blows like an Alaskan breeze hot breath an Alaskan breeze (again).
• My window seals are no longer crap.

Still needed/desired:

• Brakes.
• Exhaust repairs.
• Light body work.
• New audio system.
• Shorter shifter knob.

Update: looks like I might be heading back for some more work after all.

People who know me in person are aware that I am not the biggest fan of having my birthday celebrated. My eighteenth was celebrated as was my twenty-first, but as far as the rest I really do not see the point. Servers in restaurants singing to customers with birthdays disturb me too, but that is a matter for another discussion.

My only point here was that I completely missed a birthday of sorts and thought I would mention it now. While I have maintained a commercial and/or personal site presence in one form or another on the internet since the mid-to-late 1990's, the present incarnation of this site passed the one-year mark on 04 September. My previous personal website on this domain did not contain nearly the features as this site, but went online in January 2001. Prior to 2001, my side-business commercial ventures were available online at sctonline.com, a domain name which I let expire due to non-relevance with current projects.

In any event, thank you for stopping by and helping make this little experiment more fun than I had expected.

There had been several things I was planning to spend some money on soon, my car being one of them. As my automotive luck would have it, I will be doing just that today — by replacing components in the rack and pinion steering system.

Last Wednesday afternoon on my way back from lunch my steering wheel started to behave very strangely and control of the car went into a variable. The "slop" or give in the resistance of the steering gave out completely, creating a possibly dangerous situation as far as total loss of vehicular control. However, the damage was not yet to the extent that it came to that. Maintaining a firm hold on the wheel, particular during any turns or curves, prevented the car from making turns on its own. An inspection of the RPS gearbox revealed the rack-and-pinion gearset where the wheel gear (pinion) meshes with the toothed rack converting rotary to reciprocating motion (and vice versa), was chewed-up pretty badly and only getting worse.

At the highest recommendation from someone I work with at the office and who I have done on-site support for recently, I took my car in to a local repair shop early this morning where I was given an 80% change of repair completion today (the parts are not slated to arrive at the shop until 1400 EDT, leaving only three hours for installation).

I was instructed to ring the repair shop at 1600 EDT to check on the status of the installation and to determine whether I will be with vehicle this weekend. An update will follow subsequent to that time, so stay tuned.

Well my weekend trip with Chris to Clermont was quite wonderful. A look at the local radar Saturday morning revealed some large pockets of showers and thunderstorms were going to roll through central Florida around the time we would be en route to Clermont. The speed and direction of the storms, however, seemed to indicate we would drive through them on the way there, but that by the time we arrived they would be gone completely. Fortunately, I was correct and the weather was rather nice the entire time.

After a breakfast stop at Dan's Restaurant, we made our way to Clermont and first hit the Citrus Tower. It was as much a pleasure to visit as it had been for me during my visit earlier in the week whilst taking pictures for work. Chris enjoyed it very much as well, which really made me happy. We stayed up on the observation level for some time peering out at the view, stopping to drop some coins down a chute that allows you listen to them as they make their way all the way down to the first floor.

We continued to the historic downtown area and to the fishing pier at Lake Minneola. After enjoying that for a while, we moved on to the Lakeridge Winery for the tour and tasting. After browsing through the shop for a bit, the tour began with a fifteen-minute video highlighting the history of wine making in Florida and of the Lakeridge Winery specifically. I found this video very interesting and learned a lot about wine I had not known previously. After the video, a guide took everyone through the production area of the winery detailing the various functions of the equipment and providing information on their output.

Presently they produce 100,000 gallons (379,000 litres) of wine every season. Even with that output, they are still running out prematurely so they have added another production line that doubles their output. Their product line includes ten varieties ranging from dry to sweet and while they do hold a distribution license, the Lakeridge Winery does not sell its product in but very few, select retail stores. The rest of their business comes exclusively from on-site sale and direct shipping.

After trying their varieties of wine through the tasting, Chris and I both went back to the shop and made some purchases. I got a bottle of the Cuvée Noir Reserve and Muscadine Chablis while he elected to get three of his favourites. I am very much looking forward to enjoying my wine.

We came back in the late afternoon and just enjoyed the rest of the day. I was really happy to have been able to not only go out and do something different, something rather simple yet so enjoyable, but also to share it with someone who found an appreciation in it as well. I believe this trip will be the first of many as I plan to purchase a book that has various back road day trips to places around central Florida. Simple, inexpensive and incredibly enjoyable, I think I may have discovered something else I have been missing.

Footnote: Pictures from this trip are located here.