The Tactical Panda's Sometimes Funny Great White Money Pit Build and Observations on Life thread.

Me at Carlisle this year.

 

Some people pretend to know it all, as in they are masters of all disciplinary sciences, capable to understand everything and anything. The truth and reality is: there are no such geniuses. You can say Davinci, Newton, Beethoven, Einstein, Paul Allen, among the many, are geniuses in a field or area of expertise, but far from knowing all the mysteries of the world, let alone the Universe and beyond. That's simply an unquestionable fact. Hence, some people reject God and rely only on science and the material, unable to understand the soul, spirituality, the intangible and the unexplainable. Bear in mind that a theory is not a proven fact, but basically it is a "more likely than not," or not totally sure, premise(s) building up to a conjecture or theory.

Therefore, way beyond our expectations and understandings of God, there is God himself. Hence, no matter how much you know about God, there is always more than you perceive or comprehend. Accepting those human limitations allows me to trust and rely on GOD, without attempting to explain everything based on materialism and science. In other words: In God We Trust is what our Christian faith based on. All others carry on.

 

Forgot to mention that the Mrs. and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary last Friday. Plus, we dated for six years before we tied the knot. That's longer than most marriages these days.

 

Congrats!

 

Busy day at the Dog House today and hotter than Papa Bear's Porridge. Simply standing outside in a white T-Shirt and I begin to sweat like a whore on Dollar Day.

So anyway I got the ditch light brackets that @Dhannah sold me along with some Rigid floods I picked up at Carlisle two weeks ago. Don't have them operational yet; I need a new way to get the wires through the firewall. The big grommet where the main wiring harness goes through is completely max'd out so I'm working on a second pass-thru. Ordered some parts but probably won't have everything until next week.



Also figured out the right switches to use with my @Iggy panel. Only the seat heaters are hooked up at this time but the rest soon will be.



Stay tuned. The best is yet to come.

 

By the way, I solved the more-wires-through-the-firewall problem with one of these guys:

$15 Daystar, Universal Firewall Boot, Single, Accommodates 3/8" to 1" Diameter Wire Bundles, fits any vehicle that needs a wire loom, KU20040BK, Made in America , Black

https://www.amazon.com/Daystar-Univ...8&qid=1535335891&sr=8-1&keywords=daystar+boot



I drilled a 1-inch hole kind of Southeast of the factory pass-through and inserted this. Tore the shit out of my hand reaching up to grab the wires (the parking brake pedal bracket is in the way and it has sharp edges) and it was bleeding like I was competing at a Blood Bank but I got everything through OK. The ditch lights work now.

 

And here I proudly present my latest mod. Damn thing worked the very first time, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDWXk2OocQs

 

Why does everybody hate on Nickelback? This is a pretty good cover of a ZZ Top classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh9Q6BGGU50

 

No pictures of the new light bar install?

 

Here you go...

 

The End of the Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe's Cat

On a night quite unenchanting,
when the rain was downward slanting,
I awakened to the ranting
of the man I catch mice for.

Tipsy and a bit unshaven,
in a tone I found quite craven,
Poe was talking to a Raven perched
above the chamber door.

"Raven's very tasty," thought I,
as I tiptoed o'er the floor,
"There is nothing I like more".

Soft upon the rug I treaded,
calm and careful as I headed
Towards his roost atop that dreaded
bust of Pallas I deplore.

While the bard and birdie chattered,
I made sure that nothing clattered,
Creaked, or snapped, or fell, or shattered,
as I crossed the corridor;

For his house is crammed with trinkets,
curios and weird decor -
Bric-a-brac and junk galore.

Still the Raven never fluttered,
standing stock-still as he uttered,
In a voice that shrieked and sputtered,
his two cents' worth - "Nevermore."

While this dirge the birdbrain kept up,
oh, so silently I crept up,
Then I crouched and quickly leapt up,
pouncing on the feathered bore.

Soon he was a heap of plumage,
and a little blood and gore-
Only this and not much more.

"Oooo!" my pickled poet cried out,
"Pussycat, it's time I dried out!
Never sat I in my hideout
talking to a bird before.

How I've wallowed in self-pity,
while my gallant, valiant kitty
Put and end to that damned ditty" -
then I heard him start to snore.

Back atop the door I clambered,
eyed that statue I abhor,
Jumped - and smashed it on the floor.

-From Henry Beard's Poetry for Cats, copyright 1994

 

The dog and I went to ToyotaFest - East at Thompson's Motorsports park in Connecticut this past weekend. I took Friday off from work, left at 4:00am and arrived in Hartford, CT around 2:00pm. Hartford was the closest place that had a decent hotel but was still an hour away from the Park. I had e-connected with some Taco guys through a Facebook page and we all gathered at 9:00am at a shopping center about 10 minutes from the park, then all rolled in together.

Lucky me, they put me at a spot right next to the Porta-Potties. Actually, it turned out to be rather convenient.




My ever trustworthy dog Scooter got right down to business with his Chick Magnet duties.




Here is "Tacoma Row". A few more Tacos showed up after this pic was taken.




And when all was said and done, my truck took home its first trophy!





We went to Church Sunday morning and headed home at 8:00am. Got back to the Old Dominion about 4:00pm.

 

Congrats on the trophy and nicely built truck!

 

OK. I finally came up with a solution for a cover for that @CaliRaisedLed light bar. The cover they sent me, which is made by a third party, was a total piece of Brown Stuff.

Shortly after installing the bar I discovered that a Rigid Pod Light cover when turned 90 degrees snapped on perfectly to the Cali Raised bar.



So this gave me a delightfully awful idea: Build your own light bar cover and use Rigid pod covers to secure it to the Cali Raised bar.

Since the Internet is my BFF, the first thing I did was look for a place that supplies custom-cut Plexiglas. I found this outfit:

https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/acrylic_sheets_color/341

and ordered a piece of solid white acrylic plastic 52" x 3" x 1/8th". Had it in less than a week. I also ordered a couple of Rigid pod light covers from the Big-A.

Rigid Industries 20196 White Protective Polycarbonate Light Cover

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007NKQ1N0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The best stuff I've ever found to glue plastic is this:

UV Light Curing Glue Liquid Plastic Welder Adhesive Kit 5 Seconds Fix/Fill/Seal/Bond/Repair Almost Anything - Waterproof and Heat-Resistant-(4g+8g Bonus)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DM39WBK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So I ordered it was well.

In order for the pod covers to have a solid contact with with the acrylic strip, I sanded the fronts of the pod covers smooth. Since I don't have a bench-top belt sander, I improvised:




...so I could sand the front of the Rigid covers smooth.






The finished product:




Now to the assembly. I peeled off about 6 inches of the Acrylic strip's protective paper backing and carefully placed one of the pod covers on the end.




Applied the liquid glue.....




And set it with the UV light.



Repeated this process for all four edges and then attached the other pod at the other end of the Acrylic strip the same way.

And Voila! The final product installed on the Cali Bar.



I have a piece of Velcro strip temporarily wrapped around each end to help hold the new cover on. I'm hoping that by having it all sit out in the hot sun for a few days the heat will allow the new cover to shape itself into contouring with the light bar.

And @CaliRaisedLed, if you're reading this, could you send me a decal so I can decorate it up a little? Thanks.

Stay tuned.

 

Mr. Salty Dog; like your thread here...
#57. The tux... Yeah, wish I had of seen that rule a few decades ago, I am twice the man I was when I was 30, well at least in weight, anyhoo

 

Imagine a room, like the size of an aircraft hangar big enough to hold a 747. Now imagine covering the entire floor with thousands of mousetraps, all arranged in neat little rows and columns covering every square inch of floor space. And now imagine loading two ping-pong balls into the spring bar of each mouse trap.

Each ping-pong ball represents a thought.

Then someone opens a door to the room, tosses in a single ping-pong ball, closes the door and walks away. That ping-pong ball lands on a mousetrap causing it to spring and launch its two ping-pong balls into the air. Those two ping-pong balls go flying along with the first ping-pong ball and land on other mousetraps springing them and launching their ping-pong balls. These ping-pong balls, along with the others already in flight, go on to trigger other mousetraps etc. etc. etc. until thousands of ping-pong balls are all chaotically flying through the air in every which-what direction.

That's about how my brain feels most of the time.

 

I was bored one day so I made a pro-gun video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m92RHALL5e8&t=1s

 

Looking good in here!

 

The story is told of two old friends in the process of dying at the same time. One was rich, the other was poor. The rich man was not saved, and he was telling someone about his friend who was a Christian. "When I die," he said, "I shall have to leave my riches. When he dies, he will go to his riches."

In a word, he summed up the two radically different principles which govern the world.

 

Thought for the Day:

The biggest thing that screws up your life is the picture in your head of how things are supposed to be.