PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

I gave the house this name because the design made no sense; Like a lot of the houses we lived in over the years, it had four bedrooms and was built in the late 1980s (1988). However, the floor plan made the house seem 20-25 years older than it actually was!

The house had no high ceilings whatsoever (8-foot ceilings upstairs and downstairs) and felt very closed in. The master bedroom did not have walk-in closets, and the master bathroom had a single sink and either a shower stall or a tub/shower. There was no separate tub and shower, unlike pretty much every other house we had with the exception of the ones in California.

My dad was renting this house from Navy buddy who took really good care of it, so there we couldn’t really complain. However, well cared for and up to date are two totally different things!

Strangely enough, the house had a granite vanity top in the master bath but either laminate or really cheap solid surface counters in the kitchen.

The central A/C in that house leaked freon, and I’m 99% sure the unit was original to the house. It worked great when charged, but it had to be charged every year. The owner of the house paid to have it charged, which was good but often meant waiting longer than we should have for the repairman to come out. The tech recommended replacing the aging unit at least once, but the owner didn’t want to pay for it. That house had oil forced air heat, and the furnace was definitely original to the house, and it worked great but it had to be refilled every year and heating oil costs a fortune.

The furnace broke down once in late 2006 and a second time in early 2007. That house did not have double-paned windows, and it got below fifty degrees inside the house the second time it broke!

That house had public sewer, but relied on a well for water. When the power went out, there was no water pressure and we were unable to turn on the shower or flush the toilet. Whenever a big storm came, we would fill the bathtub with water.

The sump pump failed during a massive rainstorm in about September 2006 and we got close to a foot of water in the basement!

The built-in microwave only worked when it felt like it.

 

The neighbors across the street were apparently really close to the people we were renting the house from; One time in 2005, not long after we moved in, my parents and I pulled onto our street and discovered that the neighbors had done an intricate chalk mural on the street directly in front of our house, with a message saying how much they missed the family we were renting the house from! The purpose of this had been to take pictures and send them to the owners of the house.

They really knew how to make us feel welcome... NOT!



By the way, we were never particularly close to those neighbors!

 

@El Duderino
@Running Man
@Taco critter

If there is one thing in this world I cannot stand, it’s the metaphorical “mother hen.” I gave one the single-finger salute today.

I was at an intersection waiting to cross and it said don’t cross but there were no cars coming. Literally everybody crosses against the green. I started to do so, but then saw a Ford cargo van coming after I’d taken maybe two steps and decided against it. The bald prick in the cargo van had the nerve to tell me not to cross against the green as he drove past, and I flipped him off.

 

People drive like shit and can come out of nowhere. I wait for the walk signal no matter what. And plus here a cop will willing write you a ticket for 117 bucks.

 

Police don't really give a shit about jaywalking in Doylestown. If drunk bar patrons spill out into the streets, the cops will politely direct everyone back onto the sidewalk. As long you don't drive drunk or get caught taking a leak in public, you're good. Yes, I have done the latter after a night of drinking and gotten away with it!

 

I've discussed my love of country music before, and how I first came into contact with it; I'd say it started it really started in 1997, when we were living in California (in the second Navy base house, the bigger one with 3 bedrooms). Obviously, my mom wouldn't let me watch Nickelodeon while I was doing my homework; We compromised at music...

My mom would play her Reba McEntire and Wynonna Judd CDs on the stereo system in our living room; Oh what a glorious system that was! A Yamaha system with cassette, CD, and two huge speakers. That thing cranked, and I can remember being eight years old and begging my dad to play Born to Run over and over again on the damn thing (my dad introduced me to Springsteen on the CD player in the Pathfinder, sometime in 1997). My dad actually bought all of the components at the tax-free Navy Exchange while on deployment in Japan back in the 1980s, and brought them back home, along with a JVC Videomovie camcorder and two TVs!

The tradition continued when we lived in Virginia Beach, with my mom playing her CDs for me on the same 1980s JDM Yamaha system.

If you really want to go back far, my earliest exposure to country music started on the school bus in 1995-1996. The bus was a Bluebird flat-front cab-over-engine deal, and it happened to have a radio with a cassette player and speakers in the ceiling throughout the bus. Ah, bus #49...

Bus drivers in the North Penn School District who were lucky enough to have a bus with radio were forbidden from playing certain radio stations with young kids on the bus (one of my current favorites, 93.3 WMMR, was on the "forbidden" list). One of the local country stations was on the "approved" list, so this what Mr. Herman (the bus driver) typically had the radio on. There were a couple of 5th or 6th graders on the bus who did not like country music very much, and they occasionally busted my balls, but they ultimately tolerated it.

 

One of my favorite songs of all time is The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlies Daniels Band, and I can tell you exactly where I heard this song for the first time...

I was with my dad in a rented 1997 Ford Escort, somewhere in the Northeast (we had already moved back to California and I'd like to say this was Christmas 1996 but I have no way of knowing). All I know is that we had rented an "all-new" 1997 Escort. That song came on the radio and I asked my to turn it up. I also remember that it was dark out, and my mom was not in the car, and that I was in the backseat because the car had dual airbags, but I do not remember where we were coming from or going to.

 

My taste in music was heavily influenced by what my dad listened to, and it started in 1994-1995 in my dad's 1993 S-10 Blazer with a case full of cassettes. Before my mom introduced me to the aforementioned female country singers, I almost always listened to Disney soundtrack tapes when I was with her in the car (almost always the 1990 Camry). My all-time favorite was The Jungle Book, which I was torturing my dad with in his Mazda pickup as late as 1999. My dad had a cheap CD player installed in the Mazda in early 2000, so after that I was unable to listen to that Jungle Book tape in the Mazda anymore. I may have listened to it a couple of times in the GMC conversion van (which had a tape player) that we traded the Mazda for, and I last listened to it on a boombox in the basement in 2003 or 2004. I haven't seen it in at least fifteen years...

 

My mom regularly took me with her when we ran errands, and Natalie Imbruglia released her hit song Torn while we were living in California (sometime in 1997). My mom only left in the car for a few minutes at a time when we were on base, and it always seemed this song would come on the radio in the 1990 Camry when my mom left me briefly to make a withdrawal at the bank or mail something at the post office. I have fond memories of turning up the volume, at eight years old, and jamming to this song in my mom's Camry while I waited for her to run errands. Not a country song, but a fun childhood memories. More than 20 years later, I have this song on my iPod and am known to crank it up in my Tacoma from time to time!

 

Going back to country music, my uncle had a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans convertible that he'd turned into a GTO Judge clone. That car had a factory 4-speed, factory tilt wheel, power top, and no air-conditioning, but despite the lack of A/C I loved it. My uncle wanted the car to look stock but still have a killer stereo, so he left the factory radio in place and installed a high-end stereo cassette in the glovebox. I can remember riding in that car with my uncle and my cousin's during a visit to Pennsylvania in about April 1998, top down, with the radio on Cat Country 96.1, blasting the likes of Brooks & Dunn, Garth Brooks, and Toby Keith, among others. My uncle has always liked country music, so there was no disagreement over the radio station...

 

My parents officially moved into the Virginia Beach house in July 1998, but spent a few weeks getting it ready and didn't bring me down until August 1998. My dad had sold the 1990 Camry back in California, and quickly regretted doing so because that was such a great car (it only had about 80K miles and not a thing wrong with it). For the first couple of months we lived in Virginia Beach, we only had the 1996 Pathfinder while my dad looked for a suitable commuter. Luckily, my dad was away for work quite often during the first couple of months we lived there and the Pathfinder was all ours. In October 1998, my dad bought the 1990 Mazda B2600i 4x4 from its original owner for five grand (cash, of course) and we had two vehicles again.

Virginia Beach is well South of the Mason-Dixon Line, so of course there no less than three country stations in the area. The most popular and my favorite, was Eagle 97.3, which was actually based in Virginia Beach. The other two were 93.3 and 100.5 if I remember correctly. If one was on a commercial break or playing a song I didn't like, I had two other choices! The 1996 Pathfinder had a CD player, but I preferred listening to the radio, and I quickly developed a thing for Shania Twain. I've said it before and I will say it again...

YES I AM STRAIGHT, AND YES, I LIKE SHANIA TWAIN!!! I'm pretty sure that she was one of my earliest celebrity crushes too...

My mom liked country music, but my dad did not. Most time spent with my mom in a vehicle was spent in the Pathfinder, and most time with my dad was in the Mazda. The Mazda did not have a CD player, but luckily my dad had a few good cassettes including that Roy Orbison tape, plus I had The Jungle Book. My dad loved me more than he disliked country music, so he was willing to tolerate it fairly often.

Also, I'm amazed what I put up with in that Mazda with regards to the stereo. That truck was 8 years old and had over 90K miles on it when my dad bought it. It had the factory stereo with cassette, and the speakers were just about shot. They sounded okay if you didn't push it to its limits like I routinely do with the stereo I've presently got in my Tacoma, but if certain songs would be noticeably crackly. The Pathfinder did not have the coveted Bose system, but it was a more-than-decent 6-speaker system that sounded great. However, the Pathfinder had those damned dual airbags and at the time I liked riding in the front seat more than I liked having the latest in-vehicle audio equipment. The Mazda did not have ANY airbags, and the backseat was almost nonexistent; As a result, I can count the number of times I rode in the backseat of that truck on one hand!

Another good thing about the Mazda was that, being a 1990 model, it still used good ol' R-12! I have no reason to believe that the A/C system in that truck was ever serviced during its time with the original owner, and it worked great! The small cab cooled off quickly, and that A/C got us through a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures in the summer of 1999!

The summer of 1999 was when my interest in country music really peaked. My dad taught my mom how to drive stick shift in his 1983 Toyota Celica, and her first new car (a 1985 Ford Escort) was a stick shift. In 1999, at 40 years old, my mom quite accomplished in the art of the third pedal. However, the fact that the Mazda had a manual transmission had little to do with the fact that she did not like driving it. The truck was almost ten years old and quite unrefined compared to the Pathfinder. It also lacked safety features like airbags and 4-wheel ABS (pretty sure it had ABS, but only on the back brakes...?) It also had much larger blind spots than the Pathy when backing up, and among other things it had an oil leak (those Mitsubishi engines, man)...

However, I hated riding in the backseat unless both of my parents were along for the ride (in which case I didn't have a choice). I loved riding shotgun! Like I said, my mom knows how to drive a stick shift, so we came to compromise. Every other day during the summer, my dad would take the Pathfinder to work and we would get the Mazda. Also, it's not like the Mazda was significant downgrade. It had working air-conditioning, didn't it?!?!

 

So by 1999, we didn't have many cassette tapes (mostly CDs). This meant that when I was with my mom in the Mazda, we almost always listened to the radio. With three country stations on tap, this wasn't an issue...

When going shopping or taking me to swimming lessons, that radio was almost always on Eagle 97.3! Songs I regularly heard on the radio in 1999 and particularly liked were:

• Drive Me Wild by Sawyer Brown (my favorite at the time; not really a country song in my opinion, but it got heavy airplay on Eagle 97.3)
• I'll Think of a Reason Later by Lee Ann Womack
• Something Like That by Tim McGraw (which was released in June 1999)
• Down at the Twist and Shout by Mary Chapin Carpenter
• This Kiss by Faith Hill
  
• Whatever You Say by Martina McBride
• The Greatest by Kenny Rogers
• Busy Man by Billy Ray Cyrus
• Unbelievable by Diamond Rio
• How Forever Feels by Kenny Chesney
  
• Don't Laugh at Me by Mark Wills
  
• Pretty much everything by Alan Jackson
  
• Pretty much everything by Brooks & Dunn
• Pretty much everything by Garth Brooks
• Pretty much everything by George Strait
  
• Pretty much everything by Shania Twain

One time in the Mazda, I can remember actually cranking Any Man of Mine (Shania Twain) and singing along with my mom!

 

Don't Laugh at Me, by Mark Wills, particularly got to me; Specifically, these lines in the song...

"I'm the cripple on the corner
You've passed me on the street
And I wouldn't be out here beggin'
If I had enough to eat
And don't think I don't notice
That our eyes never meet

I lost my wife and little boy when
Someone crossed that yellow line
The day we laid them in the ground
Is the day I lost my mind
And right now I'm down to holdin'
This little cardboard sign, so

Don't laugh at me
Don't call me names
Don't get your pleasure from my pain
In God's eyes we're all the same
Someday we'll all have perfect wings
Don't laugh at me"

​

It was the first time I every really analyzed song lyrics, and it was one of those few country songs I liked that didn't involve (A) romance, (B) thinly veiled references to having sex, (C) drinking and/or getting drunk, or (D) cars and trucks. It's a truly powerful song, but I didn't understand parts of it at first. We were in the Mazda listening to the song when I asked my mom what the singer meant when he said "someone crossed that yellow line". My mom explained to me that the man's wife and son were killed in a car accident when somebody crossed the dividing line and hit them head on.

 

When I was ten years old, I did not know what sex was, but I knew that the terms "gay" and "homosexual" referred to men who liked other men. I did not know what a lesbian was (I wouldn't learn that until 6th or 7th grade; My aunt would regularly bring her girlfriends around in the 1990s and early 2000s, and I was almost old enough to drive before I even suspected she was a lesbian). As such, songs with lyrics about "making love" or thinly veiled references to sex acts went right over my head. A perfect example would be ZZ Top's Pearl Necklace. When I was a kid, I would have taken it literally and believed that Billy Gibbons was singing about giving his girlfriend an actual piece of jewelry.

My dad gave me the "where babies come from" talk when I was in 5th grade, so I was probably 11. I knew all about sex by the time I was 14, but embarrassingly, a female friend had to explain to me what PMS was in high school (age 14 or 15). I learned about S&M and bondage when I accidentally came across what I believe was Pulp Fiction on TV at the age of maybe 14, and it happened to be on the pawn shop scene.

 

I continued to regularly listen to country music all the way through high school; I listened to 94.1 KMPS (out of Seattle; no longer a country station as of 2017) when we lived on Whidbey Island from 2000 to 2002. When we lived in Northern Virginia from 2002 to 2005, 98.7 WMZQ out of Washington DC was my favorite station. I've been back in Pennsylvania since 2005, and while I listen to country music on my iPod or CDs, I rarely listen to it on the radio. The station closest to me 92.5 XTU in Philly, but I can also pick up Cat Country 96.1 out of Bethlehem.

Currently, the station I listen to the most is 93.3 WMMR, a rock station also out of Philly. I also listen to 95.7 BEN FM, another rock/classic rock station, and occasionally 102.9 MGK. I can pick up 99.9 The Hawk (which is broadcasts from Bethlehem like Cat Country 96) as far away as Newtown, but I can't pick up WMMR very good when I'm in the Lehigh Valley. During the holidays, I listen to 101.1 MORE FM because they play Christmas music from right after Thanksgiving until just after Christmas.

 

While I'm talking about the period of 1998-1999, I would to point out that I was officially diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome in November 1998. I was 9 year old. My parents made the decision not to tell me because they didn't think I'd understand at the time. I found out two years later, when I went through my mom's files when my parents were enrolling me in a new school (we'd just moved) and found all the stuff about Aspergers Syndrome. I was initially a bit pissed that my parents kept this from me, but I got over it.

 

A month or so ago, I gave my friend Mike (the sound guy from Puck) a ride home because his truck was getting inspected. We were listening to Meat Loaf in my Tacoma, and Mike commented that he glad that my friends and I liked real music and not the "new shit" being produced today.

My favorite song EVER is Once Bitten Twice Shy by Great White; In alphabetical order, here are just some of the other groups and individual singers I enjoy...

• Aerosmith
• Alice in Chains
• The Allman Brothers Band
  
• The Band
• The Beach Boys
  
• The Beatles
  
• Billy Idol
• Billy Joel
• Bob Seger
  
• Boston
• Boz Scaggs
  
• Brian Adams
• Brooks & Dunn
  
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
• The Charlie Daniels Band
• Cheap Trick
  
• Chuck Berry
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
  
• David Bowie
• Deep Purple
  
• Def Leppard
• Dexy’s Midnight Runners
• Dire Straits
• The Doors
  
• Elton John
• Elvis Costello
• Elvis Presley
  
• Eminem
• Eric Clapton
  
• Fats Domino
• Fine Young Cannibals
  
• Frank Sinatra
• Garth Brooks
• Gene Pitney
• Glen Campbell
• The Glorious Sons
  
• The Go-Gos
  
• Golden Earring
• The Grateful Dead
• Great White
• Halestorm
  
• Hank Williams Jr.
• Harry Chapin
  
• Huey Lewis and the News
  
• Jimmy Buffett
• Joe Jackson
• John Denver
  
• John Mellencamp
• Johnny Horton
• Journey
• Kim Wilde
• Laura Branigan
  
• Linda Ronstadt
• Lionel Richie
  
• Led Zeppelin
• Loverboy
  
• Meat Loaf
• Michael Jackson
• Nazareth
  
• Neil Diamond
  
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Pat Benatar
  
• Pearl Jam
• Pink Floyd
• Plain White T's
  
• The Platters
• The Police
• The Pretty Reckless
  
• Prince
  
• Queen
  
• Quiet Riot
• R.E.M.
  
• Ray Charles
• Rod Stewart
  
• The Rolling Stones
• Roxy Music
• Roy Orbison
  
• Rush
• Sabaton
• Sammy Hagar
  
• Shania Twain
  
• Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
• The Spinners
  
• Squeeze
• Stevie Ray Vaughn
  
• Tim McGraw
  
• Toby Keith
  
• Tool
• Triumph
  
• Trivium
  
• U2
  
• Whitesnake
  
• The Who
• X
  
• Y&T
• ZZ Top

I have cranked songs by every one of these artists, and many more, in my truck numerous times!

 

As a whole, a this head unit has been pretty reliable...

I bought it on Crutchfield in March 2018 and will never buy from Crutchfield again, because the bastards narc'd me out to the Pennsylvania government; I got a tax bill when I filed my tax return, 13 months after I bought the damn radio! That's another story though.

So, for the last year and a half, my radio will randomly shut off and reboot itself, seemingly almost always when I'm listening to my iPod. I will also sometimes have to turn off the radio and turn it back on when listening to my iPod, because my iPod will play but I will not get any sound.

I keep the illumination on my radio set to orange, to match my dashboard lights. Most recently (as in today), I realized that it was illuminated in green. I went into the setup section and realized that it when it not functioning correctly, orange will display as green and red will not light up at all. All other colors work fine. This seems to be intermittent.

This is a $325 radio (plus the $25 tax I was blindsided with by those bastards in the Pennsylvania government), and if anything catastrophic happens to this one I'd just buy another Pioneer because (A) I like Pioneers, and (B) my truck is obviously already wired for Pioneer and it would be plug-and-play. I'm really hoping I get 3-5 more years out of this head unit.

 

Always suspect poor grounds, soldering etc. I would inspect the install.

I have a similar unit and I have a piss poor ground into a bracket but its ok haha

 

It seems to be internal. My neighbor over-engineered the install and I oversaw the whole thing. My neighbor used these plastic heat-shrink connectors to attach wires.