How I Came to Need a Joint Replacement

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Art

I was having a good day. My day began with my picking up an order of bubble wrap in a VW Type 2 transporter and ended up in the emergency room at The Eliot.

In the year 2007 I wrecked my beloved Yamaha XS 750 Special while on my way to Concord, NH for some business and a lunch. I have never had an accident when I’ve been doing something foolish with my bike, my collisions occur when I’m obeying the traffic law. This time it was a young man with an armful of girl on the way to the lake to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon. He turned in front of me and stopped, I left 17 feet of rear wheel brake stripe and flew over his mom’s car. I tumbled ferociously because of a rucksack full of metal gadget boxes I was going to wrap for shipment to their new owner. I survived but sad to say the gadget boxes did not. Neither did my rucksack. Ambulance technicians just can’t wait to use those sharp shears.

Fast forward to 2010, and it’s the end of summer I’m happy because I was able to finish some repairs on a customer’s 1951 Plymouth. Now I’ve been living with a cracked humerous because it refused to heal after the 2007 collision, so that’s been limiting what I can do with my right arm. I’m happy as a clam, I’ve had a good full day, there’s a full moon in the sky and I want to drive the Plymouth back to its owner’s home providing I can get a ride back to the garage.

The temperature is about 40 degrees F so I walk up to the house to use the telephone and warm up my leathers in front of the wood stove. I know the way in the dark. The lawn is known to be smoother with no rocks or tree limbs in the way and I set off at a normal walking pace through shadows cast by the trees in the moonlight. The next thing I know I’ve hooked my left instep under something and I’m falling forward. And I’m falling over stuff. I hit the ground and hear that snap and the world is white with pain. I know that snap but I’ve never felt pain this bad so I concentrate on what I can do and what’s important, breath in, breath out and heartbeat. Okay, so far so good. I still hurt but I can think now and I realize that I’m entangled in a rotary push lawnmower. I roll a little bit and the lawnmower disentangles itself from me and I lie there for a moment with my right arm up in the air. The arm still hurts a lot and once I catch my breath again I slowly pull my right arm across my chest. Oh this isn’t good but I can get to my feet and I head for the house again, enter and call for attention. Bob comes down and helps me out of my jacket and helmet and I try and figure out what I just did to myself.
Up stairs, I stand around until Jim finished his shower and I ask Bob to help me with my tee shirt. checking front and back on the mirror I don’t see anything sticking out of place so my current working hypothesis is a dislocated shoulder that re-set itself when I pulled my arm across my chest from the statue of liberty pose I was in right after the great lawnmower collision. So Ii did what any normal sane person would do, I accepted an invitation for a slice of pizza and a beer while I waited for my shoulder to settle back in place so that I could ride my motorcycle home in the dark. Well after an hour, I asked if the offer of a ride home was still open because let’s face it, these are good guys but they have real jobs in the real world and need to get up and going in the morning. Jim said sure and he carried my stuff down to the garage, I managed to arrange myself in the car beginning to think that maybe my arm was hurt worse than a dislocation. Jim made me put on my seat-belt.

When we got to my condo in Manchester, Jim asked with a smile if I wanted him to go in and smooth the way. I couldn’t do that to him again. In 2007 Jim drove down to Manchester, found Lynn, drove Lynn up to the Hospital in concord to see me and then home again. So, no thank you, I’ll do this one myself. Two years later Lynn still says “Art’s friends just dropped him on the doorstep and ran.” I managed to get inside the building and onto the condo and stood at the back of the room. Lynn got up and looked me over and said “what’s up?” I tried to talk my way into my firm comfy bed so that I could get some sleep and think about =what to do next. Lynn asked difficult questions like, Where are your leathers? Where’s your bike? How did you get home? And when I couldn’t come up with anything other than that I couldn’t lift my right arm to work the throttle on my bike and Jim gave me a ride home all Lynn could say was that he was taking me to the hospital.
Nobody likes to wait in the waiting room but waiting is a good thing. Now this is 9:00 PM and The Eliot is on night-time protocol and fairly well locked down. The clerk behind the glass just looks at me and takes me next. I’m looking for a free chair in the waiting area and I’m being led into the triage area. After a polite conversation with a nice young man I’m in the emergency room. Trust me, this isn’t good. The orthopedic doctor on call tells me that I have a clean break and gives me a sling to wear home but there’s something about his recommendation that I get an independent orthopedic consultation that rings a bell in my somewhat battered mind. The next day I ask Lynn to drive me down to the clinic because I don’t like to use the telephone and I wanted to talk to the office staff before I started looking for an orthopedic doctor.

The triage nurse took one look at me in line, asked what I’d done and if there were any x-ray photographs. I told her what I’d done and that there had been 3 x-rays taken at The Eliot. I found out later that she hit the telephones like a tiger on my behalf and didn’t stop until she had an appointment scheduled for me with an orthopedic surgeon who would take the clinic’s payment plan.

I ended up at the Eliot under the care of Eliot Orthopedic’s Dr. Parisian. He did this to me:

Thank you very much Doctor. There are some things I can’t do, but there are so many things that I can. Without your skill and the compassionate care at the Eliot, I know that I wouldn’t have the use of my right arm at all. With all you’ve done for me, well, the arthritis in my left arm bothers me more than the device in my right.

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Nothing really new, just a recent scare.

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Art

So far this winter, things are going well. I’m looking to source some new spark plug wires and spark plugs for the chassis, trying to eliminate a serious mis-fire. And to stop blowing unburnt fuel out the exhaust. The Onan starts better the colder the air temperature. Running the generator for an hour in the morning and the same in the evening is keeping the battery pack in a good state of charge, this morning we were showing 80% of full charge after an evening of movies and light and a night’s worth of heat.
I keep track of the battery health by checking the battery voltage on a regular basis. The scare we had recently was mostly due to the way I check the battery voltage. checking the battery resting voltage follows a few simple rules. One the reading only counts after the battery has been resting for at least 3 hours. Second, the batteries can’t be asked to supply a significant amount of power while the voltage is being read because their internal resistance will cause a false reading. So I take a voltage reading first thing in the morning after the furnace has been off for 15 minutes. The world isn’t a perfect place and as long as I’m consistent in my measurements I achieve a usable number.
Well I scared myself last week. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the care and feeding of the batteries, trusting the generator 2-hour runtime and the automatic control of the PD 3-stage charger to tend to matters for me. As it turned out things weren’t as bad as I first thought, but at the time the voltage reading indicated that the batteries were at less than 50% of charge. Yeah, I panicked. I put a load on the system and took the voltmeter and started checking for bad connections, and shorts. Eventually while lying on my back under the chassis and finding voltage readings at 60%-80% of charge I had one of those Homer Simpson D’oh! moments. I check the battery voltage at the 12V socket in the kitchen. My laptop was plugged into the 12V socket in the writing desk, drawing on the same line from the battery. You might not think that’s very much current but charging my laptop draws 5A of current. Battery voltage is measured on 0.01 volt increments and 0.1 volt is a big change in battery state of charge. Unplugging the laptop and giving the batteries 1/2 hour’s rest showed a better state of charge. Still not where I hoped to be but not as bad as things first looked.
Next I took over control of the three-stage PD charger, setting the charger for bulk mode after bringing the generator on-line. That doubled the charging current and after several days of doing that I left the charger on automatic this morning since the batteries, after doing their duty for the night were showing 80% state of charge. So unlike our start last winter, we’re getting by on 2-hours of generator run time out of 24 and we can easily get by with 1-hour of charging if I don’t mind running down the battery pack.
Next up, insulating the holding tanks.

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As We Head for Another Winter in New England

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Art

Started 15 September 2012

Or Up Grades, how they are working and plans for surviving winter 2012-2013

We’ve been living and working in a day use park since July so we’re enjoying a level concrete pad,
never ending water, electricity and sewer. Well almost. The park well pump had issues since resolved so we kept our water tank full and the electricity went out for a couple of days after a storm blew through and felled some trees onto the power lines. The four GC-15 batteries we installed along with the original pair of group 27s kept the lights on and I don’t think we bothered to start the generator to power the microwave. Air-conditioning! While a test, in a parking lot during a heat wave in June showed that it’s prohibitively expensive to run the air-conditioner from the generator having an unlimited supply of free electricity has been great! One air-conditioner can’t handle the sun load but it does keep the air dry and that’s a big help and once the sun goes down the inside temperature comes down quickly. If we lived in a warmer climate maybe we’d need a second air-conditioner but I think for now I’d rather have the roof vent in the bedroom and the fresh air it provides. So the purchase and installation of a used air-conditioner has been a good thing.

The GC-15 batteries have been installed sans clamps under the bunk where the hot water heater, and main electrical panel live.

Photo of four GC-15 batteries under bunk.

Four GC-15 batteries wired into the house. The batteries are not vented to the outside and are not clamped down.

It took some squeezing to fit the batteries around the existing water plumbing and electrical wiring but the batteries are in place.

The Progressive Dynamics three-stage battery charger and power converter has been mounted vertically with the current shunt along side. The only thing not bolted down besides the batteries is the 50A self resetting circuit breaker for the power from the batteries. We’re still working on the survival part of RV life but I know that both leads from the batteries need to be fused. Why both? And why fused? Because a short circuit in either side, hot or ground, positive or negative will lead to a fire.

End view of our Progressive Dynamics 3-stage battery charger.

Our 3-stage 60 ampere battery charger is mounted vertically on the back of the board that holds the fuses and circuit breakers.

Our set of 4 GC-15 batteries are capable of delivering 150 amperes of direct current at 12 volts for 2 hours. That 120 minutes! Without damaging themselves. They will deliver far more current if shorted. With a self re-setting circuit breaker, only in the hot line from the battery pack I have a recipe for disaster waiting to cook. Fuses require human intervention as do non self re-setting circuit breakers. If a circuit experiences an over-load condition, simply re-setting the circuit breaker can lead to a fire if the cause of the over-load hasn’t first been confirmed. Buying and replacing fuses tends to make one look for the fault.

Living with the PD 9260c 60 amp battery charger has been almost transparent. Except when the incandescent lights suddenly become brighter. The PD 9260c is a 3-stage battery charger and power converter, meaning it has Bulk or Boost (14.4V), Normal (13.6V) and Float or Storage (13.2V) charging voltages. Every 21 hours the PD 9260c goes from Float to Bulk for 15 minutes to stir the electrolyte in the batteries and keep it from forming layers of different densities, you know, stratifying.

Factory Photo of the PD9260C

This is a factory photograph of the 60 amp PD 9260.

A 4-stage battery charger add a fourth even higher voltage called Equalize. On some arcane schedule or when your measurements of the specific gravity in all of the cells of the batteries don’t come up with the same number, the Equalize voltage boils the batteries to bring all of the battery cells to the same level of charge. Progressive Dynamics tells you about the equalizing charge but the model we bought doesn’t have the fourth voltage. Three really great thing about the PD9260 is that it runs on a wide range of voltages, anywhere from 90-135VAC and always with the correct DC voltage coming out the other end. This was a critical need with our first generator.

We started last winter with a 1965 Dayton alternator capable of a real 2.5 KW of output mounted on the trailer hitch and it served us well.

Our 1965 WW Grainger's Dayton Generator

Our 2.5 KW WW Graingers Dayton Generator.

But it only ran a couple of hours on each tank of fuel and I had to go outside to fill and start it when we needed 110 VAC. Using Lynn’s skills at sourcing good stuff cheap we acquired a 4KW Onan emerald II with issues. I cleaned some of the electric connections, the Do-Not-Touch emissions carburetor and re-installed the I-was-lucky-they-were-still-there electric choke and vacuum pull-off. I’ve given the 1800 RPM engine an oil change with a new oil filter and found the missing carburetor heater tube on e-Bay. We are lucky in that the Rockwood came with the generator change over relay. Not so much because we are worried about back-feeding the shore power by accident, but because the change-over relay gave us a place to permanently wire in the generator output and gives the Onan 30 seconds to stabilize before connecting the 110VAC to the house. We were running the Dayton by plugging the house into the Dayton. If I left it plugged in the slow rise in voltage as the generator came up to speed gave issues with the microwave oven’s electronics.

Onan Emerald II with external battery and fuel tank. We plugged the house power cord into a 30A RV socket wired directly to the alternator.

This is how we ran our Onan after first mounting it in the generator bay, using an external battery and fuel tank.

I’ve started running the Onan for 1/2 hour each week while we’re still living with shore power “just for exercise” and my game plan going into the winter is to run the Onan 1 hour in the morning for battery charging and breakfast. I’ve gotten used to my microwave’d oatmeal and an electric toaster. I want to source the double throw momentary rocker switch and connectors so that I can start the Onan from inside, but for the time being, as they say “that’s not a deal breaker.”

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Hi Paul! Someone finally asked why I moved all of my stuff to your Sun Point Farm

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Art

And I told him the truth: You promised me a wireless internet connection in your coop where I could sell my stuff. Then you told me you changed your mind. After you had possession of Lynn’s Challenger plus anything else we had of value.

Have you bothered to tell anyone about your “Let’s have a meeting” or “We need to have a meeting” every week until Jerry Sterling dropped out from his attempts at helping us keep our life together. But now I agree with Lynn, that was your intent all along. How it must have terrified you when I handed you that $5,000 that you so conveniently forget about. How it must have terrified you to learn that all of our stuff really wass worth real money, since I now believe Lynn’s claim that you sold his Challenger as soon as it landed on your farm. That was your plan along along now wasn’t it, Paul. This is the way you make your living: Giving people a haircut, but not so bad that its worth litigating over. Your mistake was in taking everything that we had so what have we to lose? Your mistake was founded in your incredible arrogance. How dare you place yourself in judgment over us.

Lynn still wants to visit his brother. Just where did you dump Dan Shackelford’s cremated remains? Respect?

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American Muscle Car Restorations has a Stolen Car!

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Art

It appears that Lynn Shackelford’s beloved Dodge Challenger is being restored by Mike Mancini of American Muscle Car Restorations, Inc. in North Kingstown, Rhode Island

Now Mike, you’re shopping up a very nice original car that is stolen. Lynn Shackelford did not sell his car, it was physically removed without his permission and delivered to you. This is the picture I took the day you told him on the telephone “that he was a scam artist and didn’t really own the car”
Proof of Ownership: Lynn Shackelford with his Challenger

Now Mike, you’re chopping up a car that’s been stolen from its rightful owner. You published a spread in MOPAR Collectibles magazine bragging about your acquisition of Lynn’s car:

Scan of the page in MOPAR collectibles magazine describing Lynn's 1970 Dodge RT Challenger Convertible

So I know that you have the car. Lynn really wants his property back. Interstate trafficking in stolen vehicles is a Federal offense and this is a high value item sure to interest the FBI. Are you sure you really want to play this game? Paul Doolittle is well on his way to losing his family farm and spending some time in our newly privatized state prison system. where do you think you’ll be living?

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When is it Insurance Fraud?

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Art

That is the $34,000 question now isn’t it Paul Doolittle? How is the serenity at your SunPoint Farm with your new well? Lucky for you that insurance money arrived isn’t it. But tell me this Paul. The town breached your farm pond dam during a flood to protect the town road. Some driver went off the road at a later date and landed on the hole in your dam. You filed an insurance claim against the driver of the auto and the insurance company wrote you a check to cover the repairs to your dam. Is it fraud on your part?

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Paul and the Invoice

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Art

Now Paul Doolittle inherited or more likely talked his siblings out of selling the family farm for fun and profit. If he hadn’t he wouldn’t have a place to live qnd work. And what work it is! Paul has this thing going at the family farm, where he’s turned the farm into a commune or retreat under the name Sunpoint Farm and Sanctuary. Now this is a good fit for Paul since he’s got a skill set, a way of presenting himself that makes you want to believe what he’s telling you, to trust him at face value. You could say Paul’s a confidence man.
Paul’s been going around talking in his smooth inspiring way about me, Art Joly and telling people all the things I could have done all the things I should have done all the things I didn’t do and that I Art am the reason Lynn lost his Challenger. This is a good move on Paul’s part because it turns attention away from what really happened. Lynn didn’t lose his beloved car, a once in a lifetime find that he worked hard to hold onto. No Lynn had his Challenger stolen from him by Paul Doolittle. Paul removed Lynn’s 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T Convertible from Lynn’s possession and tormented Lynn psychologically with his finely honed skills until Lynn signed a Bill of Sale rather than see his beloved car go to the crusher or be parted out. Lynn’s car wasn’t found in a barn: it was placed there by Paul Doolittle so Lynn wouldn’t know where it is. this whole farce could have been stopped right then and there but Paul, ever the confidence man convinced the Derry, NH police department that this was a civil matter and the Derry, NH police refused to take a stolen car report.
Now the title has the work invoice in it. After Paul got his invoice, a piece of paper that is only worth the price of the ink on it because it was obtained under duress, Paul Doolittle announced that now he was going to collect some real money. See Paul needed the money to keep his farm running something I knew so I asked him how he paid for his new well and he said “Nick gave me some money pending the sale of the Challenger (to Nick).”
So Lynn wants nothing to do with the money but as my friends used to say, I’m the practical one and I go to the meeting where I’m presented with an invoice for services rendered for Lynn to sign. Paul’s ginned up an invoice for his services through this whole thing that would have done JP Morgan Chase proud! Well, what little that was left over Lynn refused and i did too until November came around and it was getting cold living in the tent.
When Paul Doolittle tell you that he gave Lynn the money from Lynn’s car think about what Paul’s saying because it ain’t exactly the truth. Lynn still owns his Challenger and he wants the car back! Beating somebody be it physically or psychologically makes that signature invalid and the Lynn’s Challenger, 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T Convertible
440 Six-Pack, Four speed
V.I.N. JS27V0B100421 is a stolen car! Mancini has no right to touch that car other than to return it to Lynn Shackelford.

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What is an Unrestored Automobile Worth?

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Art

My particular passion, my peculiar passion revolves around cars that use steam to make the wheels go around. So today I was taking a look at a British steam car web site and found this ad from of all places, the USA:

1910 Stanley Model 60

Picture of a very nice, unrestored 1910 Stanley

Mike May's Beautiful Original 1910 Stanley

Click here for more pictures.
This is the first time I have advertised the car since I have owned it. To my knowledge this is one of the very few Stanley cars left in completely original condition. A consideration of what a person wants in a Stanley will determine their decision on what to pay for a given car. I have owned several Stanley cars over the years and I know there are very few that are as the factory shipped them. If that is not a consideration, there are cars available that have been built up as Stanley cars, but many are not true to the detail of original examples. Because of this, I feel that an original wooden body car has the value of a restored car. This is becoming more and more the case, at least here in the U.S., with all types of collector cars. Based on these considerations, I am asking $120,000.
There have been several similar models of Stanley cars sold here in the U.S. for higher prices in recent times, and I feel this is a fair price for this car at the current time.
If you have interest or know anyone who does, I appreciate the reference.

For further information, Please Contact
Mike May,
Michigan,
U.S.A.
Enquiries by e-mail to mkmay@alldial.net

You’ll find this ad about half way down this forsale page at Steamcar.net.

So what is the real value of a drivable, unrestored 1970 Dodge Challenger 440 6-Pack R/T convertible? The last one sold for a price in excess on one-half million dollars. Paul Doolittle was happy to sell Lynn’s Challenger for considerably less. Too bad for Paul and whoever has the car now Lynn didn’t voluntarily sign the Bill of Sale.

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Duress, Economic and other forms.

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Art

Dear Saint Paul,
I certainly hope that Lynn’s beloved 6PK2GO hasn’t been chopped up. He values this car for its originality the same way he valued those original radios he loves to collect. You know the ones you put out in the rain so that you could point to them and say “See? Nothing but junk.” I imagine they’re in the Derry, NH land fill along with the ashes of Lynn Shackelford’s brother Dan. Nice show of respect there Paul.
Duress. This is a nice word. When it comes to me and what I write and my reputation I just remember the word defamation. I leave it to the lawyers to parse out libel or slander because it’s all defamation.
In your case the word is Duress: “In jurisprudence, duress or coercion refers to a situation whereby a person performs an act as a result of violence, threat or other pressure against the person.” I’m leaving all of the nice details to the lawyers Paul Doolittle of Derry, NH and your son Matt too because you two really crossed the line when you removed 6PK2GO from his possession and began threatening him. Well, Lynn has had his good knee replaced and thanks to the reduction in pain the he lives with his mind is clear for the first time in years.
When you, your son Matt, Jerry Sterling and Curt Smith, Lynn and I sat in the minister’s office at UUCM for yet another of your meetings I didn’t expect what unfolded. I thought you were gong to spring yet another plan on how you were going to help us. At no time did I expect the shout-fest that ensued as you and your support grou0pp began badgering Lynn to sign a bill of sale for his beloved Challenger. At the end it was your promise to Lynn that he’d never see his car again that forced Lynn’s hand to sign that damned bill of sale that you keep trotting out as proof that everything is above board. But Lynn didn’t take the money did he. No money no sale at that time and Mike Mancini already had posession of Lynn’s Challenger thanks to you and Matt. Or should I say Matt? I heard Jerry talking to his wife Dianah about what Matt had done when Jerry didn’t think I was around. I heard Jerry tell Dianah that Matt had told Michael Mancini that it was o-kay to take the car and now you and Paul were going top have to get Lynn ti sign a bill of sale or Matt would go to jail. You guys knew at the time what you were doing was wrong yet to this very day you’ll scream in my face that “Paul ne3eded the money!” Well what about us! You guys took everything we had because “Paul needed the money” and left us with nothing.

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Perfidy Perfidious et al

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Art

Dear Paul Doolittle, here’s a word for you since you style yourself as a mystic running your SunPoint Farm and bill yourself as an honest man. These are marvelous words that are never used any more. Perfidy: “The quality or state of being faithless or disloyal : treachery.” That’s a nice start for the way you treated Lynn Shackelford. Let’s add this definition to this discourse: Perfidy: “In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception, in which one side promises to act in good faith (e.g., by raising a flag of surrender) with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed themselves (e.g., by coming out of cover in order to capture the surrendering forces).”

I never ever should have let you know what 6PK2GO was really worth. Yeah he owed you a little money and you told me that you’d make a place for me to work on selling his radio collection. I told you all I needed was some protection from the elements and an internet connection. You agreed. Then came the first of your “We need to have a meeting. This isn’t going to work.” From that point on you never let me get my feet back under me. You and your son whipsawed me back and forth until I didn’t know which way was up. Then you started in on selling the “Low Hanging Fruit.” And you said, “The only way I see to satisfy Lynn’s debt is to sell his car.” Way to go Paul. Lynn called the police in Derry, NH the first time you tried to sell 6PK2GO, and I understand you had cash in your hand when the Derry police called you on the telephone and let you know that it’s illegal to sell something you don’t really own. So you made the car disappear. Lynn went to the police and they refused to take a stolen car report saying it was a civil matter. Funny. You had no legal right to take the car but you did, took it out of Lynn’s control. That’s theft in my book. How much does it cost to buy the Derry, NH police? Or being a frugal Yankee did you just buy enough of the police force to get your way? Maybe called in a few favors from your time on the town council or the fire department? I want to re-write this a bit but I’ll tell you this Paul Doolittle: The next lesson is Duress, or When a Bill of Sale ain’t worth the paper it’s written on.

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