Headlight Upgrade

But first...if I sold my house, my car, my Jeep, my tractor...I don't think it would afford this Class A & Gladiator combination :)



Morning started with finishing up installing new headlights, started last night and got super fustrated on the driver side, passenger side went in pretty smoothly.

Later in the morning Cindy came over for a long visit while I puttered around cleaning up the garage.



US Jeeps only come with a vertical adjustment; but they have a spot for a horizontal adjustment for EU regulations -- screws are like $4 so installed them.



The headlight bracket just pulls off; however this one did break one on of the mounting holes from being old and brittle. Fortunately I had a new spare (I can't remember why :)) so after this pick I pulled the old one off and replaced it.




The factory lights, which likely were 14 years old, were pretty anemic. I don't drive that often at night so it hadn't been a priority.

But last road trip I got caught a few times at night and rain that having poor headlights really sucked.

These are J.W. Speaker -- expensive, but as LEDs go I liked the "color" of these so I was happy when I took it for a test drive; they seemed more like more modern halogens than the blue-ish hue of many LEDs.

Debated bringing them up a bit more, maybe another 8" on the school wall -- but I also know I'll have a lot more weight in the back on my trip so for now I'm holding off.

Politics of Climate Change

Another one of my better posts.

Some scientists speculated about it at least as early as the 1920s.

Some environmentalists were noticing subtle changes by the 1950s; Rachel Carson was noting warming waters in the 1962's Silent Spring although it was an aside of noticing species migrating northward and was not the focus of the book.

1965-ish during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration a Presidential science advisory panel said carbon emissions were likely a problem, but it would take ~5 years until they would have the first math done to quantify it (had to wait for the moon shot and other government programs to keep pushing computer technology forward for the calculations).

1976-ish while George H. W. Bush was CIA director, the CIA put climate change on the list of major threats to the future of the US.

During the Reagan and early Bush administrations global agreements were reached on controlling ozone depleting gases and (primarily US) cap-and-trade was used to control sulfur emissions causing acid rain. Meanwhile environmentalists were full on Reagan derangement syndrome and espousing the James Watt was evil incarnate.

1988 George H. W. Bush put in his Presidential plank that action was needed on a global agreement on carbon emissions to control climate change.

The 1988 Democratic plank called for expanding coal production as fast as we could, in order to shut down nuclear plants as fast as possible -- you had some combination of carbon industry political donations, activists who grew up protesting nuclear weapons who expanded into protesting nuclear power, and it was before the Republican Southern Strategy started in the early 1970s had succeeded in re-aligning US politics -- so states like Kentucky and West Virginia were still solidly Democratic and important to the Democratic Party.

As the Bush administration went on, his Chief of Staff John Sununu had enough of fighting to get things like cap-and-trade on sulfur passed -- industry fought it, many environmentalists fought it because capitalism is evil and they wanted heavy, prescriptive regulations instead market forces. By the time that was done he was all, "Fuck it, all we get is political shit from both sides on environmental issues and we're not picking up any votes from the environmental voters."

1992 Bill Clinton becomes President, and well the Democrats were still clinging on to coal country for votes so they continued to lack an appetite to tackle climate change.

1994 the Southern Strategy finally popped. Led by Newt Gingrich, the Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House of Representatives. It was the first time in over 40 years the Democrats lost control -- and Democrats usually enjoyed ~10ppt advantage in the number of seats above their share of the popular vote.

The old Democratic Party had both right, centrist, and left wing factions; the Republicans more right and centrist factions. In 1994 the old Yellow Dog Democrats of the south who had voted for Democrats since the Civil War moved in mass to the Republican Party; and quickly the more liberal Rockefeller Republicans of the northeast quickly became an endangered species. (Plus the distinct flavor of the Republican Party of California committed political suicide with Propositions 187 (1994), 209, and 227 which despite their popularity at the time shifted the rising Latino vote and centrist whites firmly into Democratic hands in the following years).

This Southern Strategy that finally came together has created the current climate of tightly contested and close national elections (including popular for Congress), as well as firmly polarized each party as either right-wing or left-wing.

As early as 1970 the Southern Strategy was articulated (in the New York Times):

>From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

The old parties that could combine each of their center and left wings on things like the Voting Rights Act, Environmental Protection Act, and Clean Water Act ceased to exist in that form.

It was replaced by a right leaning and left leaning party both of which spend their time bickering with each other; neither capable of forming an enduring, stable majority.

The rest of the world meanwhile for as much as they often like to bitch about America proved to be utterly incapable of meaningful action without American leadership.

Jeep Prep Continues...

Worked from home today, which lets me spend some garage time at lunch and then immediately after work instead of driving home.

But first a butterfly I saw at lunch time. The tiger lillies seem huge this year -- I have a bunch taller than me!




Had I actually read page 2 of the instructions, I didn't need the mounting plate that came with the Rotopax mounting kit, the vertical part would have fit the holes on the bracket just fine :/ But I didn't read so I drilled new holes :D



2.5 gallon gas can. The mount system just straps to the tire.

They do need to be up this high on the tire to clear everything.



Got the zip tie xmas trees so finished buttoning up the license plate wiring.






While turning the Jeep around so I could start working on some front end stuff, noted the tiger lillies at the end of the driveway were almost as tall as the Jeep -- they were above my head with me in the Jeep!



Got a swing up mount for the license plate since I keep forgetting when I have it mounted and go banging through brush...




Decided I didn't like the clearance, but I did decide by mounting it high it works fine. I'd have to be winching at a pretty darn sharp angle for it to interfere.

License Plate Light

Almost a month since last post since work got super duper ultra busy. Have done a few Jeep things not posted yet.

One project almost done is finally hooking up the light for the relocated license plate which took waayyyy too long.

A good part of that was me learning about DT Connectors, and damned if I've figured out how the green wedge for the male plug goes in -- I think there is tabs you need to make sure are out of the way, but mostly it seemed like just randomly all of a sudden in clicked in.

Pulling wire through...



Drilled a hole for each wire through the plug and used Purple Power to lubricate them.



No photos from Saturday when I was working on it while visiting with Cindy. Decided I needed to lengthen the outside and pulled even more wire; more on this later but I had already cut the wires inside.

The connectors on at this point where "Stamped" ones which...don't work. You want "Solid" connectors and the special crimping tool. Don't really know why they sell kits with the stamped connectors, at least a typical hardware store crimp tool isn't going to do a good job. Ordered some on Amazon so it was Tuesday before I got back on it.




The solid connector will slide in flush in the crimp tool:




Trim the stripped wire to the length of the top of the connector, insert and crimp:




Debated using shrink tube, but chose to use electrical tape -- just a little reinforcement so the wires are flopping as much:









Ok, outside is done (well, not really...more to come) so we move inside:



Had to pull this sleeve off, cut off the tape on the ends and middle, kind of work it back into shape, and push the wires through.



Did order some fir tree (xmas tree) wire tires to replace the three I had to pull for this. I could replace the rest along the tailgate, but I'll probably just leave the wires zip tied in.



So once I decided I wanted a lot more slack on the outside and pulled wire outside, I decided it made it uncomfortably short for the part that needs to reach the tail lamps. I could have worked, but I had no reason to worry about some extra wire in that area and it made things easier.
So an extension splice it is!



Welcome Solder Seals -- solder and shrink tube in one, applied with a heat gun. I'm sure it's not as good as a real solder job but far better than just a crimp connector.






And time to modify the harness -- to avoid cutting factory wiring, bought a trailer light kit to plug in line with the tail lights.

The green and yellow wires for the turn signals I cut short and taped off to keep moisture out. There was no ground from the wiring harness in the kit (it assumed the ground from the trailer socket would be screwed to the frame), so I had to cut into ground and make a T.



Cut a slot in the dust plug and pushed the wire and DT connector through. Suppose it would've needed a smaller hole if I had just pushed the wires through but...meh. This plug doesn't keep water out.




And...nothing.

Got out the multimeter, confirmed I had power out the license plate.



Dag nabbit, it's a LED -- light emitting diodes. Diodes are one-way electrical devices, hmmm...

Yep instead of following the automotive style "Black is negative" they followed the RV style "Black is positive."

Had to pull off the old connector and use a new one with the wires reversed.

After this pic I also put a piece of electrical tape over the top half of the clear part because it looked like it would be annoying as fuck to be following it, and it didn't impact illuminating the license plate.

Steak in the Broiler...

Been extremely busy with work, and even today the 4th worked a few hours this morning -- plus I worked a few hours each over the weekend. By the end of this week that'll make 12 days straight which isn't a record but getting up there (17 is what I recall as my record).

Napped most of the afternoon trying to let my fried brain decompress a bit

Anyway, heavy rain today -- several inches. And I had a steak that needed to be cooked.

Tried it in the Breville oven, which definitely cooked it but I probably won't do again because towards the end I had a couple flare ups inside. Didn't brown the outside, but it was cooked.

The vegetables to go with it though, they came out well. Used bacon fat I had saved as the shortening.

Motorized recreation impacts wildlife less.

Or at least that's what a review of scientific studies show:

Effects of Recreation on Animals Revealed as Widespread through a Global Systematic Review
Courtney L. Larson, Sarah E. Reed, Adina M. Merenlender, Kevin R. Crooks

-- Non-motorized recreation was ~20% more likely to have negative impacts compared to motorized;
(My own speculation -- fewer corridors and being "warned" by the noise in advance, wildlife may have more time to analyze the situation before reverting to flight-or-fight responses; folks on foot access more areas and surprise wildlife closer and more often.)

-- Snow was worse, with ~30% more negative impacts
(Study's speculation was this was due to increased energy use when wildlife are fleeing human activity)


Here's another article in the same line:

Americans' love of hiking has driven elk to the brink, scientists say

Outdoor recreation has long been popular in Colorado, but trail use near Vail has more than doubled since 2009. Some trails host as many as 170,000 people in a year. Recreation continues nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, said Bill Andree, who retired as Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Vail district wildlife manager in 2018. Night trail use in some areas has also gone up 30% in the past decade. People are traveling even deeper into woods and higher up peaks in part because of improved technology, and in part to escape crowds. The elk in unit 45, as it’s called, live between 7,000 and 11,000 feet on the pine, spruce and aspen-covered hillsides and peaks of the Colorado Rockies, about 100 miles from Denver. Their numbers have been dropping precipitously since the early 2010s.