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slightly too big
Wednesday, March 18 2026
Today was colder than yesterday, which hadn't been predicted when I looked at the forecast a week ago. But it was warm enough to continue working on the Subaru Forester in the garage. All I really wanted to achieve to day was to put the brake pads in the calipers of the front passenger-side brake. Knowing light would be a problem, this time I set up a bright bulb hanging directly above the hub, hanging from a suspension spring. But the brake pads were just a little too big for the space they were supposed to fit inside of. Perhaps rust had accumulated on the surface of the calipers, expanding into space that would normally be occupied by air. But I still had problems after scratching all that rust away. I toiled away at this for hours, trying to use c-clamps and pounded wooden wedges to try to force the pads into their slots. Then as I did this, I realized that the brake mechanism required the pads to actually be able to move horizontally towards and away from the center axis of the car. That's not something they could do if I was banging them into their slot. So I used the chop saw to reduce their width every so slightly, and then, after a bit more fiddling, I got them to fit. I suppose things being too big is better than them being too small, since adding material is not as easy.
I'd taken a recreational 120 mg dose of pseudoephedrine this morning in hopes it would help with my automotive repair focus and perhaps get me working on the ESP8266 Remote Control some more. As diphenhydramine kicked in this evening, I managed to implement a couple modest features around the handling of files in the ESP8266's LittleFS file system (something ChatGPT had turned me onto while I was in the Caribbean).
Neville had gone to the bookstore with Gretchen today, leaving Charlotte with me. This had her feeling mopey as usual, though she came with me for a walk that began at 4:12pm up the Farm Road and then back home atop the escarpment to the west (though she did her own thing starting two thirds of the way up the Farm Road). There is no more snow except for a few snowplow piles here in the Catskill foothills, and the USFS snow map says all the snow is gone from the Adirondack cabin as well, meaning it will be worth going there the next time it is sunny.
This evening before Gretchen got home, I cooked up a pot of spaghetti and made a side-fry of onions and tempeh (we had no mushrooms). I also used a cast iron frying pan to cook a bunch of kale in broth with garlic and lemon juice, and it turned out great.
Despite the fact that tomorrow I would be making myself filthy again working on the Forester, this evening I took a nice hot bath to soak all the muscles that are telling me how old I am every time I rise to my feet after crouching for extended periods next to a set of brake calipers.
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