Skip to main content

The Frog Van's Journey Back to the Road Begins

After a bit of a break from regular blogging I'm back with my Frog Van's journey back to the road. Hopefully from here on in I'll be back to regular weekly posts. So, moving on to the van...

In my last update I said I'd start working to get the van back on the road at the beginning of August so the van would be ready to drive in Australia's Spring time. Unfortunately everything got delayed because I got really busy with animation work.

The good side to that is I was able to match the donations to the project with another $500.00 of my own money. Bringing the total budget to $1024.00.

The project got further delayed when I got fairly sick for a couple weeks during the beginning of September - nothing serious, just a really bad cold.

Anyway the first step of the project was to get the van registered, to give me a deadline, as I explain in the video below. (Hope you like the opening animation of the van, using my CafePress store design).



I was very disappointed that, between the last time I started the van up and now, the rear right tyre went flat for no apparent reason and the battery refused to recharge.

Fortunately the spare tyre was okay (though it doesn't have as much tread) so I swapped the flat tyre over.

The battery was no good so I ended up having to buy a reconditioned second hand battery - saving myself approximately $70.00 as a new battery would've been around $100.00-$110.00. Also had to buy some smaller terminal connectors because the new battery had significantly smaller connection points than the previous battery.

I made the video below to show you that the van is now working. I reversed it up onto my back lawn so I could sweep the drive way underneath it and just to turn the tyres after having sat for so long.



The next stage is to take the van to a mechanic, which I hope to do within the next week or so.
TET Life Topics:

Comments

  1. Mum60September 25, 2012 6:14 PM

    Sounded like the door was going to drop off when you shut it! :-) Was that a ball on the driveway, as I noticed it had gone after? Glad the van is working again. Hope the mechanic can fix it from back firing etc. Hope the battery lasts too with it being a reconditioned one. Hope it's worth the saving money-wise.

    Lawn's looking good. Glad you're well again. I expect you were well looked after.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TET (David Arandle)September 25, 2012 8:03 PM

      All the door seals are pretty much shot so it sounds really metallic when you shut the doors. Fortunately, despite their condition, water doesn't leak into the van. I know this because I've driven it in heavy rain many times.

      It was a tennis ball on the driveway. I moved the van so I could sweep the dirt off the driveway from under it.

      Delete
  2. Mum60September 27, 2012 6:00 PM

    You're very meticulous! New door seals then when the major things are finished? :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Whimsical Cat Art Prints by TET (Redbubble Store)

Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!
Relax and Challenge Yourself with a Fun, Whimsical Cat Art Jigsaw - 30-1000 pieces. Click Image for More.

Popular posts from this blog

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...
3 comments
Continue Reading »

Embarrassing Yourself with Doof Doof Music

Ever since Spinal Tap popularized the notion of turning an amp up to eleven audio systems have been rising to the challenge of louder, more awesome sound. In particular, car audio systems have embraced the notion of the bigger the noise the better the sound must surely be. What I'd like to know is, if these sound systems are so good, why do they make all music sound the same... Doof, Doof, Doof? You've all heard them. Pimped up cars, with audio systems seemingly worth more than gold, volume blasting way past eleven. Sound waves booming long before you make a positive visual on the car... Doof, Doof, Doof. It has to be the audio system right? Surely all these people can't be playing the same tune? Doof, Doof, Doof. Could it be that the more money spent on a car sound system the less musical range it will actually play? Maybe these people can't afford to buy music after purchasing the audio system so they all play the same demo track? Doof, doof, doof. In my own car I hav...
14 comments
Continue Reading »

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...
16 comments
Continue Reading »

Movie Review: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) *Spoiler Free*

F rom the moment it was announced, I knew I was probably not going to see Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu in cinemas. The Mandalorian Disney+ Series finished it's story with no real pointers towards where a future story might go, beyond 'the further adventures of...' There was nothing to really hook me in. I did enjoy the series but it never got me invested in the title character or his cute prodigy so much that I wanted to see more.  Unlike the original Mandalorian, Boba Fett, who I was eager to see more of, until he got his own spin off series. Then I just wondered who wanted this particular story, that clarified everything about such a cool and mysterious character until there was no mystery left? Then we got the trailers for The Mandalorian and Grogu which  confirmed it was just a new adventure as a standalone film, with the purpose of introducing the characters to people who hadn't watched the series. I don't regret not seeing this in cinemas. It's a ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Making the Ukulele Cool Again By Inventing One That Transforms Into a Guitar Mid-Performance

Mattias playing the Ukulele that turns into a guitar in ukulele mode. Y ouTuber,  Mattias Krantz , set out to solve one of the biggest problems with ukuleles, and that is, they are ukuleles. As he points out in his video they're one of the only instruments that people respect you less for the better you get at playing them. As someone who bought a ukulele because I wanted to learn an instrument, and I couldn't really afford a guitar (plus I found a ukulele that I think is pretty cool, but only in comparison to other ukuleles) you can imagine my interest would be really piqued by a ukulele that transforms into a guitar. Anyway, there is not much that needs to be said other than, a ukulele that transforms into a guitar isn't a thing you can just buy off the shelf, which is why Mattias set out to invent one. Nothing I say will be more interesting than just sitting back and watching his video below. It's a fascinating journey that I wanted to share and, maybe one day, eith...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »