Gaskets and Geography

Our 1991 Ford Sapphire has turned on us once again. We drove it to work Wednesday morning and it started smoking. The engine was piping hot. We let her cool off, and drove to the mechanic that we kind of trust. Apparently the water pump had broken and the car was overheating. No problem though, could be ready that afternoon. At least that was the story. But then they called back to tell us the head gasket had broken. I had no idea what that was either. A gasket is apparently any watertight seal in the car that keeps oil on one side, and water on the other. The head gasket surrounds the cylinders (where the gas is combusted) and has holes where tubes of oil and water run through the head block (see the exciting phot on the right). The water had stopped, and the engine overheated. This melted the gasket, and leaked oil into our water tank. Would take more money and a few days. Awesome.

Dan Johnson, if you are reading this, you should feel bad for selling us such a car for the price we paid.

Dan was the Fogarty Fellow before me. I naively bought his car from him before I arrived. I actually dont think he meant to sell me such a lemon, and his helpful advice so far has made it hard to ever be mad at him for this. Besides, I will likely sell this car to the next unsuspecting buyer for more than its worth, and the cycle of deception will continue.

So the result has been us being stuck at home with no car. Luckily there is lots within walking distance, and friends have offered rides to help. But I have spent way too much time with my computer lately. Obviously not all of it was spent updating the blog. I have been working a lot on my honor's thesis proposal. Its kind of the one thing I want to get done while I am here. Its an opportunity offered by my medical school and you graduate "with honors" if you complete the thesis. Its proving to be a lot of extra work, and I am just getting started. But I figure I am taking an extra year to do research, so I might as well get it done. Still, not fun to sit at home and synthesize a background all day when its your only choice for entertainment.

I also just discovered a new very cool website called Geography Zone. Its this great site that tests your knowledge of world countries. The cool part is that you compete with your country and it keeps a running average score for all the countries in the world. I must credit Nupe with telling me about it. He is a fantastic fellow nerd, and we have a lot in common (one thing being our oft mispronounced first names). Anyway, I have taken the Geography Challenge many times today, and its been hard trying to discern Turkministan from Kajikistan. The break up of the USSR must have wreaked havoc in the geoography world with the addition of 15 new countries, most of which end in -stan.

Well, this is not the most exciting entry I have posted. Gaskets, thesises, and geography. But my life hasnt been too exciting lately, so there you go. If things dont pick up, I'll just make something up here pretty soon.