To my friend Mike

Keep and use this box for anything - tackle or otherwise!

Crown in the fog

First Curiosity Pictures From Mars

These are the screen captures I took from NASA's live video feed of the Curiosity landing on Mars, in the order that they appeared, as relayed on UHF from Curiosity on the surface to NASA's Odyssey satellite, in Mars orbit, and back to Earth!

Here are NASA's official first Curiosity images from Mars:  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/images/first_images_mars.html

This is going to be an incredible expedition to follow on Mars!  These are the best cameras to ever be equipped on a vehicle exploring another world.  Check out the fidelity in this image from NASA's official Curiosity twitter feed:  http://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/232354875189628929/photo/1/large

Restoration Hardware

I cut this expensive sofa in half and put it back together again.

It was the only way I could get it upstairs in our old apartment building.

97 ZJ Seats in 97 XJ

I picked up these black Grand Cherokee seats at the salvage yard. I washed them with soap and water a few times, and then used a strong vinyl cleaning foam to freshen them up before putting them in my Jeep. Because the donor vehicle is the same year as my Jeep (1997), I knew the materials would match for wear and color. The seat on the left has been cleaned and it looks and feels like new.

And here is the reason I needed the new seats: My driver's seat frame broke at one of the front mounting bolts. The back of the frame was also cracked and separating under the cloth.  The result was a very unsafe sway for the driver when turning corners or changing speeds.  These seats are a good and cheap upgrade, and I enjoy the added support.  They do sit about an inch higher than the stock seats.

A few comparison images:

As you can see above, both seats have the same frames for mounting to the rails. The differences are in how the seat rails mount to the body of the Jeep. You can also see that my old seats are manual and the new ZJ seats are powered. I will not have powered adjustment, though, as I am attaching the seats to my manual rails in the XJ, seen below without motors. I should be able to research the wiring and get the recline and lumbar adjustments to work, though, as those mechanisms are attached to the seat (and contribute to each ZJ seat's extra 5-10 lbs of weight!).

The driver's seat naturally gets more wear than the passenger's seat, especially from entering and exiting the vehicle. Unfortunately my 'new' driver's seat has a salt-shaker sized tear in the same place as my old seat. I'll have to do something about that before it gets worse - but it is an improvement over the old driver's seat, which was very worn and torn!

Before:

During:

After:

I like the map pockets on the backs of my new ZJ seats!