As Jim and I swapped out the very broken engine, transferring many of the external parts to the new one, I couldn’t resist tearing into the old engine to see exactly what had failed.   When we pulled the valve cover, careful inspection noted one valve was stuck down – a “dropped” valve that typically results in serious piston damage.   As I began pulling the valve train and cylinder head, Jim remarked that perhaps I should have been a coroner as I was performing an autopsy of sorts.

Looking at the cylinder head with number 1 cylinder at the top, we can see extensive damage to the number 2 and number 3.

Seeing a close up, the intake (the larger valve on the left side) was the one which dropped, and the multiple impacts from the piston broke the stem, and much of the seat and pounded the valve back into the seat sideways.  Certainly we can see why the #2 cylinder was toast, but looking at #3 we can see the intake valve is slightly bent and there is a lot of scoring and chipping of the combustion chamber around the valves?

So, what caused all the damage in number 3?

Taking a look at the block and the pistons.   Number 2 has a hole smashed in the top of the piston – obviously damage caused by the collisions with the valve.   But, look at the damage in number 3, and these odd pieces that were found inside.   These 3 pieces are the valve stem and pieces of the seat from number 2 cylinder.

How did they get into the number 3 piston?  My theory is that after the valve in number 2 dropped and was broken by the piston and driven sideways back into the intake port, the intake opening was now permanently open and the compression stroke pushed the broken pieces back up the intake runner.  This force, coupled with the vacuum of the intake of the other three cylinders, drew the pieces up into the intake plenum and by luck and adjacency, they were then ingested by the number 3 cylinder on a subsequent intake stroke.

I remain amazed that the valve stem could have passed through the open valve.  Perhaps even more amazing was the fact that the engine still ran, limping along on 2 of the 4 cylinders – enough to make it back home.

While we had the car on the lift, we noted that the rubber boots at both ends of each rear axle had split all the way through and were leaking grease.  Torn boots not only allow the axle grease to escape, but dirt and water to enter and attack the CV joints.  Left un-repaired, these would eventually start to wear and make clunking or popping noises while cornering, and would eventually fail.  Best to replace them now.

We removed the wheels, brake pads, and then the calipers and rotors all the way around the car and hung the calipers from the struts using elastic cord.  You could substitute wire, or some old coat hangers – anything that will support them and avoid damaging the brake hoses.

We then removed the brake rotors which were retained with two screws.  We marked left and right rotors with soap stone and prepared them for resurfacing.

The rotors on the S model are cross drilled for heat dissipation and are pretty robust pieces and were not particularly stressed during my wife’s commute to work, and occasional road trips.  If the car were driven hard, or used in autocross or tracked, the rotors would likely have needed replacement at this point – from wear or potentially due to warping or cracking from excessive heat.

I inspected the surface of each rotor carefully and found no micro cracks.  Checking the rotors on the brake lathe, I found about 10 thousands wear on either surface, and was able to true them up removing and additional 8-10 thousandths on each face.  Resurfacing, trues the face of the rotor so that it is even and square and will mate properly to the new pads.  After the final cut on the lathe, I finished each rotor with a fine cross hatch pattern to eliminate any spiraling from the lathe.  This helps ensure quiet brake operation as the new pads are bedded in.

With the brakes apart, it was a good time to tackle the rear axles.  Use of an impact wrench speeds removal of the 6 Allen head bolts that retain each axle to the transmission.  I tried the first side by hand, and wound up a bit arm weary – if you have air tools, it really helps.   Next, we disconnected the sway bar end link, the strut rod at the rear of the spindle, and the lower ball joint.  Getting the lower ball joint to release was a chore, but once free the spindle and strut could be swung out and up, allowing the axle to slide inward and be released.  (After removing the axle nut and tapping the end of the axle with a brass hammer).

Here, the new axle is installed, the spindle back in place, the strut rod and sway bar reconnected, and the caliper and rotor back in place.

I’ve just started to use Lenovo’s new K1 tablet – and have had it for about a week or so.  Since I work there, my decision to go with this device was partly in consideration for investing in my future and not somebody else’s, but also to better understand the experiences of the customers that I talk to in our community every day.

Over the weekend, there was an update released which addressed a few minor bugs that inherently occur in any hardware / software product.   Customers were sharing feedback about a few bumps they encountered during the install and I observed that when I told them that A) I had one of these too,  B) Was by no means an “expert” on the product, and C) experienced a few of the same bumps they did and promised to share that with those involved in the release, the tone of the conversation changed.

I was suddenly human, not just an employee.  I had just walked in their shoes.    This was a moment where I could clearly see the difference in talking to someone vs talking with them.

So far, I really like the product and know I have a lot to learn about Apps and that whole ecosystem.  My phone is woefully in need of an update – it can text, and could connect to the web under certain circumstances but hardly resembles anything we would now call “smart”.   Once I’m savvy on this tablet, I’ll look into the expense of a phone and think that having one that can act as a portable wifi hotspot will be a key feature on my shopping list.

I started the day with nothing more than the expectation of a warm summer day out of the office and anything beyond that would be a plus.  Disembarking the shuttle bus, I was immediately impressed by the scale of the event- the branding, featured event partners, and co-ordination of an army of volunteers busy shuttling players and staff  about in extended golf carts.

The VIP Viewboxes provided excellent vantage points.  I’ll admit, I was quite impressed as the players dropped shots on the greens from hundreds of yards out.   Quickly, I could see how important the short game was.  Getting to the green – covering those vast distances without losing the ball into the woods, the rough, or any of the water hazards seemed like it should be the hard part, and yet the great seemed to separate themselves from the merely good once on the green.  

I reflected on this a bit as I watched and considered how the short game in life – all the details in how well we do the things that we do, make a difference in the outcome – where we find ourselves on the leaderboard of our own profession.  As the day wound down, I was surprised to find that I had really enjoyed my time and came away with a new appreciation for the game.

The first year felt big at the time, and now only seems slightly humbled by the scale of these last two years with hundreds of attendees and ballrooms packed to capacity.

Over the years, the client brand list is getting bigger, the sophistication of the client stories is growing richer – from Barnes and Noble’s online book club, to HP’s massive adoption of community across divisions, to Home Depot rolling out a comprehensive community backed by real in the aisles, orange apron wearing employees who engage customers to ensure their projects are successful.

Giff Gaff, a UK wireless teleco startup is growing by leaps and bounds with their game changing approach to completely base their support on community and not a call center.  Tech support sans phones.

Hundreds of major brands are ramping up their investments.   Social media is no longer  a cottage industry, a small pilot experiment, but rather a rapidly scaling mainstream adoption as a channel to do business.   In the last several years, we have seen stories of how companies have used social media to market their brand, drive sales, and support customers, but now we are starting to see the integration and adoption of these in a more sophisticated and organized manner.

As companies move toward a more comprehensive and integrated approach, we are seeing the social media technology providers building strategic partnerships and / or making acquisitions to position them to serve these needs.  Last year, Lithium acquired Scout Labs, a social monitoring and analysis tool to expand their capabilities beyond community.

Companies have moved to embrace facebook and twitter in significant ways over the last 12-18 months, and the volume of twitter usage has risen from 30 million tweets per day to over 150 million tweets per day during this same interval.    Clearly the usage is ramping, but a comprehensive and scalable enterprise social plan needs to effectively marry the viral reach of facebook and twitter with the depth of engagement of blogs, forum discussions, ideas and analytics of community.

Last year, Lithium completed twitter and facebook integrations as a first step in this direction, and announced new products for 2011 called “level up” which build greater depth, the ability to easily build and deploy multiple facebook apps that allow community participation types within the facebook pages and connect into a comprehensive set of metrics.

Equally exciting was the evolution of the engagement center into the new CIC which effectively embeds the scout labs capability within the community and provides a community data stream which can be analyzed against twitter, facebook, blogs, forums, and news for all the search topics which are set up.   An engagement / assignment work flow is also evident.  These represent the execution of the roadmap visions from LiNC 2010, last year’s conference.

For those clients who have a desire to customize their tools, the concept of Lithium’s developer nation will be welcome news.

But it wasn’t all branding and roadmap.   One of the things that is clear about Lithium is the focus on client and client success.  The narrative is about their clients, and helping their clients be successful and celebrating that success.  This principle was reflected in many fun ways, from featured customer presentations from Home Depot, Sephora, and Giff Gaff, to an SXSW styled cartoon wall that expressed a fun idea about various clients.

Cleo, our English community manager posed with Dr. Michael Wu .

Following in the tradition of last year, there were the Lithy awards…

Our community, along with RIM won the best community anecdote or story category based on the depth of engagement with our super users.

Perhaps a very practical demonstration of this, is that Jane was able to join us this year.  Jane, one of our best and most stalwart advocates helped us plan, launch and manage our community with an eye toward meeting customer needs.  It has been a win-win proposition and I enjoyed meeting her in person at the conference.

Level up.  The conference theme was appropriate and applicable in many ways.  The days and months of 2011 ahead of us are going to be challenging as we add depth, sophistication, and polish to our efforts and level up our ability to create a compelling and addicting experience as we serve our customers.

Today, I’m sitting on a couch and coming to terms for myself that Garry has signed off from Sandburford for the last time  Tuesday, May 10th, 2011.  He had been diagnosed with a form of leukemia in 2010 and for many months, despite a decidedly uncertain long term outlook, things had seemed almost normal.  Christmas, full of laughter and merriment with family now seems so long ago.   A series of infections, that neither antibiotics nor his depleted immune system could shake off,  took their toll through March and April.  These past few months seemed a roller coaster of small recoveries and declines.    In contrast, the last week was an inevitable stair step of transition, and his last days and hours passed peacefully in sleep.

Many things made an impression on me these last days, and perhaps one of the most compelling was the number of people who came forward to pay their respects,  lend their support to the family,  and share personal stories of memorable times with Garry.   Everyone brought food – so much so that the refrigerator, counters tops, and even freezer were overflowing.  Fried chicken, baked chicken, rotisserie chicken, chicken casserole.   Apparently,  chicken is the official bird of bereavement.

Over the years, Garry shared his thoughts and experiences about his faith and his impression of what exists beyond our days here.  I know this has brought many of those thoughts to the forefront of my mind, to inspect my beliefs, and to question again what I hold true and whether I am fulfilling my proper course in life.  As most, I hope we will all be reunited again one day hence.

Until then, I can still see and remember Garry in his many works  including many parts of our home.

While Facebook and Twitter lack persistence of content, I think they are extremely successful for two reasons.

1) The deliberately constrained short format makes it acceptable to share even the mundane.   No pressure to craft something particularly compelling or worthy.

2)  The viral nature of the network design increases the odds of interaction and response.  This positive feedback encourages continued participation.   Fundamental game theory.

I’m listening to these channels more, and participating randomly, most often either as a reaction to someone else.  I find myself doing things I would have held in disdain a year ago.  Recently,  I felt it somehow satisfying to tweet that I felt old after shopping for clothes at the mall.    While cathartic,  this may be indicative of the lack of focus that these forms of social media are creating, compared to longer forms of expression like a blog.

I need to regain my voice and direction.

Sunday, friend Jim came over to help with a project,  knowing I have quite the backlog and have felt a bit overwhelmed of late.   We decided to tackle replacing the power windows in my car.  I’ve had the parts in boxes now for several months, and the windows haven’t worked in at least two years.  Or has it been three?   Hard to say for sure, but definitely far too long.

It’s been so embarrassing not being able to roll down your window.   This little thing necessitates going inside for fast food, and to use the ATM bank machine.   People have thought me terribly rude when they rolled down their window to ask directions and I make some apologetic look at went on my way.    Why the procrastination?  The dealer wanted $800 per side to do the work, and I wasn’t ready to spend $1600 to roll down my windows – you can buy an entire used car for that much.   So,  if I had the parts, why hadn’t I done the work?

It is hard to say for sure – I seem to have a block about somethings.  I’ll tear into the engine or suspension with little provocation, but somehow taking apart the door panels or the dashboard gives me pause.   Luckily, Jim was there to give me a needed push.

- blog

Are  Facebook and Twitter killing blogs?   I heard the relevance of blogging questioned at work today for the first time since about 2006.   The question used to be whether blogging mattered.  Now the question seems to be whether blogging still matters.  I’ll confess that I really hadn’t given it much thought.   There does seem to be a trend toward social interaction forms that require less.   Less time.  Less complexity.  Less thought.

But the new interaction styles brought about by Facebook and Twitter offer more.    More volume – 500 Million people?  More interaction – more friends, more likes, more quick comments.  More velocity – the wall flows like a river.  Here today, gone and forgotten tomorrow.  No search persistence, but do we care?   Probably not because the content didn’t require a lot of thought or effort, but it made a fast impression.

Twitter is like that too.    Hemingway would have loved twitter.     The 140 character limitation forces you to distill your message down to it’s critical essence and some tweets are truly artful while delivering their message with punch.

Facebook and Twitter seem optimized for an increasingly mobile digital world of people who increasingly want to create, share, and consume information impressions.   Short phrases.  Pictures.  Videos.

Has blogging truly run it’s course?

I hope not.

Ten years ago, I used the web almost exclusively to accomplish tasks.  I researched things.  I surfed ebay for stuff I wanted.  I traded stocks.   When I sat down in front of the keyboard I had something specific in mind that I wanted to accomplish.  I had focus.

Search was a tool for me to find specifically what I wanted.    I saw this video today and was struck by how much we  seem to be optimizing social to create potential outcomes based on connections of happenstance rather than a deliberate focus. This latest twist seems to be search for people who aren’t really sure what they want, but have enough friends in their social net, doing enough diverse things, that they can serendipitously put together all the right connections.

I think social media is impacting our ability to focus.    Facebook and Twitter are especially adept at this – you can find yourself reading about and commenting on things you had no idea were going on  when you sat down at the PC.   It’s entertaining, and there are ways to advance business objectives based upon this participation style.

But, did you have a purpose when you sat down, other than to be entertained?   Did social nets help you accomplish those tasks, or were the tasks simply the interactions with the social nets in and of themselves?

In any given hour of my day I could be navigating through the forum to post an answer that I have just found,  and become distracted by another topic that looks particularly urgent and stop to respond.  As I do, I realize how something could work better and click over to another community to log an idea about this.  After logging that Idea, I notice the on below the one I just posted and it’s pretty good too, so I vote for it, and then have a follow on way that it could be implemented, so I tack on a comment with my particular suggested nuance.   As I mouse over to click back to my forum, I notice that there are 17 new tweets on my twitter tab, so I click and read these and one definitely needs a response so I do and then I see another that is promoting something from one of the company blogs, so I click in to that to read it and see that a couple of the comments are from people that were in a forum thread about the change in LCD aspect ratios on the next generation of products that I read about an hour ago.   I’m not sure which board that was on, but if I put their screen name in the search box and view all their posts I’m sure I can find it.  And another hour passes and I’ve done a number of things, but I’m left feeling more than a bit ADHD from flood of information via the social nets.

So, you can imagine that when I see a search experience being mashed up with a social graph, I’m left to wonder if this winds up being more discovery or distraction.