Airporting the Extreme Way - WDS

I have not posted on the Yellow Box of Doom in quite a while, and that is mainly because i have been really busy with wedding arrangements and any time spent blogging has been done on the wedding blog (yes I know, all very sad and anally organized but we do indeed have a wedding blog!!)

Anyway, I had a free evening this evening so spent a bit of time trying to get the apple airport network working at its best, which is hasn't really been doing since we moved to the Palatial Ranche......long and short of it is the place is just too big and the wifi just isn't reaching all the corners one would expect of the Heineken quality Apple usually supply.

Airport Extreme........reachs the parts other rooters* cannot reach

However, once I started reading around the subject it tranpires that all this time I have had the network set up incorrectly. I had it set up as an extended network, which apparently means that it simply shares internet and printers etc. If I want the express to boost the signal to the other part of the house i need to utilise WDS (Weally Difficult Sh!t).

Now I won't claim to understand a single word of how WDS works etc but there is a rather clever chap I found through google who does, so I thought I'd share the link for anybody else who might find it useful......and so I can find it again in a few months time when I can't remember how it all works:

Spencer Critchley is the clever chap.

So I am off now to test the new and improved boosted signal while sat on the toilet using the internet.

* for any Australian readers out there I simply couldn't resist the deliberate use of the Australian meaning for rooting ;0)

Shadowy Gangsta Wars

Warning to all woudl be fools who leave a YBOD on hos own with only his cameraphone and shadow for company.

While 'helping' BSS2 with the wheel respray I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my shadow, the little tinker, had chosen to earn a crust on the side a shadowy gangsta!!

Never trust your shadow, they might look all innocent and tustworthy, always there right behind you:



But at the first opportunity they will arm themselves



and when you confront them about it they draw their weapons



and fire at random in the air!!



Ibbah ibbahhh underlay underlay!!! El presedenty bandito, I kill people for money, but you are my friend.....I kill you for free!!

Golden Spade Star Shot

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

ME4x4 Golden Spade 2009

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The yellow box gets new shoes - well, pollished ones at least

Well, its been a long time since I last posted on YBOD and to anybody who has been patient enough to be a regular reader, I appologise. So what have I been up to. Well, two things - planning a wedding (yep, I am getting married next month) and also I've been out playing a lot in the truck with the guys from ME4x4

However the driving season is over now as the hot weather comes in and camping is no longer a realistic option. As a result I should have more time now for updating blogs and tinkering......which brings me on to the subject of this entry:

For a while now BSS2 and I have been seeing more and more FJs around Dubai which have been modifed, resprayed and generally pimped to a more or less degree. And while some of these look better than others (need I mention the PINK FJ doing the rounds in Dubai). I have over the time I've owned YBOD3 partaken in a bit of ICON bolt-onary but BSS2 and I decided to enbark on a bit of re-spraying to give YBOD3 some nice new black wheels.

Now this task was of course planned out meticoulsy in advance, with all factors considered and the optimum time to carry out the work chosen.....which was why we ended up making an early start, and spend most of the day until 3pm in the blistering heat of Dubais summer. I think average air temps were around 40ish, maybe a bit higher. But still, as you can see from the step by steps it was all worth it as she does look VERY cool:

Step 1 - Jack the car up and put her on Axle Stands (note 'before' shot of silver wheels)


Step 2: Remove Wheels and take to the back garden (via the front rooms so be sure Alex isn't looking otherwise you have to explain tire tracks through the house, and she isn't going to believe you that a gang of hells angels passed through)


Step 3: Taking Care to carefully label each one so you know where to put them back in the wrong order later on only have a girl notice your error forcing you to correct it (not that we will admit that happened of course)

And remembering to keep you nuts somewhere safe so you don't loose them

Step 4: Put down plastic sheeting, layout wheels to be sprayed and mask up the tyres (which you don't want to spray as they are already black). note that the back is sprayed first so that any paint that runs through can be sorted before the front is sprayed.


Step 5: Spray everything up, allow to dry and then flip and repeat step 4. Sorry, no pictures of the spraying stage because....well.....I was too busy drinking beer and pointing out the bits BSS2 had missed

Step 6: All to dry over night while you head off to a three year olds birthday party to drink more beer

Step 7: Return in the morning with a mild hang over to find that BBS2 has been up at the crack of dawn and already cleaned off all the masking and put the wheels back on for you. Stand back, admire and tell yourself that while BSS2 might have done all the clever bits, and all you actally did was clean the wheels and shake the cans of paint for him, it stil looks damn good and feel proud of yourself.






As Alex put it, it make the YBOD3 look more Rufty Tufty. I'm taking her word for that ;0) There was one other minor modification that was made in the process of spraying. Given that YBOD3 had long sinced passed out of the relms of simple motorised transport and inot the much more appropriate bracket of big boys toys it seemed only fitting to modify the Toyota grill badge accordingly:

Piture Dump

Regular readers (presuming there is one) will notice that is has been a LONG time since I last posted on the blog. This is in the most part due to lazyness, but also it has been a very hectic few weeks since we got back from Australia and also I really want to upload the Australia pictures into the blog before I do any other entries. And with lack of time this is causing a backog.

Well a solution has been suggested to me by A D Das and that is Panoramio. I used to have a Flickr account set up for just this purpose but the thought police over at Itisalot have deemed Flickr to be too corupting to the moral fabric of society and as such barred it. Don't believe me? Just click here form within the UAE and see what you get.

Anyway, I now have set up a Panoramio account and will be uploading soon. The address is:

http://www.panoramio.com/user/2726791

Watch this space.......

The FJ Gets a New Hat

Following our fantastic trip to Australia the Co-pilot and I are forming plans and dreams to jack it all in and take a sabatical to go travelling around Australai. Now with that now almost cliche of phrase - "the current econominomic crisis" it doesn't seem the best time to be quitting a job if you have one still so we are staying put for the time being. However, sanity dictates that can't just put a dream that big on hold indefinatly therefore we have decided to "invest" a few of the comforts we plan to take on the big trip, the main one being a South African Sarafi style roof top tent:

After reading around the subject and checking out what is available here in the UAE we decided to go in the end for the Forerunner Featherlite which was sourced through Icon in Dubai. Other options available were either on the second hand market (but sold before we coudl get it) or the Opensky tent from ACE.

In the end we selected the Forerunner for two principle reasons - the Featherlite is, as the name suggests, much lighter (about 38kg vs over 60kg). Secondly the guys at Icon actually knew about what they were selling and therefore able to talk to me about it thus giving me some confidence in the product. The guys at ACE almost seemed suprised to find they sold the tents, let alone talk to me about how to erect the tent etc.

So we selected the tent and took it out for its inaugral trip for the 2008 New Years Eve Camp Out (more about that later). Now, not being a great writer or journalist, I'm sure I'm not doing full justic to the tent by trying to give a review, but here goes. I'll split the review into five heading; ease of installation, ease of errection, space and comfort inside, ease of packing away and finally quality of construction.

Ease of Installation - This is probably the only place I would say the tent REALLY got on my tits, but then on reflection (and discussion with others) I don't believe it is anything of a crisim that could be layed at the Frontrunners door specifically, but instead to all tents of this type. In fact if anything it is made inherrantly easier with the Forerunner because it is lighter.

Basically, you have two aluminum rails on the bottom of the tent base which are then bolted using the supplied brackets to your roof rack. Now this sounds easy in principle except that you have to try and get your arm between the roof fack and the roof to bolt the damn things on. Now I have the ARB Expidition roof rack which due to the nature of the roof rails that attach the rack to the roof only give access to the underside of the tent at the front and back (not at the sides) as such the only way I could get to bolt the tent rails to the rack was to unbolt the entire roof rack, lift it up on blocks on the roof, bolt the tent rack, and then rinstall the roof rack. This was a very cumbersome and time consuming process, and before the end of the camping season here I shall be devising a quick release system so I don't have to repeat the process. But anyway, after lots of spit and cursing it is now installed and looks grand.

Ease of Erection - Now this is where the well designed roof tents aces the alternatives. To test the ease of installation we challenged the other new year campers to the first Dubai International Speed Tent Erection Competition.

The contenders - The Featherlite, a Carfour 80chip Dome Tent and a Go Sport Six Man Double Dome. And the conclusion - It has jsut taken you longer to read this paragraph that it took to erect the featherlite!! You unzip the tarpauling and pull out the ladder. The operation pulling out the ladder also unfoldes the tender and it all clicks itself together in a sweeping stretching arc like a cat waking from its sleep and having a good stretch. Genious. Total time, about 15 seconds.

The 80Chip tent took about 10 minutes, and the Super Six Man Double Dome, as far as I know, is still being assembled now. In order to maintain impartiality the whole event was presided over by our own tent errection expert - Jameria James:

Space and Comfort inside - Well, what can I say, the tent comes with a built in foam matress which, compared to the comfort levels offered by airbeds or roll mats this was a palacial luxury only otherwise experienced by visiting princes I am sure. Also, I am well over the six foot mark and usually expect to spend most of a night in a tent with my head or feet against the canvas. However, at well over 2m in length the Featherlite afforded me ample room to toss and turn and not once did I wake up stuck to canvas.

The proof being in the pudding I can vouch that we went to bed some time after midnight (ish) and slept through to 8.30am and awoke refreshed and cherpy without the vaguest hint of stifness or lost sleep. Even the Co-pilot was unable to find anything to complain about. The tent was even checked out by our aforementioned expert judge who concluded it was "wow!!" and awarded it the full green rating

Ease of Packing Away - well, once you have removed the sleepers, the inspectors and the general passers by who want a nosy inside the great temple canvas campingness the tent becomes just as easy to pack away as it was to erect. Fold away ladder and the action of folding away folds the tent away. I really couldn't be easier.

Quality of Construction - Now I don't know that much about the design or construction of tents so I'll have to keep the comments brief. The tent fabric was lighter than I was expecting, but then it is the featherlite so to be expected. The rest of the contruction is very strong and heavy weight, the seems are welll constructed and the corners are stengthened. The Copilot liked the colour - an important comment for a girl. As far as longlevity and build quality go only time can really tell, so we'll let it tell.

So, in summary, as you might be able to guess I am impressed and "chuffed to bits" with the new tent.