Sweetpea Personal @bloomingsweetpea - Tumblr Blog

Been a while since I've actively been on here all thought I should do a new introduction.

I am a socal based photographer specializing in fashion, cosplay, cars, and boudoir. Started doing pay what you want photoshoots at conventions because I strongly believe everyone should have access to affordable photos at conventions and they shouldn't cost more than the entry to said convention.

LGBT friendly, work with all body types, avid AI hater.

here is some of my work!

nil-elk

Sometimes you just wanna kiss the girl. 💋💀🌹

Been awhile! What's new?

pixelburied

Now that the Terror Bill has been signed into law and will take effect in 15 days, a little reminder for my PH mutuals:

Set your social media to private

Do a clean up of your public posts

Block everyone of your friends who have voiced pro-government sentiments. You don’t know who will sell you out.

Do a check of your facebook groups. If you’re part of anti-admin groups, make sure it’s legit and not a fake group used to redtag.

Increase your email security

Stop signing petitions vs terror bill on change.org as this is what they’re using to redtag (remember the influx of fake accounts? Yeah)

Instead, send emails to your representatives using a vpn

Have your lawyer’s number on standby

Be aware of your rights (i will post a refresher here later on)

Look out for your friends and family

postcitywave-deactivated2020070

as a hker, I'd say, switch to protonmail, download signal (for personal msg) and telegram (for channels/large group chats), replace google with ducducgo, always use a vpn but switch to tor if its extra sensitive (or u can use both)

clownboybeebop

for anyone seeing this later: the original post was made on july 3rd, 2020. 15 days from now will be july 18th, 2020.

oopsabird

god, GOD Freddie Mercury was such a fucking badass

scumbagsblog

This doesn’t do the moment justice. He took the swig of vodka, said “I’ll fucking do it darling”, and then ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT in one fucking take

child-of-dolora

Mood for 2019: “I’ll fucking do it, darling.”

finninsanelycoolish-deactivated

Reblog for Freddie Mercury level belief in yourself this new year!

wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva

I’ll fucking do it, darling

books-andbiscuits

katsuko1978

Take this energy into 2020, y’all, and just fucking do it darlings 💋

doctorslippery

semicolonthefifth

I love how the body structure and the decor of the larger bone fairy creates a nice area of concentration that leads the viewer’s eye towards the tooth fairy. This, aside from the obvious glow and design contrast, help direct the attention where needed and is a brilliant move by the artist.

jewishdragon

I went to the artist’s website and they are the same one who made this:

Digital Painting, Illustration, Concept Art for Hire

aquatixwitch

For the love of the gods…anyone 18 years of age or older needs to double and triple check their voter registration this election cycle. The DNC chairman in my county just found out his was mysteriously ‘inactive’. My husband’s was the same and we haven’t missed an election since 2012. The includes the election in 2018. Come to find out, a bunch of MAGA GOP folks are running the registrar here. These are the same people responsible for overwhelming the call-in line for the precinct captains for the caucus.

This is *dangerous*. We are dangerously close to an unchecked authoritarian regime in the US and this is no time to be apathetic, we need all hands on deck to beat the Republicans.

Please spread this around. I’m my county’s elected Sanders delegate so I’ve been following this fuckery closely. This isn’t a ‘conspiracy’ ’… it’s happening and the media isn’t reporting it. We need to get the word out and fight for our Republic, and our democracy.

systlin

Well fuck now I gotta go check mine.

reddit-tales

Some tips for buying a used car for people that know nothing about cars

I’m a mechanic/auto shop owner. I figured I’d put some stuff together for anyone interested in buying a used car but doesn’t know anything about cars. Obviously the best option is to take it to an auto shop to have it thoroughly inspected by a professional before you buy it. The key word here is BEFORE you buy it. I don’t know how many people I’ve had come to my shop for an inspection after they bought it….ugghh. The $150 or so you spend is worth not buying something that may have thousands of dollars of problems. But if that’s not an option, here are some tips to help keep you from buying a lemon:

1-Buy a cheap OBD scanner/reader. You don’t need to spend a lot, as they’ll all do what you need here. A bluetooth OBD reader and the TORQ app for you phone seems to be pretty popular/good choice. Practice using it on some cars. Some of the stuff I’m going over may seem daunting, but if you practice it on a car a few times, you’ll get the hang of it, and this will all make sense. You could be saving yourself thousands in repair here, so take a few hours to practice it. It’s not hard once you do. You should be able to do all of the stuff I’m going to talk about with your scanner in under 5 mins total. You don’t have to worry about reading and interpreting data. The main thing you want to do is check for codes in the engine and transmission ECUs. ECU stands for Electronic Contrul Unit. Basically, it’s the computer that controls the engine or transmission. They are sometimes referred to as ECM, or Engine Control Module, and TCM, or Transmission Control Module. Sometimes they’ll be referred to as PCM, or Powertrain Control Module. This is what it’s called when only one computer controls both the engine and automatic transmission. The PCM may be one physical computer, but logically, it’s 2 computers. So if you connect your scanner to a PCM, you’ll still see two separate options, one for engine, and one for transmission. Do note that if you have a manual transmission, there won’t be a transmission computer.

So when you connect to each one, there should be no codes in either. If there are codes, there’s an issue. It may be minor, it may be major. Google it if you want, but not knowing what the codes mean, your best bet is to walk away. If your scanner is a better one, you can also check other modules (computers) for codes. However, it’s pretty common on newer cars, especially European, to find obscure codes in obscure modules. Normally they’re not an issue. Focus on the Engine and Transmission. ABS (antilock brakes) and SRS (safety restrain system…airbags, seat belts, etc) modules normally shouldn’t have codes lingering either. Make sure to also check after test driving. The codes may have been reset by the seller to hide a problem (more on that in the next paragraph). They may have returned during your test drive, so check again!

Use the scanner to check the monitors on the engine ECU/Computer. Monitors are a series of self checks that the ECU does on the engine. All applicable monitors should be set (passed/complete). They get reset when you clear the check engine light, or when you disconnect the battery (usually). If all of the monitors haven’t passed, then it’s quite likely the person selling it has reset the check engine light recently (may be trying to hide a problem), or there’s a problem that isn’t allowing the monitor to complete. Not a good sign. Walk away. To complete all of the monitors can take quite a few miles and sometimes several days. So there’s a good window there for you to catch someone doing some hanky panky.

2. Crank the engine without starting it. What you want to do is listen to the engine during a continuous crank. On American cars and on Mazdas, this is easy, as they have what’s known as a Clear Flood Mode. You turn the key to the on position, wait a few seconds, depress the gas pedal all the way, then try to start it. The engine will crank away without starting for as long as you hold the key (or in the case of a push button start, until you hit the button again). If the engine starts, quickly let off the gas so you don’t revv up the engine too high and try it again. You’ll want to listen to it for a good 10 seconds or so. This is a very easy way to check compression on an engine. The main thing you hear when cranking an engine is the electric starter working to try and spin the engine. As a piston comes up and compresses the air, the starter has to work harder to spin the engine, and the speed/pitch of the starter changes. Once the piston comes back down, it’s easier to spin the engine, so the speed/pitch changes back, and then repeats as each consecutive piston moves up in the compression stroke. Every engine sounds different, but they all should have a very steady rhythmic starting noise. Kind of a WAAA WAAA WAAA WAAA WAAA. If one or more of the cylinders has low compression, you will hear the starter have an off-rhythmic sound that repeats. So for instance, if you have a 4 cylinder engine with one low compression cylinder, it would sound like WAAA WAAA WA WAAA WAAA WAAA WA WAAA WAAA WAAA WA WAAA etc. Every 4th pitch change will sound different than the other 3.

For reference, here’s what a normal cranking sound should be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v0h_Ygqox0

Here’s what a low compression cylinder cranking sounds like. It’s at about :55 secs :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOghpmVhVng

If you listen closely, you’ll hear the unsteady rhythm. Loss of compression is usually piston rings, valves, or head gasket. All costly. If the engine sounds funny when cranking, walk away.

If the car you’re looking at doesn’t have a clear flood mode, you can remove the fuel pump relay in the engine compartment fuse box, which turns off the fuel pump. Most cars have one, but some don’t. Some cars can be a real PITA to disable it from starting. Google the car you’re looking at with something like “YYYY Make Model clear flood” or “YYYY Make Model disable fuel pump” and see if there’s an easy way to achieve this. I’m sure there will be a Youtube video showing you exactly how to do this.

Practice this beforehand on cars you have access to if possible to tune your ear to the sound. You can also do this periodically on your own car to see if any problems are arising.

3. Check the fluids. All of the fluids will have minimum/maximum marks. If fluids are low, someone has not been maintaining the car well, or it has developed a leak. Not a good sign. When checking the engine oil, it should range from clear to black. If it looks like chocolate milkshake, there is a major problem. RUN AWAY. You can also smell the oil on the dipstick to see if it smells like gasoline. If it smells like raw gasoline, the engine is either injecting way too much fuel or you have bad piston rings. Either way they’re bad. If the oil level is WAY above the full mark, like an inch or more, then either some other fluid is making it’s way into the engine (very bad) or someone sucks at doing an oil change. Remember to check the oil with the engine off and on level ground. Some new cars don’t have dipsticks (mainly European). If so, you’re SOL. Check the coolant in the reservoir. It should be green, pink, red, yellow, orange, blue, or purple, depending on manufacturer. If it’s rusty, walk away. Remove the radiator cap (only if the engine is cold) and look at the cap and in the radiator. If you see any rust or chunky/gritty brown stuff, walk away. If it’s just water, walk away (be careful here, Ford’s yellow coolant almost looks clear). Check the automatic transmission fluid. For the most part, it should be red, but sometimes amber or green. It may be black. That’s dirty. Not a deal breaker, but they haven’t been keeping up on maintenance. It should not smell burnt, though. That’s bad. If it looks like strawberry milkshake, that’s really bad. Also, remember that you should check the level on automatic transmissions while the engine is running in Park and after driving it and getting the transmission good and hot. The only exception is most Hondas. That’s checked after driving but with the engine off. Google it for the car you plan on looking at to make sure. Many new cars don’t have a transmission dipsticks, so again, you’re SOL there.

4. Start the engine and listen for any noises. The engine should be cold. If it’s at operating temperature, the seller may have warmed it up to hide some cold start engine noises. Be wary. If it makes any noises, walk away.

5. Look for maintenance records. If it has consistent oil change records at an oil change place, at least they’ve been changing the oil. Unfortunately, oil change places only check easy profitable stuff. It’s better than nothing, though. If the records are all at an independent shop, that’s better. Indy’s will usually do a pretty thorough check up on the car when servicing it. If it has all dealer records, that’s the holy grail. Dealers will find any nick nack that’s wrong and upsell it. They also commonly don’t do thorough diagnostics (this is an unfortunate effect of the way dealer shops operate). So if it needed repairs, on top of having new parts that needed replacing, it may have other new parts that it didn’t even need. Plus those new parts will be good quality OEM parts, not chines junk of questionable quality.

6. Check that everything works on the car. Check the A/C, the heater, the windows, the locks, the mirrors, the head/parking/brake lights, etc. If the owner neglected to fix obvious problems, what else did they decide not to fix?

7. Look under the hood and look for any hokey work. Random zip ties holding things on, tape, broken plastic pieces, a battery that can move around if you push on it, wires hanging, etc. If it looks like unprofessional work has been done on what you can see, how bad is what you can’t see?

8. How does the car look? Is it dirty, full of scratches, stained? If the owner cares so little about the interior/exterior, they probably have the same attitude towards the mechanical part of it.

9. Check the tires. Aside from general condition, do they all match? If all the tires are different, they’re cheap/broke, and have probably cheaped out on a lot more than just tires. Lay your hand flat on the tire tread and light feel around the tires. If you feel a repeating pattern of flat spots/dips, you have suspension problems.

10. Try and stay away from used car dealers. Used car dealers get the majority of their cars from auctions. A lot of cars that go to auction are sent there by someone that doesn’t want it, usually because there are problems. Not all, but many. New car dealers send trade-ins that are too old or the wrong make to put on their lot, and some of those are decent. However, the small used car dealers usually buy the bottom of the barrel cars at auction. They’ll fix the minimum needed with the cheapest parts possible to maximize profit. They’ll make it look pretty, though. Good chance you’re buying a polished turd. Not all used car dealers are bad, though. Check reviews. Look at what they have on the lot. If they have a lot of high resale value cars on the lot, they’re buying the good stuff at acution. If all of their cars are under $10k, with a lot under $5k, move on.

11. Obviously, test drive the car. Drive it at different speeds up to highway speeds. Brake easy, brake hard. Find a crappy road or railroad tracks to drive over. Make sure there are no noises or vibrations. Get it good and warm. When you’re done, open the hood and take a good whiff. Make sure there are no strong smells (like burning fluids or other things). Look under the car and see if anything is dripping or the bottom of the engine is covered in fluids (bring a flashlight, it can get dark under there). Don’t be alarmed if you see water dripping under the car at about the same area as the base of the windshield/firewall. If the A/C or defroster was on, that is just condensate from the A/C system. Touch it. If it’s not oily and looks/feels like water, it should be OK. If you’re test driving a manual car, the clutch engagement point should be somewhere in the middle of the clutch pedal travel. If it’s right at the top or right at the bottom, clutch repairs are in the near future.

12. This one is a little more advanced, but not too difficult. It’s also pretty important. You’ll need your OBD scanner. What you want to do is look at the engine data and search for the fuel trims. An engine computer injects fuel based on a bunch of sensor inputs. It has a base fuel map programmed into it that it references, based on those sensor inputs, and injects XXX amount of fuel. There is an oxygen sensor in the exhaust system that analyzes the exhaust gas and acts like a quality control inspector. It tells the computer whether it injected too much or too little fuel. The computer then makes adjustments to that base fuel map to make sure it’s injecting the proper amount of fuel. Those adjustments are called fuel trims. A 5% fuel trim would mean the computer had to add 5% more fuel than the base map. A -5% fuel trim would mean that the computer had to reduce fuel by 5% from the base fuel map. In a perfect world, fuel trims would be zero. However, that’s rarely the case. Fuel quality, different atmospheric conditions, engine wear, engine or sensor problems, etc, make it so that the base fuel map is never perfect, so the computer is always adding or subtracting fuel (usually it’s adding, but sometimes it’s subtracting). I don’t like to see a computer adding or subtracting more than 10% fuel. Any more than that and there may be a problem. Any more than 15-20% and there is definitely a problem.

So what you’re going to want to do is look at the data on the engine computer. You want to make sure you connect to the computer using the GENERIC OBD2 option on your scanner. Different car manufacturers will call these fuel trims by different names, and display the percentage in different ways. If you connect to the engine computer the standard way, you may be confused trying to find and read the fuel trims. But if you connect using the generic obd option, it’s always going to use a standardized display format across all vehicles. Some really cheap OBD scanners only connect using the generic OBD protocol. You’re going to see a long list of a bunch of different data. Scroll through until you find “short term fuel trim” and “long term fuel trim”. I’m not going to explain what the difference between those two data parameters are, as that doesn’t matter here, and may end up being confusing. I’m just going to tell you what to do with the values you see.

Short term fuel trim, depending on your scanner, may be displayed as: Short term fuel trim, STFT, ST, or ST%

Long term fuel trim may be displayed as: Long Term Fuel Trim, LTFT, LT, or LT%

Let’s assume your scanner uses the more common STFT and LTFT designation. You’re going to see a number after the letters, so STFT1 and LTFT1. The number means the “bank” or side of the engine. A 4 cylinder engine only has one “side” so you’ll only see STFT1 and LTFT1. However, a V6 or V8 engine has two sides of the engine (3 or 4 cylinders on one side, and 3 or 4 cylinder on the other side, hence the V6 or V8). The computer controls fuel independently for each side of the engine, so you’ll see a STFT1 and LTFT1 for one side of the engine, and STFT2 and LTFT2 for the other side. Don’t be alarmed if you’re looking at a V6 or V8 engine and you only see STFT1 and LTFT1. Many late 90s cars and some early 2000s cars didn’t control fuel separately for each side of the engine, and lumped both sides into one bank.

When looking at the short term and long term fuel trims, you’ll notice the long term fuel trim number stays pretty steady, but the short term fuel trim number may change a lot. This is normal. What is important to note is that they are cumulative. So if STFT=4 and LTFT=3, then your total fuel trim is 7%. Let’s take a look at some examples on a V8:

STFT1 : 3 … STFT2 : 6

LTFT1 : 2 … LTFT2 : 1

So the total fuel trim on bank 1 is 5% (3+2) and the total fuel trim on bank 2 is 7% (6+1). Each bank is below +/- 10%. That’s pretty good.

STFT1 : -5 … STFT2 : 3

LTFT1 : 3 … LTFT2 : 1

Bank 1 fuel trim is -2% (-5 +3) and bank 2 is 4% (3+1). Again, that’s good.

STFT1 : 6 … STFT2 : 7

LTFT1 : 10 … LTFT2 :15

Bank 1 fuel trim is 16% (6+10) and bank 2 is 22% (7+15). That’s not good. Walk away from this one.

Here’s one more that’s a littlte different:

STFT1 : -20 … STFT2 : -20

LTFT1 : 22 … LTFT2 : 20

Hey, 2% and 0% total fuel trim on each bank. SWEET! this car is running almost perfect! Well not really. Why is the LTFT adding 22% but then the STFT is taking a bunch of it back? There may be an intermittent issue going on here. So add the absolute values together as well (treat -20 as 20) and see what that total is. Here we have 42 and 40. There’s some interpretation required here that you’d need some experience to do, but I’d say anything over 25 when adding absolutes is cause for concern.

Check these numbers with the engine running at idle, and rev up the engine and hold it at about 2500rpms and check it there. Like I said, you may see the STFT number change pretty quickly, so just use the average of the numbers you see for that one. If you have someone with you, you can have them check the numbers while you drive as well.

Practice this on a car you have access to beforehand.

13. Last and not least, don’t trust the person selling the car. Trust your eyes, your ears, and your instinct. You don’t know this person, they may be lying about the car, or try and tell you that the thing you’re worried about is no big deal, it’s just this or that. Or they had a guy check it out and it’s a really easy/quick fix. Be patient and find the right car. If something is fishy or doesn’t seem right, move on to the next car. A car is a pretty big expense. Most people budget for the purchase price of a car and don’t consider there may be considerable extra expense in fixing major problems. Minimize the possibility of those extra expenses by inspecting the car the best you can.

I would recommend running through these things, and any others you want to add, on your current car, your parents’ cars, friends’ cars, etc. Do it several times. Get comfortable in making these checks so that when you’re doing them in front of some stranger on their car, you won’t forget anything.

everythingfromglass

I made a meme.

everythingfromglass

Due to recent input I created an alternate version:

everythingfromglass

@imgoingtofighttheocean ask and ye shall receive

keybladesoras

Jason says non-binary rights!

BONUS!

annblrs-blog

it’s a fucking robot chill 💀

cool-eevee

bloomingsweetpea

I should probably watch this show

badnovels

littlebabycrybtch

hey full offense but the ‘use the right pronouns even if the person is horrible!’ statements arent made to coddle horrible ppl, its saying ‘dont view correct pronouns as a fucking privilege that can be taken away once people decide you’ve fucked up enough’, misgendering someone on purpose is transphobic no matter what bc it equates transphobia as a ‘punishment’ for bad people, pronouns are a part of baseline human respect, its that simple

funereal-disease

If it is acceptable to deadname and misgender “bad” people, any random trans person will conveniently become “bad”.

mellebellemethod

It happens this year folks…

gattomeows

super-metroid

mellebellemethod

I wanna take a moment to reblog this one last time while it’s still 2019. All year, i’ve gotten over a hundred reblogs DAILY on THIS POST ONLY. Every day, my notes have been over 99+ and it still makes me laugh that this stupid post I made on a Tuesday night while watching Futurama skyrocketed so much that it showed up on tumblr trending on facebook and crossed back across my dash MULTIPLE times a week. I see people reference this post on OTHER SITES. I’ve met people on twitter and Instagram who’ve sent it to me NOT NOTICING it was me who posted it. And it cracked me up telling people “lol check the OP.” Thanks to everyone for giving me this hilarious experience! Especially @gattomeows for their hysterical addition of the actual article– i’m pretty sure that’s why it got so popular. I know it’s silly, but due to the content, it likely won’t be reblogged as often in 2020 so I wanted to thank everyone~

duelling

Geralt of Rivia + “fuck”

ilovecharts

The total area of solar panels it would take to power the world, Europe, and Germany

moyaofthemist

estebanwaseaten

“In just six hours, the world’s deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes in a year. (x)

thelittlenoctua

I don’t care how many times I see this I will always reblog it

ncrussell

Stop spending money on war and lies and start spending it on ways to make this planet better.

flerponius

I saw someone’s argument against trying to stop global warming and it was literally “What if global warming is fake and we make the world a better place for no reason?”