Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with stuck

1996 Dodge Stratus transmission stuck in limp drive mode.

isopropyl — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:32:29 -0800

1996 Dodge Stratus transmission stuck in limp drive mode. My girlfriend bought this piece of junk and has been nothing but problems. On a recent trip a wreck less driver stopped abruptly in the middle of a 7 lane highway and forced me to stop and quickly accelerate to switch lanes to not die. Shortly after i was unable to go faster than 38-40 mph without red lining. The engine persisted to overheat but we eventually got it home. I changed the transmission filter and replaced the current fluid with ATF +4 as suggested by the web site. This didn't fix anything and after extensive research i am almost certain it is stuck in limp drive mode. Supposedly the transmission was rebuilt less than a year ago but two mechanics also gave us the go ahead on this death trap. The engine is a V-6 and I believe it has a 41TE automatic transmission. I need to fix this!

Help! My door knob is stuck and I'm trapped in my room!

birdlady — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:06:44 -0800

Help! I'm stuck in my bedroom. The knob won't turn much either way and won't come unlatched. The only person who has a key to my house is out of town, so I can't even call a locksmith and have him let in. How can I get out of my bedroom? The door knob is the kind with screws only on the exterior. I've tried to slide a credit card in, but that did not yield results. Anyone have any advice to help me get out of my room?

How do I get my mojo back?

SebastianKnight — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:23:15 -0800

How do I get artistically unblocked, fast? I'm about to start the next year of a (sort of) art-photography course and I need to come up with a Big Idea very very soon (like, two weeks soon). I've had a rough few months and have lost of lot of momentum, had to scale back my reading regime dramatically, and effectively done nothing creative since Spring. Now time is running out and my idea-tank is dry. I've been trying to expand on the one or two mini-ideas that I do have, and frankly, they're terrible. I need tips on getting unblocked in a hurry.

Over the last week or so I've been trying (and mostly failing) to do some brainstorming, mind-mapping, and general idea-capturing, and I've also re-read Art and Fear and The War of Art. I've had a copy of The Artist's Way on a shelf for months, but now I don't have time to work through it, so if anyone could recommend the best bits that might help me. I'm hesitant to start reading any new books in the short time I have left, so other book recommendations might not be so helpful.

I have come up with some very vague parameters for the project, and I know which artistic movements I have an affinity for, but beyond that I'm completely stuck.

Thanks everyone.

How do I get my package that's been "Inbound Into Customs" in NY for 12+ days?

gemmy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:37:48 -0800

My perfectly boring package from Sweden has been listed as "Inbound Into Customs" since September 4. How can I find out what the problem is? Can I get it cleared somehow? I purchased some Swedish foods (some soft thinbread, a tube of cheese, a box of pearl sugar, a container of baking molasses, and two bags of licorice candy) from an online retailer - a mom & pop type shop that I've used successfully several times before. They shipped the package from Sweden on September 2, and the USPS tracking tool shows it arriving in New York on September 4. Since then, however, the package status has been "Inbound Into Customs" with no further updates. (Compare with my last three orders from them, which got to me in 4-5 days.)

I asked the store if they knew what was up - they say that they have never had this happen before, and their local post office doesn't know why it's been delayed so long. I talked to my postman and to a clerk at my post office, and neither of them had any suggestions or insights. Searching online for others in the same situation, my case seems a bit odd because a) it's taking more than 4-5 days to clear customs, b) the package doesn't contain even possible contraband of any kind, and c) it doesn't contain enough of anything to make them suspect that it's for re-sale.

I'm extra pissed about the whole thing because the bread and cheese would have been fine after five or six days in transit, but will be stale/spoiled now. And I craved it so...

Have you had this happen to you, and if so how did it turn out? Will they send me some sort of form to explain what happened to my package, and if so when? Can I find out what the problem is? Can I get it cleared somehow by explaining the contents? Any idea why this very boring package would be stuck in customs so long? Any help would be appreciated.

How do you unstick an organ key?

HotPants — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:12:02 -0800

My roommate and I recently picked up a Kimball console organ for the price of carrying it down three flights of stairs. Unfortunately, we banged one of the keys on the lower row on the way down, and now it's stuck. While B is a solid note as far as notes go, does anybody have any tips on how to unstick it? So far the only thing that we've tried has been a lot of jiggling...

Trying to better myself and feeling thwarted at every turn?

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:47:49 -0800

How do I get out of a career trap of my own making? I'll try and make a long story short: In my teens and early 20s, I was an emotionally troubled young man who didn't buy into the traditional life model of higher education, career etc. Once my mid-twenties hit, I re-evaluated and tried to turn my life around onto a more traditional trajectory.

I graduated from a state school in California with B.A. in Public Administration in 2007. My cumulative GPA was brought to a 3.52 (my lowest grade once I returned to school and applied myself was an A-).

I have been unable to find a career in my field and with the budget crisis of the state and most municipalities, I don't see that changing soon. I've been working jobs to pay the bills, but nothing that is particularly rewarding in any sense of the word (including financially).

I feel like I'm going to snap unless I do something soon. So my question is this: At my age (35) is it worth it going to school to pursue a Master's? Is it feasible to do in California given the impacts on student assistance? Is it feasible to contemplate schooling at an out-of-state school given non-resident tuitions?

Is there any other solution I may be missing? Right now I'm stuck in an industry that is one step away from buggywhips and my boss is squat little troll who berates its employees when at all possible. I'd quit, but then I'd be ineligible for unemployment. (Right?) I can't take much more of this.. HELP.

Min-esophagus Wheats

pseudostrabismus — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:33:58 -0800

I just inhaled a piece of cereal. I think I can feel it in my windpipe, just around collarbone level. Is there anything I can do to get it out? I was eating Mini-Wheats and I aspirated a little shred of wheat. I coughed, but my mouth was full of more dry cereal so I couldn't really cough well for fear of inhaling even more. I can breathe fine, but I'm pretty sure the piece of cereal is still sitting in my windpipe, maybe a little below my collarbone. It feels tickly and annoying.

Anything I can do to get it out, or improve my coughing efficacy to try & bring it up again? What the heck happens to inhaled food? Am I gonna grow a damn pine tree in my ling?

Software override for iPhone stuck on SILENT?

kairab — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:01:33 -0800

My iPhone silent switch is stuck on SILENT (silly idiot me) - is there a software override? HELLLPPP! As I very rarely need my phone to be silent and keep missing important calls when the switch flips over (pretty poor design for Apple) I had the smart idea to glue it in the RING position with superglue. Worked a treat except - you guessed it - I got the position wrong. OUCHHH! Is there a way in software to override this? My phone is brand new, so don't dare "lose" it for a while yet. I really need help here - is it a lost cause?

How to remove folded stuck contact lens?

nihraguk — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:49:11 -0800

I have a contact lens that has folded on itself and is stuck in the extreme upper corner of my eye. How do I get it out? The usual methods haven't worked. The lens has been in there for the last 3 days or so. After a lot of saline solution I spotted it sitting on my eyeball, but repeated attempts to move it with my finger didn't work. More saline and eyeball poking led to it shifting to a much harder to reach corner of my eye. I've tried:
- closing my eye and using my finger to gently shift the lens around through the lid
- blinking furiously
- lots of eye drops
- putting a finger on my eyeball while eye is closed and looking in all directions
- looking in all directions while eye is open

Any other suggestions? Should I see an optometrist?

How to get a heavy truck out of the mud?

csd — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:27:08 -0800

Let's say your 35,000lb 4x4 is stuck axle-deep in mud.... How do you get it out?

Assumptions: The mud is the consistency of pudding. You have a winch, but the cable is strong enough to tow on level ground and not much more. You are far more concerned with safety and speed of recovery than you are with environmental impact, so whatever you use can be left behind. You've got 800lbft of torque, but it's pushing 17 tons. Your tires are 13in wide. You're most likely going to want to back up onto known terrain.

I plan to test a few possible solutions in a controlled situation, here's what I'm thinking (and, mind you, I don't really expect any of this to work, but I've got to do something): dig out a mud ramp, 15 degrees or so slope, ending as close to the bottom of the rear tires as possible. Place 2'x8' sheets of plywood along the mud ramp. Back out.

Plywood won't work, you say? How about laying down Hesco barriers? Steel diamond-deck?

Could you quickly turn the pudding-mud solid? Some kind of super-quickset concrete? Freeze it?

What am I not thinking of?

There's got to be a faster way to update

special-k — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:02:50 -0800

Please help me simplify a complicated mysql update I have a giant database with data nested in 3 levels. Year (00-07), time (1-15) and location (1-125000)

Let's say I have a field called z. I am trying to add a field called cumulative z (by year) with each record.

My current approach to inserting cumulative z values is as follows:

For the sake of tractability, I have split the data into separate tables for each year.

Using PHP, I have 2 nested loops (time and location).

Within the inner loop, the following happens:

If time is 1, then cumulative z= z for that location.

if time>1

then cumulative z= z+cumulative z for time t-1. This step is the bottleneck. I have to write another query statement to find out what cum z was for the same location at t-1.

The query takes very long for each location. I estimate that it will take several days to do this for a single year. There must be a faster way. Can any SQL gurus offer suggestion to make this update faster?

The Button's Stuck and So Am I

foxy_hedgehog — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:17:49 -0800

Election Night Emergency AskMefi- the on/off button on my Canon PowerShot A60 digital camera seems to be stuck, and the camera won't function. Any ideas? Yes, I changed the batteries....Thanks comrades!

What can I do about a stuck dishwasher main soap dispenser lid?

criticman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:44:43 -0800

What can I do about a stuck dishwasher main soap dispenser lid? The main soap dispenser that you fill with your dish washing detergent of preference and close the lid on is stuck closed. I can manually open it, but it fails to open during any of the various wash cycle options. I have instead just been filling it and leaving it open but I know this likely loses the soap in the pre-clean phase (which the un-enclosed dish is intended to be used for). My dishes, however, come out fairly clean.

I was wondering if anyone knows the likely cause OR if any of the pre-packaged dish washer detergent balls/cubes can just be tossed in at the start and successfully make it past the initial pre-clean phase all the way to the primary wash cycle. They all say to put them in the main dispenser and close lid (yet they all say "contain pre-wash cycle cleansers") so I am hoping someone can speak from experience.

It is a Kenmore dishwasher if that matters. If no one has any input, I will just have to call the home warranty company and shell out $65 for them to come fix it (not so worried about the money but arranging to be home from work is an issue).

How to remove a stuck battery cap from a Mag-Lite?

Ziggy Zaga — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:16:49 -0800

The battery cap on my Mag-Lite is stuck. Any ideas as to how to remove it? I tried using bare hands, rubber gloves for extra traction, sticking the damn thing in a vise and repeating but I cannot get the cap off. It will not twist one iota. It stripped some of the rubber off my vise.

I also tried spraying the point of contact between the cap and barrel with WD-40 and later tried lubricating it with oil. No luck.

Right now I have it wrapped in a condom and sitting in a bucket of ice. The idea is to get it to contract some, but maybe I haven't thought my cunning plan all the way through.

Any other ideas as to how I might be able to get the cap off?

How to free a stuck brake piston?

sergeant sandwich — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:28:57 -0800

Car-repair-filter: Any mechanics got a trick for freeing a stuck brake piston? So I decide to replace my brake pads this afternoon. I do 3 sets and everything's fine. When I get to the last wheel though, the pads are worn way down, and one of the two pistons on the caliper is funny looking. (I couldn't tell you how it was funny, it just looked odd, for some reason I can't put my finger on.)

Anyway I pull the old pads, grease the shims, slap the new ones in there, and get to the part where you have to push the pistons back into the caliper. The first one went in fine, but the funny-looking one only went in about halfway, and wouldn't go any further.

I tried using a C-clamp and some cardboard to push it in, and opening up the bleeder valve, but the thing still wouldn't budge. So, it's stuck, somehow, probably cocked sideways in its hole. I put the old pads back on (cause the new ones wouldn't fit in the half-open caliper), bled the lines and it drives fine.

I understand that I'm probably looking at doing a caliper rebuild (blahhh), but I'm wondering if there are any trick-up-the-sleeve kind of things that might allow me to free the piston without taking the damned thing apart. If it matters, this is a 1997 Toyota Supra, ABS, two-piston front discs. Thanks!

I want my couch back.

backseatpilot — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:39:43 -0800

I can't get my couch upstairs. Help! I just moved to a second-floor apartment in a multi-family home. The stairs are narrow with a 90 degree turn, so large items were difficult to get in to the new place. The couch was impossible to get in. It's now sitting in the basement and I have nowhere to sit.

I would like advice on the following:
How do I get my couch upstairs? It looks impossible to take it apart to bring it upstairs in pieces. There's a balcony that I could potentially hoist it up to, but I'd like to do that with minimal damage/injury. Has anyone managed this before?

How have people managed to bring large furniture to upstairs apartments?

If it is in fact totally unfeasible to get the couch upstairs, what do I do with it? I guess I'd look to sell it, but as far as I can tell, craigslist is a terrible place to sell sofas due to market saturation. Any suggestions on a possible replacement that is smallish or can be easily disassembled?

Help! I'm stuck with a girl I can't stand!

lukeo05 — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:53:03 -0800

I'm stuck in a relationship I shouldn't be in and don't know how I can end it. The whole story of this relationship is rather long and boring, so I will try and give just the snippets that are needed for hopefully some hive mind help.

I'm at University, living in halls of residence, with my girlfriend I met 7 days into University. She lives in the same hall as me, two floors above, all of our friends are mutual here, as that is how we know each other. I got silly and let the relationship get serious without really thinking about the consequences, or whether or not I actually wanted serious relationship with this person.

Now, due to my inability to cut my losses earlier, I am to be moving into a rented house with this girl, and 3 other male friends from our halls. The truth is, I am completely fed up with the relationship, and have been holding out, hoping it is a blip, or things will get better, but despite the occasional really nice time together, the rest of the time I am bored with her company, become irritable with her as I don't want to be there, and this is bringing her down and making me seem like a not very nice person.

I know I shouldn't be in this relationship, but how can I end it when I know I could just try and live in a not-so-great relationship for a year, rather than ending it and having to live in a house, and share mutual friends. It is not that I have an issue staying friends with her, I would like that, but she has spoke it depth several times about how she wouldn't be able to do that, especially living with me, and has mentioned she definitely wouldn't move into the house if we broke up, plus mentions of 'life not being worth living', 'I would have to kill myself' etc. I'm sure it wouldn't come to that, but she is an extremely emotionally unstable girl, who contrasts my personality completely and I can't see how to resolve this in any way that will be good for both of us.

way too ambitious for my own good

raztaj — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:20:10 -0800

I'm trying to replace the shower head for the shower in my apartment. The old one will not come off. Help! I don't know how long the old shower head has been installed, I've only lived in my apartment for about 8 months. But I just renewed my lease for an additional year, so I figured I might as well spend that time bathing in something more than a light tapping of water.

The old one won't come off. I've tried a basic wrench and pliers. I've been able to twist it off one time around, but it won't budge any more, and I'm afraid of damaging the pipe by forcing it too much. It's pretty damn stuck.

So I picked up some WD-40 from the CVS, and left it on for about 20 minutes - no luck. It's not rusted, I don't see any visible lime buildup, and my total lack of home/apartment improvement skill, merged with my gusto to want to accomplish this small task by myself, is leaving me stuck, too.

What else can I do? Besides wussing out and calling maintenance or keeping with my light sprinkle showers, are there any other modes of action I can try to remove the old fixture?

(ps) I think this is either exactly or very close to the one currently installed, whether that makes a difference, I do not know...

Tape Stuck Boy

chuckdarwin — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:19:37 -0800

How does one eject a stuck DAT Tape? The tape in question is stuck in a HP StorageWorks DAT 160 USB Tape Drive. I've tried the HP troubleshooting steps to no avail (holding the eject button for five seconds). Any ideas?

Doing The Unstuck

dw — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:51:38 -0800

Thanks to my own stupidity, I managed to get two saucepans stuck one inside the other, with the lower one apparently containing a cavity of lower pressure holding the upper pan in place. Is there any way to get them apart without causing injury or property damage? The other night I needed to melt chocolate to coat Christmas cookies, but I couldn't find a metal bowl, and I don't own a double boiler. So I improvised and used two saucepans, one slightly narrower and taller than the other. It was all going well until I got stupid and turned off the heat.

There was this thump. The top pan sunk into the bottom pan and stuck fast. And that's where I am now. The two pans will not come unstuck.

The bottom pan still contains water; I can hear it sloshing about.

The most obvious solution to me would be to put the pans back on the heat, get the water in the bottom pan back up to simmer, and see if I can pry them apart at that point. But I'm afraid that that hot water would rapidly go under pressure, and either I'd get nasty steam burns from prying them apart, or the top pan would get launched by the pressure.

I've thought about sacrificing one of the pans by drilling a hole, but they're both Calphalon, and I don't think I have a drill bit that could get through the anodized layer.

I don't really want to throw both pans out. If I could just salvage one, great. If I could salvage both, spectacular. But I'm running out of ideas as to how to undo this mess.

Sticky Buttons

SansPoint — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:27 -0800

AAAAH!! My iBook G4 trackpad button is stuck! Help! My iBook fell off my desk, on the back. Didn't sound like it would be a problem, but now my trackpad button's stuck. I've tried prying it up, but no avail. Sure I can click on the pad itself, but I prefer the big button. Any help? Suggestions? Do I really need to go out to Ardmore to the nearest Apple Store? I don't have AppleCare, but it *is* a refurb... that I bought over a year ago...

Help!

I keep writing but I don't get to the end.

Brainy — Mon, 14 May 2007 19:23:56 -0800

I'm going back to school and I haven't written essays in about...oh...five years. I can brainstorm like crazy, but I can't seem to structure it properly. As my girlfriend puts it: my essays are just black holes that suck up my time, and I get no where. Forgive me if the answer is out there hiding behind the simplest search, if I try to look up "how to write an essay", I'll get all caught up in something and I'll get nowhere.

Like I said above, I can brainstorm/pre-write like crazy, the problem is that I end up saying things I didn't even mean to...and then fleshing out those ideas...and then realizing they don't fit into what I was originally trying to say.

I don't know how better to do this: I'm spinning my wheels. How do I write better?

By the way, I know the phrasing of this question sucks, but if I don't get it out there, I won't get it out there. I'll clarify anything in responses. I just need to start the process.

Name that MIDI

mzurer — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:46:07 -0800

What is this song stuck in my friend's head?

Got an electic plane stuck in a tree.

BigBrownBear — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:59:31 -0800

My friend has an electric plane stuck in a tree. Help him get it down!!!! Here's his email. Anyone have any ideas?

I went flying on the weekend with my new electric plane, it was so much fun, did all the tricks and sins and stuff. Everything was going great until a gust of wind took it into the highest tree imaginable, where I think it still is. It was just impossible to get out no matter how many stones I threw at it – mental! I’m sure it’s still there as its pretty out of sight, so my idea is to swing by Stu’s, pick up his 5 metre sea-fishing rod, head out to Leroy Merlin, buy myself a roll of bamboo rods, some gaffer tape (the grey stuff), and try and fashion a hybrid fishing rod with bamboo at least 15 metres long. I know it sounds crazy, but the idea of leaving behind 350 euros in a tree is enough to make one stay awake at night. I gotta give it 1 more shot!!

If you have any other ideas about how I can get it out of the tree, ignoring the one’s I’ve already heard (1.shoot it with a gun, 2. Chop the tree down, 3. Climb the tree, 4. Call the fire brigade, 5. Set fire to the tree, 6. Hire a chainsaw and cut through the branches, and 7. High pressure hose-pipe). So far I’ll stick with my idea I think, but if you have any others, please let me know.

P.S. The tree is at least 15m high!!

Help me save a tape stuck in my Portastudio

chococat — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:16:24 -0800

I have a Tascam Porta05 Ministudio that's at least 10 years old. I powered it up a few weeks ago to play some old tapes and noticed that it's frozen into the "play" position. All the buttons are off, pushing "play" or "stop" or "pause" does nothing. It's almost as though it's stuck in "pause" because when I push "FF" or "REW" the tape is still engaged and I can hear/see the audio levels as it cues and I can hear the motor running the way it does in "pause," but the "pause" button is off.

Turning power on/off does nothing. Unscrewing the back of the machine is (I discovered) futile as you can't take the top off with a tape stuck in it. I tried (gently) inserting a screwdriver to see if prying the capstans and recording head a little would make it pop open, but no luck. A few pictures of it here.
The only other person I could find with this problem had some unhelpful answers.

I'd be sad if the machine was toast, as I have boxes of tapes of me learning how to record when I was in my teens/twenties in the late 80's/'90's that I'd love to archive. And I really want to save the tape that's in there as it's got 90 minutes of irreplacable demos from 1997-1999.