Archive for January, 2008

2008

1/1/2008

Above: My father’s cat Tux caught in the middle of a yawn. And no, he is not missing a foot, it’s curled under. He likes to sit like that.

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roll over

1/1/2008

It’s been said that rolling over car loans is driving people broke (pun intended) and that it could mean a huge slump in new car sales.

Um.. duh? Yeah.

I have an ‘05 truck now. I don’t have any issues with it save for the fact I hate the payment and want it gone.

It’s very unlikely I’m going to buy another new car for a long time. The next ride I get is definitely going to be used. The only real decision I have to make is whether to go with style or mileage.

If I go with style, I’d get a late-80’s or early-90’s Corvette. The mileage is 15/22. Very crappy, but the car is just fucking cool. :-)

If I go with mileage, I’d get a specifically equipped late-80’s or early-90’s Civic 3-door hatchback. “Specifically” means I’d purposely seek one out that has a manual transmission. With the stick you lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 pounds from the weight of the car. Less weight means better mileage if you don’t lead-foot it.

But even if I did lead-foot it, I’d still be saving money.

See, the funny thing is that most people don’t realize that older Civics get 30mpg easily. In fact, a properly-tuned (meaning a smooth running engine) 1986 Civic gets 39 miles per gallon on the highway.

And that was a car built 22 years ago(!)

I mean, sheesh.. these cars are dirt cheap to get. Even if you had to spend $1000 to fix it up it would pay for itself in less than a year.

Still think going new is worth it? :-)

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hydrogen peroxide - the ultimate teeth whitener?

1/2/2008

Hydrogen peroxide is probably something you’ve seen before but never really paid much attention to it. You can find it at any pharmacy like Walgreen’s or CVS, it comes in a brown bottle and it’s cheap. The reason for the brown bottle is because it’s light sensitive.

You can in fact use “straight” hydrogen peroxide as a teeth whitener. It works very well and you will see results after only a few days.

Hydrogen peroxide is used in many teeth whitening products. The next time you’re in the mouthwash aisle, look at Listerine Whitening. It’s a solid white bottle and the 3rd or 4th ingredient listed is hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide has no taste whatsoever. You would think it does but it doesn’t.

Here’s the things you should know, in Q/A style:

Can you swish it?

Yes, but DO NOT swallow it else you’ll get super sick. This is why all mouthwash products tell you not to swallow. The same applies to hydrogen peroxide.

In addition, you will get “electric tongue”. Your tongue will tingle in way you may not like.

I don’t swish it. You can if you want, but I don’t.

Is it safe for your gums?

If you have sensitive gums, no. And even if you don’t have sensitive gums the peroxide may cause them to be sensitive later.

How do you use it?

This is my method:

1. Pour some peroxide into a small cup.
2. Rinse toothbrush with water.
3. Dip toothbrush into peroxide (no toothpaste involved) so all the bristles are soaked evenly.
4. Brush manually (no electric toothbrushes - they don’t work as well). You will see the peroxide foam up on your teeth like it’s supposed to.
5. Dip 2 or 3 more times, continue to brush normally.
6. When done, rinse mouth with water, rinse out toothbrush.

After this I will brush again with regular toothpaste, floss and use Listerine Cool Mint to swish water afterwards.

It’s totally worth the extra 2 to 3 minutes to do all this.

My experience

My teeth got whiter after using straight peroxide for only 2 days. It was noticeable.

Final notes

You will not get any sort of “clean feeling” from using peroxide. It’s all visual. Go by what you see.

Peroxide does not replace toothpaste whatsoever. You should still brush with the paste afterwards.

Peroxide does nothing for breath (hence the reason I use the Cool Mint Listerine after brushing the 2nd time).

If peroxide makes your gums too sensitive, consider using Listerine Whitening instead. It’s essentially a “watered down” version but it does the exact same thing as it does have hydrogen peroxide in it. And compared to straight peroxide you can swish it without experiencing any electric-tongue. :-) But it doesn’t work as fast as straight peroxide does.

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sam i am

1/3/2008

I finally ponied up and got a Sam’s Club membership.

Why?

Because Sam’s is the only place that sells cases of Monster LO-CARB soda.

I know what you’re thinking.

So.. you got a Sam’s membership just for that soda?

Yes. I’m totally addicted to the stuff but it’s prohibitively expensive.

It costs over $2.50 a can (tax not included) in you buy them individually.

When you buy it by the case it’s $1.29 a can (tax included).

The Sam’s yearly membership fee will have paid for itself after the second case.

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one point four degrees F

1/4/2008

I’ve experienced cold before but this is ridiculous.

It’s 11:40pm as I write this and it’s 41° F outside in Tampa.

That’s not the ridiculous part.

Back at the stomping grounds it’s 1.4° F.

I screen-captured this one just to prove I’m not kidding.

Click the image above for full-size view.

In all the years I lived there it never got that cold.

Wow.

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buick restoration possibly begins in late january

1/4/2008

It’s been a while since I posted any Buick news, so here’s the scoop as to what’s going on.

BuickFreeSpirit.com

Scott sent me a ton of very useful stuff. Photos, info and so on - even an original invoice. I have yet to post this on the site. This is due to two things.

First, the site needs a redesign. Needs something a bit more spruced up.

Second, I need to organize the content better.

It’s the second point I’m going to speak on for a bit.

It turns out that my little Buick site is considered to be a very good source of information on the Free Spirit car(s). This is basically because I’m the only guy on the internet (that I know of) who actually took the time to collect and organize the available info in the first place. And why do I do it? Because I have a passion for the car. If I didn’t, the site wouldn’t exist.

The content I have, while decent and factually accurate as far as I’m aware, needs to be organized better. The site redesign is going to heavily reflect that.

I don’t know exactly when the redesign will be launched because it is a spare-time thing I do. But I’m pretty sure people will like it. :-)

One final note concerning the site:

The one question that will never be addressed is how much the car is worth. I’ve received communication here and there asking me how much money they could get for one.

My answer: Piss off. If you’re into Free Spirit Buicks just to make a quick buck, that’s the worst reason to own the car because you’re a money whore; you have absolutely no understanding of what the car is or represents. Go away.

Don’t ask me the “What’s it worth?” question. Bad move.

Restoration possibly begins this month

My immediate concern on my ‘75 is to tackle the mechanical issues first.

She starts okay and runs. The problem is that once the engine is off a massive gas smell happens. Really pungent and definitely not safe.

Either this month or next month I’m going to have her towed to a shop so they can inspect the fuel delivery system front-to-back, find out what’s wrong and replace whatever needs to be replaced - properly.

Once that’s taken care of, suspension and brakes will be next.

After that, an engine rebuild and transmission rebuild.

The engine when running actually sounds very good. It’s a standard GM 350 small-block with a 4-barrel carb.

Speaking of which, I’m 99% sure it’s a Rochester Quadra-Jet; a carb GM used in many of their cars. I don’t believe she needs replacement as there’s no sputtering, stalling or any of that. The carb will definitely be tuned, but not replaced as it doesn’t need to be.

In the interest of keeping matching numbers, I’m keeping the original block under the hood even though there’s a crapload of miles on it. No, I don’t plan on doing the balance/blueprint thing because she’s a cruiser and not a racer.

Concerning the transmission, the THM350 is, admittedly, not the best tranny offering from GM. It was created as a “light duty” version of the THM400. Basically speaking, you can’t romp on a THM350. If you do, it will break. This is why so many prefer the THM400. In the Buick’s application the THM350 is not a problem because I don’t plan on roasting the tires or performing any mad maneuvers with her.

The rest of the mechanicals on the car is fairly simple. It’s all standard “G” body GM stuff. But if there’s anything Buick-specific under there (which I doubt) I’ll make my best effort to keep it authentic.

Speaking of authenticity, there are a few things I’m going to do that will not follow original 1975 spec, one of which is the paint.

Let me tell you a small story:

I have a friend in Connecticut that builds and restores Dodge A-100’s. He was painting a CampWagon version of one and decided to go with the original green-white-green that was offered in the 60’s.

Using expensive PPG paint, he got exact replicas of the green and white.

The green was fine.

The white, sorry to say, just didn’t look white. Now I know the paint was mixed to exact 60’s specs, but white back then looked like “cream” color. That’s just the way it was.

The Buick’s 1975 hue for its white has the same issue. It’s white but not exactly white and I’m not exactly keen on it. So I’m not going to use the original 1975 white.

Instead I have another GM white I’m going to use from the late 90’s. Much whiter, much brighter and definitely better.

The car deserves the best striking white I can get as far as I’m concerned - and that’s what she’s going to get. :-)

So anyway, that’s my plans. More updates as they happen will be posted here.

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oh, eight!

1/5/2008

The title of this post is a play on words. It’s 2008. Get it? Anyone? Anyone? Oh well.. guess not.

Last Friday: Had a girl come over and we watched Harry Potter OOTP. She also brought over Clerks II.

My quick Potter flick review: Best one since the first one. No doubt about that whatsoever. They finally got back to what made the original so successful, cinematically speaking.

I didn’t get to watch Clerks II until today.

First I’ll say that movie still makes me laugh out loud. The last time I saw this flick was in the theater in ‘06. In fact, it was on my very first date in Florida right after I moved here. :-)

It was cool I got to see it again.

And no, this post has nothing to do with 2008. I had something else but it was another one of those stomping grounds vs. Florida things, so I decided to cut that out.

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sky ceiling

1/6/2008

Not the best shot in the world, but the sky in this photo is very typical in Tampa Bay. You can literally see the “ceiling” as if the clouds were resting on an invisible bubble.

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roundy

1/6/2008

I changed the design of the site slightly because I noticed it was getting a bit chunky in the graphics dept., so I slimmed it down a bit.

There’s a nifty little CSS rule called -moz-border-radius that I’m using in this current design. If you are using Firefox to view this site you will see nice roundy borders, like this:

Notice the rounded corners on the white boxes.

If you are using Internet Exploder Explorer, you will see regular squared corners like this:

Either way, the site is still plenty readable in IE 7 or Firefox 2.

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snap

1/7/2008

Last week in the Tampa Bay area (as well as a good chunk of the rest of the state) it was cold outside. Or should I say, cold for here. There were a few days where the highs didn’t go over 55° F and the low dipped below freezing briefly for one day.

But everything’s all back to standard fare now. The high today will be 80° and the low 55°.

I admit, this still throws me for a loop. When the weather gets cold I expect it to stay cold for a while. This is New Englander thinking kicking in and yeah, I’m still getting used to the way Florida weather works.

. . .

For those that wonder why I keep comparing FL weather to New England weather, the reason is because it’s interesting comparing two regions of the US that have vastly different weather patterns. Am I a weather geek? Nah, I don’t think so. I do know some guys who are. Pop is a good example. He has a rain gauge and a bunch of electronic weather doo-dads that I couldn’t see myself using.

The thing I have to continually remind myself of is that I live in a subtropical zone. Florida is a whole lot closer to the equator compared to where I used to live. There are certain parks here that are jungle-like. Weird? Yes. But that’s what subtropical stuff is like. Bear in mind if you want to experience that you specifically have to go looking for it. It’s not like you’ll find jungle-like stuff on a street corner. :-)

There’s a few other weather things that would make those not initiated in FL weather scratch their heads a bit.

A humidity level of 100% is not bad.

When one thinks of a high humidity level, the mind fills with thoughts of sweltering heat, difficulty breathing outside and other nasty stuff.

That’s not the case in FL.

For example, it’s 8am as I write this, 59° outside and 100% humidity. Is this terrible? Not at all. The air is clean, not sticky and actually quite pleasant.

So how would you describe humidity like this? Well, put it this way: All the cars are wet as if a small misty rainfall happened but didn’t.

When a wind advisory is issued, pay attention.

I used to see wind advisories issued all the time in the north but never paid attention to them. Why? Because it didn’t affect anything I did and I could still go about my business normally.

When one is issued in FL on the other hand, you pay attention. Your car does get blown around quite a bit on the highway whereas in the north in wouldn’t. In addition, the wind is a lot stronger.

This doesn’t mean you can’t go about your daily stuff, but it matters a whole lot more down here.

Fog is a lot more common

Fog happens and particularly right before dawn. And even after the sun rises it takes a while for it to burn off.

Upon reflection of my northern driving experience, I can only think of a handful of times where the fog was so thick you literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you.

In FL I’ve already encountered dense fog that was close to that mark more than a few times.

Dense fog is one of those things that sucks no matter where you are. It has a similar visual effect of white-out snow conditions, save for the fact you’re not driving on snow (thank God).

The lesson learned with Tampa Bay fog is: If you encounter it, ease off the gas, drive slow and take it easy. If it’s too thick, stop and wait it out. Better to stop and wait instead of risking an accident from poor visibility.

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