dcairns
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Posts posted by dcairns
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Wow, that is a scary picture. I am a cyclist, I ride my road bike 4 times a week, about 2 miles of it on the public streets, the rest on the bike trail. I have been hit once by a driver that, without warning or looking, decided to make a sudden right turn, into me. Luckily just some scrapes an sore muscles for me. The bike needed a new front wheel.
What upsets me most are drivers who yell at me to get off the road and ride on the sidewalk. They apparently know nothing of the laws for cyclists, as riding on the sidewalk is illegal in my city (and in most cities around here). And I have the right to use the road according the to vehicle code. Yeah, I know it is a moments inconvenience for them when I have to take the lane, but there are two other lanes for them, and it is my life on the line.
I guess that is why I like mountain biking best. You only have to worry about mountain lions and cactus. No distracted drivers with a cell phone in one hand and a cheese burger in the other.
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My truck is paid for and I work from home, so all the mileage I put on it is "optional" errands to the store kind of stuff. Besides, I need it to tow the trailer for vacations
Other than that, it would be nice to have something small that uses less gas. It would bring some of the fun back in going for a Saturday drive to the mountains. Something like a Cobalt SS would get 22 MPG city and 30 hwy and still be fun to drive -
My original battery in my 03 finally died a few months ago. Pulled into the gas station, filled up, went to start, and not enough oomph to turn the engine over. Walked home, got the wife's car and the jumpers to get it going again. Then went and got a red top Optima.
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They say no one tool seems to catch all the bugs. Sounds like you got a serious infection there. I would use several anti-spyware products on your system to clean it up, and then use some sort or Firewall/anti-spyware program for continued protection. The sad thing is, there are bugs out there that no anti-spyware/virus program can detect (like root kits), and you may think you have cleaned up your system but still be part of some hacker's bot-net. Sometimes you just have to nuke the hard drive and start over.
I use a hardware Firewall/router and the paid version of Zone Alarm. It comes in a few different versions, I have the combination of Firewall and anti-virus and anti-spyware/trojan. No known bugs over the last several years, so I am a happy customer.
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I think solar panels on every roof in the South West is something we need to do, but... The biggest hurdle for adding solar panels to your home is the time it takes to pay back the investment. Let's say your electric bill averages $100 a month and you were able to put on solar panels with net metering to reduce your bill close to $0.
$15,000/100 = 150 months or 12.5 years to break even.
Most people move more frequently than 12 years. So then you have the question of 'will I get my investment back when I sell the house?'. We need to come up with a way to do this that removes the risk. If we are serious about energy independence, I think the government ought to offer low/no interest loans to install net metered solar panels and make the loan transferable with the selling of the home. That takes the risk out and gives a real step towards lowering imported energy.
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Congrats on the Radix. You are going to love it.
Did you do any electric fans behind the heat exchanger?
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Unless you have money to burn, I would start out with something a bit smaller
Once you have the flying skills, then you can go for the giant scale (and giant bucks) planes. I would recommend you find a local flying club to learn to fly with. They usually have programs that help people get started by letting them try out some flying with the beater 'club plane' with an instructor on a 'buddy cable'. With the buddy cable, the instructor takes the plane up, turns the controls over to your transmitter, and you start flying. If you get into trouble, the instructor takes control back and then you try again. This saves a lot of aggravation and broken planes (don't ask how I know ... 
)Try looking for a local club with a flying field here. Just put in your zip code:
http://www.modelaircraft.org/clubsearch.aspx
Remember, anybody can fly, landing takes a real pilot
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I have a stock Radix tune file that came from Magna and they tend to be on the rich side with a real conservative HI octane timing table. Being on the rich side and FI, over time your cats may have some isues. I believe Dave Carins had issues after 30-40K supercharged miles running a stock Magna tune with I believe only a cat back. His tranny was O.K. - with only a larger cooler I believe as well. I melted 2 sets of cats (although I was far from a stock Radix application and intentionally ran on the rich side).
The tune I had been using turned out to be a pre-CARB approved tune and was richer than the "stock" tune. So I changed the tune and put some good used cats on (thanks foxySS
) So far so good, I am up to 68K miles now, and since I work from home these days, so most of my milage now is towing the trailer on vacations. The old cats didn't look bad, but they were setting off the alarm as not working as well as they should. Also, since I got my Radix so early, the kit came with a 3.1 pulley installed, which is a bit smaller than stock (not complaing there ). I tried a cat back exhaust for a while, but didn't like the noise and went back to stock. So pretty much all the milage is with stock exhaust. I also upgraded the transmission cooler and added a bigger heat exchager for the Radix. So the bottom line is, the Radix is a very good kit for daily driving. One of these days I want to get a good dyno tune done. As mentioned here, there is still more power to be found with a good tune. -
Go to the pet store and look for a product called "Nature's Miracle". It may take a few treatments, but it does work.
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Sounds interesting. Dare I ask how much? I have been thinking of adding at least a kill switch after reading about the recent posts on SS thefts here in SoCal.
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Wow, all us geezers are showing up for this thread
I had the ol "tour de sewer" done a couple years ago. Like he said, the preparation is the hard part.
It's also a shame on how some doctors prescribe medications. It is absolutely ridiculous on the amount of drugs that some doctors have people on. A couple come to mind as I am typing this. I have some co-workers that are on 10+ drugs for different 10 different "illnesses". There are LOTS of natural remedies that DO work. I believe most prescription medicine will kill a person in the long run. There is a time and place for synthetic drugs, but doctors abuse the power of being able to write prescriptions. No wonder why most people can't afford brand name drugs because their doctor has them on 10 different pills a day.You are quite right, the medical industry is stuck in the loop of "got a problem, here is a pill for it". Prevention is the key, by making some healthy choices in your life you can avoid a lot of the problems people suffer/die from. Statistically, half of us will die from heart disease, but it is mostly preventable. Keep the weight down, cut the fat/cholesterol, don't smoke, don't drink a lot, and get some regular exercise and you can add many good years to your life.
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Did you have the cartoon made by the artist at http://www.koolcartoons.com ?
Who "owns" the cartoon may not be as straight forward as you might think... For instance, in the case of photography, a photographer can take your picture and sell you a copy, but the photographer retains the 'copyright' of the photo. So you could not legally reproduce the photo, even though you purchased the copy and it is a picture of you. I am not sure how the laws work with created art, probably depends on the contract between artist and buyer. So it is possible the artist retains the copyright to his work and the ability to resell it to others, like the ebay T-shirt vendor (asuming the ebay guy is bothering to follow copyright laws).
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You know, it is funny, most of the things that I can think of doing involve getting away from LA/OC area
Here are some more cultural/egghead type things to see:
There is the Getty Museum
The recently remodeled Griffith Observatory
The LA Museum of Natural History is great
With some planning you can tour JPL (see the Visitor Day Tours section)
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pso/pt.cfm
Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific is very cool
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org
The cliffs of Palos Verdes are a fun drive (not over the edge, please
)A trip to Catalina Isand is a fun option. Avalon has more touristy “stuff to do”, while Two Harbors is more natural.
http://www.catalinaexpress.com/
And there is Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Magic Mountian for theme park type stuff. There is Universal Studios Tour, but I always thought that was pretty lame.
Don't miss out on Philippes. Great French Dip sandwich
And a Tommys burger is not to be missed, unless your doctor advies against it. The original store on Beverly and Rampart in Los Angeles is the one to go to.
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Check the rules for the states you will be traveling through. Speed limits while towing are sometimes lower than for regular traffic, and it varies from state to state.
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I hope there is a special place in Hell for spammers
We are looking into it.
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Alright all you headbangers, we need to slow down a bit here...
Loreena McKennitt
Moya Brennan
Celtic Woman
Simon & Garfunkel
Loreena McKennitt
Goning way back to the 80's...
Sparks
Laurie Anderson
OMD
Kansas
Kansas
Concerts I would like to see, but they will probably never happen:
Kate Bush
Klaatu
Enya
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Yeah it is hard to spot. Took me a while to find it way back when.
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The best way to keep from having a belt problem is to keep a spare belt under the back seat
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I think its time for a RADIX fellas.........
Good call
I still run the stock exhaust with my Radix and it is plenty fun to drive. -
I was getting an:
P0430 Engine controller ($10) - - - - - - C - Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold (Bank 2)
GM said it was the cats, and wanted $1200 to replace them (they blamed the supercharger and would not warranty them). So I bought some slightly used cats from foxySS (thanks
), who was going with some high flow cats, and had the stockers laying around. That solved my problem. The old cats looked fine visually. Probably just cooked off the platinum enough to reduce their efficiency. -
everyone here runs a aftermarket CAi. I had a volant others use the outlaw radix CAI. I like the fit and finish of the volant
I still run the stock air box, and I have even chucked the K&N and gone back to the paper filter. The paper may be more restrictive, but it has more surface area, and does not pass as much dirt as the K&N.
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I would think it odd if the gas was the culprit. I ran a tank of some mid grade gas once when I was in Kings Canyon, low on gas and far from a civilized gas station with premuim. I was able to tow the trailer out without any pinging. I was extra careful not to get into boost going up the grades, though.
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This is kinda of interesting if you want some info on the pest
The best thing I ever got for my home phone was a gizmo called the "Screen Machine" off of ebay. It answers the phone for you, plays a message you record telling friends an family to press 5 to ring your phone, and tells telemarketers to hang up and remove you from their call list. I have not had a marketing call since.
I wish they had a system like that for cell phones. -
I do every 3000. But that is overkill even with the standar oil.
So Cal
in Off-Topic/General
Posted
City of Orange here