"I sang in my chains like the sea"

Welcome to the 2009 edition of the Dodge Garage news.

July 18th 2009

Quick hardware review and warning!

Pinnacle Dazzle DVD Recorder, DVC - 100

I have piles of VHS tapes I have laying about I was going to covert to DVD but have not found a suitable device to transfer to disc till now. The Dazzle was on www.buy.com refurbished for $20 shipped so I gambled and was pleasantly surprised.

Pro's

Easy setup, cheap, audio/video stays in sync, hardware also works with other Windows applications like Movie Maker. DVD Instant Recorder software will let you burn to disc or store on hard drive (this is important, more later)

Con's

Included "editing" software is so crippled as to be useless, you have to purchase plug-ins to do just about anything, DVD Instant Recorder software breaks Windows Media Player CD burning ability and some bugs!

This post is for all the people getting Windows Media Player error "0xC00D1176: Cannot find a CD recorder" when trying to burn MP3 files to audio CD. The DVD Instant Recorder software installs its own burning driver that breaks Windows Media Player CD burning functionality. All I did was uninstall the Dazzle software and the CD burning function returned to Windows Media Player.

What I would do to capture my video was- 

1) Run Instant Recorder *saving the captured video to hard drive*

2) Open captured files with DVD Shrink (free) and choose re-author. This was done for two reasons! Reason one is that you can edit the beginning and end of the video stream in DVD Shrink so you don't have to worry about getting it perfect while capturing. The second reason is that sometimes DVD Recorder sometimes more often than not generate an odd DVD file structure that will crash most DVD playback software. DVD Shrink will fix this.

3) When in re-author mode, just drag the main movie over to the left pane, click the edit button to set your beginning and end. Set how much compression you want and hit the backup button and you are finished!

4) Remember to uninstall the Dazzle software if you want Media Player burning to work again.

Now I have gobs of racing tapes stored on DVD and my hard drive, be fun to do some editing now if I can find some decent software that doesn't require a degree to operate...

Still picking away at the house and other projects, should be getting a bunch of stuff on Ebay soon! I'm trying to de-clutter the house but it is so hard with time being in short supply...

Gary

 June 27th 2009 (This sun room is driving me insane edition)

The sunroom project is heading into the final laps... some pictures below.

The walls are all tongue and groove planks- All the seams were filled with caulk before insulation was laid.

Here you can see the new windows on the right compared to the old on the left.

The walls have a layer of reflective foam to help keep heat in and seal out possible drafts.

Then a layer of R-15 fiberglass insulation was laid in.

Mike & Tim handle the sheetrock work as I'm running out of time. 

The reflective foam is just laying across the beams upstairs. After the ceiling was in place fiberglass was placed between the beams with 4 x 8 foam sheets over the tops of the beams. This will support a 1 foot layer of fiberglass without loading the sheetrock causing it to bow in the future..

Sheetrock roughed into place. 

I did the electrical work which consisted of moving the old outlets and boxes, installing boxes into code friendly locations, installing 8 new outlets and boxes with a new 20 amp circuit and adding more boxes with connections for cable, network, phone and video feeds.

Another view of work in progress.

Walls in primer!

Left side of room.

The carpet will be coming up after the painting is done, it is a beautiful finished hardwood floor that has been covered with carpet for the last 20-30 years I bet. If I'm lucky the paint will be done this weekend and all that will be left to do is trim the windows up.

I did sneak out to the garage a few weeks ago and slipped a aluminum 4 barrel intake on the Duster. After the sunroom is done this week I'm spending 30 days out in the garage and have some fun ;-)

Did I mention I have a Neon? 2001 with a SOHC and a stick. 

The Spirit R/T is being retired, the body is just falling apart.

Let me know if you like the font change, trying to make the site easier on the eyes.

Gary

P.S. The new Star Trek movie was rather fun even if the story did have a few glaring plot holes in it  while Terminator Salvation sucked I'm afraid. I didn't think it was possible to make a worse Terminator movie than T3-Rise of the Machines but I have been proven wrong.

May 10th 2009 (Mothers day edition!)

What is going at the Dodge Garage...

Still a period of clean up here.. too many projects and not enough time. Projects around the house, projects out in the garage, projects at work! 

Was looking at building a new garage on the property for this year but, the town looks like they might make it difficult so I'm going to do the projects that I can do in the mean time. 

Need to re-shingle the roof, replace the furnace system and I'm in the process of insulating and sheetrocking a sunroom and replacing 12 windows, fun eh?

This month I pulled the transmission out of the Duster to replace some leaking freeze plugs, rebuilt the trans while it is out and did some valve body mods too. Car is mobile again and at least for now I don't have to worry about that. I'd like to install the dual exhaust and 4 barrel intake this month too but the sunroom needs to be finished before mid-June. Has some other stuff planned, just going to have to wait till July though. Trying to avoid any heavy work to the car since we are getting into prime carshow and cruise night season, so far have not missed much as the weather here has been horrid.

Speaking of the Duster, I'll be starting a mods page soon detailing what has been done to the car plus some tips one installing a Magnum engine in an early car. The Magnum engine is a project for later this year, I have all the parts, just a matter of downing the car so the body shop can paint the bay and I have a lot of brackets and pieces to strip and paint.

Spent some time cleaning out the workshop and setting up a work area. Picked up a sandblast cabinet on sale with 20% off coupon from Harbor Freight, loaded with Aluminum Oxide this things rocks! It make short work of rust and paint and will really help out when I start restoring the GTX in the next year or two. Already I have blasted a few brackets and the wiper motor off the duster and it is fantastic. I have waited more than a few years to pick one up, was well worth the wait.

Leah is doing good, school is almost done for the season, she will be in 4 grade in the fall. Might take her with me to SDAC this summer if I can work out the schedule with Heather.

Other than that just been keeping a sharp eye on the news, don't like what I see at all. 6 million people out of work since January 20th, we look to be in for a rough ride the next few years. 

Best to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

April 6th 2009.

Parts page update- Hauled a bunch of stuff down to a Shelby Dodge dyno event in Lancaster PA, had a great time guys! Was great to see Steve Menegon, Cliff Sebring, Brian Slowe, Mike Marra and all my other good friends I have not seen in some time.

Been busy working on the house (upgrades that have to be done this year), getting a 5.9 magnum motor freshened up for the Duster and just in general getting my house in order so I can move onward to other projects... Priorities guys, priorities.

It is going to be a rough ride the next few years.

November 5th 2008

Who is John Galt? 

October 2008

Some of the CNN reports sited as references have already expired from the web, but many other sites still are interesting to read!


Part 1:  Remember the election in 2006? Thought you might like to read the following:

A little over two years ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.


Quote of the Day........

'It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too, my attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."  -- Barack Obama

So Obama wants to spread the wealth around? I'd perfer people who generated the wealth to keep it. Why should you or I give my money to people who didn't earn it?

Let's make something perfectly clear- When Obama speaks about taxing those who make over $250,000 a year he was very clear that was $250 in REVENUE not PROFITS.  

My little company Relentless Performance pulled in more than that in a year, but profit is a far different story than the total of checks coming in- You have rent, salary, shipping, local taxes, electric, inventory, R&D expenses, etc. The list goes on and on. After your monthly overhead is paid for there wasn't a lot of money left (the profit part) to feed my family.

Obama wants to tax based on the dollar amount coming in, not the profit after bills are paid.

Can anyone say Jimmy Carter II? 

To a few of you that means nothing, but to someone who lived through that disaster in the 70's it is to be avoided again at all costs. Were still living with bad choices made by Carter when he was in office.

Cuba got change in 1958, be careful what you wish for. 

Part 2: Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.

www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Taxes under Clinton 1999       Taxes under Bush 2008

Single making 30K - tax $8,400           Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000         Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250         Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800     Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000     Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750     Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest
President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.



PART 3: You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:

Boy, am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.


I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.


1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html (dead link, I'll try to find a good one)

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis..org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html (dead link, I'll try to find a good one)

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5 $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US 

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.

Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'

Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. 

Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.

Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

October 2008

The Duster page is up (with more to be added)

October 2008

As you can see by the changed front page image, I have been very busy =)

Picked up a 1974 Plymouth Duster in distressed condition 2 months ago in an effort to get motivated to working on the GTX... as you can tell by the picture it has really come a long way! I'll post a Duster project page soon so you can see the before and after results.

Update on the fleet- Yes I still have the Reliant, the Spirit still is alive and kicking (pulling over 30 mpg with 53pph injectors, ha!) the Dodge ram now has plates (no more dealer plates) the Town and Country van was sold on Ebay, the GTX is in storage still and I still have the Honda Magna motorcycle which I have put more miles this year than any other I think.

Leah is doing great! Just celebrated her 8th birthday, we had a party over Heather's house. She is living locally now which minimizes travel time and the stress on Leah.

Work is steady if a touch boring (IMHO) but it beats worrying if a dealership is going to have it's doors open or not the next day!

Gary

P.S. I think only one person has figured out the quote at the top of the page, too obscure perhaps!

July 2008.

Yes I'm still alive.

Heather and I went our separate ways last year and there was some difficult times... For the most part they are behind me now and I'm in the process of getting things back in some sort of order.

Leah is doing well and is happy and I have a new job as an Assistant Director of Maintenance of a healthcare facility in southeastern CT. The pay is about the same as I was making before plus health benefits so it is all good.

Gary

August 18th 2007

A joke sent to me by a friend entitled "You have to love the Irish..."

At a U2 concert in Ireland , Bono (the lead singer) asks the audience for some quiet. Then he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone...."I want you to think about something. Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies." 

A voice from the front of the audience yells out...."Then stop clapping, ya asshole!"

July 23rd 2007

Blackhole II is back online. (an inside joke for you that use to work for 3dfx, no one else will get it of course nor do they have too)

Hello my friends I have returned from beyond.... more tomorrow.

Gary