Wmcmanus

Thanks for the belated wishes as well. You guys are just ever so swell.

Don't know if anyone has posted this yet... got it as an email from Dave Derik. Somehow it made me think of Mike Baker. I need more shows

Thanks, everyone! It's nice in this day and age to receive real birthday wishes from real people who actually know me! I must have deleted at least a dozen system generated birthday emails form the various forums I'm registered at. In fact, in some cases, that's the only reminder I ever get that I'm a still a member. FerrariChatClub. Huh? I must have really been dreaming the day I signed up for that one! We're in the midst of a tropical storm today in Cayman. It has been raining non-stop for about 16 hours. The roads are all flooded and my classes at the college are cancelled for tonight. Good thing my g/f is on-Island at the moment. It will be her job to keep me safe and warm tonight. She just got back on Sunday, and so far neither of us has driven the other completely nuts. All a matter of time, of course, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Just started working my way through my Three Stooges box set this weekend. Always a sucker for the Amazon "Gold Box" deal of the day, I must have spent the requisite $27.99 at some point in the recent past to acquire this lovely, VERY comprehensive DVD set, which contains ALL of the Stooges shorts from 1934-1959. I'm still on Disk 3 of 17 and am afraid my mind will go numb even before I'm able to eject Disk 3 from my laptop. Mindless birthday #48 here I come!!!

Found out who borrowed my wheelbarrow, and fell much better now knowing that it wasn't stolen by someone who might want to come back for more.

Walked around the back of my house to discover that my wheelbarrow is missing. I'm hoping that someone I know borrowed it this summer. It would spook me a bit if it was actually stolen. Not that I give a shit about a wheelbarrow since it can be replaced for $50 or less. But dang! It was on the back porch, just one broken sliding glass door and 10 feet away from my all-MBL system.

One of those email things. I found this one quite interesting and fun and thus have bookmarked it for occasional reference. Only thing that has me scratching my head is why it shows 2004 following 2010. Obviously a little problem there, but otherwise pretty slick. http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf Seconds Minutes Hours Day of week Day Month Year

No, I hear ya. I just don't think I'll have the patience to wait for the 93-SE. The Netflix thing would be nice to have right away.

That or buy the 93 now, then move it to the MH in the Spring when I hit the road again. Then get a 93-SE for home next Fall and sell the 83. Lots of ways to skin a cat.

Ya, no kidding. Sounds like a blast!

So it would seem. I like that boom boom pow though. Gotta get get. Gotta get get. Sounds good in a nice car stereo system, but I wouldn't play it anywhere else.

Ya, that what I got from the article as well, although that wasn't the case with the 83 and 83-SE. If the 93-SE is a completely different unit, I may hold off until it comes out. I could bring my 83 to Cayman and use it in the meantime.

Man, that's such sad news. I had seen Todd's post about his dad passing on Facebook, but didn't realize what the circumstances were. You have my sincere condolences, Todd. Hang in there, pal.

This is great news. I've just bought a Panasonic 65" plasma (the VT25 model) and was debating whether to bring my BDP-83 to Cayman (it's in my motorhome in the US now) or to possibly buy a different BluRay player. So I'll just leave the 83 in the road rig and buy a 93 for home. One question though: does anyone know whether we'll be able to upgrade a 93 to the SE version when that becomes available? Or will the 93-SE be a completely different unit?

Happy birthday, Jim!!!

Go for it, man! I got a chance to drive one for a couple of "soft" laps at VIR this summer and must say I was quite impressed. It handles like a dream. Funny how people are at track days. Some guys are completely full of themselves and won't let anyone near their car, and others are totally cool. I was having lunch with a group of people and just casually asked one older guy a couple of questions about his Z06, then as we walked down the steps after lunch he tossed me his keys and said, "Here, give it a ride and find out for yourself." I'd love to have one some day myself. Only problem is that they're at least $80k landed in Cayman after shipping and import duty.

No, it's going back to Cayman. I haven't had a TV in the house for about 8 years now. Will be wall mounted between the MBL 101E speakers. I've got a 32" Sharp Aquos in the motorhome bedroom. Bought it 3 years ago. I'm going to move the Sharp into the living room area and replace it with a 46" plasma of some sort, but will wait until Spring to do that to get more bang for the buck. No sense in buying it now and letting it sit in storage for 6 months. I recently had a brainstorm and ordered a couple of wall mounts for the motorhome TVs that will allow me to rotate them 180 degrees when they're not in use. That way, I can use much bigger TVs in the same space, and still be able to get them shoved back into closets and secured before moving down the road again. Open closet doors, pull TV out toward me, then rotate it to horizontal to watch. Then rotate to vertical, push back into closet, and close doors. I can't believe it took me 3 years to figure this out. So I'll have a 46" and 32" instead of a 32" and 26" (the latter of which I've given to my nephews and they're thrilled with it).

I'm pretty excited about this purchase: Panasonic TC-P65VT25 65" Class Viera VT25 Series Full HD 3D Ready Plasma HDTV in Plasma Televisions at JR.com Got it at BestBuy but J&R does a better blurb on it.

Meetings in Monte Carlo today. Heading to the casino tonight. Will enter with a light wallet and leave with an even lighter one, I'm sure.

Ok, a half an hour later, and a half a Diet Coke as well, and I'm feeling somewhat human again. Man, was that ever a long haul yesterday! I'm now going to walk over to my mom's house and check out all of the goodies that have been accumulating there for me during the past couple of months. There should be at least 20 boxes, including the subwoofer enclosures for my pickup, a couple of TV wall mounts, and all sorts of CDs and BluRays.

Drove for 16 hours yesterday from noon until 4:30am, stopping only for bathroom breaks. Got about 6 hours of sleep, but not nearly enough. Feeling out of it. I'm back in Illinois now for a family reunion weekend, then a 3 day drive down to Tampa for winter storage. Planned on doing a 3 day drive from Idaho to Illinois as well, but mechanical problems messed that up, and thus had to do 2/3rds of the trip in one day. At least I've got a great sound system now. Loved the Hendrix "Valleys of Neptune" album.

A Volvo transmission part that I'll need to get back on the road. Some sort of "relay" that needs to work right for the computer to tell the automatic transmission when it's time to shift. Same thing happened when I was in Canada in May and it the goons trying to fix it took hours on end before calling Volvo's technical support line, when they got an answer to my problem in 2 minutes. Problem solved with a $137 part and a bill for over $1,000 because of all of the "labor" for them scratching their nuts. Of course (as it now turns out), the relay thingie wasn't what Regis would call a "final answer" but it solved the problem last time, at least for a couple of months. So it's where I'm going to have this new set of goons start tomorrow because it's the exact same problem. Once the engine starts acting up, whenever it downshifts from 10th to 9th, it won't shift back up, not even with a manual override. Then when it goes to 8th, it won't go back up to 9th, and so on until I'm stuck in 1st gear with my hazards on at 2 mph. Turn the engine off and let if sit for 5 minutes, and usually everything resets and it will shift straight up to 10th. At least until it starts acting up again another hour down the road and by then more severely. Dangerous to say the least, although there is always the shoulder of the road on I-80 in case I need to pull over and kill the engine for a while. Just don't know how many times I'll be able to do that before I'm facing a major towing bill, especially out in Western Bumfuck Wyoming where the nearest wrecker big enough to handle 64k pounds may be hours away. I'll have them put the part in as soon as UPS arrives in the morning. The true "final answer" will have to wait for another day cause I've got places to be and things to do. One of the dozen or so guys I spoke to today at the various truck service places suggested that something is probably messing up one of the (many apparently) solenoids, but it's usually quite difficult to figure out exactly what is going wrong "sometimes it takes us a week to figure it out when those Volvos start having transmission problems", I believe was the quote. Heh... I'll replace the transmission before I get caught up in that "diagnosis" game again... and here I was playing the "Blame Canada!" song in my head. Turns out they're just as bad in the States. Took the Atom out, and did some donuts in a Church parking lot tonight to relieve some of the stress. (The rear tires need to be replaced, so I'm having some fun burning them out in the meantime.) Must have been a prayer meeting going on because a bunch of old folks came running out to see what was going on. Most of them seemed amused, but one old guy tried to chase me off. I was tempted to give him a one finger wave, but resisted.

Yes, indeed, very cool career Manuel. I'm leaving Idaho Falls today enroute to my home town in Illinois. Have a 1,500 mile drive in front of me and, as always, I'm a couple of days behind schedule. Stayed up all night decluttering both the motorhome and trailer. Finally got around to installing a Thule bike rack on the back of my pickup and thus have a convenient place in the trailer to store my bike while in transit. Feeling quite dumb about that, given that a) the bike has been inoperable since I rammed my Atom into it last summer (when it was bungie strapped down in the nose area of the trailer), and it has been clogging up the aisle in the cab area of my truck/motorhome ever since. In other words, why didn't I install the silly bike rack last year as soon as it arrived? In truth, about the only reason I actually did get around to it was that I didn't want the bike to shift or fall and damage the subwoofers that are now installed in that immediate area! The Alpine gear is sounding great, so for the first time ever, I really am looking forward to being on the road for a long drive in this rig. Wish I had my trusty SPL meter with me though because it sure is tempting to crank it up, and I know I can't be doing that for hours on end.

Nice potty rooms, Mike and Al. I've been busy putting tongue and groove cedar in most of the closets in my motorhome. Not terribly expensive in the realm of things, looks nice and smells even nicer. Don't think I'll bother with the kitchen cabinets. Have done most of those that store clothes, blankets, pillows, etc. Had no clue how much of this stuff I'd need. I've been back to Home Depot several times have used 50 x 8' boards already. Would probably take 50 more to do everything.

Cottage cheese and then provolone cheese. Atkins snacks, I guess you would call them.

Thanks, that's good to know. It should prove interesting just how tight the fit is and whether there is any way to raise the subs up a bit with spacers, or whatever works and won't result in risking damage to the subs when people are sitting the back seats. I did find it off that the dual 10" enclosure (the one I ordered) is vented whereas the dual 12" enclosure for the same vehicle is sealed. I would have expected the opposite since there should be a bit more airspace in the same size box for slightly smaller subs.