Wmcmanus

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.

I was offered a blow job form a nearly toothless old lady who was begging on the side of the road near the WallMart on Hitt Road in Idaho Falls this afternoon. How's that for an opener? At first, I didn't realize that she was trying to talk to me. Then when I saw her lips moving (but before I realized how hideous and truly disgusting she was to look at), I cracked the window on the passenger side door a bit, just to hear her out. She was holding a cardboard sign, although I didn't bother to read it. She said, "Sir, can you see it in your heart to give me $5..." and then she mumbled something else, I'm not sure exactly what. I was kind of annoyed at that point because she had acted in a very animated way to get my attention to begin with, and I was thinking she was hurt or something was wrong, like an emergency. So as I was rolling my window back up, she smiled, showing the few teeth she still has left and said, rather loudly, "I'll give you a blow job for it!" I just shook my head in disbelief and drove away. How sad her existence must be. She's probably mentally disturbed. Or at least she didn't seem quite right. I've tried my best to describe her to some other people who are from town here, but nobody seems to know who I'm talking about, so I don't think it's an every day occurrence. I'm sure someone will report it if she persists and the police will run her off. She must have been 75 years old or more, unless she's just had a really hard life and is in her 50's but strung out on something. The more I think about it, the less funny it seems, and the sadder it gets.

Found a solution tonight, so I'll be able to use the Type R subs in the Dodge. A company called Fox Acoustics makes some cool sub boxes, including one that works perfectly with my subs (i.e., mounting depth with 1/16th of an inch to spare), plus it's not made out of cheap MDF, and was reasonably priced at $200. http://www.foxacoustics.com/ Apparently, I got lucky because these particular subs don't require much air space within the box to sound good. Man, I love online forums. You can learn so much so quickly and feel confident you're doing the right thing. Only drawback is the only shipping option was 7 day ground, so I had to ship it to my Illinois address. Will get everything else installed in Idaho this week but that will have to wait.

Bought the Pioneer unit first, when I was in Maine back in May, then wandered all over the place this summer and never had it installed. Too late to return it to Best Buy. Same with the Type R subs. Would have put the same system in both vehicles had I had the good sense to shop online to begin with. The price differences between retail and online for car stereo gear are unreal. Figure 2:1 on average. So since I already had the Type R subs, I figured I'd use them for the Dodge, which is a much smaller acoustic chamber (originally intended for the cab area of the motorhome). That saved me $500 in amplification (one 1000 watt sub amp instead of two for the pick up). Then I decided to go down one step with the door speakers and the amp that drives them as well (for the Dodge). Still should sound pretty good. But the one I'm really looking forward to hearing is the all-top-of the-line Alpine setup in the cab. I spend a lot of time up there driving, so I won't regret doing it right.

No, but I've surprised more than one flight attendant when handing back crushed Diet coke cans. It's quite easy, actually. Just give them a twist and then squish 'em into a neat and compact little package... chicks dig it. They call Godzilla all the time.

A bunch of car stereo stuff. For the motorhome cab area: Alpine CDA117 head unit Alpine PXA-H100 audio signal processor Alpine KTX-H100 multi-EQ tuning kit Alpine SWX-1043D (2 Type X subs) Alpine PDX 1.1000 (2 digital amps for subs) Alpine SPX-17PRO (2 pairs of component door speakers) Alpine PDX 4.150 (4 channel digital amp) For my Dodge pick up: Pioneer DEH-P9800BT head unit Alpine SWR-1043D (2 Type R subs) Alpine PDX 1.1000 (1 digital amp for both subs) Alpine SPX-17REF (2 pairs of component door speakers) Alpine PDX 4.100 (4 channel digital amp) Everything will be installed this weekend if all goes well. Still need to get an enclosure that will work with the subs for the Dodge. Will either have to give up my center console, which I'm not crazy about doing, or possibly use the Type R subs for a different vehicle (probably my Ford Edge) and use an MTX double sub box for the Dodge which will fit under the rear seats with JL subs.

I'm half way through the Band of Brothers series on bluray, which I've had for some time now and finally got around to watching. Quite good and highly recommended.

Ehh, don't remember that. Sorry if I called you a jerk and you're not, in reality, a jerk. I must have been looking for like company. As for the DT-48's, Matt (NightWoundsTime) can confirm that I broke my pair before I had listened to them for 10 seconds. They're not as indestructible as people claim they are! I tried them on at a meet (somewhere, can't remember where, probably Tampa) and they squeezed my head so badly that I figured, "Hmmm, maybe if I stretch them out a bit." But they seemed to bounce right back no matter what I did, until I stretched them with a wee bit too much force and snapped the indestructible headband in two. So I never did listen to them. I've still got them, and was hoping that maybe one day I'd run across a headband solution that works. Beyer doesn't have any of the originals as best I can tell from the limited amount of research I did, but even if they did, the clamping force would be way too tight for my comfort. In any case, I eventually found another pair at another meet and gave them a quick listen. They're really nowhere near as bad as the T50P.

Nowhere near as bad as the T50P. Not even in the same league of badness. At least there are some positive things to say about the DT48's. They're uhhhhh, fast and detailed, I guess, in a painful kind of way.

Just ordered the Complete Series box set. Looking forward to it. Can't imagine any TV series being better than the Little Rascals though... j/k.

Wow. I guess you'll just have to hear them for yourself one day, just like anything. But I can't imagine break in doing much for them.

You're regular riot, Alice!

Ah!!! Ha!!! Forgot about you moving to Tallahassee. I'll get that address one way or another and come stalk you!

Happy birthday, Younger! I'll have to take you out for many beers when I get back to Tampa.

I get all sorts of emails, most of which are rather senseless, but I found this one interesting. Ever seen a train lay its own track?

You guys are killing me!

Happy birthday, Tyll.