Author Archives: Chuck

MANUAL SEZ: NO YOUTUBE VIDEOS!

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I downloaded the form for converting ET to cash. One of the four stipulations is that you can’t convert 80 hours. Okay, that still leaves me with 50 to use. Two of the stipulations were okay for me. Then the fourth stipulation is that you have to declare your intent the calendar year BEFORE! Which means I could do this if I had declared my intent back in 2011.

However there are two payment periods per year, July and December. Which means if I declared this year by December, I could have money the first week of July 2013. This does me absolutely no good for getting the Mustang, but I’ll just consider it in case I need some kind of cushion which may or may not come in handy by that time. I got a month to think about it.

My boss came by my desk and was talking to me about the Mustang, and was surprised to learn about the ET conversion and didn’t know about these details, but she’s only been here a year anyway. I gave her a copy of the form to peruse. She half apologized for giving me the suggestion, but of course I told her it had nothing to do with her as neither of us knew those details.

Funny thing, there are 3 women here who are pretty jazzed about the Mustang, and two for sure want to go for a ride, likely all 3. My male buddies are supportive, but aren’t as demonstrative as the females. Of course I’ll give any of them rides, as once I have it I’m sure some will want to check it out.

I have to admit as time goes on here I’m starting to get jazzed about it, as much as I’m trying not to. I think I’m pretty confident about pulling it off as at least the stripped version, though I’m still shooting for the optioned version.

I downloaded the owner’s manual, 437 pages. I’m a two thirds of the way through it.

The manual is so big because it has a lot of legalese boiler plate to protect them from idiots, often inside gray boxes. You know, the stuff like:

  1. Do not haul a U-Haul trailer full of concrete sacks up Pike’s Peak.
  2. Do not put it in neutral and relax with a jug of moonshine on the way down.
  3. Do not piss in the fuel filler pipe if you run out of fuel, thinking that it will work as well as gas after drinking moonshine.
  4. Do not let your 8 year old thumb 25 miles to the nearest gas station to fill a jug with gas after you realize pissing in the tank won’t work.
  5. Do not let your 8 year old reprogram the car’s computer.
  6. Do not put your 8 year old on your lap to use as an air bag. Do not entice them to sit on your lap by letting them steer the car.
  7. Do not let your kids play under the car after having them jack it up to change a tire.
  8. Do not refuse to use the seat belts because your tits might get squashed. That includes guys with man tits.
  9. Do not let your dog drive the car so you can make a cool YouTube video.
  10. Do not tie Grandma to the roof of the car, aim a GoPro camera at her face, and run at 150 mph to make another cool YouTube video.

 

EARNED TIME INTO CASH

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My boss found out about my plans for the Mustang. She suggested I convert my earned time into cash. About every November we get that opportunity. I thanked her for the great idea, didn’t occur to me.

The money would just sit in my savings for a down payment. If I was ever out sick I’d still have the money to use just like I would normally to pay bills.

If I took all of it, it would be about $1400 after taxes. Between the time I take it out and when I actually transact money for the car, I’d build up another 4 to 6 days worth of ET, which isn’t a lot, but would be something.

Essentially I get a day off for every 2 weeks I work. The only bad part is by the time I pay for the car, I would only have about 5 days of ET. My goal all along would be to have a month’s worth to cover bills. Right now it’s at 3.25 week’s worth.

I have to hold some money back when I buy the car so I can cover registration, etc. Probably I’d hold back enough to cover being out of work a week beyond whatever I have accrued at that time.

Anyway, that money will be helpful to some degree.

I sent her the “Alcatraz” clip of the car in action. Turns out she watches the show and actually saw that episode!

HUMOR TO TAKE THE STING OUT OF SAVING MONEY

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 A friend wrote after I said I bought some pants:

 Thank you for treating me to your mind blog.
 The upshot is that Chuck transgresses. At least it wasn’t really big bucks!

Glad you liked it. True, it’s not as expensive as that audio interface that killed two thirds of my Sweetwater card.

A few years back saw skinny Levi’s in bright green. Thought they’d be a good alternative to the gray ones you always see me wear. You’ve never seen me wear my jet black super skinny’s. Can find stuff like olive green, camo green.

I also decided when I go to the Green Day concert I wanted to wear skinny jeans that aren’t gray.

Anyway, was looking around for the bright green ones. Don’t exist anywhere anymore, just bright yellow and bright red. I do an internet search for bright jeans and see Hot Topic as the website for different colors.

Some pretty cool colors and even very cool patterns. No bright green. But there’s a sale on and I get a pair of purple for just under $32 shipped. Probably not as good quality as Levi’s, but it’s not like I’m wearing them every day.

I see the Hell Bunny jeans towards the top as being the real you:

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Denim/Girls.jsp

You can scroll down that page for more. The Pink would be good for dog training classes, would get the attention of dogs, owners, surveillance satellites.

Anyway, tonight another transgression. Maybe I should use you as my witness to lack of willpower so I do better. Maybe not. Could be annoying for you.

What I really need is one of those archetypal dominatrixes at about 6’3″ tall, muscular, zaftig, Amazonian Nordic goddess build, black straight hair with bangs, severe and precise makeup. In the suitable costume. Wielding suitable instruments of persuasion.

Not my thing at all, which is probably why I actually need that scary specter over my shoulder every time I’m on a website! She’d whack my pee pee every time I start to copy and paste my credit card number.

Or maybe just hire some real life Amazon to stand behind me while I’m on the Amazon website. There are a few up at the hospital. They would probably only agree to smack me in the head. Find one that likes to beat up men and she’d do it for free.

“Hi, I’m going on Amazon tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll be right over, I demand that you don’t start until I get there.”

The trouble is, after 10 trips without transgressions, she’d finally be fed up with having no fun and beat the crap out of me anyway, then take me up to the emergency room, push me out of the car onto the parking lot near the door, and drive off.

EXTENDING MY WILL POWER

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 A friend wrote:

 You are not buying an album until you get a car?

For the next 6 months or whatever:

No new concert tickets.

No Panera bread, no eggs on Saturday.

No software, Newegg, Amazon, Kindle. I delete the nearly daily Newegg emails as they come in without opening them.

I eat in the Karner cafe about every other Tuesday when they do a special meal. This is separate from the cafeteria, which I haven’t been to in about 4 months.

New calculations about once a month for the car and for the budget.

Currently planning how to rust proof the car, which is not undercoating, which I’m not doing as it’s more harm than good.

Know for a fact I can’t keep the Buick, gotta trade it in. Or at least a 95% probability of that.

Hoping like hell Ford goes as late as possible for the last month of manufacture of the 2013’s in the year 2013, which will be between January and April as best as my salesman and I can tell.

Hoping I can order as late as February, and March would be wonderful. More time = bigger down payment.

I’m really only buying my green tea and nutritional supplements beyond food basics.

There’s a 20% chance my brother will buy my Buick, depending on what’s happening with one of his cars later this year. If so, that would be an extra $1000 for me towards a down payment beyond what I’d get for a trade in. He already drove it and we put it up on his lift. Car is in really good shape.

SOUND SYSTEM RESEARCH

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I told my brother I wasn’t gonna pay extra for the Shaker 1000 sound system, which is the same as the Shaker 500 that comes standard in the Premium GT. The difference is an added subwoofer in the trunk and a separate amp to run it, plus an improved crossover network to run it.

He says:

I wouldn’t pay for the 1000 system unless you want to blow your ear drums out and let them hang on the side view mirrors while you driving. Plus you’ll get blood all over your new car.
No, no, the blood would just be on my car seat! That’s as far as I want to go!

The Shaker 1000 is a LOT more money than the 500, and I’m not convinced it would be worth a vague sense of deepness being felt. Plus I know how most modern music is recorded. A lot of it has little response below 60 Hz, and really nothing below 40 for almost all music. I like full frequency USEFUL AND AESTHETIC response when I record, and my software lets me see exactly what’s going on for response. But I sharply cut off frequencies below about 30 or 35 Hz generally as almost no one has a system that will let them hear it, plus it robs overall level for APPARENT volume. When you get the spurious energy below 30 Hz, you have to compensate for it in the mix by doing things you don’t really want to do, otherwise the mix lacks punch. Anything below 30 Hz really is quite low. I could prove it to you with energy sweeps through my studio monitors. My sub is rated for 26 Hz but has useful response down to about 22! I’ve measured it. I used these sweeps to find objects hanging on the walls down here in the basement that rattle. Then I put little pieces of foam under them to stop the rattle! However some portions of the sweep also buzz the wood wall paneling and ceiling strapping for the tile!

Modern music is not really high fidelity, certainly not pop. Television was traditionally limited to 50 Hz. The only thing that’s really well recorded nowadays is movie soundtracks and some certain genres of music. I’ve been studying a lot about peak and average volumes, perception, limiting, compression, all that.

Back to a car environment:
My whole thing is not volume, I don’t want pain and I don’t want loose fasteners all over the car. What I want is when I have the volume where I want for those “special mood” times (maybe 105 dB for about one song), I want no distortion, and I don’t want the amp bottoming out and running out of headroom because it doesn’t have enough juice to run unlimited bass at a given bottom. You’ve heard this yourself, no doubt. Lower volume you have the bass where you like it, then when you pump the volume, the bass thins out. You can have loudness with little bass, or bass with lower volume. For car systems you can pretty much take the stated rating and divide it by 4! So my Buick is about 5 or 10 watts RMS a channel for real. The speakers are typically rated for about 4 times that.

If the Mustang is, let’s say, is 360 rated watts over 8 drivers, it’s really probably 90 RMS total with electronic crossovers going to subs, mid drivers that cover high bass and low treble, and tweeters, probably a 3 way system. The Shaker 1000 probably has an additional crossover for a very low sub with its own amp.

But 90 real watts going through a 3 way crossover (at the crossover points I think they’re using) works out to listening to stereo home speakers with a bass and tweeter with a single passive crossover between them, and putting about 150 watts a side into them (would sound like 150 a side, or at least 100 as side, into average 2 way stereo speakers with a tweeter and an 8 inch woofer).

So in the Mustang (much smaller space than a small bedroom), even just 90 watts through all that electronic path would be more than enough. Certainly for me. I know the formulas for converting electronic bandpass signals into passive equivalents. You get quite a boost in efficiency. The drivers also work better and tighter because their getting very specific frequencies only, plus it just plain sounds better, usually with steep crossover slopes. Each speaker sounds tighter.

The biggest challenges for car audio is the interior of the car itself in terms of its shape and materials and getting the sound to the listeners without too many weird reflections, etc.
What helps the power aspect is neodymium speakers and Class D amplifiers, which both are smaller and lighter. The Class D amps need less battery power, too, and can put out a pretty amazing amount of power. What I don’t know is if car manufacturers are using neodymium and Class D. Neodymium costs more, but Class D doesn’t really. I bet a lot are using Class D, and maybe some more expensive systems use neodymium speakers. Don’t really know or care at this point.

My Mustang research says regardless of whether you have the standard exhaust system or even put on the Shelby axle back mufflers on a regular V8, people say the Ford mufflers have no “drone” effect, which is a good thing in general, including listening to music. I guess some after market mufflers, axle back or cat back, sometimes have droning which of course people find annoying.

I’ve toyed with the notion of different mufflers but will never have the money. I think I can hear a difference if I was to put on the Shelby mufflers, but then again, I have to think of the car idling in the winter during warm up and bothering the neighbors. The standard mufflers would be okay, but the Shelby’s seem deeper, so that sound would carry farther.

Of course all my speculating is premature at least until a month or so before I’d be likely to buy the car. But I can’t help getting at least a little excited about the prospects, even knowing that something stupid could come along and blow my plans.