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!

 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.

Needed the snow broom and the Green Day album before the winter snow and the concert.

Broom will not scratch car, I researched a bunch, this is the best:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007LDXLA/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00

Supposedly car dealers use these in their lots.

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.

 Subject: Re: POR-15 DISCUSSED WITH MY BROTHER IN ITALICS

ME:
 I’ll be doing more research in general. I’ve already collected some comments about this and that product.
 
HIM:
 Yes, auto restorer’s have been using this stuff for years. I have not heard of or read any bad reviews of this stuff.

This is still “on my list”. Don’t know exactly what my approach would be, but I’ve decided it’s a good product.

 I’m sure when the time comes, as long as I haven’t started dismantling the truck, which at the rate I’m going with things, won’t happen for a while, you could bring it down and put it on my lift to do this job.

That would make things easier, thanks.  

 As you have figured out though, any type of oil or “sticky” stuff is going to attract dirt to stick to it. This does not harm you but the guy that has to work on it won’t care for it. Make sure there are no statements in the corrosion warranty that will disqualify you from making a warranty claim for rust. Chances are though, you won’t need to before the warranty is up.

There’s plenty of stuff around that qualifies as sticky, according to my research. The best piece of wisdom thus far from my research is to use something for rust prevention that has no stickiness at all, that is totally dry to the touch and can’t attract anything. I will be sending you some very interesting “finds”, and you may or may not know about them. The next round of quotes (once I get done editing them) has some interesting things to say about WD-40.
 
 Yes, we get it at GE in 55 gallon drums. The floor people fill hand pump “WD-40” spray bottles with it.

Basically it seems people’s success comes down to their expectations and how they use it. Frequent users in dry areas indoors do best. People using it for any other application and/or infrequently have poor results. It would appear what it’s really for is displacing water initially, then once the water’s displaced you use something else to accomplish a particular task. I’ve read the history on it, how and why it was originally developed in 1952, etc., the formula. Displacing water is it’s biggest “success” as an application. Once it dries it leaves essentially a mineral oil residue, which is why I’ll never use it on my car anywhere. Looks like a very poor candidate for the bottom of a car, unless you were gonna wash the bottom then spray it every 2 to 3 months, more likely monthly. Then it would actually inhibit rust to some extent.

Someone did a very good test of a bunch of stuff. Along with that, my other research comes down to 2 really good candidates for the bottom of the car, and fortunately they don’t just come in 55 gallon drums or are tremendously expensive. This weekend I think I can boil this info down and send it to you. I looked at quite a few web pages, technical histories, forums, etc.