The new issue of Popular Mechanics has a list of essential tools for homeowners who work on common household repairs and do it yourself projects. Here is a good checklist of tools to have on hand:
- Sledgehammer (8 or 10 pounds)
- Center Punch
- Putty Knife
- Safety Glasses
- Adjustable Wrench
- Pipe Wrench
- Socket Wrench
- Combination Wrench
- Jigsaw
- Crosscut Saw
- Snips
- Needlenose Pliers
- Power Drill with Drill Bits
- Circular Saw
- Measuring Tape
- Hammer
- Machinist Vise
- Extension Cord (12 or 10 gauge)
- Screwdriver Set (or Multi-bit Screwdriver)
I’ll never forget my grandfather warning me about buying a pick up truck. He warned me that owning a pick up truck just opens the flood gates for people to call on you for help with Moving Services as well as coming to their rescue for when their motorcycle breaks down on the side of the road. This man rarely was wrong on any subject and with this particular issue he was dead on, but that is OK as far as I’m concerned that is what friends and family are for. I have a lot of friends and come from a large family!
Moving Companies are a necessity when you have a large move on your hands. Some times a pick up truck just won’t do the trick and a large truck is a must. Now a days you can go online and get Moving Quotes with just a few quick key strokes and their are a good amount of qualified Movers that have been in business for a long time that are well established and are trustworthy as well. We have all heard horror stories about people’s stuff being damaged and or stolen during a move, that must really bite. But the Internet has made it possible for people to find the perfect match for their situation and times are a changing with all that the Internet provides for us. If a company gets a bad rep you can bet that it will be on the Internet as well.
So in the mean time you can still call me if you need my truck for a few short trips, but if it is more than it can handle I’d refer you to the World Wide Web and all that it has to offer in these types of situations.
This depression hasn’t stopped a good amount of people from purchasing new vehicles. I’m seeing so many new cars with the bright white temporary tags on them. A lot of the new toyota camry, mercury milan and porsche cayman are now hitting the streets. I’m guessing maybe people’s tax refund checks are coming in, hitting the bank and a new car is high on their wish list and people are seeing to it that their wishes are coming true. It’s been a rough couple of years for us all.
I have never been a big fan of buying a new car. Hell as soon as it pulls out of the parking lot of the dealership the darn thing depreciates at least one or two thousand dollars. It isn’t all that unusual to hear stories of people totalling their brand spanking new vehicle just trying to merge into traffic from their local dealership. I had a good friend that worked for a major insurance company as a Claims Adjuster, the stories that he would tell was always good for a laugh or two. People and their cars share a special bond that no one can get in between.
My sister has always been totally in love with the volkswagen beetle. Her first car was a “punch buggie” and has her eyes set on the volkswagen new beetle convertible and has been talking about purchasing one these past couple of months. Her tax check just came in and she is planning on spending it all on a new beetle, bright yellow. I can see her behind the wheel of one with her blond hair flying all over and a bright yellow flower in the vase, conveniently located right on the dashboard that the “new” beetles are so well known for having for this newest generation’s beetle fans.
I stumbled across a site that specializes in tarps. I was amazed to see the variety of tarps that are now available for a variety of uses. I’ve always settled for the standard blue tarps that we all grew up seeing and using. I’ve always just gone to Home Depot, Lowes or Walmart for my truck tarps but they don’t see to last long and I end up going back time after time to replace the darn things. Some times you do get what you pay for after all.
Next time I want and need a tarp I’m going to order a custom made tarp that is made with good quality materials, one that I know I can count on lasting more than one season and fits my needs to a tee. The Internet makes the task of finding merchandise like this a much easier one to tackle and I’m grateful for that. I never have been one that enjoyed hopping from one store to another trying to find the best deal on what I’m looking for. Going online is much more my style and I’m getting better at it each time.
There are several of my in-laws that I really enjoy hanging out with. My brother-in-law Will, for example, has a Harley. I have a Harley. We like to ride together. He’s a nice guy and would give the shirt off his back to help another family member. But by day, he is a self-employed IT specialist. He has several clients that pay him handsomely to take care of the details of the computer and Internet needs.
And because he is self-employed, he is always networking; trying to line up more clients. So there have been times when we’ve gone riding together and ended up meeting with potential clients. After a few minutes of listening to them talk about such things as dedicated server hosting, colocation services, and managed hosting solutions I usually wander off and try to find myself a place to grab a drink and take a short nap. I’m beginning to think that I should pack a bedroll and a good book onto the back of my bike! I don’t mind mixing a little bit of business with pleasure, but these are topics above and beyond my own needs and interests. But, it pays him a good salary, so I’m all for it!
I’m not sure if it’s just the area that I live in, or if people are really starting to feel like the economy is picking up. Maybe it’s just the nice weather and people are starting to bring out their nice cars like the audi s5 out of their winter storage and show off their wealth while the weather is good.
My wife has been telling me that she would like to consider getting another car before this coming winter. She’s concerned that our current cars are running on borrowed time. I’ve told her to start thinking about what kind of car she thinks she might like to get if we did buy one. I suggested that she check out the reviews on the volkswagen jetta sportwagen and mitsubishi galanton thecarconnection.com website to see if she might be interested in one of them. Personally I’d love to be able to afford something as nice as a jaguar xf, but I think she would tan my hide if I spent that much money on a car! Well, a man can dream, can’t he?
Between the two of us, we have admittedly had some nice cars. I’ve owned three corvettes in the past, and she’s owned a toyota celica, a mazda RX-7 and three Mercedes Benz cars. So it’s not like we don’t know how nice it is to have really nice cars! But she keeps telling me that she feels very uneasy about the financial security of the family right now, and she really would like to focus on value instead of glamour.
When my wife was involved in that traffic accident last October, she found out that the lady who caused the accident had one of the more popular online auto insurance policies. We see the ads for that company on television a lot! The online auto insurance company called us almost immediately to follow up on the accident, making all kinds of promises about how they were going to cover medical expenses and lost pay.
They sent my wife a lot of forms to fill out so they could get the medical records. That was months ago, and we have not heard back from them yet. I’m beginning to think that this particular insurance company is all fluff and no stuff. So it may be a good deal for the person who buys the insurance, but I’m not convinced that it will treat the consumer right if an accident actually happens and a claim has to be filed on it!
I can remember when I was a teenager, how expensive auto insurance was for me. My parents made me get a part time job just to pay for them adding me to their auto insurance policy! I didn’t even want my driver’s license; my parents made me get it so I could drive my mother to work and pick her up again when my father was overseas. I thought it was profoundly unfair to have to pay for my own premium under those circumstances! And I thought that the rates were outrageous for young drivers! I understand the thought process behind it – young kids are more likely to take risks, but I think that the really old people are worse drivers and their premiums should be higher as well!
I’m glad that there are stricter guidelines now for the teenagers that drive, and I’m glad that so many of the states have seat belt laws. As much as I don’t like seat belts myself, I agree that they can reduce injuries and save lives. And I think all cars should be equipped with the breath analyzer that you have to blow into so the car won’t start if it senses alcohol on the driver’s breath! I think that should just be standard equipment! And for every twenty minutes driven, a new breath analyis takes place. That would save a lot of lives, too!
My wife has put me in charge of doing some comparison shopping for cheaper rates on insurance. Currently we have our home and auto insurance bundled together; we understand that we can get better prices by doing it that way. But we are constantly inundated with junk mail about saving money on insurance, and so we’ve agreed that it might be worth looking into.
I found a website that is called netquote.com that makes it easy to compare prices on insurance anywhere in the US. For example if I wanted to find Indiana insurance all I have to do is fill in a few fields and click on submit and the quotes are on the way! So I’m going to check it out and see if we can save any money ourselves. Wish me luck!
One of the biggest reasons why my life is in such a mess is because the lady who caused the traffic accident I was in over two years ago didn’t have enough on her car insurance limits to pay for my medical expenses. That doesn’t even begin to touch the lost income, either! Naturally we had under-insurance coverage on our own auto insurance policies, but even that isn’t enough to pay for my medical expenses.
I’m all for people trying to get cheap car insurance as a way to save money, but I think that the best way to do that is by increasing the deductible, not decreasing the liability! If you are checking around for cheap auto insurance, please think of the other people who you may accidentally injure and get a policy with decent liability. Only having $25,000 is not enough. I know that is legal to have that low, but it shouldn’t be!
I was using my John Deere tractor to plow and scoop snow out of the driveway, and the oil line broke. Well, it is never a good time for a breakdown, but this is one of the worst times! So I took my tractor to the local John Deere dealer for repairs. There was a time that I would have been able to do the repairs myself (I have done it before) but ever since my accident I have not been able to do that kind of repair anymore.
Well, they really overcharged me drastically. They charged me for five hours work when I know it would have only taken me three, and they charged me for four quarts of oil, when I know it only takes three. Even the owner’s manual tells you that it only takes three! I told my wife about it and she told me that I should bring the error to their attention and ask them politely to correct their mistake. I’m afraid that if I complain that they will remember me as a bad customer and not take good care of me in the future. So I’m inclined to let it ride. My wife says that I should just approach them nicely and assume it was a typographical error and for them to please correct it. She says if I handle it right then they won’t be upset. I really don’t know what to do!
Well here we go again. We are supposed to be getting a lot more snow starting tomorrow sometime. My car still has over 2 feet of snow on it’s roof from the storm we got over the weekend. I’ve been driving my truck these past days, the roads are still a mess and I trust my truck a whole lot more than my little Honda in this type of weather.
Guess we will see what happens. It is February.
I’ve been really lucky in my life to have owned a lot of different cars. I enjoy buying older used cars and rebuilding and restoring them, but I also enjoy driving a nice late model car. For the most part I come from a family strongly rooted in the tradition of buying the chevy brand. I’ve been thrilled to own two different corvettes at different times of my life! I loved to take them out on the open road and drive at high speed. My wife would probably kill me if she knew how fast I drove those cars! I’ll just admit that I’ve earned a lot of speeding and reckless driving tickets that I didn’t get (yet.)
When we finally get the lawsuit over and done with from my accident (going on three years now) we’d really like to buy a new car if we have any money left over after all of our expenses have been paid. My wife would love to check out a honda hybrid car. Her mother had a hybrid car for a few years and she really liked it. We’re still puzzled as to why she traded it in for a different car that isn’t a hybrid! I think there were a few things her brother told her about having to replace the battery and how much it would cost that scared her off.
My daughter has been thinking about buying a new kia forte. Mainly because she has heard that it provides good value and is inexpensive. I told her I’d check out the kia forte specs and give her my opinion of what I read. I’m glad that she trusts my judgement! Or at least humors me!
My mother-in-law owns a hybrid car. My wife and I are pretty jealous about that. We’ve been wanting a Prius Hybrid of our own for several years now. We love the great fuel efficiency that it gets. We are always hearing about how my mother-in-law gets 50 miles per gallon with her car. Don’t get me wrong; we get pretty good gas mileage with our own cars, but with the price of gasoline going up again, it makes my blood boil how much of our money goes into our gas tanks!
My mother-in-law has always been one to buy high quality cars. My wife says that she remembers that not very long ago that her mother had a chrysler 300. She doesn’t remember what year it was, but she does remember that her mother loved it. And my wife said that she remembers that it was a very nice and comfortable riding car.
My wife has shopped for a chrysler from time to time when she needed a new car but found them to be priced too high for her budget, so she never had the chance to own one herself.
As for me, well my dream car is the audi r8. I like to fantasize that when all of the nonsense about settling the accident case with the insurance company is said and done that I’d have enough money to guy a great car like that! The more info I read about that car the better I like it! But with the price tag on that car, I’d have to not just get a good insurance settlement, I’d have to win the lottery too!
Last week I was driving our Subaru and all of a sudden the exhaust started making a gawd-awful racket! I took it into the local Midas shop and they gave me an estimate of $150 to fix it. Well, money is tight and we weren’t too happy about having to shell out any money on car repairs, but it needed to be done. So we made the appointment for the work to be done today.
Well, once they got into the thing, it needed more work than originally thought (I hate when that happens.) They put the car up on the lift and showed me the problems. Yes, they were right, more needed to be done than originally thought. To the tune of $700!
And yes, I had it done, and put on the credit card. My wife was NOT very happy about that news at all! We are still waiting to hear from SSI about getting money from my disability and having a $700 car repair bill has taken all of the hope out of buying Christmas gifts this year!
I received an email from my sister who recently returned from a year long visit to Western Oklahoma. She was telling me about how life was out where she was living. She was telling me that she was staying over an hour’s drive away from the nearest Wal-Mart, which was in a town called Kingfisher. I can’t imagine having to drive that far to get to a Wal-Mart! Anyway, she was also telling me that during hunting season the farmers there “posted” their “no hunting” signs by painting old tires with the words “No Hunting” and hanging them on their fence posts along the road! Now THAT is a creative use of old tires! Chances of the hunters “ripping down” those signs and tearing them up are pretty slim, don’t you think?
Recently I had my truck fixed at a local Chevrolet dealership. Turns out that the owner of the dealership is a local celebrity – a country singer. He produced his own CD, and sings at local functions.
I bought one of the CDs and brought it home. We really like it a lot! The artist is Andy Budd. He wrote his own songs, and we like the lyrics, the music, and his voice. We played the CD for my sister shortly before she was shipped to Iraq, and she asked us to get her a copy. We went into the dealership and told them that we were buying the CD to send to Iraq, and they GAVE us ten CDs for free to send over there! How great was that!?
If we get the chance to see him perform, we will see him for sure! The title of his CD is Saints & Scoundrels.
When I meet new people around here, many of them ask me about where we used to live before we moved here and they ask about the logistics of how we got here. This is such a transient area, it seems that people are always moving. Living near the Washington DC area, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. There are a lot of government-related jobs that dictate that people move around!
Many people ask me which one of the moving companies we used to get all of our possessions here. We moved from almost 700 miles away, and it was a major effort on our part to get here. My wife and I had spent a lot of time trying to find one of the budget van lines to use to get our possessions down here, but in the end we decided to use a one way truck rental instead. Nothing against any of the budget van lines; I’m sure that they are all well qualified. It’s just that we decided to move in stages over a several month period of time, so it worked out best if we did it ourselves.
If you’ve been reading my blog from the beginning you’ll remember that I love cars, trucks, motorcycles, and machines in general. You know, stuff like John Deere tractors, not stuff like ipods. Don’t get me wrong, ipods have their place, but I like big noisy things that you can ride!
My wife has suggested that since we haven’t lived here very long, and since I’ve just recently discovered the joys of the computer and the Internet (although I like working on my hot rod truck more) that I might benefit from joining the new social networking site that she has found. She said that the members join up and find topics of common interest and share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences about the different topics. She told me that they have an auto network that I might be able to use to find people that are interested in hot rods and chat with them over the networking site.
A nephew of my sister-in-law has decided to befriend our family, and it seems that he spends every waking minute here. If he’s not here, he seems to be calling here. He likes to come over and help me work on my truck, and sometimes I help him work on his car. He is in the antique business, and he has a booth at an indoor flear market in a nearby city. He’s been trying to convince me to take a booth at the flea market too. I’ve been talking about it with my wife, and she suggested that I give it a try for a couple of months and see how it goes. We certainly have enough “junk” to haul down there to try to sell! It wouldn’t hurt to clear some of it out of our basement and make a few dollars from it! And it would be nice to get out of the house a little bit more now that the good weather is coming. The only thing that bothers me about it though is that if I do the flea market venture then I would not be available to go to the car shows that are held every weekend around here. Well, maybe I can alternate weekends so I can still go to a few car shows.
But if I DO get into the flea market business and it works well, I’m going to be looking at buying a van to haul the merchandise to the flea market. My wife has been telling me for many years that she has always wanted to buy one of the mini vans that were so popular a few years back. But now that the children are grown, I’m not so sure a minivan would do the trick for me with my needs for a flea market vehicle. I think that with the family situation the way it is now, my wife might be happy with something more like the Toyota Highlander or a Saturn Vue than a mini-van. They both seem like a good family car.
Besides, I don’t consider myself a mini-van type of guy! I’m much more the type of guy that would drive a sports car. I used to own a Mazda RX-7 back in my youth! It was silver and what a chick magnet that was! And it wasn’t too long ago that I had a corvette. Believe it or not I traded that in for my current truck! What can I say, I needed the truck!
It seems hard to believe that my wife bought her Subaru Impreza eleven years ago! She had just transferred from a clerical position in one designated location with her employer to one where she was going to have to travel around the state every day. She had been driving an older car that was fine for short runs, but once she hit the road with her new job it was breaking down every week, and it was costing her a lot of money to fix it. So she traded it in on a Subaru.
That was the first year that the Outback Sport was released – that was voted the “car of the year” by (I think) the Car & Driver magazine, and a few other places too. It was smaller than she would have preferred, but it was all she could afford, and it had all wheel drive which was what she wanted. And of course she was concerned about reliability and safety, and we had heard that Subaru cars were very reliable and safe. We’ve heard that they will run forever if you take good care of them. So far I’d have to say that seems to be the case with her Subaru. We’ve recently passed it down to our oldest son to drive to and from work because it gets great mileage and we feel it is a good choice for him to drive.
My brother-in-law has been trying to convince us to trade it in on an Acura rl sedan. He says that he thinks that it’s time we drove a luxury sedan. I was checking the reviews of it on the website thecarconnection.com, however, and have to say that I’m not impressed at all with the mileage! And to be honest, the price is a little bit out of our reach right now! While I was on their website I checked out the reviews on a few other cars, such as the Chevy Tahoe and the Kia Soul and came to the conclusion that if we are going to buy any new car in the near future, we will have to do a lot of careful research! I’m glad I found this website!
Personally, I like green cars. I have a green truck. And by that I’m referring to color! But this post is actually about the “other” kind of “green.” The type that are more environmentally friendly. You know, the hybrids. I’m really glad to see that more car manufacturers are turning to the newer technology of going electric and/or hybrid. We’d really like to get one of the hybrid cars someday. Hopefully the economy will turn around soon so we can buy one!
My mother in law bought a hybrid car a few years ago. I think it was a Honda. She bragged about what great mileage it got – about 50 miles to the gallon! Unfortunately one of her sons convinced her that it was a good idea to get rid of it when it was only two years old – he told her that her battery was going to need to be replaced and that was going to be really expensive. So she traded it in for a car that doesn’t get as good mileage. Sadly the dealer that took her trade in ripped her off and did not give her the full value of the car! Personally, the next time she buys a car I’d like to see her buy a new Nissan cube; I think she would be really happy with that!
My wife keeps talking about checking out the Ford Fiesta; she thinks it’s really cute. It’s been a long time since I’ve owned a Ford! As for me, I’m more inclined to want to buy a Toyota pickup truck: I owned a nice Toyota pickup truck when I was younger, and I really liked the way it handled. I’ve always wanted to keep a pick-up in the household for all of those chores that required a truck. I just can’t imagine what life would be like with us only owning cars and no trucks!
I was reading on the Reutors website that New York City’s taxi cab fleet be changing. The Mayor of the city, Michael Bloomberg has announced that there is no an agreement in place with car manufacturers that they will supply the city with 300 new hybrid cars each month. Each hybrid taxi car is expected to save its drivers about $6500 each year in fuel costs. There currently are over 1300 hybrid cars serving as taxies in New York.
I think that is good news on several different levels. First of all, it is good news for the drivers, who are usually struggling for income in the first place. Second, it is good news for the environment; using less fossil fuel is always good for the environment! So, congrats to New York City taxis for going green!
I’ve been telling my wife that I want to buy a new pair of motorcycle boots to wear this year when I’m riding my Harley WideGlide. My old boots are worn out, and I need a new pair. She’s concerned that I’ll be spending too much money on a pair of fancy boots. I told her that I was thinking about buying some factory seconds from the copshoes.com website. Factory seconds are usually a good deal; they usually look fine, last fine, work fine and and cost less. My brother in-law told me about this website; he told me he had bought a pair of Timberland Boots from them and he was very happy with them, and with their customer service. He said that he was surprised to see that they had the full line of the Timberland Force Multiplier Series; he said that they are hard to find!
If someone told you that you could save up to 80% on auto parts by ordering them online, what would you do? Me too! My nephew told me that the next time I need to buy some parts for any of our vehicles, to check out the greatautoparts.com website. I just went there and found that it is easy to use, just type in the year and make of the car and the part number and it will tell you the price. Pretty easy! You should try it too the next time you need to order an auto part!
I was glad to hear that the Dulles Metro rail has finally been approved and is going to actually start construction! I heard that on the news this evening. That is going to make life a lot easier for a LOT of people, including our family because we use the Dulles Airport a lot. I’ve been wishing that there was a Metro rail station there ever since we moved into the area.
Now if we could only get the Metro rail station to extend out to Gainesville! That would be really great!
My wife tells me that sometimes I drive her crazy because I am so interested in cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Whenever we go anywhere I am always looking around at the other vehicles on the road and making comments about them. What drives my wife crazy about that is the fact that she couldn’t care much less about cars, trucks, or motorcycles. To her, they are simply a mode of transportation; a necessary evil that you need to get from one point to another, and nothing more than that.
So, when we go driving along, she gets a little irritated with me when I exclaim “Oh, honey, look at that audi tt, how would you like to have one of those?” She says to me “I’m trying to drive, don’t distract me, and I don’t even know what an audi tt looks like! Besides, I’m not into ’status cars,’ so why are you even trying to get me to look?”
Then I’ll usually remind her that she used to own a Mazda RX-7 when she was much younger, and wasn’t that a status car? Then she reminds me that was her first hubby’s car and she had nothing to do with it. Oh well.
Personally I’m a Chevy man, but my wife’s brother owns a ford expedition that he likes a lot. He’s had it a long time, and it has treated him well. I think if I were to buy a ford, it would probably be a ford fusion.
My nephew has come to visit us for the weekend. I haven’t seen him in a few years, and I’m glad he came. My wife and I picked him up from the bus station last night around 9pm and we got home about 10pm. He slept in late this morning, but we had a nice visit before lunch. I grilled some burgers for lunch and then took him for a motorcycle ride after lunch. It’s nice to have family come visit!
My wife and I bought a used car two years ago, a 1996 Chevrolet Lumina. It had really low mileage on it and is in excellent shape. My wife uses it more than I do, because we also have a Chevy truck that I like to drive. I’m a truck man at heart. Anyway, my wife has mentioned a few times that one of the things that she does NOT like about the Lumina is that it has manual windows. So last week I bought a kit that will convert the manual windows to power windows. She is going to be so surprised and happy when I install it! I can’t wait to see her face the first time she pushes the button and the windows just go up and down without any hand cranking involved!
I was driving home from work this afternoon, following behind a large truck heavily loaded with firewood. It was already cut into fireplace lengths, but not split. We were on a highway, so we were driving about 55mph. There was one vehicle between that truck and my car, and I was nervous about how closely that car was tailgating that truck. People tell me that I am too defensive of a driver and that I should drive more aggressively.
Well, let me share this with you. A chunk of wood fell off of that truck and hit the car in front of me. The driver of that car lost control, slamming on their brakes and went into a sideways skid. If I had been driving “more aggressively” I would have run into that car! As it was, I was driving at a safe braking distance and managed to avoid hitting any cars. I managed to change lanes safely and stop the car and use my cell phone to call for help. Fortunately no one was injured. If I had been driving “more aggressively” that would not have been the case!
