archive for the “at home” category
Here are several things that you can easily do to keep your car, truck or van running safely and conserve money in the long run.
Tires: key to your vehicle’s performance and safety
Acceleration, braking and turning all depend on reliable rubber meeting the road.
Once a month, perhaps after you’ve washed your vehicle, look at the tires and check their air pressures. You may be glad you did. Inspect the tread for damage –chunking from rough roads, uneven wear across the tire from left to right, cupping, or balding. You may even find a screw, nail or other object embedded in the tread! The sidewalls hold up your tires and hence suspend your vehicle. Many of us have bumped curbs with our tires, so look at the sidewalls — inner and outer — for signs of weakness – rippling, bulges, abrasions or small tears. »→
I’m overdosing on televised races today. I watched on TV four of six hours of Grand-Am racing at Watkins Glen. The steamroller Scott Pruett won. Now I’m watching the pre-race show for the IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway. Drivers mention high cornering forces, the g that they feel when turning left, that inhibits their breathing (they breathe on straightaways). I remember that in 2001 Champ Car decided against racing due to dizzing effect of exteme lateral g. Yesterday Briscoe Inferno qualified fastest for this race. I’ll bet he hopes to win and redeem himself/restore Penske’s confidence in him. Alongside Briscoe on the front row of cars in the Indy 500 winner, Dario Franchitti. The Penske Racing juggernaut has three strong racers who can win this oval race (Castroneves has won thrice here). And Ganassi Racing’s Franchitti and Dixon (who’s won here) are more than capable of winning. Should be interesting!
I’m watching the Kansas IndyCar race on ABC in high definition.
In the pre-race show, Marty Reid tells us that Silvestro de Simona is one of the women who’ll race. Her name is Simona De Silvestro, Marty. »→
I’ve moved to a beachfront condo overlooking East Bay. I can see sunrise and moonrise over East Bay, go fishing, paddle a kayak, go swimming, beach-walking… Oak Shore Drive – Parker, Florida (click for map)
Lord, hear our prayers for women and men, boys and girls who are homeless, for those sleeping under bridges, on benches, in alleys, in bus stations and under trees.
Lord, inspire us to help our brethren who suffer nights of fitful sleep in places unsecure, who wander in the day, looking for work and hoping for housing.
Lord, help us to mend families that are split because rent could not be paid on time and relatives could not take in everyone. »→
Do people fall for this idiotic e-mail? Do people believe that they can “make an average $25 – $250 per survey… earn $10 – $50 per movie trailer that (they) preview”?
Here’s the e-mail from “Clicked Cash” <kkapeller2552ezih@yahoo.com>:
How would you like to make $75 – $250 every single day just for clicking
your mouse ?
This program is a MUST for:
Stay at home moms or dads »→
an interior view of the sparsely-furnished, 860-square feet apartment in OceanView on Penang Island where I lived March to August 2009
OceanView apartment building in Jelutong, Penang
No view of an ocean from my balcony … I can see a hill on Malaysia’s mainland (left).
Residents in upper floors’ apartments with eastern views can see the channel between Penang Island and mainland Malaysia … but not an ocean. Pulau Penang (Betelnut Island) is in the Andaman Sea.
Do not watch the movie Seven Pounds unless you want to be bored to death as if the movie were seven hours long. It’s a strange, slow-moving, uninvolving movie that no one but the financiers would watch if it didn’t star Will Smith. The movie lacks ingredients that make for a popular American film: running gun battle, boat chase, car chase, spaceship chase, extraterrestrial persons, cute robots, menacing robots, exploding cars, torture scenes, prurient nudity, dinosaurs, ‘local color’ such as a traditional wedding, funeral, dancing, music, festival, fair, landmark, national park, national monument, …
A newly-built Saturn dealership on Highway 98 in Panama City did not open in “Fall 2008,” and it never will. G.M. is killing Saturn — “a different kind of car company, a different kind of car.” It will follow Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Geo, Plymouth, Eagle, AMC and other brands to the junkyard of history.
Penske Automotive Group announced today that it has ceased discussion with General Motors to buy the Saturn brand. »→
I’ve returned to U.S.A.. Here, when I flip a light switch, a lamp lights immediately, not eleven seconds later, as in Malaysia. Here I can enjoy a hot or warm shower. Here toilets actually flush away waste, and they refill within two minutes, rather than nineteen minutes in Malaysia. Here I can understand English spoken in shops and restaurants and in Holy Mass. Here people don’t drive the wrong way in traffic lanes, against oncoming traffic without lights lit. Here people drive with deference and courtesy and sanity — so far. †
After advertising on www.Mudah.My, I sold my 2007 Modenas Kriss 100. No more head-on accidents and somersaulting over handlebars for me …
my ordinary costs of living on Penang Island, Malaysia in July 2009
~ at 3.5 ringgit per U.S. dollar ~
my half of apartment rental in The OceanView: RM 425 or $121.43
my half of electricity bill: RM 43 or $12.29
food & bottled water; dining-out & groceries: RM 508.35 or $145.24 or $4.69 daily »→
We’ve had some rain here lately – days and nights. It certainly cools the ambient air. It also chills the water in the OceanView swimming pool and the rooftop water tanks. So my showers are as cool as they’ve ever been. I haven’t had a hot shower since I was in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur on May 6. The upside is that I’m not spending money to heat shower water or to chill air in this apartment. Dominic operates an air conditioner in his bedroom every night, but I usuallly use a ceiling fan. I think that I’ve used the air conditioner in my bedroom twelve nights in four months. †
Tonight I watched a nonstop Formula One race, televised from the Hungaroring Circuit in Hungary. The race had NO yellow-flag caution periods which the IndyCar Series dearly loves.
IndyCar fans often have to endure 12 minutes of no racing during a race. The laps spent trolling around behind a Honda Accord pace car are counted as race laps, although no one is racing. The fans in the stands are bored and viewers at home are exposed to insipid ads which they’ve seen and heard several times already. If IndyCar Series executive officers care about the quality of their on-track ‘product,’ they would do well to watch Formula One — and other — races which don’t have needless, unnecessarily-long caution periods for such excuses as the removal of a stopped car which is nowhere near the racing surface and thus endangers no one.
all my ordinary costs of living on Pulau Penang, Malaysia in June 2009
~ at 3.47 Malaysian Ringgit per U.S. Dollar ~
food & water; groceries & dining out: RM 391 — or $112.91 — or $3.76 per day
apartment rent: RM 425 — or $122.48 — or $4.08 per day
electricity: RM 62.50 — or $18.01 — or 60 cents per day
gasoline/petrol: RM 28.40 — or $8.18 »→
Today I slept late after watching the first several hours of the 24 Hueres du Mans on Eurosport TV last night and this morning. I went out walking and jogging briefly, bought a loaf of bread, returned home then resumed watching the 24 Hours until its conclusion. Then I swam in a pool at The OceanView. Now I’m on the internet for a few minutes, but I’m hungry.
