Winter is here!

We got pretty lucky this year, as we had no snow at all in November, something that hasn't happened in about 70 years in Toronto! But one day after my 40th birthday (which was on December 8th) we ended up getting about 6-8cm of snow here in Mississauga. Not a major storm, but enough to make a lot of people (like me!) dream of warm sunny weather again! (is it spring yet??)

I was definitely glad I bought a new pair of back tires for the Vette! I was running Kumho ASX all seasons out back and they were simply horrible in the snow! I almost spun the car out twice last winter because of them. I'm happy to report that my new tires don't have a problem at all in light snow. I already had a pair of them up front and now I have the full matching set. (they are Goodyear Eagle F1 all seasons by the way) I got them from Bramalea Tire in Brampton, these guys are top notch! They've got probably the best prices on Goodyear tires anywhere in the Toronto area.

I realize it's been quite a while since my last post! I still love my job at Edge a lot, it was a very busy fall season but yet it didn't seem stressful at all because everything is so well organized there and the people are fantastic to work with. Tonight I'm going to the company Christmas party and I can't wait! It's at Glen Abbey Golf Course so I'm sure the food is going to be great (crossing my fingers that it's prime rib!) :) I've got one more week there and then I'll be on temporary layoff for a few weeks (and I'm going to miss everyone a lot), but things should get very busy again sometime in late January/early February with all the graduation pictures. I don't mind being laid off for a few weeks, thankfully I can still collect EI and I won't have to drive in any of the snowstorms that happen during that time (hopefully all of the snow falls then and then there are no snow storms once I return to work!)

My first week at my new job

The first week at my new job went very well! It is a great place to work, everyone is so friendly and personable and it felt really good to get back in the saddle again and work with Photoshop! Even after doing it for 17 years, I have never had Photoshop at home, although that's something I need to rectify! (I've already downloaded a 30 day trial of CS2 on my son's PC, and am looking to find a free permanent copy of CS3 if I can) One of the tricky things for me is that this is my first time working on a PC with Photoshop, as all my previous companies used Macs. So I keep looking for the "apple key" :) The commute to and from Burlington is fantastic, the morning drive is almost entirely at or above the limit, and the afternoon drive only has a little bit of traffic for the first 10 minutes or so once I get on the QEW but then it starts moving above the limit just after I get past Trafalgar Rd (did you know that if you spell that backwards it is Dr Raglafart?) :)

Back to reality

I have definitely enjoyed my "retirement" this year but now it's time to get back to reality and re enter the workforce again! As of September 1st I begin a new position working at Edge Imaging, doing photo retouching and color correction in Photoshop. Same as I was doing before, only this time it's going to be working on school photographs instead of working in the printing industry.

5 years since I got my Corvette!

Today marks the 5th anniversary since I got my C5! I still remember that day like it was yesterday! I woke up to perfectly sunny skies on that Saturday morning, although "wake up" is a term I use loosely because I don't think I slept very well that night I was so excited! It wasn't my first Corvette, but it had been almost 13 years since the one I had before (which was an 84 that was a nightmare, but that's another story) and I wanted a C5 so badly, ever since I did the Bowling Green plant tour in spring 1997 (and again in summer 1998) Back then I couldn't afford a C5, so I got the next best thing, a new 98 Firebird Formula with the LS1 and a 6 speed manual. That car was a ton of fun, but I always considered it a stepping stone to the C5.

I remember in early June 2004 when I initially started looking for a C5 I was so excited, and figured I'd find one right away as I had been looking in the Auto Trader for years and in early 2004 I finally started seeing C5s priced at under $40,000 for the first time. But as luck would have it, as soon as I started looking, none of those cars were around anymore! So it took me almost 8 weeks of searching before I found this one. It was exactly what I was looking for except for one thing, IT WAS BLACK! That was the one thing I kept telling everyone, I want an automatic coupe in any color but black. Oops! This one was too good to pass up though, it was posted on Auto Trader by Oakville Infiniti/Nissan, the original owner had just traded it in on a new G35 coupe. This C5 was perfect though, never driven in rain or snow, only 51,276 km on it, and didn't have the ugly wagon wheels but instead had the chrome thin spokes instead. So that was a major bonus! The $33,000 price tag was even more incredible to me, considering how most C5s with that mileage were just barely under $40k at the time. I had figured all along that the only way I was going to find a C5 around $30k was to get one with 200,000 km on it.

Since I bought this car I've used it as my daily driver, in the rain, in the sun and (gasp!) even in the snow! I now have 171,813 km on it and I find the car just as exciting to drive now as I did on August 7th 2004! It's been very reliable too, the only repairs I've needed in all these years have been an ECM in January 2006 (first one died due to corrosion from the battery combined with road salt from a poorly sealed off compartment), and in February 2005 I had to change the head unit for the climate control (the first one went dim and I didn't know about the easy fix back then, as it wasn't posted on the forum yet)

I know that a lot of you have heard me talking a lot over the years about how I want a C6 but that in no way reflects how I feel about this car, as I totally love it! Even when I get a C6 someday (and it's a LONG way away now with my financial situation), I can't imagine ever getting rid of this one. (and my wife absolutely LOVES it, so I'd keep it for her to drive) This car is just so much fun to drive, it really doesn't feel like it's got 171,000 km on it, it still runs as smoothly as it did with 51,000 km on it!

2009 Corvette Production Numbers

The final numbers are now out for the 2009 model year production of the Corvette (I got this info from the Corvette Action Center) and thanks to the recession it was one of the lowest production years in recent history. Production has typically been about 35,000 cars per year lately, but the total production for 2009 was only 16,956 :( Here is the breakdown:

Total coupes: 8737
Total convertibles: 3343
Total Z06s: 3461
Total ZR1s: 1415

It's interesting that they made more Z06s than convertibles!

Here is the breakdown by color from most produced to least:

Black: 3665 (21.6%)
Cyber Gray: 3104 (18.3%)
Victory Red: 2231 (13.2%)
Crystal Red: 1987 (11.7%)
Blade Silver: 1642 (9.7%)
Velocity Yellow: 1370 (8.1%)
Jetstream Blue: 1367 (8.1%)
Arctic White: 863 (5.1%)
Atomic Orange: 726 (4.3%)
Luxo Blue: 1 (it was the ZR1 auctioned off at Jackson Barrett for 1 mil)


Atomic Orange has been dropped from the lineup, which typically happens to a color that ends up being less than 5% of total production (unless that happens with white, as they'll probably never drop white, it's the only color that has been in production for every single year since the beginning of the Corvette in 1953)

Here are more numbers:

Manual Transmissions: 8396
Automatics: 8560
Z51 package: 4515
CSC package: 72
Hertz cars: 375
GT1: 125
Canadian cars : 315
Museum delivery: 392
Chrome wheels: 5649
Comp gray wheels: 1028
NPP: 6238
F55: 3520
Mexico: 8
1LT: 3271
3LT: 5230

Trying to keep a positive attitude!

I truly believe that good things happen when you keep a positive attitude in life, but you also need to be realistic as well. With all the bad things that have happened to me this year it has been difficult to be 100% positive, but I'm surprisingly more relaxed than I ever thought I would be. I've always been the type that had more of a negative attitude, even when things were going relatively well for me. So it is shocking to me that I've been able to keep my sanity with all the hardship I've seen this year. I guess that my brain is telling me that things can only get better for me, and that dwelling on the bad things isn't going to be very productive at all.

I still have to be realistic though, and realize that I may not easily find a job as a Photoshop retoucher again. The printing prepress industry is dying in the Toronto area, many of the high end shops have now closed down and the ones that are left aren't hiring. So I might just need to focus on how I'm going to earn a living for the next 15-20 years until I can retire. Maybe this layoff was the kick in the butt that I needed in order to get out of this silly business and into something that will make me a heck of a lot more money.

Save A Blade update

I'm disappointed to report that the Save A Blade unit doesn't live up to it's claims, even though I reported last time that it does work. According to the TV ad, you can use the same blade 200 times, but after 19 shaves on the same blade I had to throw it out as it was just far too dull to comfortably use it any longer. The unit will definitely still save me money since I only used to get 7 shaves from every blade, but it's not as good as the hype. It'll take me a lot longer to recoup my investment in this thing now, and if this unit ever fails I won't buy another one (unless Walmart ends up selling them for $10 or something like that)

Trading is not that easy!

It wasn't that long ago that I was bragging about having tripled my fake investments in just one month, and now through a series of bad choices and bad timing (getting out of many stocks way too early) I have now seen my fake portfolio go from over $30,000 down to just over $14,000. :( It's a darn good thing I'm not doing this for a living, I'd be in big trouble! But at the same time this experience has taught me a lot and I look forward to building up my money once again, and hopefully will not make too many of the same mistakes of the past.

Save A Blade works!

I'm happy to report that Save A Blade actually does work! I normally cannot use a razor blade more than 7 times, but I've now used the same one 11 times and it's still going! I'd say it's about 75% as sharp as new, so it's not keeping it quite as good as a brand new blade, but this little device is definitely going to save me money on blades! I just hope the unit itself lasts long enough to get my money's worth, as the searches I've done on the net have led me to believe that this thing isn't quite as well put together as it should be and often breaks down. It certainly looks pretty cheaply made when you open it up to look inside. And it sure is noisy! Don't use it when other family members are still trying to sleep! :)

Tripled in value in one month!

It's been exactly one month today that I started my fake portfolio, and it now has tripled in value! I started out with $10,000 and as of today it's now worth $30,604! So far that proves that I could live off of the income generated from day trading, at least so far anyhow. If only I had an extra $10,000 set aside that I could afford to play with. Maybe one of my contest entries will win me some money that I can use?

Save A Blade

I have always hated the fact that replacement shaving blades cost so much (the one I use is about $15 for ten of them, and I've seen other brands that are twice as much!) and I also love the shave I get out of a fresh new blade, so after seeing Save A Blade on TV I just had to buy one and give it a try! I just got it yesterday, and the instructions say it works best if you start using it on a new blade, as it does a better job of "honing" fresh blades and keeping them fresh as opposed to sharpening old dull ones. Since the blade I had in my shaver was already a week old, I started off with a brand new blade this morning and will use the Save A Blade on it every day and see how long this blade lasts for me. I normally change my blade once a week (but the last 2-3 shaves aren't anywhere near as good as the first few) so I'll be extremely happy if I get 200 shaves out of it! (although honestly, even if I got 40 or 50 shaves out of it, I would still be happy and would still save a ton of money) I'll let you guys know what I discover! I'm using it with a Gillette Sensor Excel by the way. Also, if you order one online, don't bother paying extra for expedited shipping (they say without that extra cost shipping it could take many weeks to arrive) because mine still arrived in just 4 business days even with the standard shipping method (although it helps that I live in Mississauga and the warehouse they shipped it from is in Mississauga)

Almost a millionaire!

One of these days I know I'm going to win big in the lottery, but this morning I came kinda close to winning the $26 million jackpot in Lotto 649. Just take a look at my numbers versus the numbers that were drawn and you can see I got 3 of them and the 3 others were only off by a slight amount:

6 10 24 28 31 46
6 11 24 28 30 44


So close but yet so far! I win $10 for getting 3 out of 6. Nobody won that $26 million jackpot so that means Saturday it will be $40 million! I sure would love to win that! I definitely wouldn't need to find another job with that kind of money in the bank! :)

I wish it were real money!

I started this fake portfolio on April 28th with $10,000 and as of today I've now more than doubled it's value! As of right now my portfolio value is $22,098! I got lucky with the stock I chose yesterday, as I bought it at $1.02 per share and sold it this morning at $1.31 (I should've sold it when it hit $1.45 but I thought it was going to keep climbing) My new practice of holding onto stocks a little bit longer seems to be the ticket, as I'm making a lot more money this way than I was when I only held onto a stock for a few minutes or an hour or two. I've heard that real day traders avoid doing any trading on a Friday before long weekend, so since this weekend is a long weekend here I think I'll take that advice. So I will choose one more stock today and hold onto it until Thursday afternoon and then take a break. If I were doing this for real I'd be pretty happy with the $7,141 in profit from this week already! I wonder how long it will take me to triple my portfolio's value now?

Hindsight is 20/20

The other day I got an email from one of these financial sites that claims to know all the hot stock tips for penny stocks, and so I decided to track this stock for a few days to see exactly how accurate they were. It turns out this stock tip was spot on! When they emailed me the tip that stock was only selling at 26 cents per share, but at the end of just one trading day it went from 26 cents to $1.16! And after one more trading session it's up to $1.55 now! (at one point it was up to almost $2!) Incredible! Of course, it could've just as easily tanked, which is why penny stocks can be so volatile, but just think, if someone listened to this special stock tip and invested $50,000 into it, they could've turned that into almost $300,000, and in just two days! And it's possible this stock hasn't even peaked yet and could double in value yet again.

My own fake portfolio had a pretty good week, mostly due to one choice I made which really skyrocketed in value (I bought it at $1.02 and later that same day sold it at $1.34) I had $9989 in my account on Monday morning and by Friday afternoon it was up to $14730. Almost a 50% jump in value in one week! Nice! Too bad it's not real money! :(

Fake portfolio update

So I decided to scrap my first fake portfolio, as I realized I was doing two things wrong that skew the results. For one I wasn't factoring in the cost of the trades, as they are going to be about $20 for each complete trade ($10 to buy and then $10 to sell) and I also didn't know about the difference between the bid and ask price, so that was making my gains look bigger than they really would be. So I started a brand new one and this time it's more realistic as to what would happen in the real stock market. After 3 days I'm hovering around the break even point still. I could've been up a lot more if I had hung onto a few of my stocks longer, as some of the ones I had "bought" ended up going up considerably more after I sold them, but I ended up getting out of them way too soon. That's ok, this practice will help me if I ever did decide to get into the market. And on that subject, it's highly doubtful I would ever try to make a living at day trading, it's just far too risky. The only way I could possibly even consider it would be if perhaps I won a small sum of money like $50,000, and then I might consider using $10,000 of it to play the market. But even then it's still kinda risky, and I'm not sure I've got the stones to handle the possible losses! But for now, I'm having fun playing with my fake portfolio :)

The end of Pontiac

It's a sad day in the automotive world today, as GM announced that it's going to be killing off the Pontiac brand. :( I've had quite a few Pontiacs actually, a 93 Sunbird, 94 Grand Am GT, 95 Firebird Formula, 95 Trans Am, 97 Grand Prix GTP and my favorite Pontiac of all was my Blue Green Chameleon 98 Firebird Formula. The car was one of the best bangs for the buck out there, it was half the price of the C5 Corvette at the time, but came with the same awesome LS1 engine. With a few simple low cost modifications I had that Formula down to a 12.68 at 110.6 mph in the quarter mile. And even though I'm a huge Corvette fan and still love my 98 Corvette better than all of the cars I've owned in the past, I still have a soft spot for my old Formula. When I heard that the Camaro was coming back in 2010, I had hoped the Firebird would be revived also, and even though there were no plans in the works for that happening, the killing of Pontiac definitely puts the end to any chance of that happening. RIP Pontiac! :(

My first contest win!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have started entering all kinds of online contests lately, and today I got notification of my very first win! I entered Teletoon's Matchbox Treasure Quest contest in my son Alex's name, and he won! It's only worth $40 but a win is a win, and I know there will be more to come! (hopefully a big pile of cash next time!) :)

My fake portfolio April 20th

So far my fake portfolio for "day trading" is doing pretty good. I chose a new stock this morning which was priced at 2.91 and when it hit 2.99 in less than an hour I decided to sell it because the overall mood of the market today looks bleak with both the Dow and the TSX heading down over 150 points each. So I figure that making $347 today is a pretty good take, and I'm going to treat this as if it was real money and try not to be too risky. I've also decided to set up a second practice account too, with this one I will pick one stock on Monday that was the top performer for the past month, and I will hold that stock until Friday and then will sell it. I will also start this fake account at $10,000 and see how it grows. This one is probably more realistic as I doubt I would ever have what it takes to be a day trader, but if I had enough money I'd be comfortable with buying one stock per week and taking chances on that. The stock I chose was priced at 1.30 before the start of trading today, but now is down to 1.20 so it's not doing too well so far, but it's still very early in the week too.

Do people really make a living day trading?

I've been curious to see if the average person without much knowledge of the stock market could actually make a living doing day trading, so I decided to do a little experiment. I've given myself $10,000 to start off and every morning I'm going to "buy" shares in whatever was the previous day's top performer on the Toronto Stock Exchange. I'll hold those shares for an hour or two, waiting for them to rise a little bit (or selling them if they drop 5%), and start again on the next trading day with a new stock. I'll let you guys know how my picks are doing on this blog. Yesterday was the first day doing it and the stock I picked went from $1.22 to $1.31 in a few short hours, so my portfolio went from $10,000 to $10,737! That's not bad for a day's "work" :) Today's pick went from $4.25 to $5.00 in the first hour, so my portfolio is now $12,631! I sure wish I had $10,000 to play with right now! :) Obviously if one were to play the market like this for real there would be a lot of down days too, so you'd obviously have to be prepared for that too. I think I would probably do things on the safe side, and try not to get too greedy and hang onto a stock too long once it's rising, that's probably where a lot of people get into trouble. They are trying to make a million dollars in one year, where I'd just be happy making $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

How to change a turn signal bulb in a 98 Corvette

One of my front turn signal bulbs burned out this morning (the tell tale sign was when I put the signal on, the flasher was going very fast) so I thought I'd give a quick rundown on how the change went. The easiest thing to do is put the front tires up on a set of rhino ramps, then you have full access under there. There is a little plastic panel which is held on by five bolts, use a 10mm socket to take these off. Then reach in and you'll see the white connector on the left side, you just need to pinch it and turn it counterclockwise to remove it. Once it's down, just gently pull on the old bulb (you don't want to break it off in there!) and pop in the new one, and then button everything back together again. The annoying part is that the owner's manual for my 98 listed the bulb as being a 3157NAK, but in reality you need a 4157NAK! The NA part indicates it's an amber bulb, I'm sure the regular 4157 would work, but it might look different than the other one, even though the light cover itself is amber anyhow. I was lucky, I already had an extra 4157NAK bulb, and it was the long life version too. I checked my records and the previous bulb had been in there for four years, and I don't think it was a long life version either, so this long life one is supposed to last twice as long. So I'm good for 8 years hopefully.

Fun fact about July 8, 2009

At 4:05:06 in the morning on July the 8th this year, the time and date will end up being 04:05:06 07/08/09! Pretty cool eh? I thought some of you would like that! I know I will! (although I'm not crazy enough to wake up that early to see it that day!) :)

How to cook a prime rib!

This is how I like to cook a nice prime rib roast. First of all you start off by letting the roast come up to room temperature by taking it out of the fridge and letting it sit out for about an hour or two. (I never start with a frozen roast, I buy it fresh from the butcher and then put it in the fridge as soon as I get home) I like to coat it with a mixture of sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, fresh garlic (or garlic salt) and olive oil (thanks to Paul M for this recipe!) I preheat the oven to 450F and then put in the prime rib for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 325F and cook it until the internal temperature reaches about 120-125F (for rare) or 130-135F (for medium rare) A digital instant read thermometer is a definite must here! Depending on how big the roast is, it will be around another 90 minutes to 2 hours of cooking until it's ready to come out. When you take it out of the oven, cover it in foil and let it sit for another 10-15 minutes to lock in the juices (and it'll continue cooking and will rise in temp by another 5-10F) Then slice it up and enjoy! It goes very well with roasted potatoes and gravy! I've got one in the oven right now, and my whole house smells like meat right now! Fantastic! :)

April is one of my favorite months!

Even though I love the heat of the summer the best, I think that April is one of my favorite months of the year for the simple fact that once you get past the early April "return of winter" (like we had in Mississauga this week) then it gets to the point where we know that we won't be seeing any more snow here for at least 7 or 8 more months! Awesome! I cannot stand snow, I hate it more than anything, so once we get to about the middle of April I know for sure that I won't be seeing any snow for a very long time and that makes me super happy! If I am super lucky, someday I'll have a nice little retirement property in Florida and at the first sign of snow here in Mississauga I would head down there and wouldn't return here until April 15th every year. Now that would be sweet!

The return of winter in Mississauga?

OK, well not quite, we got pretty lucky here in Mississauga yesterday, as a lot of areas just a half hour away got hammered with a foot of snow, but we got nothing but wet snow and rain yesterday, so it's just coated the grass lightly, but hasn't affected the roads at all, and most importantly, no shovelling is needed! :) I still can't believe it, but we haven't had any major snow here since early February! We usually get at least 3 or 4 big snow storms in March and one or two in April, but this year we got spared. Probably because I wasn't driving to work during this time! If I didn't get laid off, I bet we would've had tons of major snow storms to hinder my daily commute! :) Now let's hope we have a nice warm and dry summer here!

Does my new car need paint protection?

At most dealerships, when you buy a new car they are going to try to get you to purchase something called "paint protection" or perhaps they'll call it "clear coat protection" as well. They will usually ask for about $300 to $400 for this service and it's absolutely not worth it! They claim that it will be good for the lifetime of the vehicle, but this simply is not true. There is no magic coating that they can put on your paint which will protect it for that long, the best you can hope for is six months protection and even that is extremely optimistic. All you are getting for your hundreds of dollars is one single coat of some sort of polymer sealant, which you can buy yourself for $20 or so and put it on yourself. One bottle of that stuff would do about 10-15 cars or more, and only take about an hour of your time, so you can see what a huge moneymaker this is for new car dealers! But your best bet is to just buy the product yourself, apply it to your paint every 3 months, and your paint will stay nice and shiny for many years to come!

Does my new car need rustproofing?

I remember back in 1988 when I bought my first brand new car, a 1988 Dodge Shadow ES Turbo, I immediately went to Krown and had them rustproof it for me. I then went back annually to get it redone again, as was recommended. Back then I believe it was necessary, as I don't think that new cars at that time were built well enough to resist rusting. But nowadays a lot of body panels are made from composites (plastics) or double sided galvanized steel. So IMO, the days of needing annual rustproofing are long gone. When we bought my wife's 2000 Civic in October 1999, they tried to sell us aftermarket rustproofing at the dealer, and of course we said no (they wanted something like $400) and now her car has over 160,000km on it and is still rust free, even with no rust proofing! I think the key is to make sure you get the car washed weekly in the wintertime to get that nasty road salt off it (especially the undercarriage) Besides, I always found that those oil based rustproofing treatments just made a huge mess! Oil would drip on the driveway and the engine compartment would be a dirty mess, the oil would attract all kinds of dirt to it. And if we had done annual rustproofing we would've spent over $1000 by now! This also reminds me of another unnecessary thing that new car dealers often want you to buy, and that's "paint protection", another $400 charge typically. I'll cover that topic on my next blog entry.

Cash For Life Lottery

I must say I'm a big fan of the Cash For Life instant lottery, the idea of getting $1000 per week tax free for the rest of my life is very cool! I just don't understand why some winners have been taking the $675,000 cash payout instead! If they are older I suppose I could understand that, but I've heard that a few younger winners have taken the payout. The problem with that lump sum payout is that you would definitely not be able to invest it in anything that would pay you as much as the $1000 per week! For starters, if you invested that $675,000 and even managed to get an amazing 10% return per year (which is highly unlikely) that would pay you $67,500 per year, but then you'd also be taxed on that amount too! So you'd end up getting less than $1000 per week. And most likely you would only find that you'd get 5% interest on that money year after year, so you'd only end up with $649 per week, before taxes! Not exactly the best option there! The one thing I would worry about if I won that $1000 per week would be if the government ever decided to step in and start putting a tax on lottery winnings. $1000 a week tax free is definitely enough money for me to retire on (even at age 39) but if they started taxing it, I would definitely have a harder time making that money work for me. What I would do if I won would be to immediately increase my life insurance policy to $500,000 (since my $1000 per week would stop if I died, so my family would not continue to get those lottery payments anymore) The next thing I would do would be to increase my weekly contributions to my RRSP, so that in case they did ever tax lottery winnings in the future, I'd have those RRSPs as a backup retirement plan instead of relying on that $1000 per week. One thing is for sure, things would be FANTASTIC if I ever won! :)

Wilson Niblett's 9th annual Corvette Tech Session

Yesterday afternoon I went to Wilson Niblett (Canada's largest Corvette dealer) for their 9th annual Corvette Tech Session and it was a great time! They had Reeves Callaway and Ron Fellows there speaking to us, along with the unveiling of the very first new Callaway Corvette for sale in Canada! Wilson Niblett is the first dealer in Canada to become a Callaway dealer, and the first car they've got for sale is a beautiful Crystal Red 2009 convertible, with a 580hp supercharged engine! The weather was really nice yesterday too, which meant a lot of people brought their Corvettes out (many of them probably for the first time of the year too) It was great to see so many of my friends there, including some people I haven't seen in a few years too. I always have a great time hanging out with the guys talking cars! I also got myself a free Wilson Niblett toque, but hopefully the weather won't get cold enough so that I need to wear it right now! :) I'm looking forward to Wilson Niblett's next big event which is their annual Hillfest show on May 31st.

Ontario Budget 2009

So the new Ontario Budget is going to be released this afternoon at 4pm, and already people are starting to whine about the fact that they think that the $1000 being given to families making under $160,000 per year is a bribe, to make people feel good about the harmonization of the PST and GST into one single 13% tax. I just can't believe that people are whining about this! Hello, the government is giving you $1000! It's supposed to come in the form of three separate checks over the course of a year, and I think anytime the government gives you money it's a good thing! Too often they are just taking it away! (such as yesterday we got a letter from Revenue Canada telling us they updated our 2007 taxes and now they calculated we owe them another $386!! WTF?? Why wait a full year to tell us this? We haven't even done our 2008 taxes yet, hopefully we get money back!) I'm no financial expert, but from what I've seen on TV this morning, the harmonization of the two taxes is going to save businesses a lot of money, and it's going to attract new business to Ontario also. That sounds like a good thing to me. Time will tell!

I never use my dipstick!

I know that sounds raunchy, but I'm talking about checking the oil level in my car! :) I have found that the dipstick is a very poor method of checking the oil level, at least in my car as I find it still shows full even if it's down a quart! So what I do now is measure how much oil comes out when I change the oil, and that allows me to figure out the rate at which it consumes oil. So for example, I know that my Corvette uses one quart every 4000 miles, so what I do is simply add a half quart of oil every 2000 miles, and at the end of the oil change I can see if what I'm doing is working, or if I need to adjust it for future intervals and add oil at a faster rate. I suppose if someone was really picky, they could say that by not removing the dipstick they don't have to worry about introducing more possible contamination into the oil, such as dust, or fibers from the rag they are using on the dipstick. But I'm not that picky am I? ;)

When should I do my first oil change on a new engine?

This is sort of a continuation of the last entry, where I talked about breaking in a new engine. A lot of people wonder about when they should do the first oil change on a new engine. IMO, if the engine is a rebuild done by a mechanic, you should do a few more oil changes in the first little while compared to a new factory assembled engine (such as with either a new car or if you've bought a fresh crate motor). With a rebuild done by a mechanic, there is a higher chance that things aren't as "clean" so you'll want to do the first oil change after maybe 100 miles, then maybe another one at 500 miles. If the engine requires synthetics, you can use conventional just for these first couple of changes if you want to save some money, then switch over to synthetic around 3000 miles. With a factory built engine, I think that things are built a lot cleaner these days, so you can safely leave the first oil change to anywhere between 3000 to 5000 miles. There will be a bit more wear metals in the oil at first due to the rapidly breaking in engine, but it shouldn't be anywhere near the danger zone. Make sure to read your owner's manual, because some car makers like VW want people to leave that initial factory fill of oil in there longer, because it contains special break in additives (or a special oil that is high in an additive called moly) Of course there will always be people that want to change the oil in their brand new cars after it's hit the 500 mile mark, I guess old habits die hard, but it's really not necessary anymore.

How to break in a new engine?

You're going to find many opinions on this subject, but here is how I would break in a new engine. For starters, I would make sure to drive extra gentle until the oil temperature reaches at least 100F. This is something I'd do after the break in as well! I would also make sure to vary the rpms and load quite often, so I would definitely avoid using the cruise control and I'd avoid long highway trips too. I'd also do a lot of coasting, one technique I'd do would be to find a lightly travelled road, get it up to about 50-60mph, then let off the gas and coast until I got down to about 20mph, then slowly accelerate back up to 50 or 60. I'd repeat this at least a few times a day at first. Another technique I would use is to make a few full throttle blasts, but only once the engine is fully warmed up (oil temperature of at least 180F) I wouldn't make a full throttle run from a dead stop though, I'd do it on a roll, starting out at about 30 or 40mph, and take it up to about 70 or 75mph, then coast a bit. I think that new engines need to be exercised a little bit when they are new. An engine that is well put together should not have a problem with this type of driving.

When will the recession end?

Nobody knows the answer to this one, and I'm not a financial expert by any means, however this is my blog so I can say whatever I want. :) I am going to go out on a limb and say that it's going to begin to show signs of life by the beginning of this summer, and by summer 2010 it will be well on it's way to a full recovery. I also think that the stock markets are going to make some very major gains over the next few years, so a lot of investors are going to get very rich. This in turn will allow a lot of companies to rehire all the people that got laid off, and possibly even create a lot more jobs! I know I've learned a lot from this crisis, and will use that in order to better myself for the next recession. I'm definitely going to focus on paying down debt so that 20 years from now when we get another downturn, I might be ready to retire. The one key to a quick recovery right now is the media. The more they report on the positive news, the quicker it will recover, IMO. A lot of people right now are not spending money, not only because many of them have lost their jobs, but even the people that have jobs are just so afraid to spend, because the media has made out this crisis to be the end of the world. So with people not spending, it's only making things worse. But the media can turn this around too, they've got that power!

How much would you need to retire right now?

I'm only 39, however if someone were to hand me one million dollars right now I believe I could retire as long as my wife kept working.

I wouldn't be able to live like a rock star or anything on that kind of money, but I would be able to sustain my current standard of life that I've been used to. And most importantly, no rush hour traffic and no boss to worry about and no stress worrying about the next recession!

How would you invest your money in order to allow it to earn you enough income? I would obviously hire a financial advisor to guide me, but I figured that for the next few months while the economy is still recovering I would invest in something stable (like bond funds or something safe like that which might earn 3-4% per year) and then later on this year or early next year once the markets started consistently going up again, I'd switch it to an equity type of mutual fund which would probably earn 10% a year or more for a while.

Of course, one million would probably be the bare minimum, if I had $2 million or more then that makes things a heck of a lot easier. Anyone have a few million they want to give to the Patman? :)

How do I win big at the lottery?

I wish I knew the answer to this question! I've been playing the same numbers in Lotto 649 since 1986! Now I know there are a lot of people out there that say I should've invested all of that money and I'd have quite a few thousand dollars right now. But if you look into most people's finances you'll probably find lots of areas where they spend money that isn't an absolute necessity, so that argument holds no meaning for me. I don't smoke, I don't spend money drinking in bars, and for the most part I am pretty good at saving money (I've made major improvements in that area since being laid off!) So for me to spend a small amount of money per week on the lottery, I don't see it as being a big deal. I'm a dreamer, so I'm always imagining what I would do with that "big win" and even though the odds are against you, people do win the lottery all the time, so it is not impossible obviously! So why not spend a few bucks for the potential opportunity of having millions of dollars dropped into my lap? I certainly am not going to be able to earn that kind of money working for a living!

2010 Camaro

Even though I'm a Corvette owner, I am still very happy to know that starting on Monday, production officially begins on the 2010 Camaro! GM needs all the good publicity it can get these days, and this car is a winner! I drove an inferno orange SS about a month ago, and it was fantastic! GM has really improved this car a lot, it's in a completely different league compared to the 4th gen Camaro. I personally love the retro look, I think it's great when a car maker combines an older design with modern technology. I also think the older designs look so much better with the larger wheels that are available now. Those old muscle cars with 15" wheels just don't look as mean as they do when someone swaps some 17 or 18" wheels on them. I just hope that once the new Camaros hit the showrooms it'll create a lot of buzz and get people out there to check them out. Not everyone is going to be able to buy one, but perhaps by getting them into the showroom it might be enough to get them to think about buying another GM car? For instance, a guy pops in to check out the new Camaro with his wife and kids with him, and realizes he can't get the Camaro, but maybe his eye turns towards a new minivan or a new sedan for the family? So even though he didn't actually buy a Camaro, that car drew him into the showroom in the first place, and GM still ended up selling a new car!

Is it safe to overfill my crankcase with oil?

A lot of times I see people on the message boards that mention they got their oil changed at a dealer or fast lube place, and the person had put an extra half quart of oil in their engine, and if it was necessary to drain it out. In most cases, no, it is perfectly safe! Car makers have a bit of leeway in their specs, so if they tell you that your engine needs 4.5 quarts of oil at oil change time, you can almost always safely put in an even 5 quarts. Case in point, my 98 Corvette specifies 6.5 quarts, but I routinely put in 7 quarts at oil change time, and have even gone as high as 7.5. In the manual it does mention that it's safe to add one extra quart when racing though. In my wife's Honda Civic, the manual calls for 3.6L of oil but I've gone as high as 4.4 with no problems. What are the benefits of more oil you ask? By having more oil in the engine, it reduces the overall stress on the oil, so you'll have lower oil temps in the summer, and your oil will not degrade as fast. This is one of the reasons why a lot of European cars have such long oil change intervals, because they also have very big oil capacities too (some of them holding 7-12 qts of oil!) So I'm not saying to go right ahead and start adding an extra couple of quarts of oil, but simply start out by rounding off to the next highest number and go from there. I've heard a few experts mention that one way to tell if you've added too much, is to immediately pull the dipstick after you've shut off the engine, and if you see tons of tiny bubbles on the dipstick, that means your crankshaft is hitting the oil and aerating it. But as I mentioned earlier, there is typically a bit of leeway between the spec the manufacturer states in the manual, and the point at which the crank would actually touch the oil and cause a problem.

My appliances are out to get me!

When we bought our townhouse in December 1999, it came with 3 free appliances, and my parents bought us the other two, and we decided to stick with the same manufacturer for all, just to be consistent. But so far we've had issues with 4 out of the 5 of them! The first incident was with the washer. A few years ago, my stepson was doing a load of laundry and when he set the water level, it was set in between two different levels, so the machine didn't know when to stop filling up with water. We didn't notice for about a half hour or so, and by then there was quite a lot of water in the basement. It took two days to dry out the carpets, and it ruined my favorite digital scale :( The next issue was with the oven, one of the elements inside it broke off, so it wasn't getting as hot and we wondered why sometimes our food would actually come out of the oven still partially frozen! Luckily that was a cheap do it yourself fix. Then the handle on the fridge broke off! And now our latest issue is with the dryer, the dial which controls the time no longer moves on it's own, so the dryer will just keep running forever and never shuts off. Great. So whenever you're drying clothes you need to be constantly checking to see when the clothes are fully dry, so you can manually shut it off. Needless to say, I've been entering a lot of contests to win all new appliances! :) Heck, at least our dishwasher isn't out to get us.....yet!

Can I make a living entering contests?

I've obviously got a lot of free time on my hands these days, being jobless and all, and so one of the things I've been doing is searching the internet for all kinds of free contests that I can enter. There are so many out there! Some of them only let you enter once, but a lot of them allow weekly and even daily entries, and some of them have some pretty big cash prizes too. Some are giving away cars, gift cards for various stores, and quite a few of them are giving away smaller prizes (I don't bother with those ones) It's mainly the cash prizes I'm interested in! :) But it's got me wondering, if there is anyone out there that has actually been able to make a living by winning contests? I suppose if you spend a few hours a day entering, you're bound to win a few things here and there. But could someone make enough to avoid having to go into work everyday? And would the Canadian government come after you for taxes if you ended up winning thousands and thousands of dollars every year?

It's coming up on 3 weeks now since I lost my job, my previous company decided to cut 10% of it's workforce in North America, so 1500 people lost their jobs on February 18th. So after almost 8 years at this place, I'm back to a spot I'd never thought I would be in again, as I really thought that company was stable enough to weather this economic storm, and that I'd end up retiring there. The first couple of days I was quite negative, but now I'm looking at this as a positive, in the long term I think it will be better for my career, as things may have been getting stale at the old job anyhow. I've been doing the same thing for 17 years, image editing and color correction in Photoshop, mostly for magazine and flyer work. Now I'm wondering if I can use those skills to get into moviemaking, or doing something on the internet or television. I've also got the opportunity to do some freelancing as well, so that could open some doors as well, possibly getting a full time job at a previous employer (which is now located just 2km from my house, so that would be perfect!) If anyone reading this blog (does anyone read my ramblings??) knows of any opportunities out there for someone with my skills, let me know!

Spring is in the air!

Friday ended up being an amazingly warm day here, the first really nice day we've had this year! It got up to 18C, which is about 65F. I put the first coat of wax for the year on the Corvette, and was even wearing shorts for the first time of the year. It's always nice to get that first taste of spring a bit early like this, although I am realistic enough to know that winter isn't truly over yet. I'm willing to bet we'll get at least two more big snowstorms before this season is over. I never feel truly safe until we get past April 15th, as I do remember a huge snowstorm in mid April back in the early 80s. But with each passing week now, the chances of a big snowstorm get less and less, so I'm hoping this is the year we do get an early spring! At this point in time the 7 day forecast looks promising, no snow in the forecast. Time will tell though! Forecasting the weather is like throwing darts at a dartboard! :)

My weight loss

I'm not even sure how many people are reading this blog, but I thought I'd shift gears a bit so you guys don't think I only talk about motor oil. :) This time I'm going to talk about how I have managed to get from 185 pounds in July 08 down to 164 in Mar 09. I got to the point where my size 34 pants were feeling very tight, so that's when I decided it was time to make some changes. I've always had the habit of going out for a 30-40 min walk on my lunch hour, but even that wasn't enough. So I made a few more changes. First one was to drink 2L of water a day. That helps a lot! Water has no calories, plus it cleanses your system. The second thing I did was to start eating more fiber. That also helps to cleanse your system. The third change I made was to spend 10 minutes every morning doing some mild weight lifting with a small dumb bell. I started out with a 10lb one, then after a month I switched to 15, and a couple of months after that, a 20lb one. I've heard that building muscle helps to burn more calories. The final change I made was to be a lot more careful with the calories. From Monday to Thursday I only eat about 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I allow myself one day (Friday) to eat a lot more, since that's my Steak Night! :) On Saturday and Sunday I try to keep the calories under 3000 also. With this method I've been losing about one pound per week. That's not a lot compared to the people on Biggest Loser that lose one pound per day, but I am also not spending 12 hours a day in the gym. :) So not only have I lost 21 pounds so far, but I can now fit into my size 32 pants again. My plan is to get down to around 150-155. So hopefully if anyone is reading this, and you want to lose a big of weight, you might want to try some of my ideas to see if they work for you too.

Is Synthetic Oil More Slippery?

There seems to be this misconception out there that synthetic oils are "more slippery" than conventional oils, but used oil analysis has shown this to be untrue. The engine wear numbers that people are getting from conventional motor oil are just as low as the wear numbers from synthetics. So it's not really the base oil which determines how your engine is going to wear, but the additive package in the oil. That's not to say that synthetic oils don't have their benefits, as they certainly do. They are better in extreme cold, as the oil will flow better, and in extreme heat it resists oxidation better as well (making them the best choice for turbocharged or supercharged engines) Synthetic oils also allow you to extend your oil change intervals a bit longer than conventional oil as well. I will say this though, with each time the API comes out with a new quality spec (such as the current one, SM) the quality of conventional oil gets that much closer to synthetics. In fact, since most of the name brand conventional oils contain a group 2 or group 2+ base oil, in essence these are already partially synthetic oils, even though they aren't advertised as such.

Is 10w30 an Obsolete Viscosity?

When it comes to synthetic oils, my belief is that 10w30 is now an obsolete viscosity. Why you ask? Because when given the choice between running a 5w30 or a 10w30, the 5w30 can do all the same things as the 10w30, but with the added benefit of flowing better on initial startup. So overall engine wear will be less. When it comes to conventional oils, a lot of people choose 10w30 because it has less viscosity index improvers in it, therefore it won't thin out as easily. But when it comes to synthetic oils, they use little to no viscosity index improvers in 5w30, therefore it will retain it's viscosity much better.

Should I Follow My Oil Life Monitor?

More and more new cars nowadays are coming with oil life monitors to tell the owners when they need to change their oil, which leaves a lot of people puzzled since they've been so used to just following the old "rule" of 3000 miles or 3 months. But in a nutshell, these oil life monitors work! They typically use a combination of engine revolutions and oil temperature data in order to calculate when the oil life has reached it's end. And even then they build in a bit of leeway so that you can still safely go a little bit longer if need be. If someone does a lot of hard driving in the hot summer time, the oil life monitor will signal an oil change earlier than someone else who drives gently at highway speeds in moderate temperatures. My 98 Corvette has an oil life monitor and it typically will count down to zero between 6000 to 7000 miles. Used oil analysis has shown me that following my oil life monitor is a safe practice as my oil always has some life left in it at that point. So why are so many people still ignoring this monitor and following their old habits? I guess old habits die hard!

How Often Should I Change My Oil?

As some of you probably already know, I've got a bit of interest in motor oil. I'm not sure exactly how it started, but it led to me being involved with the bobistheoilguy.com message board back in 2002. From that site I've learned a lot! But the one thing I've noticed when I'm on other message boards is that most people change their oil far too often! They say that they like to change it every 3000 miles because it's "cheap insurance". I'm here to tell you that this way of thinking is very outdated! With today's motor oil being a lot better in terms of engine cleanliness and viscosity retention, and today's modern fuel injection systems allowing more precise control of fuel management, there really is no need to follow the old 3000 mile rule anymore. In the old days a lot more fuel ended up getting into the oil, and that would degrade it a lot faster. Combine that with oils that didn't keep the engine as clean, and it meant you needed to change it more often to keep the level of protection at it's best. So why do so many people still subscribe to the belief that they need to change their oil every 3000 miles? I think it's a combination of two things: one is the fact that oil change places keep advertising that it needs to be done this often (and of course they are going to say this, they want your money!) And the second reason is because people say "my father changed his oil every 3000 miles and his engines never wore out". That right there makes sense, but you get to a point of diminishing returns, because a guy changing his oil every 1000 miles isn't going to get 6x more engine life out of the guy changing his oil every 6000 miles. It simply doesn't work that way! Every situation is going to be slightly different, which is where used oil analysis can help out a lot in terms of pinpointing a more reasonable interval for your engine and your driving habits. But even if you don't do used oil analysis, you can still safely extend your oil change intervals without fear that it's going to cause your engine to die a sudden death! From what I've observed on used oil analysis reports you can safely go 5000 miles between changes in most engines using a good quality name brand conventional oil. When it comes to synthetic oils, you can go even longer!

March 2, 2009

Well, this is the first day of my blog, not sure what I'm going to say here everyday, but hopefully some of you will find it interesting! I'm sure I'll be talking about two of my favorite things, Corvettes and motor oil! :) So I hope you all come back and check it out!