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!