Pennzoil Ultra!

Thanks to a friend of mine who went on a trip to the US recently, I now have Pennzoil's newest synthetic oil, known as Ultra, running in the Corvette! It probably won't be sold here in Canada for a few more months (and when it does it'll be costly!), but I was super anxious to get it into the Corvette so I could run a full interval before the end of the year, then I can send it off for analysis to compare with Pennzoil Platinum, which is what I've been running in the Corvette for the past three years. I've had great results with Platinum but I'm hoping to see even lower engine wear numbers with Ultra. I paired it up with a Fram Extended Guard oil filter, these are very well built filters that have served me well so far. They are Fram's best filter, using metal end caps and a very slick 2 ply media backed by a wire mesh screen for added protection.

My review of Mother's SynWax

I just finished putting a coat of SynWax on my Corvette and I am really impressed! It leaves a nice wet look to my black paint and definitely does a fantastic job of hiding the small swirls and scratches on it! I still need to go over the paint with my buffer and do some correction work as I haven't done that in almost a year and my car is a daily driver (even in the winter), so it's nice to have a product which will fill those imperfections for the time being until I get around to removing them completely.

Even though it was only 50F (and with 60% humidity) when I put it on, I found it very easy to remove, even in some areas where I purposely put it on a bit thicker just to test out how those spots would buff out. It leaves behind no dust, which is always nice! I do find the bottle is a poor design though, as it makes it tricky to dispense the product onto the buffing pad without spilling some down the side of the bottle too. I really like how Eagle One's NanoWax has that pump dispenser (like a bottle of skin lotion would have) for example.

I do find that it's hard to use a small amount of product to do the whole car. With other stuff I've used I find a little goes a long way, but I found I used a lot more with this stuff to do the entire car (although this stuff is priced so well that it's not a big deal to use more of it, since it still costs less per application)

It also suffers from the same minor problem I had with Meguiar's #21, NXT and NXT 2.0, in that when you look at the black paint in the shade you can see some streaking. You cannot see that streaking in direct sunlight though (and I have found when I got those streaks with the Meguiar's sealants, they would go away after the first washing, or after multiple applications of detailing spray, so I suspect the same will happen here) As well, just like with the two versions of NXT, this stuff leaves behind a bit of an oily residue, so I find I need to pull the car out completely into the direct sun and look very closely from all angles and continue to buff to make sure I get rid of all of that residue. That's not a big deal though, as I think that's a trait of polymer type products and I think that oily nature is what is giving the paint that wet look and is also helping to hide the imperfections.

I have tried a lot of different waxes/polishes on this car and so far SynWax is right there at the top of my list! To give you an idea of what I've used on my 98 Corvette here is my list:

Meguiar's #20, 21 & 26
Meguiar's Gold Class
Meguiar's NXT and NXT 2.0
Zaino Z2 (the old version, not the pro that's out now)
Zaino Z5Pro
Eagle One NanoWax (just tried this one last week as it was on clearance at Walmart for $8)

In my opinion, Synwax is tied with NXT 2.0 in terms of the best shine on my black paint and best ability to hide imperfections, as well as being tied with NXT 2.0 for being the easiest to remove. I obviously can't speak on it's durability just yet but to be honest I don't worry so much about that in the warm months since I like to apply a fresh coat every 3-4 weeks.

My first big contest win!

I finally won some big money in one of the many contests I enter! I was the grand prize winner in the Lotto 649 Ultimate Hockey Night contest last night, and won $6,649! It all started out with me getting a phone call on Wednesday about being one of 20 finalists who won two tickets to last night's Maple Leaf's hockey game, and when we got there they asked each of the finalists to pick a jersey with a number on it (I picked number 8). During the first period they had a draw and picked six numbers at random from one of the lottery machines (that spins the balls round and round) My jersey was the first one chosen, so that put me up against five other people in the second round of the contest. For this part we all went down onto center ice after the second period and we each had an oversized Lotto 649 ticket with six numbers on it. Then they started drawing balls out of the machine and whoever matched all of their six numbers first was the winner, and it was me! I'm so happy, this is my first big win! (and I have a good feeling there are more wins to come in 2010!)

Washed my car in my garage

After a bunch of Long Island Iced Teas last night I went into my garage and saw the Corvette all covered in nasty road salt so I decided to give it a wash. It was way too cold outside (and dark too) so I just pulled out the wash bucket and hose and went to work right there in the garage! Because we've got a townhouse and the garage has no walls exposed to the elements, and our bedroom is also above it, the temperature never gets that cold in there (it was almost 50F when I washed it and even this morning when it was -2F outside, it was 44F inside the garage) I don't have a drain on the floor or anything, but was just careful not to spray too much water all over the place, and when I was done I cracked the garage door a little bit to let some of the excess water run out. Next time I try this I'll make sure to park the car more in the middle, as I did park it extremely close to the other wall in order to give myself more space to open my car door. So it was a little bit of a tight squeeze in there, but still manageable and it sure is better than waiting for a warmer day to do it in the driveway (I actually washed it the other day when it was 27F outside, but the sun was shining and there was no wind, so none of the water froze on me, but my fingers were still freezing cold when I was done!)

So I guess I come up with some pretty good ideas after a night of drinking eh? :)

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.