Mark Martin - Wins Another RACE!!!!!!

Mark Martin wins another NASCAR Sprint Cup Race - WOOO HOOO!!!

Hendrick Motorsports is my favorite NASCAR racing team, and Mark Martin has 4 wins so far this year.

He is now in 11th place in the Sprint Cup Standings.

Chicagoland Speedway is where it all happened. Keep up the great racing Mark.

Keeping Track Of Gas Mileage

And now for something different...

Here's how I keep track of my vehicle's gas mileage. This procedure works well for me. I get all kinds of useful information about my vehicle from knowing how good it's gas mileage is.

For those of you who do not know what gas mileage means: it's how many miles the vehicle can drive while consuming one gallon of gasoline. You see, gasoline is a fuel, and it makes the vehicle move through the wonders of physics, chemistry, and electricity.

Since I have to buy gasoline before I can drive the vehicle, it's useful to know how much I'm going to need.

So I start with a full tank of fuel. I reset my trip odometer on the dashboard to zero. I drive wherever I have to go, then when it's time to get gas again based on the gas guage, I plan for a full tank. If I know how many miles I drove, then the number of gallons it takes to re-fill the gas tank can be used to check miles per gallon. Take the number of miles driven, then divide it by the number of gallons to refill the tank. That's the gas mileage, AKA miles per gallon.

EXAMPLE: I drove 200 miles according to my trip odometer. I refill the tank and it takes 10 gallons. That's 200 miles per 10 gallons - and through the wizardry of mathematics (or, using a calculator), I determine that I just got 20 miles per gallon on that last tankfull of gas.

Resetting the trip odometer to zero again, and leaving the gas station with a full tank, I'm ready to embark on my next journey, knowing I'm keeping track of how much gas I'll need over the long run.

I've recently been using my Garmin GPS device to keep track of what my average speed is each tankfull of gas. I've learned over the years that gas mileage is significantly influenced by 2 things outside of the vehicle itself: 1) overall temperature outside, and 2) average speed driven.

The warmer the temps outside, the more efficiently the engine burns fuel, and the better the miles per gallon rating becomes. Also, higher average speeds usually will improve gas mileage. Slower speeds caused by a lot of stop-n-go driving will lower overall gas mileage. Driving more miles on a highway will usually improve gas mileage.

SRV - One Great Guitarist

This post is a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn. One great guitarist and bluesman, may he rest in peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSpbuFSr2o

Happy 4th Of July !!!

Today is July 4th. Happy 4th to all Americans!!!

Then again, people in Britain are probably not celebrating this day. In London, I'll bet there are thousands of people sitting around at their favorite pubs going " OI!! Those f#ck!n& Yankees are all bloody worked up about their victorious rebellion agai-eenst the King!

Here's a video of an American flag made of dominoes - also made with the wrong number of stars in the blue field. Must be some outsourced video, oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acyfaAd1LV8

I can imagine the Al Quaida bastards might not be too happy about this day, nor Iran's recently elected president, and maybe not even that nutball in North Korea, but hey, you can't please everyone.

One reason I like to say "Oh, and follow your dreams" at the end of my posts is that I have the freedom to do so as I please. I can do what I want, when I want, and I don't need to get special permission from the government. I wouldn't be able to do this in many other countries.

Also check out this Muppets tribute to the 4th.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o

Oh, and FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS!

Astronomy Picture Of The Day

My 75th post - yeah!

Here's a cool site (if you're into astronomy) from NASA. It has a new picture every day related to something astronomical.

http://apod.nasa.gov

I like many of the pictures I've seen on this site. Plus there are often links to other sites that go into more detail about the subject of the day.

Oh, and follow your dreams.

Some BBQ & Foodie Sites Of Interest

Here are some sites I like to visit once in awhile. They cover barbeque and foodie stuff.

Enjoy.

BBQ Sites:

http://www.pigtrip.net/ BBQ stuff

http://backyardchef.blogspot.com/ A BBQ blog. Goes by the name of The Hampton Smoker.

http://www.bbqguyblog.blogspot.com/ Another BBQ blog. Good info.


Foodie Sites:

http://tastefix.com/ Food pictures & recipes, blogs.

http://foodgawker.com/ Same as above.

http://www.tastespotting.com/ Same as above.

Pictures From A Past Refurbishing Project

Here are some pictures I stumbled upon while doing some recent spring cleaning (even though it's officially summer in like 1 day from now).

This is my Digi-Tech guitar effects unit. It's one of those all-in-one units, with guitar effects like distortion & overdrive, EQ, all kinds of different reverb and echo sounds, and it has 40 prepared sounds in it's memory, and it allows 40 user-defined sounds, all saved in flash memory. It's really a simple computer tailor-made for manipulating audio from guitars. Ok, so when I say "simple computer" it's really a contradiction of terms.

Anyway, the pedals are intended to be operated by your foot, so you can change your sound without having to stop playing guitar, since the guitar takes up both hands to play.

Well, eventually the pedal switches started to become less and less responsive until some of them no longer worked at all. I decided to take it apart and investigate.

I just love staring at electronic stuff. I don't know why. I'd rather just stare at a hot female, but if there's none around, electronics are ok. Or hot cars.

I found that the plasic part that touches the switches was flattening out a bit from wear. I cut out and taped a thin piece of cardbord to fill in the gap.

I put it back together and the switches were then working great, almost like new.

Of course, my cat Lexus just had to investigate my guitar gear. As soon as I go to play something though, she hauls ass to get away from the sound. She does not like guitars or basses that are making music. Or, maybe she just hates my music.