We have 2 mobile homes outside the main plant that serves as offices. My office was in one and others with offices in the same building was mainly much higher in the company than me.

I hit a deer on the way to work. I grabbed a ride in, left my truck until I could find a tow. I'm at work and call the insurance company. I dialed on speakerphone with the volume quite loud. Ever dial a number and get 1 of the numbers wrong by 1 digit? I did. Over my speakerphone quite loud, I get a girl answer in a seductive voice. I ended up dialing a 1-800 phone sex number instead of my insurance company!

Over here, dialing 1-800-phonenumber is a toll free call. 1-900 is a pay call. The phonesex stuff have 1-800 numbers for the first minute, then transfer you to a pay number.

Yes, when the phone was answered with my speakerphone loud, I got about 3 heads pop around the doorframe of my office wondering what I was doing. That was indeed embarrassing.

Be careful he's not good friends with GripDriver. Or you may never see your dollar back. I'm still waiting for my $1000.....

Quote from MadCat360 :

So how does it work in PA?

Ok, since you asked....

You stated the laws of the US an age of 15.5. You can't get a license or permit until your 16th birthday in PA, which is within the US.

You stated the laws of the US are you must do two driver's courses. In PA which is within the US, it is recommended, not required, that you take driving lessons or courses.

You stated the laws of the US are once you have those papers you go and take your written exam. In PA which is within the US, you show up with a medical examination report, your social security card, form of identification such as a birth certificate, and a licensed adult (18 years of age or older) and take the written exam.

As I said, it varies state to state, including the age of which you can apply. It may be that you may be able to apply and possibly receive a learner's permit to drive at 15 1/5, you just can't drive anything until you turn 16.

I don't know how it is today as it is now civil government workers running the licensing center, but when I went for my driver's test, it was done at the State Police Barracks and the test was performed on a course set up in the parking lot. It was extremely busy and I didn't even have to do everything. Halfway through the test, the State Trooper told me to "go ahead and pull over right here, you passed." Today it may very well be taken on the actual road. From what I understand, it is complete idiots that are giving the driver's exam nowadays.

Quote from MadCat360 :

Not really. Just the details.

Not just details. You stated, "The law in the US is...." and stated laws. Not one of those laws are the laws of Pennsylvania. They aren't federal driving laws. They are state to state specific.

Quote from MadCat360 :

The laws in the US are......

.....completely different State to State.

I'm on a guitar forum and they have a thread asking to post a pic of your guitar gear. I posted a pic of my RC airplane and said I didn't have a guitar nor do I play guitar, but I did have an airplane and fly RC as a hobby. They told me to GTFO. Why?

Quote from rsnake53 :

Although for some stupid reason, it is also illegal to use the left lane for more than a few miles at a time in my state. I'm unsure of an exact number, but they covered it in Drivers Ed. and a great friend of mine who lives out of state got pulled over for it.

It is illegal because the left lane is for faster traffic passing slower traffic. Too many morons drive in the left lane and cruise along at the same speed as traffic on the right so that they tie up the faster traffic pulling up behind them.

Quote from Forbin :

Hehe. The 3.8L V6 (rated at 170HP, IIRC) in my 1994 Pontiac Bonneville would spin up the wheels just a little bit from a stop if you really stomped on the gas. 4-speed auto in that land yacht.

The one I drove was the supercharged 3.8L. Yeah, it was a rocket. I barely touched the throttle and the tires started screaming, hit 2nd, tires screamed, hit 3rd and got a chirp. I can't remember the HP rating, something like 260 or so? That thing moved. Just had to make sure you could slow down before a bend because it also felt like a land yacht.


If you shut your car off for going down hills, you certainly will lose all power steering and brakes. They are hydraulic, thus you lose it without the motor running. If you don't turn the key back to on, the steering wheel will lock.

You save fuel going downhill by lifting off the throttle. You don't save much, but that is the idea of the hypermilling sensationalizing when fuel prices rose up. All that hypermilling BS could have just been summarized up as "don't drive like a moron". I checked it out back then and after reading about it, I thought, "OK, I just drive normally then and I'm doing this stupid hypermilling stuff...."

Put the car in neutral on one hill then just lift off the throttle on the next and see if there's any difference in your speed. I'd bet you see very little difference. You'd have to have quite a hill for there to be a difference between coasting out of gear and coasting just off the throttle.

Finally! After hundreds of photos from Don, I've finally caught him on a mistake! You have a pole growing out of the roof on the last shot

Awesome work on those Don. Did you have a flash unit inside the vehicle? I love how you can see the interior lit up on the headliner. Fantastic exposure work on the background and flash work on the car.

Only auto I've ever been able to get the tires to spin was a supercharged Bonneville, round 2002 or something.

A GM 2.8L V6 spinning the tires, that's a funny one. They must make them quite different for Canadia. I don't think I've ever driven a vehicle with such a gutless motor in it. The Pontiac Grand Prix with the 3.4L ran great, but still it would never have spun the tires.

Automatic experience in no certain order....

1988 Cavalier 2.0
1992 Corsica 3.1
1989 Grand Prix 3.4 (I think)
1983 Escort 1.6
19xx Celebrity 2.8
198x S10 Blazer 2.8 (incredible joke that was)
1979 Fairmont 200cu in straight 6 (can't be bothered to calculate it out in liters)
1990 Taurus 3.0
1996 Altima 2.4
2006 Tribute 3.0
1970 Mercury Montego 302cu in. Ok, I'll admit this one could spin the tires. Could light them up in all 3 gears and snap your head back like you wouldn't believe.
198x S10 pickup truck 4 cyl.
2007/8 Suzuki SX4 (recently obviously and I'm an adult now and it's not my car. I certainly didn't test it out.)

That's all I can think of right now.

The cost you people are posting is unreal! Seems nothing but a money making scam. I don't remember it costing anything way back when I got my license. Maybe $6 or something to receive the actual permit and something similar for them to send you the actual license after passing the driver's exam. The cost of the test was nothing, nor were we required to take lessons (still like that, it says on the website lessons are recommended.)

I know for sure that a motorcycle permit cost $7 just a few years ago. I don't know too many who actually get their M license. Most just renew the permit every year. You can get training through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (maybe it's Association), which is free. Upon "passing", you automatically get your motorcycle endorsement on your license.

It's been 20+ years......

Back then in my state, you turned 16*, you took a written exam to obtain a learner's permit. It was stupidly easy on road rules and signage. You did not have to post anything on your car, you had a permit in your pocket.

You are allowed to drive with a licensed driver age 21 or over. You can drive as much or as little as you want.

You take a driving test to obtain a license, otherwise called a "Cinderella license" around here because you are not allowed to drive between midnight and 5 am (maybe 6 am). I said above you can drive as much or as little as you want because once passing the written test, you can take the driving test any time you want. The next day if it suits you.

When you turn 18, your "Cinderella license" expires and you have complete free will.

* If you could push your mother's car out of the driveway and down the road before starting it when they are asleep, you could drive when you were 14

I've got a Mazda! I'll be there!

On second thought, maybe my Mazda Tribute isn't quite suited for track usage. Will there be any hill climbs or rock crawling on the track?

You said you got a car in the camera thread. You say it's a Mazda in this thread. How many posts will it be until you tell us exactly what you got? Next post will we learn the year? Post up in the Post your car thread.

XC, nice to hear from ya! Don't know if you hang out in any other sections as I don't anymore, so haven't "seen" ya round these parts lately.

The bird shot brings about a bad story from me.

Sunday, I'm outside with the kids. There's 2 things that are common around me that have eluded me every time with the camera. That is the hawks (they are everywhere) and LifeFlight medical helicopter. LifeFlight flies over my house all the time as the road on the other side of the field is the main path it takes from out north into town where the hospital is. Both it and the hawks, I am never ready with the camera when I see them.

So, we are out in the yard on Sunday and a hawk circles around very low. Low that it appeared I could have reached up and grabbed it from the sky. By the time I go in just to the kitchen to grab the camera, the hawk of course is gone as always.

Monday evening, we are out in the yard again. This time, I bring the camera out with me. I have it sitting on top of the garbage can, settings all ready for anything that comes over in the sky, be it hawk or helicopter. Do I see any on Monday evening? Nope.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. I get up, do the morning thing, and am heading out to work. I let the dog out the back door in the mornings and it's pouring down rain. Looks like it rained all night. I turn around after grabbing the dog some food, and what do I see? Yup, there my camera sits on top of the garbage can in the pouring down rain!

I took the batteries out and the mem. card and left those open and hung it up inside. That was Tuesday morning. It's still hanging up, now in the basement because I have the dehumidifier kicking pretty good and it's pretty dry down there (the air is really dry right now.) It's now Thursday and I haven't tried it out yet.

Drum roll please.............

...... and everything appears to be in working order! Whew!

Got a little worried for a moment because it didn't do anything when hitting the shutter. Then the battery indicator came up, which it is very slow to focus on low batteries. I don't have an actual battery meter, it just pops up a red battery icon when they are dying, which means you have about 2 shots before the camera shuts off. I still need to get some stinkin backup batteries. I never know when they are going dead until they are just about dead. Keep forgetting when I'm at the store. It only takes 4 AA, which are $5 for my favorite brand of AA NiMH. Dirt cheap.

Last edited by mrodgers, Thu, 4 Jun 2009 20:16.

Quote from tristancliffe :

But if it changes gear when it wants to rather than when you want to you end up with LESS control over your direction. Cutting the power whilst your balancing a car in a corner can lead to big accidents.

I've never driven so hard that I was going to have an accident simply from cutting power or whatever. We're talking on the road here, not on the track.

That said, mountainous areas are the worst possible case for the failure of an automatic transmission. Nothing is worse than motoring up a steep hill about 75% throttle with the auto in 2nd gear, then lifting a bit because of a turn coming and the dang thing moves up into overdrive. You lose all momentum and when you are back on the throttle at mid turn, it takes 3 years for the thing to shift back down into 2nd again. That said, it relates to the next thing after my quoting you....

Quote :

What if you don't use a clutch for upshifts and downshifts?

It matters not. I have yet to drive a normal road car that can shift faster than one can with a manual and clutch. My Altima takes forever as it lingers holding RPM before it finally decides to shift. My Mazda is pretty good, but it still can't shift faster than someone with a clutch and manual provided that person can drive.

Your Windows "installation CD" will be on a seperately partitioned drive D. You should get a screen when booting before Windows starts whether you want windows to start normally or a restore option.

I think that is the actual full restore and not the restore to a point from within windows. Not sure though because I've never restored Windows in the 4 years I've had my Compaq.

Quote from hrtburnout :

Are you sure it's all scripted?

Do you think that Paul Sr. spends a ton of money on remodeling the shop just to pick up a couch and throw it through the wall just because he's mad that Paul Jr. left a wrench laying on the workbench?

Yes, I think everything on TV is scripted. There is no such thing as "reality TV"

I call BS on all shows like that. They are all scripted. There's no way someone would start to wail on the wheel like that on the road, not even the stupidest person. He does it because that's what is in the script...

Quote from Not Sure :

I have never seen a computer in which you can't get into the bios.

Not that you can't get in, but what I mean is, the bios has no settings other than "numberlock turned on at startup" and changing the order of the drives the computer looks for an OS. There isn't much more than that in the bios of off-the-shelf systems.

My Compaq, which is similar specs of AMD 64 3500+ and ATI Xpress 200 graphics is 256 mb shared graphics.

His is an HP (same company basically) so I very much doubt he can get into the bios.

I loaded up LFS to check. I have some high res track stuff from can't even remember who it's been so long. I have many high res community add-ons, High res textures on in the options, full skin and helmet turned on, I use the regular res skins (not the pay for more stuff), and I'm still pretty much maxed out on all settings as I haven't played since my seperate card blew up and I went back to the onboard chip. My texture memory usage is listed in LFS as only 14.7 mb. LFS doesn't use much of the memory on graphics cards.

On a default HP/Compaq Windows install, there is a huge amount of stuff that is preloaded upon startup in the process list. It's been many years, but I recall having about 50 processes running when I booted this machine for the first time. This can be lightened up tremendously, but it really won't help a whole lot. I now run about 19 processes and as I said, I tweaked this computer a lot when I ran on the Xpress 200 chip and could get up to a measly 35 FPS, but I was forced to start in the back every race because it would not handle the first few laps at all.

Also, that 35 FPS was way back in the 20 car field max days. There's no way I could handle more than 20 (15 was my limit back then) and I very much doubt this guy's machine will currently either.

Believe me, I had tweaked and tweaked these HP/Compaq machines with the Xpress 200 onboard chip to the max until I finally broke down and bought a separate card. It was a cheap card (listed in my prev. post) at $45 back then and the difference was like night and day.

There is nothing wrong with your computer and there is nothing you can do to increase frame rates leaving as is. (Ok, I was able to squeak about 35 FPS, but race starts were still a disastor.)

I have the same processor and same onboard graphics chip, probably the Compaq version of your HP. I installed a Sapphire ATI 1650 256mb 128 bit card in mine. I was able to run AA/AF settings near max and got about 80 FPS. LFS looked beautiful and ran flawlessly. That card would probably run about $30 now, but I can't find it on Newegg.com.

Mine burnt up, but it was my fault installing the soundcard too close so it didn't get any air.

Make sure you get the right slot as in AGP or PCI-E.

Again, I know you said "I didn't ask what gfx card to get...." but realistically, you are going to get the framerates you say you are with that system. There's no tweaking or getting around it. I tweaked mine until the cows came home and could only manage 35 FPS max but it ran like a slideshow on race start for the first few laps with everyone bunched up.

You need a graphics card, and they are dirt cheap for your system if you can find one. I need one too, but I can't be bothered because I don't game much any more.

Ah yes, heating with wood isn't very good. But they aren't spending 1.2 paychecks per month to heat their homes like I was with oil heat or 0.8 paychecks per month with propane. I was up to $1000 for a months worth of heat while all it cost my coworker was a trip into the woods in his truck to fill it up full of wood. We live in a big place, not everything is available to everyone. You do wood, oil, propane, or electric around here. Wood is free other than the work, oil up until last year was extremely cheap, propane was fairly cheap but many don't like the idea of a giant tank of highly flammable compressed gas sitting outside their home, and electric cost an arm and a leg.

Quote from flymike91 :

wow i love the golden pedestal you stand on. I can barely see you up there!

They all stand on golden pedestals around here. I mean last year, one of them stated that any car over 1600 kg was what was considered to be obnoxiously heavy and under 1600 kg was fine. Then he told me (another thread) that the car I drove was a gas guzzling bohemouth of a car, all 1300 kg worth of it. It's the internet, everyone is an expert and knows what is right for everyone else.

Last edited by mrodgers, Tue, 2 Jun 2009 20:47.

Quote from flymike91 :

Toyota and Honda are able to build cars with better quality because they don't pay their workers $70 an hour to tighten lugbolts.

Oh yeah, forgot about this since I saw it last night, but didn't look again until this morning...

Neither does GM. GM pays in worker's wages, benefits, AND retirement for all the employees collecting retirement income, $70 per hour per employee currently working. I think the actual wages were reported as $32 an hour for tightening lugnuts, pretty much on par with what Honda and Toyota does as a non-union workplace.

Quote from luftrofl :

I think the last point you made is more significant than the others. Most people don't need 4WD to get to work (even in Winter). Of the few that do, most of them only need it when there's snow/ice on the ground.

The problem with your statement here, as well as the statements made by everyone myself included, is we all think in terms of our own specific needs, uses, and locations. It is easy to be in San Francisco and say "most people don't need 4WD." I can say that 2 days after trading my Toyota in for Wifey's new "car" I was missing my 4WD very much. It took me 2.5 hours to drive my 20 miles home from work. I was stuck and every hill it took me at least 3 tries to get up because I had her old car instead of her new 4WD/AWD Tribute.

This past winter, we spent at least 6 weeks where we never saw the road surface. I had to take her Tribute to work through all of that because my car wouldn't have made it, or it would have added hours onto my drive to and from work. My car would have been crawling along at 10 mph or so. In the Tribute, I happily motored along as normal at 60 mph.

The majority on this forum speak of cars in the "boy racer" sense as well as the "my car" sense rather than the car to carry the family around. When I was a kid, my brother and I were packed into the back of a Ford Escort. It was not fun being hauled around scrunched up in the back of that thing constantly. I prefer to have the room of a larger vehicle so my own kids aren't scrunched up in the back of something. Previous to the Tribute, the Altima was the family car, the wife's car left over from before we had kids. It's not enjoyable crawling down on your hands and knees trying to reach in and buckle them in the back seat. It's not enjoyable when they are not big enough to have their legs bent at the knees and their feet in the footwells so their legs are straight out and feet are pushed against your seat while you are driving.

Of course throughout the day you see folks commuting to work in SUVs and full size pickup trucks. But you have no idea what their needs are outside of the commute to work. Are they hauling a boat on the weekends? Are they hauling a camper? Are they driving up paths through the woods to reach their camping spots on the days off? Are they hauling stuff a lot? You have no idea and can not judge what other people need in a vehicle.

Most folks around here drive the 4 door trucks now (Chevy, Ford, and Dodge). They drive them because they have the need for hauling wood to heat their homes which is very common. The next day, the family is piling in and driving to the store or the mall or to the movies. I live near the river, many haul boats in which you aren't going to do that in a little 1.1 L econo-box car.

So, why do people choose to get the big Chevy and Ford over the Land Rovers and others that folks on this board always combat with? Very simply, Chevys and Fords don't cost a house mortgage to fix. They don't cost a house mortgage to insure, and they don't cost a house mortgage to purchase.

Quote from BarryPaxton :

My ride. 1997 chevy s10, since i need a new front drive shaft i thought why not put on some street tires i had laying around for awile.

Not a fan of Chevy or of the S10 in particular, but nice to see a normal vehicle instead of all of this rich yuppie BMW talk