I've signed up to do another Team in Training event this year, I'll be returning to the Milwaukee Chapter cycling team for another go at Americas Most Beautiful Bike ride.  I've been hemming and hawing about it for a couple weeks now, trying to make up my mind on the committment of it, it does tend to take up a lot of your free time for 4 months. And the commitment to raising the funds can be a bit of a gut check. :)

What finally helped me make my decision was at the bike maintenance seminar the coaches put on, introductions were being made and people were talking about their reasons for doing it. There are some new members for the team, and of them 1 is a survivor (believe that makes 4 for our team), 1 lost a family member to leukemia, and another one has a brother that was diagnosed when he was 9, he's now 13.  That's why we do this, thats what this is all about - making a difference for the survivors and for those that have lost loved ones due to a blood born cancer.  It reminded me of the friends, coworkers and others I talked to last year who had been affected by one of them, and of the things they shared with me.  I recalled the stories I heard at the bike ride last year, the people who were there cheering us on, and knowing that I was helping to make a difference.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma society has made a real difference in the battle against these cancers. 2008 marks their 20th anniverary, in those 20 years 360,000 voluneteers have raised over $850 million to be used for education, research, and helping patients and their families.  In 2007 alone they contributed $66.5 million to support more than 396 researchers in 15 different countries.  And it's all through tax deductible donations from people like you - they receive no federal funding.  They've made real progress, but there is more work to be done.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.  If you wish to make an online donation, you can click on the Team in Training image in the top right corner.  On behalf of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I thank you. 

As I mentioned a few days ago, I just updated to dasBlog 2.0. The docs for the upgrade to dasBlog 2.0 don't appear to be up to date, so to help out any one who might be having issues with it (*cough*dan*cough*), here's a rundown of the steps I did to upgrade.  I use Webhost4life as a hosting service and had a previous working install of dasBlog 1.9, so the steps are targeted towards that.

1. Download the latest version of dasBlog 2.0
2. Install it on your local pc.
3. Using something like SmartFTP, copy the xml files in your remote dasblog\content folder to the local directory.
4. Time for a backup of your contents folder, if you don't have one.. just in case!
5. Run the content upgrade app : dasblog\upgradedasblog\DasBlogUpgrader.exe
6. Copy the dasblog\SiteConfig files to a temp local folder and using something like BeyondCompare merge in the few changes that you had made in your old install into the new siteSecurity.config and site.config files.
7. Copy all of the files in your local dasBlog install up to your host server.   This is everything in the root and subdirectories, there are changes required in the bin, datepicker\themes, etc.  There may be folders you can safely ignore, I just did them all.
8. Now is a good time to clean up all of the old logs in your remote \logs folder (see my comments dasBlog20Upgrade.aspx">here).
9. Since I copied everything from the local install to the server, and SmartFTP keeps the modification date the same, I deleted everything in the root and sub folders (excluding content !) that had a date prior to 8/14/2007.  Necessary?  Not sure.. but if they aren't needed why not get rid of them?
10. Log into your WebHost4Life account.  Select "Site Admin" from the top menu, then "Set .NET App" from the left pane.   Change the root version to .net 2.0.

If you had a previously working install of dasBlog 2.0, this is all it should take to do the upgrade.  If I missed something, leave a comment and let me know.

I grabbed most of the archived posts I had that were in old html files and brought them into dasBlog.  I'm going to *try* and start updating again (no really I am.. not like in ; 2004, 2005, or 2006).  I could really stand to have a repositor of things I resolve as I working on coding stuff. This is one of my shortcomings, I learn a lot on a regular basis as part of my work, I'm just terrible about documenting it so I have it for reference in the future so often end up having to figure it out again some day down the road.

Any bets on me keeping up with my goal? If past performance is any indication of future results, it'd be easy money.. lol

On the 10th of November in 1775 at Tun Tavern, the Continental Congress passed a resolution which said in part:

"...Resolved, that two battalions of Marines be raised, consisting of one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, two majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the Colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress; that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines..."

And thus the United States Marine Corps was born.  Semper Fi my brothers, Semper Fi.   And to all members of our military, both past and present - Happy Veteran's day.

I'm attending this years VSLive conference in Las Vegas, looking to improve my knowledge of .NET and to get a better idea of what is possible with it.  We're still on the fence for rewriting TIP's application suite in C#, so I'm hoping to get some help in clearing the vision for our collective future. One of the big issues we face is that TIPQA is a complex and feature rich Win32 software application, its one of the strengths that our end users like.  We have to be concerned with 'dumbing down' the application too much.  If we were to convert the UI to your standard web based wizard style of app, IMO it'd kill us, some of our main competitors have chosen to go that route and thats one of the reasons we're beating them when we go head to head for potential customers.

One the flip side, some of the negatives we face is the stigma of using Delphi (wish I had $1 for every time I've heard "Borland may not be around much longer" over the last 15 years - I'd have a nice bankroll for playing some blackjack while I'm here!).  It's kinda sad that after so many years of providing such a powerful Win32 development tool there are still people that just don't have a clue what is possible with Delphi.  Oh sure, it's not nearly as cool as telling everyone you're developing something in C# and .NET 3.0 using VS2008 Beta, but damn it - it's a hell of a RAD tool to develop win32 apps, second to none.

Looks like CodeGear has taken a step backwards with Delphi installs.  The RAD team at Borland went out of their weay to ensure that different versions of Delphi would live happily together on the same PC.   After installing Delphi 2007, my D2006 is now broken.

Something else that I found VERY irritating.  You use a download program to do the install.  I run the app, tells me that it's got 800mb gig of data to download and off it goes.  Downloads done, I run the setup, reboot the PC and start D2007.   It comes up with an option "There is a new version available, do you want to download Update 1?"  When I answered yes it informed me that it had to uninstall D2007, dowload another 800 mb of data, and then reinstall.  What the hell??  Why didn't they prompt me with that before the first download? 

Oh, and the best part of this is that you have to keep the local cache of the installation files if you want to be able to run any future updates - so your 800mb install is 1.6gig (give or take).

And now there's an update 2.. which is only a partial update, if you kept the Cache during the install of Update 1.  If you didn't keep it, time to uninstall D2007 - reinstall base image, reinstall update 1 (keeping the Cache for both of them), and then install update 2.

Chris Pattinson's blog about Update 2
The readme for Update 2

Looks like I've been tagged by Dan Miser, now I'm supposed to share 5 things about me that most people wouldn't know.

I've taken on another commitment for the year - but one that is for a very worthy cause.  I've joined the Team In Training (TNT) to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I'll be participating in America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride at Lake Tahoe, NV on June 3rd.  It'll be the first time I've ever entered a race of any sort.  I've run 20+ miles a couple of times before, but that was 2 decades ago (a whole lifetime!) when I was in the Marines, and it wasn't for any sort of competition.

Now comes the tough part.. well, tough besides hitting the gym several times a week and going on all the training rides with the rest of the TNT team, then riding a bike 100 miles around Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I need to raise $4200 in donations by May 23.  I've never been part of something like this before, so it's going to be interesting.  They give a number of ideas on how to do fund raisers, etc. but I think it's gonna take some effort to get there.  Sure seems like a lot of money to get people to just donate out of the kindness of their heart. 

Shesh, what's up with The History Channel tonight?  First it was an episode "Countdown to Armageddon" talking about super volcanoes, global warming and killer viruses - with a healthy dose of wrath of god, end of days talk tossed in for good measure.    Next they followed it up with "Decoding the Past: Mayan Doomsday Prophecy", talking about how the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world / beginning of a new age on December 21st, 2012.  Now they're running "Mega Disasters: Asteroid Apocalypse", talking about how major asteroids have decimated the earth in the past and it's certain that one will hit the earth again at some point in the future.

Hmm .. December 21st, 2012 .. only 6 years away - bummer.  Guess on the positive side I'll never have to worry about turning 50.   Actually they've been pretty interesting shows, probably to interesting - I'm watching TV more than working.

Spent the better part of last night working on the home office, I splurged and bought some new equipment so it was time to clean the room & put the new desk together.  Once that was done I opened the box for my brand new Dell XPS 410 and got that set up.  Which was when I noticed a slight problem.. the 19in. flat screen that came with it doesn't want to work.  Click the power button and it displays for 3-4 seconds, then goes black - cycle the power and it does it again.   Long story short, the monitor doesn't work and I need a replacement.

I call Dell tech support and end up getting a rookie in training (yes, someone who's training to be a rookie, he's not even good enough to be a rookie tech support person yet).  After a couple minutes of him annoying me, asking if I tested this or that, telling me he can't help me because I don't have the XPS system with me (I brought the monitor with me to work, system is at home), he busts loose with this gem.

"Have you tried running the diagnostic software when the monitor was plugged in?".    My response was "No, that would be pretty useless because the SCREEN IS BLACK.  Running diagnostic software usually works better when you can see what is going on and answer the questions".

20 minutes later he determines that there is a problem with the monitor and starts the process to ship me a new one.  Only 3-5 days before the new one arrives.. yipee.

When it comes to working on things, be it assembling a desk, doing a tuneup on an engine, or writing software - I tend to be a "Jump right in with both feet, start doing it and don't stop to pick up the manual until I get stuck" sorta guy.  I get that from my father - The-Big-Guy (dad) is one of those guys who's either built, fixed, worked on or learned just about anything you ever wanted to (and some things you didn't want to).  So of course I grew up learning how to work on everything too, the typical son wanting to be like his father.  I've worked on farms, in 4x4 repair shops, been a welder, resturant manager, 4 years in the Marine Corps, and of course 15 years developing software professionally (add another 10 or so as a hobbiest).   Among my friends and co-workers I'm a bit of a handy man, helping people out with home repairs, building rec rooms, rewiring basements, etc.  Well since my comfort zone for work is pretty broad, I normally don't bother learning what I'm doing before I start - as The Big Guy has often said "When all else fails, read directions".

Years ago while working at Quad/Tech (1994 ish) I needed to write an application for a small division of Quad/Graphics.  I had no resources, no help, and no time to do it in (3-4 months).  While Q/G was a big Microsoft shop and the rest of the IS department was busy working in Access & VB 2.0, I got my hands on a copy of this really slick little development tool called Delphi.  I had no training, but I loved what I saw and just dug in, working my way thru the help files and what little information I could get out of the World Wide Web.  And I was hooked - I knew Delphi was the language of the future, it was revolutionary - a thing of simplistic beauty and genius created by Borland.  For 12 or so years I've been programming in Delphi and it's always been a "just do it" sort of attitude from me.  Never been one for utilizing design patterns or standardized methodologies, code it now, get it working, refine & refactor it later as needed has been my modus operandi.

So you can see where my natural inclination to just dive in, fire up Visual Studio and start rewriting code comes from.  There is a part of me whispering "Dude, this is bigger than a breadbox.. you need to get your shit organized before you really start", but then there's the another voice coming from the other shoulder saying "Don't listen to him, you can do this.. it's not that different from Delphi - just go for it and worry about the details later".  An interesting conundrum for me really, do I go with what has always worked for me or should I try something new and actually start at the beginning?  There's a ton of interesting & informative books out there on the subject matter.. but no matter what, reading what someone else says you should do is never as interesting as actually doing it yourself. 

Oh well - as Confucius said "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  Don't have any .NET books handy, but I do have Visual Studio installed.  Maybe I'll play around for a little bit, and do some research on a good C# book tomorrow..

Another year, another revamping of the website.  Been way too long since I made an effort to keep up on it anyway.  I had been using Intraweb Studio by Atozed software, but ended up having some problems with it during one release where it corrupted my database and I would have had to recreate everything from scratch.  That pretty much made me give up on using it, and ... well.. doing anything with the website actually.

With a new year coming I figure it's time to get back to keeping things up to date.  As a programmer by profession, using Delphi by choice, I've come to the opinion that it's near the end of the road for Delphi.  With the recent announcement from Borland that instead of selling the developer tools to an investor(s), they are going to spin it off to a wholy owned subsidary, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Delphi is close to dead.  Hell, just try to find a company anywhere that has Delphi positions available.  I only knew of several in the Milwaukee / Waukesha area and those are dwindling (I hear that MSB has done away with Delphi).  Trying to recruit a quality developer for Delphi is going to become almost impossible.  Spin the table and change that to C#, and you'll have a flood of applications.. pretty easy to see where we have to go.

So, I'm committing myself to delving into C# and .NET - much more than the random playing I've been doing to date.  I've got a fairly large assortment of misc utilites and programs I've developed in Delphi over the last 13 or so years, I'm going to work on converting those over to C#.  That should give me a good basis of experience in C#, and lay the groundwork for the real learning I need to do.  About time for me to do this anyway - I've been on cruise for far too long.  Oh sure, I've played with various languages & tools thru the last decade or so (PL SQL, ASP.NET) but haven't really thrown myself headlong into learning - it's long overdue. 

So - I've ordered some new equipment for the home office (desk, chair, computer), I'm revamping the website to be a repository of "What I learned in .NET recently", picking up the books and dusting off the learning cap - it's time to get busy.  I'm pretty excited about this journey.. let's see where it takes me. 

Good lord how time flies .. either that or I've hit a new level of laziness when it comes to updating my website. Anyway, last November I spent several days camping at Butano State Park in California, near San Francisco. You can read about my trip here. I've also put some pictures of the trip into my albumn.

Added 2 new folders to my photo albumn - Buckhorn state park (our yearly guys camping trip), Challenge Academy (pictures with Chad up at CA), Camping at Butano State Park, CA

Guess I need to browse my own site more often, just found out that the ratings didn't work in my Photo Album, and that if you followed a permalink to a blog, the menu for my site didn't work. You would think that a software developer would do a better job of testing his own work, now wouldn't you? *sigh*... Both of these issues have been fixed.

Well, you just knew it was too good to be true. Went to bed with the refrig doing its job, the thermometer reading around 65. Woke up this morning (got my self a gun.. no wait, thats Sopranos.. but it sounds daaaamn tempting right now) and checked the thermometer - 70.8.. ya, thats not going to work for me, time to call 1-800-4MAYTAG again.

Now, last night before he left the tech said "If this doesn't fix it they need to see about replacing it, I've done 2 major repairs now. There's nothing left I can do". So I figure I'd jump right past the whole scheduling hassle and go straight to customer service. So at 7am when their support lines open I place the call. After a short delay I'm talking to a lady in customer support - which brings me to another thing, I've talked to well over a dozen people at Maytag support and not ONE of these people has said their name in a way that I could understand. Do they train them to do that? "Good morning, this is Ewethamk speaking, how can I help you?". "First off, speak you freaking name clearly - enunciate for gods sake!"

Anyway, Customer support decides to transfer me to a supervisor but doesn't tell me or him why, so we spend several minutes going thru the usual questions .. name, address, phone, model, serial number, what is the reason for your call. Supervisor says there is nothing he can do but have a tech come back out, he's going to transfer me to scheduling. After 15+ min in the queue I get some dude who decides to help me out by transfering me to a "Solutions Specialist". Once again I answer the same questions (name, address, etc). Then Kethashiqakjg says "I don't know why they transfered you to me, there is nothing I can do - they have to schedule a repair call. I'm going to transfer you to scheduling".

"Jesus!" I say "This is ridiculous. I've been on the phone for over an hour and I keep getting transfered around, can't someone help me?? I've talked to customer support, supervisor, scheduling, a solutions specialist and now you want to send me back to scheduling?? Does anyone know what is going on there?"

So, it's back in the phone queue, 10 min later I get scheduling. I go thru the SAME DAMN deal with them (name, address, model, blah freaking blah), and finally we get to the crux of the problem. I need a support call, but its not scheduling things correctly - she needs to transfer me to a supervisor. FUCK ME! *sigh* .. so, I'm back on hold listening to the same damn music. I've been on this call for over 1hr 20min, answered the same damn questions to 5 different clueless sobs and I'm anxiously awaiting my chance to do it again with #6 sometime soon.

update 8:30am - We're finally getting somewhere, the best they could do is schedule a call for tomorrow. The tech needs to come here then call up whatever support line they have so can start the replacement process - if they deem it necessary. This last lady I'm talking to is the first one that genuinely seems to care about how shitty I've been treated - after putting me on hold she went to talk to her supervisor about it personally. They're kicking this upstairs and the supervisors boss is going to be giving me a call back. Now, I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but if past experience is any indication there is no way in hell that I'll be getting a call back. Call back today, tech comes tomorrow (friday) .. ya, there's no way on earth I'll have a refrig until sometime next week. This is really bullshit.. nice way to build customer loyalty.

My tale of woe starts out last week Sunday. We returned home from a weekend couples camping trip to Gov. Dodge state park - I still need to do that write up.. Anyway, when we got home we noticed the refrig didn't seem to be working quite right, but didn't give it much more thought. By Monday it was obvious that the 14 month old Amana refig we had purchased no longer seemed to be doing the job we wanted - namely to keep our food cool / frozen.

A call to the Amana service line got us to Maytag service, seems that Amana was bought out by them some time ago. The earliest they could book a service call was on the 12th (we called on sept 26th). Kim did some yelling and then the support line person says "well, we can come out tomorrow but you'll have to pay an extra $30 fee". Nice cust support don't you think? Can't do warranty work in a timely manner unless you're willing to be extorted extra money. Ok - fine. We need the refrig fixed so we agree to pay the fee.

The support tech comes out around 6pm the next night to work on it. After an hr he believes he fixed it, but suspects the compressor is going too so he orders another one right away and schedules another support call to install it - that won't happen until the 11th. He assures us though that they'll call to reschedule the appt to a sooner date within 24 hrs.

A day goes by, no call from the support line so I call them up. They didn't think they could reschedule it sooner. I start bitching, telling them that the refrig is dead and I need the damn thing working now. They finally relent and agree to send a tech out on the 4th, thats the best they could do.

Tuesday the 4th comes around - the tech is supposed to be coming some time between 7am and 6pm (nice time frame, don't you agree?). By 6 we figure he's not coming, he calls at 6:30 to say he'll be there shortly .. he finally arives at 8:30pm. After 1.5 hrs he finally wraps up the compressor swap and warns us to wait 24 hrs before using it to make sure it's cooling properly. Wednesday morning when I woke up the refrig was still holding at around 70 degrees - not a good sign.

Another call to the service dept, they agree to send the tech out again but it wouldn't be until the 17th. Ya, thats not going to work.. another round of bitching and yelling and they decide they can send him out on Thursday. Surprisingly - the tech noticed the call for tomorrow, realized it still wasn't working so he decided to stop in today and fix it. Another 2 hrs spent pulling all the lines - cutting, cleaning and resoldiering them. He ended up hacking away at the back side of the refrig so he could get to some line that was leaking now from all the bending he'd been doing. The damn plumbling back there looks like a mess with all the splices he's put into place. On a positive note, as of this writing it looks like he might have fixed the problem. It's at 65 degree's and dropping.

So next time you see one of those lonely maytag repair man commercials, know it's a damn lie. They're so busy right now the repair guys are working 6 days a week, 12 hrs a day to fix all the broken equipment.

Yup - you read that subject line correctly.. I'm back to keeping track of the Q&A for the Bob & Brian 'You (still) Cant Win' contest. I've been able to listen to the contest on a pretty regular basis for the last month or two, so I figured it was time to start actually keeping track of the Q&A so I could try to call in and win.

For those not familiar with the saga, I was the original record keeper for YCW starting back in Feb. 1997. After several years of tracking the info, the people who maintained the B&B website stole my page pretty much word for word and posted it on the Lazer103 website. After a bit of bitching, I was able to get them to acknowledge this and they had a line on the page giving me credit for keeping track of the info. And then they removed it .. heh.. Oh well, so it goes.

Anyway, after much time of alternating being deligient and extremely lazy about maintaining the YCW info, and having a few readers flame the hell out of me in email, I just dropped the whole thing - I just didn't have the time to keep the site updated. Around that time Jay N. created the Yahoo News group for YCW and it became pretty much a self monitoring team effort.

Now I'm once again ready to try and win. Yes, after following YCW and running the unofficial website for ~7 years, I never once was able to win or even get thru on the phone lines. But, I'm ready to give it another shot so I need to start putting together a list of whats been asked, answered and confirmed. So since I'm maintaining the list for my use, I'm putting it back online for anyone else thats too lazy to write down the info on their own.

For what its worth, I do very little (if any) of the research for the answers.. all credit goes to the people in the YCW news group for the answers.

Ahh, back at it after a week off. Spent Fri July 22nd - Tuesday July 29th up at Rock Island state park for the yearly 'guys camping trip', and then on Thursday I headed out to Forestville, NY for 4 days of the DML (Dakota Mailing List) yearly BBQ. Both were a great time, though we did have to deal with a major storm while camping on Sat 23rd, and the drive to Forestville was too damn long (~10.5 hrs) to do it by yourself very often. And no - I did *not* take the 05 Dakota off roading.. way too many mods to be done before that. Plus, its just too damned new for me to deal with dings, scratches and breakage right now. Maybe in a year or two.. :)

Detailed updates and more photos to come in the next couple of days, once I get my shit together.. way too much work to get done, lawn needs mowing, and all the rest of the usual fun stuff ..

One of the biggest things that has been stoping me from keeping up on my website - well, aside from being plain lazy about it - is the amount of work it was taking me to update the various elements. See, I'm old school.. none of these fancy schmancy editors, give me a simple editor like Textpad and thats all I need. The down side is if you want to create a new page, or change the side links, background, etc., it was a real pain in the ass editing all of those files. Welp ... last week I stumbled across Intraweb Studio by Atozed software. Atozed makes some 3rd party controls we use in Delphi, the programming tool we use at work.

I have to admit, I'm a convert. Their help files pretty much suck monkey balls, so it took a bit to slog my way thru it, but in the end it's pretty easy to use. I really like the template feature that allows you to design a base form, and create new ones based off of that template. Makes it real easy to change a design in 1 place and have the changes propagate down thru all of the pages that are based off of that template. Publishing the updated pages to the website is 1 simple button click away.. pretty damned sweet all in all.

So - between the change to IWS and having the ability once again to be able to listen to the Bob & Brian show at work, I'm probably going to start tracking the YCW questions and answers. Not sure what format it will take, but it would be nice to have all of the current Q&A on hand for when I call in. Maybe one of these days I'll actually win the damn contest.

For reference, I have a 05 Dak 4x4, 4.7L, so thats pretty much where I've concentrated my search for aftermarket parts. If you find something else that you think should be listed, let me know.

Misc 05 Dak Parts Lists
Dodgeparts.com
ultimateautoaccessories.com

Performance
ASP Underdrive Pulley: PN MTB578500, $239
Black Magic X-treme 180 electric fan: PN 180-Puller, $240
68mm Throttle Body: Fastman, $180 (** Note ** Be sure it's the updated TB as the IAC is different, otherwise you'll need the connector for the older style IAC. thanks to Bernd Ratsch)
HO Cams from the older 4.7L work well in 05's. (thanks to Bernd Ratsch)
K&N Drop in filter: PN 33-2175, $45
Mobile 1 Synthetic oil

OffRoading
Factory Steel Skid plate: Transfer case, PN 82209128 $49
Factory Steel Skid plate: Fuel Tank, PN 82209127 $79
Factory Tow Hooks: PN 82209129, $99
Westin Nerf bars: PN 25-2795, $340
Westin 1 piece Sportsman Brush guard: PN 40-1665, $400
Westin Bull Bar: PN 32-1665, $300 (** Note ** Cannot use factory tow hooks with the bull bar)
3" Body Lift: Performance Accessories, PN 60163, $250
2" leveling kit: Performance Accessories, PN 61062, $79
The Wincher (front bumper): Kennesaw mtn, ~$400

Miscellaneous
Powerslot Rotors: KRC Performance, $195
Control Arms: Upper & Lower, $550
Cat back exhaust: Gibson, PN 6538
Soft Tonneau cover: LeBra, $185

Interior
Gauge Pods: ProPod, $55
29 pc Dash Kit: Sherwood, $199-$359

Damn, has it been that long since I wrote anything? I may have set a new record of laziness for myself.

Since picking up the new 05 Dak, I've been following the DML (Dakota Mailing List) and getting to know some of the people who post there. Seems like a decent group of people.. couple of them are from Wisconsin, as well as a few Chicago area ones as well. They meet once or a year for BBQ's, off roading, drinking and misc shenanigans, this years DML BBQ and Trail Ride is enf of July in New York. Unfortunately, I already have plans that week doing our yearly Guys Camping Trip, and can't see taking the extra time off to make it.

Now, next year is the big event - the DML 10th Anniversary national meet, which is going to be a week long event out in Denver. I have every intention of making this event, as long as life, wife and work don't get in the way. (grin) Actually Kim seems to be ok with me disappearing for a week to go play in the mountains and mud with a bunch of beer drinking guys - she's pretty cool that way.

So, I need to get the 05 Dak ready for next year. Been thinking of the things I want to add, and the parts I need to upgrade. Ok, ok.. I don't *need* to upgrade, I *want* to upgrade. Nothing major, but a bunch of little things. Right now if I'm really gentle on the gas peddle I can average around 17 mpg. But, there are several upgrades I want to do that should give me a few more horse power, better torque, and will improve the gas mileage - a win/win situation. The big problem will be not putting that new raw horsepower to use.. (grin)

Upgrades being considered: Factory Skid plates,  Underdrive Pulleys,  Westin Nerf bars,  Black Magic X-treme 180 electric fan,  switch to Mobile 1 Synthetic oil,  looking for a decent brush guard, possibly a lift kit also.

I had a topic I was going to write about, but got sidetracked on something else, so I'll save my "End of the world" for another time. This is just too damn important.

I've been reading about the Genocide that is going on in Sudans Darfur region, and its sickening me. It's no like no one knows what is going on there, hell the whole world knows. So why isn't anyone doing something about it? The Sundaese gov't is stopping the U.N. from going in there, but current estimates are that approximately 10,000 people per month are dying.

So what is the United Nations, the great world governing body that expects the USA to listen to its demands, doing about this tragedy? Absolutely friggin NOTHING. They are currently considering imposing sanctions on them.. BIG FREAKING DEAL. While they are busy "considering", thousands of people are being systematically murdered. The Darfur Consortium is trying to get the U.N. off their asses to do something about this situation, we'll see how that goes. If there ever was a need for a U.N. peace keeping force, this is it. How can the world turn a blind eye to a situation like this?

Factor in the AIDS epidemic in Africa, where in 7 countries 1 out of every 5 person is living with HIV, with AIDS being the #1 leading cause of death, and we are looking at a problem of epic proportions. Generations of people dying, and children growing up with no parental guidance, left to fend for themselves to survive day to day. What we (the world) have here is a problem that will come back to haunt us for generations if something isn't done about it. And what really gets under my craw is that (I can't believe I'm writing this) someone like Oprah is doing something about it while the U.N. and world governments drag their feet to address these problems.

I spent the last couple weeks debating about either buying a new truck, or spending the money fixing up the problems with the 98 Dakota I own. It's been a good vehicle for me, but needed some overdue maintenance, and it was overdue to have the transmission fixed/replaced. I ballparked it around $2k to do the things I needed done.

Kim and I went to a Dodge dealer in Cedarburg checking out their inventory of 2005 Dakota's, we made that one of our first stops since that is where I bought my 98. Oddly enough, even though I couldn't remember the original salesman's name, we ended up with the same guy. We spent some time looking at inventory, and then we started talking numbers. He was doing his best sales job at trying to get me to buy a fully loaded Dakota, even though I had told him I didn't need all the bells and whistles - I'm a pretty simple sort of guy. Don't need the $1k 6 CD changer, 6 speaker Infinity stero system, don't need the 17" chrome wheels or the heated leather seats. Even so, he was trying to get me to buy it. When we started talking numbers, the couple times I talked about the MSRP price, he was adamant that he had no room to move on the MSRP. I have to admit I was tempted, but the price was just too much more than I wanted to spend.

Jump forward a couple days.. I spent some time researching at Edumunds.com, Kelly's Blue Book, Carprices.com and other sites. I found out what the invoice price was for the Dakota, plus each of the accessories I wanted, and made some detailed notes about everything. Then I started my real search for a new truck. First step was to go to Dodge.com and spec out the exact vehicle I wanted. Then I used their search feature to find dealers nearby that had exactly what I was looking for. Once I decided on a couple that I was seriously interested in, I used the feature on Dodge.com to submit a request to the Dealers internet sales rep, and get a best price from them. I was shooting for around invoice price (around $1800 under MSRP), so imagine my suprise when each of the dealers I contacted came in with prices $500-$1k under the invoice price. From a dealer in Burlington I was able to get exactly the setup that I wanted on a new Dakota, $1k more on tradein for my 1998 than Kellys & Edmund's said it was worth, got a $2k loyalty discount from Dodge for trading in my 98, and 3.9% financing from Chrysler financing. Oh ya, you know I had to pull the trigger on that deal. So, now I'm driving a gray 2005 Dodge Dakota, SLT Quad Cab 4x4, with the 4.7L v8 Magnum and 5 spd Automatic transmission.

So the nugget of advice from this whole thing - if you're looking to buy a vehicle, do your online research, it definitely can pay off. And it's a hell of a good feeling to go into the dealer knowing exactly what everything costs, what its worth, and get the deal you wanted to get. It's great feeling like you're in charge of the deal, instead of at the mercy of the dealer.

I've been pondering the whole global warming thing over the last year or so. It seems that every time you read the news, global warming is causing some new real tragedy somewhere on the planet. They say that Global warming caused all the hurricanes this year, but what no one tells you is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says hurricane strikes in the United States are less than one-third of the number that existed in the 1940s.

They say that the droughts are caused by global warming, then you read that Global warming is causing more rain. And now some people are trying to link the Tsumami in Asia to global warming (Umm.. how about 9.0 earthquake?).

Personally I think that global warming is bullshit.. at least, the belief that humans are causing any change in weather patterns. The time span for research is just way too short compared to the history of the world. If you want to claim that the glaciers in Alaska receeding are due to human caused global warming (ignoring the fact that in Iceland some glaciers are growing), please explain to me how 10,000 years go there was a glacier where my house is today? Did humans cause the global warming that made those glaciers receed? According to NOAA's own data, Why was the period of the 1930's to mid 1950's the same as today, and why was the mid 50s to the mid 70's so much cooler than the previous 2 decades? Another interesting point - why do the global warming theorists use the aveage temperatures of major cities, which continue to grow in size and are thus going to be hotter, instead of the temperatures of suburban and rural areas? I'll tell you why - because if they used the average temperatures of the rural areas they'd have to admit that Global warming is a myth, the average temp is NOT getting hotter.

Oddly enough, for Christmas I received Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear", a novel that deals with global warming. The relative who gave it to me had no idea what the book was about, but I'm finding it an interesting read due to the subject matter - in a nutshell its about the lies we're feed about global warming. In the back of the book are 5 pages of references on the research material he used to come to his conclusions, I expect to do some reading of those too.

Outside of the many images of Reggie we all share, watching him use his skill to toss players 10 years his junior off to the side like toys, is one I have from him down in Milwaukee at the old County Stadium. I believe it was the Atlanta game, the one where Sterling Sharp went down with a stinger and was carted off the field. When Sterling went down there was 10 or so players from both teams standing around watching the medics work on him. At some point later in the game, one of the Falcons players went down injured. He was a younger player, hadn't made a name for himself - I can't recall his name and I doubt you could find it in any record book. When he went down and the medics came out to work on him, there was only 1 player from either team by his side - Reggie White. I have this vivid memory of him kneeling by the player, holding his hand, offering him words of encouragement and saying a prayer for him as the medics loaded him onto the cart to carry him off the field. Reggie was a class act, and the world is a lesser place without him in it.

Time for a major rewrite and overhaul of the website, it's been sitting stagnant far too long. As you may notice, the "You Can't Win" information has been removed. After 7 years of maintaining a list of the questions & answers for Bob & Brians "You Can't Win" contest, I've called it quits. I lost the drive, interest and motivation to keep that info going. The good news is that you can join the "YCW Newsgroup" at Yahoo to help keep abreast of the current contest, and its question and answers.