Took a few hours to knock out a design for a website I am wanting to do business with. They are custom making LED lights for the bike I have.. the wait list is huge.. and I kind of want one of the lights..

At $200 I thought I would try and trade services for services.. suprisingly he agreed. I noticed the website he had needed a bit of css managment. I offered to develop a website in a CMS however it turned out they were developing one with one of his web developers.. I offered to help out as much as I could. While I wait to find out what he needs done.. I developed this for them in my spare time…

Its not bad for two hours. Personally I would like to design more graphic entensive websites.. but Im going to need to take pictures and get some free time. haha.

What do you think..heres how it looks now and then the diamondplate photoshop..

I have a dodge magnum that I currently drive. I have recently installed subwoofers in the back pockets. Normally this fits a 10″ sub but I wanted a big ol 12″ non shallow in there. When I did this, I could no longer pull up the hide away trunk. I was going to have to either cut the existing carpet trunk or design something new.

Heres what the trunk looks like:

Its carpeted its nice.. but I couldnt use it without cutting into it.. so why not build something new?

I was originally looking at woodgrain, I have seen alot of people doing this.

It looks nice, but then I wanted to match the rest of the car, and I am not a big fan of the wood trim dash kits for this car.

I got to looking around for alternatives and I thought, whats tougher than diamondplate?

I headed to the store and couldnt find the size that I wanted..Eventually I found some at farm and home, of all places that would have been my last guess. Who would have known that diamondplate is so damn expensive! 2 sheets of 24″x46″ ran me 160 dollars. There was no room for mistakes here.

I also had to buy blades for my skill saw…which 2 of the 3 broke on the diamondplate.. I guess its expensive because its strong haha.

I had to buy hinges (shiney ones!) and self tapping screws for the cool look.

I started by taking the original carpet and creating a template on my 2 pieces of MDF board I got at menards.

I cut the mdf…easiest stuff to cut in the world.

I then transfered the pattern of the MDF onto the diamondplate, then cut it out with a jigsaw….holy crap was this time consuming…plus you couldnt make a mistake or the piece was scrap so this step took the longest.

I then started to add the MDF to the diamondplate. I used glue on the bottom of the plate and then around the edges I took socket style self tapping screws and screwed into the MDF for a more urban look and extra strength.

I then shoved it into the car and added the hinges and handles and this is the end result:

So I have a new car.. it has a nice stereo, but I wanted better. I found out that you could get a nav dash for around $200. For one, this is way expensive for a small peice of plastic..and the double din requires you to have to use not one but two adapters to get a double DIN to fit. This in my opinion was alot of border and alot of money. So like the DIY guy I was, I decided to mod the existing one.

Keep in mind, this isn’t fully done.. its a rough fit, and will be molded better once all the car audio parts arrive. I am missing an adapter still so the dash cant go on.

For starters, heres the dash I have:

Notice the knobs are sticking out on the radio? Yea.. that doesnt help in the ease of mod department.

I ordered the metra dash kit used to install in the navigation bezel to work from.

I took out the tray, cut the middle piece out with a dremel (per the metra instructions) and then cut the top and bottom part of the bezel off. This left me with this:

I cut right to the adapter part that bolts into the car. This will make it more flimsy but it should still hold up well inside the car. Notice how the screws are in the plate.. this isnt how its supposed to mount but it angles it up a bit to allow for better placement in the dash. I also plan on enforcing this better from the back inside the dash. (L brackets to rest on.)

I then had to dremel the dash to the appropriate size. I trimmed the left and right sides so the metra would just fit in snugly. The bottom I had to sand down even onto the heater panel. This was cutting it very very close.

Notice the top of the heater lost a bit of the plastic that holds it in. Its alright since its screwed on.

I then fit the radio in place to test fit:

It doesnt look the best. So at this point I needed a bezel. Since the dash is chrome, I went to the hardware store and picked up some chrome strips for cars. I found this will look pretty good.

Thin chrome for the top and bottom:

Thick chrome for the sides:

For those interested in how deep the dash is, its about the same as a standard DVD:

So I got myself a new toy today. I got a 2002 Suzuki RM250 for trail riding around these parts. Its an attempt to get out more and be more active instead of sitting at my computer almost everyday.

I saw the bike on craigslist for $1800 and for a 2002, 250cc bike its a great deal. Alot of the bikes I was looking for had 125cc which is good, but I wanted something with a bit more beef for later on.

I saw the bike, had the guy start it and ride it, and when he asked if I wanted to ride it, I kindly said no thank you… you see this is my first dirtbike of that speed and size and I didnt want to mess it up the first chance I got.

I haggled for a bit and ended up walking away with the bike for $1650. He tells me the engine is very freshly rebuilt, and I just had to take him on his word for it.

On the way home from picking up the bike I stopped at RTD motorsports to price out helmets. He asked what I had and I told him I just bought the bike and was looking for a entry helmet. He set me up with a nice little helmet and goggles and asked about my bike again at checkout. Turns out the engine was indeed rebuilt, and it was rebuilt by somone who works at the motorcycle shop. Good to know!

I got the bike home, and being the visual person I am, I knew I had to do something about the rust on the muffler. It was driving me nuts.

It was pretty rusty, but its a normal thing since its a bare metal pipe and dirtbikes are meant to go through anything.

Surprising the bike comes apart really easy. The muffler is attached with springs and the plastics are very easy to get off.

Look how bad it was:

I sanded it down and painted it from a tree…it had just rained so I took it inside and ran a heat lamp and a hair drying through the exaust to heat the pipe and bake the paint on.

I then reattched it to the bike, and I can say it looks much much better.

Before

After

Woo!

First off. I know this is horribly edited but I needed to atleast post the footage. This was recorded without the helmet mic and was me trying to set the angle right. I know the headmovement isnt that appealing but its just the country road I live on.

I also know the video is extremely long, I wanted to cut it, but I already matched the timing with the song (which will most likely cause the video to be removed, fair use my a**).

As always, if you click the movie while its playing, it will open in a new window/tab and you can watch it in HD quality.

Well its been awhile since I posted the progress of my DIY helmet cam. Well theres been alot of ups and downs. Mostly its been trying to get the camera to look the right friggin direction. I think I may have solved this with a Laser Pointer. I basically tacked the laserpointer to the top of my camera, centered the laser on the the center of the recording and then attached it to my helmet. I saw how much the camera was off and adjusted. Hopefully this will fix it for the next recording.

The second problem was that my microphone wasnt recording sound.. It worked in the pc.. but then again my pc can record in stereo. So I found out that the ground casing was the ground on my diy helmet cam. That means the black cable inside the audio cable was useless.. since its considered right channel on stereo recording devices. I just went ahead and wired both black and ground together to avoid any other problems.

Here’s a video of that:

Once I got the mic working I realized that is sounded absolutely horrible when the helmet was closed.

Here judge for yourself:

So I moved it down to my mouth instead of having it up by my eye where I thought it would pick up sound and not the wind… oh well

Most of us like to think our lives are important and that we don’t have time for others. Thankfully this type of attitude helps greatly in my next post.

Throughout life there have been people scheming up shortcuts to get your tasks done throughout the day and hopefully some of these will help you.

Imagine you are late for work but like me, you work at a really early/late time and there is no traffic on the road. You are heading to work and a single stoplight decides to turn yellow and then red on you. You look around and there are no other cars any where to be seen. Instead of breaking the law, try some of these tricks instead:

• Creep upto the light
• Flash your headlights like a maniac.

This may sound crazy, but you are covering two bases. Firstly, some lights rely on a loop of wire under the ground that senses the metal in the car. If you pull up to a light you may have very well gone past that strip. Next time you are out on a sunny day, look for the two lines by the stoplight where they played the wire and covered it up.

If you notice, this image provided by howstuffworks.com explains how the loop under the ground detects the metal in your car. If you drive a motorcycle or bike.. put a earth magnet on the bottom to get the same effect.

If this doesn’t work.. don’t fear. Most likely there is still hope. Ever wonder how the police and ambulances always seem to get the go ahead? At the top of most new lights is a small sensor that detects patterns in lights. Specifically it detects strobing lights. You can mimic this by flashing your high beams very quickly while approaching the light.

So you got to your destination alright, right? Well too bad you work on the 10th level of the building! This is going to take forever to get to your floor. Not always. If you have one of the more common elevators and the “close door” button actually works (most of them are turned off.) you can cheat the system. Hold the close door button and press the floor you want to go and if all goes well, you should be sneaking past all those people who have been waiting on the floors above you.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the post that inspired me so much was http://www.handsomeorhandy.com/?p=183. Check out his page for some really interesting reads!

I am by no means frugal. I bought a 47″ TV with my first paycheck last year.. and I continue to buy things I don’t need (laptop, motorcycle?). When it comes to paying for things I don’t skip a beat when I can get an amazing deal.

Think of all the things you currently own and how much you could have saved with a bit of quick thinking and a bit more research.

1. The first thing you could do when buying something is wait a day before you buy it if you can. Chances are you might find a better deal or realize you don’t want it at all.

2. Compare prices. Alot of the time I will check out an item at a store that I like, then either use my cellphone or wait until I get home to compair the prices. Using Froogle (I refuse to call it shopping google.) check who has it and what they are selling it for. Make sure you factor in shipping. Sometimes its just more cost effective to just buy it locally even if you are paying for stocking fees.

3. Look for coupons. I don’t have a specific coupon site, but whenever I find something I like I automatically find a coupon through google to either get free shipping or some percent off. If there isn’t one available (there usually always is) try putting that item in your “wish list” or put it in your shopping cart, and close the window. A Lot of shops have this new feature that I love that says basically,

saw you were going to order that but didn’t, heres 5% off as incentive tProxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

buy it.” It happened just last week at leatherup.com. I found a 15% off coupon however that I used instead.

4. Check for random deals. I love slickdeals.net and woot.com both of which allow you to get great deals on items. Make sure to check out there forums for a lot of insider info on free items and discount items.

5. Buy it used. This doesn’t have to be old and worn, alot of people return electronics they think are broken just because they don’t know how to use it. I bought that 47″ LCD TV 1080P for only 700 dollars because someone returned it. Their loss, my gain.

Saving money isnt limited to just new items either. A Lot of your subscription based services can be discounted with a bit of effort. Remember, keeping a customer on a discounted rate is always more cost effective than getting a whole new customer. It takes way less money on their end to just keep you than it is to set up an entirely new customer.

Lets take cable for instance. A new customer will have to be installed, verified, and taught how to use his system. That takes at minimum 3 employees to complete; to reduce your bill only takes 1.

If you are wondering how your going to get a lower bill, its easy. Just call them, explain to them how you cant afford the service and are thinking about switching services. Tell them you got this deal mailed to you, the price the deal was, and that you were considering switching. You being the customer, what did they have to offer you that was similar to this deal. Satellite is a great example of this, they are usually half the cost of the local cable company and would make a great factual based argument. If your going to do this, you should make sure you have paid your bills on time and aren’t late when you call however!

Just think of the other services that you could do this with, your cell, your phone, the list goes on.

Did you know that you can haggle your grocery bill? I have never tried this, but apparently you can. I know its a bit unrealistic, but you can always get a deal if you take the time to just ask for it. This really works on smaller stores. Asking a smaller price isn’t going to make you look bad or cheap, and if you get that deal you will feel smarter wont ya?

Take the bike I just bought for instance. I went into that shop atleast 3 times looking at that bike and negotiating the price. It started at $4000 + tax title and doc fees, but eventually I worked them down to $3100 out the door and sold. The retail for the bike was $3800 and that made me very happy.

I hope to hear some of your stories that show how you saved money!