Thursday, September 18, 2008

Yellow eyes

The fog lights on my car (Not a Van!) have bothered me since I bought them. The headlights are High Intensity Discharge lights (bright white). The fog lights are halogen (yellowish)....annoying. Kelli's Prius has HID bulbs for her headlights AND her fog lights...thus they match. I thought about buying silverstar bulbs for my fog lights and that would have given them a very similar color to HID...but then I remembered that the fog lights aren't very effective anyway (the HID headlights throw a ton of light on the road). Instead I did what I did the same thing I installed on my Toyota Matrix.....put yellow gels on them. I am mostly happy with the result. The gels are very thick and will protect them from rocks. A rock took out one of the lenses on Kelli's Prius. Nice horizontal crack.

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Ironically I ordered a product to get rid of the yellowing of the headlights on the Prius. I am sure you have seen cars on the road where the headlights are yellowed over during the day time. The yellowing is just from oxidation. The lenses on the Prius are just starting to Yellow. I will take before and after photos when I use the product Sunday morning.

All of the security cameras in the house have been replaced. I have placed the cameras on eBay (if you want them click here) and craigslist.com. The new cameras are all night vision capable. I have one in the front window recording the front yard (this one tilts and pans), one in the kitchen capturing the living room and more importantly the back door (this one tilts and pans too), one pointing at the front door and one pointing toward the living room. The last one may be moved. The video and picture quality is 10X better than the older cameras and the video is now 30 frames per second versus the old 10 frames per second. Overall I am happy.

Kelli and I are going to attempt to go somewhere Saturday.

Trader Joes. Great store. They don't have them in Texas. While in Santa Barbara this month I have bought 2 bottles of Charles Shaw (also known as $2 buck chuck) each visit. Two dollar wine sounds scary, but it is very good. I only buy two because that's all I have room for. Remember I live out of a 22 inch bag for 4 days. Everything I pack has a purpose or it stays home. One of my crew members bought 6 bottles! He bought a special bag to carry them from the store. I wonder what the TSA thinks when all of our bags go through with wine bottles inside.

Speaking of the TSA. The government spent some $27 million dollars replacing their uniforms. Gone are the white uniforms and in are the new dark blue shirts, black pants with a dark blue stripe (like a cop) and a metal badge! Now they look more like cops. They think this will get them more respect. Whatever. It won't.

1 comment:

  1. I discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago and love it. I regularly read a few other aviation related blogs and yours is one of the best. Thanks for taking the time to write about all of your thoughts and experiences. As far as what TSA thinks when they see your bags, I can tell you as a TSA employee, we really don't think much of it. Sure, it was kinda funny the first couple of times with all the stories of pilots getting caught being drunk in the cockpit, but after a few weeks of seeing what people try to take onto an airplane, nothing surprises me or my co-workers. I will sometimes make a comment like "hey, party at your place! Where and when?" if I view a liquor filled suitcase belonging to a crew member that I "know." Comments like that always get a good laugh from the crew member and sometimes an offer from them to pick me up a bottle or two on their next layover. Thanks again for blogging, I really enjoy reading it.

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