… although the title of this post SHOULD have been “Tunica Sand Bar Riding”.
Keith owns a ton of land in Tunica near the casinos. This was to be the perfect spot to take the go karts on their maiden voyage, but things didn’t go as planned (when do they ever?).
We initially planned to hit the sand bar on the banks of the Mississippi River, but a virtual swamp of mud and water was blocking the truck so we couldn’t get there. This, of course, after a fallen tree had to be removed without the aid of a chainsaw. We ended up hanging out in an open area then went back to the mud / water hole for some more fun. Below are some photos from Adam riding through the mud with his 4-wheeler (click the photo for a larger size).
Below is a short video that Matt recorded. I thought we had a lot more footage recorded but it seemed nobody could figure out how to operate the camera. Technology fail.
As mentioned earlier, the main purpose of the trip was to test out the two go karts. Keith was even brave enough to back his into the mud hole a few times…
And a video below…
Keith and Matt made a nice course to race on, but just as I was getting set up to record some video, disaster struck.
At the end of the video, you can see Keith stopped moving. This was because his entire steering assembly broke at the welds. Sad boosh.
His kart has since been fixed and we are hoping to take another trip down to the woods in a week or so.
A few weeks ago, Keith and Matt got the crazy idea that they wanted to build go karts. Matt already had most of the tools necessary for the build, but having never welded before, it was certainly going to be an interesting project.
The plan was for Matt to build his first as the prototype then they would likely have all of the kinks worked out when it came time to build Keith’s kart.
Here we have the frame already assembled and on jack stands.
These are some pretty decent welds for being a total n00b.
Matt drilling some holes for the back axle mounts.
LOL, yes that is a school desk. He found an old desk and hacked off the seat and welded it in place. No point in spending money for a seat if you can find one for free.
And finally, the finished product! Well sort of, it still needs a floor pan but that should be coming in the next week or so.
The steering shaft and support bars are hacked pieces from old bicycles and the “wheel” consists of two vertically-mounted handle bars. It might look funny, but it works!
The motor is only 6.5 HP but as you can see in the video below, it’s pretty quick. This wasn’t full throttle either.
Besides the floor pan, Matt is going to add a torque converter which will give it a lot more pep off the line. As is, its a little slow until the clutch locks and full power is put down. Either way, it’s pretty sweet and very cool for a built-from-scratch project.
Work started on Keith’s kart today and hopefully should be finished Saturday. The frame was built today and it’s already looking awesome!
Even after I swore I never would, I gave Twitter an honest try, I really did. In the short 24 days that I have been a member, it has pretty much been a disaster from the start.
My first day with Twitter was frustrating, as it appeared their service was having technical issues and I couldn’t do simple tasks like update my profile picture… or at times, even refresh my page. Then a few days later, I had a very strange problem where it seemed my account had been taken over… sorta. Some of my updates were still visible, and some of my followers and those I am following were listed, but most weren’t. It seemed they just disappeared.
I created a brand new profile but again, the same problems started popping up almost immediately. After some help from a friend, I changed my password and magically everything was back to normal. Odd.
Another week or so passed and again, the same thing happened, but this time, it was showing a different user’s name on my page. What? I reverted back to changing my password and again, was up and running as if nothing had happened.
The final nail in the coffin occurred late last week, when again, the same thing happened. In the above screenshot, you can see MY page on the right (my URL in the address bar), with “cracker_mandi” as the user name. The funny thing here is that those are MY updates listed below, although only a fraction of them. Now on the left side is what i found on Google as her cached page. It appears this is a real person… very strange.
But this time, I was unable to change my password, as I never received the password change notification email from Twitter. I did some research on Twitter’s page and it seems this is a known issue. I tried contacting Twitter about this but their customer service is a total joke, so no help there. It appears I am now permanently locked out of my account.
I really wanted Twitter to work as I think it could be a powerful marketing tool if used correctly, but after having so many problems in less than a month, is it really worth starting ALL over again?
Have you had any problems with Twitter like this or anything else that went unresolved?
UPDATE - Not five minutes after this post, I was FINALLY able to reset my password and everything is back to normal. Don’t know if I should even fool with it anymore…
Memphis plays host to the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest each year as part of Memphis in May. The event itself spans three days and is open to the public, but none of the teams are allowed to sell barbecue (health concerns I’d imagine). So, the only point in going is if you know someone with a tent.
All hope is not lost, however, as last year’s championship team Natural Born Grillers has a restaurant here in Southaven. I just recently heard about it and decided to give it a try yesterday with Keith, Airica, Matt and Laura. I was so impressed that I went back again tonight with Josh, Adam and Kiwi for round 2.
Since there were three of us (Kiwi showed up later), we decided to try the BBQ Lovers Feast which consists of a full rack of ribs, 1/2 pounds of pulled pork, three wings and four side items (barbecue beans, cole slaw, potato salad and french fries). The meal was supposed to come with chicken legs or something but they were out and gave us more pulled pork instead, but I think they short-changed us there because what we got in the package was certainly not 1/2 pound.
Either way, the food was really good. I used the extra pulled port to make a nice sandwich with sweet and spicy sauce. The meat was extremely tender and absolutely delicious. The ribs were also good, although the ones Keith had the night before were a bit better I believe. Potato salad is hit-or-miss but thankfully I really liked their offering.
I’m not entirely sure I would order the group meal again as it seems you could get more for your money buying separate meals, but it was nice to get a sampling of everything. Individual meals only come with a single main course and two side items. After tax and tip, each of us chipped in $15 which isn’t too bad for some world class barbecue! I will certainly be going back here again as it is closer and better than Cork’s IMO.
But seriously, everyone has been to the movies enough to know that you should turn off your cell phone before the film starts and not talk the entire time. The fact that messages like this are still even displayed is pretty lame, but maybe people just can’t read?
Two of my more recent trips to the local theater were pretty much ruined by dumb ass people. The first was a few months ago when Josh and I went to check out a movie (I can’t even remember which it was because I was so pissed). The show starts and there are a few people behind us just talking it up… not even whispering, just flat out talking in their normal voice, acting a fool. This goes on for several minutes before someone asks them to be quiet. They just laugh it off and carry on, before more people get involved. Josh even spoke up once.
Eventually someone decided to go report them to the manager, which didn’t seem to do much good. After a bit, however, a security guard came into the theater and of course everyone shuts up. Not wanting them to get away, Josh blurts out, asking them to please be quiet or leave. This was enough to trigger the security guard to come up and investigate. Thankfully, they shut up from that point on and I believe they even left the movie before it was over.
Fast-forward to today, when Keith, Airica, Matt and myself went to check out the new Wolverine movie. The theater wasn’t too crowded so I had high hopes for an enjoyable time. NOPE, no such luck.
Not even two minutes into the movie, the guy behind Matt gets a phone call and answers it. WTF! He turned around and asked the guy “did you really just answer that?”. The guy just keeps talking so Matt asks if he is going to hang up and the guy just stares at him. Matt gets mad and is like “hang up the f*ing phone” to which the guy replies something like “I’ll hang you up”. Matt then says he wishes he would, but the guy never does anything. Then some lady a few seats down from the guy pipes up and is all like “You don’t need to be talking like that in front of my children” - or something along those lines. Matt then has words with her too. Then she says something about how the guy on the phone “wasn’t even that loud” and he was being louder than him. At this point I’m bracing for a riot lol.
Things quiet down after this but there was another idiot near the front row that would open his phone every 20 minutes or so which was really bright and distracting. Disaster.
Should Matt have been so vulgar? Probably not. Am I glad he said something? Yes.
This crap happens all the time at our local theater and 99% of the time, people are too scared to stand up and say anything. So, it just goes on and on. Pretty much all of my friends hate going to the movies because of this and I know we aren’t alone.
I don’t really know what can be done, but the theater staff should at least try to limit this kind of activity. It’s sad when the thought of having someone monitor the crowd for behavior is appealing.
Have you ever had a less-than-pleasant experience at the movie theater?
I finally caved in and signed up for Twitter, something I said I would never do! Why did I finally give in and do this?
Unlike most people, I plan to primarily use it as a business tool. Social networks are very powerful and as I have said many times before, the majority of business (especially online) is based on who you know. It is this exact reason that I am a member of sites like LinkedIn.
My first day with Twitter was frustrating, as it appeared their service was having technical issues and I couldn’t do simple tasks like update my profile picture… or at times, even refresh my page. But that has all been cleared up now and I am starting to get the hang of things. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to mess around with it just yet but I do have a handful of followers already. With some more dedication, I am sure I can get a lot more followers in the near future and really harness the power of this social networking tool.
Feel free to follow me and check out what goes on in my daily life, and of course I will return the favor
Yay, I just got my TV back from the repair shop a few minutes ago. Props to the shop for getting the unit back to me in a timely fashion and having excellent communication. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Sanyo. They gave me the run-around for nearly three weeks, didn’t return my calls as promised on more than one occasion and just seemed to take their time with things.
I tried searching Google for the model number of the part replaced, but I couldn’t find an exact match. It appears as though they replaced the power supply or some other control board inside the unit.
The good thing is I now have my TV back as good as new and since it was still under warranty, it didn’t cost me anything. Hopefully it will last more than 8 months this time!
One of the best ways to stay productive is to be organized. I know this can be a challenge for many people, especially if you are pressed for free time. But, having everything nice and neat makes your overall work area that much more enjoyable.
Up until recently, my work area had always been kinda tidy, but underneath the desk was a total rat’s nest! This wasn’t a huge issue as I had my recliner on the backside of the desk blocking most of the mess, but it still bothered me when I looked under the desk from the front. Something had to be done.
Keith and I took a trip to Office Depot about a month ago in search of a solution. I had an idea of what I wanted, but of course the moment I get there, I find two other workstation desks that I really liked. I was looking at over $200 for a nice L-shaped desk, but really, that wouldn’t solve my problems. Plus, I didn’t want to spend near that much money for what I had in mind. I stuck to the Dave Ramsey philosophy and ended up with a simple $40 adjustable wire shelving system.
It was exactly what I had in mind before going shopping and as you can see, it worked out great! My desk is only large enough to hold my two monitors, and since I need the computer and virtually everything else level with me, the shelf works great. The bottom shelf holds my printer and Western Digital My Book. The second shelf houses my APC battery backup, cable modem, router, camera battery charger, mouse battery charger and an additional surge protector. My PC sits on the top shelf. All of the cables are zip-tied and kept nice and neat.
Since my TV is still broken, I moved my cable box and Xbox over to the workstation as well. Each of the computer monitors I am using has an HDMI port, so I have the cable box connected to one and the Xbox connected to the other. It’s a bit cluttered with everything, but it’s really not as bad as I anticipated (watching TV and gaming on the monitors).
I think this was a very wise investment as my workstation looks much better without a ton of wires dangling everywhere. I can now easily reach everything, where as before it was on the floor under my desk. A win-win situation!
