***BIG CHANGES IN THE WORKS***

***BIG CHANGES IN THE WORKS***

Be sure to stay tuned to this blog over the next couple of weeks. There are some fundamental changes in the works for this blog.

February 26, 2008

Problems with coil springs on 2002 Ford Taurus Cars? I hear ya... please read this!

(For the information about the coil springs... skip the next few paragraphs.)

Wow... it has been SO long since I have last written something here. You must accept my deepest apologies as I have been quite busy these days. The clock is ticking as I have the deadline of my thesis defense a little over a month away. My thesis is a little less than a half written and I still have a few lingering experiments to do! Every ounce of my energy right now is going into completing this goal. Not to mention, I have been trying to fit in a job search while all of this is going on!

Since my last post, I have celebrated Valentines day with Emily by exchanging gifts and making a home made pizza dinner. We also went out to dinner the day after to The Crystal Barn. This restaurant has been on our list for quite some time. VERY fancy place that we both enjoyed. Then I took a trip back to Buffalo to my parents house. That's where the story of my life gets a bit interesting...

Once again I am put into a position where I can use this blog as a "virtual soap box" to shout out to the world regarding a problem that must be fixed. That problem is the factory installed front coil springs on 2002 Ford Taurus automobiles.

While backing my 2002 Taurus out of a parking spot in my driveway I noticed that the car was making some odd sounds and not backing up normally. I thought I was stuck in the snow in the driveway so I looked at my tires. I discovered that the front driver side tire was completely flat and pretty badly damaged. Later I found out that the front driver side coil spring broke and punctured the tire. You can see a nice chunk of the spring in the picture below. You can also see a rather large gash in the tire from where the spring punctured it and did damage when I backed up. Thank goodness that this did not occur while I was driving at highway speed as I was planning to do while traveling later that afternoon!



Well... after replacing both front coil springs, both front tires and the front sway bar on the drivers side the repair bill totaled over $500 (including labor). That's quite a chunk of change!

It gets worse. To add insult to injury it turns out that this problem is not uncommon with my type of car. (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C) A recall has been issued for Taurus model years 1999 to 2001. The dealer told me they could do nothing to help.

Well, I have saved all my receipts and filed a complaint with the NHTSA. I urge everyone out there who has googled "2002 ford Taurus" and "coil spring" and ended up here to take the actions I have taken. If enough people complain about this problem, Ford will likely extend the recall to the 2002 model year. Let's just hope it does not take a family on a highway getting killed in an accident from this malfunction.

Needless to say, I have lost much of my faith in Ford automobiles as this is the third problem that I have been told by mechanics is common for Ford Taurus automobiles. I will NOT be buying a Ford again until they can demonstrate to me that they are making a higher quality product.

February 7, 2008

The inner rage is welling up over this one!

I am a little pissed and I need to write about this while I am fired up!

Apparently there is some recent controversy over the online encyclopedia website wikipedia.org for showing pictorial representations of Muhammad in their entry for the Islamic faith. Check out this short New York Times Article. The article cites over 80,000 people (over 100,000 at the time I wrote this) have signed a petition for removal of images... most remaining anonymous. Pictorial representations of the Prophet Muhammad are forbidden in the religion of Islam

Wikipedia has politely refused to give in to political correctness in this case because they are a neutral unbiased organization that does not give into specific requests from specific groups.

My response...

GOOD!

The last time I checked... Muslims do not run the world (thank goodness) nor do they control the imagery that all other people are allowed to look at. This may be against your [Islam's] religious beliefs but not necessarily those of the rest of the world. Political correctness is going to destroy us if we let it get out of hand. WIKIPEDIA... DO NOT GIVE IN! STICK TO YOUR GUNS ON THIS DECISION!

February 4, 2008

BART: ...this is exactly what Dad said would happen. LISA: Yeah, Dad was right... HOMER: I know, kids. I'm scared too!

O.K. When I make crazy off the wall predictions like this... THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO COME TRUE! I am a little scared.

But I have to wish Eli mad props for the complete upset victory. Way to be an inspiration to underdogs everywhere. How in the hell did Eli Manning escape the Patriots linebackers closing in the pocket to unleash that throw to David Tyree... and even more so, how did Tyree even catch that!?! My jaw literally dropped when I witnessed that play.

While this was all going down, Tim was sure to stuff all of our faces with our own body weight worth of deep fried chicken wing goodness. With the big group of friends from RIT's chemistry department that was there, I barely even paid any attention to the stupid commercials because we were all socializing so much.

And the half time show... as I previously mentioned, we replaced that with an intense "Dr. Mario" tournament. So unfortunately *sarcasm* we all did not hear a single note uttered from Tom Petty's mouth. No one seemed disappointed. The Dr. Mario tournament bracket was set up, started at half time and we finished it off after the game came to an end. I managed to come out of the first round with a solid victory. I proceeded to defeat Matt in the second round to move on to the final round. There I found my self down 2 matches to 0 in a best of 5. So I hung in there and kept at it... won 2 more matches to bring it down to one final winer takes all match. I was just about to pull an Eli Manning like come from behind upset... when Max finished me off!

Truly I have been bested by a Dr. Mario great.

All of that together shaped up to make, in my mind, the best Super Bowl ever!