Jump to content

oldraven

Member
  • Posts

    157
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by oldraven

  1. Happy Birthday oldraven!

  2. Neither did I, but once we got to talking about it with people in the area, the stories really started coming out. It's scary enough for me to consider getting a rifle, for the first time in my life, and I hate guns in general. I've got two young children (a girl almost four and a boy a year and a half), and having someone tell me they had a beaver come onto their lawn after them has got me paranoid.
  3. Nice. My two brothers had a '68 Dart for their first car. It was only a slant-six Dart, but it was still pretty awesome in Orange with a flat black band round the trunk/rear quarter.
  4. Good to see lots of pet people in here. Sad to hear about those who've lost theirs, though. We've got two dogs and two cats right now, and hopefully won't ever have this many pets again. I'm not a Cat person, and so made this house rule with my wife that for every cat she gets, I get a dog. Now we have a zoo. Anyway, our first 'kid' was Buffy, a 6 year old German Shepherd. She's just an amazing animal, who listens very well and is very smart. Trainable is an understatement. She's so good that we don't even have to tie her up during the day when we're not home (2 days a week both my wife and I work), and she'll always be there on the doorstep to meet us when we get home. She's a barker (I trained her that way, since we got her when we lived in the city and wanted a guard dog of sorts), but never EVER uses her teeth when dealing with people. She also doesn't jump up, unless she's really excited to see you. Oz (Ozwald) is our two+ year old Staffordshire mix that we got from a shelter a few years ago. He was wild when they picked him up, so he's a bit of a scavenger and a snoop, so we can't leave him untied, sadly. He's the kind of dog who has no fear of the highway, and I've lost too many dogs that way growing up. Awesome personality, and incredibly affectionate to every person he's come across yet. He does have a fear of men, though, which is why I think he was on his own to begin with. To this day, if I stand over him some days and bend down even to pet him, he tries to piss. Great dog, though, even if he does get into the compost way too much. Here he is after recently being attacked by a Beaver at the corner of our property. Vicious buggers. He looks odd, but he was still pretty stoned. They got Buffy a few months later in the belly, and she needed 15 stitches. It tried to drown her too, as she puked up half the brook on our kitchen floor. Oz also got hit that time, trying to draw it away from Buff, but he only got a slash in the chest that looked like a nickel sized hole. Happier days. (short video) http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v613/old...Oz-IvyIntro.flv http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v613/old...Buffy-happy.flv http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v613/old...Buffy-OzTOW.flv This was Faith, when she was still a kitten and cute. Now she's fat and ill tempered. I can't seem to find a picture of Willow, our orange tabby that we rescued from under our old porch in the middle of January. She's actually kind of cute, now almost as old as Oz, but is getting fat herself. We get along.
  5. HAHAHHA! Sounds good. I've actually done the reverse, before. Calling a Kiwi an Australian at a party once. He reminded me he was from New Zealand, and I started apologising. "That would be like calling me an American. I might have to get wooly with ye if you did that."
  6. Hey. Let's not be throwing around insults here. Canada is NOT part of the US. Or should I start calling you a Kiwi? Things are more expensive here than in the States as well, though not as much. And like I said, I did the conversion to see what I was making in AUD. Thanks for fixing the poll, BTW. Now us poor folk who own their own businesses and have a full time job besides can vote.
  7. Holy sh*te! I can't even vote in this one, after conversion. :( You people make too much money. What's minimum wage their, $20/hr?
  8. It's not about being 'dumb', it's about an auto market crash that happened shortly after the car debuted. Nothing is selling down there, not even the Prius. Before that it was a matter of the US seeing the highest fuel prices in their entire history. People were paying $7k USD for twenty year old Metros and Sprints. The car is incredible, if you ask me, and would have sold just as good or better than the Charger/300 with proper timing.
  9. Like I said, there were a few cruising around Michigan awhile ago. I think it was axed because of fuel economy issues and cost. They've been watching the Late model camira sell really poorly as the G8 here, because the shipping costs put it out of the target market's price range. It's still the cheapest performance sedan you can get around here right now.
  10. I'd take the Falcon any day over a Taurus, and most other Ford guys here would too. Hennessey is already working on his SHO package, so we'll see how it stacks up then. From what I've seen of the crappy 'dyno sheet' Ford put out, the torque curve is pretty flat. VW turbo flat.
  11. oldraven

    The Job Thread

    I'm a drafter. It's a great profession, because it's so adaptable. Going on 9 years now and I've had many different jobs in different fields. Electrical (AM/FM Technician) for AT&T/Lucent (Nortel, hah!), converted retrofitting manuals for F-18 Hornets to 2D CAD at SPAR Aerospace, drew load permit drawings for a heavy hauler (trucking), designed hydraulic cylinders for a supplier to the oil sands, and now I'm detailing concrete reinforcement (rebar) for medium to large construction projects all over the US and Canada. My wife and I also have an Architectural Drafting and Design company that we run from our home. It's good work, because there will always be a need for drafters in pretty much every field imaginable. The pay started with $11/hr ($13 AUD) straight out of college, and at the Hydraulics place I was making $23/hr ($28 AUD). That was an awesome job, but we had to get the hell out of Alberta and move home. That place is a cesspool. You can also advance from there later into the Mechanical/Architectural Technologist trade, and from there you can move on to Engineering.
  12. We aren't getting the Falcon. They were testing it in Michigan about a year ago, and it was a possibility then, but Ford has since axed it and unveiled the 365hp AWD Taurus SHO in its stead. I think Ford AU would be handing over sales to Expensive Daewoo if they replaced the Falcon with the new Taurus, so don't expect to see ours any sooner than we see yours. Here's a good video of the show car. Ford has been kicking some serious ass in this hemisphere lately. I hate the engine shots, though. A TTV6 and all we see is an acre of black plastic? Damn engine covers.
  13. Oh. I didn't know the Mustang wasn't sold in Australia. Strange, since Ford AU doesn't have a coupe to compete against it. You'd think with there very symmetrical interiors and relatively low price tag that Ford would export them. Converting couldn't be that expensive, especially if they used Ford AU parts from the Falcon in an otherwise stripped Mustang (no engine, tranny, suspension, interior, steering rack, etc.). I'm still dreaming of the day when I can afford to import a Barra for my fox. I would kill to see that engine family in anything here in North America. It's hard to believe Ford is putting so much money into developing the new Ecoboost V6s when they have a perfectly amazing straight six turbo in production elsewhere.
  14. I wonder how much it would cost to buy an LS7 crate motor over the cost of an HSV Clubsport R8, or any other LS3 powered HSV. Would it be better worth your money to swap it yourself and sell the unused LS3? Let's not think about warranties. $150k?!?!? Australian dollars are insane.
  15. We (my two brothers and I) recently made the highest bid for a retired 1976 Dodge Custom 300 pumper fire truck. It only has 7000km on it, and our bid was only $1500. It has a 360, and I assume a 3-spd auto. Perfect for the farm, anyway. Other than a dent in the front chrome bumper, I can't see anything wrong with the body, since it saw so little use. I guess there weren't very many fires in Liscolm (my brother Troy lives there and is a volunteer fire fighter). The siren still works too. It's an air horn, like you'd hear for an air raid, or mine collapse. The only thing is the horn is hooked up to a floor switch, just like the high-beam switch three inches to the left. I could see myself hitting the wrong one at night, and blaring an air horn as I bear down on an oncoming car with my high-beams on. We're going to use this for the blueberry fields. The three of us are eventually taking over the farm, and this is the start. We'll use the PTO pump and tank for spraying the fields, and with the tank off we can use the flat deck to haul the berries to the shed, about 5km away. As it is now, my Dad has been renting a brand new truck every summer for harvest. That eats up a lot of profits that are already pretty thin, when you hire a sprayer, mower, harvester, etc. Unless you have your own equipment, it's hard to get anywhere with this industry.
  16. I think it would make far more sense to sell the Mustang with the Barra 310t in there rather than develop a SWB Falcon.
  17. 1991 Subaru Justy 5-dr 1.2L 3-cyl FI ECVT full time 4x4 (50:50) white.... no options. 1989 VolksWagen Fox 2-dr 1.8L 4-cyl (longitudinal) 5-spd coupe red with a sunroof. I loved this car. 1991 Ford Thunderbird 2-dr 3.8L V6 (POS) auto navy. The car was comfortable and ate up the highway, but was gutless and used too much fuel to move so slowly. 1995 Toyota Tercel 4-dr 1.5L 4-cyl 5-spd. Burgundy with no options, but we drove across the country in it, it was crazy reliable and sipped fuel like the best. 1987 Ford Thunderbird TurboCoupe 2-dr 2.3L intercooled Turbo 5-spd. The best car I've ever owned, even if it's the farthest thing from reliable. Every gadget known to man in the late 80's. Candy Apple Red. 1991 Jeep Cherokee Limited 5-dr 4.0LHO I6. Awesome, awesome, awesome rig. But we were side swiped, so we sold it. You can't show up at a client's house with a caved in rear quarter. White with everything but a sunroof (it had the overhead console in stead). 1986 Chevrolet C10 (pickup) Reg. cab, long wheel base, 383 (400 stroked 350) on propane with TH350 3-spd auto 2WD. Lots of soul, but not much go with the propane. 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5-dr 4.0LHO I6. Biggest POS ever made. You can stretch a Wrangler once to make a Cherokee, but not twice to make it Grande. 2003 Saturn Vue 5-dr CUV 2.2L 4-cyl CVT AWD. I like it a lot.
  18. Yeah, really. I've never met any of you and I want to know where this thread is.
  19. Hey guys. I just stopped in and saw the awesome new format. Great job! I particularly like the quick images for the tech section sub-forums. Again, great work. This is probably the best laid out forum I've used. slainte
  20. oldraven

    Badges On Cars

    Yes, and we're welcoming it with open arms. They managed to stuff a V8 (5.3L) in it for the last couple of years in the GXP, but it was still pulling the car when it should have been pushing. Funny, they finally got rid of the plastic body cladding that was all over 80's/90's Ponchos for the last few years of production, and replace it with a car that wore just as much ugly cladding in those years.
  21. Well, it can be a gas...... when it's not in liquid petroleum form. I keep forgetting that elsewhere Gas is what we consider Propane. And Natural Gas (LNG) is similar. Petrol is to Petroleum as Gas is to Gasoline. Same sh*t, different continent. Still way too expensive. On that note, I have an '86 Chevy C10 LWB with a 383 Stroker running on Propane. It's clean and used to be cheap (I was paying 58c/L in Edmonton, but it's just as expensive as 'petrol' back here, and you burn more of it), but seriously robs you of power. Plus, it's a bitch to start, as it takes forever for the system to prime.
  22. oldraven

    Badges On Cars

    Maybe he's got leaky tires, and that's the sound it makes when I pumps them up. SSSS As for the G8-odore, have you seen the last Grand Prix? *shudders* Trust me on this, if it has an LSX and RWD, it will be miles ahead already. Try not to puke in your mouth, alright?
×
  • Create New...
'