Archive for December, 2012



Recently I wrote about switching to All State and installing the Drive-Wise device into one of my vehicles. *SEE ARTICLE HERE*

 

As promised, 30 days later, I wanted to let you know how the device was doing and most importantly whether or not I was going to receive a discount and how much!

 

After the device is activated, you get your own portal to track how you are doing and see your projected discount at https://drivewise.allstate.com. Here are some actual screenshots from my personal account, obviously I blacked out any information deemed to personal for the web, looks like the government got a hold of it huh…

This screenshot shows the most important information, the amount of projected discount. Now, this vehicle is driven by my wife, and normally she drives about 1500 miles a month, but this month was a little unusual and she didn’t even drive 500. Mainly this is just because we have been trying to save money for Christmas, taking my truck when we went shopping, and hiding from the Mayan Apocalypse. So you can see, they are projecting a 7% discount, which isn’t too bad considering we have not tracked a lot of miles, and my wife has had a few hard breaking events.

Allstate-Drivewise-report-122

 

The screenshot below shows our overall performance grade. So far we have a “B”, which although is a passing grade in school, we are trying to get the best discount we can. I consider my wife a very good, safe driver so I was a little surprised to see we were not getting an “A”.

Allstate-Drivewise-report-overall-grade1

 

Now this screenshot shows our grade for each of the 4 categories that AllState monitors. You can see they are interested in Mileage, Braking, Time of Day and keeping your speed below 80 MPH.

Allstate-Drivewise-report-overall-grade-2

 

This final screenshot has the actual information reported by the device. You can see the miles tracked, 3 hard breaking events, time of day the vehicle is driven and the amount of miles my wife actually spent below 80 MPH.

*NOTE according to Allstate Hard braking events are triggered when the vehicle decelerates 8 mph or more (up to the “extreme” threshold) in one second. Extreme braking events are recorded when the vehicle decelerates at 10 mph or more in one second”

Allstate-Drivewise-report-2

 

Overall I am very happy with the device and will post a follow up to this article in another 30 days to see if we have improved our discount or not. I doubt I will be able to review the Progressive device since I really do not plan on switching from AllState. If someone has a review of the Progressive Snapshot device please leave a comment to help other readers researching the available insurance discount trackers.

 

 

 

After 25 years of changing my oil on numerous vehicles, one thing has remained constant in the back of my mind. Why, Why, am I changing this oil that appears to look fine? I would constantly think that maybe the oil had “broken” down and didn’t have the correct viscosity anymore, but something never quite set right with me about this, so I decided to do some research on it, and come to find out, even the Car Manufacturers do NOT recommend changing your oil till around 7800 miles! It depends on the vehicle, but some might go as much as 20,000 miles. I found this extremely interesting since I usually change my oil anywhere from 6000 to 12,000 miles on both my 1995 Chevy K1500 with 265,000 miles on it and my 1998 Buick Century with 160,000 mile.

The only reason I was changing my oil was because that is how I was raised, I was always told to save my engine “I must change the oil every 3000!” The problem with that is the people telling me this were either doing the oil change or selling me oil. Why would I waste money and pollute our planet for no reason.

just don’t do it! I feel that the 25 years I have been changing my oil has taught me one thing. Changing your oil is a waste of money, resources, and not good for this big rock we call Earth.

 

http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop-changing-your-oil.html

 

 

Please take some time to check out a site, that is a tribute to not only Corporal Jordan Pierson, of Milford, Connecticut, who was only 21 years old when he was killed in action in Iraq on August 25, 2006, but to all those currently serving or have served our great Country to keep it safe for all of us. I think it is important for people to understand how much these people, their families, and friends truly give.

 

Be sure to check out their Vets page, and also their video Angel Flight (have a few tissue’s around for this one.)

 

Jordans Ride Home

 

I recently wrote about NASA’s plan to crash some space probes, ebb and flow, into the moon, here.

 

Well, everything went as planned and we are all still alive! So that seems like a huge success to me!

 

The crash site was named after the  late astronaut, Sally K. Ride, who was America’s first woman in space and a member of the probes’ mission team. Sally, died in July after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer was said to be an inspiration to the mission and family and friends.

 

The Sally Ride impact site will remain in our hearts and mind, thank you.

This is a message directly from Santa to your child, children, wilder-beasts, or what ever you cherish from http://www.portablenorthpole.com.  This is honestly one of the coolest things I have ever seen in MY LIFE! I would have paid much, much more for this (just don’t tell the the portable north pole company that), and I guess there is even a free version, which is nearly www.portablenorthpole.com_identical (my wife said it is just missing the last part). We paid $3.99 a child, I am dead serious saying I would easily pay $50-$100 dollars for this message, it meant that much to my 4 year old girl Rose, and my 6 year old son Alex and honestly it meant that much and way more to me.

 

Don’t think for a minute that I make soooo much money that I would pay any outlandish amount either, I struggle like the rest of us, I work in a small, if not the smallest damn town in Michigan, probably barely middle class, I can’t even afford to look up what middle class makes!, and I am the only financial supporter of 3 kids, one grand child, a wife, son-n-law, and seven adorable cats. If “I” can afford this, anyone can!

 

My wife, Tammie, uploaded the pictures, answered the questions, and made this magical gift for our youngest children, Alex and Rose. She said the first one took her longer, about a half hour, but if you knew my wife you would understand, she likes to check twice, three times, sometimes even four, before submitting, bless her heart… Honestly, I think it would have taken me much longer, she just does not give herself enough credit. She said the next one went much faster. I could not have EVER made something this cool, in hours, or even days on the computer and I have been doing IT for twenty years!   This is so amazing, it is NOT some feeble attempt at just inserting kids name in a different voice like a bad “B” Chinese movie, this is so realistic, so incredible, that this 41 year old, strong, awesome, incredibly handsome, gorgeous, strong (did I say that?) male literally had tears in his eyes NUMEROUS times!

 

For the record, I am not related or even know who these people are, I am just trying to let people know about a truly awesome experience I had with this company for my family. Visit them now, I am not advertising for them, i get nothing from this post, so either click this link or type the address into a browser, it don’t matter to me.  http://www.portablenorthpole.com

 

Merry Christmas to all my friends, family, enemies, cats, dogs, animals, sugar monkeys and any other living being I forgot!

 

*UPDATE* although this only cost $3.99 cents, I did want to point out that my bank, chose to add an “international Transaction Fee” of 12 cents. This was a little strange to me, I guess the North Pole isn’t in the USA so I can understand the fee, but I did want to let everyone know, and obviously .12 cents would not have changed my decision for this awesome present.

 

 

Just Funny Cat pics and gifs I have come across on the web.

 

 

checkmyhead.com-cat_pancake_thief

 

cats-and-christmas-trees

feed-the-cat

Am I the only one that thinks NASA’s GRAIL Mission, which will impact the Moon 4 days before the end of the world, on 12-17-2012, has terrible timing and  is possibly not the best idea?

 

NASA’s GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) Mission basically boils down to one thing, lets crash two spacecraft into the Moon, 4 days before the Mayans predicted the end of the world, and see what happens! Each spacecraft weighs about 450 pounds, or the same as a cow (DISCLAIMER: some cow weigh more, some weigh less), so some genius at NASA probably said “hey, we don’t know a lot about the gravity of the moon, heck that thing could be barely hanging on for all we know, one good push might send it sailing out into the universe, LOL (NASA nerds all mouth laugh), so why don’t we slam a half ton of steel, fuel, and heck, even a kitchen sink or two, into that thing and see what happens? Think about it (clasping and rotating hands) WE WILL BE FAMOUS!, and that will really show Sally for standing me up…(insert evil laugh)”

 

What about the meteorites that coming crashing to Earth, some only the size of a softball, and all the damage they do? Our gravity slows them down and most of the meteorite burns up in our atmosphere, but that’s simply not going to happen on the Moon, so it would take a much smaller “asteroid (AKA, cow)” to have the same SIZE affect. NASA deemed it a good idea to propel almost a half of ton into the surface of our moon! Possibly they should have read some of their own hypothesis on what happened to the Dinosaurs.

 

Is this whats going to cause the end of the world?

 

Will this disrupt the magnetic field of the moon, causing the earth to spin faster, slower, change poles?

 

What will happen when the moon is no longer there to keep us in position, control our tides, or illuminate our night sky?

 

Will the water rise? Tidal waves? Volcanoes?

 

Maybe diddle diddle was actually a global precautionary warning that stated “said cow must ALWAYS  jump “OVER” the moon and never ever be “slammed” into it!”

 

What if the moon is really just a GIANT SPACESHIP?

 

If you were an alien, sitting inside the moon, how would you react to numerous (more than one) cows hurling towards you? Heck yeah, angry, unionized alien gets trigger happy is right, hitting the big button instead of the little button (size complex), sending the BIG death ray directly at earth!

 

The End of the World as we know it…

Read all about it on NASA’s very own site – NASA COW CRASHING MISSION – “NASA to host Dec. 13 Telecon on Twin Probes’ Mission-Ending Moon Impact

Building a website is pretty straight forward these days. Bringing people to your website is the hard part. Luckily, there are other websites that can teach you everything you need to know about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and getting listed by major search engines.

 

I will be adding links that I personally have used to help get this site and some of my other sites noticed. I will continue to update this post as I learn more about bringing people to my own sites. Please feel free to share with me some of your own sites if you feel they are worthwhile. I will not EVER add anything that I feel is spam, so don’t even bother. I will only add sites that I personally test and feel have a positive effect on getting your websites noticed.

 

IsMySiteIndexed.com This is by far the top site to use, the author is easy to understand and explains in just enough detail.

 

You gotta check out Alexa, they are the leader in SEO type information.

Sometimes it is important to know what your external IP address is. Whether it is for use on your xbox, or a tech to remote into your computer it can be a handy bit of information. There is a lot of sites that give you that information but the best and fastest I have used is IPFAIRY.com – its just straight forward, to the point, useful information without all the extra crap you don’t need.

 

An IP address is basically what a computer needs to get you where you are going. When you type in a human readable address like google.com, a computer converts that to a number, for example google.com currently translates to 74.125.225.32 – now isnt it easier to remember google.com instead of that number? Also, if Google needs to change that number they don’t have to inform millions of users, they just point google.com to the new number. So that is with a website, but when you are on the internet, you to must have a number, so that when you try to go to google.com the network, routers and servers know who you are and how to return the information you requested back to you. That, in a nutshell is an IP address :)

 

So give IPfairy.com a shot, besides they have a really cute fat fairy on their site. :-)

I recently switched to Allstate, which I highly recommend. The discount was fantastic and switching could not have been more pain free. There were discounts for everything and my Allstate agent made sure I got every single one. Some agents wont give the discounts to you unless you ask, but this was not the case. This is just a quick review of the installation process and overall basic information on the Allstate drivewise device.

 

One discount I received was the “Allstate drivewise discount”. It is a small device you plug into your vehicle and it monitors certain conditions. It CAN NOT raise your insurance, it will only give you additional discounts, up to 60 percent! You get an automatic 10% discount just for installing the device, and based on your driving, while it is installed, you possibly can get more of a discount. Here is what they are monitoring.

 

  • Drivers who average around 35-40 miles per day or less are more likely to save.
  • Drivers save more by avoiding high speeds. (stay below 80 MPH)
  • Drivers who avoid the road from 11pm to 4am on weekdays
  • Drivers save more by avoiding hard stops

 

Basically, these are good habits in general, especially if you are trying to save on gas at the pump.

 

Unfortunately, only one of my vehicles qualified for the program, my 1995 Chevy Cheyenne K1500 truck was too old. I don’t have full coverage on either of my vehicles, I just have the bare minimum required by the law, so coverage is not a determining factor either.

 

I installed the device on my 1998 Buick Century, it was a fairly uneventful install, to say the least. The Allstate drivewise device comes programmed for the vehicle it is going in, and you literally just plug it in. If you run into problems plugging it in, you can call Allstate. But seriously, if you cant plug in this little blue box, please promptly throw your keys in the trash and make the roads safer for the rest of us.

 

Great, simple packaging by Allstate

Great, simple packaging by Allstate

This is what is in the box Allstate ships.

This is what is in the box Allstate ships.

This is the device installed in my 98 Buick Century

This is the device installed in my 98 Buick Century

 

Be sure to check back for a followup review after I have had the All State drive wise device installed for a while, 30 days for sure.

 

As promised, see my review after 30 days and our projected discount. Numerous screenshots showing the actual data from the drivewise portal.