On My Brilliant Nokian Winter Tires

Having lived in Atlanta for 22 years I always wondered why anyone would need an all wheel or four wheel drive sedan. Then I moved to Denver and it seemed that the Subaru was the state car. I was commuting at the time and when the first snow arrived the inch or two turned to slush and my drive to work on the local interstate was alarming at best. After all I had all weather tires. The next snow came innocently enough and though the surface streets were fine, I stopped at the local Starbuck’s drive-thru and after making my purchase I found myself sliding down the hill on a sheet of ice right into traffic. Knowing that I was going to be going to Winter Park regularly during the winter, I sought out some snow tires.

I drive a 1995 Mercedes E320. It’s very heavy and a rear wheel drive. I knew that I needed something to keep myself safe. This was driven home in September 08 when I tried to return from my Girlfriend’s house in Winter Park to Denver during a rain storm. I was watching the outside temperature reading in my car as I headed up Berthoud Pass. Once it hit 32 degrees the snow started sticking. The tires started slipping and about two miles from the top of the Continental Divide I was losing traction fast. Before the spinning of my wheels got too bad I turned around. I didn’t want to get stuck or in a ditch. I went back down and borrowed Kristy’s beater Cherokee for the trip back. I saw a few people that weren’t prepared in the ditch on the way back. Kristy drove my car to Denver later in the week when she came to visit me in Denver.

My search for winter tires led me to Nokian, a Finnish company. Their studded Hakkapeliitta 4 tires came highly recommended through my internet research. I bought them at Meadow Creek Tire in Denver. When they were done applying the studs and mounting the tires the sales guy said, “You’ve got a snowmobile now.” Was he ever right.

Since they’re studded they’re noisy as hell, but driving on ice and snow with these tires really is not much different than on pavement. I can safely out perform any front wheel drive and almost any four wheel drive. They’ve gotten me out of many sticky situations and now I actually look forward to less than perfect road conditions when I drive Berthoud Pass.

For safety and downright fun in winter driving I highly recommend these tires. I’m so impressed that since I need a new set of summer tires I might actually consider Nokian for that set as well.

Changing Hosting Setup

I’ve been paying out the nose every month for hosting my various sites when really since it’s a blog I can host it for free!  Which makes sense since I’d like to leave this information up but I really don’t post too often.  Redirecting my domain darbymedia.com to WordPress and utilizing Google Apps for email.  This also means that for now images may not display until I get everything converted over.  The Fluorine stuff I posted way back when will not be available for now either.

Phil Hines – R.I.P.

Just heard news through Tanya that Dissonance co-founder and drummer Phil Hines died today December 25th, 2006. Phil was THE hardcore punk drummer in the Midwest and unfortunately was very troubled and on the decline for several years. I don’t know many details so I’ll update this post when more is known.

The Dissonance release party is still on for December 27th at Churchill’s in Flint, which will surely turn into a tribute. A service of some sort is on December 28th.

Obituary from The Flint Journal

Phillip E. Hines
HINES, Phillip E. – Of Flint, age 43, died December 25, 2006 at McLaren Regional Medical Center. Memorial service to be held 4PM Thursday, December 28, 2006 at Dodds Dumanois Funeral Home and Cremation Center, 901 Garland St., Flint, MI. Phillip was a member of a band called Dissonance in which he played the drums. Son, Brother, Friend, Hero and Mentor, Musician, Artist, Poet, Innovator, Guardian and Defender of the Underdog. In a word: Enigmatic. “Brother, don’t you know that you are a shooting star?” In lieu of flowers, family would like donations to be made to the Whaley Children’s Center. He is survived by: mother, Dr. Sherrill J. Begres of PA; sister, Shauna Hines of PA; ex-wife and best friend, Shelby Hatt of Flint; aunts, Mrs. Janet (Ken) Mathenia of Grand Blanc, Mrs. Jeannie (Jim) Moore of Clio; uncles, Dr. Forrest (Starr) Begres of Custer, Mr. Brian (Lynn) Begres of Pinconning, Mr. Mark (JoAnne) Begres of Gaastra, Mr. Matthew (Vicki) Begres of Mt. Pleasant; and other relatives and numerous friends. Preceded in death by father, Paul Grammatico; and cousin, David Gothard.

Ripping to Your iPod is Illegal?!?

Yet another good reason not to buy music from RIAA members! I recommend checking RIAA Radar before making any purchases! (via consumerist.com)

The Feds Have Failed

I’m gonna say it right now. The federal government has had a disastrous failure in their handling of hurricane Katrina. With no disrespect to the people of Mississippi, what is going in New Orleans is shameful and inexcusable. Something tells me that George Bush’s smug smile will be able to just wash the controversy away. That being said, the behavior of some of the people in New Orleans is just as pathetic. It’s like a scenario from the movie Escape from New York.

Very sad.

Served by Advertising.com?

I really sucks how much web pages rely on advertising. Then again, I realize that advertising helps keep many of our browsing experiences free.

Apparently cnn.com and allmusic.com are using advertising.com to serve up ads on their sites. Maybe it’s a browser problem, but when a site has a “servedby.advertising.com” loading problem their pages DO NOT load whatsoever.

As I mentioned in a previous post I’m digitizing my CD collection and cross-checking the information from the CDs and iTunes/Gracenote to AllMusic. Well thanks to servedby.advertising.com the waits were horrendous. Checked cnn.com and apparently they use the same service because their pages weren’t loading either. I also scanned with AdAware just in case – nothing. Sucks cuz after a while I just quit.

WordPress Comment Question

So I’ve got my WordPress blog going, but I haven’t had time to address a couple of things, one being rss feeds per category and one being the comment submisison form. Does anyone know how to require a name and email and/or site url?

Brent

CNN.com Finally Ditches Real SuperPass

CNN.com, probably realizing that no one is watching any of the videos on their site, have finally ditched annoying Real SuperPass in favor of FREE video! Now I no longer have to go to MSNBC to watch news videos. Now maybe ABC News will wise up too.

Comcast has Us by the Balls

We ditched the completely suck ass BellSouth DSL service a couple of years ago. Everything with BellSouth worked great for years, from the time when we had ISDN to the time we had DSL. Once we went to networking, everything just went to hell. They actually suggested that the streetlight outside was affecting our service. They actually implied that I needed to prove the problem wasn’t in the house by figuring out a way to connect a computer to the port on the outside of the house!

We’ve now have Comcast for about two years and the speed is awesome and keeps increasing and uptime has been %99+. Two year deja vu has stricken I guess because the last few months with Comcast has completely sucked. “Oh, it’s this distribution amplifier, lets remove it.” Same thing. Then, “Oh, it’s your modem.” $100 later and the same problems. NOW WHAT? Where do we go? What do we do? We aren’t going back to BellSouth.

I’ve been on hold for at least 45 minutes. Service is up and down. I never knew that “power down your modem and router and then power back up” was a fricking feature for functional internet service. We’ve been doing that over and over since the problems began.

Joyce works out of the house and connectivity is very important for her.

Comcast is in the driver seat because currently, cable is much more superior to DSL, so we’re back to the monopoly treatment.

Does anyone have any alternative to DSL or cable for reliable internet access?

Doug (”Wyatt”) Earp 1953 – 2004

Was back in Flint over the Memorial Day holiday. While there I stopped at Wyatt Earp Records to say “Hi” to Doug. Come to find out that he died of cancer in December at the age of 50. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach.

Doug (”Wyatt”) Earp was the musical “enabler” for me and all of my suffering music loving friends. In the early to mid eighties (and beyond) he was our only source for the emerging punk and new wave music that we craved while stuck in the culturally deprived outpost of Flint, Michigan. Every Tuesday he would get a new list of music, domestic and imported, that was being released that week and in upcoming weeks.

He was more important to me than Rodney Bigenheimer, John Peel, or Claire Kember.

He changed my life. He was a friend. He was an Icon.

Doug, I didn’t see you too often over the last 20 years, but your face, your voice, your smile, your laugh will be with me forever. I’ll miss you.

The obituary follows: