The wheels for the van arrived today, they are OZ 16’s .. look great on it

Unfortunately it was not plain sailing .. those alloy’s cost £599 plus tires, I got them off ebay with tires for £230

And sure enough, 3 of the wheels where buckled and one tire has some sidewall damage .. so the guys at Sandbach Tires had a massive job to balance them properly .. they seems to hold OK .. but it’s the old saying … “beware of a bargain”

Regardless, it was still worthwhile ..

Popularity: 32% [?]

I got an email tonight .. ebay suspended my account for lack of payment !!!

We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been put on-hold due to the violation of our site policy below:
Non-payment of US $1.88 balance on your eBay account.
To be considered for reinstatement of this account, you must pay the US $1.88 balance due immediately.

LOL .. well, a debt is a debt ..

All paid now, but this is what happens when you dont pay attention to those threatening letters from collections department

Popularity: 19% [?]

A friend of mine asked me “why ?” today, I reply “why not ?”

Yes, why put racing stripes on a .. van .. but heck, I tough it would look cool.

It was quite cheap also, in total the big middle stripes and the side small ones costed less than £15 .. me and some of the speedway rc guys put it up at the track, took a little over 1 hour, and for a bunch of guys that had never done it before, i think it came out quite nice.

Now .. I am waiting for my new OZ 16″ Wheels/tires that will arrive Tuesday

Popularity: 30% [?]

As I mentioned here, I have bought a Holiday Home in Blackpool

Well, it’s a week now since the wife and the kids went there for the weekend … and never returned
And for the looks of it, they wont be returning for another 2 or 3 weeks !!!

I did spent the weekend there, but got back Sunday night .. I’m about to go back there tonight and once again return on Sunday .. but the wife and the kids .. they wont have none of it, they loving it so much they dont want to come back home.

So it’s just me and the cat these days .. yeah, one might think “Cool” … but it kind of sucks, one misses the family after a few days, and to be alone on a big empty house, with nothing but a cat for company can be quite lonely, plus the cat is a bad poker player, he cheats too much.

Well, at least they are enjoying it .. the kids love it because there is a huge play area right outside the doorstep and the clubhouse new pool will open this coming Sunday.

As for me ? .. well, that God for take-out.

Popularity: 38% [?]

A few weeks back, i bought a set of XTM wheels, I tough I was going to be able to use them for my XTT Losi tires .. once they arrived it became evident I was not going to be able to, the XTM rim uses a buggy like design, so the XTT where out.

Instead I decided to buy some XTM tires, after bouncing back and forth between the Grinders and the Knobs, i opted for the Grinders (thanks Pete for the help too)

I was pleasantly surprised on how easy it was to glue them, I feel the buggy design is an easier one to glue tires .. I am also using a “thick” super-glue, that gives me a few extra seconds before bonding, it makes gluing tires easier, as you have a precious few seconds to correct imperfections, but also, I find the tires glued with this ticker bonding agent does come unglued as fast as the ones done with the very thin regular super glue.

Here they are, I am hoping to try them out this sunday at NNRC .. they sure look mint.

Technorati Tags: Losi, NNRC, RC

Popularity: 24% [?]

For the past 4 or 5 months, I have been driving around on a old 1994 Fiesta Van … I bought it at the beginning of the year as a carrier for all my RC gear.

While it works great, the fiesta was a bit old, it had a great engine, but the rest left some to be desired .. and above all, it had no power steering.

Still, I was happy, for what I need, it was fine. But then I started to use it more and more, and my RC addition grew as well, to the point the fiesta became too small for all my gear.

I was also worried with long trips, as I now will do more traveling between Sandbach and Blackpool, time was to get a newer and bigger Van.

Well, here it is, it’s a 2002 Citroen Berlingo

Plenty of space for all my stuff, it’s a nice reliable modern van, next .. get rid of those hideous tires and rims and put some 16″ alloys.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Earlier today I noticed most of my tires where looking quite dirty, plus they had allot of dry mud stuck to them, and while the wheels are not yet balanced, the dry mud cant make any better (besides, it’s more weight).

The prospect of washing 6 sets of tires by hand was not an appealing one, so I decided to take a shortcut .. and use the clothes washer

The tires where looking quite dirty

I set the washer to 40 degrees, NO spin cycle (wife was laughing from me asking how to do all this)

Threw them all in, plus some soap

spiiiiin …

And to use a cliche .. the proof is in the pudding .. they came out spotless

Of course, some of them have a little bit of water inside, so I squeezed it out, not much of a problem there, expect the wife did a load of clothes after and they came out full of dirt (yep, make sure you run a empty load after you do this, she stop laughing then) .. I am still avoiding her and her wrath

Technorati Tags: Losi, RC, RC Nut

Popularity: 15% [?]

Pete from BMM was selling a nice GS Racing Hauler bag on Maxbashing .. after some consideration and haggling we made a deal and it arrived today.

He was laughing I was going to use it “just” to carry tires .. but after these pictures, I think he might see the beauty of it
It fits all my tires, unfortunately there is no room to spare .. so any new tires I buy, will have to go mounted on the Car .. but to be honest .. I have ALL tires one can need .. so it’s unlikely i’ll be buying more tires except to replace bare ones.

Sure beats the Old bin I was using

Technorati Tags: 8IGHT-T, 8T, Losi, RC, RC Nut

Popularity: 16% [?]

I have just cancelled my Bulldog DSL account and opened a new one with BT

Bulldog only gives me 2Mps .. BT says they can go up to almost 8Mps on my exchange.

So, as a test, this is the speed test today .. next Monday, when the BT one is suppose to be up, I will test it then again and see if there is a difference

Popularity: 26% [?]

Now, here is a post i’d never tough I be making .. the sale of Relio.

A few years back, I decided to sell DataColo and just keep Relio, at the time Relio was very small, just a few servers, it was a perfect “testbed” for H-Sphere.

But soon things changed, clients just continued to come in, and while it was good news, it did meant it was growing quicker than I could manage by myself, after all, I still had to manage Positive Software and H-Sphere.

So, a little over a year ago, I contacted a god friend (Robert Rolfe) who runs a H-Sphere company called Weberz .. we discussed a plan where he and his support team would manage the Relio cluster and provide support to the customer, therefore freeing me from 90% of the day to day workload that Relio was demanding.

But that was not the end of it, Relio kept on growing, and became very visible, that started to upset some of our clients at PSoft, who did not saw fit for their Control Panel provider (H-Sphere) manager to have a Web Host of their own .. and while I did allot of smooching to appease those people, deep inside I knew it was a problem, i’d be upset if I where them as well.

And so, Relio continued to grow, and with that I started to make plans for an ambitious plan, take it to the next level with GRID-like distributed hosting .. the idea was (and is) great .. but when announced, it would forever make me a person-non-grata with the PSoft clients .. adding to that, another good friend of mine, started to tempt me with an offer of work, an offer that would see me on a great company that was also deploying such a system as I was planning, and above all, managing great staff and collaborating with great people.

But above all, it also started to take more time away from myself PSoft .. and that was not fair for PSoft.

So decisions had to be made, drop PSoft, drop the new offer and take Relio to the next level .. or Give Relio to the people that can take it to the next level and concentrate on different challenges

Well, I choose the second.

I also decided to open a RC Shop .. it was just too much to handle .. Relio was then sold to Rob and the Weberz team, meaning no changes for the end customers, it’s the same company, I’m just not there.

So i am now free to go forward with new and current projects, there is a upcoming change coming to PSoft, and it will require me to work hard on it, I will open the RC shop on September 1st, and hopefully in a few months, I will be collaborating with some new people one some exciting new projects.

Unfortunately NDA’s and the works prevent me from being more specific .. but to the Relio clients, you are on great hands.

Technorati Tags: Relio

Popularity: 25% [?]