New Electric Car Technology Status Report

There's little doubt that electric powered cars are the next big thing. But where are we regarding new electric car technology? Are there any affordable electric cars available today? Here's a quick overview of what's out there right now.

If you want proof that electric cars can be fast and fun check out the Tesla Roadster. This exciting sports car can go 0-60 mph in 4 seconds flat and hit speeds of well over 100 mph. The Roadster sells for over $ 100,000.

Another option is to purchase a Scion xB and have the people over at AC Propulsion convert it into an electric vehicle. The result is called an Ebox. It drives well and can fit five passengers. The conversion cost is about $ 55,000. Oh, and the Scion will set you back another $ 15,000.

BMW sells a popular car called the Mini. Now they've produced an electric version named the Mini E. This car is not for sale though. The good news is you can lease it for $ 850 a month. The bad news is you need to live in LA or New York to do so. And there are only 500 of them available.

Believe it or not, but Chrysler has been working on new electric car technology. They plan to release a Dodge Electric Vehicle in two or three years - if the company's still around. Like the Tesla, this one is also a flashy sports car.

Notice a trend here? There's nary an affordable electric vehicle in sight. What's happening today is that people are not waiting for mainstream electric cars to be made for them. Instead, they're making their own electric vehicles.

That's right, there's a growing army of people who are tossing out their gas-powered engines and replacing them with electric ones. It's not that hard and not that expensive. But how do you go about learning how to do this?

First you need to buy an electric car conversion kit. There are many of them available on the internet. These kits are actually sets of instructions. They cost anywhere from $ 30 - $ 50 and are immediately downloadable, so you can literally get started as soon as today.

New electric car technology has made electric car conversion much cheaper and easier than it used to be. Simply follow the instructions, which also tell you where to find the cheapest parts, and you'll soon be driving your very own electric car!

Indoor Play Centers: 7 Reasons Why You Would Host Your Kids Birthday Party There Rather Than At Home

Firstly, picture this: you start the planning to host your kid's birthday party at home. It is going to be a simple affair, a few balloons, streamers, and some birthday cake and lolly bags. Easy right? Then all of a sudden, your child wants to dress up and theme the house. The backyard is going to get covered in glitter and foam, 10 kids has turned into 100, 5 kids are gluten free, 3 are allergic to nuts, 20 go absolutely crazy about 25 boys are coming (and one you know of has a reputation for drawing on walls)! You do not want to disappoint little Jenny, however things are very quickly spiraling out of control ...

Never fear, there is an easy solution. Here are 7 reasons why having your kids birthday party at an indoor play center is so much easier (and cheaper) than doing it at home.

1. You do not have to clean up the mess! The staff at an indoor play center will provide all the cutlery, plates, drinks and food to fulfill all your needs (and they are responsible for it at the end of the day!)

2. You are not obligated to make food or provide drinks (for the kids and adults). Let's not forget the planning involved in writing endless shopping lists, dietary considerations, the actual buying of the food, preparing and serving.

3. There is no need to invent any party games or start the kids 24/7. At an indoor play center you can have access to your own party host who will entertain the kids and the venue is chock full of things to captivate the kid's attention.

4. Everyone is contained in an indoor play center. There are specific toddler areas that are caged so you know the little ones are safe. This also means you do not have to pack everyone in to a small house. It also does not matter what the weather is like, there will be no muddy boots in the house!

5. Most indoor play centers have themed party rooms. These rooms can be where the food is served and afterwards, kids can burn off energy having fun afterwards in the play center. Themed party rooms are already decorated, so you can save time and money by not having to buy decorations and dress up your own home.

6. Adults can sit in the play center's café and enjoy a coffee, sandwich and catch up while their kids have fun. You do not even have to make the coffee or wash the dishes! Indoor Play Centers give adults permission to have fun too. You can be free of the burden of always being mum or playing host and hand it over to a team of professional staff and caterers.

7. Most indoor play centers will allow you to bring your own cake and lolly bags, even if you do not even have to do this! The café can supply cake and lolly or gift bags for the kids to take home. How cool is that?

Often kids birthday party ideas start out as simple matters and turn into huge, out of control events. Once the wheels are in motion it can be hard to stop them. The next time your child is having a birthday party, why not have it at an indoor play center. The energy it takes to buy and prep food, decorate, entertain the kids and then clean up all the mess, can be redirected and channeled into having a fun filled event at a play center where you can wipe your hands clean of almost all of the responsibility (well, except taking home your kids when it's all over!).

Leather Repair - How To Repair Torn Leather Seat

There are so many different types of automatic leather seat repair, all with different situations and applications. There are holes, scratches, gouges, cuts, scrapes, worn or cracked, and just down right grungy looking leather seats. I think I got them all covered, well in this article we're going to talk about how to repair a small hole in a leather seat lean back, for those of you who do not know what a lean back is well it's the upper part of the seat.

Now when I say small this can apply for a tear up to 1 1/2 "to 2", probably might go a little bigger, but lets not push it, if it needs to go to the upholstery shop for an insert then that would be better then a crappy looking leather repair on something that probably would not hold anyways. When in doubt, insert it.

Prepping a seat is the key to success in any leather repair, and a lasting leather dye job. So, prep the whole lean back, and while at your it just clean the whole seat, why not, but you do not have to, with your prepping solution removing all grease, dirt, and grime. You need a clean surface and a well prepped area to work with. When I prep, I use a solution of rubbing alcohol, acetone, ammonia, and a small amount of TSP substitute, with water in a spray bottle. Spray the seat with the solution and scrub with a scotch brite pad to scuff the leather seat for leather dye adhesion and remove any grime that's on the seat, then wipe clean with a clean lint free towel. Once your clean, apply a grip base primer to the seat, I usually in most cases will dye the entire lean back when I do a repair or the entire seat, but sometimes it's not necessary, so you may not need to prime the whole seat , but do clean the seat good this cuts down on the amount of leather dye used and the ending result will be a premium leather repair.

Now to the hole. Lets say it's in a V shape, just for example. Like where you've gott'n out of the seat with something in your back pocket, ouch! I know the feeling, back in college I had a 1986 Mustang SVO, very rare and nice car (I miss that car) and I got out to go to class with a pen in my back pocket and ripped about a 2 "V shape in the seat, I about puked right there, and of course at the time I did not know anything about leather repair.

Sand the area around the tear with a 240 grit wallpaper, this gives a little more for the low heat compound to grip to. Take a piece of underpatch material and slide the under patch under the tear with a pair of tweezers, allowing about a 1/2 "on the inside all the way around. easier to slide under. You can use different types of under patches, I like the kind that is covered on one side with a heat activated glue.

Now take a drop of leather glue and spread a thin coat on the patch on the underside of the leather repair area. If the leather will lay down smoothly and match up then great, but sometimes it just will not. In this case we will use combo of the glue and your low cure leather repair compound and smooth a small amount over the patch then lay the leather down. Spread a small amount of low heat compound over the area and smooth it out with your pallet knife, remembering to keeping your area as small as possible, the smaller the better. Now heat the area with your heat gun, hold the heat gun out away from the leather repair and slowly move it into the repair area, this will give you just a little more control of the heat, you do not want to burn and shrink the leather. The idea is to cure the compound and get it to adhere before you cook the leather, it's a skill thing, practice makes perfect. Once the compound is cured immediately press the grain pad in your palm onto the repair, do not press to hard, but firm.

At this time using a wet paper towel apply a small amount of grip base to the repair area and dye with your color matched water based leather dye. Dry thin coats of dye, not wet. Then reapply and smooth out another thin coat of compound. Heat again and grain then dye, get the idea, what you are doing is building the repair up. Thin coats of compound applied and cured then reapplied, are much better then one thick coat. Once you have it built up and looking nice, blend the repair into the rest of the seat if needed, by applying thin coats of leather dye to finish it off. Drying between coats of dye with a hairdryer, and one great tip is rubbing the leather dye with your hands to force the dye into the creases of the leather helps a ton, do not be afraid to get your hands dirty. I say that but I'm allergic to rubber gloves, it bites, so I come home every day with dye all over my hands, it's a pain, but I love the work and the job looks better with a little bit of love rubbed on those leather seat repairs. After the dye is cured, apply a top coat of satin or dull leather clear top coat mixed with a bit of slip additive added for the soft feel. Dry the seat thoroughly, then apply your leather conditioner to finish and give the seat the juice it needs and a great feel and look for you.

Now there are so many other variations to this fix, sometimes I will have to use an air dry leather repair compound over the top of the low heat compound to smooth out the leather repair. Sanding it with a 400 grit wallpaper until it looks right. You can also turn your air down on your paint gun until little droplets are coming out to give it a textured look, drying between coats. Texture coatings, can be used, but if you do it right the gun effect works great. When I do a leather repair I will not give up until it looks perfect. Patience is a value, right. Do not get in a hurry, this will only frustrate you more and then you really got issues.

Leather repair is a craft and profession. The dyes and compounds I use are top quality and are made to last. Giving you a lasting leather seat repair, and comfort knowing you have a leather repair that will last and look great for years to come.

I hope this was some help to you, in the coming months there will be more articles like this one but on different situations on leather repair, liked I talked about in the first. There are so many different ways that a leather seat can be damaged, we spend a lot of time in our cars and well "sh $$ happens", right. So check back to see my next article on automatic leather seat repairs. If you have anything you would like to ask feel free to shoot me some comments on Leather Repair - How To Repair Torn Leather Seat.

Are You Unconsciously Sabotaging Your Own Success and Happiness?

Resistance to Change

Although nature has gifted humans with the ability to adapt and to change, more times than not, we resist using that ability. Routines are comfortable and require little conscious thought. If we constantly have in one way, we constantly get the same results and responses. And that may be the problem.

Playing the Blame Game

Too often live by rote allows us to play the game game rather than taking responsibility for our own forward motion. "I did not get the big promotion because the boss does not like me," takes the place of better job performance. "I am not dating anyone because no one thinks I am interesting," is an excuse not to socialize or to engage in activities that would lead to new connections.

Refusing to Take Responsibility

The blame game offers false comfort. Blaming someone else is easier than admitting you are not giving 100% at work or making an effort to meet and interact with new people. These are repetitive, self-defeating messages lodged in your subconscious mind playing like a broken record. The longer that record plays, the more damaging it is to your life's goals.

Low Self-Confidence

Negative self-talk, even at the subconscious level, does terrific damage to your self-confidence. You do not need other people to tell you that you do not have talent or that you are not interesting. You are doing a perfectly good job of that yourself! Consequently, you may start surrounding yourself with people who actively support your low self-confidence, which will only make the situation worse.

Surrounding Yourself with Negative People

There is a school of thinking that refers to negative people as emotional vampires. You say, "I am never going to get ahead," and they say, "you are right," and may add a dollop of "you know the people at work are just out to get you" as an added extra. Playing the blame game and allowing others to feed our low self-confidence easily leads to self-destructive paranoia in all aspects of your relationships - business and personal.

You Can Take Control

You can break this vicious cycle. The subconscious mind is a powerful "computer." It can be programed and reprogrammed at will. You do it thousands of times a day. Some of the most powerful tools at your disposal to take charge of what is going on inside your own mind are professionally engineered subliminal message recordings.

Recorded at a frequency too low for the human ear to comprehend, auditory subliminal messages penetrate the sponge of the subconscious mind, sending positive affirmations and suggestions to replace the negative self-talk sabotaging your relationships and goals. Unlike hypnosis, where active attention is required, subliminal recordings can be used in a variety of settings with no effort needed on your part. Generally results are seen in a matter of days.

With our modern understanding of the workings of the human mind and the role of stimuli in guiding our behavior, there is no reason to allow "bad" outdated "programs" to thwart our desire for a fuller, more abundant life. Humans are capable of learning in a wide variety of ways, including at the subconscious level. Complex thought patterns are already at work there, but they may be working against you rather than for you.

Machine Tool Safety

As I look at the scar on my left index finger, I am reminded of how fast a machine tool can cause an injury. I was a teenager working in my grandmother's machine shop when it happened. I was using the large drill press to counter bore holes in the cutting edge of a bulldozer blade.

The drill press was very old and was definitely not built with safe operation in mind. I am not sure why, but the procedure involved sliding the heavy plate into position under the drill bit while the bit was still turning slowly in the chuck. I was wearing gloves to protect my tender hands from the sharp edge of the blade. The bit caught my glove, and although it was turning slowly, it began to wrap my finger around the bit all too quickly.

I was able to hit the power switch but the drill continued to coast until my whole arm was wrapped around the spindle. I reluctantly called to my grandmother for assistance. He traditionally turned the drill backwards as I unwrapped myself from the machine.

I was very lucky to have escaped with just a cut on my finger. I quick bandage and I was back to work; this time without gloves.

Machine tools can be very unforgiving when body parts are worn on or in them. The nature of the work also brings hands and fingers dangerously close to the rotating parts. It is easy to get accustomed to the promotion and get caught.

Gloves and loose clothing can easily get caught. Neckties should not even get close to the machines.

Procedures need to be developed to minimizeize exposure to the hazards. Making sure the rotating parts have stopped before relocating the work or taking measurements is one good place to start. I have seen many experienced machinist take caliper readings while parts are being cut in a lathe. Such practices endanger the worker and the equipment.

Guards are often a huge annoyance to machinists. However, if the guards are constructed of clear materials and made to easily open and close, they can add safety without interfering with the work to be done.

When developing procedures and procuring safety equipment, it is important to work closely with the machinists to make sure that the safety equipment does not interfere with the work. Otherwise, the safeties will be bypassed and procedures overlooked when supervision is not around.

Machine tools are a part of most modern workplaces. They can be used safely and effectively if proper precautions are taken.