gdizzle

Sending these to sweden to have a little massaging done. GSXR750 throttle bodies, Volvo b20 DCOE manifold, DCOE flange, -6 Fuel rail, and -6 weld fittings.

Untitled by KeysarPhoto, on Flickr

As a contractor for the DoD I can tell you that the government civilians are getting a 1 day per week mandatory furlough (also means a 20% pay cut) starting April 1st.

Us contractors are extremely unsure at the moment. Contracts may be cut or cancelled. The government reserves the right to alter the contracts in the middle as needed.

Let's do a quick estimation. 800,000 DoD employees losing 20% of their pay. This 20% is mostly the disposible portion of their income. If the average pay is $50k that's a net salary of $400,000,000,000. 20% of which is $80,000,000,000. So that's $80 billion no longer in existance in nationwide disposible income. Mind you, this isn't in sync with the fiscal year so it's not actually so severe.

Whatever the numbers work out to be it's certainly not going to be a good thing. Maybe I'll be able to put the compound into lockdown ;-)

As far as I'm aware, govt furloughs are still an IF and not a certainty at this point.

Yeah, I am trying to get some decent millimeter of protection.

I have it in my office, so far so good. Only one dent, and it's under my desk. Area rugs are your friend...

We are doing two rooms. One is pretty big the other is 11x12. We thought going 5" in that room and the big room would make the smaller room feel smaller. That is why we want width 3.25"

Be careful with engineered hardwoods, they all have a tendency to dent easily. The thicker the veneer, the better.

Finished the last episode this week...I are sad

:mellow:

Mike in the gun control thread

That's pretty impressive picking up that table like that. I like your outfit, Mike.

Relax little man. I am not a Govt employee, but it will affect contractors on contracts won, bid and cost of people/talent to fund a contract. If a govt employee makes 100k a year. Which in this area is a GS-13 Step 5 or above (easy to make) that would mean that after taxes could be seeing $800 to $1000 less take home pay. That might seem like a lot out there on the West Coast but in this area you can't buy a house or town-home in a safe neighborhood for less than 350k.

I read on CNN there other day that 1/3rd of people right now have more debt than savings.. which blows my mind. (does not include mortgage loan).

I wish there was an efficient way to cut lazy govt employees. Do an interview like they do in Office Space. I have worked with SO MANY people that are on the GS level that have decent resumes but when you talk to them they have no idea what they are talking about or how to do their job efficiently. I work with a number of program managers that can't even remember meetings to join or notes from the previous meeting. It is like talking to a goldfish sometimes.

I totally agree. It's a joke down here. The govt has admin support that goes to their meetings for them or with them and takes notes for them, does their meeting minutes for them, send out meeting agendas for them, does their budgets for them. Then they have us, the contractors that do all the work on the project, for them. They don't do anything other than make bad decisions and change their mind all the time which drives up design costs, then bitch at us for going over budget. Not ALL of them are like that, but the vast majority are. Then they have the what I like to call "blue badge complex", when they don't get their way, they start tossing their govt ID on the table and pointing to it like it means they're the second coming.

Also, it used to be you made more in the contractor world then if you worked for the Govt, but you got better benefits w/ the govt. However, times have changed. Contractors are underbidding contracts left and right and slashing salaries by 15-20% after they win the contracts. The govt employees are now making more money than their contract counterparts and have all the perks of working for the government.

okay cool guy, so how much do you seek to lose?

The problem in this area is the cost of living. It's so expensive and wages haven't adjusted accordingly the last year or so. 20% wage cut would be devastating.

Your two sentences don't add up. Yes it will pass or no it will not. I'm assuming you meant we AREN'T going over the lip.

Game of chicken going on here and I'm guessing neither one of them is going to blink. Just my thought given that they couldn't find an alternative 60 days ago.

If they don't it's going to WRECK HOUSE in the DC area and the rest of the country.

Anyone else starting to feel the effects of the impending sequestration? Things around here are starting to get pretty sketchy. Lots of layoffs over the past week as projects tighten expenditures in anticipation of the sequestration implementation. My worst case scenario is we don't get funded after March 31.

Nice picture.

I like the wheel being tucked in. You should do the same for the rear..

working on that..

Great project. Didn't take long once you found your car

It's renewed my love of working on cars. I don't hate getting out in the garage again.

DSC_3651-Edit.jpg by KeysarPhoto, on Flickr

Mike in the red shirt:

seriously, who stops that far back from a light I can't stand that shit

There's clearly a car in front of them..

Love it, the Gotti's are so hot.

If it were my car, I'd look at reworking the turn signals, they just don't flow and break up the otherwise clean lines.

I'm thinking something more along the lines of this:

It's in the plans, but they're distant plans.

Wife got home late, which meant I had the kids while the sun was dropping fast. Ran outside when she got home, threw the rig up on the car and rolled down the street a few times. Color temps were way off because of street lights and home front lights, so black and white it is for now.

DSC_3806-Edit.jpg by KeysarPhoto, on Flickr

My coworker recently told me that 2002tii's were ugly and I wanted to smack him. /CSB

One year i will.

A real volvomoderatornihavenevermet would have done the right thing and let me buy this car.

Nice car Greg.

I've been looking for "this" car for 2.5 years. I sent you info on a good car in california...

Ditch that autotragic. But you already knew to do that.

Looks even better on this big screen, nice find.

A LOT of stuff is getting ditched. Big plans for this car and wheel are already in motion. Shipping goodies out to the mother land next week to have the Buchka brothers do their magic.

This is how it looked when I picked it up. Driver side door has some repairs done, which means it has bondo. Overall, the car is VERY VERY VERYclean. Almost 0 rust. One little bubble in the paint, 0 rust underneath. Yes, those are polished bumpers.

Nope.