plus 4, DiMora's $2 Million Sport Luxury Sedan's Life is Added by Granite ... - PRLog (free press release) |
- DiMora's $2 Million Sport Luxury Sedan's Life is Added by Granite ... - PRLog (free press release)
- TIP OFF CLUB MEETING TODAY - Zanesville Times Recorder
- RVing can avoid expensive hotel expenses at BC Winter Olympics! - Auto123
- Going somewhere warm for winter? Here's how to prepare your home - Quad Cities Onlines
- Across the New Mexico Outback - OhmyNews
| DiMora's $2 Million Sport Luxury Sedan's Life is Added by Granite ... - PRLog (free press release) Posted: 04 Jan 2010 04:21 PM PST PR Log (Press Release) – Jan 04, 2010 – Union City, CA -- Granite Digital is the latest world-class innovator to become a Technology Partner in DiMora Motorcar's program to create the Natalia SLS 2 sport luxury sedan. Its Save A Battery system will be standard on-board equipment, providing real-time battery monitoring on the road and continuous testing, conditioning, and charging in the garage. This is the first time that a complete battery maintenance system has become an integral part of a production automobile.
According to Frank Gabrielli, President of Granite Digital/Save A Battery, "We are very excited to be a part of such a revolutionary automotive design and we take this job very seriously. Using our advanced charger technology to keep the Natalia SLS 2 ready whenever it is called upon means that our system will have to not only be the best but also keep the battery fresh, alive, and maintained to perfection. Our added monitoring features will also protect the charging and electrical systems by alerting the driver of problems before damage can occur." Data from the customized Save A Battery 1702 Charging System will be integrated into the Natalia's dashboard information systems, allowing the driver to check the status of the battery and electrical system at any time. For an advanced electrical system like the Natalia, this means that the driver can be assured of the vehicle's reliability before setting out on a journey. DiMora Motorcar Founder Alfred DiMora noted the importance of Save A Battery systems for the car collector. "When you have classic cars and custom motorcycles that you need to keep in showroom condition all the time, batteries rarely get enough activity to keep them healthy. Trickle chargers keep the voltage up but do nothing to overcome crystallization of lead sulfate, which ages a battery prematurely. I solved that problem by using Save A Battery systems, which perform desulfation as part of their automatic battery conditioning and maintenance." DiMora went on to say, "Each Natalia will have a retractable 110 or 220 volt AC cord that the owner will extend to any power outlet when the automobile is parked. This is a unique feature, only to be found on the Natalia SLS 2." About Granite Digital and Save A Battery:
About DiMora Motorcar and DiMora Custom Bikes:
The founder, CEO, and driving force behind both companies is Alfred J. DiMora, who produced two of America's finest luxury automobiles, the Clenet (as owner) and the Sceptre (as co-founder). When President Reagan declared 1986 the Centennial Year of the Gasoline-Powered Automobile, Mr. DiMora's Clenet was selected as the Official Centennial Car. As a result, he and the Clenet were honored at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Michigan. For more information, please visit www.dimoramotorcar.com. Press Contact:
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| TIP OFF CLUB MEETING TODAY - Zanesville Times Recorder Posted: 04 Jan 2010 02:12 PM PST The ZHS Tip-Off Club will meet at 11:45 a.m. today at the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Coach Scott Aronhalt will discuss last week's games with Worthington Christian and Tri-Valley and Tuesday's game against Granville. Corporate sponsors for the meeting are Dittmar Insurance Agency; Dixie Sporting Goods; Bud Dollings; Domino's Pizza; Donald's Donuts; Jeff Drennan GM Superstores; Dutro Auto Parts; Dutro Ford Lincoln Mercury Nissan Inc.; Eye Surgery Association of Zanesville, Inc.; Don Farus Painting; Fink's Quality Cars & RV's and Ron Frame State Farm Insurance. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| RVing can avoid expensive hotel expenses at BC Winter Olympics! - Auto123 Posted: 04 Jan 2010 12:03 PM PST The 2010 Olympics are almost there and to avoid high lodging rates some hotels will impose for visitors, Go RVing Canada reports that RV rentals and campgrounds can be a much more affordable option.
"Do not abandon hopes of going to the 2010 Olympics if you do not yet have accommodations planned," says Go RVing Canada spokesperson Catherine Fortin LeFaivre. "Many Vancouver-area RV dealerships still have RV units available for rent at very reasonable prices during the Olympic period —but they are booking fast." Most Vancouver-area hotels have been sold out for months in anticipation of the Winter Olympic Games, and those still available are advertising rates in the range of $600 and over per night for double occupancy. In contrast, winterized RV units are available for approximately $200 to $300 per night and can generally accommodate four to six people. "RVing during the Olympics is a great and affordable way to experience the Games," says Fortin LeFaivre. "Not only will you be able to experience the beautiful B.C. winter outdoors, but you will also be at the heart of the Olympic buzz as many campgrounds are in proximity to Olympic venues." Although campgrounds in and around the Vancouver-area are booking quickly, spots are still available for approximately $40-75 a night, depending on proximity to Olympic venues. Many of these campgrounds offer convenient shuttles to such popular destinations as downtown Vancouver and Skytrain stations. In addition to saving money on accommodations, RVing will also save Olympic-goers on food costs, since RV units are equipped for food preparation and spare tourists the expense of eating out three times a day. According to a study conducted by PKF Consulting for Go RVing Canada, typical RV vacations can be up to 75 per cent less expensive per day than any other type of family trip, regardless of trip duration, distance, or location. For more information on RVing, and on where to rent an RV and book a campground during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, you can visit www.gorving.ca.
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| Going somewhere warm for winter? Here's how to prepare your home - Quad Cities Onlines Posted: 03 Jan 2010 08:54 PM PST
Are you one of the lucky few who will pack up and leave the cold behind for a winter stay in warmer climes? If you plan to be gone for longer than six weeks, there are a few things to remember before you leave home: — Be sure the furnace or boiler has been cleaned and inspected. — Turn heat down, but not off! Most thermostats will go to 55 to 60 degrees. Before setting it lower, check with the manual or ask the manufacturer. — Empty refrigerators and freezers of foods that won't last, and leave them running. Or, empty completely, unplug them and prop them open. — Disconnect hot and cold supply hoses to the washing machine and leave the valves open. — Turn off and drain the water heater. — Disconnect the water softener. It's a good idea to do one final backwash before disconnecting, to make startup easier. — Check appliance manuals for advice on shutting down or what to do when leaving for extended periods. — If possible, make sure hoses connected to outdoor faucets are disconnected and fully drained. — Pour nontoxic or RV antifreeze (not automotive antifreeze) into all traps and drains, including the dishwasher and showers. Use 2 cups in toilet bowls and tanks, and about 1 cup in other drains. — Be sure windows, doors and fireplace dampers are closed and latched. — Check insurance policies to make sure you're covered if the house is unoccupied for an extended period. — Conduct a home inventory (photograph or videotape important items) and take it with you. It will support an insurance claim if items are damaged, destroyed or stolen. — Contract for snow removal, stop mail and paper delivery, and set lights on a timer. Other useful safety monitors are available at home and hardware stores. — Let local law-enforcement officials know the dates you will be gone. They often increase drive-bys or otherwise keep an eye on your place. — Tell neighbors you'll be gone, and leave a contact number with them. When you return: — Bring the heat back gradually to minimize creaking and groaning associated with heat expansion. Allow about eight hours to go from 50 to 70 degrees. — Fill the water heater before turning it on. — Reconnect the water softener and backwash immediately. — Turn on the main water supply only slightly, then open each faucet to bleed the air out of the line. When this is done, turn on the water the rest of the way. — Be prepared to replace a faucet washer or grommet or two. When lines are drained, the rubber washers can dry out.
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| Across the New Mexico Outback - OhmyNews Posted: 03 Jan 2010 07:07 PM PST
Before leaving Hereford, Texas, and heading on to Clovis, New Mexico, we had a look at a feed lot near US-60. We didn't know if it was a big one or not, but since 3 million cattle pass through 126 lots each year, each holding cattle some 110 - 150 days, on average, each lot holds about 8,000 cattle at any one time. The questions for me was: how do I show, visually, 8,000 cattle? We drove along the road next to the fence, stopped at a likely looking place, turned on Pachelbel's Canon -- which usually piques their curiously -- and shot a few frames. They looked like nothing. Very slowly, I climbed up on top of the van and shot a few frames. Nothing. Walked up close the fence very s-l-o-w-l-y and shot a few frames. Hopeless. We moved to another spot where the feed lot access road hit the main road and I climbed up on top of the fence holding on to a utility pole and shot a few frames. Still nothing. Only looking at the LCD I thought maybe if I included the fence stretching out to the horizon the way it did it would be a hint that the cattle you see near the camera go on forever, which they do. Maybe not, but best I could do.
With that we headed toward Clovis. It wasn't long before we came on a packing house, just as Pearl Salines at the Deaf Smith County Historical Museum had said the day before, and it also had a long fence, this time a kind of "Green Mile" along which cattle are taken to their execution.
JUST OVER THE BORDER INTO NEW MEXICO, we came on an information center where we picked up a couple of brochures and a good map. While talking with the staff, we got into a conversation with somebody who knew something about Clovis. They said that part of the economic base is Cannon Air Force Base, which was scheduled to be closed in 2005 but in 2006 it was changed from the Air Combat Command to the Air Force Special Operations Command. In addition, this person -- who said they didn't want to be identified as it might blow back on them -- said the town has become polarized compared to 20 years ago; you "can no longer speak your piece." I don't know if the change to a Special Operations base has anything to do with it, but it's good to know which way the wind is blowing. OUR MAIN REASON FOR STOPPING IN CLOVIS was to revisit what we think of as the Buddy Holly Museum, as we'd been there before back in the 1990s. However the actual name of the place is the Norman Petty Recording Studio which is on the old US 60, now replaced with a bypass. The sign on the fence in front of the Studio explains the confusion: At thirteen, Norman began cutting records in his father's filling station. With money earned from the Norman Petty Trio's "Mood Indigo," Petty converted a family grocery store next door to a modern recording studio where he experimented with echo and microphone settings. In 1957, Petty made rock' n' roll history recording Buddy Holly and the Crickets' "That'll Be The Day." The sound influenced a generation, and his techniques are still used today.Buddy Holly is considered to be an early pioneer of rock and roll even though his success only lasted a year and a half before he was killed in an airplane crash. Buddy grew up in Lubbock, Texas, a just 100 miles (160 km) from Clovis. Seeing Elvis Presley sing live in Lubbock was a turning point and he began changing his style to what would become rock. Buddy would come up to record his songs in Norman's Studio which was divided into three main sections: the studio where performers and their backup made the music, the recording room containing Norman's equipment, and a living area people could eat, sleep, and congregate. Norman grew up in Clovis and began playing piano early on. He and his wife, Vi, founded the Norman Petty Trio, along with guitarist Jack Vaughn. In addition to success with his own records, Norman is famous for making 78 and 45 rpm singles for singers such as Roy Orbison, Buddy Knox, Waylon Jennings, Carolyn Hester and Buddy Holly, all of whom became famous. By 1959 Buddy had married Maria Elena Santiago (after proposing on the first date) and was living in New York but went on a tour of the middle West. He was killed when the small airplane he'd chartered crashed taking off from Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 3, 1959. Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie." Norman Petty died in Lubbock, Texas in 1984 of leukemia. His wife, Vi, died in 1992. That much is common knowledge. What isn't are the details we learned by talking with Ken Broad, the person in charge of tours of the Studio (call +1.575.763.3435 to book a tour). Ken was a minister when he came to Clovis with his wife, Shirley, for his health. He had difficulty speaking after he'd had a tumor removed on his vocal cords. Norman built him special "voice enhancement" equipment which was designed to "only strengthen natural tones" and they became friends. Ken began doing Norman's bookwork, and eventually became his business manager. He still functions as the Rev. Kenneth Broad sometimes, but his main work is the Studio. Ken said that one of the main reasons Norman became the go-to guy by fledgling artists was his policy of charging only $75 for one side of a record, no matter how long it took as Norman "didn't believe in creating by the clock." The living quarters were there for that purpose as it often took a long time to get things right. The state-of-the-art recorders at the time only did one track, thus mixing was done live and when it was done, it was done. Ken took us into the recording room which, like the rest of the Studio, is just as Norman left it.
Everything was in mint condition albeit quite old. To give you some idea of how old, later on we came on a Grundig Wire Recorder which was state-of-the-art when I was the go-to-film-recorder operator in Junior High School in 1949. It could have been Norman's first recorder as he was 22 at the time. Next, Ken took us into the studio where performers and their backup made the music. The mics, the piano, the canvas-backed chairs for Norman and Vi, are all there. You get the feeling they're on break back in the living quarters and will come through the door and continue any minute.
We'd heard a lot of this when we were there before, but Ken added two completely new things. He said he'd visited Norman in the hospital on July 14, 1984, one month before he died, August 15, 1984. Norman told him that he'd been writing all day listing everything that could be sold to support Vi as he was concerned she wouldn't have enough to live on as all she had was the money from the recordings they'd made. But Norman didn't want anybody, especially Vi, to know about the list as they thought he might recover while he felt he was going to die, soon. So he gave the list to Ken and told him to keep it until it was needed. When Norman died a month later, there was great concern as nobody knew the details of the business. Ken revealed the list and everything worked out. The second thing Ken told us was that Vi was in a coma for her last 58 days before she died in 1992 and hadn't made any provisions for her cats. All 38 of them were left for Ken to deal with, and most of them were sick. Vi had picked them up and tried to nurse them back to health, but failed, and Ken had to have most of them put down. I don't think Ken ever gave up being a minister, the Studio became his church. ABOUT HERE WE NEED A GEOGRAPHY LESSON. As I've said, my wife and I had been to New Mexico before. Most of the time we went east along Interstate-40/Route 66 to Amarillo, Texas, (Gallup, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Santa Rosa, Tucumcari), south-west along US 60 to Clovis, south-west along US 70 to Interstate-10 (Roswell, Alamogordo, White Sands) and then west on Interstate 10 (Deming, Lordsburg) to where we'd started. We'd never gone west on US 60 to Arizona on the other side of the state which is definitely not a Scenic Byway, but more like a New Mexico outback. It's 450 miles from Clovis, near the Texas border, to Springerville, near the Arizona border. Along the route there are only four towns of any consequence: Fort Sumner, Mountainair, Socorro, and Magdalena. With a population of some 18,000, Socorro is the only city and is on the Rio Grand River at 4,600 feet (1,400m); the others have populations around 1,000. Clovis and Fort Sumner are at an elevation of some 4,000 feet (1,210m) while Mountainair and Magdalena are at 6,500 feet (1,980m); Springerville is at 7,000 feet (2,130m). Beginning to get the picture? Traveling east to west as we were, you leave Clovis and climb up through Fort Sumner to Mountainair, then drop down to Socorro on the Rio Grande, and then climb back up again to Magdalena and Springerville. There are smaller towns between Clovis and Socorro, each about 60 miles (100km) apart as the original Santa Fe railroad steam engines could only go that far before they needed water. There used to be a spur line from Magdalena to Socorro to ship cattle from the Plains of San Augustin. The line has gone and the Plains of San Augustin is now the site of the VLA (Very Large Array) that appeared in the movie "Contact" starring Jodie Foster. While the movie was fiction, when you stand on the plains, it's easy enough to think those huge antennas are listening to messages from the great beyond, not just radio waves from outer space. ON THE WAY TO MOUNTAINAIR, WE ONLY STOPPED IN ONE TOWN: ENCINO. The sign said population was 94 but we didn't see anybody and none of the stores looked open. The name, Las Penas Groceries, had been painted over but was still somewhat visible. (Not absolutely sure, but Las Penas means "The Rocks" and there is a rock and ballast company in Encino and a rock and ballast quarry a short distance away in Pedernal.)
MOUNTAINAIR IS A LIVING, BREATHING TOWN. We arrived late in the afternoon and saw a grocery store, gas station, cafe, Chamber of Commerce, art gallery, National Park Service information center, and RV park. The RV park looked like it would cost more than we'd be willing to pay so we went on down the road and found a place to camp and returned first thing in the morning to have breakfast at the Ancient Cities Cafe. Not a lot of people, just what looked a road or railway work crew silently eating breakfast.
On the far wall was a mural showing why it was called the Ancient Cities Cafe.
After breakfast we went to the National Park Service information center and found that it administered three nearby Salinas Pueblo Missions. The short story is that Spanish Franciscans came to the area early in the 17th century and developed the missions. However, the entire district was depopulated of both Indians and Spaniards by 1677. What's left are four mission churches, at Quarai, Abo, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas. Some of the missions were quite far away but the one at Abo was close to US 60 a few miles west of Mountainair so we decided to stop there on our way to Socorro. The ranger on duty was born in Texas, not far from Clovis, and said there was dry land farming east of Clovis but west of Clovis there wasn't enough water for anything. When I asked him about the deer-like animals we'd seen, he said they were prong horn antelope but more like a goat as they have cloven hooves. They don't need any shelter but can survive in open country as they can outrun predators at speeds up to 54 mph (86 km/h). Curiously enough, the ranger said that while only about 50% of the people in Mountainair are Hispanic, there are many small land-grant communities in the area established during the Spanish period and given by the Spanish King in the 17th century. Controversy over land-grants continued into the 20th century and from what I could learn, there are still some problems. Across the side street from the Park Service information center was a mural showing an original Sante Fe steam engine hauling freight.
Across the main street from the Park Service information center was Cibola Arts, a cooperative gallery with 12 artists and five visiting artists which has been in operation since 1995. I had a brief chat with one of the artists, Addie Draper, who does pastels and oils, who showed me her work and took me around to the other works on display. While we were looking at the various paintings, sculptures, wood turnings, and raku pottery, we met LeRoy Simmons, a blacksmith, who invited me over to his forge see what he was doing. When I got there, LeRoy was helping one of the other artists, Susan Aulde, who does art and functional glass, turn a piece of railway track into an anvil. The rough work had been done and Susan was polishing it.
Meanwhile, LeRoy was over at the forge making individual leaves for a larger decorative piece. He showed how he could take a rather ordinary piece of iron, heat it in the forge, hammer it into the basic shape, and add the details with frequent reheatings.
I went over to the larger piece to see how it was coming along and saw that even though LeRoy didn't have any mechanical pattern, all the leaves looked the same enough to be on the same plant, but different enough so they gave the feeling of being organically alive. Before we headed west, we stopped at the Turner Inn motel and RV park, an authentic 1950's style "auto court" motel made famous by Route 66. Talking with Ruth Turner we learned that up until a short time ago all available rooms in Mountainair were taken by workers at the High Lonesome Wind Farm in Willard, about 14 miles (22 km) away. When the Wind Farm becomes operational, 40 2.5-megawatt wind turbines will generate a total of about 100 megawatts of electricity -- enough to supply power to about 30,000 homes. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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