Champagne taste beer budget

I ran across an ad in the local free paper today: "2 Stereos, 4 cluster component, great speakers, $250 each" Of course I had to call. One is a full Teac system, she didn't know how old, model numbers or what the speakers were, but insisted it sounds just fantastic. Second system is a **Marantz** 2270, a Dual turntable, model unclear, she couldn't read it without her glasses on, Kenwood tape deck, no model, Sony cd changer, less than 2 years old and bought at a place that I know carries higher end Sony stuff, and a pair of Technics **Marantz**speakers, "You know, the big ones that you have to stand on the floor" she said. All bought new by her or her deceased husband. Everything is supposed to work just as it should and gets played regularly. I know little of the Marantz, but do see they've gotten some good press here.The rest of the stuff is all unknown entities until I know models. Is it worth a one hour drive each way at that price just to inspect?

I'm going to start out with a memory test, then see if I can decipher that to a coolest one. 1966 Mustang 289 1973 Camaro, 350, rebuilt/modded several times 1973 Ford Pinto (KICK BUTT stereo in 1979) 1974 (?) Toyota Corona 197X Chevy Chevelle 197X AMC Pacer 1986 Saab 99 1983 Renault LeCar 1973 AMC Javelin 1982(?) Fiat Strada 1987 Jeep Grand Cherokee 1982 Mazda RX7 1984 Mazda RX7 1985 Honda Accord 1982 Chevy Monte Carlo 1982 Toyota 4WD Pickup 1989 Chevy Cavalier Z24 1991 Olds Delta 88 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix 3.4L w/Man 5 speed, almost rare. Still have 1996 Chevy Blazer 1998 Chevy Blazer 2000 Olds Bravada (Do you see a lease pattern here?) 2001 GMC Jimmy (Out of the lease, bought outright) 1996 Chevy Monte Carlo I'm going to leave it here, but I feel I'm missing a few somewhere. So far, the coolest has to be the Pinto. The stereo picked up chicks. No, it was the Mustang, classic lines and dusted a few Camaros in my time. No it was the 84 RX, I brought it back from dead, the engine was locked tight, but enough trans fluid, then Coke a Cola in the carb finally got it to break free and worked for a couple years with very low oil consumption. Actually, it would have to be the Javelin, I bought it from the daughter of the original owner, had good intentions of getting it back to exact, but it got stolen, they burnt up the engine on the highway, I ended up paying a couple hundred bucks in towing/storage fees for a car with no engine. OK, right now, my coolest car is the Monte I'm driving now. I have 300 in the car, 300 in a transmission, one evening mating the two, and it gets me to work and back every day. I think that's pretty cool. Actually, the Javelin had it. Had done pinstripes across the fender arches and melded them end to end, was pretty cool. Had great plans, but wasn't to be.

Between the holidays, inlaws, outlaws, travel and the flu running through the house with family here, I hadn't found a chance to get the new unit close to speaker wires until tonight, with less than stellar results. [] I have no sound out of the right channel. If you crank the balance to that side fully and hit the volume knob up to maybe 9-10 oclock you hear a little crosstalk or whatever the proper term is, but nothing like a signal you'd listen to. With balance set to middle, there can be proper sound heard out of the left channel, but it comes/goes/disappears when you move the volume or press the high or low cut buttons, or most any of the several buttons on the left side of the unit. It also may start working with some percussive maintenance to the left side of the case. No, I haven't done any of the steps in the cleaning thread yet, nor have I checked any fuses, seemed to be only one fuse and two breaker resets on the back panel, the pushbutton breakers didn't have an effect when pushed, and I would assume since one channel works somewhat, the single fuse must be ok. I WILL check it later though. I printed off the manual for it, but it's at work. Wish me luck as I try and resurrect this unit. I will say, when the one channel would work, it had a totally different sound than my Yamaha pre and Perreaux power amp set up. Couldn't get it to work consistantly enough to form any opinion, but could tell it wasn't the same, and I think in a good way. The mid bass seemed more airy, the lower registers appeared to be more suspended across the soundstage and the highs were liquid, unveiled, nearly transparent in their inflection... blah blah blah...[+o(][+o(][+o(] OK, It was different. I did hear a difference in the bass response, not good or bad yet, but it seemed positive for the couple minutes it worked. Time will tell. Assuming it comes back to life. If anyone has any good starting places on a dead channel I'm all ears. I should tell you, all my good tools are at work, and the schedule for the two of us is packed for the week, so I may not get to this for a day or three, or I could dig through some old paint stirrers that used to be screwdrivers here and go at it.

I see it's been a few days, but I've been away enjoying the holidays. See here, with our real tree:

Unit showed up this afternoon VERY well double boxed and appears exactly as described. Can't test functions till I get it close to speakers, but sure is a heavy sucker! I wonder how many ebay folks have been a member for over three years before making their initial purchase? Joined 10/3/03, first purchase/feedback 12/21/06.

Real, and 6 yr old daughter helped me pick it out and cut it down. Came from a tree farm that plants and maintain trees just to be Christmas tree, so I don't feel it's hurting the enviornment at all. If it wasn't going to be cut down it would never had been planted in the first place. This years is a little over 8' tall, $23 no tax, and came with free candy canes for everyone. I had to go buy an inline switch for the cord for the lights, was too tough to try and get my fat old behind behind it to plug into the wall outlet.

I've heard back from one of them, the old Thunderbird Motel, now the Ramada Mistake Of America. Mall Of America, sorry. $79 for rooms, $150 for a meeting room that was like 30 x 50 from 3-6 pm on a Saturday. She's sending me email today with details. I was surprised how cheap the meeting room was. Anyone have any idea how big of a room we should be looking for? I did call Mystic lake, but haven't heard anything yet. JJ, you have a pm.

Oh My Goodness... [] And that's all I have to say on this matter.

The folks on this forum achieved consensus a while ago, I believe. It would fly. Then some pesky Bob guy brought the ugly head back to life again, and started another 4 pages of "stuff". (No offense to BEC, I loved the pic and the link I got from it.) Once again, in B.A.S.I.C. I am standing on a treadmill with rollerskates on my feet. As fast as I skate, the treadmill keeps up. I strap a rocket to my a$$. I ignite the rocket. I fly off the front of the treadmill, hitting the wall, likely breaking every bone I have as I go through the wall, and if I do NOT go through the wall, I get myself burnt to oblivion. The treadmill didn't know I had a rocket; it was just trying to keep up to my speed of skating. REMEMBER!! The speed of the conveyor matches that of the wheels, not the other way around.

Hey guys, long time no see. Between work, life, kids and car repair, I hadn't made time to get back to this, but I have now. I have messages at 5 different hotel type places in MPLS area, all of the offices that do meeting rooms are closed for the night, but hopefully I will have some numbers tomorrow morning. I am a little aprehensive though, if we figure 90 per night, which I was quoted by one hotel downtown, and I don't know, $1,000 for a nights rental of a larger meeting room, split that $1,000 twenty ways is $50, are people going to still be interested at $200 plus expenses (gas/food/beer/whathaveyou) to get together? Again, I have not heard anything about pricing on the meeting room, just guessing, but I also don't see it going out at $100 a night. Or maybe I'm totally wrong? I don't know, but should hear from people that have real numbers tomorrow, will update as soon as I can. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but if someone has an area in their home large enough to host 20 people, it would be a hoot, and also save a lot of people some money. Maybe even, with the number of people replying that are in the area, we could do two days, each one at a different place?? Just throwing out ideas. I'd like to see this whole thing come together, but I don't know that everyone would want to spend as much money as it appears it would take to do a meeting room at a motel. I'll know more tomorrow and will update.

Force is force is force, that much you have right. But there are so many different types of force. And they can act on so many different things, in so many different ways. Would you agree that if a runner were on a treadmill, with a constantly adjustable speed treadmill, and a large hammer, say 30 feet long, with the head being the size of a 55 gallon drum, were pivoted over his head much like a swing on a swing set, if said hammer were let loose from horizontal, so that gravity caused it to arc down, gaining force as it sped up, if said hammer were to strike the runner in the back, would the runner no doubt be knocked off the treadmill? It's a force, one to be reckoned with, and it could care less how fast any stinking treadmill is going. Much like a jet engine. That happened because a body in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by some other force. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. Relative to the hammer, the runner is at rest. Relative to the body of the treadmill, the runner is at rest. The only thing that is in motion in relation to anything is the treadmill itself. The hammer, on the other hand, is in motion. It has force. Or energy. I believe knetic, but that's been a long time ago. If all the forces in this question are acting upon the treadmill only, it would be a different question. Once you throw in the jet engine, which acts upon the air, all bets are off.

I think we need to get a Navy Admiral involved in this. [] First off, I want to know what happened when my pusher pushed the pushee. If the pushers arms truley extended out in from of him, then the distance between the two people increased. That should be basic. If we are standing front to back, and I press against you, extending my arms fully, there has been a change in the amount of distance between us. Someone moved. If the pushee did not move, then obviously the pusher must have moved backwards on firm ground by the force of the conveyor belt? Or was the pushee so locked into place by his magic wheels that the pusher pushed himself backwards with his arm strength? Without rereading the whole thread, which I still don't think you've done, I forget all the great points brought up by both sides. Even so, I'll make you a deal. Lets get you on a treadmill, on roller skates, set up with a acceleromotor like in a subwoofer, the faster you skate, the faster the treadmill spins. Now, you're saying that if I strapped a small jet pack to your back and fired it off, you would remain on the treadmill? I think not. Still hung up on the wheel thing, I know. Seems that's where most people see the light, is realizing that the wheels on the treadmill are just a ruse to take your mind away from the fact that you have a 12,000 HP jet engine pushing said plane forward by apply thrust against the air.

Using your example, tell me what happens when: 1) The person pushing the skater is standing on the ground. 2) The "pusher" is right up against the "pushee", arms folded against his chest. You're saying that as the "pusher" extends his arms forward and pushes on the person on the skates, that the person on the skates will not be forced forward and away from the "pusher" because his conveyor speeds up? Huh? [:^)]

Ladies and gentlemen, I sense a convert in the making.

a plane is standing on a movable runway( something like a conveyor).as the plane moves the conveyor moves but in the opposite direction.the conveyor has a system that tracks the speed of the plane and matches it exactly in the opposite direction. the question is will the plane take off or not? There is the original question. Let's now get back to a still day with a treadmill. The wind is NOT blowing. We get on a treadmill and stand still. If the treadmill is moving us backwards 20 mph, we have.... a 20 mph wind. It would be a tail wind. If we want to get back to having no tail wind, we need to start running on that treadmill and achive a running speed of 20 mph. Then, we will offset the tail wind, and experience a resultant zero wind. Now, let's say we do not want to run. Let's put on roller skates. Will it make any difference? No, we need to skate 20 mph to offset the 20 mph treadmill and have zero resultant wind. Let's say we don't want to have to exert effort by skating, so we keep the skates on and we attach a mini jet engine backpack. We crank the thrust to achieve the 20 mph speed. Still, the resultant wind is the same - zero. It does not matter what type of propulsion we use, the result is the same. Somewhere between the original post and your replies, the fact that the treadmill moves in response to movement of the plane got turned into the treadmill moving the plane backwards. Also, in your above examples, you change the application of force from you to the treadmill by your feet, then by roller skates, both of which are acting directly on the treadmill. Then you lose it and go off into jet pack land, the jet pack does NOT apply force to the treadmill, it applies force to you. Lets put you on a treadmill, on rollerskates with perfect bearings, so that regardless of how fast you skate or how fast the treadmill spins, you still remain stationary. Now, according to your example, if an outside force is applied to the object on the treadmill, be it you or a plane, it still will not move forward. What if the outside force were a Warn 1 ton winch mounted to the wall with the cable attached to your belt? Or maybe, ohhhhh a jet engine! It's not really all about vectors, it's about force and the application of it. THIS is why I said "Oh my Goodness"; I knew where things were headed. Again.

You haven't read the thread yet, have you? [6]

I believe this is where most people get off track. When you crank the engine, the wheels DO NOT spin. I won't go into all the analogies that were made in this thread, but the task of the jet engine is not to PULL air across the wings, but to PUSH the plane forward. The engine IS NOT connected to the wheels.

I'm sorry, Jeff. You really should take the time to read the whole sordid mess, it is quite the tale with more twists than a Hitchcock thriller. I meant no disrespect, sir, just surprise that the "arguments" were starting up again. Basically, the power of the planes engine are exerted against the air, which the moving conveyor belt has no effect on, thus the plane is forced forward through the air. Forced fast enough, it will fly.

Oh My Goodness....[:|]

edit: Oops, made NO sense out of context, was from two pages ago.

I found these too: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx?s=geekcultstore.32159 Call me geek all you want.

I was poking around at a site Bob Crites had posted an image from in the Will It Fly thread and ran across this. http://www.joyoftech.com/geekculturestore/webstore/tubesrock.html I think I'll buy a couple just to see if I get any response from other unknown tubers I run across.

It IS faster than dialup, that's for sure, but only by maybe a factor of 4 or 5 would be my guess, it's certainly doesn't seem 10 times faster. It's slow enough that I haven't even tried streaming video, I will tonight and get back. It does require a seperate dish than the television dish, more cables, etc. If you have access to any other way to get "high speed" I'd go with it over the dish, but if it's dish or dial up only, it sure beats dial up. I might add, there is one step higher speed available by our provider, but it's another 30 or 40 a month and we didn't think it was worth it for the difference in speed.

What part of Disco sucked? It had a good beat, it was easy to dance to, I'd give it a 94. It helped develop the careers of people that have become mainstays in the music business to this day. Names that, although you may not play their music at home personally, EVERYONE knows. It was loud, and the good places had good systems to play the tunes through. If you could get on the dance floor with a girl and not trip over your own two feet, you had a good chance of getting kissed. Or more. [] And if more led to a LOT more, if anything bad came of it a month later, a shot of penicillin would probably take care of it, you weren't going to die. There were mirrored dance floors. [] It was the ONLY time I've ever cleared a spot on the dance floor. (Though I didn't know it at the time.) Back home from college for Christmas in 80, maybe 81, went to a grat disco place downtown, little of this, little of that, met a girl, we were dancing to something disco and the next song that came up was "Whip It" by Devo. Well, I'd just about the right amount of creativity and inhibition reliever ingested by one form or another, and proceded to totally punk out. Thrashing, flailing, feet not moving, just going nuts to the song with my eyes closed. About 1/2 way through the song, I opened my eyes to find that everyone had moved away to give me a good 20 foot circle, me in the center, and one of the high beam overhead spotlights was focused on me. It kinda took me aback for a second, like "WTF", but then I saw people were jamming along with me, so I just closed my eyes and finished the song, at which point there was a smattering of applause and someone on the pa saying something like "Give Mr DEVO a hand" or some such thing. Oh Yeah... I like Disco cause I grew up in the 70's. It was, to me, what The Drifters were in 50's or the Beach Boys in the 60's. It defines an era, and when your most formative years are during that era, well, it sticks with you.

It's cloudy. [:'(] I'd heard there was a major solar flare in the last 24-36 hours with a lot of activity expected tonight, but wasn't sure how good it would be, dependant on the relationship of the incoming magnetic wave compared to the earths magnetic field when it got here. It got cloudy today about noon, then started drizzling, then full light rain and 36 degrees, Supposed to get to 26 tonight, rain to freezing rain to snow on top before morning. Yeah. I've been witness to several unbelievable Northern Light displays over the years, sounds likes tonights might be one to remember. I wish you luck and serenity in your viewing. They've always amazed and fascinated me.