RCX 2012 Pictures

Here are some pictures and descriptions of my day at RCX 2012.

 First off are some from my host RCP Crawlers

I lived that Forest Service truck it was awesome
(in the background My friend Don Hughes Driver for Proline Racing, Offroadjerky.com and Axial killing some time between stories about his new cast)

 Rich Bolts has a sweet scaler entering one of the tunnels

OOPS

 Just a fraction of the rigs we had on Saturday

 Another look at some of the Rigs waiting to run

 This kid was begging hos Dad for that 8th scale Losi buggy at the Horizon booth. I think he went home disappointed.

 Possibly the most popular RC at the show. About 1/3 the aftermarket booths had one or two but the OG version in the Horizon booth had the most attention

 The pic does not do them justice. The cutaways were very cool

 The drifting demo was pretty boring. Not much like the real thing at all. Even the "Pro" driver did not put on much of a show.

 Hobby Parts/Gens Ace had a cool demo rig with telemetry

 The Axial booth was weak. This 6x6 was fairly cool. Really was sad to see the biggest name in RC crawling put zero effort in to the event. Talking to the guys there was also fairly saddening, no more California warehouse it is all being taken back east.

 The slot car track was cool, they now can run multiple cars per lane with independent speed control for each car. A far cry from what I remember as a kid.

 The outdoor demo of the nitro buggies and trucks was cool but hard to get a good shot of

 the only shot I got to come out ok of one in the air

 This was just bad ass

 The sled pull booth was amazing. The sleds were very cool and engineered well

 Castle had this Euro type race truck I had not seen before in RC form

These guys had the 5th scale trucks with big ass brushless power. The guy said they were faster accelerating than the gas and nitro trucks but did not have the same top end. Word is these were actually better for short course racing and a lot of tracks were not allowing the gas and nitros any more because of damage to the tracks.

 The army vehicle guys were running around with 200 and 300 pound tanks and GI Joe outfits. The cars and jeeps were ok but the tanks were the real crowd pleasers

 The traxxas booth was cool. Had one of John Forces funny cars and the new dragsters they released last week as well as the flagship XO on a dyno

 Crappy video of the dyno run.....only got up to 99mph in this run. A fresh lipo in it the next run and it hit 113

My Experiences with RC companies

Well after this morning's round of emails I feel inclined to share my thoughts on some of the RC companies I have used in the past 2 years or so.

Hitec Servos: Not only am I very happy with my servo performances from these folks but every time I had a question or needed some repair work they were more than helpful. Perfect example is on my 2.2 comp rig I use a hitec 7980 monster torque servo for steering duties. I really like the 611oz of torque it throws down and when I was noticing it was not quite up to it's usual shake the rocks self after one comp I gave them a call. After about 5 minutes of talking with a engineer not just some phone jockey he decided to have me send it in for him to look at. Well at the time I really needed it back quickly since I had a event only 10 days away he offered me a very surprising deal. All I had to do was give him the tracking number from mine and he would have a fresh reman unit sent to me asap........So I did the only logical thing and got my ass to the post office within the hour. Now to my surprise I call back with my tracking info and he gives me his, oh yeah the replacement went out about 5 minutes ago. When I received it I was shocked to find that it was sent express mail and was a brand new unit. Folks it does not get better than that!

Now lets talk about Novak. These guys are local to me and when I had trouble with an esc and motor combo I shot them a email. Charlie over there ran me through some stuff to check out and then invited me down to the shop to have him look at it. Turned out to be a bad sensor board and a bad mosfet in the esc which he said probably was caused by the sensor board issue. Not only did he replace the esc and sensor board but after talking to him about what I was doing and where I was comping he tuned the motor and esc settings for me. At first I was like cool but then the next time I ran my rig I was blown away at the change in performance. I knew I had a pretty bad ass combo but I was now impressed. The level of help I was extended both online and in person was something I had not expected at all.

CKRC, oooooooooooooh yeah I know there are some folks who already have blood boiling just from that name. Well I do not! Nothing but good to say about Jake and his crew over there. Often when I need a part and I have time to wait for shipping I will throw them my business for a couple simple reasons. They usually have what I need in stock and cheaper than anyone else locally, I can call them and ask questions and opinions from guys and a gal that actually use the products, and often when I do order over the phone (my preferred method) I get stuff thrown in for free. A while back I placed a bigger than normal order with Jake the owner. Now he said I was getting a deal on some of it because he appreciated my business, but it was not till I received the package that I realized what he meant. He nearly doubled the value of my order with parts he knew I would need/want from our conversation and then shipped it all overnight. Just the shipping was $35! My total I paid was only $65 and change. Even before that I have been some what vocal on rcc about being happy with CKRC but since then I have really have felt there has been little need for me to go elsewhere for any of my parts.

Hobby Town USA in Corona Ca. My closest hobby shop is one of a kind that is for sure. Not only is it family owned and run but it has that Mom and Pop vibe when you walk in the door. The couple employees there are super friendly and actually very helpful when you ask questions. Granted they deal in mostly planes and short course stuff so I often ask them for a part or about something they do not have in stock but they will not BS you and tell you "You know what, I don't know" and start to get busy finding out. Even when I go in there for something like motor wire I get the feeling like that $5 sale means just as much as they guy looking at a new motor for his plane or the $600 controller waiting behind me. That is something you just do not get with most places now days.

Pegasus Hobbies in Montclair Ca. If it were not for the fact they stock a lot of common stuff I would have no use for them at all. Pricing is on the higher end, they do not price match, sales guys tend to be in a hurry and not real knowledgeable but when you need a 4 pack of deans and a transmission output gear Friday night there is not another place to go around here. Hell I have gone there just to look around at all the stuff they do carry.

Maxamps Batteries. When you want a lipo battery and you want it quick, hit them up. Not that I believe the hype about the c ratings and such but where else can you custom order a pack and get it in 2 days? And for a fair price? Ya thats what I am saying no where else.

Hobby King. For a company based overseas and run over seas they sure do a decent job over here. I like the cheap lipo's and cheap shipping but they have some issues with quality control on a lot of the other stuff they sell. Lipo's are top notch bang for the buck winners though.

RC4WD, I was not impressed with their XVD's. Shipping and customer service were ok but for the price they ask on those XVD's I was really let down. Other items I have seen from them have been good looking and good performing, but I do not know if I can get over that bad taste the XVD experience left with me.

Horizon Hobby. Not much to say here really other than they carry what is on the site and the site is accurate with stock quantities. When all else fails Give them a try for your losi parts needs.

Tekin. Can not say enough about how they treat their customers. Recently I sent in a unit for warranty repair and 3 days after they received it I received a return tracking number and details about the repair. On a few occasions I had need for tech support and 2 of the 3 times I called in I was talking to the owner. Both those times he was able to help me get back to running and the other time I was talking to a equally knowledgeable lady that gave me a RA number on the spot. And I do love the hotwire interface for programming the esc's. It makes it so damn easy! No guessing just a few clicks and were back in the rig running.

Rocky Mountain Design Works. For a one man operation with a lot going on to help folks on rcc Thomas puts out a pretty damn good product. He does a lot of running changes on parts so when I had ordered mine I got some that had already been updated by the time I got mine but you know what, they worked great. I wish he would do more for the more popular platforms that most folks have now days as I could see his company grow quickly with a broader market. If you need some hopups or help with a venom crawler hit him up. (rmdesignworks)

RC Expo Long Beach convention center April 28th & 29th

RC Expo at the long beach conventions center is coming up, I and some friends will be in the RCP Crawlers booth running our rigs through out the day Saturday April 28th. (it is also open on Sunday so do not fret if you miss Saturday) I will be rocking the WestCoastRCCrawlers.com and Offroadjerky.com XR-10.

Unfortunately my Wraith is still awaiting the return of it's motor and esc from Tekin's warranty service department (Thankfully they are very good about fixing stuff for free). I had really hoped to have both rigs there but alas my bad luck with the Wraith has foiled that plan.

This is my first year going and I am looking forward to going and seeing what my rig does on the indoor mountain, along with all the sneak peaks to whats coming in the future of RC.

You can prebuy tickets and get more info about RCX HERE
West Coast RC Crawlers HERE
Offroadjerky HERE
RCP Crawlers HERE

Do work Son

So today I drove up the 15 to Pinon Hills. On the way I see mostly the usual stuff, you know some lady drinking a redbull and putting on her makeup in the fast lane, the guy with some long piece of wood sticking out both sides of his car almost in the other lanes, the guy pulling his trailer doing 80+ passing in the number one lane etc. etc. etc.

Then I get to my turnoff for the highway 138. A couple minutes past the interchange there is a rather eccentric (beat to hell) old Toyota pickup. No driver or anything just a little old truck parked along side the roadway. As I motor on by listening to some Pearl Jam and taking full advantage of the AC and cruise control I come around a bend and see a guy with a big back pack, a poker stick, a trash bag, and the most amazing (being sarcastic) big floppy sun hat. I see him picking up trash, cans, bottles etc. and placing them in his backpack and bag. Now I think to myself  that the guy must either be one of them save the earth types or one of those picking up recyclables to pay the bills types and kinda dismiss it. Well after the days activities I head back down the 138 to return home, and to my surprise I see the same eccentric truck and the same guy picking up stuff about 2 miles from his last spotting. Only other change was now the back of the eccentric truck had a mound of full bags in the back.

Now I am impressed. Continuing down my path I start looking around, and I start noticing that there is a lot of trash no longer on the side of the road. Then it dawns on me, that one guy just might have cleaned up both sides of about 2 miles of the road. HOLY CRAP I have seen Cal trans crews do far less in a whole day and they are usually about 10 people strong. Now I can not say that the place was spotless but a measurable difference was made. BY ONE MAN!

I have done some time doing volunteer stuff in the local forests cleaning and fixing trail, but I have never seen something quite like that one gentleman's accomplishment. It does not matter to me what his motivation to do so was but I really do hope that he made a tidy sum from those recyclables for his efforts.

Now after pondering this for a bit on the ride home and afterwards,  I start thinking about how much it cost him to do it. Maybe a days time, a few bucks in gas (assuming he lived close by), and some shoe leather? That fancy poker stick surly did not break the bank.

Comparing my past expenses during my volunteer work I shudder to realize that maybe, just maybe I was doing it all wrong. A big limiting factor on my donated time was the expenses associated. I had to fuel up the jeep with fuel (usually once in the morning and once in the evening), fill up the cooler with food and drinks, make sure my boots and gloves were in proper shape, other PPE as required accounted for, fill up the water cans, pack up whatever tools I planned on using, Radio gear working, and so on. I really did not have a problem doing it as much as we could, and I really did not notice the total expense at the time but obviously over the years it did add up. I did enjoy the outings and for the most part the groups partaking in the activities were fun and interesting to perform the work with. Some of those folks were out there doing those things every weekend, all over Southern California. Really some of my best jeeping memories are from those days so was it a waste of money? I think not.

Now for the whole purpose of this blog:
There has to be some sort of more affordable version of community service that I will enjoy. It has been far to long since I experienced that warm fuzzy feeling of contributing to society. So I am opening up my ears to hear what you suggest I do. (yeah scary huh) Maybe it will be something you already do and keep a secret, or something you wish you had someone to do it with etc.

 So feel free to make a comment and suggest something.

Peace out my homies..........

Today's Rambelings:Big White Dog, morning coffee, breakfast and the walk

Lisa has a dog named Hachi. He is a big white dog. He is very hyper and very "needy" as Lisa would say. Well he sleeps with me in my room along with Toby and well he farts. This morning his fart was bad enough that I thought he crapped in my bed. He does not normally stink so bad and well my nose has been offended to the point that I had to open all the windows in the house, turn on the fans, spray the fabreeze air freshner, and tell you all about it........by the way it has been a hour and I still smell it.


Lisa got some organic breakfast blend coffee from trader joes that I really like, then she came home with some starbucks blonde roast that is plain awesome too. Problem is when I brew either of them in my small 4 cup coffee pot I tend to drink all 4 cups before I eat breakfast. Some times I even brew another 4 cups and drink that with breakfast. I do not recall a time in my life where I ever drank so much coffee. I actually wish I had a full size coffee maker now. That being said if you like good tasty sipping coffee then you can not go wrong with either of those, I highly recommend them. If you like that kick your nuts through your eyeballs strong stuff that my Dad likes well I can't help you.

Lately I either do a small breakfast before I walk the BWD and Casey or I end up starving and eat  a pretty large breakfast after. Either way they are usually some sort of eggs and potatoes or pancakes with coffee. Even going out for breakfast with Lisa I tend to get eggs with potatoes (Ham and cheese omelette and hash browns extra crispy with a side of sour dough toast thanks).
Actually it had become kinda hard to get places to make the tators as crispy as I would like. I get that from my Mom, she loved extra crispy tators. When I cook them at home I tend to set off the smoke detector in my search for crispy goodness. I think there needs to be a smoke detector that has a setting for those cooks like me. They could call it "awe damn fat dude is burning stuff again" or something like that. You should have to do nothing to have it enter this mode once you set it off like 5 times in 3 days. Once entered in to that mode it should tell you to open a window in stead of that annoying screech. Also a good Idea could be to make it so you can just yell at it to "shut up" in stead of having to go find a broom and poke a button for a random amount of time till it resets.

Ok almost 8am time to brew some beans and burn some tators. Have fun yall

Loosing focus, is this normal?

I am not really sure where I lost focus on trying to write something every day. I feel really saddened that like so many other things in my life I just let it drop off to the abyss. I need to fix that part of me among other things.

I have always been a bit of a slacker, not really how I would like to be nor how I would like to be seen by others. I wish I was a industrious person all of the time. I go through periods of time where it is like everything clicks, my mind is clear, I feel good, I'm thinking positively, things I do work out well, ideas I share are golden etc. Then there are times where I can not concentrate on anything, my attitude takes a dump, and I feel like crap. I really have no idea what causes it to flip from one to the other either. It almost feels like I have a ping pong game in my head, when there is a few balls I do well, but then some jerk dumps a bucket of balls on the table and I can not see the balls I am supposed to hit.  The balls all look the same and are bouncing all over the place, I'm swinging away but I just can not make contact with the right ones. There are always a number of things bouncing around my head, its just at times it gets to be overwhelming. The frustration seemingly has no end at that point, and I end up giving up. Then all of a sudden we are back to square one again, just like some one flipped a switch.

Some times all the noise in my head just plain distracts me from remembering to do things.

Is this normal?

oh and happy Meatless Monday ;)

Getting Back on Track

Man yesterday I was doing good right up till I ate Taco bell. What was I thinking? Lets break down what I ate yesterday and see.

Not including drinks as they were all water or ice tea

Breakfast:
One serving of cereal (yes I even measured it out) with milk
2 chicken wings (from the crock pot chicken I was making for later but had already been finished)

Lunch:
A turkey sandwich- whole wheat bread, romain lettuce, sweet maui onion, honey roasted turky, yellow peppers, with mustard and light mayo

Dinner:
Tuna sandwich- whole wheat bread, romain lettuce, sweet maui onion, Tuna, and mustard and light mayo
Small Caesar salad labeled 230 calories

Then later I had taco bell too? man no wonder I am fat and this morning I feel like a slug. I know better than to do that too. Some one please kick my ass next time you see me in that drive through at 9 something at night!

So NOW I have to move on to today. I will do a meatless monday (to punish my self for last night lol). This morning I started off with something I saw on Dr. Oz, 2 cups of plain hot water. I tell ya what it did wake my up and it did help get me feeling a bit better. From what the dude on the show said it just helps flush whats in you out, and you absorb the hot water with out expending energy to warm it up so you end up with kinda a massage to your system. ( Now this is my interpretation of what he said, I saw the show at least 3 times but I may have it a bit off however) I noticed almost immediately I felt awake and I did feel kinda a soothing warmth so who knows maybe its worth a try for a while. I also did not feel hungry at all after drinking the water, which he said may happen. I kinda feel hungry now like 45 minutes later so I think its oatmeal time.  (Plain old fashioned oatmeal none of that instant flavored crap)

I think for Lunch I will see about some potato tacos and maybe dinner will be some orange tofu, maybe lemon tofu, I guess I have a while to decide.


While the oatmeal is cooking, Im chatting with my friend Ted AKA Tedwick so here is a shout out to the strong hand! (LOL people that know him will understand)


Ted was asking me about race radios and such, I started looking at a few sites and wow things have changed since I had bought my race radio. Lots more options and stuff. Way cool to see that part of things catch up to the demand.

With the fact it rained last night and a bit this morning the dogs are mostly staying inside today I think I will walk all 4 of them for a change. (2 at a time Im not crazy). Cheech will get to wear his jacket lol, every time I put it on him he gets sooooo excited

On another note, I have re-worked a large part of my Lil SOB and am quite happy with how it feels at the moment but have not ran it yet. (Lil Sob is my 1.9 class comp RC Crawler BTW) I still need to find some sort of better steering servo for it but for now the one I have will do. I did however see some promising posts about a cheaper servo line named Solar. For $25 or so you can get a full size 200+oz servo! Reports are that they are slow but strong and so far I have yet to read much negativity about them. I think when mine craps out I will give them a try. I really need to spend some time practicing with it and the SOB too. (SOB is the 2.2 class comp RC crawler BTW) I guess I should put some wrench time in on the SOB to get it running before I try and practice though lol It might help a little if it moved under its own power. Its been 2 months+ and I just need to get it done. If I go practice places around here it will force me out of the house more, and I think we all agree that is a good thing.

I also decided I need to go to RCC Norco and punch some fools in the admin/financing office till I get answers, I am tired of emailing and calling for still no answers. Luck for them they are closed today, Ill calm down and head there tomorrow.

Have a good day everyone

WEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE WE WE WEEEEEEEEEE

Ok sorry I just saw that commercial and had to do that.

Well I've been fairly busy lately and not sleeping well so I have not had a lot to say but I have had short thoughts I felt like saving up for a while so here it goes.

I wrote on facebook earlier today that I don't have a issue with our soldiers pissing on dead enemies. Let me just say that IF you try to kill ME and I survive and kill YOU I probably would piss on you too. Screw that noise about how wrong it is. Yea it wasn't exactly smart to video tape it and who ever leaked it to the media needs his/her ass kicked but there is a saying "To the victor goes the spoils". In roman days if a gladiator killed his enemy he got rewarded with a woman or his freedom in some cases even the wife of his foe. Id rather have my corpse pissed on than my woman given to my enemy. End of discussion.

Had a thought I actually mulled over for a while off and on. If I died what would change. Well for one Lisa would have 3 dogs to clean up after and I am sure a few folks would miss me but really what would change? Then as I thought about it more I got to some one like Einstein, dude was a genius renowned the world over. The world kept on spinning when he died. Abraham Lincoln, one of the most influential presidents of our country, when he died the world kept turning. How about Tupac, possibly the greatest modern day Poet in my opinion, yep guess the world kept on keeping on didn't it. My point is, no matter how important you are, think you are, or un-important the world will just keep on trucking. Think about this, we have all lost loved ones. We have all grieved the loss, and we all remember them but we all had to keep on going with our lives. So then why is it people want to feel so important? I understand the wanting to feel loved, respected, etc! after about 5 minutes she calm down we can continue and I really do hope she gets past that soon Hachi is picking up on her habbit and I do not like it.

Speaking of Hachi, he is shedding so if you see a fat guy covered in white fur it could possibly be me........or one of them weirdos that dress up in animal costumes and have sex.......either way you probably do not want to hug me ;)

Hopefully I can get back to sleeping normally. Last few nights I have slept only 2-3 hours tops and not in a lump. It is still better than the complete insomnia spans I hit at times but I miss sleep.

That's about it for now, probably do another blog tomorrow
Dan

Toby Update Time

Toby has been doing good. Had issues with his stitches in a couple spots pulling out due to him flipping his ears around because he couldn't scratch the injury. It caused a lot more seepage and bleeding than I expected but still no puss or anything so I have been just cleaning it as best I can.

Well today I am glad to report it is looking WAY better. Most the scabing is gone, almost all the injured tissue has closed up even the hole they didn't think would. I took off his cone today for a while and he just seems so much more relaxed and happy, almost like a new Toby. I will be looking forward to getting him a real bath soon though as he is STINKY lol. In a couple days he will get the stitches out and then it will be just up to his fur to grow back for him to be normal again.

Thanks for every ones well wishes I appreciate it and I know Toby does too.

Today's activities and I Tried some stuff.....Details inside

Today I tried some trader joes bibimbop and trader joes tom yum soup, both were terrible. The bibimbop was just a mushy spicy mess. You could not even distinguish the ingredients and the flavors were just gone. The tom yum soup was so bad smelling I vomited (just a little). It looked like vomit and I couldn't even begin to describe the smell it was just plain terrible. Such disappointment!

Well enough about that failure, today was quiet mostly. Searched some jobs, walked the dogs, did some chores, did some reading and research for tomorrow etc.... Nothing exciting really.

Lisa did bring home some ear candles to use on me like a test rat. I tell you what it was fairly strange to experience. The sounds, the feeling of warmth, and the smells were all a bit interesting. The combination at first was pretty nerve racking but after settling in it actually was fairly relaxing. After we were done Lisa cut the remainder of the stems open to see what was inside. YUCK!!!! pretty nasty stuff. Not sure I would do it again but I will be doing more to keep my ears clean ;)

Tomorrow is Thursday and I will be having one meal substituting meat for tofu.  I think it will be some lemon tofu from pickup stix. I figure if I like the chicken version the tofu wont be much worst lol. Something else I will be trying tomorrow is some meditation. I read a article about it today and kinda tried it, tomorrow I will give it a real try, before I drink my coffee so maybe I can settle down and focus better........I am hoping some of you readers will have some advice on that front so feel free to comment below.

Oh yeah something else I found out today, Google tracks the blog reader IP/browser information to give you feedback on things like where your readers are  ruffly from, the browser they use, and if they come back more than once. Apparently I have a reader from Russia and another from England, not sure who that would be but I thought it was kinda interesting.

As always thanks for taking the time to read this....

Dan

Quality time: Reading, Listening, Loving it!

This afternoon has been pretty good.

Went to Trader Joes at Dos Lagos and found a new supremely good pear cider. It is called Ace California Perry Cider. Very smooth not overly sweet and great pear taste! Quite a surprise for a local cider brew here in beer country.

Next I took Hachi for a quiet walk.  He really is a pleasure to walk with when he is like he was today. He had been at the groomers then put on lockdown in the side yard for a while and both seemed to really make him appreciate his "Dad" time. Even now he is asleep on the couch snoring and enjoying some couch time under the ceiling fan. (I'm enjoying it too)

After our walk I was reading news articles and want adds for jobs while listening to music on Pandora. It is kinda funny but there are only a few things I have in common with my Mom's personality, but some times there just is no substitute for some music from the 60's and 70's. I was on the Creedence Clearwater channel and I swear there were zero songs I bypassed and that there is rare! Song after song I could hear my Mom humming along to, in my mind at least.

Now I am watching the movie "Ray" and , enjoying it. I have seen it a number of times, but some how I always missed the fact he moved to LA.  See you can learn something new every day lol.

Anyways I just wanted to share my thoughts on this afternoon now that the evening has started. Guess I should make some dinner, tonight will be salad, teryaki (spell check failed me here) chicken and fried rice........with another pear cider ;)

Thanks
Dan

What happened to good service, food, and price?

Tonight Lisa and I went to Carrows for dinner. The place was not that busy but they only had one server actually doing anything and he was slow at best. We order our food and nearly 30 minutes later we got luke warm food and our check. After our so so dinner we went to pay our check and wala a $4.95 descrepency. The cashier then prints out a new ticket and while the new ticket was correct the original one did not show that there was a $4.95 charge just for some canned strawberries on top of pancakes. I could have ordered the whole stack of them with the same topping for $5.99.............

The food was not hot, the service was minimal and the price was sadly high, Yes sir we wont be back there any time soon.

First Blog of 2012, Predictions, resolutions and such included!

First Blog Post Of 2012

Welcome to 2012!  So far it's been a good year, and I would like to keep it that way. Other than the noise of celebration waking the dogs up at midnight I slept pretty well and woke up this morning feeling fairly well. 

I think I need to kick in to a couple of them things people never follow through with, you know the new years resolutions stuff so I guess here are mine:

1: Eat better, By this I plan on trying more fish and tofu recipes. It can't hurt right

2: Get more exercise, Kinda self explanatory but all I am looking for with this is a increase in physical activity not really a gym blasting workout etc. I couldn't plan on that anyways. We all know I wouldn't do it ;)

3: Follow through with my dental care, I have one small cavity to get fixed and I would like to get my teeth cleaned again at least once this year. 

4: Stay in contact with the Family more, Last year it was sometimes months between contact with most of the family. That there is unacceptable. Memere would be appalled at how little time we spend as a family.

5: Find a Job doing something I can enjoy.........I need more thought on how to go about this one but its on the list so I don't just let it go.

Some predictions for the year:

1: Obama wins a second term.......(Not thrilled at the idea but the republicans all seem to be weak this time again)

2: Housing market still in the dumps but they will try and make it look like it has improved.

3: Unemployment improves slightly but mostly because the true numbers of unemployed people are not calculated to include everyone unemployed.

4: I will discover a food I like but never tried previously.

5: The fur Mob will change again, I like how it is now but I don't get to control that.

Anywho, I would like to say thanks to everyone for their part of 2011 and here is hoping 2012 is better!