Travels and Engagements

So the wife and I found a car that we were interested in buying a couple of weeks ago on Craigslist. Its a hard to find car, 2003 Infiniti M45: black interior, black exterior, fully loaded, low miles. So we started to move forward with our purchase and worked out a figure to purchase the car at. The only PROBLEM is that the car was in Portland, OR and we live Salt Lake City, UT. I've flown out to purchase cars before, but have yet to have a smooth transaction and transportation of the purchased car. I decided to give it another shot and I bought the plan ticket, arranged pick up of the new (to me) Infiniti.

I flew out Friday, 5.28.10 at 8:45am, smooth check through security, got to the gate quick, boarding ran like a well oiled machine. After take-off flying over the Great Salt Lake we hit the worst turbulence that I've experienced in my life and I had flash backs of the flight attendant saying, "the bottom seat cushion can be used as a flotation device..." I noticed that the lake was much smaller than I thought and that it was segmented off in natural colored sections, turquoise sections, and magenta colored sections, weird. I'm assuming this is for salt mining? Shut the sun out of my 5x7 windowsince the flight was early in the morning that I was still tired and as the turbulence subsided, the sleep arrived. I woke up about 10 minutes before landing to a gloomy sky and more turbulence. Worst landing ever (but I hear the plane bouncing on landing at PDX is common), but the gate seemed like it was straight ahead after we touched down so I was off the plan it 10 minutes.

Went to meet the Jeff (private car seller) and the pick up area and laid my eyes on my new car! It ran better than he stated and I made the purchase! Hooked up my GPS and radar detector and started my way back to Utah. The area around Portland was really green and a great change from the Utah scenic routes. I was warned by lots of people that Oregon cops are quick to write a ticket, but I never ran into any problems. I passed into Idaho and was about 40 miles outside of Boise, ID when the car sputtered and went dead while cruising at 80MPH around 7pm on Friday. I pull to the side to evaluate whats going on and try to restart the car and nothing! So turned the car off, called the wife gave her the bad news. I turned the key to the on-mode without starting and amazingly the gas tank went from half tank to below 'E.' After the tow truck arrived (with gas) I went on to Boise and just booked a room at the Double Tree by the Boise River to recoop.

Made it home by 3pm on Saturday, 5.29.10 with the new car in time to still enjoy my Memorial Day weekend! Without any tickets, accidents, or hiccups; well other than running outta gas!

Just thought I would drop some advice for reducing tooth decay today. Here are a few simple steps that can possibly save you thousands on dental expenses. First I have to note the disclaimer first, LOL:
The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. We endeavor to keep the information up-to-date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. It is recommended that you speak with a professional to ensure that any application of the information on this site is good for you and your situation.

Now that the legal jargon is out of the way, let's get into it. First off, tooth decay is actually a disease cause by bacterial metabolism. The bacteria consume sugar, and produce acid as a by product. This acid eats away at the enamel and eventually the teeth causing dental caries most commonly cavities. Now that we understand this situation, let's figure out how we can protect ourselves from this acidic incursion.

The first thing I would advise is reducing sugar intake(thanks, Captain Obvious). If the bacteria do not have a food supply (or minimal food supply). Then metabolism and acid production is minimized as well. Secondly, if you're addicted to sugar like most Americans, I would recommend supplementing the sugar with an all natural sugar substitute that's actually great for your tooth and mat reduce the risk of tooth decay all together! Xylitol is just as sweet as sugar and is a 1:1 replacement. Xylosweet, made by Xlear, is an all natural 100% xylitol sweetener contains nothing else unlike most other sweeteners.

For more information on Xylitol please visit Xylitol.org and Xlear.com

Good Afternoon All! I was reading over some new dental information released recently and came across something I HAD to talk about! Its called Triclosan, you may or may not have heard of it. Its typically found in household cleaners as an antibacterial agent and a dental study recently bragged about its antibacterial characteristics for mouths. Sounds like a good thing right? Wrong, I did a little research on this stuff and evidence has mounted that it is contaminating people and the environment, and could result in a new breed of deadly 'super bugs' (bacteria capable of resisting antibiotics). The environmental regulatory agencies in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark have all voiced concern about the chemical. And the United Kingdom is having it removed from their shelves indefinitely. Canada is currently working on getting legislation passed to have it removed as well.
Now let's weigh in on the all natural alternative, Xylitol. Xylitol comes from cornstalks and birch trees and has been around for over 100 years, you may recognize it as one of the ingredients in your chewing gum. Xylitol helps prevent cavities in two ways. The first, it prevents the acid producing bacteria(that break down tooth enamel) from adhering to the teeth. As a result the bacteria move down the digestive tract and out of the body. The second, the bacteria that remain try to ingest the Xylitol, but get indigestion (for lack of a better term), and some starve as a result.
I've read some concerns about Xylitol being 'toxic for dogs, so what's it doing to me' scenarios. Since it seems to be publicized more and more, I'll address this as well. Dog's livers aren't 'built' to process sugar alcohols like Xylitol, consequently they may go into hypoglycemic shock as their body pours insulin into their blood stream to manage the five carbon sugar alcohol. A simple analogy is that dog's digestive tracts cannot handle the variety of items that we consume just as we cannot eat the same things that they consume.
So it looks like this was a 'knock-out' fight with Xylitol as the Xlear(clear, the industry's known Xylitol Expert) winner.

Today I was in invited to take a few at shots at Lenni's and Lexi's birthday party out in West Jordan. A beautiful Spring Sunday made for a great setting : ]

I came across this new video that is finally moving the aspartame carcinogen link from 'urban legend' status to a clinically researched and PhD supported theater. This long overdue! In addition to being in all those addictive sodas (which I don't drink anyway : ]), aspartame has also been added to a number a sugar free gums claiming to clean your mouth because they have Xylitol in them. Spry gum by Xlear is the only Xylitol gum with an effective amount of Xylitol in it. Not only that Spry gum does NOT contain ANY aspartame. So next time you want to 'keep your dirty mouth clean' reach for the all natural, aspartame-FREE, Spry gum. If you aren't very familiar with Xylitol checkout Xylitol.org.

A couple weekends back my partners and I had a booth at the Autorama car show for our motorsports company Drift Enterprise here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I got some decals thrown: Xlear, Inc., Crazy Car Ads, Lash Couture, Lush Extensions, and Drift Enterprise on about 2 hours before the doors closed for vendors, then had to drive the Nissan about 10 miles in the sleet/snow. I made it in the door (car dripping with road grime) and made it just in time for all the classic car owners to mumble some unwelcoming words. As I entered the building with my car on my way to our motorsports display booth by transmission wouldnt go in gear (talk about embarrassing). Although it wasnt a surprise since I had a few transmission problems occuring over the last couple of months.
So we finally pushed it to the booth only to realize that we had to parallel park(pushing) this car that has a welded differential and super wide tires. After we stopped whining, we started pushing and pretty much gave up after about 20 minutes of Austin Power's like maneuvering. So we decided to just pull the front bumper off and use a floor jack to pull the front of the car in a lil more to line up with the back end. Long story short(or is it too late, lol), we got the car in and the display setup.

I write this blog as a means of venting thoughts on politics, rants, the environment, occasional frustrations, cars, and just random stuff. Sit back hold on and prepare to be entertained...Woke up this morning to the sun gently brushing my face through the roman style blinds. I hope the upper pillow ball mounts would come in today, but realistically, I know its not going to happen. As evaluated my list of things to do for the day I could help but recall the anxiety of my open schedule. It made me wonder if the structured and extra productive life is what I needed. If I dont a full agenda how productive or efficient can I really be? After I finished marinating in that evaluation for a lil bit I decided to work on my wife's car for an hour so. Just enough time to figure out whats going on with the cooling system and the remedy for it. Since I already started working on her car I figured I would wash mine after since its been about 2 months since the last was. But hey, its only gets driven maybe three days a month and just sits in the garage the other twenty seven to twenty eight days. As I was getting ready to attach my steering (yes its detachable) I thought, when is the next time that I'm going drive this old thing anyway? After about ten minutes I can to the conclusion that its pretty much put away until the spring time except for the photoshoots from time to time. In all reality, this car wash is going to be the last one til about April.
My ankles still aching from yesterday's soccer excursion with lil brothers and sisters I expertly execute the home car wash thing while the baby plays in her octagon play pen. I wanted to go to the charity car wash today, but the babysitter or lack there of cancelled that plan.