Matt Matteson

Sunday I made it to the 9:30 service, after stopping for some gas to help keep my VW tires on the ice, and not into a curb. After church my parents went with their friends to the Broncos game, I on the other hand just had an open schedule. I tried to find someone to head to lunch with, but no, Ben W had band practice, Josh H had to pick up a friend from the airport, Danielle had to baby sit. I found myself driving home after, but not after detouring to the Clement Park many parking lots. In the lots I taught my self some snow driving. Friday night I had reserved some EV Sonic XS 2.1 speakers, so today I decided to go pick them up. (Reserved them at CompUSA in highlands ranch, about 20ish minute drive.) I talked Pat C into crusin with me up there. I surprised him with my BOOM in the bug.

On the way home from church I had realized why father was pushing me to fix the window spray tube earlier this year. The dirty snow and road dirt gets thrown onto my window, water dries leaving only a dirt remain, making it quite hard to see. To prepare for this 20 minute drive, on the highway, knowing this I filled up a water bottle. At Pat’s I got out and sprayed some on the window with the wipers going. We had to play that trick quite a few times.

Picked up the speakers and on the way back Pat demonstrated how I can use my water bottle system while driving on the highway. He was only able to clean his side, but it was still quite entertaining.

(more about the window spray in the bug)
Now see, this should be easy to fix. In the bug, attached to the spare tire’s valve is a tube that runs to the top of a reservoir filled with window washer fluid, bottom of that reservoir is a tube that runs to the spray valve in front of the window. When I push the little button in the cabin it is supposed to open the valve, and the pressure from the spare tire is to push the fluid out. Oh, but put 30+ years on a tube, we find a major leak. The result: if you leave it plugged in, all the fluid is pushed out by the spare tire’s pressure, then all of the spare tire’s air leaks out. Spare tire or window washer for a day?
I returned home and setup the speakers. They are killer, I tore down my previous 6 speaker setup and replaced them with these beats.

Here are 3 reviews I agree with:
IMG Review: EV SonicXS 2.1
Gear: EV SonicXS 2.1 Review
GameZone.com - EV SonicXS 2.1 Review - PC Game

We now have successfully installed two 12″ subs, into my 1969 VW bug. Wow does it rumble.

Now the sad part, is Matt D and I started on this last night, and I ended the night blowing 3 fuses and we called it a night at like 11:30 PM. Well after buying real cables (not ones I made), and working on the thing for about 8 hours with help from Kevin, Dad, and Matt D, we try the amp in Matt D’s car, and it blows his fuses. We then realize the amp is a goner. Not happy to give up, we went in and had some popcorn and hot cocoa and I tore apart the amp. To my surprise it looked like on the motherboard (ok, it felt like a small computer for me) had a major gab in the solder because of my bad choice of testing the power Friday night. I went and found the soldering iron and put a good blob on there. We finished our cocoa and went out, and propped everything up. (I made Kevin and Matt D wait until I found the fire extinguisher and read it’s guide on the side before we fired up.) To my amazement, my crap solder job fixed the amp! We then went back in and put the 50 screws back and reset the amp into it’s case. Put the whole thing in decent place. It didn’t work when we went to the power antenna jack on my deck, so we had to test and find a cable in my bug that provided 12v only when the ignition was on. After working on it, we had it thumping by 11:20.

The thing is amazing, the passenger cabin is really small and the speakers are right there, so it really really booms! Pictures by tomorrow!

This is not only to the horribly scary winter weather today. It snowed about 4″ during like 10:30 AM - 12 AM, and then had just light flakes since. Visibility was like 500 yards at 11 AM. We tried to take the Safari to go get a box of 25 ‘25′ fuses, and I got her stuck while trying to do a U-turn on my hill to get off my street. =-0

After another unsavory day at school I find myself at the doors of another weekend.

Matt D stopped by to pick up my snow board he is borrowing this weekend. I then went with he and Greg M to Car Toys to check out some subs for Greg. Well Greg left a poor man, as he spend $681, and I left chatting w/ Matt about a deal. Matt has 2 12″ Subs, an amp, and a box, and he’s the 5th owner of them. He has since put in a similar to greg’s $650 (soon to be) setup, and has these 12s sitting in his garage. I am hoping for like super cheap, maybe for all the geek help I have performed for him. He is asking like $100. I think it would be killer in the bug.

Speaking of in car stereo, I have an extra PC I am pondering to turn into a carputer. Put a 120GB drive in it, a cleaned up BSD distro on it, and put it to the 1/8″ jack in my bug. Later I could add a GPS receiver and a small LCD. We’ll see.

I also just discovered there is a Guster concert tonight, but yah, sucks for me. It starts in like 3 hours, and everyone I know I would care to go with (and they care to go) are already going. (And I am all to good at inviting myself.) So yah, maybe I will go lay on the couch, put on my headphones, and have a concert for myself.

Oh, and the forums are taking off! Don’t miss out, stop by!

After school I stayed in Science to make up two quizzes I missed while in Boston. So the first one went quite well, now the second one Mr Friezen gave me orally, and yah. After getting to #8, of 10, he took my paper and put it in the trash and said come back when I am ready to take that quiz. =-p whoops.

After that, and a few minutes at home. Mike picked me up to go stop by a car dealership with him. We then went to The Turning Point’s band practice and recorded a little bit. We got bored and left.

Came to my house, and watched last weeks survivor (I was in Boston), ate dinner (Pizzia), and watched tonight’s survivor. see here