As promised. Here are some pictures.

As promised, here are some pictures I took of the propane turbo snowmobile in development.  This is the Arctic Cat that I believe he developed it on before going to the Yamaha.  I honestly have no details on this kit.  If people want details I can call him up and ask.  But I don’t think they even went to production with this version.  As far as I know they only produced the Yamaha version.  Again, I think these are being sold as Simmons Propane turbo kits.  Not sure what happened to the HP^3 concept.

Propane tank for the tubo kit

Had to post this video

So I was cruising around on youtube and who should be yapping at me?  My dad. hehehe

This is a video of the Simmons propane turbo kit.  My dad is the one that developed this kit.  IIRC, my dad (Steve Benson), Val Simmons, and Brad Story got together an formed a company called HP^3.  Dad was the idea guy,Val was the distributor, and Brad was the publicity guy.  Now keep in mind I of course was not involved at all and may have it a little wrong.  Plus it was a couple years ago.

So dad made the turbo and propane kits.  I believe Brad had someone he knows make the propane tanks that fit under a custom seat.  I’m not sure what Val did on these.  Maybe he made the clutch weights or ported the engines or something.  The turbos my dad used on these are a Tommy Makinen edition Mitsubishi Evolution turbo.  I will see if I can dig up some old pictures I took of this kit when it was first being developed.

Well here is the video.  Hopefully I can find some pictures for you also:

2nd Amendment T-Shirt

So my wife found this shirt.  It’s pretty awesome.  Slightly see-through in the right light.  Pro-American.  What’s not to like?

2nd Amendment Shirt

If you want one, you can get them HERE

Another new toy (my wife is awesome)

Well, next Tuesday is my birthday.  So my wife ordered me a new toy.  She can’t stand to wait on things like that so of course as soon as I got home from my business trip to Couer d’Alene Idaho she gave it to me.  I had a pretty good idea what it was, but she got me the super pimp version which I wasn’t expecting.

It’s a Gamo Whisper VH (Varmint Hunter).  It’s a .177 caliber pellet gun that has a sounds suppression unit on the end of the barrel.  And being the VH version, it comes with a 3-9×40 scope with full duplex reticle, a laser sight, and a flashlight.  The laser and flashlight can either use an on/off button that comes with them or you can choose to use the provided remote switches which you hold down with your fingers.  I chose the remote switches to save battery life.

Gamo Whisper Varmint Hunter full side view

Better view of scope

Close-up of scope (made by BSA)

The Gamo Whisper is a break barrel design which means you only pump it once and you do this by using the barrel and a lever.  It has a composite stock that is a thumb hole variant.  It fits me OK, but not great.  It definitely designed for younger smaller kids than me.

Some of the other nice features it includes are: bright neon fiber optic sights with hood on the front sight and windage and elevation adjustment on the rear sight.  The barrel is made of a composite with a steel rifled insert.  The barrel is fluted.  The entire gun is light enough to be easily handled, but not feel cheap.  It also comes with 50 rounds of Gamo Raptor ammo.  These shoot very well, but unfortunately are the most expensive of the ammo I tested so far.

Ammo:  So the Gamo Raptor shoots very consistent and with very good velocity.  Next best I tested was Gamo Magnum 7.87gr ammo.  It was consistent but shot high and right of the Raptor ammo.  Next was the Crossman premium grade ammo.  It did not shoot consistently and was typically left of where the Raptor stuff shot.  Finally there was the Daisy precision Max ammo.  Avoid it at all cost.  At 25 yards I was lucky to even get it to hit the paper target.  And every shot sounded like a miss-fire.  Absolute shit ammo.  Luckily it was also the cheapest so it’s no big loss to just throw it away.

Lori with her Walther P22 at the range

Well, we finally got to take Lori’s new gun to the range today.  I was surprised by her Walther P22.  When we bought it, she liked it so we got it.  I personally didn’t like the feel.  It was way too small for my hand.  So small it felt like a toy.

Before we bought it, we heard of problems with round ejection.  We were told you had to use high end high velocity ammo for it to work properly.  That kind of defeats the purpose of buying a .22 unless it’s for competition.  So I got some Federal 550 round box generic stuff.  It worked flawlessly.  Not a single jam or any other kind of ejection problem.

I only had 2 complaints about the gun.  1- The sight blow assholes.  After shooting my Steyr with the trapezoidal sights or whatever they call them, I hate anything else besides a scope.  2- If my .40 can hold 12 rounds, a .22 should be able to hold at least 20.

But overall, it shot well.  Accurate, fast, trouble free.  If you can tolerate the sights and the feel of it’s tiny frame, then I would definitely recommend one to anyone that wants a .22 handgun.

And just for good measure, here is a cell phone shot of her (nice shirt huh) showing off her gun:

Holy Update Batman

So since my last post a lot has happened:

1- We had our new baby girl.  She came a few weeks early and had a little bit of a rough start.  But she has been doing great.  The rough start was actually caused by douche bag doctors not wanting to be sued so they too too many unnecessary precautions resulting in a 5 day long NICU stay.  All for no reason whatsoever.  I have bitched and bitched about this stuff to family and friends.  So I’m done.  We got a beautiful little girl out of it.  And she looks just like me.  Only more girly.  I hope.  I will post pics, just don’t have much here and due to the #2 part of the post, I will have to wait a bit.

2- My laptop died.  I had a Dell 1550 (I think that’s what it was).  I have had it for about 4 years, maybe more.  And it finally kicked the bucket.  She was a good computer, but luckily I already had my eye one something a bit newer, lighter, sleeker, and faster.  So I ordered a Dell Studio 15.  Basically it’s like the more expensive XPS laptops, only it’s cheaper.  Tangerine orange, 3GB RAM, Core 2 duo 2.0 ghz, 320 GB HD, DVD-R, etc…  It just shipped today, should have it first thing next week.  Pics are coming.

3- We went and bought Lori a handgun.  She has never shot a handgun before so I told her I would get her a .22 so we could afford for her to fire a few thousand rounds through it before we got her a more serious gun.  She was fine with that plan, she just thinks it makes her look like a bad-ass wearing it.  I had her feel a bunch of guns.  First was the Walther P22, then the SIG Mosquito.  She liked the P22 the most, it  doesn’t fit my hand well at all, but I do love the look of it.  I made her go to another store to check out some other options.  One was a S&W, another a Browning.  She didn’t think either of those looked like real guns.  So I got her the P22 in all black.  When we got home, I ordered her a paddle holster off ebay for $20.  Don’t have it yet.  But like everything else in this post, pics are coming.

4- At work, we ordered a new ROMER Stinger IIi CMM arm which should be shipping next week.  It’s a pretty sweet carbon fiber and aluminum piece.  I won’t bore you all with the details, but we have high hopes for cool designs I can make using it.  For those that have no idea what a CMM arm is for, you basically use it to measure things that are almost impossible to measure without one.  So like the arcs that make up a front bumper or the contour of a door, etc…

5- To go along with #4, my work got me a freakin’ sweet laptop.  It’s a Core 2 duo 2.5 ghz, 2GB RAM, 512MB GeForce MX770M video, etc…  I did some benchmark tests on it.  And it is about 40% faster than my desktop at work.  It’s a Dell M4400 workstation.  Even as awesome as it is, it’s still lighter than my old dead laptop.

6- I got a new guide rod and spring for my Steyr M40-A1.  I went with the polished stainless rod rather than the black oxide finished version to add a little bling.  The stock rod is black plastic.  And it works fine.  But you can feel the action is a bit smoother with the new rod.  I am hoping the gun is a bit less picky on ammo now.  It wasn’t bad before, but the rounds I like the feel of the most (Remington JHP 165gr) would occasionally jam up.  Can’t be having my home defense gun jam up on me when I’m killin’ me some criminals.  I got the rod from a guy that calls himself BigTaco.  It uses a factory spring which he installs for you.  I paypaled him the money and 2 days later, had the rod in the mail.  It was easy to install, feels great, only cost $40, and should be more durable than stock.  I’m happy…  Again, pics are coming…

7- I ordered a CCW holster for my Steyr.  I was  told leather is the most comfortable, so that’s what I got.  It’s a custom hand made black leather holster from a place called JMG Holsters.  Going to take another 2 months to get that bad boy.  Probably get it about when I get my CCW permit.

8- From what I have read, it appears, Barrack Hussein Obama is a dipshit with known ties to terrorists, a radical Muslim background, probably not even born in the US, and hates the constitution and everything it stands for.  For the first time ever, I have been honestly afraid for our country’s future, because I think he may win.

Redline Time Attack and family marriage

So a bunch of guys from work are going to Buttonwillow Raceway in California this weekend for the season opener of the Redline Time Attack series.  I was planning on being there as support crew and truck driver for a couple of the cars.  But instead I need to go to a wedding.  We will have our new Cobb Tuning R35 GTR in stock form with professional driver Gary Sheehan driving.  We will also have the new 2008 STi out there in Cobb stage 2 form.  So stage 2 power and suspension with bigger wheels and tires.  I believe Chris Lock will be driving that car for ride along to give customers and idea how cool our products are.  Then comes the EVO X.  Unfortunately, it will be pretty stock other than wheels and tires.  But I guess it doesn’t matter for a ride along.  Next is the 2007 MazdaSpeed3 with Cobb stage 3 power and stage 2 suspension.  Billy Brooks (our other engineer) will be driving this car in the time attack.  His competition has at least one slow guy.  The other one is rather an unknown threat.

Now, as I said, I am not able to go.  Instead I am going to my dad’s wedding.  I’m not sure what to think about it.  He first met her about a month ago.  I really hope she keeps making him as happy as he thinks he is right now.

I wish I would have some cool pictures to report back from Redline with.  But maybe I will have some boring wedding photos for you instead.

Update on the new one

Well, we just got back from a trip to Florida. We took Will to the Animal Kingdom, Downtown Disney, & Daytona Beach. I think his favorite things were the swimming pool at the condo and a water fountain he played in for 45 minutes at Animal Kingdom in the Asian section. He loves water. Well, long story short, Florida is stupid expensive and it was kind of cold.

Now the good update… Ultrasound today says our new family member is going to be a girl. Her name right now is planned to be Addison Taylor Benson. That could change, but probably won’t.

New one

So we have a new baby coming. It is due 8/26/08. We just had an ultrasound a couple days ago.It was just a down syndrome test. All was normal. We still do not know the sex. I am hoping for a girl. Lori thinks it’s a boy. And of course, the picture reveals nothing. Here is a facial profile shot: