Is it just me or is everybody else facing nightmarish traffic on the way to work this past month? I don’t know what the deal is but roads 50, 55, 60, 80 etc are all choked in the morning office rush and to make matters worse you have the usual bunch of idiots who try to run you off the road or drive on the pavement/emergency lanes.
Thankfully in some areas the police have setup cement barriers on the pavement and park their patrol cars near the intersection to deter this kind of driving.
If you were to sum up Amrit in one sentence, that would be ‘He was a nice guy’. Everyone who ever met him would always be won over by his sincere smile and enthusiasm for life and riding. I met him about 16 years ago when I was still riding my 12 speed bicycle and he would come rumbling in on a spotless Yamaha RD350.
At that time men with RD350s had superstar status and mostly acted like pricks towards us younger chaps who just had Kinetic Hondas or TVS Champs but Amrit was a real gentleman. He would let us sit on his prized RD and even take us out for a spin around the college campus. Years later he progressed into the realm of Superbikes and his experience and techniques grew exponentially but he was still the same ‘nice guy’. And that’s the way we should all remember Amrit Vikram, the nicest man I’ve ever met on an RD.
Fate took him away from his family and friends in a tragic motorcycle accident on October 15th 2010 but his memory will live on. Rest in peace my friend.
Update: you can contact his friend in Dubai thru the FB page thats been created: [link]
Update: From Joe
“With all due respects we ( friends/colleauges/realtives) have completed the all the formalities here in UAE.
Please be informed that, Amrit’s Mortal Remains is leaving from Dubai on Emirates flight EK522 ETD 21:45 to Trivandrum. ETA TRV Shall be 3.30 AM IST (19.10.2010).”
Last weekend on the drive to Fahaheel for the Enthiran movie, I was in the backseat of my friend’s car trying to get some decent long exposure shots of traffic lights. Unfortunately due to a weak tripod/mounting area most of the frames were badly shaken up and unusable. I didn’t want all those shots to go to waste so I used the Stopmotion editor in my camera to make a short film.
If you’re not familiar with the process here’s a summary on what to do;
In ‘Retouch Menu’ select ‘Stopmotion movie’. Select start frame and end frame and then save movie. The camera processes the frames and generates an AVI file as output. The stopmotion editor has a limit of 100 frames so I was only able to make a short video and I set the FPS to 6 so the clip has a duration under 17 seconds. In future I might combine two or three clips using Virtuaub or other video editors and see if I can make a short stopmotion movie.
A couple of the frames that were decent and without shakes.
Xbhp is an online forum of bikers started by a few motoring enthusiasts and it has come a long way since its creation sometime in 2004 or 2005. I used to be a regular on the forums at the time as I was an avid biker and never missed an opportunity to log some miles on my bike on a nice weekend.
This is the first issue of their magazine and it looks very good! The pages are of a very high quality unseen on my regular magazines like Overdrive or Bike India. It also comes with a DVD containing two documentaries; ‘Superbiking in Khardung La’ and ‘The great Italian Bike trip’. Not bad for 80 Rupees.
Last weekend I took my car to Super Service again to get the carpets and AC vents properly cleaned out. I think the last time I went there was sometime in April or May and since I don’t drive with the windows down in summer the interiors weren’t too dusty. One of the reasons I keep coming to this place is coz they pay a little more attention to details than at my previous place near TrueValue, on the same street. They wipe and spray all the plastic bits on your sill and door to get rid of the scuff marks from your shoes.
They operate on a moving assembly line kinda setup and it doesn’t take very long for one set of mechanics to finish their job and move onto the next one. The waiting room is neat and has snack machines and coffee and there’s a viewing area so that you can follow the progress on your car service. I never noticed a separate ladies room before so maybe its new or I didn’t see it last time.
One thing I’ve noticed this time is that they’ve increased their cleaning and vacuuming charge from 2.5 KD to 3 KD but I guess its still worth it since I only do this a few months apart.
Super Service is located in Al Rai, if you take the right turn on 4th Ring Road before Al Ghanim you’ll see it on your right.
This summer I noticed a few people had trouble with the rear-view mirror on their windshields coming off coz of the extreme temperatures. My dad was one of them and I found out that fixing the mirror back was surprisingly easy. I asked the mechanic at our neighborhood garage what kind of glue I needed and he informed me that any brand of super-glue will work just fine. So the next few steps is what I learned from him.
Step 1: Clean the contact surfaces of the mirror mount and windshield and remove the previous layer of glue completely. You can use a key or a screwdriver to chip it off.
Step2: Apply a thin layer of glue along the edge of the contact patch and also a little spot in the middle. Now carefully align it to the middle of the patch on the windshield and press down. Hold your hand on the mirror to support its weight for a minute or so.
Step 3: Leave the glue to cure and you can stick some scotch tape across the mirror mount so that its weight does not stress the glued points. The glue should be completely hardened in a few minutes.
Some jerk keeps dumping the contents of his ash tray near my car everyday. These are pictures taken on two different days. Thankfully our parking building always has cleaners moving about so its gone in about half an hour. I hope they have CCTV coverage in the parking to see who does this.
This is what greeted my eyes when I walked to my car this morning. No, its not my car but it was parked outside my building. Wheel theft seems to be on the rise in some parts now and hub caps too. My friend was shocked to see all 4 hub caps of his GMC Envoy were missing one morning.
I checked a few forums online and the most preferred deterrent against wheel theft seems to be Lock Nuts or Wheel Locks. They’re special nuts with a specific pattern on them that can be unlocked only by its key. You install one nut on each wheel and this prevents the thief from removing your wheel from the hub. Has anyone installed them on their cars? I’d like to know if this stuff is as good as it claims.
The boys are back with another season of motoring madness! Each year they promise themselves they’re going to get more serious and focus on sensible everyday cars for everyday people… but this is Top Gear and sensible isn’t really in their vocabulary. The latest season has started off with a bang and it just keeps on getting better.
Top Gear website [link]
The Toy Room
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