Tires, Laptops, and Surgery

Well, I've put over 4200 Miles on the Bandit since putting her on the road. The problem is that she now has balding tires. They may have a run or two to work left in them, but they didn't do so well on the last one, so I've garaged her for now. I've been debating on whether to buy Michelin's Pilot Road 2s or Shinko's 009 Ravens. I can get the Ravens for 185.48 (front and rear), but the Michelin's will cost about 290.00. Thats over a 100 dollars more for the Michelins. Now, reports from BanditAlley.net, and other places have given the Ravens good marks, people getting 8 to 9 thousand miles from them. The Pilot Road 2s are showing up at around 10K.



At 8000 miles that would be $.02 a mile for the Shinkos. At 10,000 miles, that would be $.03 per mile for the Michelin's. Now, considering that the Michelins may not last 10K, and we back down to 9K for conservative figures that would put us at 3 cents a mile. The kicker is that $118 dollar mount and balance fee both America's Motorsports on Nolensville Rd, and Precision Yamaha in Mt. Juliet will charge. The shorter the distance between tread changes the more often I have to pay that, the longer the distance, even if its only 1000 miles, the less often I have to pay that. Then I realize its probably not going to make that much difference, I'll probably wind up at least once every year buying tires. The question then becomes do I go for the Shinkos or Michelin's and the only differential at this point that matters is distance and price. The question is do I want to skemp on price for now, and save up for later, or do I want to spend the extra $$$ and get the extra 1 to 2K. Right now I'm seriously leaning toward the Shinkos to save that 100 dollars.

I'll let ya'll know what I come up with.

On another note, Ardent got into the Christmas in July spirit, and the guys on my teams have new laptops. Its amazing, but for the first time in my IT career I have a laptop that is more powerful than any desktop or laptop I have at home!! Now, way back St. T issued me a C640 Dell. While it was very flexible, and decently powered and my first experience with a laptop that worked, I did have a desktop at home that would run circles around it. I mention that laptop because up to this point it remains the best machine I have worked with all around. I hope that this new box replaces the C640 in reliability and likeability, and so far so good.

Note number 3. My daughter had surgery yesterday to close up a hole in her ear. I mention this in the hopes that some soul right with God will pray that over the next 2 weeks the graft takes. This is the third time with this ear, and Its really beginning to get her down. At 10 years old she can't swim, or splash around in the front yard like the other kids, and it breaks my heart. It's bad enough that she has acid reflux, and can't eat the foods she likes, and to have this on top of that is more than just an annoyance.

I know, I know, and I do thank God every day that things are not worse. I try to keep this in perspective because otherwise she is a very smart and healthy child. I've been blessed with two of the most wonderful kids God could hand out, and I don't want to take that for granted. However, I hate to see her get depressed about her hearing and balance. Another reason I'd like for this to be successfull is that the operations are very expensive, and its getting hard to get them paid for. God has provided, and I don't doubt that He'll provide again. But I think this is getting to her as well, she knows these things are expensive, and hates to think that the money is getting wasted when the surgery doesn't work.