Muffler Prices

So I went muffler shopping today, as our Maxima is quite loud right now. :) I wasn't sure if I was going to take it to a shop, or just buy parts and do it myself. So here are the prices I got. (Note: These are for the exact same parts, with almost identical warranties)

Parts and Labor at Shops
Muffler Shop #1 (Meineke): $330.21
Muffler Shop #2 (Monro): $788.26

Parts Only
Parts Shop #1 (Napa): $269 (+tax)
Parts Shop #2 (Advanced Auto): $343.98 (+tax)

So how is it that these prices are so different?! More then twice the price for driving 500 feet down the road? And how can the parts be so different? They had the same part numbers out of the same catalog, and they were still just about $75 apart!

So I guess the moral of the story is to shop around. Or maybe it is go to Meineke. You pick the moral I guess, I am just going to go to Meineke.

More of Bryce

People were asking for more pictures of Bryce so I thought I would throw something up here.

URL Change

Blog URL is http://blog.shawngoertzen.com. The old address should still work though, it will just forward you to this address.

Railings

Worked on getting railings up on the playhouse this weekend. They still need a few more screws in place, but for the most part they are up and working.

Before:

After:

Party!

Kyla and I went to a birthday party for her friend Emily yesterday. It was held at the gymnastics place near us. Kyla had a great time running around and playing on all of the equipment.

In the video below Kyla "helping" Emily open the gift she brought.

(This is also doubling as me testing attaching videos to blog posts.)

More Kyla pictures

Kyla decided to wear her hat today.

Rock star in bloom

Grandparents came by and brought Kyla some new sunglasses. She likes them quite a bit. :)

Family++

Welcome Bryce Everett Goertzen!

Online Presence

The other day I decided I wanted to have a better online presence. I came to this conclusion after googling my name, and saw that someone else's facebook page was the top result. Being Mr. Ultracompetitive, I could not stand to be second on the list.

This got me thinking about privacy and how much information I wanted online. I know quite a few people who use an alias for their blog, or don't tie their LinkedIn profile to their facebook profile, as they want to keep these two aspects of their life separate. After thinking about this, I believe it is futile to try and do this. A smart person with enough time is still going to be able to tie the pieces together and figure out what they want to know. Plus there is so much information on you already out there that is out of your control (public government records, etc.), it seems pointless to try and hide what you did this last weekend.

So I decided to go the other way with my sites. I am linking all the pages together, and letting people freely flow from one to the other. This includes my professional information (LinkedIn.com), my extra curricular activities (Meetup.com), my gaming (Steam profile and AggroLAN), my projects website (www.shawngoertzen.com) and my blog. So if anyone stumbles onto any of these, they will easily be able to find all the information I have shared. Since I believe people can find the information out anyway, why not tie everything together.

I also don't care of people know a lot about me. Is it going to affect me at all if you know I live in Cuyahoga Falls? Or that I have cats and kids? Or that I like video games and volleyball? It just doesn't seem to matter to me if people know all of this about me. And by know that everything I post will be accessable to everyone, I just have to be aware not to say that my gaming friends are idiots, as I know they could potentially be reading this.

So if you don't know me yet, explore the sites and be entertained (all the links are in the left column). Check out my gaming scores, or what I did at my last job. It doesn't matter to me. Hopefully it will just allow people to know me better, and strike up an (online) conversation with me, with whatever items they can relate to.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think.

Shawn

Urban Jungle

Wesley hiding in the under brush, waiting to attack.

Garden

I spent most of Saturday working outside installing a border for the new garden. Doesn't look like much yet, but hopefully we will have some nice vegetables growing in there soon.

Green Tea Amp

My new addiction

Robot of Doom

He is coming to invade your home!

Do you know how hard it is to build something with the large blocks? Those things do NOT want to stay together.