The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.

The wisdom of the day is brought to you by Sam Singh

A black convertible Mustang with the ROUSH Stage 1 conversion and rims that scream “LOOK AT ME” coupled with rich red leather interior shouldn’t be lacking anything in styling. One look at her and I am sure you would agree. I just see things a little different them most. I see the car with Black Red and White (and that annoying yellow corner that will be addressed another day). I also see through the rims and notice the gun metal grey calipers hidden within. The calipers absolutely HAD to be painted red to bring out the accents in the interior, side reflector and that beautiful ROUSH badge.

Obviously the first step to any project is to make sure you have all the tools. I stopped by NAPA and grabbed everything I needed for about $40. The Paint itself is only about 20 bucks but I picked up a set of jack stands for some added piece of mind.

Resources Needed
Dupli-Color High Performance Caliper Paint
Detail Brush
Wire Brush
Jack / Jack Stand
Basic tools for tire removal
6 pack of Sam Adams
A better paint brush
Painters Tape

Obviously the first thing you need to do is jack up the car, remove the tire and place the jack stand. Now that you have the caliper right in front of you, liberally spray it with the break cleaner included with the Dupli-Color Caliper Paint kit. Scrub it down good with the wire brush and detail brush. Use an old towel to wipe it down and help remove the break dust. It is always good to drop some cardboard under your work area (like you needed a reminder). Be careful not to scrub the rubber protectors that surround the pistons for the caliper. Once this is done simply tape around the area you are about to paint. The tape they give you in th Caliper Painter kit is narrow and small. I suggest using that for the tight place and use standard painters tape for the rest.

Now for the easy part. Paint the calipers with the paint. Sounds easy right? It is. The paint is thick and dries real fast. You can get 2 coats on before even switching to the next tire. One major tip. DO NOT USE THE PAINT BRUSH SUPPLIED WITH THE DUPLI-COLOR CALIPER PAINT KIT. The brush is cheep and you will be going insane pulling out the tiny bristles it leaves behind. Play safe and trash it immediately.

Take your time and the results will be well worth it. If you don’t want to paint the back of the calipers then you can cut that corner. No one is going to see the back of them anyway. All in all each caliper took approximately 45 minutes. Check out the results.

Pete from McAdams Cars was right. The red calipers look awesome with that ROUCH badge!

Music can be all things to all persons. It is like a great dynamic sun in the center of a solar system
which sends out its rays and inspiration in every direction….
Music makes us feel that the heavens open and a divine voice calls.
Something in our souls responds and understands.

-Leopold Stokowski

The Wisdom of the Day is brought to you by Sam Singh

The creatures that inhabit this earth–be they human beings or animals–are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Thank you Sam Singh!

McAdams Car Dealership in West Allis WI

Let me start by saying that I have spent the last 2 years browsing for my dream car on Cars.com, AutoTrader.com and CarMax.com. I have been wanting a convertible Mustang since I was 15 years old. This car has eluded me for the last 18 years. I thought I had found my dream car last August but decided my marriage was more important. That being said, my lovely wife promised we could look into getting the car in February of 2008 (2 years earlier then she promised me over 5 years ago).

Right before we left for vacation, I found my dream car again. This car had almost every modification I wanted to make to my Mustang over the years. The only problem was the price. It was way lower then I was expecting. I did see price reductions on the convertibles in northern states during the winters over the years so I decided to do some more research if it was still available when I got home.

I contacted McAdams car dealership in West Allis WI (just outside of Milwaukee WI). Steve at McAdams was amazing to work with. He provided me with additional pictures that covered what was missed in the original 15 photos on Cars.com. Everyone at McAdams was amazing to work with. I had never bought a car from a dealership out of state let alone buying a car I had never test driven. The pictures looked to good to be true. The body is in mint condition without a single scratch or door ding at 1.5 years old. The guys at McAdams Cars detailed it so well that you could see reflections in the paint.

It turns out that the car belonged to Pete of McAdams and was obviously his baby. When I told him of the 70 degree weather we were having down here in December he told me to take a picture of me with the top down in “his” car (they just got hit with a foot of snow). With only owning it for a short time now, I can see how he fell in love with it. Don’t worry Pete, she is in good hands down here in the Carolinas and has had the top down many times already. It is like having a dog in a small one bedroom apartment and then moving to a 100 acre farm where she can run free.

McAdams cars delivered the car to Indianapolis (as far south as they could go) so I flew up there and drove it to its new home. What an amazing road trip it was. Me and “Black Sunshine” bonded and got real close. She is an instant part of the family. I just want to take the time to thank the guys at McAdams Cars in West Allis WI. They are serious with their motto “Where you don’t have to pay big dealer prices”. You guys rock and I would highly recommend you guys to anyone no matter where in the US they live.

Check out their inventory. Their web site could use a little work but that is not their line of business. They are in the business of selling cars and they do a great job at that.

IDENTIFY YOUR VISION
by Vic Johnson
(excerpted from Day by Day with James Allen)

“The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by; this you will become.” - As A Man Thinketh

Whether you liked his politics or not, much can be learned from the life of former President Clinton. Grolier’s New Book of Knowledge reports that as a teenager “Clinton thought of becoming a doctor or a reporter or even a musician. But after a fateful meeting with President John F. Kennedy, while still in high school, he made up his mind to enter politics.” At that moment a vision was born that he would hold onto - that he would glorify in his mind over and over - for the next 30 years, until he himself was elected President at the age of 46.

Jay Leno, who succeeded the venerable Johnny Carson as host of The tonight Show, first envisioned that he would be the host when he was just 22-years-old and unknown and unproven as a comedian, much less as host of a show of such regard. For twenty years he enthroned in his heart an ideal that most people would have thought was “foolish”, “outlandish” and “impossible.”

Thoreau told us that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” No doubt it’s because the masses are without a vision for their lives.

What is your vision for your future, your ideal life? Is it written down? Do you review it and think about it often? Have you “enthroned” it in your heart? Is your life organized around goals and objectives that will ensure your vision is reached?

Wallace D. Wattles wrote, “There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world.” And yet it is the “sustained and consecutive thought” about our vision that is the first and primary labor of achievement.

Thoreau also wrote one of my most favorite passages of all time. And it gives you the best reason there is to stop what you’re doing today and identify the vision for you life. “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.”
– Denis Waitley

“Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure. What are yours? What if they are wrong?”
– Brian Tracy

“It is not what happens that determines the major part of your future. What happens, happens to us all. It is what you do about what happens that counts.” — Jim Rohn

“A man can get discouraged many times but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying.”
– John Burroughs