Ken

A guy at work says the FAA required the ejection seats in Paul Allen's MiG29 (N29UB) to be deactivated. Can anyone confirm this? Sounds like BS...but then again we are talking about the federal government so nothing would surprise me.

I'm looking at a used K1200LT. Actually haven't even laid eyes on it yet. Just found it on Craigslist. Owner says the bike will need a clutch job soon. We have a BMW bike dealership and a very reputable indy shop locally. Two questions...

Approximately what should I expect to pay for a clutch job on this bike?

I am a very competent mechanic. Aircraft mechanic by trade. I am also reasonably familiar with bikes Is this a job I could tackle with a good manual or should I leave the first one to the pros?

TIA

I bid on a motorcycle on ebay. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to win it. I say that because last night I found a better one on our local Craigslist. Yeah I know I am being a jerk but I think I'm going to back out of the deal. What happens if a buyer does that. The seller gives you a bad review right?

I just finished building up a bike around a Guerciotti Record frameset. It's an old school style steel frameset and features a threaded fork. I used a Profile quill adapter to allow use of a modern stem with the threaded fork but it looks odd. A guy at work said he thought someone out there makes a quality Cinelli style quill stem. Evidently this stem has a four-bolt cap for handlebar attachment so you dont have to strip the bars bare and weave them thru the stem. Anyone know the name of the maker? Ringing any bells out there? TIA.

First off, let me apologize in advance for not being very tech-savy.

My old Dell PC died last week. I bought a Lenovo (it was on sale). I run Firefox and Yahoo. As soon as I began using it I started getting these big, web-page sized pop-ups. They occur randomly when I click on a link and disable the link when they load. That is to say I have to close the pop-up and re-click the link to follow it. Yahoo does have a pop-up blocker built into it, right?

Is it possible that Yahoo is selling advertising that gets around their own blocker? Or perhaps Lenovo has some sort of embedded program that alloows ads to get around any browser's blocker? This annoys the hell out of me.

I run Avast anti-virus and it never finds anything. Should I install a dedicated pop-up blocker?

Any advice would be appreciated

TIA

My kids and I are in Paris. We're Americans. Tomorrow we are going to Brussels. Do we need our passports? I don't want to bring them if I don't need to. But I don't want to get all the way to Gare du Nord and discover that I must have a passport to travel within the EU.

Thanks

Hi. I'm going to Paris in about a week. I have to meet a couple people. I dont want to offend them by mispronouncing their last names. Their names are Baudot and Gleizes. I assume Baudot is pronounced "Boh-doh" (long "O" sounds) but what about Gleizes? Is it just "Gleez"?

Thanks very much

My daughters and I are going to Paris in a few weeks. They (my daughters) want me to find out if there is an iron in the apartment so they can press their clothes. I have been using Google Translate to communicate with the owner by email with fair success. There have been a couple instances where I got the impression that he wasn't 100% sure what I was asking.

Is "Y at-il un fer à repasser dans l'appartement?" correct or will I be asking him if the apartment is made of iron?

Thanks

My daughters and I are going to Paris next month. They want to spend a day shopping for clothes. They are 16 and 19 years old. We are not wealthy, no haute couture YSL or Versace for us. If you had some American friends with teenage daughters coming to Paris, where would you take them? I have read about the Quatre Temps shopping center in La Defense, Les Halles (which is walking distance from our apartment), and Rue Haussmann. Any recommendations?

Merci.

Let me apologize in advance. I know this is a stupid question but I'm a little confused. My daughters and I are going to Paris next month. We are renting an apartment. After we arrive I am supposed to call the property manager to arrange access. I obviously wont publish his actual number here. Let's say the number I was given is...33 6 68 45 45 65

I have been researching this and have learned the following. All Paris phone numbers are 10 digits. 33 is the country code so if I am in Paris I obviously won't dial that. I have also read that the 6 means the number is a cell (mobile) phone number. Is that correct? If I call this number from a local phone would I dial 06 68 45 45 65? If I call from my own cell phone would I dial 33 06 68... or 33 6 68...?

Like I said, I know this seems trivial, I just want to work out all the details now so I have few surprises when I arrive. Jet lag does not agree with me.

Thanks very much

My daughters and I are traveling from the US to Paris in a few weeks. They are bringing a hair straightener with them (some kind of hair iron) and want to be able to use it. When we went to England I thought I had purchased everything we needed but the hair thingy wouldn't work because it drew too much current for the step-down transformer I had bought. This was a big deal hahaha. Anyway can someone PLEASE recommend a transformer that will handle a hair straightener? I'm looking for a recommendation by brand-name or website link. Please! I know I'm asking someone to do my research for me but all the devices I find explicitly state that they do not work with hair irons.

Thanks

I just want to make sure I understand the VW terminology?

TSI is the turbocharged 4 cylinder?

FSI is the fuel injected 2.5 five cylinder?

Generally speaking.

Thanks

My iPhone 4 (8gb) gave me a warning today when I tried to save a couple pictures. It said my memory was full and I couldn't save them. So I plugged the phone in to my computer to dump all the old pictures. When the utility opened, the bar-graph along the bottom said that I have 2.5 gigs of "other" What exactly is "other" and how can I have 2.5 gigs of undefinable crap in my phone? What is it and can I delete it?

TIA

Friday afternoon I started getting texts and emails from people stating that my Yahoo email account must have been violated in some way because they were getting weird emails from my account. I changed my password, hopefully that fixes it.

Here's my question though. People whose addresses had been deleted from my contacts list months ago received emails from me (which wasn't good). I discovered that I had not cleared out my "sent" folder in quite a while and these old, deleted email addresses had been in there. Did whomever did that hacking of my account copy ALL the email addresses attached to my account? How can I fix this?

Well OK, a couple of questions really.

I am planning a trip with my daughters to Paris this March. I need some advice. Our flight home leaves CDG at 10:40am on a Friday morning. We will be using public transport (RER) to get us to the airport. How much time do you think should I allow? We will be renting an apartment within walking distance of an RER B line station to make access to the airport as simple as possible. My plan is to leave the apartment at 7:30am. Is the morning rush hour as crazy as it is in London? I assume it is. Do you think that is enough time?

Merci

I'm trying to figure out how to ask this question but I'm not having any success. I want to limit access to my Flickr account. If I post a link to a picture it ultimately allows anyone access to all my pictures. I want to only allow access to the picture(s) I post a link for. Does that make sense? Is it possible?

Anyone ever send a Porter Cable pneumatic nailer back for service/repair? What were you charged? My pneumatic stapler quit on me. I tinkered with it for quite a while (I'm a tinker pro) and couldn't find anything obviously wrong. It's not under warranty any more. The same stapler is $90 at Home Depot, should I even bother? I'm thinking I should just buy another one but I hate throwing things away, you know?

Thanks

I'm planning a trip to Paris with my daughters. It's not until March '13 but I'm doing my research now. I've been watching airline ticket prices. I checked flights today and was shocked to see that prices have dropped almost $300. I'm not complaining but what's going on? Any experts out there? I dont expect this to last so I will be buying within a few days. How long can I expect this to last? Will they be dropping any further? Any input would be appreciated. TIA

My daughter has fabulous taste in music...she gets that from me! We were comparing new purchases a few weeks ago and she thought I would like Tycho. I had never heard of them (him) and I'm blown away. She says it's called "Ambient" music. I really like it and would like to hear more. Can any of the Illuminati out there make some recommendations in the genre? Thanks.