I can’t believe what people do for their kids these days! Last weekend I took my daughter to a Birthday party for one of her pre-school buddies – it was at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park – the first thing you see at the entrance is a real SR71 Blackbird (pictured above) – more on that later.

Our private guided tour included a rocket making class, and each child got to fire their Alka Seltzer powered paper rockets! It was bitchen.
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I spent the last weekend in Vegas and I’m not a gambler. I know that sounds weird as any entrepreneur is by nature a risk taker, but sitting at a slot machine pulling a silver handle (or these days, pressing a button) is not for me.

But Vegas is great! If you have not been there lately you should check it out. In addition to the gambling, they have shows, shopping and even some nearby recreation areas like Lake Mead, Las Vegas Motor Speedway… and Las Vegas is alive with construction projects. I was impressed by the scope of some of these projects, and best of all there is a lot of metal.

When we got in our room we were not happy with our view. We wanted to overlook the pool, so we asked for a different room. And when we got to our new digs, the bonus was that we could see the construction on the property next door. It was awesome, the project is the New City Center on the strip.

You could see all the action from the crane operators to the banks of welding machines, to the actual welders working from Sky Lift’s while they Stick welded the structural steel frame and architectural details. Of course there was a lot more welding going on inside the building as the entire core of the building requires a huge amount of welding and fabricating, from high-pressure pipe, HVAC, and on and on. I was thinking for young people this would be a great opportunity to travel, learn a valuable skill and make great money as a construction welder. It sure looked like fun to me!

EDITOR’S NOTE/ QUESTION: Is Joe Welder the only person who would be thrilled to have a room overlooking a massive construction project??

I love motorcycles and if you do too, check out this event:
The Biggest & Best Custom & High Performance Street & Sportbike Event in America!

Performance Machine presents the 17th Annual
2008 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Weekend
& Calendar Girl Music Festival
July 12-13th 2008, Queen Mary Event Park, Long Beach
America’s Premier Custom & Performance Motorcycle Show
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That’s what our first video shoot at Arc-Zone.com® was all about — 8 hours of non stop action!

We’re putting together a series of professionally produced videos featuring industry leading products from some of our premiere manufactures, and of course our own World-Class line up of products. The production crew showed up with all the lights cameras and gadgets it takes to make it happen!

My shop looked like a Hollywood set We had the videographer, director, choreogrepher, best boy, and who ever that is that holds the little black & white stripped Clap board — Arc-Zone take two! — add in the wardrobe, makeup and hair stylist for my hot assistant — Roxy Acetylene™….

I don’t know about you but this was my first time in front of the camera. We had scheduled several videos — one About Arc-Zone.com and 12 product videos ranging from Product comparisons, to how-to’s. Boy were we optimistic! We were prepared with all the Arc-Zone Brand and other vendors products organized with scripts, props etc, but we had no idea how long it takes to do one 3 minute Video!

These behind-the-scenes pictures give you a pretty good idea of how it went down, and how much fun we had. We are going to rock it so stay tunned!

Don’t miss out on this event coming up at the Ventura Raceway next weekend:

Saturday June 28th at 5:00pm (first heat)

18 Events and Hot Rod Jalopies!
Special Autograph session (at 4 pm) with Grand Marshall
MERT LAWWILL,
star of On Any Sunday and 1969 AMA Grand National Champion.

RACE CLASSIFICATIONS
Hand Shift/Harley Davidson & Indians - No Brakes
Kids 50cc
Kids 80cc
Speedway 2 Valve
Speedway 4 Valve
Choppers / Hooligans
Vintage 500cc
Vintage 750cc
Amateur 450cc Modern*
Pro 450cc Modern*
New Zealand Sidecars
Hot Rod Jalopies

*We will allow up to 650cc singles to compete in these classes.

For Hot Rod Jalopies rules visit: www.okiebowlhardtops.com

Sometimes things happen around you and you may not realize the significance and the long-term effects. I think about things more now that I have a five year old daughter.

Take some of the changes apparent in the world of racing. I remember my Dad telling me that my Mom was not allowed in the pits when they went racing - she had to wait outside the pit gate — now women are winning races!

As an early teenager I remember racing AMA district 37 TT motorcycles at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. The track was yards from the beautiful Pacific Ocean. I lined up for the qualifying heat and next to me was a young (girl) women with long blonde hair hanging out of her helmet — she had bitchen’ white riding leathers with purple lettering “T&O Yamaha” which was her sponsor — I remember thinking to myself, What is she doing here?

My dad told me, “You better pay attention. I watched her practice and she is fast”

Dad was right. I ran second that day. I don’t remember who came in first, but she came in a very respectable fourth.

Here are some facts on some women pioneers in racing:

Shirley Muldowney broke the glass ceiling in the NHRA in the 70’s and now Ashley Force and Hillary Will are winners….

First World of Outlaws Sprint Car Race winner — 2004 Erin Crocker

Indy 500 Firsts: 1977 first women in the Indy 500 Janet Guthrie — 1992, First Rookie of the Year Lyn St. James and 2005, first women race leader Danica Patrick.

Though it is still very early in the season, 2008 is quickly becoming the year of the woman. Following historic wins by Ashley Force and Melanie Troxel, Hillary Will added her name to the short list of female Professional winners when she defeated Larry Dixon in the Top Fuel final at the O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals presented by Castrol GTX at Heartland Park Topeka. Will is the 11th woman to win in the Pro categories. 2008 we had the first major open wheel race win by a woman– Danica Patrick.

And as I watch my five-year-old daughter tearin’ it up around the neighborhood on her bicycle– without training wheels, I might add– I wonder what the world of racing will be like when she grows up.

Hey, we have a handy new tool that can help improve your welding operation– the Shield Gas Flow Tester.

Now you can accurately and conveniently measure the actual shield gas flow rates at the torch. This easy to use device will take the guesswork out of optimizing your welds, and save on shield gas cost.

For production applications the benefits of documenting flow rates – at the torch – will pay off with reduced weld variations and lower gas usage.

The Unit Measures Argon and Co2 Flow Rates up to 25 LPM (52 CFH)

Measures in Liters Per Minute. To Convert to CFH Divide - LPM/.472=CFH

You may or may not know about Tesla, the swankiest 100% electric car on the market. They started up production a couple of months ago:

San Carlos, Calif. – (March 17, 2008) — Regular production of the 2008 Tesla Roadster commenced today, marking an historical milestone for Tesla Motors and a watershed in the development of clean, zero-emissions vehicles.

First unveiled as a prototype on July 19th, 2006, the revolutionary Tesla Roadster generated an extraordinary response from people everywhere who were inspired by the vision that beautiful, high performance cars could generate zero-emissions and burn no oil.

Here, Tesla’s engineer explains to Inside Line how the much anticipated electric roadster works:

And now they’ve opened their first store in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago. I can only wonder how long it is before our own Joe Welder trades in his Prius (and his house) for a Tesla– it even comes in Arc-Zone Orange!

Tom OLeary, General Manager of the new Tesla store writes on his blog:

The Tesla Roadster is a revolutionary car and our Tesla Stores will be no less revolutionary as an automotive retail experience….. continue reading at Tesla Motors–>

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We’re starting a new regular feature on this site, Ask Joe™

Each week we’ll feature real questions from real customers, and answers from our own Joe Welder. Joe, aka Jim Watson, doesn’t like to toot his own horn, but he has a tremendous amount of expertise in TIG, MIG and Plasma Arc Welding and Cutting products– you can read the details over at Arc-Zone.com or read some of the About Joe Welder posts right here.

And, if you have a welding question you’d like answered, go ahead and Click on the Contact Joe link.

If your question is featured on an Ask Joe™ post, we’ll send you a t-shirt!

Legacy is Weldcraft’s “economy series line” which is going after all the reverse engineered knock-off torches that are sold on price. You can read the official Weldcraft press release about the Legacy TIG Torch here.

This unit is a basic WP-17 torch body with the new Red rubber molding and features a very nicely made and well designed amperage control built into the handle!

We checked one out recently and had an opportunity to play with it — the handle features a comfortable design with built in amperage control and cable strain relief on the back end to improve flexibility and torch control.

It’s another example of how good design engineering and manufacturing practices add value to the market and continue to establish Weldcraft as the market leader in TIG welding torches!