Wunderlich

Motorcycle chopper kits are a growth industry. But what does that mean to you and me? Well one thing that we know is that we will have more choppers to ogle at. There is not a single day that goes by without more and more pictures of chopper bikes that have just been finished showing up in all the motorcycle magazines. Then at the weekends, when we are on our hot rides, we will see four or five show finish level bikes. There are more choppers around now than there have been in the last twenty five years.

Most of these choppers have been built from motorcycle chopper kits, the bike in a box approach. But hey, dont knock it! Building your own chopper has never been easier. There are rolling chassis kits, complete bike kits, and frame manufacturers give you a multitude of choice when it comes to take the plunge and buy a motorcycle chopper kit.

Thirty years ago, the old school chopper builders had to start with a stock bike off-the-shelf and literally chop it to pieces. With the modern chopper kits, there is a viable alternative to taking the cutting torch to your favorite soft tail!

Nowadays, you have a cheap and easier way to build the bike from the ground up. When you take the cost of buying a new bike and the expense of chopping it, it works out much cheaper to start from step one, and your chopper kit. Instead of tossing away the parts that you'll never use again, you can start building your own bike with the parts that you really need. All the parts are included in the motorcycle chopper kit, along with comprehensive instructions.

One of the first questions that people ask when considering buying a kit is how will my bike stand outs from all the other chopper kits? Well think of it this way, you are going to buy a chopper kit. A pile of unassembled raw metal. No paint, no real finish, just a blank canvas. Is your taste in paint jobs likely to be the same as the next guy, who buys the very same kit? I don't think so. What about your taste in bolt-ons, seats, exhausts? Just because you buy the kit doesnt mean every little thing has to be just so. That is the whole point isnt it? It's very easy in this way to build your own custom chopper from a chopper kit.

Another big question is, How long? The answer to that is as long as it takes. Even on the kit bikes, which are supposed to be designed to fit together like a glove, you are going to run into some snags. It cant be avoided!

If you want a more concrete guide, try this. An experienced kit builder (though not a professional) I spoke to reckons it took 10 full days to build his last chopper from a kit. For someone less experienced it could take a couple of days longer. Twelve 9 hour days works out at 108 hours. Over evenings and weekends, this could drag out to three or four weeks of living in a pile of motorcycle parts! So be prepared to literally live the experience if you are going to take the plunge.

What about the practical side? Well, there is no substitute for experience. The place to start building up your experience with the mechanical side of building to kit bike is with your current ride. Make sure all you can do the basic maintenance on your motorcycle, and then start to do some simple disassembling. Take off the tires, take off the exhaust, real basic stuff; all of this will help to build a new confidence in the shop side of things. You can also get some great videos on maintenance, and even on building the custom bike of your dreams. Read the books, watch the videos, and buy the t-shirt! Believe me, all the preparation you make will stand you in good stead.

If you really are hopeless at the mechanical side of things, why not pay someone else to help you build it, or even get them to build the whole thing for you? The cost of the kit plus labor could well work out cheaper than buying a chopper off the shelf.

And of course, when that beautiful chopper is standing on your driveway, and your friends are asking you Was it worth it? you can turn to the chopper, drag your hand across the flames on the tank and the polished chrome, turn back to them and say, What do you think?

Michael Holmes is a enthusiast for all thing motorcycle. His website, http://www.motorcycleparts-accessories-andmore.com, is a great resource of articles aimed at motorcyclists of all levels, and includes a page specifically about the motorcycle kits resources available online.

Men and women in active duty in the forces can obtain finance from a military auto loan to purchase a new or used vehicle. There are even options to refinance current auto loans for lower rates or longer repayment programs and therefore, lower monthly payments. These loans have many benefits when compared to regular auto loans. Lets analyze these benefits and the requirements for approval of military auto loans:

Advantages of Military Auto Loans over Regular Auto Loans

Military auto loans feature more advantageous terms than other auto loans. For instance, you can obtain lower interest rates. Its not uncommon to hear that this is due to the fact that lenders subsidize these loans themselves. However, there is another way to see this: since military personnel is more reliable in terms of income and continuity in the job, the risk for the lender is lower and therefore it is easier to offer lower interest rates and still obtain profit.

Besides lower interest rates, military auto loans also feature more flexible repayment programs which imply lower monthly payments if the borrower wants. There is also more flexibility in terms of the loan amount you can obtain. Under the same financial circumstances, military personnel can get higher loan amounts on military auto loans than on regular auto loans.

Flexible Requirements for Approval

Military personnel can obtain auto loan programs with very flexible requirements for approval. There are however, some additional requirements that have to do with the particularities of servicing in the forces. Most lenders offer online loan application but there is also the possibility of processing everything through regular mail or even physically at the lenders headquarters.

Youll need to show proof of being actively in service. You will also need to provide an address where you are stationed and eventually the telephone number, email address, and other contact details of someone they can get in touch with if you are sent overseas that can take responsibility of notifying you of any kind of message the lender needs to send. Veteran personnel can also obtain military loans and sometimes with even more advantageous terms. These loans are called Veteran Military loans and are subsidized by government agencies or private institutions.

Bear in mind that though these loans are easier to qualify for, your credit report will still be pulled and analyzed. However, as opposed to regular auto loans, military auto loans do not require a fix residence or a steady job. Even if you just enlisted in the forces you can still qualify for a military auto loan. When it comes to regular auto loans, most lenders require at least two years on the same job to provide financing.

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Mary Wise, a professional consultant at Badcreditloanservices.com with twenty years in the financial field, prevents consumers from falling into the hands of fraudulent lenders. In her website you will find more useful tips and interesting financial articles on this and many other related topics.

Sometimes just a few small tasks make all the difference between making a few dollars profit on eBay and generating a small fortune each month. These ideas will help you make more from your listings.

* Big benefits of using Buy It NOW! The vast majority of PowerSellers sell items on the BUY IT NOW principle, thereby generating constant sales for easily available items, and meaning the same listing can be used time after time, allowing potentially thousands of similar items to be delivered worldwide, often via dropshipping companies. Oftentimes the PowerSeller never even sees items he or she is selling. He or she simply lists items, takes payment, then sends order details and an agreed amount of money to another company the dropshipping company - which then sends items direct to customers. So all you do is find 100 or 1000 high selling items, list them, sell the items, take payments, fulfill orders, then press a few buttons next week to relist those items again in just a few minutes. Look at the great majority of PowerSellers and youll see some with many, many thousands of items listed, of which just a handful of listings are auction format. (Did you really think people selling 5,000 plus items create all those listings weekly from scratch?). See the next tip.

* When size does matter and small is usually best. Aim to regularly list similar (tested profitability) best selling items as opposed to continuously listing one-off items (unless you have experience of those one-off items). The benefits of this repeat product business model are many and varied and include: less time spent listing items for sale; all things being equal, regular reliable profits can be expected from relisting the same products for sale every day, week or month; planning is easier for the business man or woman who knows almost exactly what will sell next week and the week after that, as well as roughly how many sales will ensue and what profits are likely; the seller can book holidays and take days off by anticipating sales, fulfillment and delivery demands; he can confidently answer most queries by simply emailing back standard replies from wherever he or she is on holiday; the business can be highly automated, primarily through the push button process and by organising automated responses to buyers and sellers; even stock levels and reordering can be made faster and more efficient by use of standard templates or signature files which save time and energy otherwise spent placing orders by post, fax, email, telephone.

* The magic of PayPal: I strongly recommend you use PayPal for receiving payments and for paying eBay fees. Buyers generally prefer PayPal and will actively avoid non-PayPal sellers. People can pay immediately they receive an invoice or immediately an auction ends, meaning less likelihood of the buyer forgetting to pay later.

* Sell snow to the Eskimos! Some items naturally attract more people in their country of origin, especially collectibles such as books about New York City or Arizona printed souvenir china (theyll attract more interest on eBay.com), and others from Melbourne, Australia (best on eBay.com.au), and Berlin, Germany (ebay.de). In reality, really enthusiastic bidders check the entire eBay marketplace through the Search facility on every eBay page, but you can never be sure, so consider your market for every new listing (new meaning untested items).

* Spread your listings to maximise your audience: You can list each item under two categories to ensure a wider target audience. Imagine you own a car that once featured in a well-known television programme, like All Creatures Great and Small or Coronation Street. Do you list it under Cars or Television Memorabilia? The seasoned eBayer might use both categories in one listing. But if it doesnt sell, youve just lost money, more than if youd chosen just one category. Two categories can work wonders, generating lots of bids and high realisations, but is normally best used with experience. So work at getting the first category right before expanding.

* Advice on using photographs. Most times a gallery picture is essential, especially among high competition items such as clothing, toys, cars. Not always so for one-off and most collectors items without a picture where enthusiastic collectors will still click through. I venture to suggest that, on occasion, a listing without a picture can generate more visits, purely out of curiosity, especially with a cryptic heading, such as Biggest, Fattest HoneyPot on eBay, or where pictures are largely superfluous, as for instance for books, CDs, ebooks where title itself does the selling.

* Keep careful records of successful bidders who have paid and others who havent. eBay provides a reminder button for your slow-paying bidders. But proceed with caution. Remember why erasers are placed on the end of pencils - because people make mistakes - and the mistake might be yours. Check, check, check everything carefully before sending reminders and always before writing derogatory letters to bidders or reporting them to eBay. See the next tip.

* Use Feedback carefully. It goes without saying, dont give negative feedback to others without making thorough checks first. The other person could have suffered a bereavement, be ill, or in the middle of a two or three day power cut and thats the reason they havent paid you! Be fair, be nice, do unto others !

* Hot Foot It for Instant Best-Sellers. Look for hot eBay categories, where most items attract bids, preferably multiple bids. Finding these categories, and their best-selling products, is largely down to research and hard work. When you find your niche, dominate it, have more listings than others in the niche, look for products they dont have, be first with new products. Examples from my own research: keyrings, charms, metal detectors, dog jewellery.

* Counting on Success. Spend time researching other peoples listings, especially for products youd like to sell. The best indicator of a popular product is the number of people actually entering the listing to obtain more information. Visitor numbers can easily be checked from counters displayed at the foot of most listings. But not all eBayers use counters. Note too that low visitor numbers may still indicate a popular product, as for instance products for tiny niche markets with fewer potential buyers but greater intention to buy.

* Look for Ideas in the Strangest of Places. We needed pictures of our new dog design cufflinks and wanted something special, with a luxury feel. We scan most of our products by placing them directly onto the scanner bed but find the scanner lid makes an unattractive backing for most items. We needed something different, colourful, a background to emphasise the quality of these lovely gold plated items. We tried velvet pads from jewellery boxes, plain paper, hankies, nothing worked. Then we tried Marks & Spencers' silk lilac undies, they worked a treat. The lilac looked wonderful against the gold and the silk wrapped delicately around the cufflinks without creasing. Better still, using that background for all of our jewellery lets regular customers spot ours among thousands of competing listings.

Avril Harper is a triple eBay PowerSeller and editor of eBay Confidential and webmaster of http://www.publishingcircles.com. She has produced a free guide - 103 POWERSELLER TIPS - which you can download with other freely distributable reports and ebooks at http://www.toppco.com

With the population boom in recent years, many countries have pushed for the use of birth control to help curb the increase in population. There are many types of birth control methods that families can use, depending on what the couple are most comfortable with.

Hormonal Methods

One of the methods of controlling birth that is available in the market is the hormonal method, which targets hormones and their effects on the bodys fertility. Some of the most common hormonal methods are the use of birth control pills and birth control shots, skin patches and the vaginal ring. This method actually works quite as it prevents the production of eggs. As a big bonus, these methods can also help relieve pain and cramps during monthly periods and can relieve heavy flows.

There are also Intrauterine devices (IUDs) that contain hormones called Minera. IUDs, however, are more expensive as they can last for years, sometimes lasting for more than 5 years. IUDs , although expensive, is highly recommended as these have 99 percent success rates. And because you only have to pay once over a period of five to 10 years, the total cost of birth control is actually much cheaper compared to other forms of birth controls. Another thing that adds to its appeal is that IUDs do not interrupt foreplay during sexual intercourse or foreplay and they do not require the cooperation of the sexual partner. It has also been found that IUDs can also be used while breastfeeding.

One disadvantage though of hormonal method besides the cost is you have to take the pills or the medications religiously. One relapse can mean ineffectiveness of the birth control method. They are also not ample protection against sexually-transmitted diseases unlike condoms and other barrier method instruments. Another disadvantage is that it can react differently when taken in with other medications. This is why people should first consult the gynecologists for medications that may affect its effectiveness.

Barrier Method

Barrier methods, on the other hand, are generally less effective than the hormonal methods although they seem to be the most widely-used especially among the younger set. Among the devices that belong to these group of birth control instruments are condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, and sponges. There are also Leas shield and spermicides, which when used with any of the barrier devices can help increase the effectiveness by killing the sperms. Still, one advantage of barrier method is that it protects both individuals from sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, some people use condoms not to prevent pregnancy but to prevent the spread of diseases.

Calendar method

Natural birth control methods can also be done through the calendar method. This can be tough work though for the couple. The woman must first determine the fertile periods of the month. The couple must then avoid having sex on the days that the woman is most fertile to avoid conceiving. This however is not reliable and must be calculated to the letter before it can be effective. The calendar method is actually the only method supported by the Catholic Church, which takes a pro-life stand.

Sterilization surgery

Permanent birth control methods such as vasectomy and tubal litigation surgery are also options for the couple but they must remember that they can no longer have children when they have these procedures performed on them. These methods are actually for couples who are old or those who already have children and feel that they should not have anymore.

Robert Thatcher is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides birth control resources on http://www.aboutbirthcontrol.info