Matt Burgess

Click Here to Watch the On-Air Video from December 15, 2008 

Christmas Light 'Tacky Tours' Spawn Online Community
FoxNews.com - Entertainment - December 12, 2008 - Chris Kensler
Click Here to the FoxNews.com Article

Matt Burgess thinks Christmas is tacky-tacular.

Burgess runs the website TackyLightTour.com, an online community for people who festoon their houses and yards every Christmas with millions of colored lights, plywood cut-out holiday characters, and massive blow-up Santas, Rudolphs and snowmen.

He got the idea for the site when he found himself spending hours planning the annual family car trip to the best Christmas lights in Richmond, Virginia.

"The process involved plotting addresses from my local newspaper on maps, then determining the best route to take throughout the city," Burgess tells FOXNews.com. "With the advent of free online mapping services, I knew there was a better way."

Burgess built the site's first version in 2004. Soon, he was getting requests from tacky people around the world to display their light shows on his site.

"So, in 2005, I opened up the site for anyone with more 10,000 Christmas lights to list their display," he says. "Traffic to the site has doubled every year since, and so has the total number of lights."

And while cities and suburbs from Green Bay to Galveston have their own "Tacky Tours," Burgess's home town of Richmond is probably the best -known Christmas-light display destination in the country.

"The first over-the-top displays in Richmond go back to the late 70's," Burgess says. "At some point in the early 80's, Richmonders started calling the unusually large number of displays the Tacky Light Tour. On any given night in December, traffic jams form around certain neighborhoods as dozens of vans, limousines and tour buses take their Tacky Light Tour." 

How To Do It Yourself: Replace Brake Pads on a 2002 Honda Civic LX

Just Brakes in Atlanta, Georgia has an incredible deal to get new brakes and rotors for $99 with a lifetime warranty, so when the brakes on our 2002 Honda Civic LX starting to squeal last year I took the offer. Within 6 months the squealing was back, so I took the car back in for the lifetime warranty to find out I needed $250 in additional work. I never could get a straight answer on the root of the problem, but at one point I was told the newly installed brake pads had cracked. Forget the lifetime warranty, I installed premium Akebono ProACT ceramic pads in their place. My experience with Akebono ProACT pads has been great. They provide the perfect combination of stopping power, quietness and low-dust.

Step 1: Remove both of the front wheels. If you don't know how to do this, then abandon the project completely and take your car to a mechanic. You will surely hurt yourself.

Step 2: Dislocate the piston housing from the caliper by removing two bolts from behind the caliper using a ratchet. Do not let the piston housing dangle as it could damage the brake line. Rest the piston housing on something so some slack exists in the brake line. The top of the wheel is fine.

Step 3: Slide the old brake pads from both sides of the rotor.

Step 4: Dress the new Akebono ProACT brake pads with the supplied lubricant. The lubricant is applied to the metal bracket attached to the brake pad.

Step 5: Slide the new brake pads into place where the old ones were. The pad with a protruding metal bracked goes on the side facing away.

Step 6: Reattach the piston housing by doing the opposite of Step 2. The piston may slightly engage while it is off the wheel. If it does you need to push the piston back in the housing, so there is enough room to slide the housing back into place over the new brake pads. To do this take a block of wood (or some other hard flat material) and a C-clamp. Place the flat material against the piston and contract the clamp pushing the piston back into the housing. When you reattach the piston it may seem like the housing is loose, but so long as the bolts are tightly fastened this is normal.

Step 7: Place the wheel and you are done. Repeat Steps 2-6 for the other wheel.