I bought a few extremely strong magnets at a swap meet recently with the
same intentions.  However, it occurred to me that just by carrying them, if
I'm not careful, I can mess up my watch, my credit cards, my cell phone, my
GPS, my PDA, and my computer, not to mention parts of the van that I don't
even know about!

I know there are some locations in the van that would be safe for the
magnets, but I'm not sure that I would constantly remember to keep my "at
risk" devices away from them - especially my cell phone and watch.  So I
took them to work and use them to stick things onto my file cabinets and my
metal display board!  They also make a great doorstop!  If I need to keep my
door open at work I just stick a magnet in the metal door jamb so the door
won't close all the way.
Patti
**************************************
On 5/27/07, John Bange <jbange@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >   Very cool, useful things,  magnets......especially in my van, which is
> > metal, not plastic...
>
>
> Yeah, the "metal van" thing is handy. I have a neodymium magnet mount for
> my
> fancy Garmin Nuvi GPS. I went to find a place to stick it in my '99 Chevy
> work van.... nothing. Nothing at all. The entire exposed interior space up
> front is plastic, or metal covered in thick foam/vinyl. I ended up having
> to
> cut a slot in the cheap plastic dash facing  to mount a steel plate for
> the
> magnet. I don't even want to think about all the plastic parts that are
> crumbling and cracked....
>
> --
> John Bange
> '90 Vanagon - "Geldsauger"
>