5063 I can't win

Friday, March 11, 2016

Social media has raised writing to a new low.

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I'd been trying to get up to the country house for the past three weeks, but there was always somthun....  I was all ready to go this past Tuesday, but a big chunk of metal fell out from underneath the van onto the driveway.  I think it's the thingy that you're supposed to use for placing a jack, but until I find out how badly rusted things are under there, I don't trust the frame not to break in half on the NYS Thruway.  So I drove up Wednesday morning with the little car, and returned last night.

Didn't get a damn thing done up there, but that's ok.  I had a late lunch with Piper.  I fired him.  It's ok.  I think he's angry, and he thinks I'm making a mistake, but that's ok.  (What bugs me is that he seems to think he has done a wonderful job with my investments.  What he doesn't know is that I've kept track of my "pre-Piper" portfolio online, and if we had never touched that stuff, left it as it was, it would be 50%+ higher now, even considering what I have pulled out over time.  The trouble, the reason I went to him in the beginning, was that it was all oil companies, mining companies, technology, and chemicals.   I felt a need to diversify.  I guess I should have left it as it was.)

I got a late start returning, I knew I'd hit the end of rush hour traffic on the Garden State Parkway, but that's ok.  I wanted to be home by 8 if possible to catch Big Bang Theory, but if not I could watch it today on CBS.com (which I did).  The GPS predicted an arrival time of 7:32. 

BUT!  There was an accident on the GSP.  After 25 minutes of creeping in the middle of the three lanes - 3mph for 3 car lengths, stop, wait, 3mph, stop, wait, repeat - I finally got to the point where I could see all the flashing lights way ahead.  By then there was no way I'd be home by 8:30, let alone 8, but at least I knew that my clutch foot would finally get some relief soon.  The BMW does NOT like moving at idle speed.  It took a lot of coordination between the clutch and gas to keep it from stalling.  My left foot was getting tired.

So, at one point I stopped after creeping at the usual 3 mph, and within less than a second after stopping, I got hit from the back.  Bonk.  The car jumped a little.

I had to move over through the right lane bumper-to-bumper traffic to get to the shoulder and find out what my bumper looked like, and that maneuver left me more shaken than getting hit did.  Amazingly, the huge white pickup who had hit me followed me over.  We couldn't see a damn thing, it being dark, but we started to trade info when a cop showed up out of nowhere and shooed us back into our vehicles.  He took our documents and info, said I could get an accident report at a certain website, and sent us back onto the road.

(And then, I got lost when I got off the Garden State onto what was supposed to be Rte. 9.  The GPS lady kept telling me to bear right on the exit, but I was still distracted and my left-right confusion kicked in so I very carefully went left and ended up on the NJ Turnpike headed north, exactly the wrong direction.  I ended up wandering through city streets to get back to route 9, near Newark, of all places.)

Today, in daylight, I got a look at the bumper.  There's a smear of white paint, and a star of hairline cracks all of maybe 2.5 inches by 2 inches.  It's near the backup sensor, so I don't know if that got messed up or not.

I called my insurance company today, I'll get some kind of appraisal on Monday, and then whatever comes next.

I'm almost embarrassed to make any noise about this.  If there's no hidden damage, then it's almost nothing.  On the other hand, it's NOT nothing and not my fault.  On the third hand, I know from an earlier incident that BMW doesn't like to repair plastic bumpers, and a replacement bumper will be over $1,000.   And the guy was so nice to follow me over to the shoulder.  He says he was hit from behind and pushed into me.  Whoever hit him just kept on going, and remains unidentified forever.  He could have done that, too.  This is NJ.  I'd almost expect him to have kept going.  I'd hate to be the one to make him regret pulling over.

Oh, well. 
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3738 Diary

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... 

Each one owes infinitely more to the human race

than to the particular country in which he was born. 

-- Francois Fenelon --

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Yesterday I went to the bank, picked up some file boxes at Staples, stopped at the "hand wash only" car wash place to find out what detailing entails and how much it costs and made an appointment for today for the BMW, went to Verizon to get the replacement wifi box mated to the laptop (2 hours again), got the oil changed and the radiator flushed in the van ($160!), and stopped at the IHOP to get takeout garden crepes.  Arrived home at 4 pm to find Daughter and Nugget on my porch.

Things somehow went west from there.  I offended Daughter somehow.
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3257 Things I found out today

Friday, February 11, 2011

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer --

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The only things my warranty/service contract on Hal doesn't cover is windshield wipers and tires. Today I found out what a BMW tire for Hal costs. $407. That's for ONE tire. Plus more for labor.

Driving back from the old house on Monday night I hit a deep New Jersey pothole. You can't see the fool things at night. Wednesday, Hal started complaining that his passenger side tire was low. Thursday I took him to the BMW dealership. Today they told me the bad news. The tire had developed an irreparable "blister", whatever that is. I needed a new tire.

$407 dollars worth of tire.

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Remember the mouse that had taken up residence in Hal? I asked the service guys to check and see what other damage the mouse may have done, and to please explain how he got in in the first place. The bits of chewed up paper in the trunk, the passenger cabin, and the glove compartment! meant he'd had access to the entire car.

They found that he'd chewed through the microfilter, which gave him access to the ventilation system. I needed a new filter.

I wonder if my insurance would consider a mouse a vandal?

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You know all those dead birds turning up all over the country? Turns out the USDA, and others licensed by the USDA, are killing them. They kill millions of birds every year, and have been doing so since the early '60s, to protect grain put out for cattle feed.

Search "dead birds USDA", and you'll get lots of hits, most of which contradict each other. Like, the USDA says they are responsible for only one killoff in the mid-west, but in another article they also take credit for a mass kill near my old house. And they have no idea how many kills are from those licensed folks, or from farmers just doing it themselves. Nobody's counting those dead birds.

The attitudes of the farmers and of the USDA are rather cavalier. Farmers: "They're just birds." USDA: "They're starlings. European starlings are a pest, and they're not native, they're invasive."

Um, they're also killing red-winged blackbirds by the millions, too, and they are definitely native. Whether the birds are native or not has nothing to do with it. They're poisoning any birds that feed in flocks, which are often varieties of blackbirds (red-wings, crackles, cowbirds, starlings).

How has this been going on for 50+ years, but we knew nothing of it? Can't farmers do something else to protect the grain they put out for dairy cows, like, oh, cats or dogs? Or covered feeding? Do those birds really have no other value? They do eat bugs, too, you know. How many carnivores have been starved out by these killoffs?

Next time you get bitten by a mosquito, or lose your tomatoes to Japanese beetles or your kitten to a hawk, blame the USDA.

General info: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death

The kill near my old house: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2011/02/10/news/doc4d54707f4a02d656011346.txt?viewmode=fullstory

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On his 74th birthday, a man got a gift certificate from his wife. The certificate paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man. The medicine man slowly, methodically, produced a potion, handed it to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned, 'This is powerful medicine. It must be respected. You take only teaspoonful, and then say '1-2-3.' When you do that, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform as long as you want."

The old man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked, "How do I stop the medicine from working?"

"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,'" he responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until next full moon."

The old man was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!"

Immediately, he was the manliest of men.

His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and then she asked, "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
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3000 My lemonade has no sugar.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The little boat floated gently across the still pond
exactly like a bowling ball doesn't.

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I got a call from BMW today.

The "Service engine soon" message is coming from a bug in the computer code. I am not surprised. In my long history with The Company, I was famous for being able to break any code. They could test and test six ways from Sunday, hand it to me, and within minutes I'd hit bugs. The last release of the operating system I worked on had upwards of 25 testers testing full time, and yet I wrote more than half of the trouble reports on that release, and I wasn't even testing it. I was just using it.

Computers hate me.

It seems that plugging in the key without actually starting the engine within a certain period of time, in combination with a few other factors, causes the "Service" light to go on. At least that's what they're telling me. So, BMW is rewriting the code. It won't be available for a while. In the meantime, they have turned the light off, and if it goes on again, I can continue to drive as long as the car "is driving ok".

Sorry, but that makes no sense to me. The light has meaning, right? Other things going wrong can cause it to go on, right? If it has no meaning as long as the car "is driving ok", then why have the stupid light? Since if the car isn't "driving ok", the average owner will take it in anyway.

From now on, I guess I'll just call it the "do nothing" light.

The other thing that bothers me is that I *didn't* plug the key in and leave it on without turning the motor on within a reasonable time. I am absolutely sure of that because 1) so many things go on when you plug in that I worry about running down the battery, and 2) it went on Saturday morning, when I KNOW I started it quickly.

The second annoying thing is that even though the intake woman witnessed the trunk not opening, and witnessed the alarm go off when I pushed the button properly, she says that the mechanics couldn't make it fail, therefore found nothing wrong. And, oh, by the way, I don't have to use the button in the cabin, there's a latch under the medallion on the back of the trunk and I can just use that.

Um, yeah, ok, if it won't open from the remote button, I can use the latch, but that's a work-around! I'm not supposed to have to do that! A work-around is not a fix!

As to the random alarms (actually it's more like an ear-piercing siren), again they could find no problem. She assured me that it was impossible for the alarm to go off when the car is unlocked because blah blah blah. I am absolutely certain, 100% certain, no question in my mind whatsoever, that the car was unlocked that day it freaked at the deli.

So much for impossible.

I am very frustrated.

[Much later edit - the alarms were going off because there was a mouse living in the car, who tripped the motion detectors. Really, a mouse.]
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2977 Ramdom Thoughts #459 or so, with indignation

Friday, June 4, 2010

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.
If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.
--Philip K. Dick--

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There's a story on the news now about a young man who was driving on the Taconic Parkway when his car "went airborne" into the woods, rolled four times, and ended up hidden from the road. He suffered back and internal injuries, tried to crawl to the road, and was out there unfound for 4.5 days. He was located by his cell phone signal, and taken to Albany Med, where he is expected to recover. Altogether unthinkable. Horrible experience.

But, here's what bothers me: He was driving a BMW. Those things grab the road and hold it. The speed limit on the Taconic is 55 mph even though it's four lane divided because it's actually a localish road with many crossing roads and no traffic lights. It is NOT a limited access road, not a throughway. Local folks get very angry at fools who whip down the Taconic like it's some kind of freeway - it's not! Not one news report over the past two days, and there have been many, have mentioned what caused the one-car accident. It could have been a deer, I suppose, which is another reason the speed limit is 55. (Rolled four times, in the woods, after losing control at 55?)

I have my suspicions, and I suspect he may have reaped what he sowed.

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I guess I'm into blaming people for their own screwups today.

I read an article a few days ago about education loan debt. The author of the article seemed to think that it was the fault of the college financial offices that graduates were leaving school saddled with enormous debt, that the schools are not advising them correctly. The example used was a young woman who, with her widowed mother, and no savings for college, and no big academic scholarships, decided that even so she needed to get degrees from the most prestigious of schools to assure her future. The best of the NY state schools (and there are some good ones, including a very good FREE school in NYC) would not do.

She kept borrowing money, and ended up with a masters' degree and $97,000 debt - and she can't find a job that offers more than a hair over minimum wage. Since the loans were from several sources, the payments are concurrent, and she can't afford to pay them. Declaring bankruptcy won't work, because educational loans cannot be discharged by bankruptcy. She's in a bad place.

Now, we're supposed to feel sorry for her, and agree that she got some bad advice, and the fault lies with the school financial office.

Sorry. I don't think so. She made some very bad decisions, and I suspect she ignored some very good advice that wasn't what she and her mother wanted to hear.

The absolute kicker came finally in the last paragraph. It was so bad it made me swear out loud. Can you guess what her super expensive degrees, the degrees that absolutely had to come from prestigious schools and were to assure her a comfortable future in her choice of assured high-paying jobs, are in? Some technical, financial, professional, or scientific discipline, right?

Nope.

The answer is at the butt end of this post. Wait for it. Don't jump ahead. It'll spoil your mood for an hour. You'll want to kick her, and the author of the article, around the block.

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NYS's budget is in deep do-do. The governor wants to add a new tax on sugared carbonated drinks, "juices" with less than something like 10% real juice, and other crap in a bottle.

This proposal has been countered by a barrage of commercials with a young mother unloading grocery bags, and pointing out that the tax will raise her monthly grocery bill by some outrageous amount, and in this economy, she can barely feed her family, so please Governor Patterson, don't take money out of my family's mouths.

The commercials piss me off. Look, lady, if you need money to feed your family, why are you spending so much of that budget on crap in a bottle anyway? The people putting out those commercials don't care about you, your budget, or your kids. They're just worried that you might buy less of their crap.

I guess I really am in a bad mood today....

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Ok. Change of pace. Here's a video. It's 6.5 minutes long, and one of the scariest things I've ever seen. If you have a serious problem with heights or edges, don't watch it. If you do watch it, think about what it must have taken to build that path. (I do, and I did, and I lived. Didn't even throw up once, although I did discover that I can still hold my breath for 2 full minutes.)

From http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/scariest_path.html:

"This walkway now serves as an approach to Makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro in Spain's Andalucia. And it is the hairiest path. The area of El Chorro situated in the south of Spain is renowned amongst travelers and mountain hikers for its stunning scenery and climbs, yet this is not the main attraction on offer, El Chorro is host to one of the most dangerous walkways in the world, built by workers to transport materials between the Chorro and Gaitanejo Falls."

I always thought climbers had to be a little crazy.

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The answer: The young woman's degrees are in religious and women's studies. Even typing that now, especially when she and the journalist are trying to assign the blame anywhere but on the poor decisions made by her and her mother, pisses me off.
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2911 The car has been ordered.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

"Actions lie louder than words."
-- Carolyn Wells --

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I've ordered my car.

I went to the dealership yesterday. I wanted a 2010 model, I'd like to have it in mid-April and I asked what's the procedure for getting the colors and options I want. The salesman said it would be a bit difficult to get exactly what I want in a 2010, because March is the last production month for the 2010, the last 2010 custom orders were placed in February, as of April they're building the 2011s, so they'd have to find my 2010 on a lot somewhere, and they may or may not be able to find exactly what I want.

I want exactly what I want.

So I'm getting a 2011. Arrival before mid-May.

Which is not exactly what I want, but at least that's more acceptable than the wrong colors or wrong options.

(Gee, remember when the model years started in January of that year? I was surprised when the next year's cars started showing up in November.)

Then we started talking price. Unfortunately, he didn't have the MSRP or invoice numbers for the 2011 models yet. (Neither did Edmonds.com.)

Terms:
MSRP - what the manufacturer thinks the car should sell for, but only naifs actually pay.
Invoice - what the dealer pays the manufacturer for the car. The difference between what you pay and invoice is the dealer's profit.
TMV - "True Market Value", what Edmonds calls the average price actually paid for the car in your zip code. Usually significantly below MSRP, a little above invoice.

So then we started talking price. I told him I'd gotten the TMV from Edmonds, and expected to pay that much for the 2010, and in that general ballpark for the 2011. He freaked. He started talking about 7% profit "built in", and was running numbers rapidly, very confusingly. I wasn't sure what that 7% was on, derived from, it didn't make any sense. It especially didn't make sense because 7% of the invoice price, added to the invoice price, was WAY over the MSRP.

Finally I said, "Look, it doesn't much matter, because we're using the wrong numbers for this car anyway. We really ought to just agree on how much I will pay over invoice. Period. Simple." The Edmonds numbers showed X dollars over invoice as the average, so I said, "I'll pay Y dollars over invoice, assuming you can show me the invoice". He didn't like that at all. It was too close to TMV. His face got red. He continued trying for closer to MSRP.

At that point, a woman who had made an appointment to pick up a car arrived (I'd hadn't called before coming in), and he went off to help her. When he came back, he said, "Ok. Y dollars over invoice." I guess he realized he couldn't write a contract without the actual numbers. I said I wanted it in writing, so after a visit to the financial office, he came back and said the contract could be written that way. It would actually say "Y dollars over invoice" as the total price for the car (plus tax, and registration).

And a few minutes later, that's what came out of the financial office, and I signed it, and made a $500 security payment.

There may be another small battle when I see the invoice numbers. I expect to see the wholesale price of the car and my chosen options, and a destination charge, and nothing else. No prep charges, no advertising charges, no other padding. Edmonds says some dealers try to pad with stuff like that, and you don't have to pay it.

I'm a little disappointed that I won't get it before May, but April is buggy and rainy anyway, so ok.

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Suzy has some booboos on her front bumper (I think someone must have backed into her in a parking space) and the gas cap door hinge is broken. Her bumper is plastic or rubber or something, and it's cracked and broken. If I want to sell her (haven't decided yet) I'll need to get that fixed. So I stopped by at a body shop and got an estimate. It came out to $1,090. I paid $9000 for her four years ago, when she was already three years old with 32,000 miles on her, and her blue book value now is only $3,400.

It doesn't seem worth fixing her.

She has 81,000 miles now, and other than her broken nose she's in terrific health, inside and out.

Maybe I'll just keep her. Maybe a duct tape girdle inside the bumper will make her feel better.
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