Archives October 2011

This is at least a two cup of coffee entry, three if you go small.

So I took off work Friday to head over to the east coast to take a look at the 2005 SSR I found in auto locator.  We had the cleaning people showing up mid afternoon so I made arrangements to get to the dealer between 9 and 10.  Fort Pierce was about 150 miles away so we had a three hour drive in front of us.  We got a bit of a late start and headed east about 7 am after picking up wake up juice at DD.

Our route took us through Central Florida, up and over Lake Okeechobee.  It was a scenic drive I guess, more scenic than the mind numbing drive across Alligator Alley at least.  Once again our GPS let us down, delivering us to a vacant parcel of land instead of the dealership.  Ali was able to find the actual location using her Iphone, some ten miles away.

Our little GPS snafu pushed our arrival time back a bit.  I received a call from Tony, the guy I made the appointment with, he was just asking my ETA.  I informed him of our misdirection issues but that I would be at the dealership shortly, within 10-15 minutes.  He said great, he would have everything ready to go.

So we find the dealership, pull in and park.  Since Tony knew I was coming I thought maybe he would walk out and greet us.  Not a soul was to be found.  This was our first time ever setting foot in a Jaguar/ Range Rover dealership. Taking a glance at the six figure window stickers on some vehicles was pretty crazy.

The showroom was a graveyard.  We found exactly one sales guy.  We told him we had an appointment to see Tony.  He pointed to an office and said that was his.  Ali and I walked over there and saw an empty desk.  We find the sales dude again and tell him Tony isn’t there.  Oh ok, I’ll page him, he should be right out. Ok fine, we will be out front walking around.

My walking back out the door was intentional.  Remember, I used to sell cars in the late 80’s, I knew the tricks.  By walking out front you are forcing the salesman to come to you, establishing your dominance in the encounter.  It sounds silly but it is actually a technique that salesman are taught.

For example we would always go out to a lot say hi to the person and then tell them to follow us back inside.  You weren’t supposed to wait for an acknowledgement from the individual, just turn and go.   The vast majority of people will not want to be rude and will follow you.  This simple act establishes you as the leader in the interaction.

So anyway, Ali and I started walking around looking at the used cars.  The SSR was not out front and ready to go as Tony indicated it would be. We looked at a number of the other used vehicles including a Smart Car.  It was open and Ali told me to sit in it.  I told her I didn’t need to but she was persistent.  I was surprised that I actually had ample leg room in the car.  Of course there was room for my legs and little else.  Every time I stand next to one of these things I am shocked by just how small they are.

So we walked around for awhile, probably close to 10 minutes, still no Tony.  It was already humid outside so Ali and I once again went inside, now annoyed.  He knew I was coming based on our phone conversation several minutes prior.

Again I flag down the same sales guy and ask where Tony is.  He shrugs his shoulders and says he should be up any minute.  Ali and I waited probably at least another 10 minutes until he showed up.  He said he was in the back, making sure the car was ready.  I didn’t call him out for making us wait forever.  I had two theories on what really happened.

Either Tony waited until he talked to me on the phone to have the truck cleaned up which is stupid or he was taking my establishing control technique to a new level by making us wait.  Well whichever the reason, both Ali and I  were annoyed.  Tony was an older guy probably in his late 50’s at least.  He seemed somewhat pleasant when we talked to him.

He brought the SSR around front for me to check out.  He said he would need to make a copy of my drivers license and insurance info so we could test drive it.  Fine, I handed it to him and Ali and I began inspecting the vehicle.  The first impression of the truck was very good, it looked nice and shiny with no jump out at you visible defects.

I popped the hood and started my inspection there. The motor looked clean and dry with no obvious issues.  I popped the tailgate and checked out the luscious carpeted truck bed which was kind of cool.  Ali spent most of her time looking at the interior.  She immediately zeroed in on minute details.  She pointed out that the labeling on the passenger side seat belt was really worn and how the warning label on the driver side visor also was flawed.  Seeing these things made Ali say that we definitely need to negotiate a lower price.

I chuckled to myself that these were the things that Ali focused on but that is her deal.  I reminded her it is a 6 year old vehicle so it is not going to be perfect.  As I was sitting in the vehicle checking things out Tony returned with my id and a license plate.  He then reached behind the drivers seat, hoping to just prop the license there instead of fastening it to the back.  Well the problem was the SSR has nothing to rest a license plate on, instead Tony wound up dropping the plate into the well the hard top retracts into. Duh.

I had to initiate the top drop sequence so he could reach down and retrieve the plate.  Tony went back inside to get a screwdriver.  Ali was continuing her inspection.  One of her big vehicle turn ons are cupholders.  Well the designers of the SSR did not share Ali’s love of cupholders.  There is a small pop out cup holder in the dash that had it’s face plate fall off when Ali tried it.  The other cup holders are weird, removable varieties that slide onto the side of the center console.  Well there is supposed to be two, the car only had one.

In my research of the SSR one negative that came up was poor fit and finish of the interior components.  This SSR followed that blueprint obviously.  Oh well, that is minor stuff I can fix.

So finally Tony got the license plate affixed to the truck and we headed out for the test drive.  Since it is only a two seater Tony had no option but to wait for us back at the dealership.

The last time I drove a six speed was my test drive of the new 2010 Camaro.  As a result my first few pull outs and shifts were pretty herky jerky until I got a feel for where the clutch pedal engaged.  By the end of the test ride I was doing much better.

I did some hard accelerating and decelerating to test out the basic functionality of the SSR.  I loved the way it felt and sounded.  Running out a V8 past 3000 rpm’s is just music to my ears. About halfway through I pulled into a convenience store parking lot so we could drop the top. Going from hard top to topless is a fascinating and painless 15 second procedure.  Simply hold down one button until you hear two bells and the top disappears into a small well behind the passenger compartment.

While we were in the lot we got out and did some more visual inspection.  A closer inspection of the massive, chrome plated wheels revealed that there was some significant pitting/oxidation on one wheel and the other three had the beginning of the same issue.  It isn’t bad enough that you notice it if you aren’t looking for it.  It’s another one of those things that can be addressed in the future but is far from a deal breaker.

We cruised back to the Jaguar lot and parked the car.  I asked Ali her thoughts.  She confirmed that she though the car was nice but that we should try to work the numbers based on the few issues we found as well as the circumstances around the sale. (end of the month, car been on the lot for a month, etc…)

So we went back inside and found Tony was in his office on the phone.  I made sure he saw we were back, figuring once he was off the phone he would come out and get us.  Ali and I went over to the lounge area where I made myself a cup of coffee while Ali grabbed a water.  We sat down in front of the big screen tv for 5 minutes or so waiting for Tony to come out.

He never did.  Instead I meandered back over to his office and saw he was off the phone.  He acted like he was surprised and called me in.  Ok, this guy is definitely trying to pull mind tricks, without a doubt.  I saw further evidence of that when the price tag that was in the vehicle was the original $28995 tag that first adorned the windshield when the car was put on the lot a month ago.  The $24995 tag that replaced it in the Autotrader picture was nowhere to be seen,  again, more psychological warfare.

When I had talked to Tony on the phone a day before he was pretty concerned with pointing out that the price listed in Autotrader was already heavily discounted.  Well that certainly wasn’t going to stop us for asking for more.

After I indicated to Tony that I did indeed like the car and was interesting in moving to the price negotiation process he pulled yet another salesman trick, asking me to throw out the first number.  A salesman never wants to give away money he doesn’t have to.  Tony said how he hates to go back and forth (yea sure he does) so he asked if I could tell him what I was thinking.  I told him it would be great to have that 25k be my out the door price, including tax, tags and title. Now the line was drawn in the sand.

Tony expressed physical discomfort at my suggestion, reminding me that he told me on the phone he had very little room to move on the car.  I told him I know what he told me but that was a number I would be happy to walk off the lot for, pointing out some of the cosmetic issues the car has as.  I also told him of comparable SSR’s I found at dealerships for less money even though they had the more expensive automatic transmissions.  Of course I didn’t bring the examples of more expensive SSR’s I also found.

I already knew the 24995 price was not awful.  When I punched the cars specs into Kelley Blue Book and Nada the both spit out a number pretty close to their original nearly 29k price.  I was actually prepared to pay 25k for the car if I had to, I just didn’t want to.

Both sides of this negotiation had things going for and against them.  On my side was the fact that it was the end of the month, a time that dealers historically are pushing to move both new and used vehicles.  Most salesman get bonuses based on these numbers.  Since we were dealing with the sales manager directly I don’t know if his stake was quite as large.

The SSR had been on their lot for over a month, another plus for me.  The truck is a niche vehicle and a 6 speed makes the niche smaller since many people just don’t want to be bothered with a clutch pedal.

On Tony’s side was the fact that I had just driven three hours to look at this car which indicated I had strong intentions of buying it despite my proclamation to Ali that we have to be ready to walk away.  Tony also had the hidden ace of my not having any idea how much he was “into” the truck for, meaning I don’t know what number was placed on the truck when it was traded in.

Tony tried to appear open and honest when he said that number was $23,500, theoretically meaning that if he sold the car to me at my proposed number he would be losing money which he just can’t do.  I pointed out to Tony that I had no way of knowing if he was telling me the truth about that number which he took offense to.  He repsonded by going into a long dialogue about how he is a straight shooter, honest, blah, blah, blah.  Yea sure bud, we were all taught to say that as we picked your pocket.

So Tony hits some buttons on his keyboard  and his calculator to rerun the numbers.  After some consternation he tells me the best he could do was knock 5 bills off the price.  When he turned the screen to show us the numbers another sticking point was revealed, the “mandatory” $389 document fees.  Well I immediately called bullshit on that.

Tony said this was something included in every deal that includes the administrative costs of processing a deal.  I said, yeah and it is additional profit.  Tony tried to correct my assumption saying there are real costs included in that number and I continued to rebuff it.

During the negotiations Ali chimed in that another reason Tony should be more willing to make a deal was we weren’t going to finance the car through the dealership since we already had obtained financing.  I winced when she said that as I already knew in a dealer’s eyes that is seen as a negative instead of a positive since it means they lose an opportunity to make a few bucks from the bank.

So he goes back into “deal working” mode, hitting some more keys and then telling me his final deal was $24,200, after that he was done and would walk away.  I looked at Ali and told Tony we would like to go out of the office and talk about it some more.  Tony said it was fine.  As we went to the lounge to refresh our refreshments Tony walked by us towards the back of the dealership and disappeared.

When I threw out the 25k out the door number I sort of knew that the place I would wind up is halfway there.  Again when dealing on a used car it is tougher to know where the dealer actually is profit wise.  $200 certainly was not going to break us one way or the other especially since we are playing with house money compared to where we would have been in a Camaro purchase.

Despite that I told Ali I really didn’t want to break.  By this point neither Ali nor I liked Tony.  On top of him playing all of these waiting games leading up to the negotiation he was just annoying us now.  On top of that time was getting short because the cleaning people were supposed to show up at our place mid-afternoon.

So I told Ali I wanted to go in and ask for an even 24 despite Tony being “done”.  So we were ready to resume negotiations but Tony was still nowhere to be seen.  He again had disappeared, again keeping us waiting for at least another 10 minutes.  This guy is something else.

Finally he comes back and we go back into his office.  I tell Tony we would be willing to go to 24k.  Tony reacted negatively, initially acting like he was unwilling to move any further.  I told him that I am surprised he would let a deal go over $200.  He then “compromises” once again and says ok I’ll split the difference and took another $100 off the price.  Ok fine, I wasn’t going to repeat the f’in process again over $100.  I said it was a deal.

Finally the negotiation with this dipshit was done.  It was nice to know that regardless of if you are selling Hyundai’s or Jaguars the same basic tactics are used.  It is such a pain in the ass.

I had gotten the financing already done in my name and told Ali I would like to have the SSR just in my name since it is my baby.  I did the same thing with the 88 Vette and 71 Buick as well. It was now almost noon so Ali was able to head out for the long drive back while I stuck around and waited to take delivery.

I was glad to have all of the annoying parts of the car buying experience out of the way and now I just wait to head out in my new awesome wheels.  If only that was the case.

So Tony tells me the F&I guy that normally works Fridays is off because his dad had a heart attack.  He said the other F&I woman is off Fridays but she lives close, he will have to call her to come in, it should be 10-15 minutes. He said he would have the SSR taken back and cleaned up.  He said they would even put SOME gas in it since it was almost out. Ok fine, whatever.

Well that 10-15 minutes took more like a half hour until I was in the woman’s office.  She seemed nice enough.  She had the details of the deal which revealed she could skip all of the typical games with financing.  Where I worked we routinely would pad the bank interest rate and make a good chunk of change by doing so.  I don’t know if a Jaguar dealership would attempt the same shit but I was just as good to not have to find out.  I also told her no extended warranty pitch was needed.  If I was interested in that my credit union could provide that as well at a discounted rate.

The paper signing process didn’t take long, maybe 10 minutes.  I thanked her for her efforts and once again ran into Tony.  He said that a guy just took the SSR out to get some gas in it.  Since the gas station was only a few blocks away it should only take a few minutes.

I sat down in the lounge and sent out news of my purchase on social media.  After that I anxiously sat there, half watching the tv, half watching the driveway for my new silver beast to return.  After at least 15 minutes it still had not returned.

I found Tony again and asked what was up, it shouldn’t take very long to dump gas in the car.  Tony said he didn’t know why the guy isn’t back yet but he was sure it would be any minute.  I told him I was going outside to stretch my legs and wait.

Well I walked around the lot for another 10 to 15 minutes and the guy was STILL not back, what the fck?  FINALLY the car pulls in and is promptly driven back to the garage area.  He has MORE to do with it???  Tony came out and asked if the guy came back yet.  I told him he just did but he drove it back to the garage.

Tony goes marching back to the garage and I hear him bitching the guy out.  I couldn’t make it all out but in a nutshell he said asked him why the F it took him 25 minutes to get gas.  I saw the guy looking dejected as he was scolded like a child.  I had visions of this punk taking my SSR for one last joyride.  Who knows what actually happened.

When Tony drove the car back up front I walked around it again just to make sure no new cosmetic blemishes were just introduced by this dipshit.  As Tony was attaching my new license plate I asked him if he has personnel issues in the detailing department.  He sighed and said yes.

Finally, finally I was ready to get the F out of there.  I shook Tony’s hand even though he didn’t really deserve it.  When I got in the car I did another quick visual survey to make sure nothing new looked f’d up. After confirming everything was intact I pulled out, glad I would never need to see Treasure Coast Jaguar again.

I left the top up since the skies looked somewhat menacing.  It felt a bit surreal to be driving out in my new wheels.  I have had the Camaro vision in my head for so long it felt very odd to be able to finally dismiss it from my personal to do’s. Ultra-cool set of wheels for Duf, check.

I felt very secure in my vehicle purchasing detour.  By dumb luck I wound up rediscovering a vehicle possibility that I never considered up until several days prior.  I wound up getting something arguably “cooler” than a 2012 Camaro.  It’s unique and will only be more so over time since the three year production run only produced around 25,000 SSR’s.

The Ricochet Silver color, while not as bold as Inferno Orange, still looks great.  The aggressive body lines of the SSR more than make up for it.

Financially there is no comparison.  The SSR payments will plug right into the Camry budget column that was never removed with room to spare.  Hell when I first started the Camaro idea two years ago we literally started a refinance of our house to make it more doable.  Thank goodness the refi didn’t go through.

The drive back across the state was long.  I worked on familiarizing myself with the various controls and gauges.  I played around a lot with the 6 way power seat.  Even with all of the adjustment options I was ready for a break after a couple hours. I was bummed out that it started raining on the drive back, meaning the SSR will already be needing a bath over the weekend. It also meant I would be keeping the top up the entire way.

Even so I was enjoying rowing through the gears and the sweet sounds that accompany it.  It’s very hard to not want to run the rpm’s up on every start, it just feels and sounds good.  Sort of like why I like squeezing the trigger of my cordless drill whenever it is in my hand.

After the long day of driving, negotiating and being annoyed I had no desire to try to immediately whip the garage into shape to fit both cars.  The SSR was going to have to spend it’s first night at our house outdoors.

The cleaning people did not show up as promised.  We wound up rescheduling them for Saturday instead.  We still needed to go to Sam’s and get groceries so Ali and I did a rare combo shopping trip.  Of course we took the SSR.

The bed in the SSR is on the small side for pick up trucks but it is far larger than any trunk you will ever find so it worked out just fine for storing groceries.  Ali even was gracious enough to understand that going anywhere in the SSR is going to mean we will be getting some extra cardio work in, as in longer walks in the parking lot.  I will always being parked as far away from other cars as possible.

On the way back it started to rain again, how annoying.  By the time we got home it was pouring.  The carpeted bed in the SSR got quite wet while the groceries were unloaded, grrr.

This rain evidently was cast off from that hurricane that blew apart.  It wound up raining hard for at least the next 12 hours.  When I awoke Saturday morning our back yard was as flooded as I had seen it since Wilma.

I am so over rainy season.

It was such a soppy mess outside I didn’t even bother weeding, f it.  Instead I dove into more SSR research.  I discovered an SSR owner message board that seems to be a great resource.  It led me to a way to download for free the SSR owner manuals that were not included with the truck.

Since the cleaning people were coming I didn’t have to do any of my normal weekend indoor maintenance which was nice.  My weekend was very uncharacteristically  void of normal housework which was good since I had a garage to rearrange.

I started on the process while the house was cleaned.  I pulled basically everything on the garage floor that was on the left and right wall out.  One of these items was the garage fridge.  That wasn’t actually pulled out.  Instead it found itself relocated in the middle of the back wall.  In order for that to happen I had to remove two small shelves that were mounted there as well as pulling out the Workmate that has sat there for years as a glorified table.

Some of the stuff that was pulled out was relocated to the small shed including two of our four garage bikes, the generator, some jack stands, the Workmate and a few other things.  Other items had their usefulness reevaluated and found their way into the trash.  Others just got pulled out to be reinserted hopefully once the vehicles were back inside.

So I first wanted to back the SSR in against the left side.  With the van and Tacoma in their parking spot I had precious little room to turn around so wound up backing onto the sopping wet grass.  When I nudged myself back up onto the driveway I managed to spin mud all around the wheel well and rear quarter.  I was pissed.  I angrily pulled out the hose and washed the mud off before it had a chance to dry.

Ali got behind me in the garage and guided me in, keeping me close to the left wall but not too close. Inching the car back was a good test of manual transmission abilities which had pretty come back 100% by that point.  I got the car parked securely and still had room behind me to open the fridge, barely.

We then pulled the Camry in and verified that both vehicles do indeed fit.

Now the unfun part began, trying to put anything other than two cars into the garage.  I quickly found myself frustrated as I looked fruitlessly to get items into the garage in a way that would not be incredibly inconvenient to access when needed.  I got everything in but was not happy at all with the end result.  I obviously had more work that needed to be done.

I had run out of time to work on it for the day.  We had some errands to get done and also had to pick up race entries for Sunday’s race.  Of course we took the SSR back out.  The skies still looked menacing so I didn’t drop the top until we got closer to town where things cleared up.   Man it was sweet cruising with the top down, even though it was almost summertime hot and humid out.

On the way back the car unfortunately once again got to experience rain.  Luckily the top goes up quickly so 15 seconds after pulling under a gas station overhang we were back on the road protected from the elements.

Saturday night was uneventful as we did race prep and hit the sack early.  I was very tired and out like a light by 9pm.

Sunday the 4:15 alarm was not welcome.  To be honest I really didn’t feel like timing the race.  A large part of my race timing drive had always been, hey, it’s extra money towards a Camaro (although it never seemed to actually be put towards it).  Well anyway that need is no longer there.  Sure some extra bucks here and there is nice and will help do some of the minor things I would like to do with the car.  But since the SSR invokes none of the financial hardship a Camaro would have that need is dramatically lessened.

Well being the team player I am I drug myself out of bed and drug Ali out shortly thereafter.  We got on the race site a little “late” at about 5:40 am. Normally we aim to be on site two hours before the race is scheduled to start.

Well there was only one other vehicle there and our big truck that has all of our race supplies was nowhere to be seen.  That’s odd, we rarely beat the truck here when we are on time even.  Well this was just a sign of things to come.

Even though this is held in a county park, the county doesn’t believe in lighting the park throughout the night, it is pitch dark.  The only light source we had were two battery powered lanterns I bring along to a race.  I used one lantern on a table back at the pavilion we were supposed to set up at.  I figured while I was waiting for the truck to arrive I could at least plug my power strip into one of the several power outlets on the pavilion supports to get the laptops up and running.

I went around to each and every outlet and they were dead as a doornail, that’s just great.  Even though we have been timing races with chips for around 4 years and have established a long time ago that power on site is a crucial item that HAS to be verified by the club race contact, it wasn’t done in this case.  Evidently an assumption was made that shouldn’t have  been.

So now the scramble begins.  Without power we are in trouble.  The laptops will only run so long on battery alone and I can’t run my laser printer on batteries.  I start walking the area with my other lantern and a light up, led power cord to help me test for juice.  As I was walking around the truck showed up thankfully.

I was not alone in my search for power, I had two other people helping as well.  We all were striking out and all getting very frustrated that we were dealing with an issue that should never come up.

Well off in the distance I saw the glow of a soda machine.  It was located at a building some 200 yards from the registration area.  I walked over to the building and verified I could reach the open power outlet.  I told the others I have power albeit from far, far away.  Luckily the club recently has invested in additional extension cords.  I think we now have over 1000 feet total.

We started the process of running a VERY long circuit first to the finish line and then hopefully over to the registration area.  Before we completed the run someone discovered that the main building close to the pavilion actually had an unlocked door so we were able to tap additional power from there.

Like I said, the park was pitch dark.  I saw two different people fall on their face while trying to navigate the twisting pathway that lead to the registration area.  They were lucky they weren’t seriously hurt.

So finally we had power for the event and could move forward with the registration process.  Now the next problem presented itself, a cluster f of humanity jammed into a small pavilion.

We have worked quite hard over the past couple years at streamlining the pre-race process.  Part of that has been buying additional tents and signage to direct runners to the proper area and minimize confusion and delays.  We also have changed the way we number runners so bibs are numerically matched alphabetically to the last name to further expedite things.

Well all of that was thrown out the window for this race.  They put stuff under the pavilion because it was always put under the pavilion I guess, regardless of if it makes sense anymore.  There were no signs telling anywhere were to go, just constant questions and finger pointing.  It was just unprofessional.

Luckily the race is not huge, with less than 300 participants.  Ali was going to run the race and then changed her mind when it looked like we would not get out from under the paper curve but then decided to run after all when we got ahead of it.

I made a boo boo that I didn’t realize until a couple people mentioned that it seemed their chip time was about 20 seconds faster than what they recorded on their watch.  Well I realized that I misentered the start time of the race by 20 seconds, meaning everyone’s time was off.  I knew I could fix it but I didn’t quite remember how.  Finally I was able to get the times fixed shortly before the awards ceremony started.

Ali, despite saying her legs felt “cloudy” before the race actually posted a decent time, averaging a 9:25 pace over the 5 mile course.

I was quite glad to get the hell out of there once the race was done.  My lack of desire to time the event certainly wasn’t bolstered by the events of the day.

The Eagles didn’t play the Cowboys until Sunday night so I had the rest of the day to dig further into the SSR and the garage reorg.

I had read up the owners manual I downloaded the night before so I wanted to check a few things out. The first thing I did was program the built in Homelink system to work with our garage door.  I then tried playing a MP3 cd that I made.  Supposedly the stereo supports the format, well I couldn’t get that to work.

I also noticed more of the poor interior quality that I read about.  In addition the broken cupholder faceplate I saw other small things that will need some attention like a glove box that requires a firm slam to stay closed and a pop out cigarette lighter/ash tray door that is rigged with a small screw.  The stuff is a small annoyance at best.

So I turned my attention back to finishing up the garage work.  We had picked up some hardware at Lowe’s on Saturday, one flip out support to mount on the wall and hooks that could be used to hang bikes upside down from the ceiling.  I wasn’t quite sure what the final configuration would be.

One thing I did know was the shelf in the back corner had to come out since that was the wall one bike would go on.  After removing the shelf I used my stud finder to see my options with the new bracket.  The stud placement was either too far left or right for where I wanted the bike to go so instead I utilized a spare piece of 2″x6″ as a go between.  I secured both ends of the wood to the studs and then attached the bracket to the wood.

I then put Ali’s bike up there and verified I JUST had enough clearance to slide the trash can and recycle bin underneath.  Now I turned my attention to the ceiling.  Again the stud spacing was a problem.  The only place I could screw the hooks into was in the frame that surrounds the trap door.  It’s not the most visually pleasing location but it was sturdy and still allowed space for the Camry to be pulled in.

I replaced the shelf that collapsed a few months back with the shelf I removed.  I added additional supports to make sure there would be no future structural collapses.  I took the two extra bike hooks I had and screwed them into the roof support in the small shed to get one of the two relocated bikes up in the air where it will do better.

I did a decent job of making everything have a new home without totally destroying usability of the garage.  I have to admit though having everything look so tight in there causes me some angst.  It has been so long since two vehicles were in the garage I am just used to having ample space in there.  I am sure it is just a matter of time until that angst fades.

If you would like to see all of the pictures associated with the SSR you can see them here. If you want to see the awesome hard top retraction sequence go here.

Wow what a football game.  Andy Reid has continued his pretty amazing streak of week after bye wins.  Quite simply he has NEVER lost a game following a bye week, ever.  The Eagles destroyed the Cowboys on both sides of the ball.  I made sure I stayed awake for the entire game by watching the first 3 quarters out in the great room.  Starting a game while laying in bed is a surefire recipe for sleep.

Although it was fantastic performance I am far from disillusioned.  This is the same team that also shit the bed 4 weeks in a row.  My hopes are far from high but I’ll take a Cowboy ass beating any way I can get it.

Hey the world just passed 7 billion people, yay!

Look at these numbers and see if you notice any problem.

It took until 1804 for the first billion human beings to occupy the planet.

It took 123 more years until the second billion came to be in 1927.

The jump to 3 billion came in 1959, only 33 years later.

In only a decade and a half in 1974 another billion mouths were added.

5 billion people came to be even quicker, 13 years later in 1987.

The next billion came around in a scant 11 years in 1998! Bringing the world population to 6 billion.

Now 13 years after that we find our world stuffed with 7 billion people.  If you graph that curve it is obvious something will have to give.  Either the world implodes and is no longer to support the tremendous demands we place upon it or there is some sort of mass extinction event that gets the numbers back in balance.  Neither option is particularly rosey.

Keep pumping out those kids!!

 

 

So despite Ali’s urging for me to not veer from my Camaro convertible vision I did more snooping around looking at alternatives.  In addition to looking on Auto Trader I was doing some local searches on Craigslist.  As I was looking at the many hits that came up with the “convertible” search term I clicked on a link for a 2005 Chevy SSR.

Hmmm, I totally forgot about these retro monsters.  I remember this epic commercial that I think aired during a Superbowl. I recall thinking, damn that thing (a yellow SSR) is CRAZY. This commercial is even funnier.

The SSR on Craigslist was more money than the 4th gen cars I was looking at but still tons less than a drop top 2012 Camaro.  Well this got the gears turning in my head.

I went on a SSR fact finding mission.  I always liked the retro style although I have only ever seen a handful of SSR’s on the road, most likely because they were a VERY expensive vehicle by 2004/2005 standards.  In total there were only roughly 27,000 of them ever made.

I knew they had a beefy motor but I didn’t know it was a Corvette motor, producing right around 400 HP, within sniffing range of a new Camaro SS.  The CL SSR was an automatic which I had no interest in.  I was excited to discover starting in 2005 they made a manual transmission available.  Oh did I mention the SSR is a convertible with a retractable HARD TOP, yes that is incredibly awesome.  It does even retain some moderate truck functionality with a real covered truck bed in the rear.

When I was a young kid I clearly recall an old Chevy pick up truck my dad had permanently parked in front of the garage.  I believe it was a model from the 50’s.  I spent many an hour sitting behind the wheel of that truck make believing I was driving.  The front end of the SSR is very similar to what I remember of our old Chevy.

The styling of the SSR is guaranteed to elicit an opinion from you either positive or negative.  There is no way you can not take notice.  I happen to like it, a lot.

So my search now focused on SSR’s, I headed to Autotrader and punched in my parameters.  Surprisingly quite a few stick shift models popped up, albeit spread throughout the country.

I did an inquiry on a low mileage (38,000) SSR in Minnesota, chatting to one of the sales reps.  The price of their car was quite reasonable.  He said that it has been on the lot 30 days so either they sell it or it goes to auction at the end of the month.  I was actually trying to draw up scenarios that involved a one way ticket to Minnesota followed by my driving the car back to Florida.  It wasn’t a very reasonable scenario though when I add in the additional expense of doing so along with the time frame work-wise since we are entering our busiest season where I MUST be available.

I looked at numerous SSR’s but came across one on the east coast of the state that seemed more doable.  The price was higher but it had even less miles, only 28k.  It was sitting at a new Jaguar dealer lot.  I looked at the free Carfax report that was included and saw no red flags.  I checked the online guides for used car pricing and surprisingly found the posted online price was around 3K LESS than the going dealer rate.

I sent an electronic inquiry via Auto Trader last evening and was surprised to get a phone call from the dealerships “internet sales manager” around 10 minutes later.  He confirmed the SSR was still available and asked when I wanted to come and see it.  I explained my geography to him and said possibly this weekend but I would get back to him.

I was now getting pretty excited by the prospective SSR purchase.  I anxiously awaited Ali’s return from track practice to run it by her.  When she got home I told her what I was thinking.  I was surprised when she was actually familiar with the SSR, evidently her brother’s neighbor/friend has one that she has seen during her PA visits.  She actually said it was “cool” which surprised me.

Ali did mention one negative, she said that she remembers that the SSR was very loud, she could hear it coming from far away.  I said “perfect”, to which she rolled her eyes.

I showed Ali pictures of the car and she said it looked good, she is more a fan of the silver color than the Hugger Orange I targeted for the Camaro. She isn’t thrilled about it being stick but I told her all along that is what I wanted.  She can drive stick but she only has done so with the shifter attached to a weak 4 cylinder motor.  I don’t know if I would recommend her trying her hand with 400 HP attached to the clutch pedal.

Then we talked about the financial aspect of this which sounds absolutely peachy compared to the hoops we would have had to jump through with a new Camaro.  Not only can we put down much less money, we also will pay significantly less monthly than the Camry payment used to be. The icing on the cake is the incredibly low 2.49% interest rate I can get through the credit union on a used vehicle right now.  I could slide into this vehicle with very minimal financial pain which would make me feel much better.

All of the numbers I was running with were not even considering whatever further discount I may be able to wrangle out of the dealership.  Knowing the vehicle has been on the lot for awhile gives me some leverage.  My search on Autotrader also confirmed that there are other SSR’s in the sea if the dealer proves to be troublesome.

Ali reiterated how she was cool with it IF I didn’t view it as settling for less than I really wanted.  I told her there is no danger of that.

So once the blessing had been granted I sprung into action.  I applied online for the loan via the credit union and called up the insurance company to make sure my rate would not be whacked out disproportionately.  I then replied back to the sales manager that I would be making plans to come see the car.

I got the go ahead to take tomorrow off of work if need be since we are in the calm before the storm that hits next Tuesday.  If I can get all my ducks lined up I will be heading over to the east coast tomorrow.

At our last running club meeting I got the go ahead to order some window stickers for us to give out/sell.  People like to put stickers on their rear windows.  I already had a sticker from the local and national triathlete group we are members of on the back of the Tacoma.

The new running club stickers showed up yesterday.  I didn’t waste anytime adorning both the Tacoma and Camry with one.

 

So anyone that follows the blog knows that I have been talking about getting a new 5th generation Camaro since late 2008 – early 2009.  Initially I potentially targeted a 2010 model Camaro, a 1SS model.

Well that wasn’t a realistic goal as long as the we had the car payment on the Camry going on so I patiently back burnered my hopes for a Camaro until that payment went away which happened last year after we got our tax return back.

However by that time my desired vehicle changed with the passing model years.  The 2011 model year introduced the convertible which then became my ideal ride.  I also had decided I needed the additional tech features the 2SS model offers, including a HUD (heads up display).  Of course both of these changes meant the dollar figure I would be laying out would be going up considerably.

Well then the 2012 model year changes were announced which included some more tech goodies like a rear back up camera and improved smart device integration. Also I was hoping an additional model year would help smooth out some of the fit and finish problems I read about with 2011 Camaro convertibles.  Well they also raised the price on 2012 models, pushing that potential price tag even higher.

Since that latest intention I have been on a holding pattern with the understanding that to make this work a large chunk of money would need to be put down to make the monthly egg in the same ballpark as what we paid for the Camry.  The budget column formerly used for the Camry has been slowly accumulating money that instead could be used for a down payment.

Well other than that budget column, there hasn’t been much change in our spending habits to help our savings grow more rapidly otherwise.  When I look at our financial overview in Quicken it doesn’t make me feel nearly comfortable enough to move forward with dropping the kind of money a 2012 drop top Camaro would require.

So yesterday I did a little snooping around Auto Trader.  Specifically looking at 4th generation Firebirds/Camaros convertibles that were in nice shape.  It didn’t take long to find a number that were pretty damn sharp.

The 1997 Firebird Formula pictured appealed to me in many ways.  It was somewhat close, located over in the Fort Lauderdale area.  It was a two owner car with a ridiculously low 24,000 miles on the odometer.  It has the 5.7 liter Corvette motor and is a 6 speed. I always was a fan of of the 4th gen cars, I had an 87 Firebird for a period of time way back when.

Going the used route has a number of perks.  A cherry 10-13 year old vehicle is actually more unique than a brand new convertible Camaro.  I always like being less of a “me too” kind of guy.  For what I would have to put down on a new Camaro I could completely pay for a nice 4th gen car and skip the 5-6 years of car payments.  The financial hit would be massively different.

On the downside it would be a compromise from my initial, Gran Torino type vision where I would buy the car from the factory and have it be a part of my existence until the day I died.  Plus obviously a used vehicle a decade old is going to have many more possible repair needs than a brand new vehicle, no matter how cherry that used vehicle is.

Well I was interested enough in this 97 to contact the seller.  The one thing I noticed right away after a quick check of Kelley Blue Book and NADA that he appeared to have the car pretty dramatically overpriced at $17,900.  NADA pegged a car in excellent condition with that mileage in the 8’s and the highest number I got out of KBB was $11,800.  The guy was asking for a “WTF are you talking about” premium.

So I left a message and the seller called me back who was also a used car dealer.  He gave me some background on the car.  He was the original owner, sold it to some dude from Germany a few years back with 12,000 miles on the odometer and then bought the car back later.  I could tell from the pictures that the car was in real nice shape but he further confirmed how nice it was.

So then I asked him about flexibility in his price.  I explained that I looked online at various resources and the absolute highest number I saw was in the 11’s.  The guy said he wasn’t very flexible and reiterated just how nice the vehicle was.  Well yea, I know it’s nice but that book price I quoted was for a car that was in EXCELLENT condition with 24,000 miles.  Somehow this guy thought I instead should trust the book in his head that magically sets the bar 50% higher.

The only thing the seller said was he wouldn’t really be able to say how flexible he was until he heard a number, whatever that means.  Well I certainly wasn’t willing to throw any numbers around over the phone.  I followed up and asked him how long he has had the car for sale.  I was surprised when he said 6 months.  He said he has storage space available so it isn’t like holding on to the car waiting for the right sucker to come along (my interpretation) is a big deal. Once I heard that I knew there was no point in continuing the inquiry since I wasn’t looking to be that sucker.

I did do more digging around and found quite a few very nice convertible 4th gen F bodies.  If I had a choice I would take a Firebird over the Camaro 4th gen.  I think they look nicer and it would tie back to my original love, my Hugger Orange 69 Firebird.

When Ali saw I was considering settling for a used vehicle instead of the new Camaro I have talked about for 3 years she did not react favorably.  She thinks I will have regrets about not buying exactly what I want.  Well it isn’t like there is only ONE vehicle in the world that I desire.  Anything with a V-8, a clutch pedal and an angry exhaust note will help soothe the soul.

The ultimate decision of course will be mine.  The massive savings in opting for a used vehicle in the big picture might make me sleep better at night than extending myself financially both up front and a half decade down the road.

 

 

I missed my gym workout yesterday so I wanted to put in some extra time at home outside.  Ali headed out with me as well.

The first thing I tried was the hard mode version of this month’s Bar-barian challenge, inverted dips.  An inverted dip is a tough and awkward move.  Basically you try to keep your back straight, your feet up in the air and then pull your body towards the bar.

With my lengthy appendages it was challenging just to try to get into the starting position.  I pulled out 3 so so reps both with a pull up and chin up grip.  The effort landed me firmly on the bottom of the hard mode scoreboard but at least I am on there. Here is the video.

I then moved onto other body weight work including muscle ups, ring dips, front/back tucked levers and human flag training.  Ali was very helpful in my lever holds as she could let me know when my back was parallel to the ground.  I was amazed how my perception of parallel was so far off from the what it actually was.

I then moved onto half flags, pictured to the left.  You basically use the elbow on your lower arm as a support for your body and then utilize your core to hold yourself more or less parallel to the ground.  I initially made some weak attempts at a tucked full flag but I couldn’t even get off the ground.  Al Kavadlo is really good at them, I need to watch some of his videos regarding flags and maybe get some in person adivce during the next NYC trip.

If you want to see the video of the rest of the workout it is here.

I watched the last three episodes of The Walking Dead last night.  I had been holding off watching them sort of like why you try to keep the marshmallows from Lucky Charms till the end.  The show did not fail to deliver and now joins Breaking Bad and Dexter in the list of shows that I can’t wait for their most recent seasons to become available on Netflix.

My DNS-323 NAS has been flaking out for awhile.  One of my one TB drives was evidently going bad.  I decided to snag some used 2 TB drives to replace/upgrade the unit.  I had to first back off the nearly 400 GB of data from the old drives.  It took almost 6 hours to do so.  I was just glad the external hard drive on my Win 2008 R2 server had the space.  I am in the process of copying the data back now.  It will be nice to have 2TB of mirrored storage available.

I have been turned on to a bunch of new documentaries on Netflix, all available for instant streaming.  I recommend you check them out.  The names are, The Gerson Miracle, Ingredients, and Burzynski.

Ali has been off from work since Thursday. Things at work have been pretty tame recently, allowing her to take the time off.  She has been enjoying her time at home.  In fact she told me last night that she would have no issue doing it full time.  Well that is nice to know, I was concerned she would hate staying home. 🙂

It was nice having a conventional type evening where Ali was home before I was.  She made a nice meal including the eggplant we harvested from the garden on Sunday.

Man my body really is shifting into old person sleep mode.  Most nights I am getting ready for bed right around 9.  Although I usually am not asleep until after 10 when whatever I am catching up on on Netflix or Hulu is over.

I have other wonderful old fart symptoms creeping in like hair on the ears, eye brows that require regular maintenance, wrinkles, and enough snaps, crackles and pops from my joints to keep me awake at night. Luckily my drive to battle the aging process keeps my head above water.

 

So I was up bright and early Saturday morning to go time a large local invitational cross country meet.  This was the second year I have done the event.  Since it was the second time I had pretty smooth sailing even with the number of participants increasing quite a bit this year.  Actually the most troublesome part was getting accurate team rosters from the various coaches prior to the race.

One of the cool things about this race is we set up in the football stadium.  When we get started it is pitch dark so they flip on the stadium lights to make it even cooler.  Next year I need to remember to bring my football and kicking tee to knock a few field goals through.  The field is even the expensive NexTurf variety that many pro football teams utilize.

Even with the lack of race day issues, it still made for a long morning since I was literally timing 4 different races back to back. I didn’t leave until 11:30.  During the race I was approached by a coach of another team to ask if I would be available to time a meet they have coming up in a couple weeks.  I sent him a proposal to do so but it is at a rate that is actually worth my while.  I timed the meet Saturday at a bargain basement price because the coach that hosts it is a running club board member.

Saturday evening we went out to dinner for the second week in a row.  I called to invite my mom but she already had other plans.  We went to a place called Sweet Tomatoes that went into the building vacated by Macaroni Grill years ago.  I didn’t realize it was a buffet.

Now when you think of a typical buffet you think of rows of  calorie and fat stuffed selections along with the herds of fat asses and old people that flock to these type of establishments.  Sweet Tomatoes is a different type of buffet.  Instead it is filled with mostly vegetarian selections, Ali was in heaven.

Along with a massive salad bar they had a great selection of other entrees.  Best of all we wound up spending a total of $20 for the two of us thanks to kind patron that shared a discount code that knocked 4 or 5 bucks off the tab.  Now of course there were still the typical big sides of beef walking around the restaurant, loading up their plates with heaping servings of cheesy entrees and finishing up with massive soft serve sundaes but for the most part people seemed to exercise moderate self control.

Ali and I were both quite impressed with the place and enjoyed what we picked out.  Sweet Tomatoes will definitely be added to the places we like to eat rotation.

After dinner we had a couple stops to make.  The first stop was Marshall’s across the parking lot.  Ali pointed out how much of a pain in the ass our one large piece of luggage is to manage, which it is.  It is basically an oversized duffel bag with wheels that we bought out in Denver years ago before we were married.  Although it holds a lot of shit, it has a small grab handle which makes it very awkward and uncomfortable to pull for any appreciable distance.

Ali’s point was that when we go to NYC our plan is to take public transportation to get to our hotel.  Dragging that bag around would suck ass quite simply. So anyway Marshall’s evidently sells luggage.  As I walked in I saw they had a big NOW HIRING display at the entrance.  Wow, Marshall’s wouldn’t be a bad place for mom to earn some bucks I thought.  I know she likes the store and I saw other women working there that looked close to mom’s age.

I snapped a picture of the sign and emailed it to mom to let her know.  When I talked to her on the phone earlier she indicated she had escalated her job search priority so I figured this could be a decent lead.

We grabbed a large Samsonite piece which was gray in color, helping it stand out from the oceans of black bags on the luggage carousel.  Pulling it was a delight, it will be a nice addition for the NYC trip.  Unfortunately there was an unwanted side effect of the luggage purchase.  Ali’s match-aphobia kicked in.

Ali loves when things match, so even though we have another 3 pieces of perfectly functional luggage at home she started talking about buying another matching piece.   Often I will just concede to this matching madness as it usually isn’t even worth the effort to point out the flaws in the spending logic.  Well I decided to stand my ground in this instance, reminding Ali that we are not world travelers that are constantly in and out of airports.  I agreed with her that the old duffel bag was an issue so I was fine with replacing it. I had no desire to replace other pieces unnecessarily.  I will just deal with the points and snickers from people at the airport that notice our luggage doesn’t match.

After Marshall’s we went to the Bonita Home Depot to get stuff to fill up our garden.  We loaded up with a ton of different things like cauliflower, tomatoes, two varieties of lettuce, eggplant, peppers and more.  We also bought several bad bug repelling good bug attracting flowers to plant around the outer borders of the raised beds to help protect our crops naturally.

I noticed that Home Depot had a now hiring sign as well, another place that mom considered as a viable place for employment.  I actually had told her a few weeks back that a guy I go to the gym with who works at HD told me they were in full hiring mode.  Mom refreshed her online application with them but was not moved to actually visit the store to inquire about openings specifically.  It certainly wouldn’t hurt.  Since mom’s unemployment benefits have expired she is going to have to do something.

Sunday morning Ali and I went out on a bike ride.  It was the first time Ali has ridden a bike since her Olympic triathlon a month or so ago.  We went somewhere different, a residential area across the road from the pool Ali trains at.  It is the area that her tri training group do many of their bike rides in.  It didn’t take long to see why.

The area is quiet residential neighborhood with empty roads connected by long straightaways.  It is a great spot for Ali to ride since she is still gun shy riding among traffic.  We maintained a mundane 13-15mph pace for most of the 16.28 mile ride but it was a good start for Ali.  The cool temps and low humidity meant I hardly even broke out in a sweat, even wearing a dark colored, long sleeve shirt.

My early Sunday afternoon was actually free since the Eagles were off this week.  We used that time to plant everything in the garden.  I am hoping everything takes, if so we will have quite the supply of fresh vegetables rolling in for quite awhile.

Later in the afternoon I decided to take another shot at the Bar-barian requirements.  My first attempt was 2 weeks ago at the gym.   Doing it there was a pain in the ass first because the “bar” they have is rotten for muscle ups and second because I had to work around other people.  As a result my time was a pretty slow 23 minutes to do it all. My hope was doing it on my “home court” would offer a time advantage.

My attempt started out surprisingly well.  I was able to string the first 5 muscle ups together back to back, something I never pulled off prior.  After that as I got into the meat and potatoes of the attempt things got progressively tougher.

I broke the dips, pull ups and push ups into smaller sets and then had to do the last 5 muscle ups 2,1,1,1.  My total time was under 18 minutes, at least a 5 minute improvement over my gym effort.  I was pleased overall with the set and I hope I can keep driving that time down as I do the routine more and more.

Here it is if you have 16 minutes to spare.

After my workout Ali was dressed to go out on a run.  She was originally planning to run with Michelle, unfortunately Michelle called earlier and said she was sick. I asked Ali if she wanted me to trail her on the bike.  She said she would be fine but I said I would do it anyway.  At least I could carry the water bottle on the bike. Ali put in a total of 6 miles and struggled to do so.  She said her legs felt pretty spent.

The entire weekend was filled with wonderful weather.  The AC was off and the windows open the entire time.

Yesterday I missed my gym session so I made up for it with an extended session at home on my outdoor bars.  Ali was home from work early and joined me outside as well.

I decided I wanted to try to best my previous best in one set muscle up reps.  Unfortunately I wound up with the same 4 reps as before and once again was only an inch or so short of getting rep number 5.  Although I failed to hit that goal, I smashed through another number.

Thus far the most total muscle ups I ever have done in one session was the 10 reps I did during my bar-barian requirements attempt last week.  Well last night I did somewhere around 25 total muscle ups, it was great.  I strung 3 muscle ups together multiple times and also messed around with close and wide grip variations.

Even after all of those reps I was able to pull out a 300 v2.0 today with 84 pull ups in the routine.  I am quite happy my upper body is adapting to the strain of the muscle up movement.  I can hardly wait to get back to Tompkins Square Park.

The weather today is in a word, awesome.  75 degrees, low humidity and not a cloud in the sky make me want to just walk out of the office and enjoy the beauty of Naples.  It is the first time I can remember the nice weather rolling in while we still have standing water around our property.  It will evaporate soon though.

Obama just stuck a couple more big feathers in his cap in the past few days.  The confirmed killing of Gadhafi can be only viewed as a good thing for the world, one less murderous dictator to deal with.  Now today Obama announced that we are pulling ALL troops out of Iraq by the end of THIS year. Amen, finally an end to the war that should have never existed.  Now if we can just do the same in Afghanistan we’ll be set.

I am sure the military contractors and all of the associated leeches that profit off of country building aren’t happy but tough shit.

Is there a good chance that Iraq will quickly slide back into a cesspool of corruption/violence without our troops playing babysitter?  Yep.  Do I give a shit? Nope.  You can’t save people from themselves.

Nobody would have predicted that some of Obama’s biggest victories in his first term would be on the foreign front.  I am sure it will be drilled home repeatedly during the upcoming mind numbing election cycle.

I have a cross country meet to time tomorrow morning.  I timed the same meet last year.  The attendance this year is going to be dramatically greater with over 700 kids registered.  This type of event has some additional challenges for me but since it is my second time around the learning curve should be flattening out.

Since the Eagles are on bye this week I have a free Sunday.  I hope to enjoy the weather and work on getting our garden populated with Ali.  Should be fun.

 

 

Yesterday I did my second running session on the treadmill in two weeks, increasing the distance slightly to 1.75 miles and ran at the same 9:13 pace.  Again it seemed to go ok and today I don’t feel awful.  It feels like I am walking a tight wire with the functionality of my right knee.  I just hope I don’t fall off.

Last night at our running club board meeting there were 3 people from the local chapter of the Boys & Girls club.  Their organization handles kids from grade 1 to 12 in an after school capacity for situations where parents are unavailable until later in the day.

I was surprised in the range of services they provide including buses to both pick up and take back kids with no transportation.  In addition to that they provide meals, classroom learning and recreational activities. Of course many of the kids in this program come from single parent homes that exist under the poverty level.

Anyway, the reason these people were at our meeting was they hoped we could get the word out to our running club about their need for mentors. Mentors are volunteers from the community that interact with a kid.  Basically they meet with the kid once a week just to hang out, talk or do activities with them.  Most kids in the program are lacking in positive adult interactions. When you volunteer you are committing to around an hour a week for a minimum of 9 months (a school year).

As these people were talking I was wondering if this is something I should consider doing.    Despite my hang ups with aging, obesity and my full moon tirades, overall I think I would be able to provide some positive direction for a kid.  The path I took to where I am today was full of twists that could provide some examples of what to do and not to do.  Plus I am sure most kids would find juggling, hand stands and muscle ups cool.

The idea of a 9 month commitment is a bit daunting and I would need to know if there is flexibility in when that hour occurs week to week since obviously life is going to get in the way from time to time.  On the plus side the center is literally right on my drive home from work.

At this point I’ll probably contact the center for some answers to my initial questions and based on what I get back move on from there.

The NFL is an odd place, let me give some examples.

Poor old Donovan McNabb has had his second team in as many years give up on him.  The Vikings have decided to go with some rookie the rest of the way.  Although Donovan’s numbers overall were not horrific, they were nowhere near good either.

It’s amazing how much the Eagles propped him up for so long.  The Vikings by all accounts prior to this season were looked upon as a talented team with the tools needed for Donovan to succeed, including a top notch running back.  Evidently it wasn’t enough.

Mike Shannahan, Donovan’s old boss seems to be up to his old tricks again.  The Redskins before their game last week had a 3-1 record and were sitting on top of the NFC east. Rex Grossman, despite his less than glorious history as an NFL QB, had done a decent job.  Well after his 4th interception Shannahan pulled him and threw in John Beck, another guy whose NFL resume is below average at best.

Beck really did very little besides scramble for some yards and make a handful of completions but evidently that is all that was needed to convince Shannahan that Grossman was done.  Wow talk about being on a short leash.  I think all that talk about Shannahan being a dickhead holds water.

Finally, the Raiders who have been surprisingly good this year lost their starting QB, Jason Campbell with a broken collarbone this past week.  Now you would expect their number 2 QB to fill in until he is healed up.  After all, that is what you have number 2 QB’s on your roster for right? Wrong, if you are the Raiders.

Evidently they have such low confidence in their back up QB, they went out and traded fro Carson Palmer who has been rotting in the Cincinnati dog house after throwing a hissy fit in the off season and wanting to be traded.  This just happened yesterday.  Today they announced that Palmer who will have all of 5 days in the Raider system will start the game this weekend instead of the backup QB.  That’s pretty f’d up right there.

My buddy forwarded me the article below via email.  It basically laments the transformation of America from an industrialized nation into a bunch of do nothing consumers.  It also speaks to the decline of such things as the post office, newspapers, the music industry and more.

Pretty much everything laid out here is true and yes the country is indeed in a f’in horrible downward spiral.  The question I have is what exactly can we do about it?  The bird has sprung the coop and there is no way in hell it is ever coming back.

Is China going to suddenly pay their workers a fair wage?

Are people going to start writing more letters or buying newspaper subscriptions?

Are large companies going to bring the millions of jobs they already outsourced to other countries back to America?

The answer to this and most other questions brought up here are “no f*cking way”

How do we fix this?  I have no clue.  We have evolved into a nation of self entitled, immediate gratifying, take a pill to lose weight loving, Jersey Shore watching, rampant consuming pigs.  All of the life vests have been handed out, hope you can swim.

Anyway take a read below.

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably noway to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages.. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service.. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is “catalog items,” meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It’s time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The “Things” That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big “Poof?” Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, “They” know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And “They” will try to get you to buy something else.. Again and again.
All we will have that can’t be changed are Memories.

10. Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first “post-industrial” nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America .. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the de-industrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The de-industrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly,most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the de-industrialization of America that will blow your mind….

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2 Dell Inc., one of Americas largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3 Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4 In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.

#5 According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6 As of the end of July, the U. S. Trade deficit with China has risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7 The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8 According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U..S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10 Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford’s new “global” manufacturing strategy.

#11 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12 In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13 The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

#15 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16 Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17 The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .

#18 One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19 The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The de-industrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you. If anyone can explain how a de-industrialized America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so.

America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up!!

 

Early this morning our house was awakened by some huge blasts of thunder.  It sounded different than most thunder I am used to.  It almost sounded like artillery blasts, the sound didn’t build and fade it just hit full force every time.  Of course everyone in the house woke up.  Sadie huddled close to us in fear and Nicki was walking around the room looking for protection as well.

We have had 2 days of solid rain.  It’s the wet seasons last hurrah.  Our property is pretty much a lake right now.  The good news is a cool front is rolling behind it that could bring overnight lows in the 50’s.  Bring it on, I am ready.

I am quite tired this morning.

Sorry I haven’t had much to say lately.  I’ve been busy.

I heard last night’s republican debate was down and dirty.  That’s cool.  I almost liked Herman Cain until I read about his close ties to the Fed and the Koch brothers, two of the most evil entities on the planet.