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!!
I have switched replacemement radio targets from the Kenwood DNX models to the Pioneer 930BXT. The reviews on the Kenwood on the retail web sites just aren’t strong. The Pioneer on the other hand is rated highly everywhere. As a bonus, it is less expensive.
