This and that.

--I got a minor promotion the other day. No big deal.


--I am suffering greatly from trees and grasses and ragweed having sex. The quantity and distribution of phlegm is suboptimal. (Not quite enough to kill me. Too much to be at all comfortable with.)

--I went with my dad last night to Cabella's to pick up a new set of electronic earmuffs. I had a first generation set of Peltors from 16 years ago, which gave up the ghost. It's stupid not to have a set or three, given the importance of being aware of your surroundings when shooting. My preference is for using the thinner electronic muffs, turned to high volume, over foam earplugs. I note that this pair came with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so that I can jump my phone or iPod or whatnot to it. More importantly, though, I can jump my 2-way radio mic to it while responding to an active shooter on duty. I'm going to keep in with my go-bag at work. I probably need to get a second set.

--I haven't been to the gym in two weeks. Not good.

--Our okra plants are tall and beautifully-leafed, and very green... and are bearing almost NO okra. Anyone have a suggestion for what nutrient we're missing?

--The temperature finally broke this week, and we finally have highs under 90 degrees. It's glorious.

--October is my favorite month. It has my birthday, and the birthdays of some very nice friends of mine. It is the month when the weather is the best in North Texas. It is associated with Oktoberfest, which includes two of my favorite things-- malty beer and German sausages. Halloween's okay, but it shouldn't account for the whole of the month.  October is when I join up with my friends on the range in Colorado, and we shoot a bit by day, and gather around the campfire by night.

--I look forward to seeing my friends, next week.

--I caught the pilot of Blue Bloods on Netflix the other night, and have since binge-watched the entire first two seasons on Netflix. The show is ridiculous. It is over-the-top pulp fiction in its plots and procedures. We basically never see more than about 6 cops in a 36,000-man police department, and evidently one Manhattan ADA handles every major case in the city of New York. They mention paperwork after an officer-involved shooting, but seem to be back on the street faster than Crockett and Tubbs were.  Only one guy in the family (Donnie Wahlberg's character) speaks with a New York accent. The detectives cross the ethics line on a daily basis, with illegal searches yielding somehow useable evidence, warrantless arrests, physical intimidation and assault during interrogations, etc, etc, etc. Donnie Wahlberg's grip on his pistol is amazingly low, with an inch of space above the web of his hand. His partner, in true Hollywood style, wears her holster between 1:00 and 2:00 o'clock.
But the show is cast very well, with Tom Selleck playing the respectable patriarch of the cop family, who happens to be the second generation of police commissioner for the PD. The interaction between the family is very attractive, and tugs at the heart a bit. It is shot very well. It is silly [melo]drama which I'm going to end up watching every minute of.

--I got  to work and found a voicemail from a senior district attorney, the other day. He said that he was working intake, and had just reviewed a felony DWI case that I had submitted, and that he wanted to compliment me on the good work that he found there. That was it. He didn't have any questions, and didn't need me to provide him with any information; he just wanted to let me know how much he appreciated the quality of the report and the investigation. I've only gotten a few of these calls over my years, and I will tell you that they mean a lot to me. He certainly didn't need to do that, and DAs are busy people. But nothing motivates me more than praise. (Note to self: remember that with the guys you lead.)

--We're about to outfit me with a new patrol car. I've never driven a brand-new one, but my car is getting tired. We're looking at getting a Ford Police Interceptor Utility, which runs about $10k less than the Tahoes we've been getting lately. The Ford P.I. Utility is based on the Explorer, so of course I'll call it Dora. Interestingly enough, the Explorer now shares the same unibody base as the Taurus. When it started, the Explorer was based on the Ford Ranger pickup. I'd noticed that the Explorer has gotten a lot more car-like over the last few years, but I hadn't realized that they had gone that far.

--Seriously. It's gorgeous outside. My wife and I are about to go for a walk.

--My elder daughter is competing today for UIL choir. She lucked out that this was a bye week for the football team, so she didn't have to lead the band last night before leaving at 06:15 this morning (Saturday) to head out to the vocal competition. As of now, it's 17:49, and they're not back, yet. Hope they fed her.

--My younger daughter is enjoying school more than she ever has. I was worried when she dropped band (it had really been good for the elder daughter), but she took up art and choir. She was a point under the cut-off to get into Pre-AP Algebra, so she wrote an appeal, and got in. She's in honors English, and just signed up to do the Creative Writing competition. I had my misgivings about her schedule this summer, but 7 weeks into the school year, it's clear to me that, with good grades and a happy 13 year-old, it was the best decision. I'll give up quite a bit for a happy kid who doesn't dread school.

--Our kitchen cabinet project eeks along at a snail's pace.

--I bumped Skills Week for my EMT class to November. I need to study.

--I need to build a fence this month.

--We now have a boutique shop in our small town which sells a variety of coffee beans by the pound. The price is high, but I appreciate the local service, so I give them my patronage.

New (to me) car.

We live within our means, here at Chez G. That said, we don't buy new cars-- we just buy quality used ones, and drive them until the wheels fall off.

I bought a 2004 Toyota Tundra SR5 V8 with the cash back on my mortgage refinance. I found it on Cars Dot Com, and got a reasonable deal on it. It was a trade-in at a dealership. They'd had trouble moving it with the warped rotors that it had when it was turned in, so they were changing the front rotors and pads out when I came by the dealer. It being up on the lift, I took a shop light and checked around under it, and was happy. I still paid a mechanic to check it out. It passed. I went by the motor bank and pulled a few thousand out, and discovered yet again that you can hand people a handful of greenish rag papers with Ben Franklin's portrait on them, and they will hand you the keys to a tangible piece of property.

This one came with leather, and a Rhino liner, and four real doors. As it had a touch over 100k miles, I had my SAE-certified mechanic friend change the timing belt and replace the water pump for me.

It scratches an itch that I've had for awhile, and I own it free and clear.

Because we found pomegranate rinds int he bed when we first looked at it, and because of the color, it's already been dubbed The Pomegranate, or "Pome" for short.

Sure, it's really storage for the jack, but in my mind, it's totally Han Solo's smuggling storage in the Millennium Falcon. 

I like that strut, which holds up the rear seat when it's rolled forward. That's a nice touch. 

With only 240 horsepower, the 32-valve, 4.7L V8 produces not a RIDICULOUS horsepower, but it gives a nice 315 foot-pounds of torque. It's a true 1-ton truck. 

The cost of things.

I've told you that I'm not a rich guy. I'm not hurting for anything, really, but I'm on the lower end of the Middle Class spectrum. At a rough estimate, I've made around half a million dollars in my working life.

My parents would have been considered rather well-off, had either one of them been able to say the same thing at my age (the mid 1980s.).

I have never spent so much as $10,000 on a car, although most (not all) of the cars that I've owned did cost more than that, when new. Currently, all three of my vehicles barely would make that mark.

I have never owned a house that cost me over $100,000. My current house appraises at more than that, as did my last house that I sold for a tad under that. But I've never paid so much. When I was a kid, my parents bought a nice brick 2,000 square foot 3 BR 2 BA on an acre for $35,000. It appraises for $155,500 today, to different owners. (I note that it's had a 700'² addition put on.) 

So when I see a car that brings more than $35,000, it makes me think "that thing better have a bathroom and a pull-out bed in it somewhere, because that kind of money should buy a house." Of course this is silly talk, because that kind of money would by $133,000 worth of house, in today's dollars.

When I look at the Mercedes-Benz new G63 6X6 SUV, I think of that $457,000 price tag, and consider that it's almost equal to the number of dollars that I have been paid in my career in the workforce. Dude. It's just a truck.

Monday this and Monday that.

--Car adverts are certainly different than they used to be. Try reading the ad copy for the Pierce Arrow Motor Cars, from 1919. It just zings off the page, doesn't it?

--I bought a riding lawn mower yesterday for $160. It runs really well. This is my first riding lawn mower, since using the tired old Montgomery Ward model that my parents bought when I was about 9. This one is a Murray.

--It won't fit into the shed. I'm going to have to build a little shed for it, with a wide enough door. 

--I finally cleared my desk of the huge number of cases that I had on it. Maybe now I can get some good patrol done.

--My elder daughter is hassling me about going shooting. I think that I'll make that happen.

--My younger daughter got a ridiculous device for Christmas that allows her to make miniature pies on lolly pop sticks. She makes and rolls out the dough, and then cuts out little discs of it, and puts in pie filling (she sometimes makes it herself out of berries), and then cooks them, 6 at a time, with a waffle-iron-like apparatus. They're called "Pie Pops." They're silly. They're tasty.

--My father got a new truck, in which we brought home the riding mower. That's one of the nicest vehicles that I've ever been in.

--We detailed my old Saturn on Saturday. It looks pretty good. I need to get a new tire for it, so that it will pass inspection, so that I can more easily sell it. I couldn't believe how expensive even the cheapest tires are. $50 for the cheapest that I found, plus $28 in balancing, mounting, tax, tire disposal. $78 for a tire that's going on a car that I won't keep a week. I walked out. Maybe I'll actually buy a used tire. I haven't done than since I was a teenager, and even then, I knew that it was not a good idea. This old car has a salvage title, and I reckon it'll bring about $1000. It served us pretty well, actually. We bought it in 2003 for $5200 out the door. It was two years old then.

--I wish that all my guns had finishes as shiny and well-preserved as those in Django: Unchained.

--Remember that we still have troops in Afghanistan, for no reason that I can ascertain. This is over four years after our current President took office, and nearly four years after he won a Nobel Prize for peace. Why is he getting a pass on this?

--My elder daughter read the above over my shoulder, and said, "There's never a reason to go to war!" That stopped me down. I limited my response to 15 minutes. I hope she thinks about what I told her. She's a very smart kid, but I had no idea how sheltered she was.

--The news is full of stuff about a Notre Dame football player named Manti Te'o, who was this past fall a sensation because he played splendidly, despite his girlfriend passing away. Now we find out that she was not a real person, and he claims to have been pranked. There is rampant speculation as to how much he really knew.   Yet none of the newsies are openly addressing the issue of what motivation a single guy in an uber-masculine male-dominated sport would have had, to invent a mysterious long-distance relationship with a fake girlfriend.  It seems to me that the most likely answer is also a tragic story, too.

Random stuff.

--Last night, we drove my mother and my newly-minted 14 year-old to dinner last night for their respective birthdays. We went to a French bakery and cafe that, while a chain, still puts out some really great food. Mom got a Sacher torte, and moaned: "This is as good as the one that I had in Brussels." Mom had gone on a tour of Europe after graduating from SMU in the mid-'60s.

My brother's eyes shone. "My mother has been waiting over 40 years for just the right opportunity to say that!" he proclaimed. I laughed so hard the excellent coffee that I was drinking almost came out my nostrils.

--While checking out some city property on duty last weekend, I got stung in the right earlobe by a wasp. After finishing what I was doing, I found some Windex to spray on my ear, the ammonia in which actually did quell the pain somewhat. For the next several hours, my ear lobe was bright red and swollen, but it went down within the day. But for the next several days, there was a seriously sore nagging kind of itch behind my jawbone in the neck, ranging up to the ear. The venom must have managed to get to the mandibular nerve, and sat there.

Back in police academy, they taught us how to use the mandibular nerve as an effective pressure point for pain compliance techniques.  One technique was to place the thumb into the notch behind the jaw to activate the mandibular nerve, and the stiff blade of the hand rolled firmly into and across the philtrum to activate the infra-orbital nerve. This is called the "C-Clamp," and is pretty effective at getting an uncooperative person (especially if they are sitting, as in an automobile) to move where you want them to go, without causing injury. We practiced it on each other repeatedly in class, and the soreness behind my jaw felt a lot like it did after those pressure point classes, but with an extra kick. Today it finally feels better.

--The Subaru Outback that we bought had a lot of road noise in the rear. The salesman that demo'd the car to me assured me that it was a tire that needed replacing, with a broken belt in it. I didn't think so, and took it by my mechanic. He rode in the back seat, and pronounced the problem to be the right rear wheel bearing. He then got out his laptop, and I bought a new bearing for $79 and had it sent to him. I took the car to him yesterday. He chatted with me as he swapped out the bearing over a leisurely hour in his driveway. We hopped in the car to road test it, and it was silent. Success. I picked up some cash from the bank to pay the guy. This was undoubtedly why no one else had bid even $7k on a car that was about $30k six years ago. Success! The wife is happy (it's her car), which means that I'm happy.

-- The Outback has heated front seats, with a rheostat for each seat. This will be really useful for that weekend when the temperature drops below 30 degrees.

--I've signed up for a Public Administration graduate class this semester. Three hours. $1370. Good gawd.

--My old roommate Bill needs a gun to shoot his CHL class with. I'm borrowing Dad's Glock Kit, which is a .30 cal ammo can stuffed with a Glock 19, a loaded magazine, two spare magazines in a carrier, a Fobus paddle holster, a box of 9mm, and usually an oily rag to keep everything from rattling around. Dad keeps it as a quick and easy loaner kit, and frankly, I think that it's a great idea. It also would make a great car gun set, in its almost indestructible O-ring-sealed steel box. I need to set up something modular like that, myself.

--My 14-year-old daughter doesn't much want her picture taken. She's okay with her Dad, but she's aloof. Hugs are rare. The 10-year-old still loves to come hug Daddy. But I know that the time is coming when she'll be too cool for that, too. I expect these things. But it still makes my heart ache a bit when they come to pass.

--This weekend, I have to do some work on a state grant, and get a hunter's license, and get my text book, and install a new porch door for my mom, and get Bill his loaner gun, and speak to my university adviser, and... I better get moving.

Well, dang. I gotta get a loan.

We at Chez G have been living mostly within our means. This means that, when it was time to start looking at newer cars, we enjoyed the hilarity of driving up in our POS worn-out commuter cars, dressed in day-off grungy, and getting very little interest by the car salesmen. When we inquired about test-driving cars on lots, they then would reasonably ask to see our driver's licenses, and go "to make a photocopy." During that 10 minute photocopy, they also quickly checked our credit rating. All of a sudden, the car salesman would literally be jogging back up to us. Big smiles. Very friendly, as he suggested perhaps that we might prefer to look at this higher end model over here? 

Break 800 on a credit rating, and that kind of thing happens. But there's a reason that we do all right in the credit rating, and it doesn't come from spending money that we don't have. In fact, we've not made a car payment in eight years, because that's when we paid off our newest car. We know that moving to a car payment is going to hurt.

We decided to buy yet another used car. My wife wanted a Subaru Outback. That was not incompatible with my own criteria for a car. Thus if she wanted it, I wanted it. We ended up finding a decent deal for and '06 Outback on eBay Motors. We bid on it, and won the auction.

Apparently, we then had to get them $2,000 within 24 hrs. Done.

Now, I've got to go get a car loan. This is basically a foregone conclusion that I'll get it. but I HATE applying for loans. I break out in hives at the word "lien."

So, here we go. Sigh. This is me, getting up.

And we're off.

To get a loan.

Okay.

Bye.

Oh look, is that coffee? Just one more cup.

Summertime, and the gas fumes are reeking.

I was beset with Honey-Do's for this Saturday before going to the fire station for a shift. My wife was to run some errands while I did the plumbing work, and she was taking the kids with her to avoid them hearing the inevitable cussing that accompanies plumbing work in this house. She left and a few minutes later walked back inside. Her car had managed to get 20 yards down the street before dying.

I checked it. The gas gauge, which had shown 3/4 full when I pulled in last night from seeing the (most excellent Marvel's The Avengers movie), now showed bone dry, with the light on. Aha! Someone had siphoned our gas out in the dark of night! Cheeky buggers. Easy fix, though. I got the gas can from the shed and put in a gallon. Crank-crank-crank. Nothing. Crank-crank-crank. Nothing. "Maybe I flooded it," I said, before face-palming loudly. My wife asked me to repeat what I had just said, but I demurred to say. Her impression of me is already compromised enough. 

So I figured that a gallon wasn't enough. I sent my wife to get another 6 gallons of premium at the store. She brought it back, and I put some more in the tank before -- hello? what's this? It was now overflowing, with only 1 gallon more added. I checked. Yep. Full. Brim-full. 

Uh oh. This is going to get into a bit of money and trouble. I really wish that it had been some jerk siphoning the gas from my tank, now. 

I texted my shade-tree mechanic. He texted back that he was working. Why on Memorial Day weekend, I asked. 2.5 times pay is good money, he responded. I couldn't argue. He's a single-income family with a house, two cars, and a pair of kids. I asked if he wanted to make some more. As I have mentioned previously, this guy's got the SAE certs, and his prices can't be beaten. I really like giving him the money, as opposed to some big shop. He told me he would have his wife move the mini-van so that I could have the tow truck put it into the driveway. He told me that the problem was probably a sending unit for the pump and the gauge, and may or may not require the pulling of the tank. 

The tank that is full of gas. 

Now, it's just 13 gallons of gasoline, but at $3.67/gallon, that's nearly $48 worth of petrol. 

I decided to siphon out half the tank. I pulled out a small hose used to test diesel on patrol to see if the driver is using untaxed agricultural diesel. It's like a capillary tube. While I did get a flow going, it was a trickle, and the stiff poly hose flicked gas onto my shirt, my wife's shirt, and my face. Yay. Soon the bend that I put into the hose began to leak air, and I lost my suction. So I used a 4-foot length of clear poly fish tank hose. The problem here is that the interior diameter is half an inch or better, and that is a about 18.8 cubic inches of airspace to pull, or 0.309 liters. While it's true that the average capacity of a human male's lungs is about 6 liters (18 times the volume needed to pull here), it is also true that it's a FOOL who pulls gasoline with the lungs when suck-starting a siphon. See here what kind of reaction you end up with. Pulling from the diaphragm ensures that you will (not maybe) get vaporized petrol into your lungs, which is a handy way of causing serious chemical burns and even death, which I try to avoid as a general principle. 

I just didn't have the volume in my cheeks and mouth to pull the gas up over the hump at the lip of the tank. 

So it was that, covered in sweat from the hot sun and covered in a fog of gasoline fumes, I resigned myself to defeat, figuring that I would just give the gas to my mechanic as a tip. I went to the hose and made the appropriate noises while cleaning the gas off my face and lips and rinsed my mouth. That pistol sprayer can be a bit much on that hose, y'know? 

My wife went into town to pick up some items, including a bulb siphon pump hose. I thought of suggesting that she get some fried chicken to go with it. 

I put my clothes into the washer and ran it on Heavy Soil with a squirt of lemon-scented Dawn in it. "Having the smell of gasoline about me is one of my biggest pet peeves," I grumbled, coming out of the laundry room. 

"One of many," my bride of 14 years said. 

I opened my mouth to protest. "I don't have that many.... Say, this conversation isn't really going to work out for me, is it?"

"Smart man," she replied, grumpy as I was. Dismissed, I called the wrecker driver. 

Now to shower. I never will get that damned toilet done today before pulling my shift at the FD. 

Thursdays are thursdays.

--Budweiser and Country Time lemonade makes a pretty good shandy.

--New link here: Ghetto Hikes. Funny, funny stuff. 

--My 13 year old went to see "Mary Poppins" at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth on a school trip. Think the kids have been wearing out their teachers this week with cockney accents and "Chim-Chiminey..."??

--It's okay if you don't like kids. Lots of good people don't. But if you're not a nurturing, caring person for kids, I implore you not to go into education, or any field in which you might be required to, you know, nurture kids. 

--I need to replace some shingles that got blown off the roof. 

--While going to visit my partner in Fort Worth last week, I got into heavy traffic at 65 mph, and had no place to go when I suddenly had a very large aluminum extension ladder appear before me in my lane. I struck it with my little Honda Civic. It blew the front right tire, broke the plastic front bumper, tore out some plastic shielding underneath, and there's an odd sound even yet that may be from a crack in my exhaust, and from a loose engine mount. I was on an elevated highway, and called Ft Worth PD to come keep traffic off of me while I changed the tire. There was another guy who stopped. I was hoping that the ladder had come off of his truck. He said that he had stopped to help pick up the ladder after he had seen it blow off of the red pickup with blue stripe, which kept going. Everyone be on the lookout for a red pickup with blue stripe. Bah. 

--We're celebrating my younger daughter's 10th birthday tonight. I'm about to take her out to pick a phone. It's sweet how they beg me to buy them tracking devices. 

--It's wrong that I laughed at this stuff. It's more wrong that I went through the site for 5 minutes, laughing harder and harder. The final straw was when I laughed at this. 

--I took my wife's car last night to a (SAE Certified) shadetree mechanic friend of mine last night to have him fix an overheating problem. (Needs a new water pump.)  While it was there, I asked  him to change the oil and brake pads. He quoted me an outrageously low price that would barely cover parts. I always overpay him by about 10% what he asks, but this time I may go closer to 100%. Ever since that time that I got him out of a tight spot, he's been overly-generous.  I'm trying to supplement his income. He's a good guy. 

--Interesting article about an interesting guy:

‎"'This generation is so dead,' he said at one point. 'You ask a kid, ‘What are you doing this Saturday?’ and they’ll be playing video games or watching cable, instead of building model cars or airplanes or doing something creative. Kids today never say, ‘Man, I’m really into remote-controlled steamboats.’ They never say that.'" 

Jack White via the NYT. I never said that, either. But suddenly, I'd like to find me one.

--When I was in my early 20s, I didn't really have a clue what women wanted. But one thing was for sure: I wasn't about to let them find out about my bizarre interests!

Heh.

This and that.

Sorry I've not been feeling it in the form of good blogging, lately. We'll try the shotgun approach:

• --I bought a '94 Dodge van last week for $500. It runs like a top, has good A/C, a trailer hitch and working trailer lights connections, good rubber, and a stout luggage rack. It doesn't have any seats behind the front seats. Time to do some chores that I've been meaning to tend to, and I may just put together some kind of business with my shift partner. We'll see. In the mean time, the ride makes me look like a prime suspect for any future abductions. The word "skeevy" comes to mind.


• --I bought my wife an iPad 2 in 32gig 3G. It was difficult to find. The guy at Radio Shack was so customer friendly, he put me on a list and called me and held it for me when it came in. That guy needs a raise. The wife loves the iPad. I don't know yet just how useful it is. I can't type on it very well, though Marko says that he can, pretty well. Marko does not have hands as big and clumsy as I do. Neither did the silverback Lowland Gorilla that I saw today at the Dallas Zoo.


• --When we took my daughters and friends to the zoo today, we found parking was $7 per car (we took two), and admission was $12 a head. Then there was the cost of food inside. The animals ate well. Giraffes eat romaine lettuce and RyeCrisp crackers that you can buy from a vendor there. The bald eagle ate fresh quail. The fossa had a very nice looking rabbit. I don't recall my parents spending so much when they took me to the zoo as a kid. Still, we liked it.


• --Dunno what other heeled visitors were carrying, but with the temps in the high 80's, I just wore my standard J-frame stoked with +P .38 Spl, with a NY reload of a P3AT in my pocket. The roundbutt .38 rode VERY nicely in my new but steadily-being-worn holster by Mike, which I need to do a review on soon.


• --I found myself the other day able to compare Tamara's favorite Stone's Ruination IPA with my old standard Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. The Ruination has a more pure note of bitterness all the way from the initial sip through the fair-thee-well. The Dogfish Head has a more complex flavor, with more malt and mouth feel. The head is almost crunchy. This will require more study. --I used the van tonight to fetch home 24 bales of Owens Corning pink insulation and a blower, so that in the morning I might blow in about 12" of insulation into my mom's attic and perhaps another 6" over my garage.


• --My wife made a wonderful curry with venison on Thursday, and it suffers not one whit as leftovers, served over fluffy basmati rice. It seems that pressure-cooked venison makes a superb base for curry. If you're concerned about the gamey flavor of venison (we're not), may I heartily recommend you try it in a vindaloo?


• --I was able to help a local family out recently, after their kid went on the lam, merely by picking up the phone and calling a fellow law enforcement professional. It seems the run-away son got himself picked up (in Texas, you can be a runaway at 17, but can still be held in grown-up jail for your criminal actions) for a minor misdemeanor (fibbing about his age). LawDog made sure that, while his stay may not have been comfortable or fun, it was at least safe and reasonably smooth. Classification is something of an art, and sometimes it takes a nudge from an artist with LD's knowhow to keep the puppies out of the wolves' dens. Problem child is back at home, mending fences. With a little help from some people he's never even met, he'll get by. (Thanks, 'Dog.)

Better looking than a brochure, and more informative, too.

By way of Bayou Renaissance Man, I learn of the site "Do You Come With The Car," a fun little blog run by a "booth babe." You've seen them-- the eye candy hired to bring customers to a display, so that the sales reps can have a shot. It's a good marketing investment, frankly, and less annoying than someone on a PA yelling "Hey!" or something to try to hook your attention.

I've generally assumed that most of the booth babes have scant knowledge of the product that they grace with their pretty presence. But this lady says differently:

We are walking, talking product handbooks, and how well we answer questions about the vehicles we represent has a direct impact on whether that attendee will buy our car or one of our competitor's.

My favorite moments at the show are when a male salesperson sends an incredulous dude my way to get an answer to a technical question.

Who knew?

Irritating, that.

This year, Toyota aired a big ad campaign admitting that they screwed up big-time. Well, they did-- they installed a whole mess of faulty throttle controllers. Well, a few.

But that needed recalling. The device that controls your engine's power output should work. Absolutely.

But this business of the car with the messed-up throttles being unstoppable is proven to be poppycock. Even if your brakes wouldn't stop the horrendous power of the engine propelling the car, simply shifting to neutral would stop the power from getting to the wheels. Turning off the engine would stop the power from getting to the wheels. ("But that cuts the power steering!" Oh, grow up! A moving car is steerable in a straight line without power steering. )

But the fact is, the brakes DO stop the car. Car & Driver found that, with the throttle wide open and the brakes stomped at 70 mph, the Camry stops shorter than a Ford Taurus with the throttle closed.

Then we come to the single most famous case of the throttle sticking, which now looks like simple fraud in the worst light, and gross driver error in the best light. The problem wasn't the hardware in the Prius-- it was the software between the driver's ears. He's either inept, or a swindler, or, possibly, both.

But if you still are terrified of your Toyota, and don't trust 'em, I'll take one off your hands. Especially if you've got a Tundra that's been threatening to kick in your front door, eat the children, and crap on your rug. I've got a deck to build.

_______________________

Hat tip to Les Jones.

Remember friends, don't forget to tip your snarker.

Friend Tamara is marooned 400 miles from home with near catastrophic brake problems and no money to speak of, and is making crazy talk about selling off guns.

I can't help but notice that she's got a little yellow Tip Jar button. I was impressed at how easy it was to use. For those of us who check into Tam's site for free every day and pay nothing, dropping a sawbuck or two is cheap, for the entertainment that we get.

You might help the lady out.

EDIT:

I noticed that the link to the little yellow tip jar button didn't work, probably because each click creates a discrete transaction number, which is how they keep things safe. Anyway, it's a yellow button to the top right (no, LabRat, your other left) of Tam's blog. Well, here-- it looks like this:

How the Joneses live, I guess.

I am ALL about capitalism.

And I really don't have much problem with "Conspicuous Consumption," if it's not hurting me.

But to listen to the radio, apparently there's quite a bit of percentage in marketing Lexuses (Lexi?) as Christmas gifts.

Huh.

Really? Really?!?

Well, the profits on selling $60k cars are at least sufficient to pay for radio spots, I guess, so... enjoy paying for that. I'll wave at your shiny new red-bow-adorned sedan from my 12 year old beater Civic as I drive by. . .

Defined by their transportation....

I dropped by the convenience store in the town I work in for soft drink before they closed.

They boy from the previous post was inside, his brand-new truck still sporting paper dealer's tags out front. "Got a truck box ordered yet?" I asked.

"No-- I'm not getting one," he said decisively.

"Where are you going to put your rope, and come-along?" I asked.

"Tow rope behind the seat, and no come-along," he responded. "That truck's never going off-road, ever!" he declared.

"Sometimes the best-laid plans can change," I said wryly.

"Nothing goes in that bed, and that truck never leaves pavement," he restated. "I've got big plans for that truck. I'm gonna lower it, put low-profile tires on it, special rims..."

"Good Gawd. You've going to make a sports truck." I said.

"Yep!" He said gleefully. "Then paint, decals..."

"But nothing goes in the bed, ever. So you get all the drawbacks of a two-seater coupe, without the handling and the milage. What in the hell is the point?" I'm afraid I had trouble concealing my disgust.

I stepped outside with my beverage as he argued his case. I wasn't listening any further. I'm a practical-minded guy. I drive a '97 Civic 4-door, because it's paid for, it drives well, it holds me and the family, and it gets 34+ mpg. The dent in the front left fender really doesn't bother me. It's just a way to get from here to there. I often regret not having my old truck, but only for the things it hauled. I sure don't miss the 12.5 mpg fuel economy that I used to get.

Out front was a guy on a new Honda 600 crotch rocket, of a type that I had some passing familiarity with. (Somewhere I've got a VHS tape with some beautiful video of a motorcycle rider on a bike just like this one, sliding into view in front of my patrol car. The rider had just successfully evaded a colleague of mine when my buddy suffered brake fade and crashed into a pipe-and-rail fence, injuring himself and turning a new Impala into just so much scrap metal. The rider didn't know the area, and I found that he couldn't ride too well with 1.5 million candlepower focused into his facemask as he entered a curve. Sadly, he managed to bond out before the 1st degree felony warrant for parole violation came in. Christopher Stout, I'd love to meet you again....) It too had dealer's plates. He bemoaned the high cost of comprehensive insurance each year, and I was impressed that the yearly amount ran to more than my car would bring. I recalled that when I was going to police academy, I bought a 1978 Honda CB 400 for a coupla hundred dollars cash, and paid liability only for about $20/month. "Yeah, but this could get stolen real easy," he complained.

"Or laid down," I said, thinking wistfully back to my own encounters between hot steel and dirt and gravel and pavement.

"Oh, no!" he responded. "I've never laid it down. I've never put a bike down, ever."

I raised an eyebrow. "That just puts you in the second category of riders*," I said, doubtfully.

"No, I ride responsibly," he said. "I'm 24, married, and a daddy, now. I've got two girls."

"You're going to look me in the eye, and tell me that you've never taken this crotch-rocket into triple digits?" I demanded.

"I have never driven this motorcycle over 70 mph," he lied, while looking me square in the eye.

"Most responsible thing you could do for those girls of yours is to sell this thing back to the dealer, and get yourself into a cage," I said.

"Never! I saved up for a long time to get this bike," he said. I noticed that he didn't have a helmet.

"Good luck with that," I said, and got back into my patrol cage-- er-- car. Hope he's got AD&D insurance.
_ _ _ _

* "There are two kinds of motorcycle riders: Those who have laid their bikes down, and those who will."

I'll take "Blowing The Stereotype" for $500...

Girl gets drunk.

Girl gets drunker.

Girl wrecks car.

Girl calls boyfriend, who takes girl home.

Girl fights with boyfriend. Boyfriend leaves.

Girl gets drunker.

Girl rides bicycle, 3 miles in the rain, at midnight, to her friend's house. Friend is out of town.

Girl breaks in, steals keys and beer (gets drunker), and takes a pickup with a horse trailer on it.

Girl gets stuck.

Pickup has 4X4. Girl gets unstuck.

Girl crashes into mailbox, culvert, and gate.

Girl finally makes it onto the road.

Girl drives home.

Girl takes out mailboxes en route.

Girl drives back to friend's house.

Cop called by neighbor sees girl returning truck.

Girl's friend, on the phone, refuses to press charges.

Girl heaves sigh of relief.

Cop notes girl staggering, notes that sigh of relief was heavily laced with ethanol. Cop asks questions. Girl says she just takes Xanex, along with beer and margaritas.

Cop changes focus of investigation.

Cop asks for blood.

Girl says no.

Girl has been convicted of DWI twice before.

Girl is booked into jail for felony Driving While Intoxicated.

During book-in, cop asks standard question of highest level of education attained.

Girl (actually a grown woman) has a Master's in Business Accounting from a reputable university, and a decent job in her field.


- - - -


*This is just a story that I uh, heard from a guy I know.

Back with less tread on the tires, more experience under the belt...

My tired old digi cam couldn't capture the tires lifting off the pavement by Impalas doing evasive lane changes, but I promise you-- we all saw it.

Interesting things learned:
The old 35 PSI tire inflation no longer makes the grade with patrol cars and performance driving. New tires need 44 p.s.i., and run even better at 50 p.s.i.

Rear tire blowouts are consistently far more dangerous than front-tire blowouts. Huh. I wouldn't have believed that. I do now.

It's official: best initial reaction when getting a blow-out (esp. a rear one) is to accelerate for a few seconds. Confirmed at Michelin test track with police drivers and cars. Huh.

Getting into a major car-sliding, utter loss-of-control skid? Let go of the stinkin' wheel. I proved this several times. I would fight the skid. I would attempt to steer with the skid. And I would let go of the wheel. The first, of course, perpetuates the skid. The second, interestingly, creates oversteer the milisecond your tire patch makes static friction. The third gets the car under control almost immediately. "But you're not even holding the wheel!" one might protest, "How could you be 'under control' when you're not steering?" Well, I'll take braking and accelerating without steering over the loss of all three, any day of the week. Soon as all four wheels are rotating in direct correlation to the car's travel, you re-grip the wheel, and continue to drive it hard.

-

You see in that top pic where there's a guy standing to the right of the cone pattern? He's a driving instructor. As you enter the pattern at 50 mph +, he points in the last possible second the direction we were to swerve in to miss the line of cones in front of us. We were expected to exit the pattern with a loss of no more than 2 mph, with no cones hit and no brake lights. This got mor interesting in the rain, later.

-

Then we used the same pattern for emergency braking. Had to enter at 50+, brake at a point within the pattern, avoid the center obstacle, and stop within the pattern. As much as I hate the feel of the antilock brakes, I found this a snap with mine.

-

See the dark Impala running the slolam pattern? That left cone is airborne. The driver was trying to make up for utterly missing her apex by shaving too close, and sent a cone out. I can't blame her; I smacked a few myself, and blew through the obstacle gate at the end so hard that I stuck a cone underneath. Even now I smell the odor of burning plastic on my catalytic converter. Phew. That cone'll never be the same.

-

The most fun was "The Rabbit." This course was laid out over about 1.5 miles of cones, with slolams, tight tight right-angle passages, evasive lane change patterns, etc. A rabbit car driven by an instructor would be chased by a primary cop car with lights and siren, and a secondary cop car with lights and siren. This was fun to drive, but you know what was really fun? Riding in the passenger seat with a driver who just doesn't really believe that we can die. In a Charger.

Six Flags ain't got a thing on that ride. Whee!

-

One of the instructors brought out his baby-- a tricked out and lowered 2006 Mustang Cobra with low-profile rims and tires-- to play the Rabbit. Another one, not to be outdone, took a 2007 Crown Vic Interceptor and ran through half the pattern backwards (with me as primary, playing gangsta rap over the P.A. at him when I realized that this was too easy), before blowing out of the pattern, and leading me on a merry chase sideways through the pattern, still aware I'd get dinged for popping cones. (Had to drop the P.A. at that point.) Have to give it to the instructors-- they could drive.

-

Also have to give it to the Chargers-- with a good driver behind the wheel, they flat-out left the other cars. The instructors quickly snatched those up to play rabbit in.

And I got paid to do this. :)

Abusing the pride of Detroit

I''ve one more day of Police Tactical Driving School.

Enlightening.

I'm a man. We all pretty well assume that we each shoot better, make love better, and drive better than the next man. Add in that I'm a Texas man, and the situation is a tad exacerbated.
So it's hard on my ego when I'm creaming cones in what appeared to me to be way too much driving course andplenty of time.

We have acres of course set up and 3 minutes to negotiate the thing forwards and backwards. It's a VERY tight course. They gave us 3:00 minutes and 5 cones to complete it. I kept coming in just over, with 1 cone. Then even closer, with two cones. Understand--- everyone had to run it several times to finally pass it.

Finally one of the instructors came up to me while I sat at START. "You an ol' country boy?"

"Yeah. Used to be."

"Then get on it. Shred that thing."

I smoked out a 2:50, with 2 cones.

---------

Surprisingly, Crown Vics aren't just holding their own-- they're turning in the best times. The new Impalas, with their comfy rides an 60/40 weight distribution, are doing pretty badly. We've got good photo evidence that they're regularly lifting at least one tire in hard turns.

The Dodge Chargers have that licked-- they actually will brake the tire that wants to lift. Most of their drivers can't do much with 'em.

We have a Yukon that's doing great, surprisingly.

But it's a couple of 2 to 4 year old Crown Vics that are tearing the course up.

Could be cook, rather then kitchen though, couldn't it? :)

Keyed up.

I've been dealing with cases involving ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands messing with the automobiles of their former significant others, or their former significant others' new beaus.

This is beyond feather-legged. To paraphrase Vincent from Pulp Fiction: You don't mess with another man's ride.

If you're such a coward that you can't face the guy directly to address your aggression toward him, then you have other issues worth dealing with. Dude. She left you. Move the hell on. Keying his paintjob or slashing her tires isn't going to do you any good at all. It might just land your butt in jail, if I can catch you.

And if the car's owner catches you, I can't promise you that they won't shoot your butt. It happens.