The Name Game

This comes from an article of the same name in New Mexico Magazine, July 2006, page 94. It's all about "some car monikers can drive you crazy." Some excerpts:

"Today some folks drive a Tribeca, you know. Instead of having them try to figure out 1. what it means, and 2. how to pronounce it, solve both problems and have them drive the new Trifecta, the car for people who bet they can make it through the intersection before the light changes.

"If you are driving a small car right now called a Passat, wouldn't it be more fun and make more sense to drive a micromini called a Pissant? Of course.

"Folks who are driving the new Touareg don't understand that it's the name of a tribe of African desert dwellers, and even the company that makes them can't pronounce it properly. If we're going to name cars after groups of people, let's consider building a really rock-solid off-road wonder that's stout as stone and call it Neanderthal. It's rugged enough to park in a cave, we can all pronounce it and guys can give manly grunts while driving it."

Ah, a man after my own heart.

Hecho en Israel

It’s not a better mouse trap that the world needs, but a better hose reel. I think I have been through them all. There is:

• A coil of hose on the ground (certainly the cheapest solution).
• The ceramic hose pot, decorative, but a pain to get the hose in and out of.
• The hose reel with a crank handle.
• The hose reel with a crank handle and hose guide.
• The hose reel with a crank handle, hose guide, and gears to move the guide as you crank.
• The hose reel with water power to reel in the hose, hose guide, gears to move the guide.

The last is the one I just got. Instructions in English and Spanish, made in Israel. Earlier in the summer I bought a reel with a crank, guide, and gears. The first time a wind of any strength blew through here, its lid was stripped off and sent flying. No matter how many times I reattached it or tried to fasten it down, it kept flying off. So, finally, I just left it off. Also, the hose comes off the top of the reel. This means when you are about 70 or 80- feet from the reel and pulling out the hose, the reel topples over. Useless.

Today I bought the new reel. The hose feeds out the bottom, there are stakes to hold it in the ground to prevent tipping, and to reel the hose back onto the drum, you move a handle and water power brings it in…slowly…but brings it in.

So, is this the reel deal?

Tip Your Head, Run!

I have heard two stories within the last few days of bird attacks. The first is from a friend with a daughter in another city. A red-wing blackbird nesting near her house has buzzed neighbors, even snatching hairs from atop some heads. At our boarding barn, the barn swallows have turned nasty. One of the cats was walking from one barn to another and was pecked so badly that she needed to go into the vet hospital. The other cats don’t wander across the parking lot unless they are under a wheelbarrow or can dart under a car.

We have heard about all the shark and alligator assaults. There are deer who not only wander into large shopping centers, but also become hostile. Maybe it’s global warming, the encroachment of civilization, or the Bush administration. But something is amok.

If there are lots of birds massing on the power wires above you, well…

Would You Buy a Used Car From This Man?

Most of the time when we buy a new car or truck, I sell the used one from the end of our driveway. We live on a state highway and lots of people pass by everyday…sometimes so many that it’s hard to get out of the driveway, but that’s another story.

With earlier cars, I learned that a Toyota is easier to sell than a Volvo, even if they both have the same mileage and are the same age and condition. This time around, it was a VW Touareg, two-years old, average mileage, that got put out there for sale. I thought it would be more like the Toyota than the Volvo. I was wrong.

I picked an asking price was reasonable given what I learned from KBB and Edmonds and displayed it on the windshield and had a copy of the original window sticker there, too. In addition, I listed the car on Auto Trader, a web site that was recommended as the best to use. I got one bite from a passerby who came and drove the car and one from the Auto Trader listing with lots of emails going back and forth, but no offer or visit. Otherwise, nada, bupkis, zilch. In addition, the Auto Trader listing is limited in number of characters, so I really could not put in a full description of what was on the car, the extended warranty, etc.

I am a veteran eBay user and, over the years, have sold things from cameras and model trains to a used manure spreader. So, after three weeks of no action from people seeing the car driving by or from contacts through Auto Trader, I listed it with eBay Motors. Nice things include a flat fee for cars and the ability to fully describe the vehicle and all its features. I used the same pictures I had used with Auto Trader.

It was a week’s auction. The bid stayed at my reserve from mid-week until four minutes to go in the auction. Then, two bidders had at each other with the final price rising nicely in those last ticks of the clock. The winner, a young man from New York state, flew in and drove his newly acquired vehicle eastward.

Do I get a testimonial fee from eBay for this nice endorsement? Yeh. Sure.

They're After Hillary

I went to lunch, spent an hour reading the NYT per usual, and paid with my handy dandy credit card. Got into the car, picked up some material for a meeting, and went to the car wash for gas and suds. When I went to pay, my credit card (the same one I had just used for lunch 15 minutes earlier) was refused…three times.

I called the 800 number on the back of the card and, as soon as I had entered the last four digits of my account number, was asked by the computer to verify about three or four transactions. It goes by quickly and I wondered about one of them. So, when asked to verify the transactions or to talk to someone, I opted to talk to someone. The computer then asked me to help verify I am who I am by typing in some information on my telephone keypad, which I did. I was then connected to a very nice customer service person.

Now, here is the odd part: in order to complete verification on whether I was who I said I was, she said the computer would be generating some multiple choice questions for me to answer based on publicly-available data. Hmmm. That gives one pause about their database including all sorts of stuff not directly related to having a credit card with them. The first question was: Do you or have you ever owned one of the following automobiles? I was given a choice of three plus “none of the above.” Two of the cars I have never owned. The one that I chose was a car I owned a very long time ago. Then I was asked another question which I also answered correctly. So, my credit card company knows what cars I have owned. Hmmm.

Then we got down to brass tacks to find out why a security hold had been put on my account. Seems they had sent out a new credit card with a new expiration date and that a charge had come in (that they approved) with the old expiration date. The computer then shut down my account for “security reasons.”

The charge? $50 to the campaign to reelect Hillary Clinton. Hmmm.