Been Busy, More To Follow

Well, my sweet wife just loves her new little Hyundai. It's red, and she's always wanted a red car. Charcoal interior, with enough air conditioning to make it a meat locker, nice 6 speaker radio/cd player with 100something Watts of power and Sirius/XM.

Rides nice, seems to be pretty peppy, gets astoundingly good mileage (she's averaging THIRTY FOUR MPG in her around town driving), and they gave us a bunch of stuff we didn't pay for (window tint, first aid kit, cargo net, nice floor mats, etc) because it took them a few days longer than they promised to get us the car.

And they delivered it, and spent an hour going over stuff, showing us the features, and explaining things.

I've also been spending a lot of time in the garage cleaning it up and getting it organized. I still haven't gotten to the work bench so I can mount my press and start reloading, but I made a HUGE improvement in how things are organized.

I dug out a bunch of stuff I'm going to sell (Dahlquist DQM-9 monitor speakers, anyone? They're like new, and had the foam surrounds replaced about two years ago), threw a bunch of stuff away, coiled up about 75 pounds of "scrap copper wire" I'll haul to the recycler when I take the cans in, and sorted several "piles" ("radio 1", "radio 2", and "computer") for some eBay sales I'll be running in the next month or so.

And the nice thing is, I can walk in the side door, and get all they way to the big door now, and I can easily get to both of my two big roll-around toolboxes.

About 1/3 of the space in the garage is still occupied by the "collectibles" her first husband was acquiring when he passed away. Action figures, Star Wars and Star Trek stuff, and an odd assortment of other things he thought were collectible. SOME of the items have fairly good values on eBay (yes, the actual sales prices, and not the "listing/wishing" prices!), but a lot of it doesn't.

 I swear, we have enough 4" and 6" plastic "action figures", army men, and little plastic tanks and armor to take over the back yard and stage the Battle of Kursk all over again!

We have two cardboard boxes, each about half the size of a refrigerator box, FULL of these things.

I might just sell them "by the scoop" on eBay!

And in working my tail off, hustling around, sweeping things up, trimming the trees (again.....sigh), and chasing the dogs around, I'm starting to get my endurance back, and I'm feeling better. It's been 4-1/2 months now since my "cardiac incident", and I'm finally getting used to what the meds do to me, and feeling better.

And I'm really looking forward to attacking the front-end of the gargae, and getting my press set up!

We Bought A Car

After going to several dealers where we were either treated rudely, or told "These are HOT right now, so the list price is the best we'll do!", a guy from the Hyundai dealership up in Commerce called.

My wife had put out a "Request for Quotation" to an Internet service, and he was one of the people who received the RFQ.

I told him the prices the other places quoted, and he said he couldn't beat them by much, but he could beat them.

So, after running some errands and getting some dinner, we drove up to Commerce, about 12 miles North of the LBC.

The dealership was in a decidedly 'low rent' area, but was very clean, and the buildings and service area were probably the best kept in the area, always a good sign.

The guy we talked with was able to beat the "best" price we got by almost $300, and told us they would deliver the car here, and spend about 30 minutes with us going over the features, and finishing the paperwork.

One of the things that sealed the deal was that my wife was very comfortable talking to him and the finance people, who treated us as friends, didn't try to force any other options or "dealer installed" equipment on us, and walked us through the paperwork jungle in less than half an hour, which is a record in my book!

SO.....Tuesday or Wednesday they'll drop the car off, and my wife will be cruising around in a brand-new RED Hyundai Eleantra GLS with the "Preferred Package" with 2.9% financing on the balance.

Since the gave us over $8500 for her poor little Nissan Sentra, and we're putting some more down, the monthly payment is well under $200 for 48 months.

I'll post a pic after we get the car.

How Much Is The Gun Business Worth?

Old_NFO couldn't embed this, so here it is:


Created by OnlineMBA.com

Damage Estimate: $8300 Car Value:$6000

Looks like we're in the market for a replacement car..

We went and looked at Hyundai Elantras tonight, and the wife thought they were very nice.

We'll also be looking at the Kia Forte, as these two cars are about the same size and in the price class we're comfortable with.

Everything I read today about the current version of the Nissan Sentra convinced me to NOT even look at them.

The closest Nissan model would be the Altima, and it's a minimum of $2000 over the other two.

Same with the Ford Fusion, and I absolutely, positively, will NEVER step foot into a Government Motors dealership.

Uh-OH....Wife just got in 4 Car Accident *UPDATE*

Hit in the rear in a multi-car accident.

She was the second car in line.

More to follow, but I'm on my way to pick her up......


UPDATE

She seems to be OK...a little sore in her back and shoulders.

There's a set of railroad tracks on the road she takes to work every day. A tanker truck had come to a full stop before crossing the tracks, and she was the second car behind the tanker, with another small car (a Chevy Cobalt) behind her.

A guy in a full size pickup didn't see the line of stopped cars ( ! ) waiting for the tanker to cross the RR tracks, and plowed into the car behind her at about 45~50 MPH. The little Chevy Cobalt then almost went _under_ the rear of my wife's Nissan Sentra, pushing her into a Nissan Maxima.

As expected, the little Cobalt took the brunt of the collision, and the rear of my wife's Sentra absorbed most of the rest.

The front of her car wasn't too badly damaged, but it'll still need a bunch of new parts.

So, she's home now, and on the phone with our insurance company.

Thankfully, we have a good company, with good coverage, including rental car.

QOTD

Taking a break from "Garage Reconstruction 101" and thought I'd share this with my friends here.

It was written sixty years ago, but is more relevant now than ever..... 

 

Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.” 

 

From "Revolt in 2100" by Robert A. Heinlein, written in 1954

Been Hot and Muggy All Week Here.....

And I haven't felt like doing much besdies some benchwork on a couple of radios I'm getting ready to sell on eBay.

95* and 50% humidity does not make for good yard work days, or even "Clean Out The Garage" days!

Yard Work Weekend

Not exactly my favorite thing to do, but it needed to get done.

Bought some sand and topsoil, and filled in all the new "dog holes" that one of the two has been digging.

I also dumped some Cayenne Pepper on the areas hoping that if "The Digger" gets a snoot full, he/she won't do it again.

As of the discovery of any new holes gets a random Paw Check when they come in the house, and with no likely perps found, I hope the pepper works.

Trimmed back our lemon tree, which actually started from some dropped seeds years ago. It's not very big, but grows like a weed.

And like the video somebody had posted a week or so ago, watching a dog play with a lemon is pretty funny. Pebbles loves to play ball, and since the lemons are fairly round, and roll nicely, she has a lot of fun until she chomps down on one.

Did the pooper-scooper routine as it was my week to do it.

Push broomed the driveway inside the gate and the side walks, as these guys go blasting around the back yard at about Mach 2.5, tearing out any weak grass, and scattering it everywhere in their vortex.

I went to water the back yard the other day and found my new $12 garden hose nozzle chewed up beyond belief, so got another one of those.

NOTE TO SELF: Pick up the nozzle off the ground when done using, and don't let it dangle on the hose end where they can get at it!

And did a few more sundry things like blasted all the front driveway and walkway cracks with RoundUp to kill the grass starting to grow out of them. One of these days I suppose I should patch the big cracks in the driveway. The problem with that is that whoever poured our driveway didn't use any metal mesh/rebar in it....it's just a slab of concrete about 2" think, and as it settled, it cracked.

I don't even want to think about the cost of busting it up, hauling it away, and having it done properly. I have better thing to spend $5000 on than a new driveway!

meh....Got Nuthin' Today

Went to my friend's internment with my wife, and then crawled around on the Battleship Iowa helping to inventory all the radio gear still in the racks.

Drank FOUR bottles of water, and didn't go to the restroom once.

It's HOT down on the third deck where the transmitter room is!

"Never Was So Much Owed By So Many To So Few"

Winston Churchill made his famous speech thanking the RAF on this date in 1940.

Very Clever Honda Commercial

Really neat!