I have been meaning to say a few things...

I have been sharing what little I know, learning a lot in the process, and communicating with a bunch of unruly and yet brilliant people on this forum for well over ten years now, and I feel damn privileged for being able to do all that.

I have been in front of large audiences, academic circles, live cameras and whatnot, but none of these experiences have yet managed to make me sit up straight and weigh every word just as I do while posting on this forum.

This forum is practically a fountain of tried and true experience, a perfect gathering place where information is never spoon fed, and a great sounding board in the form of a gaggle of informed cynics where decent ideas are rewarded with unicorns farting rainbows.

So, thank you.

 

Maybe you can make it to MATG in 2022.

 

Actual conversation which I just had with the CEO, the corporate Director of Engineering, and the corporate head of HR:

"$2.5 million. For that money, not only should I not be called into HR for telling him to go **** his own mother because it's no closer to working today than it was a month ago, I should be able to commission an artist to create a 15 foot tall bronze statue of him giving a ******* to a horse and mount it on a a marble column in front of the building below the flagpole."

Weirdly, I still have a job.

 

Damn - incest AND bestiality ?! Way to go, Joe.

 

I mean... I didn't even know that an HR complaint could be escalated to the CEO of the company.

It's kind of flattering.

I feel like I deserve an award for this. It was implied, but not expressly stated, that this had never happened before in the history of the company, and was unfamiliar territory for all involved.

So, to be clear: Ray McGhee, employee of Florical Systems, a company based in Gainesville, FL : I sympathize with the fact that your company waaaaaaaaaaaay over-promised relative to what it can deliver. I have been in your shoes myself (ref: Harris Corp, PR&E Radio Systems, 2005-2013), and I know that it massively sucks. But you have two paths to chose from here, and only one of them involves being a total douchebag. The other involves biting the bullet, doing what is best for the company, and taking one for the team. Sadly, you chose the former.

PS: Go Gators!

 

As long as you didn't assume Ray's gender, or misuse the preferred pronouns, you're probably fine.
Based on frequent news reports, certain Florida residents have no qualms with bestiality anyway.

 

Life is weird.

Like when you meet a real estate agent for the first time, and your initial impression is that she's an old fat Karen, but while you're sitting outside a property waiting for the folks inside to exit, you learn that she competes in SCCA Solo. Mind you, she steered the conversation in this direction with no guidance from me, having not seen my car which I had to park a block away due to shitty civil planning.

And then, after that house turns out to suck, you drive (separately) to the next one, and you both arrive at about the same time, so she sees you putting the top up and getting out of your 16 year old NB shitshack from a distance (I parked about a hundred feet up from her), and she asks, in a way which actually seems fairly convincing, if that's a BMW. And you take a moment of pause, contemplating the multiple and conflicting ideas that:

1: An SCCA competitor should know what a Miata looks like, but...

1.5: There aren't any Miatas in her class, and

1.75: She did later prove to have poor eyesight, although

2: An SCCA competitor should know that a Miata owner would take being mistaken for a BMW owner as an insult, and also doesn't know that BMWs don't have manual tops, or

3: I'm fairly certain, based on our last conversation, that she's not shitting me about her Honda, or at the very least, has done a weirdly specific amount of research about that very, VERY small niche of motorsports, or

4: Most people legitimately just don't give a **** about SM and all of the various venues which surround it. And that's just that.


I'm really hoping that #4 turns out to be the case. Because I really want to buy that last house we looked at.

 

1) 10 years ago, something like 20-30% of the cars at any given SCCA autocross were NA/NB Miatas. The last one I went to was about 3-4 years ago, though, and Miatas were much less common. So perhaps in a state where cars rust faster she might not have seen them much if she's only been doing it a couple years?

2) Z3s were available with manual tops, although those have always been pretty rare at SCCA autocross in my experience.

4) SM is a road racing class, not common for them to show up at autox. Also they almost always have hard tops on them which changes the look of the car quite a bit if you're not really paying attention.

--Ian

 

All points valid.

And Solo =/= AutoX by a very large margin. I've only ever been to one Solo event (as a spectator, and by mistake, I was looking to meet up with someone else), and I don't recall seeing any Miatas there. Mind you, this was 14 years ago.

I have no valid reason to believe that she's BSing me. This whole encounter just struck me as... bizzare.

Aside from the occasional dude yelling "nice car!" in traffic* (mind you: city traffic. 30 MPH is fast), I'm not accustomed to people recognizing cars in general. My worldview in this matter has shifted radically since departing SoCal*** in 2013 and becoming a city boy.

* = This happens surprisingly** often, and happened today as I was paralleling into a space outside the second house.

** = But not as often as co-workers, who have never seen me and my car at the same time, bursting into laughter when they see me get into or out of it. I'm tall. The car isn't. Normal folk seem to be easily amused by this. The most senior of them to date was Cathy Ornburn, the Director of Operations, at a Christmas party which involved bowling and haute cuisine. I can't make this **** up.

*** = When I lived in San Diego, I carried a male passenger in my car exactly twice. The first was a representative from a Chinese manufacturing company on our way to a corporate dinner, and the second was AbeFM from this forum. On both of those occasions, a redneck in a pickup truck**** shouted homophobic slurs at us. Abe of course laughed it off. The Chinese engineer required a bit more finessing.

**** Not the same redneck both times, so far as I know.

 

OR . . . . maybe she was simply trying to suss out how much money you have, Joe.

 

 

SCCA used to have "solo 1" (time trial and hill climb) and "solo 2" (autocross). They rebranded things a few years ago and what used to be "solo 1" is now called "time trial" and "solo" only means autocross.

--Ian

 

 

Ya ever have one of those face palm moments, where you can't believe someone was that stupid?
And the stupid person was you?

I took a bunch of dead batteries back for the core charges. I had 5-6 laying around, from full size car batteries to ones for the ATV.
The stupidity is from me returning the nearly new Miata battery, and leaving the dead one behind.
$100+ mistake.

 

^ I have not done that thing. But I have unnecessarily purchased a replacement battery, when all mine needed was a good charge. So, I have a brand new Deka 8AMU1R taking up space in a closet.


Here's an amusing anecdote:


I'm in the process of buying a house. Apparently, it's common practice for the downpayment to be sent to the title company via wire transfer the day prior to closing, rather than using some more convenient means of money transfer such as ACH or a briefcase full of cash.

I've liquified about $200k and have it sitting in my checking account, when I learn that in order to initiate a wire transfer on a consumer checking account, one needs to physically visit a bank branch and present ID. I'm still using a bank account that I established with TD Bank in 2013 when I lived in NYC, and they don't have any branches in Illinois. Or Indiana. Oor anywhere else in the midwest.

No problem. I'll just open an account with a local bank, ACH the money into it, do the wire transfer there, and then close the account once done.

So this morning before work, I drive to the bank nearest my workplace, and tell them I want to open a checking account. Into the side office to do the paperwork.

The agent requests ID, so I hand over my driver license. She needs a second form of ID. I didn't think to bring my passport, and she asks if I have a FOID card.

(record scratch.)

FOID = Firearm Owners Identification. It's what you need in Illinois to possess a firearm, purchase ammunition, etc. Now, Illinois obviously does have a lot of rural areas in which people do hunty / shooty stuff, but this is Chicago. While illegal firearm ownership is quite common, LEGAL firearm ownership... isn't.

Now, in all fairness, I do have a FOID card*, and I did have it in my wallet, so I handed it over and the transaction proceeded as usual.

* = It took me nearly a year to get it, despite state law requiring that the IL state police approve or deny all applications within 30 days.


But, what an odd request. This is the first time I have ever been asked for said ID, outside of the very specific environment in which one would normally expect (and be required) to display it.

When I asked her about this later, the bank teller said that I just looked like the sort of person who might have one. She also asked if I was carrying. Which seemed intrusive.

So... yeah. Apparently I look like whatever bank employees think that people who are carrying a gun look like.


I am constantly amused by learning what conclusions different people draw based on my appearance. I'm fairly certain that I shared the story about the 2015 Paris attacks and the fried chicken restaurant in Harlem.

 

Perhaps you just look like a reasonably intelligent Chicago resident who understands what might be necessary to see tomorrow, but is encumbered by an unfortunate regard for the law?

It took me 11 months to get a carry permit in CT, when by statute they have 8 weeks to approve or reject. Fortunately, Maine is “Constitutional Carry,” and I’m not yet a convicted violent felon.

 

Wait - What? . . . Is there actually a Titti Bank?

 

Ha. If I recall correctly. It only took about 35 minutes here in Michigan. The majority of the time waiting for people in line ahead of me. You're also required to take a training class. A class which lasted a whole 3 minutes after the instructor opened with "we all know how to operate a firearm right?" Then we all proceeded to watch the required video while he filled out the paperwork.

 

Yes. They're based in Toronto, and have locations all along the east coast of the US. They're especially popular in New York and New Jersey.

https://www.td.com/

 

They are actually closing many of the locations. Which sucks; I want one closer to my house, not further. *******.