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 fuck 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 blowjob 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. :bigtu:

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!

https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1

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 shit 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 shit 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.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f20bd82f55.png

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

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3677b0df9e.png

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?

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5db9129d5c.png

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. Fuckers.

That was a LetterKenny reference, hence the picture. I'm going to assume it's something you haven't watched.

To be fair...

I have seen it. The first season, anyway. I hadn't seen the titty bank episode, but googled it.

I wasn't sure if you were serious about thinking it was just a thing for the TV show. A lot of Americans, including my bank teller, hadn't heard of it.

Yeah, I forget what season it was in. Oh no, I knew it was real thing. That's what makes the joke work.

... and you're going to just ignore the low-hanging fruit I set out there in the form of "To be fair..."

Minus one Puppers for you.

Allegedly


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ae8b28f7c3.png

:bowrofl:

Make mine a Gus N Bru, I'm trying to accomplish a goal.

So, this is kind of hilarious.

I'm a child of the late 70s / early 80s. And it just so happens that WLS-FM is programming all of the music which pushes the right buttons for me. Journey, Peter Frampton, Dire Straits, John Cougar Mellencamp, Jefferson Starship, Styx, Brian Adams, The Police, Air Supply, you name it.

It's like being inside the jukebox at the local pizza joint in 1985.

Well, they're my new neighbors on the 100th floor of Sears. And they have a pretty respectable set of speakers on top of their transmitter racks, pointed directly at my space, powered by a Crown D-75. (This is the amplifier which not only survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, but grew more powerful as a result of it.)

Problem is that, like courteous stewards, they turn the volume way down when they're not there.

Having blindly reached out to their chief engineer via email, I now officially have permission to crank up the volume on their rack when I'm working in my space.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9e6274350d.png

I recently swapped my coffee from sugar to Sorbitol.. actual tastes like real sugar but gives you that toothpaste sort of clean feeling on your teeth. Other issue is I definitely go to the bathroom after my coffee which is fine with me. Highly recommended. i used to drink a 12 oz cup with 3 packets of sugar, now i drink it with 2 teaspoons of sorbitol and 1 packet of sugar.

I'm constantly perplexed by for sale listings which can be succinctly described as:Can you identify what puzzles me about these ads?

Absolutely. Because if it's one simple part to replace, that will dramatically increase the value of your vehicle, why not just replace it?

It's because it isn't actually one simple part and they are trying to pawn off their dumpster fire on someone else.

My three biggest red flags when car shopping:

• One line description/one fuzzy photo from ten years ago
• Car is filthy/has visible garbage inside of it
• Car just needs "one simple part" to be perfect in every way

The first one can sometimes turn out OK if the seller is 129 years old. The bottom two are always not worth even looking at.

Today, I created an obituary for Garrison Keillor.

Just to be prepared, you understand.

Had an idea in the shower this morning, and refined it throughout the day.

While I don't want Garrison Keillor to die, he is not a young man. And I would hate to be unprepared to demonstrate my affinity for his work to a bunch of complete strangers on the internet when that dark day finally comes.

If "one simple part" is something like a CV axle or heater core and the seller is broke AND not mechanically inclined, then yeah, I get it. Remember all those statistics people love to throw around about how much money the "average American" has in the bank? When fixing the car is going to cost 1/3 of your liquid assets, maybe it's time to finance a newer car.

Perfect example: you've got $2k left in the bank because your job got replaced by a kiosk at McDonald's 6 months ago and your Trump/Biden stimulus bucks only got you so far on a diet of Digiorno's pizza and Steak'ums. $1200 shop estimate to replace the heater core in the $1600 KBB valued Ford Ranger you got from your Grandpa when you turned 18 cuts things pretty close to the bone. The heater core may be under $100 for the part but the 10h of shop labor at $120/hr to remove & reinstall the entire dash and HVAC system puts this out of your reach.

​I mean, sure, I'd buy that Ranger for $750 but only because my time has zero value and I'm not afraid of pulling a dash. Sometimes you have to look a bit deeper.

Also, thanks to this thread I now have something in common with Joe P, in that we've both had AbeFM in the passenger seat of our Miatas :bigtu:

Didn't get yelled at by rednecks tho :giggle:

As someone who wrote a personal check for $200,000 last week, no, I really don't understand this phenomenon.

And furthermore, if someone does happen to find themselves in that scenario, then unless the vehicle in question is truly a lemon, financing a newer car vs. paying cash to repair the existing car seems like terrible advice to me.

Title -
“The young Lutheran’s guide to the afterlife?”

A buddy found a 89 toyota teeruck with a brand new V6 for $500 recently, no rust. Older lady kept it in the garage, it sat most it's life. It "only needed" a starter, which she wasn't wanting to do after replacing the whole engine. I guess she had someone change the starter before the engine, it's newer and not soaked in oil. I guess the entire engine was replaced because it leaked oil. Wasn't blown, still ran fine. What the fuck even is that? Turns out it's just a $35 ignition switch, and an oxygen sensor that's unrelated. It push starts every time.

Most mechanics are absolutely fucking retarded. I understand completely why someone would quit at some point and just want it gone. I guess they are being a bit untruthful, because they doubt it really is just one more part but what else are they gonna do? Pass on what the mechanic says and call it good.

What I don't understand is asking for a flawless condition KBB minus the cost of the part. Nope!

Came here to say exactly this. Owning a car is a luxury. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. if you have few funds and little income it makes far more sense to put $1000 into a $3000 Honda than it does to finance a $15,000 new car (are there any $15,000 new cars any more? I honestly don't know.)

Placing your financially insolvent ass in debt for a luxury item rather than buying a heater core or a bus pass is terrible advice.

And before people swoop in with the "people live places that buses don't run" argument; if you can't afford a car, and need transportation to get to work, and buses don't run where you are, you can't afford to live there.

I went in a very different direction (wrote from the perspective of a resident of Lake Woebegone), however I do like where your mind is at here.

Yes to the above.

I mean, don't get me wrong here- I went without a car for a few years when I was in a place in life where I didn't strictly need one, and I also bought a brand new Camry with all the options a few years ago as a gift to mom, because:

A: She loves Toyota (I cannot understand why),

B: Her existing Solara had about 240,000 hard, rural miles on it, and was really, truly at end of life, and

C: Despite the fact that she's well past retirement age, mom just... refuses to retire. Props to her, as that's her thing.


But I paid cash for the car. As in, I brought an envelope full of cash with me to the dealership. It turns out that this is not something which they are accustomed to. It took three different people counting the cash and counter-signing each others' counts before they'd accept that this was a real thing and proceed with the transaction.

My sister drove me to the dealership (which was in Fort Myers, about 30 miles from their home), and on the way back, we took turns one-upping each other on the phone with casual references to new-car tech (at the time, she'd recently purchased an off-lease Chevy SUV.) All of it was foreign to me, as my NB has basically just enough electricity and computational power to run the engine. But we wound up encountering a friend of mine who I'd not seen in years while driving north on US-41 (she recognized him out the window) and we stopped for beers at a local pub. As neither of us had his phone number, she very gently ran him off the highway into a side-road, at which point we stopped to converse.

So that was nice.

Nowadays, you’d better not take more than $10k in cash. The paperwork triggered by anti drug money laws is not welcomed by the dealership.

Yet another one.

For context, he posted this in the "Windy City Miata Club" forum. Chicago is not in Indiana.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6634e61d36.png

Retardus Maximus chimes in:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...117b6ddb7b.png

I thought you could register it.. OBD1 cars dont have to pass emissions soo checkengine on is irrelevant.
I didnt see what year the car was. edit, nvm 99. still i thought you can sell it, just cant pass emissions as a new owner :D


Also

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net...ab&oe=614C2AAD

Ha. Actual scenario from 2 months ago: wife's $5300 KBB value Rav4 waterpump breaks. $1007 for the part/labor from the dealer (they were nice enough to quote it over the phone). $71 for the nice Gates pump, $25 for the 'asian vehicle' red antifreeze.

It only took me 2 days with an air ratchet to swap.

Now when the electric steering rack went last winter, we ate the $3k cause I wasn't about to remove the dash and all the steering components in the frozen driveway. They were going to give us $7k in trade in on a Highlander but she was too busy with work to consider it.

She likes those $80k Rivians though.

I'm currently waiting on a heater core for the MX to arrive, shipped 3 Sept, estimated delivery 6 Sept ... and I could have thrown a rock onto their roof from here, but covid lockdown. I know the delivery driver for that courier, and am pretty certain it hasn't got to him, the tracking says it has been received, not even 'in transit' - the last one that went astray took a 600km scenic detour, I wonder where this one has gone?!

Not paying a shop the labour to pull the dash, but at least they would have had it same day and I would have the car running now.

That's annoying.

Thanks to Amazon/FedEx screw ups, a local charity will now be receiving a nice king mattress this week. They lost the first order, sent us a replacement which we now have, and apparently have found the original shipment that is supposed to be delivered later this week.

Heater cores cause amazing problems. I know of 3 people who have werfed cars due to estimates associated with heater core replacements, helped 2 more people replace them and "saved" the vehicle.

This is also how I ended up with my Shady 80s Mercedes. PO ran away from the job and after doing it myself, I understand why. Replacement of the core in that 190D was a nightmare.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d38be57dd9.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d843d7ab7e.jpg

What a nightmare that was, lol.

I also know one guy who totaled a Mustang II due to a blown core. It let loose in spectacular fashion while he was driving in the Sierras during the winter and the steam instantly froze over the inside of the windscreen, then he ended up in a ditch.
I think he just abandoned the car at that point 😂

You are crazy. God I hope I never have to remove a dash in my life.

I've had to do it several times. Once was a 1977 Corvette, which really wasn't all that bad. I did have to reposition some clips which someone else had missed entirely, but it went back together surprisingly easily.

Still, it could be worse. Some cars require removal of the windshield. :facepalm:

:bowrofl:
I had a similar but more fortunate experience, with a lower radiator hose in an OTM. Cruising on the highway at 110-120, I happened to look in the mirror at the right time and saw a big cloud of steam coming out the back - immediately switched off and coasted to a stop. I can't remember how I got it fixed, must have been towed to civilisation as it happened miles from anywhere.

You guys got me thinking about this so I had a sit and a think last night. As far as my own cars and direct family goes, I've done heater cores and/or removed the dash to replace a heater core in:

• 3x 60s Mustangs
• 74 Bronco
• 74 F250
• 2 foxbodies
• 94 Jeep YJ
• 87 Mercedes 190D T
• My Dad's GMC Jimmy (what a colossal piece of shit)
• A Honda Accord of some ilk
• An 80s Tercel
• 95 NA Removed the dash to remove/clean/flush/inspect the core
• 02 Tacoma Removed dash to clean stuff and chase rattles, no core work

...and I know I'm forgetting at least one. On older vehicles it can be super simple, but things like the GMC was needlessly complex. The Merc was very labor intensive and very, very German but didn't make me want to kill myself.

​​​​​​FML that's a lot of goddamn work. :facepalm:

There's always something relevant here. Me last weekend, learning German.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...09367cb8be.jpg

HAHAHA! Yesss!
Be careful with those goddamn vacuum servos on the HVAC. Depending on the vintage they can be really fragile and some are NLA. I found some replacements via Pelican Parts but ended up one short. RIP defroster. I wish I'd have been able to find a can of R12 for mine, just to see how well the automatic climate control still worked.

Ooo! Does yours also have the plastic fiber optic light pipes for the button and switch backlighting? Finding that in a car built in 1987 surprised the hell out of me.

Heater core went in my '95 Ram. Dash was amazingly intact, but I knew if I farted too hard the dash would disintegrate, so I just sold it.

Yes- I was absolutely stunned to find it. Fiber optics for dash lighting, yet 15 individual connections to the gauge cluster. I often work on the Miata as therapy after spending a weekend on this car.
Here's the "feed" and fiber optic leads from the right side of the cluster.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...591a9a035a.jpg

So we are moving after 13.5 years.

It is exhausting.

And my car is in pieces in the garage.

That is all.

I feel your pain.

On average, I have moved once every 1.8 years over the past two decades. It's been a source of personal pride that I am so efficient at it. And, truly, I have really enjoyed the coast-to-coast moves. They've tended to be highly cathartic, despite the many follies.

This time, however, I am really starting to feel my age. The back, the knees, and the neck are competing with one another to see which can cause me the greatest agony.


Fortunately, my car is in one single piece.