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I have to say... his latest columns for C&D were uniformly terrible.. (I'll cut him some slack, since he is/was 80 yrs old)
Didn't realize he was from Burnside, KY... (that's near Somerset and Lake Cumberland). That is one small hick place to get your start..
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Bob
He was great at what he did. RIP.
I started looking at a replacement and found a low mileage 2007 RX8 I got a great deal on, so I bought it to replace my Miata as a track car. At least I have plenty of headroom now!
Planning to do a lapping day in the rain this Thursday- hopefully the new car will be ready in time - I need to bleed the brakes, hopefully replace the pads and lines, and replace the sway bars. Oh, and figure out how to mount an in car camera.
tom
I'm gonna take quite the loss on it though.
tom
Enjoy the RX8. I've taken a spin in one of those on the Zoom Zoom Live tour and it was a hoot. Handles like it's on rails...
Bob
I love the handling, and it really is fun to fling that engine up to 9k rpms. The engine isn't good for drag races, but should be plenty for what I'm asking for it to do on the track.
The funny thing, the RX8 guys suggest adding pre-mix! I haven't added pre-mix to an engine since playing with outboard engines as a kid. The rotary i guess is more similar to a 2 stroke engine, so I guess it makes sense.
I am impressed by how well Mazda puts the cars together though. Definitely a step above my STi.
tom
Speaking of premix I am going to be working on my old weedtrimmer this week. It's a 31cc 2-stroke that I parked 4 years ago when I was working a ton and hired a lawncare guy to mow. If I can't get it resurrected, I will just pick up some kind of battery-powered electric trimmer. My old house was on a 1/3 acre lot and trimming was a chore. Fiance's yard is tiny, will take 10 minutes-- maybe 15 if OCD strikes.
My yard it big so I usually go through 2 batteries, but I have tons of 'em.
I'm all for electric! I have an electric mower, blower, and weed whacker and they are fine as long as you don't have a lot of real estate! It's kinda like vacuuming- just gotta be careful of the cord!
tom
I'd probably get something like this if it doesn't work, though:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0031564GU
2.0L DOHC, DI, twin-scroll turbo, 274 hp / 269 lb-ft, 6-speed automatic, 22/33 mpg, a bit over $24K to start. I think it may run on regular gas too.
http://www.hyundaiusa.com/sonata/performance.aspx
Bob
I got a bit upstaged, however, in the 'gee wiz' department. The father of one of my daughter's friends who is a NE Region field manager for GM brought a pair of Chevy Volt cars to the event. They were parked on the lobby overhang, and certainly drew a steady crowd of adults along with kids. Tough competition!
And yes, he did confirm that in complete ev discharge mode there is a clutch that enables direct linkage of the engine and transmission for conventional drive. There was always that "*" in the powertrain description that made it sound like it only ran on generated electricity, but a diagram of the hardware suggested otherwise.
While there we met with the technology teachers and brainstormed a bit about my returning to teach a 1-2 day unit after the Easter break.
LOL - I remember back when my son was in 2nd grade, his teacher has a star of the week event for each child. Each "star" was to bring in somebody they wanted to show off and do show and tell or some sort of project. Well since I work in marketing for a plumbing supply company, I thought the toilet demo wouldn't be that exciting so I brought in fun foam and shapes. The class spent the afternoon making foam fingers for the Superbowl that weekend. Everybody had a great time.
The "star" the following week had his Dad come in as well. This Dad is a helicopter pilot with the State Police. Guess what landed on the field behind the school?? Made my foam fingers look pretty lame.
But he was upstaged a couple of months later by another Dad who is also a State Trooper but he brought in a couple of police horses. The kids could actually ride those.
I like the Kia's appearance inside and out better, except for the wheels. The EX Turbo wheels are not great, and the SX wheels are horrible. Absolutely awful.
I should get him another set, but he seems content to have moved on to electrical wiring. He is currently working on plans to wire his play house with switched lighting and outlets this summer.
Right now, however, I'm done with manuals. If I bought a VW or Audi I'd get a DSG/S-tronic in a heartbeat. I like CVTs less, and think that a traditional (hydromatic) automatic is OK in non-performance vehicles. I've never once wished for a manual when driving my fiance's Suzuki G-V (5spd auto).
And to me, the Sonata/Optima turbo isn't a performance vehicle. It's just a modern take on a v6 midsize sedan.
Frankly, for me, that's half the pleasure of changing over to winter tires!
Moving day tomorrow so removalists are coming in today to pack.
When we came back to Australia twelve years ago we rented for a time and then moved into our current house. That is now at end of its life and we had thought to demolish and rebuild. However, just when we had finalized our plans and got quotes together, we found another house which suits our purposes, so here we go.
What is extraordinary is the volume of junk that you can accumulate, over time. We have filled a storage unit with about 60m3 of books and "stuff". Despite this having occurred some months ago, we have not really noticed the items that are missing. Suggests that we need to do a cull as we move stuff back into the house.
Oh the joy of the next few days! I can feel my back aching already
Cheers
Graham
We really need a "like" button on this forum! I don't really have anything to add here, but I sure do agree with that sentiment, Steve! :shades:
tom
But I agree with Tom. I'm done with the 3rd pedal. Bring on the dual-clutch manumatics!
Also, my fiance can't drive a manual transmission. I'm not about to teach her in my Evo, either, with 99k on the stock clutch. (And it's working fine!)
Both quite valid reasons for your situations, I daresay.
I guess I never expect a house to have an end of life. Houses may have to be updated but tear downs happen around here because the land is valuable.
And it was on his short list...
He ended up with a Forester Premium, manual of course.
Edit: and yes, the Hyundai 2.0GDI turbo runs on 87 octane.
Now moved house, although with a few dramas. I think the first lesson in furniture removing is to make sure everyone knows where the kettle and coffee is. Box was labelled clearly "DO NOT PACK" so was instantly packed. We went out and bought another kettle It was packed before I got a coffeee out of it.
Ultimately, we have found the first kettle (two days later), but second one is still missing.
Same story on the cables for computers, and the power drill, and the fixings for every cabinet in the place. There were few breakages but the location of many objects remains a great mystery.
On the building life issue; All assets have a limited life. With houses, it is about 40 years with extension possible if you undertake a major refurbishment at about 20-25 years. Generally, the value of the underlying land, makes it appealing to demolish, if land values appreciate significantly.
Our old home had little updating since new, forty years ago. When we bought it eleven years ago, we recognized that the house was near end of life and had looked to knock down and rebuild. However, economics did not work out.
Only major issue for us is that we will miss the huge swimming pool. However kids only used it three times in each of last two summers, so the economics of that failed as well.
New house is much larger but we cannot yet figure out where to fit everything. Unpacking is taking longer than expected and I am still turniing up mystery items.
My back is killing me
Cheers
Graham
The neighborhood where I grew up on Long Island, NY, a development of around 125 homes, was built in 1952-1953. Remembering from my last trip down there (maybe two years ago?), I'd say about half of the homes look pretty much exactly as they were built. The other half have undergone major reconstruction, adding rooms on new foundations or building upward (quite common with 'split level' style designs on small suburban plots). And yes, from the radical looks, a few were probably leveled and are brand new.
Same here. I live in a 50 YO house and will admit that I recently renovated the whole thing less 3 rooms and also added on. But that investment was no where near the cost of tearing down and starting over. I have friends in 150 YO houses as well that find it more effective to renovate.
Now there have been teardowns in my neighborhood because the existing homes are too small for today's buyer. A small 3 bedroom ranch on a half acre lot was sold for U$300K. In it's place was built a 4 BR, 3 car garage colonial style starter castle that I venture cost about $500K to build.
The original hardwood floors are intact and clearly not new, but not horrible either. I suspect they've been resurfaced once. The only real problem with the house is that some fool painted over the wood trim, windows and sills in the rear half of the house. There is no way I'm going to scrape off that white paint and refurbish the wood now!
Things are slowly improving. The house life thing is interesting but has similar issues to most asset maintenance. If you spend big money at approximately half the asset's life, you bring it back to effectively new condition. That is equivalent to a "Half Life Refurbishment" in a power station or similar.
The new house was built in 1971 and had a major refurbishment done in about 1993 adding a second story, family room beyond the kitchen and a workshop/store below. That has made it a moderately large house (maybe 2,500ft2 with five bedrooms
Recently, there has been a refurbishment for decorative purposes, but we bought with eyes wide open that more money would need to be spent. I've had plumbers in to tidy up several home-handyman errors and an electrician in to replace fuse box and rewire where necessary. The latter exercise does not come cheap. I now need a roof tiler for sundry roofing issues and a wall tiler to repair a shower. Then a plasterer to line the workshop/store which has never been fully finished.
There is a sort of rule of thumb that you should be spending about 5% of the house build value per annum on maintenance. I'd guess a rebuild value of about AUD 350,000 so should be spending AUD17,500 per annum.
Now the frightening bit; the house move has coincided with the need to replace various appliances, apparently a common issue after 25 years together. We have replaced two mattresses and are going shopping for refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave and television today. The bank balance is warping!
The back is absolutely killing me!
Cheers
Graham
Give yourself a down day, Graham! A long massage combined with rest for a day can really work wonders for it. If you keep pushing it, you might just end up with a spasm/strain/other back injury that will debilitate you for days....
Thanks for the tip. It coincides with a day where I was contemplating just that - doing very little and getting a massage.
The heavy lifting is all finished and I have reassembled the waterbed - always a major saga as it measures 6' by 7'. It only needs the water in it to get things back to normal.
When the kids were little they (and their friends) used to surf on it, bouncing up and down and then launching the ironing board to ride the waves. I am probably the last dinosaur hold out who likes a waterbed.
The dog will be pleased when the waterbed is refilled. She often lies on it through the day, watching the passers by on the street outside and staying warm on the heated bed. Any chance of keeping the pets off the furniture disappeared when we got this dog. She is incredibly spoilt.
I might also get around to finding the odd bits from the workshop which are packed up in strange places.
Cheers
Graham
I still have the waterbed frame, somewhere in Oregon, but I doubt I will ever use it as a waterbed again.
for a wider audience. Hope everyone enjoys special time with their loved ones.
It's an interesting balancing act here, with a six year old effusive at the prospect of the Easter Bunnies' visit and our first bedroom "invasion" at 6am, coupled with adolescent boys who would happily lay in bed until noon.
Nicholas
Ideas?
John
In lieu of that, service or accessories are your only other option. If service is out, I would look at accessories that are fairly common, buy them through a discount distribution source, and then turn them at about 75-80 cents on the dollar for what should be an easy sale.
Another option, if you have friends with Subaru vehicles, would be to find out if any of them have considered accessories and work out a killer deal (from their perspective) on accessories of their choice. Even if you do not convert your $100 certificate to $100 in cash, you are still taking a coupon with no cash value and converting it to hard currency. Plus, you'd be helping out a friend in the process.
Tires (can't imagine you don't have at least one car that needs 'em)
Body shop work to fix dings
Subaru swag - jackets, etc.