My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on February 8, 2018

One realizes just how old in the tooth their cars technology is when taking a car in for service and driving something new.

This past week, BMW customer service pulled a few strings to get both airbags into my local dealer in order to do a one stop service of my 2010 BMW X5 35d. Since this recall is relatively time consuming, they sent me back to work with a new 2018 BMW X5 loaner. Wow … a few changes immediately were noticed. An amazing heads up display was perfectly visible on the windshield (photo above – note centerline of road) and incorporates the GPS "posted speed limit" to the left of the current speed. The SUV also has "Americanized" power steering, a complaint by many who find the heavy power steering on older BMWs too much to handle – personally I’m use to the "heavy feel" but the new lock to lock easy spin was impressive.

Another initially annoying feature quickly notable is the lane departure steering wheel vibration. Probably a great safety feature along with the blind side detection, but it also vibrates when changing lanes, etc. (could be tweakable?) The interior seems top notch as the leather is soft and billion way adjustable seat enjoyable. I was amazed how tight the SUV handled on the bumpy roads … solid handling without body roll, yet potholes and bumps were soft and quiet. Well done.

All in all it was a tease to drive a new X5 that feels much smaller than it is … but I still like my diesel.

Category: Automotive, BMW, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: airbag, BMW, gas, loaner, recall, service, test drive, x5

Posted By RichC on February 7, 2018

This ain’t my first rodeo (was looking for an excuse to use the idiom) as it pertains to stretching the life of my favorite pair of Sperry Topsiders.

The idiom this ain’t my first rodeo is generally traced back to the movie Mommie Dearest, in which the character Joan Crawford says, “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”

This time, as compared to the past couple epoxy repairs, I’ve added a blend of ground rubber within the epoxy mix. This time I’m hoping the "wear bars" will have a little more softness than 100% epoxy. So far so good, but I can tell the days are numbered for these older shoes. It might be time for even me to shop for a new pair and retire this old pair to "hinge duty."

***Speaking of idioms, my subject line reference  A Bridge Too Far … for those too young to remember … to do with a 1970s book and movie based on the unsuccessful allied World War II military operation.

(more…)

Category: History, Idioms, Misc, Personal, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: boatshoe, boatshoes, bridge, epoxy, idioms, market garden, shoes, sperry, topsider, topsiders, ww2

Posted By RichC on February 6, 2018

Watched an excellent SpaceX launch from  Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this Tuesday afternoon as Elon Musk’s private rocket company is only second in payload capacity to NASA’s ancient SaturnV rocket. Everything, including the landing of their twin booster rockets were fantastic. We are definitely entering a new era in space exploration. Well done.

When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two, with the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)–a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel.

Falcon Heavy’s first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.

Category: Space | 1 Comment »
Tags: ani gif, launch, rocket, space, spacex

Posted By RichC on February 6, 2018

There is good money in collecting garbage, but I don’t see many high school guidance departments "guiding" students into choosing it as a career aspiration. Perhaps owning or managing the company isn’t too bad, but the hours and pitfalls facing those doing the grunt work isn’t all that appealing.

Monday morning our trash collector cut the bend in front of our house too tight as he was backing down our street. "In the dark" hit one our home owner association’s lamp posts. This is the second one in so many years. Hopefully this one will be a easier fix than last as this particular post is no longer made — matching is difficult. I called Rumpke, our trash company and took a few  photos for documentation. The customer service rep, Sarah, said "an investigator" will be out to look?

The incident reminds me of one by a FedEx driver a few years ago … LINK

Category: Archive, Misc, Photos, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: accident, efe, fedex, garbage, hoa, postlamp, rumpke, streetlight, truck

Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018

Well, well, well … perhaps this is the correction many watching the financial markets have been looking for as a 4.6% drop on the DOW in a day is a rather large one.

It was another day of selling on Wall Street helped by computerized programmed trading and likely the relatively new ETF broad based trading instrument. An ETFis a preferred low cost way to participate in a broad basket of stocks or an Index and once they are sold, requires the underlining individual stocks to be sold.

There was a point in the afternoon that even regular market watchers, who are often waiting to pick up shares at a discount, started to show a bit of nervousness. The challenging part for those of us who study the economy, is that there really are few bad news stories contributing to such a sell off. Besides the nonstop gains of 2017, the recent comments coming from the Fed has people worried about interest rates rising as they attempt to get ahead of any possible sign of inflation. A robust economy is good news, but too much blind buying is a concern.

Personally I worried more back in 2008 when we had a serious banking crisis than I do today. Yes, the growing debt and lack of fiscal controls when it comes to the Federal government spending is a big deal … as is health care, an ill prepared aging population (social security and Medicare) and excessive borrowing by students for there education.

For now … those wanting to grow their investments, stocks just got quite a bit cheaper … but who knows just where the bottom is?

Here’s a list of the 30 Dow Companies closing on Monday, February 5, 2018:

(more…)

Category: Financial | 1 Comment »
Tags: etf, Financial, nasdaq, s&p 500 index, stock market, wall street

Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018

Although there are quite a few reservation holders starting to doubt whether we’ll ever see production (last update was 2019 deliveries), the marketing team continues to tease (update) on this small commuter car. The original low price has been inched up, but it still will be a bargain if Elio Motors can afford to put this 3-wheeled vehicle into production.

This week, a few of the “how big or how small” questions were answered:

From the Elio Blog:

With our configuration and design, the Elio can be a bit of an optical illusion. As we’ve said in the past, the Elio can comfortably seat two 6’2 adults comfortably. The dimensions of the front seat are comparable to the 2017 Honda Accord.The Elio has 39.8” of headroom and 42.7” of legroom, while the Accord’s same dimensions are 37.2’’ and 42.2’’. The Elio also has the same amount of headroom and legroom as the 2018 Toyota Corolla [corrected].

At first glance, the Elio may look slightly low to the ground.Actually, our ground clearance 5.75″ which is consistent with other vehicles on the road such as the Honda Accord EX and the Mercedes S550.

With a wheelbase (which is the center of the front wheels to the center of the rear wheel) of 110,” the Elio is similar to the Toyota Corolla, which has a wheelbase of 106. As far as length, the Elio, at 160.5”, is the about the same length as the 2017 Honda Fit, the 2017 Chevrolet Sonic Hatchback, and the Mercedes SLC.

With our front-to-back seating, the space where the door opens is a very important area of the Elio and one that is quite popular with people that have yet to see the Elio in person. To help you visualize the ingress for the Elio, we took three different measurements of the door opening and compared them to other vehicles that you commonly see on the road. (more…)

Category: Automotive, Blogs, Marketing | No Comments »
Tags: blog, cars, elio, elio motors, Marketing, reservation, size, update

Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018

This content is restricted.

Category: Audio, History, Music | No Comments »
Tags: boardwalk, doo wap, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, r&b, the drifters

Posted By RichC on February 4, 2018

This is what I get for procrastinating until this weekend — TWO right hand seats!

The boxes containing the long delayed leather home theater seats (ie. basement flood of 2013) arrived a couple weeks ago but I waited until this weekend to unpack since I was out of town last weekend. I unboxed them and started putting the individual seats together thinking it would be nice to have them set up for the Super Bowl with friends on Sunday night — NOPE!

Oh well … we’ll still have enough seats and HOPEFULLY enough food for Super Bowl LII.

That said, I’m pretty confident Wayfair will correct the issue even if is will be delayed.

Our long delay in finishing the home theater had to do with a minor disagreement between Brenda and I as to how to best get the proper seating into the room. The first problem is that the stairs and door do not permit a full size couch or sectional; we needed separate units.

I was ok with fewer larger/bulky seats and counter high barstool seating behind.  Brenda wanted a sectional but it was way too challenging to fit in our space and seat enough people. We compromised with a slightly more compact sized theatre recliner and are putting them in two rows of 4 in order to seat eight in front of our 112" HD video projector (I still like this for a dark basement home theater like ours). Once done, the only two missing pieces will be an actual reflective screen instead of painted wall and a replacement sub-woofer.

Category: Archive, Entertainment, Misc, Movies, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: basement, defect, furniture, home, house, seats, superbowl, television, theater, tv, wayfair

Posted By RichC on February 3, 2018

Once again … those of us who enjoy NFL football are forced to watch the New England Patriots play yet again in a Super Bowl. The last time they met the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl was in 2004, the outcome was 24-21 … which is slightly under margin of victory being predicted this year. Personally I suspect the majority of the country either doesn’t care, or is pulling for the underdog Eagles.
Ask Alexa.  Who’s gonna win?  

Date: Feb. 4, 2018
Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
Where: U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
TV: NBC (check local listings)
Stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
Announcers:

• Al Michaels (play-by-play)
• Cris Collinsworth (analyst)
• Michele Tafoya (sideline reporter)

Category: Sports | 1 Comment »
Tags: 2018, Alexa, eagles, patriots, superbowl

Posted By RichC on February 2, 2018

I played the “high risk, high reward” game on Friday while watching most if not all stocks collapsed over rising interest rate concerns. It looks more likely that the Federal Reserve may have to be more aggressive in raising rates in order to control inflationary pressures after the jobs report. Unemployment is low, the economy strong and about every business sign is pointing to good times ahead — perhaps that in itself is a worry?

The U.S. economy added a better-than-expected 200,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, its lowest level since December 2000.

The early morning selling continued right  into the close on Friday and few seemed to be willing to buy and hold over the weekend … especially as the well telegraphed news of #thememo (PDF) was released to the public. Few analysis tied the concern regarding the obvious anti-Trump political bias and abuse of power at the top level of the FBI to the market sell-off, but I’m sure most traders were paying attention to the news.

Since I recently sold a few stock positions that had run up for no other reason than I was concerned the gains were too fast, I did end up buying back in once again. For the record, I’m back owning Ford ($F). Who knows if buying shares at $10.66 is a near term bottom, but after their recent “miss” and selloff, I’m hoping the negativity was already priced in prior to the panic selling today? It seems to me that at a time consumers are spending, have more money in their paychecks to spend due to tax cuts, having near full employment and those pressures forcing wages to rise (although only slightly) … Ford should at least sell a few cars. We’ll see.

Category: Financial, News, Personal, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: $F, economy, ford, investing, jobsfriday, market, Politics, stocks, thememo, trump