Car Ideas for the Future
Car Ideas for the Future
I had been leaning towards buying a Cooper Mini convertible when I replaced the Prelude. The convertible Mini makes a lot of sense to me since I live at the beach in Southern California. Then, when you factor in global warming, it will be almost perfect convertible driving weather year round.
Obviously, with traffic being what is here and only going to get worse, I was also leaning towards an automatic transmission. Manual transmissions tend to die a slow death on the slow moving freeways here.
Then, yesterday, I was reading our local newspaper’s business section when I came upon an article about the Nanjing Automobile Corporation’s plans to start building the MG TF sports car in England this year. Nanjing plans to build a sports car by 2009 and the company plans to enter the United States market.
That got me to remembering when I was young and almost carefree.
I once owned a 1973 MGB convertible, like the one in the photo, for a little over a year. It was a mechanical piece of [insert your own favorite adverse adjective here]. The front windshield frame came warped from the factory so I was going through a new windshield about every three months. The dealer could never fix the windshield gasket leak that tended to flood the passenger side of the car whenever it rained. The car came from the factory with a cracked distributor cap that took the dealership almost two months to figure out why the car was backfiring and stalling for no apparent reason.
My ex-wife hated it because it was windy and it messed her hair. The only female who loved to ride in the car with the top down was our German Sheppard but then she had very short hair.
Still, I am likely to make the repairs to the Prelude so waiting until 2009 to buy a new car is not out of the question for me.
I know some will say how can you buy a Chinese made car?
Easy.
My Chinese laptop from Lenovo functions just fine. My prior experience with a genuine, made in England version of the MGB certainly has to be classified as a horror story that is worthy of George Romero film. My future expectations are set very low so it would be easy for a Chinese product to exceed them.
Lastly, I have almost two years to see how the car develops in England before I have to make any buying decisions. I can see it at a auto show in Los Angeles before I buy it. I can wait and see what develops.
Of course, Honda could get smart and produce a version of their S2000 model with an automatic transmission. Then, my decisions would be reduced to what Honda dealer do I buy the car from and what color to I select.
Doug and the Coachella Music Festival
The annual Coachella Music Festival is this weekend. Doug and a group of his friends are going out to the event. This is something he has been looking forward to for a long time.
He downloaded the show schedule last night when he arrived here after his class.
Judging from his comments and language, he is a victim of a conspiracy, in his mind anyway. All of the groups he wanted to see are playing opposite each other or they play one after another but in different venues so that you can have a good spot for one and then be in the back for the next venue.
He was sending text messages to his friends about how terrible things were going to be for him. They were commiserating with him for a good part of the evening in text messages and then I went to bed.
This, too, shall pass and he will survive the event.
The New Laptop
I am still getting used to the new laptop.
Overall, I just really like this machine. I am even beginning to like Windows Vista Business version of the operating system software that came with the machine. I was almost going to say that I loved the machine but that would be an oxymoron since it has a Microsoft operating system.
It has some interesting system default settings that I think I like. It uses a smaller display so that it can take advantage of the wide screen capabilities. I like this. I don’t have to scroll across a screen to read an email. I suppose that I could have set the old laptop up with this functionality.
The system also disconnects from the Internet in a fashion; after I have been away for a while, it breaks the connection to the email server. I think this is a good feature. I also like the fact that it locks itself up when it goes into a slumber mode.
The decision to but the ThinkPad from Lenovo was one of my better ones.
Job Searching and Interviewing
I had a job interview yesterday with the president of a large credit union. The credit union is looking for a Chief Credit Officer. I can do this job almost standing on my head. It is relatively easy and has a simple goal of increasing the size of the loan portfolio with good quality credits.
I know how to do that; I’ve done it lots of times before.
The president said he was interviewing the candidates this week and then planned to invite the top two or three back for a group interview with peers I guess either next week or the week after. I think I should be in that group. Anyway, I ought to know by the end of the week whether I made the cut to the final round or not.
Woman of the Moment
Park Ye-jin is an interesting actress and singer. I can’t say that I have heard any of her singing. She certainly looks younger than her age. Unlike Eiko Koike from the Weekend Bonus Feature, Ye-jin does not have many photos of her in bikinis.
Oh well, life goes on.
Be well and stay happy.
I had been leaning towards buying a Cooper Mini convertible when I replaced the Prelude. The convertible Mini makes a lot of sense to me since I live at the beach in Southern California. Then, when you factor in global warming, it will be almost perfect convertible driving weather year round.
Obviously, with traffic being what is here and only going to get worse, I was also leaning towards an automatic transmission. Manual transmissions tend to die a slow death on the slow moving freeways here.
Then, yesterday, I was reading our local newspaper’s business section when I came upon an article about the Nanjing Automobile Corporation’s plans to start building the MG TF sports car in England this year. Nanjing plans to build a sports car by 2009 and the company plans to enter the United States market.
That got me to remembering when I was young and almost carefree.
I once owned a 1973 MGB convertible, like the one in the photo, for a little over a year. It was a mechanical piece of [insert your own favorite adverse adjective here]. The front windshield frame came warped from the factory so I was going through a new windshield about every three months. The dealer could never fix the windshield gasket leak that tended to flood the passenger side of the car whenever it rained. The car came from the factory with a cracked distributor cap that took the dealership almost two months to figure out why the car was backfiring and stalling for no apparent reason.
My ex-wife hated it because it was windy and it messed her hair. The only female who loved to ride in the car with the top down was our German Sheppard but then she had very short hair.
Still, I am likely to make the repairs to the Prelude so waiting until 2009 to buy a new car is not out of the question for me.
I know some will say how can you buy a Chinese made car?
Easy.
My Chinese laptop from Lenovo functions just fine. My prior experience with a genuine, made in England version of the MGB certainly has to be classified as a horror story that is worthy of George Romero film. My future expectations are set very low so it would be easy for a Chinese product to exceed them.
Lastly, I have almost two years to see how the car develops in England before I have to make any buying decisions. I can see it at a auto show in Los Angeles before I buy it. I can wait and see what develops.
Of course, Honda could get smart and produce a version of their S2000 model with an automatic transmission. Then, my decisions would be reduced to what Honda dealer do I buy the car from and what color to I select.
Doug and the Coachella Music Festival
The annual Coachella Music Festival is this weekend. Doug and a group of his friends are going out to the event. This is something he has been looking forward to for a long time.
He downloaded the show schedule last night when he arrived here after his class.
Judging from his comments and language, he is a victim of a conspiracy, in his mind anyway. All of the groups he wanted to see are playing opposite each other or they play one after another but in different venues so that you can have a good spot for one and then be in the back for the next venue.
He was sending text messages to his friends about how terrible things were going to be for him. They were commiserating with him for a good part of the evening in text messages and then I went to bed.
This, too, shall pass and he will survive the event.
The New Laptop
I am still getting used to the new laptop.
Overall, I just really like this machine. I am even beginning to like Windows Vista Business version of the operating system software that came with the machine. I was almost going to say that I loved the machine but that would be an oxymoron since it has a Microsoft operating system.
It has some interesting system default settings that I think I like. It uses a smaller display so that it can take advantage of the wide screen capabilities. I like this. I don’t have to scroll across a screen to read an email. I suppose that I could have set the old laptop up with this functionality.
The system also disconnects from the Internet in a fashion; after I have been away for a while, it breaks the connection to the email server. I think this is a good feature. I also like the fact that it locks itself up when it goes into a slumber mode.
The decision to but the ThinkPad from Lenovo was one of my better ones.
Job Searching and Interviewing
I had a job interview yesterday with the president of a large credit union. The credit union is looking for a Chief Credit Officer. I can do this job almost standing on my head. It is relatively easy and has a simple goal of increasing the size of the loan portfolio with good quality credits.
I know how to do that; I’ve done it lots of times before.
The president said he was interviewing the candidates this week and then planned to invite the top two or three back for a group interview with peers I guess either next week or the week after. I think I should be in that group. Anyway, I ought to know by the end of the week whether I made the cut to the final round or not.
Woman of the Moment
Park Ye-jin is an interesting actress and singer. I can’t say that I have heard any of her singing. She certainly looks younger than her age. Unlike Eiko Koike from the Weekend Bonus Feature, Ye-jin does not have many photos of her in bikinis.
Oh well, life goes on.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 4:27 PM
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