Ace-Garageguy

“We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer.

Multi-hundred dollar parts order mis-delivered by UPS to a residential address that simply doesn't exist...though they have repeatedly delivered to the shop address in the past (I have expensive stuff delivered to the shops because of the rise of porch-pirates that has come with changing home-neighborhood "demographics"). Rather than try to fight it out with UPS, I went to the shipper's customer service department. Helpful, intelligent, and competent, she issued a credit memo immediately and initiated a replacement shipment. So far, so good. I NEED these parts yesterday. BUT...I just received a memo from the shipper informing me that IF the original order isn't returned within 30 days of the replacement request, I WILL BE CHARGED AGAIN FOR THE FULL PRICE OF THE REPLACEMENT. SO...it looks like if the recipient isn't honest about sending the stuff back or UPS drops the ball finding it, I'M SCREWED. We live in hope, but I won't hold my breath. Every day I understand more and more why most normies don't want to bother trying to run a business.

Away is where I'd like to go today, but duty has me nailed to the floor.

I'm sure it's a very nice car, but... His point was the weight. Speaking as an actual PO'd engineer, I can pretty confidently (and disgustedly) say that there is NO good reason a surface vehicle that is designed to primarily haul one human backside around NEEDs to weigh 4500 pounds. A really competent engineering department could shave 1000-2000 pounds off of that and deliver a vehicle that was just as "safe" in anything but a collision with a semi. The materials, manufacturing techniques, and engineering analysis tools exist to get there at a reasonable price too. Now let the shouting-down begin.

The really pathetic thing is that when I was a kid, my parents' generation railed loud and long about the problem and effects of "planned obsolescence" and were as a result primarily responsible for the rise of the "consumer protection" movement that's devolved into just another scam. There was a time when company management was, for the most part, primarily concerned with offering a quality product or service, being reasonably secure in the expectation that GOOD products and services would sell themselves (somewhat), and result in ongoing long-term relationships with customers. SEE: Southwest Airlines. But at some point, bean counters motivated by nothing so much as maximizing short-term profits (which they call "maximizing shareholder value) came to power, and pretty much ruined everything. SEE: Southwest Airlines

Curt can be reached at miniscurtraitzing, 686 Helen Dr., Hollister, CA 95023. Email is ceraitz@gmail.com.

Tooth pain isn't fun.

It boggles my mind that they were able to achieve it, but Google's search engine is even stupider than it was last week. Good job, dwerbles.

"Bitter" as an attitude resulting from hard times cuts you off from experiencing the joy that might be just around the next corner, and being a resilient SOB is of great value.

"Overwhelmed" is what a freindamine seems to feel constantly about pretty much everything that fully functional adults tend to take in stride.

A crime of stupidity and cowboy "engineering".

Depending on the exact period, there would have been plenty of cars running 4 independent stacks...probably more prevalent earlier. Some car builders tended to run everything into one big pipe (mostly to get some of the heat and smell and noise away from the driver)...which could go high or low...but there wasn't any widespread attempt to do "tuned" exhausts with carefully calculated primary pipe lengths and smooth collectors with rotationally-spaced exhaust pulses, etc. until later, i.e. late '50s-early '60s. The science on the lakes wasn't typically very far advanced, though the principles of exhaust "scavenging" were known, and banger exhausts were usually pretty crude as far as just getting everything into one pipe, sometimes opting for 4-1nto-one or two-into-two-into-one. AND...any car that would do dual duty as a street ride too would most likely have 4 pipes run together somehow, and running kinda low for ease of running a muffler. EDIT: This one looks like an attempt at equal-length primary pipes, apparently pre-war, and definitely not street driven.

1) I feel good and I'm out the door in 5 to go work at the shop. 2) Gas prices are well under $3 per gallon again. 3) Eggs are back to normal in my area, and several other staple food items are way down too.

"Born in the USA" gives an individual certain advantages.

"Better Living Through Chemistry" is a spin on a DuPont marketing slogan originating in 1935.

Lotta that around, and not limited to local gubmints' building inspectors, "city engineers", etc...not by a long shot.

My broken ribs are about 98% healed, just an occasional twinge if I move wrong. Was able to work a full productive day back in the shop yesterday. Yippee.

Frequently complaining about the same stuff gets old after a while, even to the one doing the complaining.

Same old same old...

Movies that are nothing but explosions, car crashes, and blang blang blang music don't interest me much, but combine all that with a well crafted plot, intelligent dialog, and strong characters...I'm all in.

Bonneville will most likely still be there if you decide to try for that at a later date.

Away Down South in Dixie most likely won't be playing at the Atlanta Airport in this lifetime.

Raven brains pack a lot of smarts into a small volume.

The forward slanting independent front suspension appears to be a pretty integral part of the "look" of this thing...which I like a lot. I don't know of any kit with something similar. Some time back I began fabricating something much like it from 1/16" and 3/32" styrene tube for the A-arms, using heavily modified Porsche 911 torsion bar suspension, and it's really not all that difficult.

Yup. Windows 10, Chrome and Firefox, everything updated, clear caches.