Paul Merrill
A few weeks back, I visited a Mercedes-Benz showroom and sat in a $205,385 Maybach S600 sedan. As you might guess, the quality was so amazing I could almost taste it.
Except for the video-monitor style gauges. Mercedes did not get the message that a $299 list-price iPad Mini has a much better display.
The devil is in the details? Maybe in this case!
I had a shocking realization the other day. I took our 12-year old Honda minivan in for an emissions test. (It’s required by law.)
The family transport vehicle (aka, “living room on wheels”) passed with flying colors. In fact, the margin between what was acceptable and what it produced was huge. And that’s with a relatively large engine – 3.5 liters that produces 240 horsepower.
Here are the results:
Obviously, the Colorado government needs to tighten its standards. Methinks the law makers have a bunch of weekend 1960s American cars with no emissions controls installed at all.
Our neighborhood has a few walking paths. And we walk along them, from time to time.
A very kind citizen put this “add a used newspaper or grocery bag dispenser for dog poop” dispenser along the trail.
Wonderful!
The local parks authority provides their own dispensers, but they have to spend labor hours, the costs of special poop bags and create pollution by a small pickup truck going along the trails to refill the dispensers.
It’s so much better for ordinary people to add their used grocery or newspaper bags to these simple-to-build dispensers!
It’s getting to be that time of the year in Colorado when you wake up in the middle of the night and think, “Is it worth the effort to pull up the extra blanket and half-wake myself up?”
I love the crisp cool evenings and warm afternoons. The leaves are just barely starting to turn. Haze from California’s wildfires seems to be dying back a little. I don’t have to wear an extra layer when riding my bicycle to work.
It’s really the best time of the year.
(And it seems like summer started just a month or so ago.)
I’ve always been a car guy.
When I was a younger man, I reflected on the injustice of old men driving super-fast cars while no longer possessing the quick reflexes to fully exploit their machines’ potential.
Young men generally can’t afford supercars. Old men no longer have the responsibilities of paying for their kids’ soccer team fees, college tuitions, braces, etc. So if they have a substantial income, that lifelong dream of owning a drivable work of art may come true.
But they can’t drive them as fast as those fire-breathing dragons deserve.
I propose that older male Ferrari owners host track days for young men in their early twenties to enjoy a lap or two.
Come on, you can afford it.
And invite me. I’m not in my twenties, but…
Photo courtesy of frankenspotter. Creative Commons licensed via Flickr.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of blogging for yours truly.
I’ve enjoyed the journey and hope that you have too.
Celebrate with me by reading a few posts from those years…
1. Here’s a post from that first month: The bouquet that can never be.
2. Here’s a post from my second blog: Fun watching.
3. Here’s a post from my toothpaste blog: Bamboo Charcoal Mouthguard Toothpaste.
4. And here’s a post from this blog, a few years back: People are different.
And I’d urge you to create your own blog, to join in the fun. My recommendation of the best free way to do that is WordPress.
I love visiting thrift shops. It’s hereditary – my dad did, my sister does, and now my daughter joined the club as well.
Any visit to a thrift shop is a lesson in value. What once held value no longer does. Or in some cases, what’s there never held value for anyone.
Take this little mug, dating back to 1967. It commemorates the participation in an “Advertising Decision Seminar.” There’s no first place – you got a mug just for showing up. It’s the size of a shot glass but shaped like a beer stein – and not good for either use.
Today’s tiny shiny conclusion is that people should consider the value of a gift before investing time and money in the purchase. Don’t sell ice to eskimos, as the saying goes.
I waited.
For more than a year, I heard Taylor Swift – and her friends – singing the same songs over and over and over. The company that runs the building I work in hires Muzak to pipe tunes into our halls and bathrooms.
My brain has a problem with repetition – when I hear the same song over and over, it starts burrowing into the deep crevices of my consciousness until I feel like I’m about to die.
Well, not really, but you get the point.
My daughter heard me complain, over and over, about the music in my office building. She finally asked, “Dad, why don’t you ask the company that runs your building if they could change the music?”
I came up with a few excuses. She kept asking me. Finally, I tracked down the building management company, and they agreed to change the music.
Why did I wait so long?!
Moral of the story – don’t wait. Ask the gatekeepers to change. They just might!
By the way, Muzak is now called Mood. For those of you who haven’t heard of Muzak, that is the company that caused the creation of the term, “elevator music.”
Video rental stores – they still exist in North America.
Earlier this summer, Heather and I drove down to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a short break. We decided to see a movie in the middle of the day, just because we could. Nice.
The movie theater was in a dying mall. And even more dying than the mall was a Hastings store, providing books, music – and video rentals. I won’t launch into why CDs are dying, bookstores are dying, and streaming video is the way to see a movie.
But I will talk about optimism. The owner of that mall – and even more so – the owner of Hastings – should cut their losses and sell now. It will be a loss to the community when they leave. If the owners can afford to provide that valuable service at a loss, more power to them. But how much do they really value providing that service?
Similarly, our local grocery store had a space with a local coffee shop and then a frozen yogurt stand. I knew from the moment they opened each little business that they were doomed to fail. Finally, they put in a Starbucks, and it seems to be doing well. That multinational chain has the resources to make a really nice shop – as well as huge brand recognition. The smaller coffee chain and the yogurt chain (or independent business owner) did not.
The final tale in this listing of doomed businesses is a new independent drive-through coffee shop on Broadway in Englewood, Colorado. The owners decided to build on the south-bound side of the street. Most people commuting to work from suburbia to downtown drive the other direction. When do people buy coffee? Morning, mostly. This small business will fail, sadly.
I am embarrassed at my comments about the chain of stores called Michael’s that I made to Heather just after we got married. I said something about how it was for ladies who were bored and had crafty tendencies – but I probably used more negative and judgmental words.
We went there recently and I just loved the shiny aisle. (Don’t worry – just seeing it for a few seconds and then three minutes later insisting that my daughter Rachel* see it was enough for me.) But how awesome that such a shiny aisle could exist in any store.
* (Shown.)
