[dan-o]

My Hope Evo/Flow wheels have been solid. Something to consider for reasonable $, though I'd opt for the EX now that they're available. Hopes are dead simple to service.

On the four wheeled front, you might put the MB R-class on your kid hauler option list for the future.
While thoroughly unpopular in the US (cancelled here going forward but still US made for all other markets), it's a very functional platform with real seating for 7 adults. I checked out a customers this morning and they love it. (air suspension seems to be only technological issue)
Due to unpopularity I'd imagine meteoric depreciation and thus very reasonable used/certified prices.
V6/V8/Blutec options in terms of power.

 

[Toshi]

The only R Class that appeals is the 2007-only R63, and the wife would veto that in an instant. If it's going to be a minivan, it's going to be a minivan. AWD Sienna? Quest? Raised, Quigley converted Nissan NV with the high roof?

 

[stevew]

You're going to tell me that you never travelled with toys?

prior to our move to virginia in the early 80's...the last car i remember was a brown 4 door ford LTD....i remember laying on the floor in the back seat...my older brother laying on the seat....and my younger brother laying in the rear window ledge when we were younger...plenty of room....plus the trunk...

 

[stevew]

The only R Class that appeals is the 2007-only R63, and the wife would veto that in an instant. If it's going to be a minivan, it's going to be a minivan. AWD Sienna? Quest? Raised, Quigley converted Nissan NV with the high roof?

one of these with a 6 cylinder diesel?

 

[Toshi]

That's pretty cool. Larger than Vanagon/T2 size and with solid axles. We definitely never got that here…

 

[Toshi]

In looking up the glacially slow 13.5 second 0-60 time for the Mitsubishi i, to rebut a poster on Google+ claiming that it felt fast and reached 80 mph "very quickly", I also asked teh googolbot how fast the Acura is/was back in the day. (Surely some horses have escaped from the paddock over the years.)

The answer is that its 260 metal horses pushed Motor Trend's long term '01 CL-S to 60 mph in 6.4 seconds. That's worlds quicker than the 10.x second Prius even if not remarkable in this day and age, but more interesting were their comments that mirror mine: they not only complained of headroom issues in the car but also dug the sound of the engine.

Praise for the 3.2-liter/260-horsepower SOHC V-6 was unflinching. Executive Editor Stone nailed it on the head: "The V-6 just freaking wails, making all the right noises, with good torque down low and VTEC-enhanced power up high, too." Another editor wrote, "The CL-S engine is a pleasure to listen to and play with." Torque steer proved commendably minor, although a few staffers spoke up about the Type-S' somewhat abrupt throttle tip-in.

More than one editor pointed out that, while front-seat legroom was admirable, a dearth of headroom caused plenty of scalps to brush the headliner. Stone suggested, "I'd offer taller buyers the chance to skip the sunroof, save a grand, and buy back that two inches or so of headroom."

The Fit (coarse, raucous all the time), Prius (dormouse quiet except when it's noisy, depending on EV/gas operation at the time), and now this Acura have taught me that I'm apparently a bit of an engine note aural whore. This makes sense given that I'm a neurotic musician and all, I suppose, but it's interesting to note that I don't necessarily want sheer silence, at least in an ostensibly sporty-ish car.

I wonder if my ear and brain would be fooled by the engine noise-via-stereo or -via-tube-through-the-firewall approaches of BMW and VW of late…

 

[Toshi]

The involuntarily-moved-in-by-landlord-decree downstairs tenant, who has now been down there for 15 months, has decided to stop talking to me.

I knocked on the door to try to talk to him about a couple of "household issues", namely him producing a bill for water damage and negotiating times in which my wife can enter his "apartment" to use the house's washer/dryer, and he just ignored me. I first gave him an hour and tried again. Maybe he was in the bathroom.

During my second attempt I could hear him using the microwave (that he's not supposed to have per housing code, for the record), watching TV, washing his hands, etc. so I continued to knock loudly and periodically. He finally responded just with "I'm busy, don't want to talk" and that was the end of that exchange.

I have a feeling that he's not going to be timely with the $300 he owes us on the 1st of each month in exchange for his share of the utilities and his use of a room and a portion of the garage, areas that are "mine" per our own lease with the house's owner. It's been a matter of pulling teeth each month to get him to write the check, and now that he's decided to act so childish as to not even talk to me I don't foresee that working.

This means that I'll be looking carefully into options of how to serve him for the amount of our remaining months' rent/utilities money (plus some more on top of that to offset our anticipated laundromat fees) on February 2nd…

http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/10jd/suffolk/dist/pdf/UCS_Small_Claims_Booklet.pdf

Starting amount: February, March, April, May, June x $300 base amount == $1,500.

I'm also going to add in $100/month x 5 months for laundry costs (use of our washer/dryer was in our original sublease agreement, which is now invalid as we got rid of the unit per his request to the landlord). I should also throw in some amount for the understandably distressing situation of having one's living quarters connected to those of a stranger via an unlocked by code inspector mandate door, but if I do so it'll go over the small claims court limit.

Even if they laugh everything out of court except for a lien for the base $1,500 amount it'll still be the surest way of getting something.

 

[Toshi]

I'm about to become a father in just a few hours, about a month earlier than anticipated. Babies have a mind of their own, and Thing 1 wanted out, apparently, even though she won't be 36 weeks gestational age until tomorrow…

 

[stevew]

i have a confession to make.....i drive a honda.....pilot........and i kind of like it.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

I'm about to become a father in just a few hours, about a month earlier than anticipated. Babies have a mind of their own, and Thing 1 wanted out, apparently, even though she won't be 36 weeks gestational age until tomorrow…

cheers to that.
i hope you enjoyed a full night of sleep yesterday.

 

[DaveW]

Good Luck Toshi!
Hope the Labour doesn't drag out too much.

 

[stevew]

everything alright?

 

[Da Peach]

Good luck man!

 

[Toshi]

We are proud to introduce our daughter, Mariko Isabella Clark, born at 6:54 AM after about 22 hours of unexpected and intense labor. Jessica is a champ.

Mariko is only 36 weeks "old" yet, is being monitored in the NICU, and has an official weight of 5 lbs 3 oz.

 

[stevew]

congo-rats....

 

[dan-o]

Awesome!

 

[johnbryanpeters]

 

[DaveW]

Congrats guys!

 

[Toshi]

Thanks, all.

In other news, the Dakar rally (no longer associated with Paris, heh) is one of the coolest things that humans do: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/01/the-2013-dakar-rally/100441/

I love the big off-road trucks!

 

[Toshi]

Oblig. baby photos, only mine are actually in focus and with proper white balance.

She's still in the NICU, as one might gather from the oxygen via nasal cannula.

 

[Toshi]

Stuff in the mail for the to-be-built Turner, mostly from jensonusa + price matching:

Various and sundry XT stuffs: 165mm (!) double crankset, front derailleur, chain, 11-36t cassette, disc brakes, 203 mm Ice Tech Centerlock rotors + requisite adapters
Cane Creek 40 headset and Oury Lock-Ons

(Our Federal tax refund posted in our checking account today. I'll hold off until after the NY state one clears before picking off the remaining bits, namely a fork, wheelset, tubeless setup, tires, rear derailleur, shifters.)

 

[Toshi]

 

[Toshi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

Freud’s energy model of the self was generally ignored until the end of the century, when Baumeister began studying mental discipline in a series of experiments, first at Case Western and then at Florida State University.

These experiments demonstrated that there is a finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control. When people fended off the temptation to scarf down M&M’s or freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies, they were then less able to resist other temptations. When they forced themselves to remain stoic during a tearjerker movie, afterward they gave up more quickly on lab tasks requiring self-discipline, like working on a geometry puzzle or squeezing a hand-grip exerciser.

Willpower turned out to be more than a folk concept or a metaphor. It really was a form of mental energy that could be exhausted. The experiments confirmed the 19th-century notion of willpower being like a muscle that was fatigued with use, a force that could be conserved by avoiding temptation.

I must have an exceptionally well developed decision-making muscle, as evidenced by my hashing out details at great length for various and sundry projects.

On the other hand, does my fatness imply that I've used up my store of decision-making energy by the time I get to the kitchen? Since I self-diagnose myself to be exercising too little rather than binging on Cheez Whiz or the like (like John Stamstad on his ultra-marathon rides), I'd think not.



Or perhaps its all related:

The discoveries about glucose help explain why dieting is a uniquely difficult test of self-control — and why even people with phenomenally strong willpower in the rest of their lives can have such a hard time losing weight. They start out the day with virtuous intentions, resisting croissants at breakfast and dessert at lunch, but each act of resistance further lowers their willpower. As their willpower weakens late in the day, they need to replenish it. But to resupply that energy, they need to give the body glucose. They’re trapped in a nutritional catch-22:

1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.

2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.

 

[Toshi]

Next mini-project, a Home Depot headset press:

http://whbikes.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/blue-collared-headset-press-and-crown-race-setter/

I don't trust my truly local LBS (never heard of a 29er, cater to a very basic audience) and don't want to drive all over +/- possibly be dicked around by nicer shops elsewhere on the island. Thad/barbaton has BB tools, so once I get the requisite parts in then I should be able to build the whole sucker up, barring having freezing body parts fall off while in the garage doing so.

 

[Toshi]

Next mini-project, a Home Depot headset press:

http://whbikes.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/blue-collared-headset-press-and-crown-race-setter/

Mission accomplished for well under $10, and that's with a nice 5/8" stainless threaded rod that's substantially larger than the zinc plated one in the photo, I'd reckon.

I also channeled my handiness powers and "built" a fork race seater, that is, I bought a single $3 piece of PVC with the right outside diameter, heh.

I then rerouted an Ethernet cable through an interior wall so that I could relocate our weak-ass wireless router to the baby's room. Gotta have good reception for the MarikoCam, after all.

(It's a DropCam HD that broadcasts its video privately to a password-protected site that the various and sundry grandparents are allowed to access to get their fix.)

http://www.dropcam.com/

 

[Toshi]

Mariko at home, gallery link here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115479414905422234350/albums/5843038303950356609

 

[Toshi]

 

[Toshi]

Apparently things are much worse, still, east of here on Long Island: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/nyregion/in-driveways-and-streets-long-island-struggles-with-snow.html

Snow continued bedeviling eastern Long Island on Sunday, with major highways still closed and local streets snarled with traffic or simply buried. Shovels and snowplows alike struggled against the sheer volume of snow, which had fallen more than two feet deep during the storm.

[…]

Suffolk County officials closed a portion of the Long Island Expressway most of the day to clear snow. That forced huge semi trucks onto local roads, where many became stuck, blocking plows and causing cars behind them to stall in a replay of Friday night’s mayhem.

As for my neck of the woods, the major roads were clear earlier today: plowed, salted, and largely dry, even. Side streets, unsurprisingly, and major establishments' parking lots, surprisingly, were a mess, on the other hand. (I imagine things will be well plowed at work tomorrow when I get in. Plowing and liberally salting the earth is one thing that the hospital maintenance guys do well.)

The Prius didn't get stuck as I ran my errands but didn't evoke confidence, either. There were multiple instances where the non-defeatable traction/stability control kicked in and cut off power abruptly and unnervingly even with a light foot, an awareness that the static coefficient of friction >> dynamic coefficient of friction, and the car's snow tires.

Add all this together and my temporarily hibernating desire to get a 4x4 has been reawakened. I'm not so gung-ho on the need for a non-gasoline-swilling model, though, as neither electrical power to gas stations nor the supply of gasoline to the region itself failed this time around. (There were some panic-buying gas lines on Friday but by yesterday afternoon people had reverted to digging themselves out instead of waiting in queues idiotically for gasoline.)

So as I was driving around I scoped out the options, as it were:

- HD pickup trucks just don't do it for me. I'm not going to be a plowman in my spare time, I'm not a contractor or construction worker with the need to carry around a ginormous chrome, diamond-plated toolbox, and I don't wear cowboy boots. The things they have going for them, namely snowplow compatibility, towing capacity, and CNG conversion availability, probably won't be important enough to me to overcome my innate aversion to 'em.

- Jeeps have been forever spoiled for me by MMike and his Katrinajeep. I'd rock something like the OG Cherokee (Classic, in its later years), but even the later models are now old and clapped out. Grand Cherokees seem too mundane and suburban, and the foreign alternatives (MDX, X3/X5, GL/ML) seem even worse in that regard.

- AWD cars and minivans, like the Toyota Sienna, seem like a good idea except that they'd high center themselves nearly as quickly as my winter tire-shod Prius would have on some of the unplowed side streets. They seem like they'd be a marginal improvement at best.

Thus my thoughts turned back to–you got it–the venerable Land Cruiser. It's uncommon, it's through and through Japanese, it doesn't have the same grocery-getter stigma in my mind even though it's no doubt used in exactly the same manner as other SUVs, and it has the stamp of approval of both the UN and the CIA:

A shot up armored Series 200 from Mexico just a few months ago

My concerns with the Land Cruiser/Lexus LX, of course, have been in regard to the current-gen model's price and the last-gen model's lack of side airbags. Well, it turns out that I was mistaken about the side airbags, and by in turn opening up older models to consideration the price issue solves itself, too. Per at least this site side airbags became optional in 2003. Other changes of note during the run were the switch from a 4-speed to a 5-speed slushbox in 2004, and a bump from 235 to 275 hp in 2006.

This brings me to the latest Car Plan(tm):

- Soldier on with the Prius and Acura until we get to Seattle, shipping the latter and driving the former across the country.

- Lease a 2013 Leaf SL for Jessica as soon as I can afford it once in Seattle, which probably will be sometime during autumn. Keep both the Prius and the Acura at this time.

- Buy me a used Land Cruiser with the spouse-required side airbags as soon as I can afford that, in turn. When I can afford it will depend on the year that I end up picking, as the range in price from 2004-current models is quite vast: $15k-$75k, roughly speaking. At this time I'd give my parents our current Prius to replace their own very-high-mileage Prius, and the Acura would live on as my play car, as it were.

A few months back I was genuinely worried that having the kid would mean the end of many things, not the least of which were my free time and the hope for any driving enjoyment. So far things have been much better than anticipated. Sure, I sleep a bit less now, but that's something for which medical training has prepared me well. I'm confident that I'll still have some time to play, whether on a curvy road or heading up to a mountain to go biking or skiing, and the Acura and a hypothetical used, "downmarket" future LC/LX would serve me well, methinks.

 

[Toshi]

I imagine things will be well plowed at work tomorrow when I get in. Plowing and liberally salting the earth is one thing that the hospital maintenance guys do well.

Well, they proved me wrong.

The visitors lot in which I get free parking was closed, whether due to being full, not plowed well enough, or some other unspecified reason. No signage to indicate why, of course.

This cascading effect made the situation that much worse in the other lots. I ended up shoveling myself a spot out of a plow-created snow- and ice-bank in front of my old apartment, ankle deep in the muck.

If I were a patient trying to come here for an appointment today I'd never come back if I had a choice given this amazingly bad parking situation. That's the catch, though: many if not most of our indigent patients have no other choice…

 

[Toshi]

31 days since the last oil fillup, with the thermostat set for the last three post-baby weeks at a constant 68 F. 157.6 gallons of fuel oil. $4.35/gallon.

Oof.

That's $685.56 just to heat the house + hot water for a single, lousy month, for the math-phobic.

 

[DaveW]

That's more than my entire winters hot water and electricity bill.
Scary!..... move somewhere warmer dude.

 

[Toshi]

Moving to Seattle is coming up in June, check. Even though Jessica's mother's house is no doubt insulated as well (poorly) as this one, paying to heat it'll be much less of an issue with milder winters, natural gas heat, and another person sharing the bill.

As "rent", we'll be expected to kick in enough money for utilities such that her mom doesn't lose money by our presence, but I have a feeling that threshold will be well below $1000/month even accounting for charging up the future electric car.

Add to that Washington's lack of a state income tax and our current $1900/mo rent (!) + wintertime $800+/mo (!!) utility bills and one can see I'm going to make out like a bandit, relatively speaking.

Just a few more months and one big exam in the way…

 

[Toshi]

Jessica's Prius (with me at the wheel) sure showed a snowbank at the pediatrician's office who's the boss this afternoon.

I have a feeling these "flexed parking" photos will be much more impressive once I get my long-talked-about Land Cruiser. For now, I thought the articulation actually wasn't too bad, actually. Certainly better than my old Honda Fit, to list yet another reason why I prefer to the Prius to it.

For the record, here's the Fit's lack of flex back from February 2011:

 

[Toshi]

An ode to taillights:

Taillights don't get much love. In fact, they're usually ignored, unless they're "winking" on a VW or Audi, with one of them out. Besides, when one is driving one's own car the taillights are quite invisible barring out of body experiences.

I think this is a shame.

So I've been thinking more about taillights recently and have identified a few more egregious offenders, one of which I'm apparently not alone in loathing.

Exhibit 1, the Infiniti EX:

Where would a rational person think to locate the turn signals given those healthily-sized stoplight binnacles up high? That's right, hide the turn signals down in the slits in the bumper. Idiots.

Exhibit 2, the Infiniti G35:

Even though they lack my preferred amber turn signal, the G35 at least was from the LED taillight era. (I usually like LEDs in taillight applications since they're light up without the lag of regular bulbs.) So the G35 should be at least decent, right? Well, no.

This is what one sees at night:

In the midst of that glare one is supposed to look for the pulsating dot at the center of one of the round light-halos. Yes, the turn signal is within the tail light element, and is damn near invisible to the unwary, if I do say so myself.

/me shakes my cane angrily and tells everyone and no one in particular to get off my lawn…

 

[Toshi]

Automotive "surgery"/backfocused photo of the day:

Over the last two times I've driven the Acura it's developed quite the wind roar coming from around my left ear, near the top-back edge of the driver's door. The noise isn't emanating from the window or its seal itself or the sunroof, and the door seals in general pass muster at visual inspection.

After looking at it some more, I think that the culprit is the window frame itself. The door/window design seems to be pseudo-frameless, in that there's only a vestigal thin metal frame (black in the photo) along the periphery of the window that just serves to locate the rubber seals. The frame itself doesn't seem nearly beefy enough to be structural, as on a "normal" door, which is probably why I was able to bend it towards the middle of the car/towards its seals with my bare hands.

Alternate possibilities for my ability to bend the window frame, of course, are that the frame is structural after all yet I invoked nerd rage Hulk-like strength in bending it, or that it was structural and now has rusted out from within after a dozen years mostly spent sitting outside in the Pacific NW.

Whatever. As long as the wind noise disappears I'll be satisfied. (There's a good chance it won't be fixed, unfortunately, judging from the commonality of my complaint in the sedan-version-of-my-car TL.)

Morning after update: Drove it to work on the parkway and my Hulk-fix seemed to work. No more wind-rushing-by-seals noise, at least for the moment! Score.

 

[dan-o]

That's $685.56 just to heat the house + hot water for a single, lousy month, for the math-phobic.

I feel your pain.
We have no NG on our street but it exists until nearest cross-street.
Will cost $17k to run a gas line to our address + furnace costs (~$7k if my buddy does the install).
Even with neighbor looking to convert and split costs its still pricey.

Looking at geo-thermal now.
$34k upfront with $14k tax rebate somewhere along the line.
Should be reasonable pay-off period all said and done but hard to get excited about it.

 

[Toshi]

I feel your pain.

Apropos to the above, Mint.com just now served me up an ad for the Nest learning thermostat: "Last month you spent more than $65 on your energy bill. The Nest thermostat can save you up to 20%…"

$65/mo? Only true for Kiwis, apparently.

We have no NG on our street but it exists until nearest cross-street.
Will cost $17k to run a gas line to our address + furnace costs (~$7k if my buddy does the install).
Even with neighbor looking to convert and split costs its still pricey.

Looking at geo-thermal now.
$34k upfront with $14k tax rebate somewhere along the line.
Should be reasonable pay-off period all said and done but hard to get excited about it.

I imagine with the MA winter temperatures an air source heat pump wouldn't cut it? I've seen COP charts for Mitsubishi split-head units that are well over 1.0 even at -15C, iirc. Where would you put the ground loop for a ground source/geothermal pump? Straight down in the back yard?

 

[dan-o]

My technical knowledge on the system is zero but I believe it would be straight down in back yard.

The neighbor across the street (with the solar panels and plug-in 72 Beetle) is a college professor specializing in such things so he's the researcher.
Our houses are nearly identical and thus the systems would be the same.

 

[Toshi]

When you get down to getting quotes make sure to include an air source ductless mini-split system or two, too. Might prove cheaper overall, even in your cold climate zone (zone 6 on the charts, iirc, or "cold" on the below map). Others discussing the merits: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/community/forum/mechanicals/21506/mitsubishi-rep-says-minisplit-wont-work-back-geo

 

[Toshi]

So in anticipation of getting a Leaf later this year I signed up for some charging networks (Chargepoint, SemaCharge, Blink, AeroEnvironment) and also joined the Seattle Nissan LEAF Owners group on Facebook. The LEAF folks on Facebook make me want to claw my eyes out.

They're so… entitled. Half the posts are about them complaining there aren't enough laws to ensure that public L2 chargers aren't "ICEd" (blocked by a non-EV), and the other half is them posting smug shots of their car next to a pickup.

While their smugness may well be justified around Seattle (recall 100% effectively-wind Green Up! program for $12/month), it still irritates even me, a part-time Prius driver.

Examples in point:

It's a veritable circlejerk of people whom I'd probably not like in person. (I'm not saying I'd fit in better at the Ram Trucks display at the Texas State Fair, mind you.)