Sleep On

Posted by on December 10, 2019 No comments

Last night I was lying in bed having a hard time sleeping.  Sleep is something that has been a little difficult for me lately.  For a while, it was a 2-3 hour event each night.  Then I started taking melatonin and things started getting better, except on weekends, I could sleep 14 or more hours.  So, I don’t know if that’s progress or not.  There’s two issues with my sleep – getting to sleep and staying asleep.  Admittedly, last night was pretty good on the second part, despite being tough on the first.  But anyway, while I was working on making the first part happen, my brain was busy doing dumb things. 

I have a sound machine, a LectroFan, which I’ve mentioned here before.  It’s an excellent device that doesn’t suffer from the shortcomings of a lot of other sound machines, which is sampled sound looping awareness.  The LectroFan model I use now is the latest model, which added a couple of new sounds: ocean.  That is the specific reason I bought it and to my disappointment, the sounds were a major letdown.  Essentially, they were a white noise sound fading in and out.  That’s not what surf sounds like at all.

So my brain was trying to figure out how to make a surf sound out of white noise.  Obviously, there’s lot of different frequencies to a wave crash.  There’s low end rumble and crash, there’s high end hiss, and there’s everything in between.  I was visualizing splitting a sound sample into four (or maybe more) frequency bands and making note of the amplitude level of each band.  You could see when the low frequencies moved in and out, when the high end would come in, and so on.  Then once you had these patterns, you could layer multiple white noise samples over each other, fading between the multiple layers to create a surf sound.

I ended up falling asleep to one of my favorite fan sounds on the LectroFan – a big, low, bassy humming fan.  But while I was actively listening to it, I was also thinking of what would really work for me.  It’s kind of odd and pretty personal, so I can’t imagine it would be a universal sound for a sleep machine.  I would like the sound of traffic on a highway, possibly with or without the sound of an air conditioner.

It’s a weird request.  Its origin comes from motels in my childhood vacation memories.  Those huge AC units that would fill the lower part of the front window and pretty much vibrate the entire room.  And the never-ending sound of traffic on the nearby highway, droning on all night.  I can’t fully explain how the sound of traffic is calming to me.  I’ve thought about it many times over my life and the only thing that really captures my thoughts on it – even though it sounds over-romanticized – is that it’s comforting to me to know the world hasn’t stopped; life is still going on.  Like sometimes, I’ll see an airplane and I’ll think about all the people in that plane – where are they going?  Is it an exciting trip?  Are they glad to be going home?  Going away?  Is it work?  Exciting meeting?  Dreaded meeting?  Boring conference?  So many people in one container, all with different destinations and expectations.  So yeah, I guess the sound of airplanes could also be calming for me.

That would be a weird sleep machine, indeed.

Charitable Angst

Posted by on December 6, 2019 No comments

I wouldn’t consider myself a generous person.  My charitability is off-the-charts random.  You have to catch me in just the right mood to have a successful pitch for donations or whatnot.  However, I don’t really consider myself a scrooge, either.  I think I’m overwhelmed with how much needs to be done and given and it seems that anything you give is just never enough and if I opened up to that possibility, I could really do some damage to myself.  So, I’m just really guarded about the whole thing.

But this year, two causes broke through my defenses.  And they’re kind of odd choices.  Well, they’re not odd causes, but they’re odd choices to donate to.  It’s pretty much like the case of a person who actually registered and purchased a license to WinRAR.  The two causes were both online websites:  The Internet Archive and Wikipedia.

Wait, Wikipedia?  The one that shows this begging banner a few times a year and says if everyone donates just a fraction of a penny that the donation drive would have ended 10 years ago?  Yeah, that one.  I use Wikipedia a lot, although that’s not really any sort of metric of who I should be donating to.  They’ve been doing what they do for a very long time and in that time, they haven’t changed in a way that you could perceive as “selling out” or “sucking”.  There’s something to be said for that.  So, I don’t really see my donation as a gift for the future, I see it more as a thanks for everything so far.  I suppose that’s an ass-backwards way of viewing donations, because had they started sucking a while ago, I wouldn’t have donated, but then again, why donate to a site that sucks?  See, this is why I can’t think about charity.

And the other one, The Internet Archive.  This one actually is sort of a gift for its future, because I expect them to be around when I’m ready to offload everything I’ve collected for future internet people to view.  Sometimes I’ll browse their stuff randomly and just be amazed at the obscurity of some of the items.  And other times it’s amazement at what is actually in there.  It’s so much stuff, I can’t imagine anyone could monitor it all.  So anyway, they got a little gift.

But here’s something I’ve thought about for some time, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll act on it this year.  I have heard that social service shelters of all types really like hotel toiletries.  They are the perfect size for people that are just passing through, with less waste, and it’s something that everyone needs.  So if you are at a hotel and can grab an extra bar of soap on your way out, they would appreciate it.  But collecting a few bars of soap over a year isn’t really all that useful, despite “every little bit helps”.  And really, you’re not donating the soap, the hotel is.

You can buy travel-sized soaps and shampoo from plenty of places like Target or Walgreens or CVS, but have you seen the prices?  That’s not bad when you’re on vacation and you need one, but it’s not scalable to the hundreds.  So… why not buy a whole case of mini soaps from a hospitality supply company and donate that?  And mini shampoos, too?  So I looked into that possibility a little bit.

I’m going to stick to a price of about $45 per case of product.  Depending on the size of the product and its quality, the quantity will differ.  But initial searches say you can get 200, 500, or even 1000 bars of soap for $45 or less.  And for the same amount, you can get 144, 160, or 288 little shampoo bottles.  Of course you can spend more and get improved quality, which as some might reason is a better value because you would use less product overall. 

What else?  You can get disposable toothbrushes with toothpaste included: 144 for $60.  Razors?  500 for $70.  Pretty much anything that a shelter could want, you could supply in bulk if you consider things from a hospitality perspective.  If I’m wandering a flea market or an outlet store like Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, I see boxes of toiletries for sale and I know the sellers got them for cheap – duh, since they’re selling them for so cheap.  But the problem is those are full-size, retail bottles, which might not be suitable for someone that is only staying at a shelter for a couple of days. 

And now my mind is racing, thinking of all the things that could be donated.  And this is why I can’t think about charity.

Revelations

Posted by on November 21, 2019 No comments

It was almost 3 years ago that I really started to rebuild my interest in having a home stereo again.  I had purchased a cheap stereo from a thrift store.  That stereo only had a cassette player.  Then, I followed that purchase up with a $10 CD player from another thrift shop.  At that point, I should have been done, and should have been happy to spend so little money on a stereo.  The alternative I had planned was a new system – amp/CD/speakers – on the order of $1200 or so.  My cheap CD player, paired up with the powered studio monitors I’d owned for many years, was a really good sounding little system.  At least that’s what I thought.

In the time since, I have bought other cheap CD players at thrift stores.  The reason for this was for experience.  One experience was the restoration and repair of the devices.  Of my purchases, one repair was successful, one wasn’t, and the latest one didn’t need any work at all.  The other experience was more audiophilic.  People that review stereo equipment have the ability to grade and rank such equipment and that’s really something the average person can’t really do.  No one goes out and buys five different CD players at $300-$500 just to compare how they sound.  But if the players are $10 each, well, that reviewing experience becomes just a fun little hobby.

The first player in my collection is an Onkyo DX-701.  It was made in 1992.  Being the first in my collection, it was my unofficial standard.  When I first set it up, I was thrilled with it.  it did exactly what it was supposed to do, play CDs.  For $10, it was all I needed.

The next player I got was a Scott DA980, in April 2019.  It cost all of $7.  There’s not a lot of information out there about this player, but its manufacture date is June, 1989.  It appears to be a Yamaha-manufactured device rebranded by Scott.  Unfortunately, it needed some work and I got my first experience repairing a CD player.  Comparing it to the Onkyo, I really liked how smooth and silent the loading tray was.  But what I should have really focused on was whether it sounded better.  To be honest, I couldn’t tell.  And that really disappointed me.  I thought I would be able to notice some difference, but I didn’t.  So at that point, I assumed that “digital is digital” and all decent CD players sound the same.  So then, I wouldn’t really need to focus on sound quality, but more on features.

Then, this month, I found yet another cheap CD player.  It was a Technics SL-P220.  It was marked at $16 and I happened to buy it on a 50% off day, so it cost me $8.  My luck in CD player purchases is remarkably consistent.  This player didn’t need any repair, just some cleaning.  Well, some of the cleaning was technically repair because the control buttons were intermittent.  I am a fan of the Technics brand.  It was the brand of the stereo system in my youth.  This player came out just about the time CDs were hitting the mainstream.  Just about the time I experienced my first CD at my friend’s house.  This is the oldest of the three players (June, 1987) and being that old, it would be expected to have the least refined technology for decoding digital audio.

When I did my first test play with the Technics, it was kind of a surreal experience.  It sounded different.  Way, way different, in a good way.  I put identical CDs in the Technics and the Onkyo and played them together, then switched back and forth to determine the difference.

And here’s where the difficulty begins.  When you read stereo reviews, you will usually find yourself rolling your eyeballs at the descriptions the reviewers use.  In fact, you will probably internally smirk at anyone that tries to describe the qualities of sound.  It’s just something that can’t really be done.  In my case, the first thing I thought of comparing the two is that the Technics was “brighter.”  And that’s a fair description.  Most people can determine bright sound vs dull or flat sound.  This is probably also what experts mean when they say “digital-sounding”.  But who knows?  What does digital sound like?

So, I had a word that I could use to describe how the Technics sounded better to me (that’s important).  But as I listened to it more, there were more differences and those were more painful to describe because it made me sound like a pompous high-end stereo reviewer.  I’ll not get into those descriptions and just say it sounded much, much better to me than the Onkyo.  As I always do when I get a new piece of equipment, I search for anyone talking about it.  And I found only two mentions of the SL-P220, one saying it was great and another saying they replaced it with something that was substantially “better”.

Here’s the thing for me.  This latest player has changed my interest in listening to music.  I’m now excited to hear music from it.  It has the same magic as when I first heard the albums decades ago.  This is something the other two players didn’t do for me.  It’s revelatory.  I’ve read over and over that you have no idea what you’re missing until you hear the music you love on a good system.  But… this is an early player and even at that, isn’t a top-end model, just standard-grade.  It’s a $300 player back in the day which was average.  And, considering what I hear and what experts say, this is an example of poor early-era digital reproduction – tinny, thin, bright, “not analog sounding”, blah blah blah.

So fucking what!  The Technics sounds incredible to me and when I try listening to the Onkyo afterwards, it sounds dull and lifeless.  So if I like the sound of bright digital, why should I be ashamed of it?  So yes, I have a new favorite CD player and it’s my new benchmark.  It’s not going to stop me from buying more cheapo players and comparing them.  Maybe I’ll find something even better.

Ok, Boomer

Posted by on November 6, 2019 No comments

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-04/millennials-should-be-happy-they-are-stuck-renting

“Millennials spend a lot of time bemoaning their inability to buy a home, forcing them to keep renting. They should want to stay renters, if they know what’s good for them financially.”

You son of a bitch.

This fucking article, written by an economist, is trying to sell the idea that people are better off renting than owning a house.  And specifically, millennials are better off doing it.  You wonder why young people hate the boomer generation?  Well, this is a pretty good piece of evidence.  Take away the condescending tone and you actually are left with malicious advice.

It’s amazing to me the slight of hand that is performed in order to make the pitch in this article.  The author actually says that buying a house is a losing proposition.  “…it has cost the homeowner 3% per year to own a house before taxes, maintenance, utilities and insurance.  That’s a real negative return.”  A goddamn economist, who manages investing funds, is selling this shit.

Then this paragraph:

“Some millennials were caught up in the subprime mortgage boom and collapse, and remain scarred by it. They believed they could buy houses with no money down and never shell out a dime because continuing rapid appreciation would allow for continual refinancings. So the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble and subsequent one-third decline in house prices was a rude awakening, especially since it was the first nationwide drop in values since the 1930s.”

This needs some unpacking.  First, not just millennials were caught up in this shit.  Everyone was.  But who was most vulnerable to it?  And that snark about what millennials believed?  You fuckers sold them that belief.  You convinced them.  They had no prior experience in real estate investing and falsely trusted you.  So then we get the first housing crash since the 1930’s.  Thanks for that.

Look, I’m no economist.  I’m just a former renter who became a homeowner.  When I went to purchase my new house, my simple criteria was, “is the same cost as what I’m paying in rent?”  That was my budget and that’s where I went.  I completely understand the issue of house prices being insane, but I also see what rent costs and it’s not much better.  So, I encourage anyone to buy when they can.  If you have to start small, do that.  Don’t hold out and wait until you can afford big.  And don’t listen to this bullshit that you shouldn’t buy at all.

Here’s the truth that the author is not telling you.  It’s very simple.  When you rent, you get nothing for your money.  You get lodging and that’s it.  When you own, you keep what you spend.  People want to argue that housing doesn’t have a high rate of return on investment?  Fuck them.  It’s not supposed to.  They say, what if you own a house for 10 years and sell it for what you paid for it, not gaining a cent?  You fucking assholes, you gain all the equity in the property.  All the money you paid into the loan (minus interest of course) is equity.  You get that back.  If you’re renting, what happens when you end your lease?  What equity do you get from that? That’s “not gaining a cent”.

Then they can argue that property values can fall.  Yes, this has happened once.  Do I think it will happen again?  Probably, but not as extreme as last time.  But here’s the thing.  You don’t lose money until you sell.  I was underwater over $30k at one point.  I kept making my mortgage payments and the property value eventually came back.  And all the payments I made while it was underwater?  Guess what?  They still counted!  Just like every other payment.  It’s all equity.  Stay the course!

So, you want to know why this fucking boomer wants you to keep renting?  He’ll tell you right at the end of the article.

“The trend toward renting over owning should persist and may even increase. I continue to favor investments in rental apartments—assuming, of course, they meet the location, location, location test.”

So you better keep renting, if you know what’s good for you.  And what’s good for you is very good for me.

Losing For Winning

Posted by on November 1, 2019 No comments

There are some people who are professional sweepstakes players, believe it or not.  They spend an unnatural amount of time researching and entering sweepstakes.  And they can actually make money at this, too.  Or at least get a lot of stuff.  You might wonder how you can actually “win” at this.  It would just seem to be a numbers game where you enter as many sweepstakes as you can and eventually you’re bound to win something.  But there’s actually a somewhat unknown rule that the pros use to get an advantage. (one weird trick!)

Most sweepstakes have some sort of condition for getting an entry.  Buy a bottle of this, visit such and such place, every order you place on this website, etc.  But, in all sweepstakes, there is a way to get an entry without making a purchase or performing some action – it’s legally required.  If you read the rules, they will tell you how to get a free entry.  Always read the rules.  In most cases, you have to send a 3×5 card with your name and address printed on it and they will return you an “entry”.  Some sweepstakes limit the number of entries an individual may make, most don’t.

I’ve attempted this technique once a few years ago.  A local charity was selling tickets for your choice of two cars.  The tickets were expensive, like $150, and the total number of entries was limited – a rare situation and very valuable because you knew your maximum odds of winning.  And like all sweepstakes, you could get free entries if you read and followed the rules.

I bought two tickets, to keep up appearances, but I then deluged them with something like 100 requests for entry tickets.  They did fulfill my requests, sending thick bundles of tickets in the mail with their drawing receipts torn off.  In the end, I estimated I had a 20-25% chance of winning.  Does that sound bad?  Does it sound better than a 1:2000 chance? (these numbers are all estimated, BTW, don’t try to math them out)

Well, I didn’t win, even with my extraordinary chances.  Whatever, it was kind of a fun exercise.  The local charity has never tried a car sweepstakes since, so I think I really pissed them off.

So anyway, I got a flyer for another car raffle.  $20 tickets, and the rules do say no purchase necessary (as they must), however, they don’t specify how to get those entries.  You have to mail the administrator for information.  This sounds pretty good, too, because that extra step might turn off casual players.  But when I look at the effort vs reward, I’m going to pass on it.  Would you pass on a elevated chance to win a $60k truck?

So, first of all, it’s a truck.  It’s a stupid, jacked-up, fully customized pickup truck.  Not my style, at all.  So what!  Sell it!  Ok, let’s consider that.  First, winning the prize is a taxable event.  The IRS is going to want their share of your $60k windfall.  Let’s generalize at a 30% bracket.  So that’s $18k out of pocket right away.  You need to have that to claim the truck.  Then there’s tax and title.  That’s about another $5k.  Probably you need to insure it for at least a month until you can sell it.  Maybe that’s $100 at most.  So in order to get the $60k truck, you need to spend $23k. 

So then, your new $60k truck rolls off the dealer lot and immediately becomes a used truck.  And it’s worthwhile to note that this is a 2019 model and the drawing is in 2020, making it last year’s model.  Everyone knows a vehicle loses an immediate percentage of its value when it leaves the dealer lot.  Considering this is also last year’s model, shall we say 25%?  Now your truck is worth $45k and you’ve spent $23k to acquire it.

Your truck is worth $45k, but that is not exactly what it would sell for.  You’re in a hurry to sell this so you don’t have to keep paying for insurance on it.  Will it sell for $40k?  Let’s say yes, so we can wrap this up.  So you’ve now made a $17k profit on a $60k vehicle.  That’s quite a discrepancy.

“You suck.  I’d be more than happy with an extra $17k!”  Maybe you would.  But you also need to consider that you added $60k to your gross income this year with that win.  That might push you into a higher tax bracket.  That means the money you earn this year is going to be taxed at a higher rate, more than it would have been had you not won.  17k worth of higher taxes?  Probably not, but your withholding from your paycheck is probably not going to compensate for that extra, so you better save some of that $17k to cover your tax bill next year.

There’s something to be said for thinking things fully through.  In the case of the first drawing for the car, I would have kept and driven that car (not a $60k car, either) and could have absorbed the taxes easily.  This $60k truck has a lot of BS accessories on it that are inflating the value that would never make back their cost if it were to be sold.  It’s a bad deal all around.

Making It More Difficult, For The Better

Posted by on October 30, 2019 No comments

A little while ago, I saw a post online that was like a little PSA on financial security, which, of course, I am rather big on.  It was warning that PayPal and Venmo were not to be trusted because they were not held to the same security standards as banks.  Both of these sites claim to have “bank-grade” security, but what does that actually mean?

To be honest, I really do trust PayPal.  I haven’t ever had a problem with them or their security.  Then again, I do the maximum I can, enabling 2-factor authentication and having a strong, unique password.  Venmo, I don’t have any history with them, but they are owned by PayPal and from what I can see, they do a lot of the same things.  They also have 2FA, and are very happy to send you email notifications when things happen on their site.

I read this PSA post about distrusting online payment processors with a grain of salt.  The one thing that did strike a nerve with me is the advice: “never link your primary checking account”.  I agree with that.  I follow that pretty religiously with my online bills.  If a payee wants to do an autopay, I’ll allow it only if they allow payment on a credit card.  If they only allow payment by checking account, I use my bank’s bill pay.  Simply defined, I’ll push cash out of my checking account, but no one has the ability to pull cash from the account. 

It sounds convenient to set up my mortgage company to just withdraw my mortgage payment from my checking account monthly, but what if, just what if, they got a bug up their ass, or something went weird, or all hell breaks loose and they decide, we’re going to make your loan payable in full immediately.  And to satisfy this loan, we’re going to make a payment for as much of your balance as possible.  Now, I don’t have $90k sitting in my checking account, but, if they pulled everything they could, it would put a damper on my liquidity.  It’s just not a situation I would like to have happen.  So instead, I schedule a payment from my bank to them once a month.  It ends up working exactly the same.

Of course with online processors, the big fear is getting hacked.  And if your primary account is linked, the hackers can pull all your money just as easily as my mortgage company could.  Even if you have fraud protection, you’re still talking about a big hassle and lost money for a period of time.

The PSA had a poor suggestion to not link your bank account at all, but also had a good suggestion to link a secondary bank account instead.  So that’s what I did.  In PayPal, I had three banking accounts linked, so I removed two.  In Venmo’s website, I began the link to the same account I left active in PayPal.

This is a good thing.  That secondary account only has $15 dollars in it, which becomes my maximum monetary risk in case of being hacked.  But what are the limitations of this?  Well, right now, I couldn’t pay anymore more than $15 unless I transfer more money into the account.  Fortunately for me, like a lot of online banks provide, I have multiple accounts with that bank and I can instantly transfer money between them.  So, there’s no significant time delay on when I can make funds available for payment.  There’s only the delay in having to log in to the bank and transfer the needed money from my main account to my designated “PayPal/Venmo account”.

Still, though, security is always at odds with convenience.  I’m a little more secure now (even more), but I have to do a little more work now.  And note that this inconvenience is only for cash transactions.  Credit card stuff is always protected, so I’ll use that whenever I don’t have to pay the transaction fee.  The PSA also had the questionable advice that paying the 3% fee was worth it for the fraud protection.  Maybe.  But if you can save that fee and still be secure, that’s the best way.

Maybe it’s time to audit all your account links and make sure you don’t have any weak entry points.

Judged By The Company You Keep

Posted by on October 29, 2019 No comments

In my state, you just cannot live without having tinted windows on your car.  Unless you actually want sunburn or cancer, that is.  When I got my MX5 nine years ago, I was dying during the few days between when I bought the car and I had my appointment for window tinting.  I had to keep a towel in the car to cover my forearm from the sun blasting through the glass.

Almost a decade later, I have a new car, a much bigger car, and this one also needs the tinting treatment for my own comfort and safety.  Maybe a bit surprisingly to me, the same shop that did the windows on my other car is still there.  Well, maybe it is.  It has a new name, but the logo is mostly the same, and the original name is now used by another shop elsewhere in the city.  Partnership gone sour, maybe?  Diversification?  Whatever.  They did a great job the first time, so I’ll go back there and generally hope for the best.

With services like window tinting, isn’t hoping for the best all you can do?  It’s not like it’s a service you utilize on a regular basis, so you build a level of trust in a company.  It’s highly likely you’ll use the service once before they go out of business (or change their name).  And it’s not even really about the business, it’s the quality and skill of their installers.  I doubt the same installers are there that did my first car.  So, it’s always going to be a crapshoot as to what you get.

Tint shops are sort of paradoxical. It’s kind of hard to find one that isn’t ghetto in some way.  I mean, window tint shouldn’t be anything illicit, but you know, it can be.  And those shops usually augment their business with stereo installs, which again, are not illicit, but stereotypically…  And that’s terrible that such a perception exists and that they seem to actively exploit it in their marketing and image.

But the paradox is that this is just the place you want to go.  Quality work comes from practice, so you want a shop that has done a lot of jobs, even if they are on ‘76 Malibus and Cadillacs.  Sigh, more stereotypes.  It’s kind of like certain dive restaurants that have incredible food for really cheap not only because they are more focused on the food than their image, but because they’re so busy with their cheap regulars that they are masters at cooking that food.

Back to my statement about not using window tint services often enough to build a relationship.  That statement was a little short-sighted.  Maybe you do utilize that service frequently if you’re in the cycle of buying $1000 cars and burning them out every 6 months.  I mean, that sounds horrible, but it’s the same as having a $200/mo car payment, right?  Seems almost legit.  Except you would have to get your new car retinted twice a year.  And those customers keep the installers well experienced.

So when I go in with my 2019 model car, the quality I receive could be built off the backs of people who don’t have the credit or ability to buy a car less than 10 years old and are in a constant cycle of upgrades.  Maybe not, but maybe.  What’s the alternative?  Find a high-end shop where they, for whatever reason, would not service those repeat customers?  Which is the greater evil?  Why did this post get so heavy?  I just want to not roast in my car.

I See Dead People

Posted by on October 28, 2019 No comments

There are some weird things that happen to me while I sleep.  Those that believe would instantly identify it as clairvoyance, and I’m inclined to agree.  However, when people think of being clairvoyant, they think it’s some superpower and you can simply teleport wherever you want and do whatever you want.  In my experience, it’s nothing like that.  You’re not really in control, it’s just like life; you aren’t aware that you are somewhere else or somebody else.  I have three memorable instances, one of which is personal, but the other two are not.  And those two, in true October fashion, are spooky.

The first one (which is actually the second time this happened to me) was a dream where I was walking in the woods.  I can still see the scene in my mind.  I know just how the terrain was.  if I visited the area, I would recognize it.  I was alone and was walking along a very slight hill.  Then, further down the hill, I saw a bear.  Naturally, I was freaked out, but I knew that I had to remain calm because if I suddenly bolted and ran, the bear would give chase.

Unfortunately for me, the bear had noticed me too.  I started walking calmly in a diagonal direction away from the bear, not backwards.  I did not turn my back to the bear because I knew that would be deadly.  To my horror, the bear started walking in a line that would intercept my path.  I couldn’t turn and run; I couldn’t really change course.  It was obvious what the end result was going to be.  And soon, the dream ended.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of days later I saw a news article about a hiker killed in a bear mauling at a park.  And it happened on the same day as my dream.  Pretty coincidental, right?  The article stressed how rare and uncommon bear maulings were.  Makes it seem a little too coincidental.

The other night, I had another “dream” while falling asleep.  No idea why this came into my head, but I was thinking about going overboard on a cruise ship.  One memory was that I slipped on the deck and slid through the railing and over the side.  Another memory was that I was yelling “overboard” and wondering if I should yell “man overboard” if a woman had gone over.  I recall throwing a safety ring and wondering if doing that was even useful because the ring had a rope attached, so it would just be dragged along with the ship, away from the victim.  My last thought was throwing some life jackets from the storage bins on the deck.  Then I started wondering how I could give a report of this incident.  I wasn’t sure if “Port side” was the left or the right of the ship.  And then the dream ended.

And the next morning, I saw a news article that someone had gone overboard on a cruise out of Texas overnight.  What another coincidence.  Unlike my bear dream, where I read about it a couple of days later, this was just the previous night.  Sure, people fall off ships all the time.  And speaking of time, the emergency call to the Coast Guard was at 8:45 at night.  I normally go to bed around 9:00 or so and usually flop around a lot before settling down enough to sleep.  So that would suggest my dream wasn’t real-time and would actually be a recollection.  However, that’s 8:45 Central Time in Texas, and in my time zone, it would be 9:45, just about the time I would be falling asleep.  Was I the guy sliding off the deck?  Was I the person calling for help and throwing things off the ship?  Was I there while this was happening?

So what if this is a real ability?  Is it useful?  Is it enviable?  Not that I can see.  First, it’s not controllable; it’s totally random.  Second, there’s no context of anything.  I wouldn’t be able to call a park ranger and say, “Someone was killed in your park yesterday by a bear.”  What park?  Where?  How do I even know it was real?  It’s only useful in hindsight, when you can’t have any impact on the situation.

You Get What You Pay For

Posted by on October 25, 2019 No comments

In posts leading up to this one, I’ve been talking about my garage and new cars.  Well, I finally got the new car and got in it the garage, only barely.

IMG_20191023_185500 IMG_20191023_185442

And I mean barely.  And with that car in the garage, there is no room for the other car.  I’m supposed to have a 2-car garage, and even so, I would classify the MX5 as a half-car, but still, there’s not enough room.  So that’s that.

Now, all about this new car.  As you see, it is a station wagon.  There’s only a handful of wagon models you can buy new in the US right now, and this particular one, a Buick Regal TourX, gets zero marketing and has zero recognition.  I saw this car once on display in a mall back in 2018, and have never seen one since.  So suffice to say, this is a rare vehicle.

The TourX is rare because it’s really low production volume.  There’s aren’t many buyers for wagons, so dealerships don’t order many and so no one ever buys them and the cycle feeds on itself.  When I decided on a car to buy – a wagon – I looked at my available options and this one was the most economical.  Well, it was economical for reasons relating to its unpopularity.  Dealers wanted to sell these things and not so they could order more; they just wanted rid of them.  In my own research, I saw that the 2020 model is coming soon and there are still 2018 models being sold new.

I haven’t purchased a car in nine years.  This time around, I utilized a car buyer service – a person who would search for my car, negotiate a good price, manage all the paperwork with the dealer and basically make the process as easy as possible for me.  When I first got started, I laid out all my criteria and within an hour, he had found me a car.  When he ran the numbers, I was pretty underwhelmed.

The TourX can run up to $40k with all available options, and that is what this particular car had.  So, $40k MSRP and with all discounts and haggling, I could get it for $35k.  After all the taxes and fees were added in, I would pay $38k.  I don’t know… I understand taxes and stuff, but a final price only $2k less than MSRP didn’t do it for me.  And it was about $6k more than I was willing to finance anyway.  So I turned it down.

The buyer went back to work and found another car with fewer options (but all the ones I wanted).  The MSRP was $38k, sale price of $31k, final price of $34k.  That was doable, so I agreed to the offer and we went through the complete sale process, which wasn’t all that bad.  The car was transferred from one dealership to another where I would actually make the purchase.  I gave it a brief test drive and no red flags were raised, mechanically.  The car did have roof racks, which I didn’t want, but I determined I could just uninstall them.  And after two hours at the dealership, I went home with a new car.

It’s been a couple days now, and some of the reality is hitting me.  The first weird thing I experienced was a warning popping up on my dash: washer fluid low.  Ok, whatever,  I can buy a $3 jug of fluid and top it off.  I would have assumed the dealer would have checked all that stuff during the “dealer prep” or whatever that BS service is.

When I popped the hood to fill the washer fluid, I was left aghast.  There were leaves all jammed up under the cowl.  Not just a few leaves, literal handfuls of leaves.  And the plastic shrouds throughout the engine bay were not just dusty, but had a layer of dirt on them.  This hood had not been raised in many, many months.  Yes, the exterior of the car had been washed and the tires glossed up, but there was no detailing of this car in any sense of the word.

As I was pouring the washer fluid in, my astonishment grew.  It just kept taking it.  I poured the entire gallon.  All of the washer fluid in the reservoir had evaporated in the time this car was sitting on the lot.  And the mass of leaves reaffirmed just how long the car was sitting idle and suggested it was not even stored on the primary lot, but in a grass lot back by a tree line.  I found out where the original dealer was located and did some quick math on the mileage for transportation and my test drive. I then determined this car had never been driven once.  It left that original dealer on its way to me with probably about 10 miles on the odometer.

This poor car.  It came to the dealer and was completely neglected for its entire life.  Yeah, yeah, of course cars don’t have feelings, but everything deserves a small level of care.  And a dealer should care for each and every vehicle in their possession.  These are going to be in someone’s family soon (or not soon in cases like this), and they deserve to be treated well until that time comes.

Now, I feel a little conflicted.  I mean, I got a great deal on a car – $7k off sticker price – and I didn’t have to deal with salespeople or haggling.  It was a very low-effort transaction and I can recognize it was probably a low-profit transaction for the dealer.  But at the same time, I still would expect one of the two dealers involved would have opened the hood and at least noticed the mess, or checked the fluid levels.  The bottom line is that I feel like I purchased a car from auction and not from a dealership.  Was I expecting to build a relationship with that dealer?  No way; they are 40 minutes away from my house.  I have dealerships closer to my home and my workplace I would utilize first.  Did I still expect to be wowed by the “new car purchase experience”, where I can show the car off to everyone?  Sure.  I mean, doesn’t everyone pop the hood and show off how clean and new everything is (instead of dirt, leaves, and a post-it note that says “do not turn off”)?  Show off every feature of the car like the power liftgate (which would reveal dusty and dirty rubber seals)?

But, I got a good deal, right?  Now I just need to spend some personal capital on a detailed cleaning of every inch of the vehicle.  Then the TourX will be mine and it won’t need to dwell on its miserable early life alone in a back lot.

Opening The Worm Can

Posted by on October 18, 2019 No comments

You know what’s really weird?  There’s a shitload of people in the world and yet, every business fights tooth and nail and scrambles over each other to get you as a customer.  You’d think there would be enough for everyone, but when you slow down and consider it, there really is never enough money for some.

So, here we go.  I’m opening myself up to attack.  I’m going to purchase a new car.  You can visualize a million people leaping to their feet with offers and pleas and vague promises.  Hold on, guys.  I know exactly which car I want already.  Now there’s about 2/3 of the people standing, even more excited that they made the first cut.  And as I work further in the process, the number of potential winners decreases and their manic attitude intensifies.

Some of the people clamoring for attention right from the start have never sat down at all.  Those people are the money people.  Buying a new car in cash is a rare occurrence, for those with excellent foresight and planning.  The majority of people are going to finance a car at varying levels of, shall we say, danger.  The more dangerous the loan, the more money for those that get and keep your attention.  So, the money people are relentless right from the start.

I’m currently at the point that I have a car chosen and secured and now it’s time to begin the finance dance.  I consider myself in pretty good shape financially, on many fronts.  I have a top-tier credit score and I keep all my credit reports frozen.  But now I have to unfreeze my accounts – let down the drawbridge – in order to get approval for this new loan.

When I froze my accounts, I had to pay to do so.  Now all of that is free.  So unfreezing the accounts was surprisingly easy and quick.  Maybe it wouldn’t have been if I wasn’t such a stickler on data and didn’t have my unfreeze PINs immediately handy.  Or maybe if I moved around a lot and had different verification data points.  But in the end, I have my accounts unfrozen for a few days now.  Come at me, bro.

Since this is like a solar eclipse-type of moment for me, I decided to take advantage of it.  I went to Credit Karma and checked out what sort of auto loans I could be eligible for.  I was pitched Capital One and Bank Of America – both of which I already had credit cards with.  The broker that was assisting me with the car purchase said the best I could get a loan for was 3.5%.  Credit Karma told me BoA could get me a loan for 3.29%.  Ok, let’s try it.  So I went to Bank of America’s site (affiliate linked from Credit Karma, so they get a spiff) and filled out the application.  It was pretty easy since they pulled a lot of my info from my existing account.  And sure enough, I was now pre-approved for a loan at 3.29%.

Well, that was easy.  Addictingly easy.  I tried the Capital One offer from Credit Karma and was highly disappointed.  CapOne said, yeah, sure, you’re approved for a loan up to $60k (WTF!), but there was no mention of rate or term.  That’s absolutely useless to me.

While still in eclipse mode, I made the poor decision to try out LendingTree.  You’d figure that a company with so much name recognition would be fully on the up-and-up.  Well, no.  I did their “quick and easy” application, which asked enough questions to be a full credit application.  And let me tell you.  It was BULLSHIT that they structured the questions in a way that made it look like it would be a non-intrusive questionnaire, but as it went on, it got more and more personal and you’re like, “I’ve already gone this far, this should be the last question.  It can’t get more invasive that this.”  But, you see it to the end and you’ve essentially given them everything to fill in a complete credit app.

So LendingTree then sends that information to their partners and gives you results.  I got something like three offers with rates of 5-7%, which was infuriating and insulting.  Then, below the firm offers, were a few that said, “we need more information – click to complete the application”  And being pissed about the shitty offers I initially got, I wanted to see if this shittiness was universal.  So I clicked one named Autobytel.

To be honest, I don’t remember the results of that, and since I don’t remember, it couldn’t have been anything worthy of mention.  But here’s what is worth mentioning.  I’m now in spam hell.  I’m getting emails and texts from lenders and dealers.  They still think I’m car shopping, so they all have people ready to help me find my next car.  All of you – fuck off!  If there is a positive to any of this, at least all of the places LendingTree sold me out to all use the same unique email address I provided in my application, so I can shut them all down at my mail server in one go.  The text messages and (probably soon coming) phone calls, I will just have to block as they come in.

So now, what did that whole exercise get me?  Well, on the plus side, I do have a competitive loan rate that I can use to bargain with the dealership.  On the negative side, I have a bunch of new email and phone buddies I’m not thrilled about.  And a little later, I can see what kind of change to my credit score all this experimentation caused.  I am curious about that because supposedly multiple inquiries of a certain type (auto loan in this case) shouldn’t have the same effect as if they were multiple inquiries of multiple types.