Missing Brake Pads On GM Sonic – & Long Rant

GM is recalling 4,296 Chevrolet Sonic’s because they “may be missing brake pads”. These missing brake pads may cause an increase in stopping distance… I had to hold back my coffee so it wouldn’t spew all over the computer. Increase stopping distance?!?! Ya think?!?!? How the heck does this get past QC? How does 4,296 of them make it past QC and how do they know it’s that specific number?

Funnier yet, why are they waiting until January 14th to notify customers?!?!? Does this sound patently insane to you or am I alone here? Of course GM states no accidents have happened because of this, no of course there hasn’t been after all you have three other wheels that “should” have brakes on them and will do the job no problem.

Some of these wonder cars have been on the road for 6 months!Yet another reason why I will never own GM, this one takes the all time cake. Somebody needs to have a talk with GM, the UAW and GM suppliers because all failed here. The sad fact it took 6 months to figure this out and issue a service bulletin and then finally a recall is beyond belief.

On to the rant… if I lose you from here, I understand, just need to vent.

I don’t believe in bailouts, back when Fischer, the company that made horse carriages went bankrupt horses were still used to pull carriages. From the rubble of the bankrupt Fischer came GM. What’s the point of my story? Too many people believe that if GM failed too many jobs would have been lost, the same thought’s were spoken back when Fischer failed only back then, there were no bailouts. They went bankrupt and life went on, new companies were born. Hey that was over 100 years ago, it’s different now right? Last time I checked, the law and our Constitution give companies ample opportunity to get help in various legal ways, nowhere do I see “bailout stupid companies” listed.

Failed companies failed for a reason and from the ashes new companies arise and new jobs are created and lessons are learned and at times an entire industry is formed. Creating many more jobs than were lost. What happens when you bail companies out? Lessons are not learned, they are rewarded and the same type of bozo’s that were a part of the problem are still there to create the same problems all over again. Hello Fannie & Freddie… they are once again an issue, are you shocked that they need help, again? Have you seen the pay packages they still get? Where are the OWS protestors to scream about that?

We live in a society today where mediocrity is rewarded, participation awards given, no score kept, all so everybody is “equal”. Funny, at work if I don’t do a good job I don’t get rewarded or given the same pay as somebody else because it wasn’t earned. Life isn’t fair and doing the least to get by shouldn’t be rewarded. Sometimes we aren’t “equal” to another person doing the same kind of task, forcing equality in everything helps who exactly? I really want to know because if somebody who does next to nothing is getting the same benefit as I do while working my butt off what reason do I have to continue working so hard for? Anybody?

We are losing our position of world leader in practically everything because of this mentality. The Occupy Wall Street Movement exists because of this mentality. Yes, there are corrupt people in Wall Street and guess what, much of that corruption came at the heals of Government regulations that left the door open for it. Dodd and Frank get a pass for the legislation they help write that made it possible for people to get loans and not be qualified for them, do some leg work and see if I’m wrong, let me know what you find. Wall Street doesn’t write the law, the mental midgets we put into office do and I see no OWS protestors at any door step of anybody in Congress, do you?

Our debt is 100% of GDP and we are quickly trying to catch up to Greece which is 150% of GDP, in 3 years we have incurred 6 TRILLION more in debt and we think that incurring more by way of socializing health care is the way to go? Really? That’s the answer? Think I liked Bush? He created 4 Trillion in 8 years, but Obama is making him look like a spend thrift! I had a lot of issues with Bush but as a President you knew what he said is what he meant, even if he was wrong. All I have seen from Obama in 3 years is blame and apologies to foreign countries for any slight the US may have perpetrated to them.

I have never seen a President so keen on blaming others, so lets put him back in office for 4 more years of the blame game, great idea. 6 trillion in 3 years, how much more can he spend in 5 more? How much before even the left says enough, wait, the left will never say enough, they don’t know how. Heck neither party says enough is enough, they talk about it but that does nothing.

We now live in a country where a Union and the Government can try to dictate where planes are built. Surely this is Russia right? Nope Boeing may not be my cup of tea but they should be allowed to build where ever they want, free from union demands and Government dictates. 

Back to GM, GM is proving why bailouts don’t work, UAW pay offs, 350 million dollars in new battery plants for cars that don’t sell, forcing out a car 6 months early and not meeting sales goals… all brought to you by the Government, more proof that we need them out of our lives, not further encroached into our lives. Building a car that in the end costs so much more than they can sell it for they have to subsidize the car further by giving incentives to buy it, again paid for by the tax payer. The utter gall of it, where is the outcry? The media sits quiet. Solyndra and other multi billion dollar losses by Government hand outs, no problem, just tax payer money never to be seen again.

I predict GM won’t ever fully repay the tax payer, the Government may cook the books so it looks like they did but if you follow the money and see how much is still being poured into GM you would see how it’s impossible to get out of the debt. I don’t see the battery plants or the Government incentive programs being listed as part of the debt incurred by GM and yet, those are tax dollars at work.

Anyway I digress, too many people think Government is the answer, the very same Government that pays $500.00 for a toilet seat, creates a healthcare plan that Congress doesn’t have to use because they have 200 private plans to choose from and a fully funded tax payer paid for pension plan. Take a look at the list of companies that fought for the new healthcare law that have now gotten waivers from having to be part of it.

Somebody explain to me why the ARRP, SEIU, too many Unions to list are on the waiver list after they fought so hard for this new law?? 12% of the total US workforce is waived because of who they work for or are protected by in Unions. I guess Unions really do work then, put untold millions into Democratic coffers to get the law passed, then be put on the waiver list so you don’t have to be part of it and get backing by the Government during contract disputes.

I see the GOP side running for President and I see Obama with a different face, nothing will change until we decide it needs to. Until then we get more of the same and if this debt and bail out mentality continues and we Govern by feelings instead of by what really works, it’s going to end badly for this country.

We have gotten the Government we deserve due to complacency and ignorance while the people we elect fill their pockets through legal insider trading, pork barrel spending and whatever they can squeeze from corporate hand outs and out right bribes. I could point out the millions made by Nanci Pelosi in insider trading, there are names from both sides of the isle on insider trading but you know what, insider trading is legal for members of Congress etc.. what puts you or I in jail, they do on a daily basis and profit from, how insane is that??

Obama says the free market has failed, he also says that individuals can’t make it without him in office so to vote for him again or we are lost and people call him a genius. I say to you using the words of Winston Churchill “Socialism is a dream, sooner or later you wake up to reality”. Or “A nation trying to Tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle”. Here is a few more “Socialism works until you run out of other peoples money”.

The very best quote yet “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

We are at 14 trillion pushing hard to get to 15 trillion in debt, we are literally proving why doing things with Government running the show and taking more from us doesn’t work. Congress approved of the new healthcare law forcing us to pay for it but hey, they need a few years to fill the fund first, remind you of Social Security? Yeah, the very fund they robbed from for decades and is now in serious trouble, so the money I have paid into it since 1977 will likely never see my pocket when I retire. Imagine seriously what a Government run program like healthcare will be like. If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.

They rob from these tax payer funds and we re-elect them and they tax us more to re-fill them so they can rob them some more. But hey, we’ll just do as Obama does and blame the GOP for everything… yeah that works… both sides are to blame pure and simple, change needs to come from both… but the blame game is fine for the most powerful man on the planet.  

I have to stop now, I have droned on and on and this started out being about brake pads missing and turned into a full out political vent. If you’re one of those that thinks everything is great and going as it should, have a great time during the next great depression because at the rate of Government spending, it’s coming and if you think we can survive as a country at plus 100% GDP, you failed economics class in school.

On this last note have a great night everybody… sorry for the lengthy post, it’s how I feel and sometimes you need to let it out or burst.

Diabetes's Doctor Visit

Last week I went in for my blood test and doctor visit, today she gave me the results, which weren’t very good. Not that there wasn’t good news, there was. BP of 110 over 70, lost 10lbs, no protein in the urine test which means kidneys are still working fine. The bad news, A1C was 10, up from 7.8 to 10, not good but at least it’s not 14.9 which I have been at before. Cholesterol was 250, up from 170, LDL was 138, up from 100, Triglycerides are 238, up from 126 and pretty much everything else was high as well. This was depressing news to say the least.

I explained to the doctor I’m still having lower leg pain issues including my right foot so in 6 weeks I get to go through various tests again since taking me off of Lipitor didn’t solve it. I walk a lot which is good, but walking in pain stinks, I’m taking up the treadmill again to add to the 3 miles I currently walk to see if that helps but who wants to walk more when it hurts so much. There has been times that I have to stop on the bridge going over I-90 by my work to let my legs get some feeling back before going the last block to work. My diet has been bad the past 3 months so I’m going to work on that as well.

I was doing pretty good for 2 months after my previous A1C but the Victoza has been an issue since. So the Doc has me on some new meds, including one to help me sleep because that alone can be hurting my numbers and when I told her I haven’t woken up refreshed in the past 15 years ever, she was shocked, I could have sworn we discussed this before but apparently not. If anybody reading this actually wakes up feeling refreshed let me know what that’s like because I haven’t a clue, I wake up feeling like warmed over crap. Thank God for hot showers or I wouldn’t function in the morning at all.

Confession time, I haven’t done my best the past 3 months to care for myself and after reading this you’re thinking to yourself no duh dufus! It’s hard work trying to keep your numbers down, I guess with everything that’s been going on I took the easy way and that has to end. My goal is to be back in the 7’s in 3 months. They are going to do more tests in 6 weeks because my white cell count is still too high and a few other things that came up from the test last week.

They want to verify things before going further and they want to find out what's causing the muscle pain in my calf's and right foot. Trying to explain the pain isn’t easy but it gets bad at times, thankfully the Doppler shows blood flow is fine but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some kind of nerve issue or something else going on. We’ll hopefully find out more after the next test.

Not much else going on to report, still working on getting that last PowerMac sorted out, finalizing plans for New Years Eve and beginning the new year with my act sorted out, I hope.

Powermac Update

I received 2 of the Dual 2.0GHz last Friday. I replaced the hard drives with Western Digital 10,000rpm Raptors and upgraded the OS to OS X Leopard which just happens to be the newest OS that can be installed. No Snow Leopard or Lion for the G5 folks, not exactly backward compatible friendly considering how much grief people are giving Microsoft from discontinuing product support for 10 year old OS’s but you can still install Windows 2000 on current hardware.

The Powermac ceased production in August of 2006, the last OS that supported it came out a year later in October of 2007. Snow Leopard came out less than 2 years later and left G5 users with no upgrade. So Apple left people out to hang after spending over $3,800 for a computer that can’t even run Netflix… ugh. I’m the idjit that just found this out. The part about Netflix not running on non-Intel Mac’s anyway, the rest I knew about but just ticks me off a bit. When I sell them I’ll be adding this as a note so people buy knowing full well what they’re getting.

Thankfully the Dual 2GHz Powermac I refurbished works perfectly now with parts I already had on hand. The box used to ship it to me is perfect for re-using it as there is no way it will get damaged when I find a buyer for it. For general computing this will work perfectly for a student or parent.

Anyway, I just received the Dual 2.7GHz Powermac that was the most powerful G5 released, I paid 72 bucks for it. It needed work but the case was good and worth the 72 bucks by itself, until I opened the box anyway and found this. Now, it’s worth nothing but what little I can get from what might still work inside and I have no way of testing it.

I of course contacted the seller to ask them why they would use so little bubble wrap. They are closed until 1/2/12, of course. I have seen many like this on eBay after they received poorly shipped Powermac’s like this. I have to cross my fingers that this seller does the right thing, we’ll see. I photographed everything so tonight I’m going to see if I’m as good as people say I am, maybe I can get this turd working. If so I’m going to ask the seller to send me a case at his cost, if not I expect a full refund and he pays shipping back. Only difference will be I’ll ship it properly where they apparently don’t know how.

I’ll post back tomorrow after I determine if this thing is salvageable or not.

RV Update – No Mice

No mice! Everything fired up normally and looks to be doing fine. I’ll be going back in 2 weeks to check it out and the weather should be much colder by then so if the mice are going to be a problem the next few weeks will show it I think.

I hope everybody had a great Christmas and you all have a very happy new year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

People Flip Houses, I Flip Computers…. Sometimes

Back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s a person could make decent money building and selling computers. I could easily make a profit of over $1,500 on each computer. I would build them and sell them to the local computer repair shop or to people directly, the more I could build the more were bought. I miss the ‘90’s!!!

Flash forward to 2011, I’ve built one computer this year, the profit margin, nearly zilch, simply not worth the effort. You can’t make a profit on new computers anymore, not even the high end custom ones. Heck, they practically give them away at Best Buy and the other box stores, nobody seems to care that they’re junk, price is all that matters, at first anyway. When they call me to complain it doesn’t play games like the guy at Best Buy says it should I have to resist saying what did you expect from the $450.00 computer you bought? My video card costs more than their entire computer, I tell them if you want a gaming computer don’t go to Best Buy or any other typical computer company, you get what you pay for, don’t expect Mustang GT performance from your Focus!

There is a reason why cheap computers/laptops are cheap, they cut corners. I never get calls to build a computer anymore, not in this economy and I refuse to build cheap junk. The one computer I built this year was a replacement for one I built my customer 8 years ago. When you build them so good they run 8 years with no down time, you wait a long time for repeat business! It will likely be another 8 before I hear from him again. But I digress.

I figure I can make some money on refurbishing old Apple’s so I’m trying my luck out on two that I just got my hands on.  Apple fans are still buying the old Power PC G5’s from 5 years ago. Are they better or faster than anything today? No, heck they were just even with what was out at the time but the faithful are still buying so why not sell to them? They certainly aren’t bad machines and since I don’t sell junk these are good machines to sell. I bought 2 Apple Powermacs for a ridiculously cheap amount. The first one is a no brainer, a dual processor 2ghz G5 that just needs to be refurbished and sold, should make a few hundred in profit easily.

The second one, well, that one is the risky one. I got it for the price of shipping, it powers up and that’s all the previous owner knows about it. It’s the most powerful G5 ever made, the dual 2.7ghz liquid cooled Power PC. The risks are they were known to leak, if not caught, the leak will destroy the motherboard making the computer a big door stop.

I’m hoping that the G5 2.7 is in running order so I’ll order new O rings for the cooler and install a new hard drive, video card and 8 gigs of memory. If this thing goes well it should net a $400 plus profit. Hopefully by this Spring I’ll have enough to buy new tires and get the front and rear caps painted after taxes are paid of course. I can’t afford to keep doing the liquid cooled machines because of the risk involved but they do offer the most return so we’ll see.

I know this isn’t RV related but there isn’t anything RV related going on right now so I’m just posting life in general…

Until later!

Picture Of The Day

My nephew Tyler is in the Navy and snapped this picture back in October while aboard the ship he is assigned to.

Unreal isn’t it?

Last Man Standing Is A HAM!

How cool is that? As some of you may know, I sold my Icom 746Pro to pay some bills. Here is an article from the AARL about how the show is going to integrate Amateur Radio into the TV show. He is using the radio I hope to get some day, the ICOM IC-9100 all mode transceiver. A bit, no, way out of my reach for quite a few years I’m sure, but it’s fun to see others enjoying the hobby.