Candy and I took full advantage of the nice weather last weekend to get out and drive around. Some of the fall colors are starting, so we headed up north to see if they were better. In all honesty, we were probably a couple of weeks early, but with our crazy schedules you have to take the opportunity when you can. The area around Lake Norfork was very pretty, as was the part of the route that followed the river up toward Mountain Home. Our route was Batesville - Melbourne - Mountain Home - Bakersfield, MO - West Plains, MO, Cherokee Village - Batesville. Over the 250 or so miles, my Jetta got 38.7mpg - not bad for puttering around the hills...

Dear Companies of the World:

You want our money. We want your products and services. In most cases, there are numerous firms competing for the same consumers. How do we, the consumers, decide which to do business with? Price is only part of the equation. Quality is only part of it as well. Service (especially these days) is yet another KEY part of it. That's right, service. In these days of near-perfect flow of information, prices and quality are fairly uniform. If you want to get us as a customer, and more importantly keep us (costs way less to keep one than find a new one) offer decent service. Most of us do not complain and are not out to cheat you, but that's the way you treat us. When we call or ask questions, answer them. Give us the benefit of the doubt. We are all not liars. In fact, most of us are honest to a fault. If you treat us better, we have a tendency to do the same to you. If you would just watch out for our best interests a bit more, we might not write letters like this one, and might just be inclined to spend more of our money with you. It's a win-win. Think about it, will ya?

Signed,

Disappointed Consumers

When you maintain several servers each running several virtual machines and have anything else at all to do, it is impossible to keep your eyes on them 100% of the time. There are a handful of software packages out there that can do this for you, but most are either too bulky, too complicated, or lack the features that you want. Scott Pinkston referred me to one the other day called Monit, which is the first one of these programs that I actually liked. Most of the others just have too much. This one is short, and to the point. Monit installs very quickly, and runs in the background as a daemon. One very simple config file holds the configuration data for the services you want to monitor, and if you so choose, you can have a secure webpage display stats on your services. It can also be configured to email you (or call the beeper, etc...) if certain events occur, and best of all, is super lightweight.

I just finished upgrading my 13.3" MacBook (Intel Core Duo 2.0, 2gb - its 3 yrs old) to Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The installation was absoutely painless - I think that I clicked 1 button and typed in a password and waited....and waited....and waited. It took about an hour to upgrade, but it seems to work perfectly. YMMV.

Today was the best weather we've had the whole trip. Beautiful sunshine and about 80 with a light breeze. It was also the best pastrami sandwich I've ever eaten either. We went to the famous Carnegie Deli and ate way too much for lunch. The pastrami sandwich probably had at least 1.5lbs of fresh pastrami on it. Oh man....I also got some chopped liver which was, as they say, "to die for," and a Potato Knish, which was very tasty. Afterwards, we wandered around the area of Rockefeller Center, seeing all the sites there. We went back into Chelsea and just strolled the streets of that area for most of the rest of the day. Ended it off with a dinner at a very hip thai restaurant, and am now packing for the trip home. The day's pictures are here

The big apple was quite an interesting experience. It is similar to many large European cities I've visited, but at the same time had it's own charm and class. It hasn't stolen my heart away from Paris, but then again, I think that I've left a part of me here as well. Candy loved it. She's still in awe of the size of the buildings, the sheer number of people, and the overwhelming amount of taxi cabs...something tells me this won't be my last trip here....

We've tried to not do the tourist things, since I am one of the established Anti-Tourists of the world, but over the last days have succumbed to a couple. Last night we went up to the top of the Empire State Building, and the view was worth ever penny we spent to get there. You could see the whole world from up there...today's ride through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage was a bit touristy, but scored major points with Candy...;o)

Well, we made it to NYC. Left Memphis this morning on Continental Flight 2291 heading to EWR (Newark Liberty International). Equipment was an Embraer ERJ 145 Regional Jet, and was a pretty good flight. Had a slight delay on departure because of weather somewhere between NYC and MEM, but overall not bad. Especially for Candy's 1st trip on a real airplane. Took the train to Penn Station and a cab over to the hotel in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

Those of you who know me know that I am a hopeless petrolhead. I LOVE cars. I've written about the Mercedes of my past and the current Jetta, but I also have a 1966 Ford Galaxie Custom 500 that I've been tinkering with for the past couple of years. Before the jet age, everyone drove their car wherever they went. A road trip was an adventure. These days, it seems more like torture to most! I've never been on a true road trip, and I must resolve that one day. When the Galaxie is fully restored, I'm taking it on one. I think that I owe it that. We don't build machines like that any more, and they really are reminders of days gone by.

I hate theives. Period. Someone stole my dad's 9.9hp Johnson outboard motor. It was about a 95-96 model, back when OMC was an American company (pre Bombardier) and was one of the last great engines. Anyway, the sad thing is that it occurred at all. In days gone by, no one would have ever worried about someone taking something, but these days you can't trust your neighbors, or even your own family for that matter. It kills me to think such things, but I know that it's only a sign of things to come. I still believe that I am a citizen of and live in the best country in the world, but how much longer can we stay that way when our society can't trust itself. I don't know....maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

Just got through washing and waxing my 2009 VW Jetta TDI. The weather today was TOO nice to stay inside. As with the Mercedes E420 I used all Meguiar's products. This was my first time to use NXT Generation Tech Wax 2.0. It went on and off rather easy, but I don't know if it was the black paint of the car or what, but it looked to leave a smeared look of sorts that requried more than a few extra passes to remove. I've always used Gold Class Liquid Wax, and can not say a single negative thing about it. I may have had the same effect but since the Benz was white, I may have not noticed. Candy's Nissan Altima is white, and when we waxed it this morning I didn't notice it.

Anyway, before the wax went on the Jetta I put down a nice coat of No. 7 Show Car Glaze. Needless to say, the thing now looks like a mirror. VERY pleased overall. And no, I won't clean yours...;o)

On my wish list -- Porter Cable 7424 Orbital Polisher. Buy me one and I'll think about washing your car...lol