wae said:In reply to Toyman! :
I am absolutely terrified of tornadoes. Like, irrationally so. I don't want that for my kids, though, so I secretly stay up all night in my office in the basement while I watch the weather. So far, I've never needed to drag everybody down into the basement with me and the kids don't seem to be particularly phased by severe weather.
Eh, when you tried to wake me up in the RV at Nationals, that was perfectly rational.
I was too sleepy to care. I got out and walked around a bit, everything seemed okay.
When the wind picked up and started beating parts of the RV that are normally stationary against other parts of the RV, I began to feel concern. Then I realized that I was in a mobile home during a tornado warning and I should probably not be there...
In reply to The_Jed :
Congrats on the forward progress and getting the government to shut up and take your money.
I hesitated to put this out there publicly without your consent, so I can delete this if you'd prefer, but...
Drivers education seems like an appropriately GRM'y thing, and your son getting his license sooner than later sounds like it could at least help move the needle on your stressors some small amount. If you could figure out the logistics, would you be willing to accept driving school 'sponsorships' for your son from GRM forum members?... And would you be ok with me making a separate (as discreet as I can) thread about it?
I know I'd be in for at least a few bucks. I even have an extra GRM sticker I could send to make it official too. 
Well, eye surgery #3 is in the books. Another 2 weeks of head down and hopefully this will be behind us.
Oh, the 1 day checkup is at 6:30AM tomorrow !!!
In reply to wae :
Good on you.
Everyone has irrational fears. Mine is suffocation. I occasionally get short of breath thinking about it, usually late at night. The odds of suffocation are pretty slim too but that doesn't change the fear or make it any less.
The difference is how you manage those fears. Do you inflict everyone around you with them? Do you panic and run around screaming? No. You recognize the fear and do what you can to mitigate it while understanding that they are real. The last time I was in a race car I thought I was going to suffocate. My weight, the tight belts, and the helmet were too much. I made a lap around the paddock and put someone else in the car.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:wae said:In reply to Toyman! :
I am absolutely terrified of tornadoes. Like, irrationally so. I don't want that for my kids, though, so I secretly stay up all night in my office in the basement while I watch the weather. So far, I've never needed to drag everybody down into the basement with me and the kids don't seem to be particularly phased by severe weather.
Eh, when you tried to wake me up in the RV at Nationals, that was perfectly rational.
I was too sleepy to care. I got out and walked around a bit, everything seemed okay.
When the wind picked up and started beating parts of the RV that are normally stationary against other parts of the RV, I began to feel concern. Then I realized that I was in a mobile home during a tornado warning and I should probably not be there...
I was in full-blown, irrational panic mode at that moment and wasn't really able to put coherent thoughts together!
Driven5 said:In reply to The_Jed :
Congrats on the forward progress and getting the government to shut up and take your money.
I hesitated to put this out there publicly without your consent, so I can delete this if you'd prefer, but...
Drivers education seems like an appropriately GRM'y thing, and your son getting his license sooner than later sounds like it could at least help move the needle on your stressors some small amount. If you could figure out the logistics, would you be willing to accept driving school 'sponsorships' for your son from GRM forum members?... And would you be ok with me making a separate (as discreet as I can) thread about it?
I know I'd be in for at least a few bucks. I even have an extra GRM sticker I could send to make it official too.
That's very kind of you and I greatly appreciate it but, it wouldn't feel right.
In reply to The_Jed :
Maybe I shouldn't have made it optional. 
I'm in a Everyone-Must-Be-Stabbed mood today, I am sick and tired of having to go to great lengths to fix other people's problems instead of being able to do anything I find fun.
The last time I worked on a car for fun? We are at 2 berkeleying years now. berkeley
In reply to Antihero :
I had a random older neighbor pull into my driveway a few months ago. Parked less than a foot away from one of my cars too. Got out and asked if I'd fix his car.
No sorry, I only work on my cars. I have no training, I just tinker. Still took a few repetitions before he said ok and left. I don't want the liability of something like that on me.
In reply to RacetruckRon :
It sounds a lot like our system. I'm salaried so I can work as many hours as needed for the same rate, but swipe in five minutes late and they take comp time. If my schedule gets changed and it doesn't get entered in the time keeping system I get nothing for the day I was there and lose a comp day for the day I wasn't. Overnights and weekends can get more confounding as our schedules start Sundays and the payroll starts Saturday.
Where I now work, the employer is trying a new thing. We are salary, no bonuses or anything. No time clocks, no workflow micromanagement. I get the same check every week.
He doesn't like the way flat rate pay encourages people to take shortcuts and he doesn't like the micromanagement of time clocks. It's entirely on the honor system and the focus is on quality over quantity.
Because I am honorable, I try to ensure that I am there and working at least as many hours as I am expected to be there. Because he's a low stress cool guy, he tells me I work too hard. He's also very happy with how the business is performing since I started and I'm happy with the low stress to perform, which actually makes getting work done easier.
Duke said:In reply to gixxeropa :
Yesterday was a day for shiny happy drivers. I had a 25-minute trip into the local small city and had probably 10 WTF moments. And it was the middle of the day, so traffic wasn't even heavy.
Quoted for truth. I'm not sure what's in the air / water the past few days but I've seen more stupid E36 M3 on the road this week than in the past 3 months combined.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:...He doesn't like the way flat rate pay encourages people to take shortcuts and he doesn't like the micromanagement of time clocks. It's entirely on the honor system and the focus is on quality over quantity...
Tell him that I love his approach.
The_Jed said:That's very kind of you and I greatly appreciate it but, it wouldn't feel right.
Man, it also doesn't feel right watching someone else struggle when we have the power to help.
The following minor rant can be applied to your situation or can be a minor rant on its own:
All my life, I've been the guy who helps somebody else and then doesn't ask for help when I really could use it. I have always been asked and expected to chip in, but never learned to ask for or accept help. As a result, my life is now in suspended animation. I live in a state of sustainable disarray. My spirit animal is the pack mule. People come to me because I don't say 'no'. But I never go to them for help. I could really use a good slap to get my off the couch and about forty man-hours of assistance, but I don't have it, and am either too proud or too timid to ask for help from anyone in a position to give it.
Don't be like me. This way of living sucks. It is a lonesome, hopeless suckage of my own making, and it is entirely avoidable.
If people eagerly volunteer to make your life a little easier, take it. If you have the opportunity, you can pay it forward later - and if you don't, then you really needed that help after all.
eastpark said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:...He doesn't like the way flat rate pay encourages people to take shortcuts and he doesn't like the micromanagement of time clocks. It's entirely on the honor system and the focus is on quality over quantity...
Tell him that I love his approach.
I see it this way. For the right employee for his business, it's an excellent form of reverse psychology 
The drive to perform and keep yourself useful and relevant comes from within, rather than agonizing over statistics.
My last employer was huge on metrics. He probably had to spend the whole week just looking at last week's numbers.
From my perspective, my work output is almost entirely dependent on what comes into the door and how willing/able they are to spend money with us. These are things entirely beyond my control, all I can do is ensure that their expectations are at least met if not exceeded... and those expectations are also managed by forces outside my control. He's very good at managing expectations, which ALSO helps greatly - no promising 5hr of work by the end of the day when he makes the sale three hours to closing, like some service advisors I've had (whose pay was also based on performance metrics, giving an incentive to overpromise to make a sale...)
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
The dealerships around our area are really pushing things on those they perceive as mechanically naive right now. My daughter gets her oil changes at the local Ford dealer because it's been convenient and pretty competitive price wise. She also drives a 1.0 Ecoboost (I'm aware), bought it there as a CPO and Dad encourages this just in case there's ever an issue down the road. I'm hoping that because the 6 speed manual like hers is wasn't part of the recall it's somehow different but time will tell.
She got an oil change a couple weeks ago and the service writer quoted 4 spark plugs / 1 hour labor at just under $300 bucks. Well first of all, I'm pretty sure it's only 3 and holy freaking shop rates ($199.95 / hour) plus $40 for miscellaneous shop and environmental charges... Oh and your rear shocks are "blown" that'll be another $600 bucks.... While she was a bit upset, she's not clueless and told them to stick to the oil change and she'd get back to them.
I ordered 3 genuine MotorCraft Iridium plugs ($15 bucks a pop retail at the FLAPS) and it took me under 20 minutes to change them while she watched and I explained the process. There's nothing wrong with the shocks either "shockingly". I'm probably being skeptical but maybe just maybe there's some correlation between the aggressive service writing and the lot full of very expensive trucks and SUVs sitting on their lot that no one is buying. I'm all for a business making a fair profit, I make my living doing just that but come on. If they had quoted a half hour and the total was $150 bucks they probably would have had a sale. Instead she paid for the plugs and brought Dad a package of really tasty steak tips to grill. I'll allow it.
In reply to 11GTCS :
They quote book time and that's that. Take that up with Ford
The labor rate at the indie where I used to work was $219 per hour. Most indie shops around here are $150-200. So from that perspective, that makes some sense.
As far as the shocks. Maybe they are weak, maybe not, but if her car is a Focus (100% of 1.0/6sp I have seen were Focuses, 100% of 1.0/auto were Fiestas, how weird is that?) the *mounts* fail long before the shocks do. Listen for knocking over bumps, look at them and see if they are hanging on by only one ear. Or the person inspecting was trying to get ahead of a failure before it happened and the service advisor misread it, or was trying to push a sale.
Or, because I tend to be overcharitable, the SA might have had her car mixed up with another one, which would explain the spark plug error. Generally service advisors go off of the VIN when building estimates and all that stuff is canned jobs, so it may have been the wrong car he was looking at.
I have heard of RX-8 owners getting pushed to get their timing belts replaced, or BMW dealers pushing for a preventive maintenance clutch replacement before they realized that the M3 had an automatic...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
We all discussed that the SA had her car mixed up with someone else's so your thought may be spot on. She's at around 63 K, book says 100 K for the plugs but it's a '17 and not a difficult job so I removed that from the list of worries.
Thanks for the tip on the shock mounts, I'll take a drive and listen. I've driven it within the last month and didn't notice anything unusual, it always impresses me as being a decent little appliance. She loves it and really really loves the 6 speed stick so fingers crossed it continues to be the good car it's been so far.
Holy carp. If that was the cost when I was flat rate I'd be making $90/hr.
When I started my apprenticeship our shop rate was $18/hr, so in today's money a little under $70/hr. So while shop rate is over 10 times, mechanic's pay is only a little more than half that
*sigh*
The organizer of the fish fry sent out a group text talking about how a newspaper is coming tonight to take some video to share on their website and mentioned that he wanted us to all be in the limelight. I responded that while it is the universal dream, I'm in no Rush to be in the Moving Pictures. And none of them seem to get it. I'm going to respond with nothing but lyrics all night until someone figures it out.
In reply to wae :
You'll just have to put aside the alienation, and get on with the facination...
wearymicrobe said:Man I was stoned last night. Ativan and a sleeping pill did that.
At least it was coherent. I had a co-worker that used to bring his dog "Buddy" with him to work every day. My coworker was a bit of a workaholic. One night he took a prescription sleep medication and then decided to send out an email to our entire team. It was completely unintelligible. We all joked that "Buddy" had gotten hold of his laptop and sent the email.
dan0 said:In reply to Antihero :
I had a random older neighbor pull into my driveway a few months ago. Parked less than a foot away from one of my cars too. Got out and asked if I'd fix his car.
No sorry, I only work on my cars. I have no training, I just tinker. Still took a few repetitions before he said ok and left. I don't want the liability of something like that on me.
I agree with that, I very rarely work on anyone else's stuff except if it's incredibly dumb and easy.
Unfortunately most of my stuff is keeping the families fleet going, none of it fun and always under a tight deadline
dan0 said:In reply to Antihero :
No sorry, I only work on my cars. I have no training, I just tinker. I don't want the liability of something like that on me.
No job, no money relative stops over and I help tighten her battery and the loose cable.
Is this really the original air filter in a 10 year old Nissan? You have the original tires and they've never been rotated? Fronts are bald but the rears look good? (Until you get money)
Can you rotate them for me? No, cause it's 4pm and I'm not in the mood to deal with lug nuts that have never been removed since they left the factory a decade ago.
Hmm.... I guess that wasn't a slight shock rattle. It's fixed now though
The new ones are red, and that makes it stop fast right?
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