Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Regina readers may be interested in a (almost) free party coming up on December 6th, 2008:

You’re invited to celebrate the birth of Saskatchewan’s first car share co-operative, Regina Car Share. It will happen Dec. 6th at 2520-11th Ave from noon to 3 p.m. The public is invited to meet the co-op’s directors, have a coffee and learn about the group’s activities. A dance party will follow in the evening beginning at 8pm, DJed by local radio personalities Jeannie Straub and Beth Curry, hosts of CJTR’s Your Other Lover and Bed Head. Cash bar opens at 8pm; food will be provided free of charge.

Car sharing allows individuals or businesses convenient access to vehicles without privately owning them. Members reserve the car online, use it, and return it for other members to do the same. Cheaper than privately owning a car, members will save money, lower their carbon dioxide emissions and help to reduce the number of cars on the road. The group recently incorporated as a non-profit co-op and will begin operating vehicles in 2009.

For more information about Regina Car Share, contact Michael Bell, Project Coordinator, at 306.550.7223, or email info@-AT-AT-AT-reginacarshare.ca.

It was a year ago yesterday that my neighbour crashed her BMW into my Buick, and sent me on a repair task which would have me speak with my girlfriend for the first time. We emailed, and spoke on the phone, and about half a year later we re-met under completely different circumstances and realized we’d met before. Nearly six months after that re-meeting, I’m helping her move to a new place, as Boardwalk’s rent is much too high.

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On Sunday before watching the Grey Cup, I watched a painful movie called “Major Payne” [3/10] which had me laughing at some points, and covering my eyes with horror most of the rest. It’s probably the most horrifying comedy someone could watch, unlike a zombie movie that is so bad it’s funny.

I got to ask Bob Rae what he thought of my idea, Libe and Michael Moore’s idea to take over the Big 3 automakers and make a vehicle fleet for the future.
He’s definitely not in favour of a govt takeover. He thinks it will kill innovation.
Bob’s position is that the problem and immediate challenge is one of “cash flow”. GM for instance, he said, is building a greener than ever fleet, with an electric car available in several years. Several years! It’s 2000 flippin’ eight. Flying cars should be on the horizon, not just electric ones which GM killed decades ago.

Not good enough Bob, not good enough. That kind of limited thinking, and non-bold solution will not solve the automaker’s problem, will leave it up to governments to bail out the failed companies anyway, and will not give us a better vehicle fleet. Living in Ontario, and having NDP roots may be a serious road block in understanding the scope of the problem that the current automaker situation has put the continent and world into.

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Scott and other Libloggers got a few minutes with Bob Rae before he caught a plane.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler cannot go out of business. They must be bailed out by the governments of the United States of America, and Canada. The catch is, that the governments, the PEOPLE will then TELL the so called “Big 3″ what transportation vehicles they will make. They will make only vehicles that people want, made in North America, that use less gasoline than current models, and ones that last a long time. They will in other words make better vehicles, for more people, and give more people jobs making both the vehicles, and the infrastructure to use them.

Michael Moore told Larry King this dream tonight on CNN. It’s as if he was reading my brain. Maybe he was reading my blog (or Olaf’s). Or maybe he came to the only conclusion that a sensible person could come to if they thought about the current automobile maker crisis in the context of other global problems.

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November 17, 2008 saskboy:
It’s going to hurt to have so many people unemployed, but they were not in a sustainable business because it was run very poorly and with waste and built-in obsolescence in the design of nearly all parts.

The big ones should fail, and the slack will be picked up by entrepreneurs with better cars that get better mileage.

Otherwise the government should nationalize the automobile industries that go under, and use this as an opportunity to standardize the auto-car so that parts are interchangeable on nearly all vehicles, automation of highways and streets gets closer to reality, and a new fleet of three-times more efficient cars can be pushed out to give jobs to those otherwise unemployed in the auto industry. We built a fleet of vehicles that didn’t even exist the decade previous, and they won a war in the early 1940s. And those vehicles had to fly and withstand bullet damage. There’s nothing to stop us from fixing our fleet now, except failed automakers and timid governments.

-Moore said the same thing!

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November 17, 2008 at 3:50 pm Olaf:
Saskboy,
Otherwise the government should nationalize the automobile industries that go under, and use this as an opportunity to standardize the auto-car so that parts are interchangeable on nearly all vehicles, automation of highways and streets gets closer to reality, and a new fleet of three-times more efficient cars can be pushed out to give jobs to those otherwise unemployed in the auto industry.

COMMUNIST!!! GET ‘EM!!!

Seriously though, talk about a major, MAJOR project. Not necessarily a bad idea in theory, but I don’t trust the government to get my mail to me on time let alone pull something like this off.

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4:36 pm saskboy:
Hey, it worked before in WWII, and won the war. If the government launches a “war on waste” or “war on climate change”, they can spend trillions on it, with the support of even most of redneck America (the parts that will support anything if it’s a patriotic war on ____).

Al Gore’s 10 year plan to green America could be at hand if we have tens of millions of unemployed Americans and Canadians for the government to reassign to the task at hand of rebuilding an efficient economy and way of living.

Syncrodox is not convinced my plan would work. He’s entitled to his opinion. I think WWII worked out alright for North America, and the same approach to vehicle making can work again in the War on Credit Crisis. This is the post Credit Crisis world. Credit Crisis changed everything. Americans, and Canadians are ready to accept government owned automakers, and will buy their vehicles when they provide more jobs to more people, and have products more efficient, safe, and affordable than foreign cars. It will give new meaning to the words “public transit”.

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The blogosphere is of course buzzing about the Auto Bailout, obscene wealth at the top, and how the vote is delayed because it might not pass. Some are blaming unions, for what is clearly a management problem. Unions don’t decide that the H3 is the vehicle to take America into the future with.

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More thoughts, mostly on letting nature take its course on a bad business.

How backwards does this ruling make Ontario look? I thought the West was supposedly the part of the country with the reputation for being anti-environment?

Internationally used PickupPal has been deemed to be operating illegally in the land of Queens Park. Congratulations Ontario on your new title as Canada’s antiquated law capital.

She makes at least as much sense as McCain does, and she’s “hawt” to boot. Too bad her “limited” off shore oil drilling plan won’t work since it won’t produce a DROP of oil for at least 10 years. Al Gore in the mean time says America can be oil-power FREE by the time those same 10 years are up!

I know Gore’s plan can be done - the States built a fleet of the world’s most feared and powerful military planes and military vehicles in less than 5 years (and that was 60 years ago!). They can do the same (minus the fear part) with their existing civilian fleet of cars and planes, and rejuvenate the Rust Belt at the same time. Better still, they don’t have to ship the new fleet over to France, Germany, and Japan because the point is to use them at home instead.

My friend Robert finished his thesis defense on Monday, so a group of us went out to celebrate. We started out at an empty Habanos for pool, and played for an hour. Next we hit Dairy Queen, and I cashed in my “free small Blizzard” card on an Oreo fudge earthquake sundae. It wasn’t too sweet which surprised me in a good way; Blizzards sometimes give me a sugar headache. Then we drove up to Galaxy cinema to see the new movie “Iron Man” [8/10]. As I turned into the cursed parking lot, my power steering started to groan. Oh oh. I pulled into the closest parking stall available, right beside a CIBC (which I was going to head to later that night anyway — more good fortune) and popped the hood. There was a fluid leak all over the passenger side. In the growing darkness I couldn’t tell the colour, but it looked like orange coolant had sprayed onto the accessory belt, and I reasoned that it was due to the coolant work done last week at RMP. So we walked across the parking lot to the theatre, and enjoyed the very good movie.

Returning to the car a couple hours later though, there was a bit of a puddle under the car, and the power steering was not working. Getting a better look at the fluid, I saw that it was more like oil, and realized it wasn’t coolant, and a power steering fluid leak had started (finishing my car off). So I phoned CAA and the tow truck arrived within half an hour as promised. It was now after midnight though, and we thought we’d call a cab from Brewsters but they were locking up, and so were all of the other places within sight.

We saw a city bus, one that would go right by my place as luck would have it! Except it was the last bus of the night, and wasn’t going the other direction! Darn, eh?

Walking across the street to a pay phone to get a number of a cab company turned out to be in vain as well. The Yellow Pages where “Taxi” was, had half of the page ripped out! The only number completely intact was for “Premiere” which sounded expensive, and besides they were the company with the driver that tried to intimidate friends of mine in the UofR strike in November. I then remembered I had a number for Capital Cabs in my wallet (from a job last year with the Gov’t that used them) and gave them a call. The cab took almost 30 minutes to arrive, and we killed time talking at a bus stop beside a different Dairy Queen. As model citizens, we didn’t pee in the bushes of the Dairy Queen. I just thought I’d mention that.

So to recap:
Bike front wheel: stolen
Car coolant: repaired at $1150 + damage to power steering???
Car steering: disabled + $untold cost EDIT: fixed for $147 power steering line with hole from belt rubbing + $16 cab ride

Vehicles suck.

UPDATE: RMP refunded me both the repair that Capital did, and my $16 cab ride. Thank goodness finally something went right.

I have to dig up more information about this faulty part, or else I’m on the hook for a $1000+ repair job. Seems GM settled a lawsuit without admitting fault, recently as March in the USA. Small claims court here I come? They only want to do the repair if it’s under 5 years or under 100,000Km. I’m at 9yr and 200K. Shouldn’t matter much, I maintained the coolant, and this part would have died from the fault anyway!

Gosh darn it!
“Chrysler, Ford, and GM, engine head/intake manifold gaskets—Too many service bulletins in the book to count, plus some important court cases that nailed Ford’s hide to the wall. Symptoms: overheating, windows fog up, and poor gas mileage”

I took my car to a GM dealer in Yorkton years ago for service, and mentioned my windshield fogs up easily. I wonder if it was related. They sure as heck knew there was a risk with this gasket, and never mentioned it to me.

Might be worth searching this page for your vehicle too.

Excuse me while I go blow a gasket.

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UPDATE:
Phoned GM back on Friday, and they are talking with the dealership on Monday morning where I’m having the repairs made. I found the receipt on the weekend that shows I had the coolant system flushed in 2006 like the scheduled maintenance in the manual recommended. Of course, GM didn’t mention at that time that the gasket I had was likely to fail prematurely, or that the dexcool could end up causing rusty sludge.