Thems the Brakes

Last time it was the bank and cable company that provoked my Mongo tendencies, today it's the automotive industry. I may just start buying foreign cars from now on because of this injustice. Fine. I will calm down and try to rationally explain my previous outburst. But, I will have you know that I want someone to bring me the head of the General, now.

I have driven a certain type of vehicle since I could legally drive. While I try to be objective and not bash anyone personally I will hold true to that and refer to the company as BM instead. Make your own assumptions on what it really means and what BM could stand for and you'll feel my pain. When my car died in 2005 of a blown head gasket I was forced to buy a car immediately. BM, along with a lot of other manufacturers, was running a special for employee pricing. This meant instead of the sticker price you pay what an employee would pay for the car. It seemed as if there was ever a time I would own a brand new car, it would be now. At that point I had been the proud owner of pre-owned vehicles that had their own issues but were endeared to my heart. We worked the dealer down some more on the price and drove off the lot with a brand new 2005 car. Since then, it has not passed inspection on the first try, three years running. The culprits are always the same, worn rotors and tires.

I suspect that BM is fully aware of the junk they put on their cars and for the life of me I can't understand why a bumper to bumper warranty does not cover everything between one bumper and the other within the allotted 36,000 miles. Within a year and 12,000 miles both my front tires and rotors were worn down. The tires were not covered and I had to purchase two new ones at $140 total. The rotors had become warped and needed to be replaced however, the dealer's solution, probably on instruction from the manufacturer was to machine the rotors within specification. Now, I am in no way a gear head or have any great knowledge about how cars work other than the few things I have fixed myself, but I would think that a bumper to bumper warranty means that you would replace a faulty part. Apparently, I was wrong and my car passed inspection with new tires and machined rotors.

The next year, just as before the other set of original tires and my rotors, again, became worn down and had to be replaced just inside another 12,000 miles. Again, I had to purchase new tires at $140, but this time I figured they would have to replace the rotors since it is near impossible to machine rotors within specification twice. Again, I would be wrong and the dealer wouldn't budge on this. So, the car passed inspection with brand new tires and twice machined rotors.

Somewhere in the last year, probably do to devoting all mental capacity towards fatherhood, I forgot that my inspection was coming up and while shelling out money for party planning items I nearly had a heart attack when the garage called me and said that my car would not pass inspection and would require new brakes and new rotors at a cost of $300. Feeling like Uncle Billy Bailey and looking for a string on one of my fingers, I suddenly remembered that I had twice machine rotors on that car and that they would more than likely be shot come inspection. Also, I had over 37,000 miles on the car and therefore I was totally screwed. I swallowed my pride and ponied up the $300 to have the car road ready.

It has now become apparent that when I do buy a car again, I will pursue a pre-owned model, possibly of foreign make. And, I will make it known to BM, the dealer, or whoever will listen to me why my choice will be as such. I am tired of spending money on a car, only to spend money again for maintenance every year after while I hold a worthless piece of paper that says WARRANTY on it. Let someone else make the mistake of buying a brand new vehicle and have all the junk be replaced before trading it in and I will buy that car with better parts on it.

Actually, I am such a sucker that I will probably stick to buying cars from BM. Mostly, because I have a credit card that gives me cash toward the purchase of one of their vehicles. It came in handy with the purchase of the car in 2005 as I received $700 off the price. But, that being said, I will march into the dealer, select the car I want, and then state my issue with the price. "OK, that's the price you're giving me, now you're going to take $600 off the price." When the sales associate finally stops spitting out his coffee and asks me why he should my response will be, "Because, as soon as that car leaves the lot, I am going to spend that $600 on new brake pads, rotors, and four brand new tires that aren't crap." If he has a problem with that statement and refuses my demands I will shake my fist violently in the air and say, "Good day to you sir," and leave heading for the nearest car lot with used foreign cars on them. After looking around I will go home and sulk and wait for the phone to ring. Perhaps the salesman will have come to his senses and will grovel at my feet for a sale. So, don't call me, I don't want to tie up...

Hold on.

OK, sorry, I thought the phone just rang..... I don't want to tie up the line for when he calls....

sorry, one more second.

I apologize, that was the fire department looking for a donation....

You know what, I'm just going to go back to the dealer and see him. His phone might not be working properly.

Interesting link for the day.

Buying a new car guide from the unofficial guide to the DMV

Where Should We Be

The final part to the series, Good vs. Evil: The Internet.

I had a real tough time trying to come up with this last post. My focus has been scattered and my brain can't process information over a few sentences long. So, you can see how writing an entire blog post about where we should be in terms of the Internet evolution can be a daunting task. In fact, my first stop on the web today was to read an article entitled, Is Google Making Us Stupid? Oddly enough, the writer complains that we, as a society, have neither the discipline nor mental capacity to absorb information if it isn't in little blurbs, yet his article is rather lengthy. Much like my blog posts.

In this case, I totally agree with the author. We are becoming dumber. Actually, let me rephrase that, we're becoming more dependent on the Internet to do everything for us. Google has positioned itself to be the 'perfect' search engine. Its ultimate goal is to predict exactly what you want when you search for something and return that result to the top of the page. That's a lofty goal. In fact, if it ever does succeed 100% of time I think we need to worry. The desire to turn Google into an artificial intelligence is exactly the thing that science fiction has predicted will cause our demise. Look at the Terminator, The Matrix, or I, Robot, movies. The back-story to those films are rooted in the desire for man to give up control of everyday banalities to machines who in turn see us a threat to them or to each other. Machines don't hate or discriminate, but they can calculate probability and foresee possible reactions. In short, they take emotion out of the equation and what's left is the logical ideal that man will decidedly destroy itself. For that, machines will calculate that a person can not logically operate a vehicle without guarantee of bodily harm and therefore, should not drive at all. You are now one step from saying that humanity can not logically exist without harming itself and therefore should not exist at all. Every little computation a computer does it a part of its sum. You can not program logic to deny itself. Sure, you can program random occurrences of illogical actions, but you are still accounting for and inserting that into the programming. Perhaps this is what we refer to as a soul. A computer will never have one and it shouldn't lest it have control over our lives.

I always follow this rule of thumb when dealing with the ideas behind science fiction, if you want ensure conflict of man vs. machine, make the humans blindly look to machines to do the most menial of labor. That's a jumping off point for disaster. It's the equivalent of cutting your nose off to spite your face. Computers are not smarter than humans. That's a little egotistical, I'll admit. However, a human built a computer. A human gave a computer the ability to do calculations. A human told a computer how to do those calculations. In other words, lest a computer be built by God or a supreme being, it's still man made and therefore subject to be no more intelligent than the smartest person. Is it quicker, more efficient, and less likely to make a mistake? Yes, but it is not smarter than a human's potential for intelligence. Yet, as we devise new ways to allow computers to do calculations for us, freeing us for other thoughts, we lose the ability to be the smarter of the two. With the Internet now controlling a lot of our calculations and processes, we have severely crimped our capacity for analytical thought.

The Internet delivers so much information, so quickly, and without interference that we have to become faster at absorbing. Long prose gets scuttled for quick sound bites. Our brain is literally being rewired to accept these changes in thought and viewing, stripping our thought process to the bare minimum. In aviation terms, its been pared down to a flying gas can. We use the internet on a daily basis for information gathering and then we forget it. We don't need to remember what the information is, we know where to look for it. The brain, like a muscle, simply does not get used the way it did and atrophies like the legs of a spinal cord injury patient dependent on a wheel chair for mobility. So, I asked the question, "Where Should We Be?" The answer is "Where We Were." Instead of giving control over to computers with an Internet connection, let's use the Internet to give us better control over our lives and our world.

The Internet and I guess computers in general need to be an improvement on a process, not just do the work for you. Phrases like, "Reinventing the wheel" and "Building a better mousetrap" are terms that state that in order to make something better, you need to identify what is wrong with a process and fix it, leaving what works. In art you get Michelangelo's thought process for David, "It’s simple. I just remove everything that doesn’t look like David.” "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." The same applies here. If the Internet and computers just does the work for us, we are always dependent on them for that process every time. But, if the Internet or computers simply assist us in doing that work, we still have the control and do not lose ourselves. My father-in-law is a retired technician who worked for over 30 years at Westinghouse. 10 years later, he's gone back to work doing the same kind of technical work he did before. The only difference is everything he does involves email. Something he's okay with at home on the computer, but his job uses a different program and he doesn't get it as easily. While, I sometimes tell him that it's not that hard and that it's essential to learn this system, he reminds me that, for 30 years, he did his job without it and the work was finished on time and of quality. There's a human element needed sometimes.

Web design should be clean and simple removing everything that isn't needed. However, where does that 'everything' fit into the Internet? Google. Everything you can think of adding to or piling onto a search engine is done or in the works. When I first looked at the Internet in terms of being good or evil I said, "What would make Google better? Instead of giving me little gadgets and stuff, actually take a concept and improve it." For instance, traffic patterns. Every time I figure out directions for some trip, I always laugh at the estimated time for travel, because I know for a fact that there is construction on a particular road. But guess what? Google has live traffic information on its maps. So, that being said, I really can't think of anything that could make the Internet better.

I can, however, think of several things that the Internet can do to make humanity better. For starters, let's slow it down. I don't mean speed of search or speed of connection. I mean speed of discovery. I can think of several other worthwhile things for the brain trust of this world to be working on instead of making the Internet better. We haven't fixed major issues in this world outside the realm of computers for years. What's the last disease we cured, Polio? Our best and brightest are so busy making televisions larger and computers smaller that they forget that hey people need to use them and can't if they're dead from disease. Maybe, there is a way to take what advancements we've made in communication and electronic design and apply them to realm brick and mortar problems.

Here's my proposal. The top propeller heads at Google work to make it a better search engine. How about use their abilities to make the world a better place. I'm sorry but the Internet is not going to win a Nobel Prize. But the concepts and ideas that help shape the Internet can be applied to engineering in civil settings. We spend so much energy trying to make computers free up time for us yet we are working longer hours and commuting farther in order to do so. Design city infrastructure based on concepts that make the Internet work. We have a device on our "pipeline" that shapes the traffic on our Internet connection, giving importance to business critical functions and leaves poor schmucks like me looking for the sports score to watch an hourglass. Why not figure out a way to plan roads better. Hell, we've got a sandbox right now in the Middle East to test and design theories. I may be speaking in terms of apples and oranges but there has to be a way to look as the Internet and computers as a model for making offline life more efficient. Instead of doing everything we can to use the Internet to waste time, find ways to have the Internet enhance our time.

Classroom texts can be outdated and have no value beyond a second edition or third edition. I still keep a couple of books for reference material but an Internet repository for information and knowledge about school subjects allow educators and students to keep abreast of the most current of ideas and in essence, remove paper from the system. It's Lean and Green. Perhaps government should fund a pilot program where small schools are made paperless. In other words, each student is issued a laptop or Kindle device that accesses a central repository of information in a curriculum. Lessons are assigned through the computers to the students who then complete them and workflow is established to ensure accountability and punctuality. The devices have no internet capabilities outside the classroom without VPN into the closed network of the school and each student is provided a flash card authentication to ensure no tampering. This frees up classroom time for discussion, theorizing, brainstorming. The teacher uses a smart board to put up concepts, teach the lessons, and the smart board then zaps it into the repository for student consumption. Discussion threads spark creativity among classmates and educators and we weed out a lot of minutiae. Students are actively participating as a grade requirement and their tasks assigned by the application keep track of their work towards that goal. You could even branch out globally and connect classrooms from all over the world to learn from each other. There is your beginnings of a global community. I still think that children should learn technical skills alongside analytical skills. Yes, there are people still needed to fix cars and air conditioners but at least give them the training to do both. Let's correct the mistake that our parents paid for when the factories closed down and they had to learn all new skills in computers to gain employment.

Of course, I'm probably way behind on the times and this is already in practice at some school and the world is once again, passing me by like I'm just getting the punch line to a joke from a half an hour ago. But these are just two ideas that hit me while I was in an 'executive meeting' today..... Sooner or later expect there be desktop furniture in the bathroom for people to work on their laptop while they do their business. Why not? We take the Internet wherever we go. Why not take it to the bathroom and enjoy my bullshit along with your own. Just remember to wash your hands...and your keyboard.

I Love NY But Not NKOTB

Every generation has its musical trends that don't quite sit well with the older folks. In the 50's it was Elvis and Rock & Roll. In the 60's it was The Beatles. Those of us, who grew up in the 80's had to weather our own strange trends and when you look back 20 years later you scratch your head and sniff the ridiculousness that was in your mind the end all/be all of existence. That's one of the downfalls of childhood, the ability to take something so mundane and unimportant and turn it into a huge deal in your life. Relationships are the same way. William Shakespeare was either way ahead of his time or the luckiest S.O.B. who every put quill to paper. Look at Romeo and Juliet from this angle. The importance of their forbidden love was just that, theirs. Youth and raging hormones have a way of ratcheting up the importance when it comes to emotions. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet took their love a little too seriously in terms of death before distance. The melodrama that plays out in Shakespeare's text is meant to be romantic and tragic. To think that two people were so in love that they were willing to die rather than be apart is a noble and inspiring thought. Today, we just chalk it up to adolescence. I do think Shakespeare was ahead of his time and wrote to his audience. In fact, if he were alive today, he'd be writing soapy teenage dramas for the CW or Fox. Kevin Williamson would have renamed Dawson's Creek, Dawson upon Potter's Creek. In any case, the writing on those shows would be ten times better, although I suspect the acting would still be too much for any sane person to handle.

Yet for every trend that passes into our history, it has a tendency to reemerge again, only to serve as a testament of the reason for its original demise. Beverly Hills 90210 is getting another shot on television. Why? Aaron Spelling is doing somersaults in his grave. Also, another notable event this year is the reformation and touring of The New Kids on the Block. Again, why? It is because of this resurgence in NKOTB drivel that I am reminded of how I felt like a love torn Shakespearean character whose adolescent mind made Much Ado About Nothing when it came to love.

During my years in Junior High, which consisted of the 7th through 9th grades, I was in a transitional phase of my development. In other words, I was going through puberty and an awkward phase. I wore braces and was two years away from contact lenses and any sense of being somewhat normal looking. In an effort to further my chances with a certain girl in my class, I professed my unwavering "like like" of a group I would normally just call fruity and only for girls. This of course was New Kids on the Block. Guys at my age couldn't fathom the idea that girls at my age could be so enthralled with a bunch of high falsettos dancing and singing. To us, you liked Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Run DMC, and Def Leppard. Boy bands were not something we gave much thought to, unless you were trying to win points with a girl. In that mindset we talked a tough game about how "New Kids sucked" or "They have no talent," but when the guys left it was all, "Yeah, I think Joey is the talent" and "Donnie just fronts being a bad boy." Honestly, this has to be training for any guy who later has a debate with his wife over which color looks better on the bedroom wall, eggshell or ivory.

See, I was marked for death in this potential relationship early on, I just didn't know it yet. The girl in question, we'll call her Layla, was already in a relationship with a guy. Of course, at the age of 14, what consisted of a relationship? Do you meet at the mall or does one of your moms drive? Do you buy her dinner at a fancy restaurant or do you spring for Pizza with your grass cutting money? Remember, we're the same age as Romeo and Juliet. Everything is important. I was the "friend" she confided in about her guy problems. I was the safety. I thought I was in love with her. So, in order to score points with her, I listened to NKOTB. For awhile, I choked back the vomit and kept up a pretty good cover on liking this band. Secretly, I loved listening to "New Kids Got Run Over By a Reindeer" on Dr. Demento's Sunday night radio show. My plan was working. In fact, she had told me several times she had planned on breaking up with her boyfriend. That was my chance to help the process along and be there for her during the rebound.

About that same time, our History class had a field trip to New York City. It was a three day trip that couldn't have come at a better time. Layla's boyfriend was not going to be on the trip so I had the entire time to worm my way in and make her mine. She even agreed to sit next to me on the bus during the six hour bus ride. It was all playing out like a classic 80's movie. All I had to do was get her alone at night in some romantic spot with the skyline behind us and everything would take care of itself. I was the sensitive friend, who was also the closest warm body in proximity. The odds were in my favor. She would be drunk on the allure of New York's charm and I would strike. I was set. Nothing could stop me. I was going to win this round and then I could stop listening to those damn New Kids. What could go wrong?

At one point during the bus ride, Layla disappeared, saying she would be right back. She ventured to the back of the bus to talk to a friend. I didn't see her for the rest of the bus ride. When we got to New York, she was suddenly absent from our little group of friends that were going to be sight seeing together. Still, I loved every minute of seeing the top of the Statue of Liberty, and we even ended up in the receiving line of a wedding St. Patrick's Cathedral by accident. But, no Layla. We went to the top of The World Trade Center and Empire State Building and looked over the city. We ate at Houlihan's and a real New York style pizza. But, no Layla. In fact, I hardly saw her the entire trip. At one point I caught a glance of her talking to one of the other guys and they were holding hands. WHAT?!?! How could this be? That's my moment. Who are you to get in the way? On the way home, it finally sank in what had happened when I noticed her sitting in the back next to her new friend.

Layla did in fact go back to talk to her 'girl' friend during the ride to New York. While there she noticed someone she never noticed before. Sitting directly across from her friend was a boy who, until recently, had never looked like much. He was tall and lanky and wore glasses and button down shirts. Somehow, during the previous summer he changed. He bulked up and joined the wrestling team. He suddenly had huge, muscular thighs and arms. He traded in his button down shirts for attire that accentuated his growth spurt. Now, the running joke was that he was on steroids but this was years before Barry Bonds and BALCO. This was during the Bash Brothers era of the Oakland A's. So, while I'm up there, alone, syncing my Walkman to play, "I'll Be Loving You Forever" at the moment she comes back. She's back there batting her eyes at Marco Solo. Somehow, I missed my opportunity.

I had missed a lot of opportunities, it turns out. This guy wasn't sensitive. He wasn't interested in her feelings towards things like good piano sheet music for cheesy 80's songs by Cher and Peter Cetera. He didn't even claim to like NKOTB. He was the total opposite of everything I did to win her favor and it worked. She dumped her boyfriend and moved right in and they dated for the next two years. All the ground work I laid, all the chiseling away at her wounded heart, all the bile I choked back listening to "Oh Oh, Oh Oh Oh" was for nothing. I carried the ball from my own 20, down to the opposing five yard line and this yahoo gets the ball and takes it an easy walk into the end zone for the touchdown.

Now, again, I cannot stress enough the mindset of a fourteen year old boy in the middle of adolescence. This was devastating to my psyche. I went from fourteen to three in a matter of minutes. I did everything but hold my breath and roll around on the floor over this injustice. I became the sorest loser in the history of sore losers. This obsession and consequential undoing of any cool points I had earned up till then lasted for four years. She had moved onto other guys and I still had my head up my ass. Although, I did have a brief shining moment during my freshman year. Our version of the 'prom' was called the 'Freshman Farewell₁' and I didn't have a date. Layla had been forbidden by her mother to go with her muscle bound beau and was also dateless. I, once again, seized the opportunity and through a playful exchange ended up asking her to the dance. She said yes. I felt like a mediocre golfer who went out and triple bogeyed 17 holes only to birdie the 18th, It's the kind of faith renewal that will bring back the most jaded of duffers.

It was all set. I would reset my plan to finally work. Then, in the background of the halls, I picked up on the subtext. She was using me to go to the dance and once there she would discreetly leave me and go hook up with her forbidden Fabio. I caught wind of this about the same time that I caught wind of something that had gone right over my head. There was a girl who was a year behind me that really liked me. In all the hustle and bustle of trying to rectify the NY situation I completely missed it. So, I sat down with Layla and explained that I knew what was going to happen if I took her to the dance. I wasn't going to be that guy, again. She became visibly agitated at the thought that I was giving her the boot. I went to the dance with the other girl and had a blast. We dated for about three weeks and she dumped me. Still, it was slump buster. There was hope for a schmuck like me to actually find someone who wanted the nice guy. Even though it only lasted a few weeks it was enough time for me to learn a few things.

1. Teenage relationships are never as dire and important as we make them out to be. Just have fun and don't take yourself so seriously.
2. You shouldn't have to pretend to be anyone else or like something you hate, just to win points. after all, eventually you will have to come clean.
3. In figure skating, a Toe Loop is a take off from the back outside edge of the right foot and are launched by the left toe pick, not to be confused with a Toe Walley, which is a take off from back inside edge of the right foot.

Ok, fine, I pretended to like figure skating for a month. Sue me.




Footnotes
1. In a moment of being both bumped and clumsy I lost control of my Pepsi at that dance, spilling it all over a dear friend's dress. I apologize immensely for it every day of my life. I'm sorry.