dbattman

The problem I have with HOA is they tend to be open-ended contracts subject to the whims of the few, such as above. Not sure what it's like in the midwest, but down in the Atlanta area we have no shortage of uppity soccer mom/dad types that are all up in their neighbors business. I have several co-workers that got slapped with fines for doing such heinous acts as not edging the lawn every Saturday during July when it's 95 degress out and the grass doesn't really grow anyways. One guy had an HOA president that actually took weekend walks with a ruler and measured the grass. Yeah, if they just stuck with a few things that would really kill appeal and value (like junk cars on blocks out in the open) and collected ten bucks a month to maintain the entrance, retain an attorney for enforcement of the few property killers, and throw a 'meet the neighbor social' every few months I wouldn't have a problem but that's not what happens. Oh, and they're usually tied to the property so if you buy the house you buy the HOA.

22+ Yeah baby! Pumping it out! Who needs snow!

OK- this just showed up in my Spam folder (yeah, I do check it once in awhile just for giggles). It was from '[email protected]' Given the email address, date, and content I could see this tripping up alot of people. There was an attachment with the tracking number.pdf looking like #.pdf.exe. Watch for it! They get an A for originality here. Dear Customer, Thank you for ordering from our internet shop. If you paid with a credit card, the charge on your statement will be from name of our shop. This email is to confirm the receipt of your order. Please do not reply as this email was sent from our automated confirmation system. Date : 24 Nov 2006 - 12:55 Order ID : 37679041 Payment by Credit card Product : Quantity : Price WJM-PSP - Sony VAIO SZ370 C2D T7200 : 1 : 2,449.99 Subtotal : 2,449.99 Shipping : 32.88 TOTAL : 2,482.87 Your Order Summary located in the attachment file ( self-extracting archive with "37679041.pdf" file ). PDF (Portable Document Format) files are created by Adobe Acrobat software and can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not already have this viewer configured on a local drive, you may download it for free from Adobe's Web site. We will ship your order from the warehouse nearest to you that has your items in stock (NY, TN, UT & CA). We strive to ship all orders the same day, but please allow 24hrs for processing. You will receive another email with tracking information soon. We hope you enjoy your order! Thank you for shopping with us!

Did it look anything like this? Careful- it might kick a little

It's amazing the kinda of things corporations keep around, isn't it? Check out 'The Smartest Guys in the Room' next about Enron. Absolutely damning- taped phone calls, internal videos shot about their phantom accounting methods, internal memoranda. Geez louise guys- when someone sends you a memo documenting activity that could put you in jail shred the sucker! I've been waiting to see 'the electric car' myself [haven't seen it at Blockbuster yet], but I would lean towards calling the debacle a pure lack of leadership and vision. If memory serves GM started discontinuing the EV leases and began collecting and disposing right about 2000-01. The hybrids were offered late '02 which was the same time I was in the market for my car. So, they collect about 1000 production EVs over the next few years and crush them. Well, guess what. After doing all of that they should have moth-balled them somewhere or put them out on the 'future car' demo tour. Now they need to build them again.

'Stuff me!'

The pilot is responsible for the aircraft and all the passengers on board. The actions of the passengers in question raised enough concern with the flight crew to get the pilot involved. The pilot wanted them removed from the plane for whatever reasons and that is the pilot's call. What other factors were involved we will probably never know. Did they make a scene? Did they get combative when approached? Did they refuse to go back out to the gate or answer any inquiries? Here's your cuffs, have a better day. Trainsurfing. Wow- what a rush. Stick around until the end- talk about living life to the fullest.

Well, this has been beaten into the ground. With all the back and forth here about rights to do whatever everyone has forgotten three words that we all know. Pilot In Command Like it or not, that is the final authority of 'Amazing Grace' regarding that aircraft. Enjoy! Extreme Karate Happy Turey Day! Enjoy your tryptophan!

We already have legally-imposed limits. It's called slander. Now if he was up there on stage telling the audience that these guys were terrible doctors that couldn't stitch up a cut because they were cross-eyed there would be a case there. In this case he's just being an insulting jerk. If one of the guys hauled off and decked him right off stage I certainly wouldn't have wanted to see them charged with assault because he asked for it, but that's another issue.

Yes, the range limitation was a big downer. However, GM already had a little known solution to the issue incorporating an APU into the electric drivetrain. Viola! The PURE ELECTRIC Plug-in Hybrid GM could have OWNED the Hybrid market but they handed it off to the foreign manufactureres. Now they are playing catch-up, again.

That lawyer on the Today Show video was the best part of this whole thing.

One of my favorites! Thanks for the memories.

Courts don't allow hearsay for a very good reason. I'm still waiting to see the video interviews of the other passengers on the flight. So far I've read snipets of statements from the airlines, the Imams, a short video of some Arab guy from some organization, news reports that have been through and rewritten/edited by x number of people. In all honesty, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of your poll.

Difficult to say. None of us were there as an eyewitness to what really happened.

People get kicked off for alot less these days. Excuse me, would you mind stowing that for takeoff? No paralleles implied here, but I do alot of flying and I've seen more than my share of incidents between passengers and crew. I can tell you there are generally a lot more to these than what would be reported in the abbreviated news wires.

Hopefully this will still change- pure electrics are still getting out there. Chattanooga has electric shuttle buses that run up and down mainstreet- great application. There was a research shop that leased building space from my grad school in Atlanta. They were working on a prototype for a pure electric school bus- another great application. Lots of stop and go, limited distances. How about FedEX or UPS, or the Postal service? Great places for pure electrics.

I drove it and loved it. Than I stood around for two hours and had the technical engineering discussion about the batts, the range, the charging station, the maintenance, the operating costs, plugging into your friends house to charge it up before driving home and throwing him $1 for the power, Southern Co plans for public charging stations, etc. etc. Only hang up I saw was the higher initial cost, offset by a reduction in operating costs to about 20% of your current gas bill. But hey, after production quantity ramps up the cost will go down. Lot less maintenance as well. (Look what happened to the Prius- MSRP hovereing over $20k now.) Than I said 'when can I buy one?' 'You can't. Lease only. No plans to change that in the future but we're working on them hard.' Aargh!

My former roomates father worked for Southern Co which leased EV1s for their fleet. Under requirements at the time a certain percentage of their fleet had to be alternative fuel, so he convinced them to lease a bunch of electric cars and than sub-lease them back to employees. This also made them available to test-drive by the general public provided you were over 25. The EV1 absolutely, positively, ROCKED! That thing took off like a rocket with it's 137 HP electric drive and drove on rails. It was definitely NOT a glorified golf cart. It had a HUGE trunk on that thing and the batts could have been relocated to the trunk creating a four seat model that still had enough room for a few small suitcases or some groceries. Check out this guy's real world experience. Real world EV-1 experience But you can't drive it longer distances! Whaaa! Quick chargers could juice you up in the time it took to walk into the Quick-E-Mart to take a leak and get a coffee. Instead of pulling into the highway rest stop every two hours or so to take a leak you stop for a leak and a ten minute quick charge. Or you pul into the station, plug in, grab coffee or stretch your legs for ten minutes and then hit the road again. Why was it killed? I have my opinions but I was sad to see it go. Now we're all supposed to go HYBRID! That's right, buy the latest IT BURNS GASOLINE DELIVERED BY HUGE DIESEL SUCKING TRUCKS HYBRID because you care about the environment. Who cares if they don't really get the huge mileage increases? it's all your fault for driving the way you do anyways. Go in for your regular oil changes and old-technology inefficient mechanical drive train replacements that keep the car companies selling high-profit auto parts. So what if the Navy discovered the huge efficiency boosts with an electric drivetrain back in the 60s? These are cars, not boats. Everybody get ready- we'll be using FUEL CELLS in the next decade (eventually) powered by HYDROGEN (ooooooooooo!). And these HYDROGEN (oooooooooo!) IS EXPENSIVE TO PRODUCE USING LOTS OF ELECTRICITY AND VERY DIFFICULT TO STORE FUEL CELLS react in your car to produce what? ELECTRICITY FOR YOUR ELECTRIC CAR!!! Schenanigans! Schenanigans I say! Harumph Harumph Harumph! (Can you tell I ran out of thing to do at the job site?)

If you want the least amount of hassle, be discrete. Wear regular clothes, zip it up in a bag or a carry on suitcase, put it on the x-ray belt and don't speak unless spoken too. And please, no screwing with your audible in the plane. [duh]

Take the pimped out Farm bus! Er... Um... Wait. Never mind.

11 weeks straight working a machine startup a few years back. Starting at about 730, going till 5-8 then back to the apartment flop-house for several more hours of email, paperwork, punchlists, timesheets, etc. This was just the longest stretch of the many multi-week trips I had on that project. And they wondered why we lost respect for their authority, became confrontational, and started having performance issues. Now they're down to a primarily H1-B indentured servitude engineering force that can't go anywhere else.

Probably turning it into condos or lofts.

One of our jumpers had a rental house turned into a meth lab by her tenants. I did burn down but the tenants waited several hours before calling the FD hoping it would destroy all the evidence. They were wrong.

Renting v. Buying is tricky. Your monthly costs can go way up but if you're seeing appreciation over the longer term you are leveraged against a much larger asset. That throws it back in your favor as the homeowner. Of course, appreciation is never a guarantee but if you're willing to hunt around and make some lowball offers you can find someone behind the 8-ball and front load some equity. That's how mine worked out when I bought in. I was reading some articles last week about Key West heading toward a full-blown meltdown.