2,000 miles in my Model 3: The Review

I just crossed 2,000 miles with my Tesla Model 3, so I thought I’ve had enough experience with it to share some thoughts on it.

First, a disclaimer: I’m not a car guy. I view cars as a way to get from where you are to where you want to go. I really don’t care about 0-60 acceleration time, torque or other flashy features that don’t add significant convenience. I do like geeky tech toys though so far as cars go, the Model 3 is the ultimate toy.

Buying a Car in only 880 Days

I reserved my Model 3 with a $1,000 (refundable) deposit over 2 years ago, on March 31, 2016, even before Elon Musk made his presentation that unveiled the car. On April 13, 2018, I got an email from Tesla that invited me to actually place the order for the car. I held out until June 30 which was the last day they included unlimited data for maps and streaming music.

Cora goes for a test drive while we wait to do the paperwork at the Tesla dealership

Tesla called on July 11, informing me that my car would be ready for delivery soon. Unfortunately the car was going to be ready on August 5 and I was would be on vacation until the 18th. They would only hold the car for me for 10 days, so I had to pass on that particular car and wait for one to be available when I got back.

On August 23, they called again and said my car was in Dedham, Mass. and had been ready for a few days! Given that, I had to get everything ready quickly before 10 days had passed again. On the morning of August 28, signed my name a bunch of times and drove away with my MAGICAL SPACE CAR, one of the first 57,000 built.

The Design

The car is beautiful. Every time I walk up to it, I can’t believe it’s MY car. The cabin rises up off the hood in one big swoop that comes back down at the tail. It’s stylish, but not ostentatious.

The interior is extremely clean, particularly the dashboard. Nearly all the controls are on the giant touchscreen. There’s only one button NOT on the touchscreen – the hazard light button up on the headliner. Apparently that has to be a physical button by law.

The UV coating on the roof looks really cool when wet.

The thing that amazes me the most about the Model 3 is how they’ve managed to take a car with such complicated technology and make the interface so minimal. Regular cars with their dozens of buttons on the dashboard look ridiculously and hopelessly complicated to me now.

The all-glass roof looks like a regular roof from the outside, but is very impressive from the inside. It’s great for passengers, but I don’t spend much time staring at the sky while I drive. It’s tinted well enough that it’s never too bright in sunlight and there’s no glare on the display.

There’s a UV coating on the top glass that makes cool orange rainbows when it’s wet. Some earlier Model 3s have the coating halfway down the back glass too, but it doesn’t make a difference to me.

Getting In and Out

The car has two forms of keys – an app on your phone that communicates via Bluetooth and two key cards that use NFC. My last car didn’t even remote entry, so I skipped the key fob entirely and went to not needing to carry a “key” at all. That’s also taken some getting used to as I was accustomed to patting down my pockets for my keys before I went somewhere.

I have used the key card once when my phone was completely dead, so it’s important to keep in your wallet.

The car “starts” when you have a key nearby and put your foot on the brake. The car turns off when you stop and get out. I’m so used to this now that when I drive our other car, I forget to turn it off and I’ve wandered away with it on and still in drive. Oops.

The car can also be set to lock automatically when you and your phone leave Bluetooth range. It emits a short honk to confirm so I really don’t need to take out my “keys” anymore. Support for a traditional key fob is coming soon, but I really don’t miss carrying one around.

Voice Control

In an age where voice assistants that can access the whole world’s information are everywhere, the voice controls in the Tesla are shockingly simple. It can respond to only 3 commands:

“Navigate to <location>”

“Play <song or artist>”

“Call <contact>”

That said, the voice recognition is surprisingly accurate, especially when finding locations or weirdly spelled songs. The speech is also quite good. It pronounces ‘Worchester’ right and I swear it inserts a slight ‘w’ sound into ‘Boston’.

The Audio System

The sound system is easily the best of speakers I own. It’s loud, crisp and clear. While I usually listen to podcasts when I drive, I listened to music exclusively for the first two weeks. I just loved the sound quality and as someone who doesn’t subscribe to any music services, I enjoyed listening to any song on demand through the Slacker premium subscription that comes with the car.

Slacker itself is alright. As you thumbs up songs, it builds up a “favorites” station that will play those songs and others you’ll probably like. It would be nice if you could listen to just one artist or album with the built-in subscription plan. I’ve also noticed quite a few songs that have noise in them from a bad encoding which is annoying.

The car also has podcasts via TuneIn, but there’s no way to control the playback speed which I rely on to rip through more podcasts at twice the normal speed.

So despite having a car with built-in navigation, music and podcasts, I still use the apps on my phone for those functions instead.

It’s an Automatic

Model 3 gears

Even while it can’t completely drive itself, there’s a lot that it does automatically. The headlights turn on automatically but also the high beams. It unlocks automatically when you get close with your phone and locks when you leave. The seat moves to a position that makes it easier to get out when you put it in park and moves to driving position when you get in and put your foot on the brake. The wipers turn on when the windshield gets wet. The audio system changes the volume based on road noise.

You don’t need to switch gears which would classify it as a having automatic transmission, but that’s because it only has one gear. There’s no transmission!

Autopilot: Cool, but Potentially Dangerous

“Autopilot” sounds like the car can drive itself. That’s a bit over-marketed. What It can do today is drive in a well-marked lane, maintain a distance from the car in front of you (adaptive cruise control), and safely change lanes for you after you turn on the signal.

You cannot say, tell the car to drive you to work, and read a book until you’re there. It doesn’t follow the car’s built-in navigation or read lights and traffic signs. Tesla is working on that and when full self-driving is ready and approved by governments, it will cost a couple thousand dollars to enable it. It will be amazing if it even happens.

Autopilot as it exists now is nice though, and I’m glad I bought the additional feature. It’s nice to relax a bit while driving on a highway, taking my feet off the pedals and lightly holding the wheel. In other Tesla cars, the car confirms you’re still there by detecting squeezing force on the steering wheel. People defeated this by shoving something in the wheel. The Model 3 measures your slight resistance as it turns the wheel for you which is much harder to work around. There’s also a camera, currently unused, above the rear view mirror which someday could be used to recognize that you’re awake and alert.

You can either turn on just the adaptive cruise control or also turn on autopilot.

In its current form, adaptive cruise control and autopilot can be dangerous, but it’s not the car’s fault.

In practice, you end up turning adaptive cruise control and autopilot off and on quite a bit which makes it easy to forget which mode you’re in. Both modes are indicated clearly on the display, but several times I’ve forgotten that I had to turn cruise control or autopilot off and suddenly realized the car wasn’t going to turn or slow down for some other car. It will also ruthlessly cut off other cars who are trying to merge into your lane.

It will probably be some time before I get used to all that.

Charging and Fuel Costs

The last fillup for my old car

Tesla realized if it was going to bring electric cars into the mainstream, they had to make it easy. So if you enter a destination in the car and you won’t have enough electricity to get there, it will automatically add a stop for a supercharger along the way.

Using a supercharger is a one-step process. You plug it in and let it charge. The session is billed to your credit card on file. When you’ve filled your battery all the way up or have enough to get to your destination, you just unplug and drive away. It’s far easier (though slower) than stopping at a gas station.

I’ve only used a supercharger once so far. I plugged it in, got some dinner, went to an ATM and drove off 37 minutes later. In that time, it added 155 miles of range and 480 kw to my battery at a cost of $7.80. That’s $0.16/kwh, which is fairly cheap. If you assume that gas is about $3/gallon, that’s the equivalent of 65 mpg.

I’ve done all of my other charging at home from a regular outlet . I’m still debating about getting a high-speed charger installed in my garage.I get 4 miles of range added per hour out of my 110 volt outlet, That just about covers my daily commute. Whatever I don’t recover, I can easily make up on weekends when we’re usually going places together in our minivan.

With a high-speed charger that adds 30-40 miles/hour, I could get away with charging only once or twice a week. One estimate I got was for $1,200 which seems like a lot for the convenience, so I think I’ll skip it for now and pay to use a supercharger or other public charger as needed.

But again, Tesla makes it really easy to charge, even at home. The charger plug handle has a button that acts as a remote control for the charging port door. You just get close, hit the button and plug in the charger in a completely one-handed operation.

At home, my electricity rate averaged $0.21 per kWh over the last year. The car keeps track of your efficiency by trip and overall. Over my 2,072 miles, I’ve used 535 kWh or 258 Wh/mi which comes out to $0.05 per mile. If you assume gas is $3/gallon, that’s the equivalent of 55 mpg. My little Scion xA only got 34 mpg (even at 1,500 lbs lighter), so I’m now spending roughly half as much on “gas”.

The solar panels we had installed on our house a few years ago covered all of our electricity usage. With the additional usage charging the car, I expect that to drop to around 80%, but that will still make my effective electricity rate $0.04 kWh.

I still haven’t gotten out of the habit of checking to see if I need gas whenever I drive by a gas station. Perhaps once there’s more superchargers around, I won’t feel so silly.

An Amazing Car, but not Flawless

The owner forums and groups are full of stories of manufacturing problems, but I can’t find any issue with mine. I do have issues with some of the design choices made in the car.

First, I’m not a fan of the door handles. It requires pushing in the right side with your thumb and then awkwardly grabbing the opposite side that tilts out. With pretty much every other door handle on the planet, all you have to do is grab anywhere on the handle and pull open the door.

The side mirrors are pretty small. I feel like I’m always moving my head around to see different angles in the mirror and confirm that lanes are open.

The frunk isn’t useful for transporting children

The frunk isn’t very useful. The storage space inside is small and requires a lot of force to close the hood. The manual warns you to not push down on the wrong parts of the hood as to not damage it which is worrisome. That said, the rear trunk is pretty big even without the large sub trunk area where a spare tire might go on other cars.

The trunk gate is completely manual. I’m surprised it doesn’t at least automatically latch as I’ve mistakenly thought it was completely closed a few times.

If you’re a fan of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, you’re out of luck. The integration with your phone is limited to phone calls, your address book, showing your calendar and playing music via Bluetooth. You can’t even browse the music on your phone like an iPod.

The navigation is OK, but Waze is better so I end up still using Waze for commuting.

Finally, the seats are killing my back. No matter how I adjust them, my back is sore after any drive longer than a half hour. I think the problem is that the seats are deep on the bottom and fairly convex on the back, putting a lot of pressure on my lower back.

Even with those flaws, I’m still a big fan of this car. For one, unlike pretty much every other car on the road, it will get better with time. Since I’ve gotten the car, I’ve already gotten software upgrades that enabled a dashcam and a web browser. A blind spot camera view will probably come in a future update. Perhaps it will get better integration with your phone.

2,000 miles later…

Me and my newest toy

This is the first car I’ve ever bought without a test drive. In fact, I never even got inside one until about 30 minutes before I bought 0ne. So far, I have no regrets.

I’ve caught a few people eyeing my car, much like I did before I got one. I’ve seen at least one person take a picture. It seems like every day I see more and more Model 3s on the road. As production costs come down and the $35k model becomes available, it may be impossible to go anywhere without seeing them. When Model 3s become as common as Honda Accords, the electric car of the future will become the car of the present. I’ll be happy to have lived in the future for just a little bit longer than everyone else.

It came from inside the house

We got a foot of snow in Boston yesterday, so everyone worked from home. I tried to find a quiet spot to work, but the kids quickly found me. Cora in particular didn’t understand why I was ignoring her. I recorded a quick video of her cute attempts to come see me.

I shared it in Slack at work and commented that “it’s the cute version of every rattling door scene in a horror movie”.

One of my coworkers took it from there.

Amazing.

The Ultimate Google Home vs Amazon Echo Comparison

I bothdecided to get a voice assistant device for our family for Christmas this year. The problem was I couldn’t decide which one to get, the Amazon Echo or the Google Home. Lots of people love their Echo, but the Google Home is the new device on the block and shows a lot of promise.

With 4 iPhones, 2 MacBook Pros, 3 iPads and Apple TV, we’re really bought into the Apple ecosystem so an Apple device would likely integrate better into our music, calendar and personal data, but Apple has yet to release a competing device.

With Christmas return policies extended through January 15, I decided to buy both the Amazon Echo and the Google Home on Black Friday and set them both up for an extended trial. In January, one of them will go back to the store. Here’s my comparison of them so far.

Branding

There’s 4 names to know for each: the device’s name, the app’s name, the voice assistant’s name, and the companies behind it. For the Echo, it’s Echo, Alexa, Alexa, and Amazon. For the Home, it’s Google Home, Google Home, Google Assistant, and Google. Amazon’s branding is confusing. No one remembers the Echo’s name, so people call it an “Alexa”, even when they have the Echo, Tap and Dot devices. While “Google Home” is a pretty broad name for a limited device, it is clearer.
WINNER: Home

Price

Both are on sale right now. The Echo is $129 (from $179) and the Home is $99 (from $129). I used a $25 Visa Checkout promotion on both, so they were $105 and $75.
WINNER: Home

packagingPackaging

The Echo’s packaging is pretty standard. A sleeve comes off and the box tilts open. The Home also has a sleeve, but then it opens up diagonally in the middle of the box. It feels much more like Apple packaging, but it also reeked of something that smelled like rubbing alcohol. Either way, you’ll probably throw away the packaging soon after.
WINNER: Home

Design

The Echo is a tall black or white cylinder with ring of blue lights around the top edge. The Home is a little more rotund, but about half the size of the Echo with a slanted top. The Home has a circle of multi-color lights along the diagonal face. The Home looks friendlier and less out of place in a kitchen.
WINNER: Home

Setup

Both require you to download an app to your iOS or Android device. The Home’s setup was easy and slick. The Echo makes you to connect to an ad-hoc wireless network which requires you to leave the app and go into your device settings.
WINNER: Home

Sound

Neither are great speakers. Home sounds a little more full with more bass than the Echo. Echo’s speaker faces down so it’s omni-directional. The home’s tweeter faces out from the front, so if you put it in the middle of a room, it may not sound great from all angles.
WINNER: Home

Volume Control

Both have voice and touch volume control. You control the Home by touching and moving in a circle. The top of of the Echo rotates to control the volume, but it took me a few days to notice that. Since you can grab the Echo from any direction and turn, it’s slightly easier.
WINNER: Echo

Voice Activation

Echo responds to “Alexa”. Home responds to “OK Google” or “Hey Google”. Of the latter two, “Hey Google” is easier to say as it’s one syllable shorter. “OK Google” is awkward as it has 4 syllables alternating between high and low. “Alexa” is much more natural to say and you don’t feel like a corporate stooge.
WINNER: Echo

screenshot_168  screenshot_167

Activation Confirmation

The voice recognition on both devices is impressive, even across a room when they’re playing music. The lights on both devices light up when they hear their activation words so you know they’re listening. The Echo lights up all the way around the rim and glows brighter in the direction of the the voice. Because the Home’s face is slanted, you can’t see the lights from all directions, which is unfortunate.
WINNER: Echo

Voice Quality

The Echo’s pronunciations sound more “human” to me, but the pacing of the words in a sentence speaks sounds robotic. The Home’s voice sounds slightly worse to me, but the pacing is much better.
WINNER: Tie

On Demand Music

Both want you to subscribe to a music service. For some reason, Google has two on-demand music services, YouTube Red and Google Play Music. The Home includes 6 months of YouTube Red which also includes Google Play Music. If you have Amazon Prime, you have on demand access to a couple million songs. If you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, ($8/mo for Prime Members, $10 otherwise) you get tens of millions of songs on demand. If you just want expanded on-demand music on your echo, you can subscribe to a $4/mo service. Both also support Spotify which is also $10/mo.
WINNER: Echo if you have Amazon Prime, otherwise Home for both on-demand music and ad-free YouTube videos.

Owned Music

Amazon and Google allow you to upload your music collection to their services. Google Play allows up to 50,000 songs for free. Amazon Music only allows 250 uploaded songs for free. For $25 a year, you can upload up to 250,000. Although you can upload a lot more songs to Google Play, you currently cannot play songs on demand from it. You can only songs by playlist, which can be synced from iTunes. I expect this is a short-term limitation.
WINNER: Home

Radio and Podcasts

We used to listen to the radio (usually NPR) or podcasts while working in the kitchen using our phones. The Echo and Home can both play these, hands-free, with much better sound quality. They both use Tunein to play terrestrial radio and podcasts and it works fine.
WINNER: Tie

Integrations

This one is no contest. The Echo has been around for 2 years longer. It has an App Store (it calls them “skills”) with hundreds of user-created apps. Most are terrible, but some like the Choose Your Own Adventure-reminicent Magic Door are wonderful. Google’s integrations are pretty limited right now and they have not yet opened up its APIs, but plans to do so in December.
WINNER: Echo

img_3776  img_3777

App

The Google Home app is designed to control both the Google Home, Chromecast and Android TV devices. As such, it opens up to a directory of YouTube videos which makes no sense if you don’t have a Chromecast device. Settings and other configuration are buried. Both give you more info on your recent queries and allow you to rate the recognition quality. The Alexa app is focused on the device only.
WINNER: Echo

Shopping List

Both have built in shopping list functionality. Alexa has its own list built into main menu of the Alexa app, but only available there. The Home saves shopping list items into a designated list in Google Keep. We use GroceryIQ and keep separate lists per store. Neither device supports multiple lists.
WINNER: Home

Future

The Home is brand new. It currently compares favorably to the Echo in most categories except integrations. Google is just getting started here and if they bring all their services and technology expertise to this platform, they’ll be hard to beat. On the other hand, Google has a history of getting bored with products and letting them slowly die. Amazon is clearly committed to Alexa, reportedly selling 5 million of the devices. They’ve expanded their product line into the Tap and Dot devices. The Echo, like their tablets and readers, are still a trojan horse to get you to tied to Amazon.com shopping and their electronic media (books, music, TV and movies) business. They need Alexa. While Amazon has first-mover’s advantage, Google has a lot of resources to apply if they’re serious about the Home. This is Google’s category to lose if they want it bad enough.
WINNER: Home

To Be Continued

We’re still early in evaluating these devices, but it’s been fun playing with them so far. I’ll add more observations as we explore them further. But if you’re considering buying either of these devices for Christmas, I hope you find this guide helpful.

 

France, Summer 1990

2Les Echelles 25 years ago(!) today,  I was in a small town in France where I spent a month with a host family. It was one of the most fun experiences of my life.

I recently found my mementos from that summer. I transcribed the photos and scanned the photos. Thank you to the Vial family for such a memorable summer.

 

 

July 3rd

It’s 11:42 in Queens. I’m watching Arsenio Hall. I should be over the Atlantic Ocean by now, but the Paris airline workers’ strike has kept me here in the Hilton-JFK Plaza Hotel. I’ve met innumerable people today from Vermont to Nebraska. Staying in my room is Eric, a kid from Rockford, Illinois named Doug Benton and a guy from South Dakota named Ray Tracy. He’s only 18 and he owns his own house and 5 acres of land. He has so many stories that we can hardly believe. My plane leaves at 9:30 tomorrow morning. I can’t even see NYC. I spent about 3 hours sitting on the airport floor talking with some people from Tennessee, a girl from Mason called Monica and a girl from Hopkinton. The flight from Boston was fine. I talked to a chaperone and played poker with a kid, Dave, from Massachusetts. It’s midnight now and I have to be on a bus for 7:00. Hopefully I’ll be writing somewhere besides a hotel in Paris.

July 4th

It’s now 12:36 am and I’m on a bus. When we landed in Paris at Charles de Gaulle it was already 10:00. I can understand that these Nacel people are frustrated and confused from all the changes that had to be made because of the strike, but I think they should at least inform us of what’s going on. The only way you find out things here is by rumor. When they do talk to you they speak in French! I’m here to learn French, but I don’t know that much yet and I don’t want to flub things up any more than they already are just because I didn’t understand something they said.
Anyway, I’m on the right bus now. A bus driver almost ran over a few people and their baggage a little while ago. He’s just one example of the insanity around here. I said goodbye to Eric as he took another bus and I’ve met a girl from Baltimore named Lori. Her plane left yesterday and since we were 12 hours late, she and some others had to tour Paris in a bus for 11 hours. It’s 0:48 hours Paris time now and I know I won’t be able to sleep. I’m not every sure if my family has been contacted and know when to meet me tomorrow… err  today. The food the plane was exotic and non-heated. I should be sleeping in Les Échelles right now. To sum it all up, this is great.

July 5th

It’s 11:14 and I’m about to set a trip record for the earliest time of the sleeping. After about 14 hours on a bus, I finally managed to make it where I was supposed to be yesterday. Everybody here is nice and I’m already learning lots of French. So far I’ve been mostly recalling what I know, but soon I will have that down and can concentrate on building my vocabulary. I ate breakfast this morning at 2:00 am and 7:00 am. We solved the mystery of the bars on the bus and were awarded with flat surface to sleep on. I’ve almost never been so tired. I fell asleep at 6:30 pm and woke up at 8:00 to find that they had postponed dinner for me. I met a kid from Edmonton, Canada this morning and got to know Lori really well. Right now this bed is the most comfortable thing I’ve been in for 3 days. My room is Olivier’s room and he has taken the guest bedroom. I hope tomorrow will be very productive since I will be finally refreshed.

July 6th

Last night I slept for 12 hours. I got up and had cereal. Today I want swimming, played a lot of ping pong and met some of Olivier’s friends at a soccer game. I didn’t know it until I got there that the game was between the girls soccer team and their mothers. There was another game after between the boys and their fathers and at the end a trophy cup was given to the boys. I just listened mostly to Olivier’s friends. Occasionally they would collaborate to talk to me in English. I’m starting to be able to separate their words in normal speech. For translation it will be a while. Everything I have ever learned about French is slowly coming back. Other things happened but I’m tired and I want to get up before 10.
(A balloon is taped to the page)
Stéphanie Mollard gave this to me at the soccer game.

July 7th

Well, another day gone. Didn’t do much. This morning Olivier had a swim meet. He came home about 1 o’clock. We went to a supermarket. It’s not much different than in America. We played a little tennis but it was not much fun because we’re both terrible.
Tomorrow we all will go to Lake Geneva (I think) if it’s nice. Monday, Olivier, 12 of his friends and I will go swimming, then play tennis and the we will all return to Olivier’s house. It should be fun. Wednesday we’re going to see the Tour de France. Little Nicolas reminds me of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. He’s always getting into trouble but he’s smart. Yesterday Olivier’s friend grabbed him to stop him from throwing a rock. Nicolas spit right in his face! I would have never thought to that. That kid doesn’t stop until he gets hurt. He has scabs on his knees to prove it.

July 8th

I was wrong. We weren’t going to go Lake Geneva. We went to Lake Annecy. We weren’t going to go when the weather was not so good this morning but it cleared up and we went.  By the time we got there every Frenchman on the west side of the Alps was already there. It was just a big lake with too many boats, restaurants, hotels and tourist traps.
We rented a paddle boat and then walked around. We ate at a restaurant on another lake on the way back. They served Coke just like wine with a bottle and a glass. The French can give class to the most simple things. The main dish was a pile about 4 inches high of 1 to 2 inch intact and fried fish. They weren’t bad, but the sound of their osteichthyan skeletons crunching my mouth was not appetizing. One challenge I have yet to conquer is to finish a meal before any of one of the Vials. I have a paper that says the French like to take their time eating. Not this family! I estimate there was about three hundred fish on that plate. I ate all but about 30, not because I was sick, but because I was full.
Tomorrow I’m going to be with Olivier’s friends.
Je m’everveille si ils connaissent ‘le bat du poulet’!

July 9th

It’s only 9:30 but I’m about to fall asleep. It’s still very much light outside here. We went swimming, ate, played tennis, went swimming again and ate again. I met all his friends and we had a lot of fun. I’m really tired. All the French still think that Japanese means cheap and Americans hate the Russians. I’d tell them but I wouldn’t want someone to tell me that something I believed for all my life was wrong. I’m starting to talk to myself in English.

July 10th

Didn’t do much of anything today. I watched lots of TV and went out to buy postcards. My French seems to be improving greatly. Olivier’s aunt and uncle ate over. I seemed to be the center of the conversation between them and Mr. and Mrs. Vial because when I finally came into the room where they were, the gifts I gave to the Vials were spread across the room. They asked me many questions and I understood all of them except one about old people, young people, French people and bartenders. C’est dommage!

July 11th

Today was weird. This morning I went to the pool to meet Olivier’s friends again and they weren’t there. Olivier never told me why. Then we played poker with popcorn. Later we went to the field by the pool where a bunch of younger children were gathered. Before I realized it, I was in a practice for water ballet. We went over the steps and then tried it in the water. I almost drowned. I don’t know how the smaller kids survived. It wouldn’t be so hard if we didn’t have to hold one hand up the whole time to carry a stupid flag. But I guess it wouldn’t be much of a display. I guess I’m going to be in some kind of festival at the pool on the 27th. I had no idea. Later Olivier, Cédric, Mrs. Vial and I went somewhere in the mountains to a place called the Grand Chartreuse. It wasn’t the actual place but it showed the history of the monks praying in solitude. The real place was up higher in the mountains and was like a little village. 40 monks still live there.
One fact they demonstrated proudly was that the Chartreuse wine was invented there. We went to a town nearby and had some ice cream. Everybody else had ordered and the waiter looked at me. I read off the first thing I saw on the menu. When it came I found out very quickly that it had lots of alcohol in it. I read the menu and it had Chantilly, some liquor that starts with ‘Am’ and of course, Chartreuse. It was very strong. I barely finished the creme on top. I still have a headache from it. After that we went to some town far away where they made the Chartreuse. I had to leave the window open in the car to get air to keep from throwing up. Water ballet and alcoholic monks. France is weird!

July 12th

Today started off pretty boring. Olivier had an ear infection and couldn’t go to swimming practice. We watched a couple of cheap Japanese cartoons dubbed in French and then we watched Robocop, also dubbed in French. Interesting. After we had lunch, Olivier, Cédric and I went with Stéphanie and Natalie (Olivier’s friends) to sell tickets for the water festival on the 27th.
We went door to door to the people they knew and then in some of the little shops. We were out about 4 hours and we covered most of Les Échelles and Entre-deux-Guiers. We sold only 8 tickets. But it was a lot of fun romping around the towns. After that we all returned to Olivier’s house and watched Back to School dubbed in French.
This evening I got a call from my Nacel rep and he said we’re going to leave on the 30th and stay a night in Paris. I have to get up early tomorrow morning because I’m going to a swim meet.

July 13th

swimming medal
I got this from a kid who gave it to me as a souvenir. I don’t think he won it.
This morning we got up early and hopped on a bus to some other town for the swim meet. I thought those mountain roads were scary enough before I traveled on them in a bus. The meet was nothing really special. I played cards and watched the meet. I’ve been noticing that the boys in the Club Tritons have take a liking to me. Before I even knew any of them they came up to me and talked to me as if I’ve known them forever.  They really love the United States here. After awhile the boys were flocked around me and barraging me with questions. It was pretty weird. Nothing else really happened after that. We came home, ate, watched a movie, rented some movies and now I’m about to fall asleep. Tomorrow should be pretty wild. We’re going to see the Tour de France in the morning and afternoon, then fireworks at night because it’s Bastille Day. Quite the dose of French culture!

July 14th

Today’s Bastille Day. I saw the Tour de France. I went to this small castle made of seashells. I saw some fireworks. I went to a carnival and danced. It’s now 2:17 am. I just got home. I’m dead.

July 15th

I got up at noon today, ate lunch and went for a bike ride with Olivier.  I played mini golf and went to another dance.

July 16th

 mini golf medal
I’m in pain right now. I hate my shoes. two days ago I wore them daringly. I didn’t know that we were going to walk all over town. My heels now bear flaming red wounds. Walking is painful. Ironically, running isn’t. Maybe it’s a sign. I want to run because my muscle mass has noticeably decreased. I’m afraid of the narrow roads and the speeds the French drivers go though. And I don’t want to stink for days before I can take a shower. Anyway, today I played the worst mini golf of my life with Cédric and one of Olivier’s friends and won a 1st place medal for it. I guess there was a tournament for 3 player teams.
I can now separate the words in sentences when people talk. All I need to do now is learn about 5000 French words.

July 17th

I’m in a different kind of pain tonight. I got up this morning with a headache. Throughout the day it has become worse and now I feel bad all over. We went to Chambery today for Olivier’s dentist appointment. I bought a pair of Vuarnets which made me feel a little bit better. It was a fun day but I felt terrible though.

July 18th

Pretty bad day. I work up at five with a bad fever. I couldn’t sleep for an hour. That pretty much sums up the day. I slept, got up, slept, got up, etc. I missed water ballet practice because I was feeling so bad. A doctor came by to look at Olivier’s ears and diagnosed me while he was here. He just told me to take some common medication and I’ll be better in a few days. Today I must have taken at least 10 pills.

July 19th

A lot happened today. I took a shower this morning after I woke up feeling much better. Then Natalie and Stéphanie came over and we all went to distribute more posters for the Club Tritons Festival. Later they came over again and we rented a movie. After that we played some Nintendo and now Cédric idolizes me as Video God, especially in Super Mario Brothers.
For supper, their aunt and uncle came and their grandmother also. The first thing they all said to me was “Ca va mieux?” Tomorrow I’m going to Olivier’s friend David’s house for something like Olivier had. I’m really glad this sickness didn’t stay around to ruin my weekend.

July 20th

It’s late. Very late. Quick day summary:
  1. Got up at 9:00, went to David’s vacation house in the hills
  2. We walked to a lake beach nearby
  3. Came home
Maybe I’ll expand tomorrow
At one point, people were trying out some people’s motorcycles. They started with one that was more of a moped then a motorcycle and people took turns riding it up and down the hillside road. After a while a new bike appeared. It was white and falsely bore the English word ‘racing’ on it. Both of them went out and sure enough, after a while they started racing. Natalie and David went out, Natalie on the white. They were gone for a long time. Finally David came back. I don’t know what he said but all I heard was gasps and ‘puissant!’s and I understood. Natalie came back after a while with a large bruise on the right side of her head and small scrapes on her knees, shoulder and arm. The bike didn’t come back for a while. When it did, all I saw was a few scratches and nicks. The main focus was on the bike’s damage.

July 21st

Got up early and went to another swim meet. Stéphanie and some others were trying to get me to compete. It was fun but my nose looks like it has a 2nd degree burn. Later Stéphanie and Natalie came over and we played a game somewhat like Monopoly.
That night we ate supper at Olivier’s aunt’s house. The grandmother lives there. So do their 2 sons, 1 of which has a pet rabbit, lots of hair and I was afraid of at first. They all live in this large house near the center of town. We ate some things I could not name that were in long shreds and then the main course came. It was grilled sardines. Not too bad, but I hated the smell. Dessert was pineapple ice cream packed into hollow pineapples. There was a little festival at the school after and we went and danced.
I was very tired by the time we left and I started to sing Fish Heads. I can’t believe how much they loved it. I wonder how it popped into my mind!

July 22nd

Woke up a noon and couldn’t actually function until about 3:00. I got into a club competition on the Club Tritons team. It was a Double Dare kind of thing and our team won every event. There was another dance and I can’t keep them from spontaneously screaming “Feeling Groovy” or “Fish Heads”. Someone told me today that I look like Greg LeMond. I’m very tired once again. Tomorrow I’m going swimming all day.

July 23rd

Went to the pool today. I swam, ate and improved my French. Olivier was there passing out the baskets for people to put their clothes in. Every once in a while he’d pay his brother and jump into the pool. Also there today was Olivier’s cousin Aurélie (or something like that). I had met her before at 3 dances.
Today was Vial family haircut day. I’ve had a perpetual ‘coup de soleil’ since I’ve got here and today was no exception.
I made them some Jello today and they just seemed to stare at it. I’m anxious to see if they like it when it’s ready tomorrow. This weekend should be unbelievable. Dances three nights in a row.

July 24th

This morning we went to the pool but it wasn’t too nice out. The water was great though and we swam for quite a while. We went out and distributed some more papers advertising the festival at the pool. I finally sent out my postcards and cashed some traveller’s checks.
They loved the Jello and one of Olivier’s friends, Alexander, ate at least half the batch. I made some more this afternoon. Tomorrow I’m going way up into the mountains to see a glacier and do who knows what. I’m leaving now in less than a week.

July 25th

It’s been quite the killer day. We got up early and drove 4 hours to Chamonix where Mont Blanc is located. We took a little train up the mountain to see a glacier and went inside a cavern carved into the glacier. Later we took a few rides down the French version of the alpine slide. It’s actually possible to fly off those things. I came close a few times. After that we took the 14km Mont Blanc tunnel to Italy. Those border guards don’t do a good job at all. We crossed back into France and stopped at a place to see the legendary St. Bernards of the Alps. I never really thought they existed before. I had only seen them in cartoons. Finally we stopped at a pizzeria to eat and arrived home at 11:00.
Tomorrow
  •  Morning: swim meet at home
  •  Afternoon: water ballet (I might get out of it. I hope.)
  •  Night: Dance at the pool
There’s too may hours of daylight here.

July 26th

The first thing that came to my mind this morning when I work up was the swim meet. They left without me and it was already 10:00. I got ready quickly and went down to the pool. It was pretty boring. Nothing happened today until about 6:00. We had water ballet practice. I found out that we’re going to carry something like torches!
Tonight we went to a nice restaurant and ate some frogs. They were well seasoned and didn’t taste bad at all. The only thing that was disgusting was that just finishing Biology and dissecting frogs, I could name the muscles as I ate them. I can finally express myself in French. I talked to Olivier and his parents after supper. I just finished talking to Cédric about school and American customs for about an hour. It seems like 2 days ago nobody understood anything I said. Tomorrow will be a big day. There is the water festival and the 3 day dance marathon begins. I’m going to try to sleep until lunch tomorrow.

July 27th

I woke up as late as possible this morning knowing that this weekend will be very exhaustive. At 2:00 we went to water ballet practice. We are getting better but I didn’t think we were good enough to perform. I unknowingly got into a practice for a game to be played at the festival but I didn’t really want to do it and when the time came for it I just kept eating my cold roast beef. They replaced me and I never heard anything about it. The water ballet came out pretty well. There were no lights in the place except for the small torches we silently carried. They played some music and the whole effect was pretty good. It amused me so much that I forgot about how I was desperately trying to stay above water. After that there were some wimpy fireworks and a dance.
It was set up so we danced in the 2 foot deep kiddie pool. (It was empty of course.) They had the usual local disc jokey and equipment by ‘Decibel Plus’. It was a good time and I also learned a lot.

July 28th

I got up as late as possible again today. Some family friends stopped by and joined us for dinner.  Amaury came back from vacation and came over. I finally went out and bought some souvenirs. I still don’t know when I’m getting home. I tried calling my chaperone but I got a busy signal and then no one was home. My parents called today. Olivier says that his mother has some stuff on when I’m leaving but I’m not sure it conforms to the changes that have occurred.
We went to another festival today at St. Christophe, a small village behind Entre-deux-Guiers. I was surprised at the amount of people there. They had fireworks and then we did absolutely nothing. We just hung around the bumper cars. We watched the dance later. There was a band with an accordion in it and all the music was old. It was funny watching 100 drunken Frenchmen trying to smoke and form a Congo line at the same time. Raphael slept here last night and tonight Ameury is here. It’s ridiculously late and tomorrow (later today) I will get ready to leave.

July 29th

The climax of my trip couldn’t have come at a better time.
It rained today for the 1st time since I’ve been here. it rained pretty hard all day. The rain finally stopped in time for the dance at Miribel-les-Échelles. It didn’t really matter though because it was inside a small auditorium. It had a wooded floor that you could feel moving. I didn’t think it would hold all of us.
At first I thought I wasn’t going to have a good last night with all the people I’ve met here. The music the DJ played was bad and it was too crowded inside. Finally I started to have a good time, then the whispering started. All the people I had met started whispering to each other and looking back at me. I would smile and they’d giggle their way back into their whispering circle. I guessed it had something to do with my last night here. I shielded their giggles off with smiles and pathetic smirks. The only thing they told me was “c’est un surprise” and “c’est rien mauvais”. Finally a song ended and the DJ started blabbing something I couldn’t quite understand. They pointed at him and jumped up and and down as I heard “Jeff” and the intro to “Blue Sky Mining”. Someone caught me from behind and threw me up in the air.
I said ‘merci’ again as the song ended and Peter Garrett drowned his last syllable. Soon after the dance ended. It was almost 2:00 am. It was glad to get out of that small room. It was hot and the smoke was reaching Chez-Vachon density. But I didn’t really want to go. I kissed them and shook their hands goodbye – most likely forever. If I ever do return I still could never match this night.

July 30th

Today I moved on to greater things. I left my family at Chambery on a train bound for Lyon. It was a little sad but I was glad to be on my way home. Amaury showed up at the train station just before I left. I don’t know how he got there. The first person I met was ironically from Concord. I talked with him and a kid from Idaho, Jason Walker. We got off at Lyon and boarded the bullet train. It went pretty fast and in two hours it did want the bus took 11 hours.
We were bunked up at this little hotel once we arrived in Paris. The rooms were incredible tiny. Nobody slept. I found Monica from the trip over and I spent most of the night in her room with 2 or 3 other people. We just talked and played cards. At about 4:30 I fell asleep for about an hour. That was the only sleep I got. I can’t find Eric. I’m wondering if he went home early for some reason. Today I went from tiny Les Échelles to a bigger town Chambery. Then I went to a much bigger city, Lyon. From there I took the fastest train in the world to one of the largest cities of the world. Tomorrow I’m going to New York by the largest plane in the world. Afterwards I’ll go to a smaller city, Boston, and then finally to Lake Winnepocket.

 

We made a robot.

Ever since we made a bean bag toss game for Elliott’s 5th Birthday Party, he’s been talking about doing more woodworking projects. Today we had some time with just him and I and he decided he wanted to build a robot.

Now, I think his initial thought of a robot was something that walked around, talked and was did all kinds of amazing stuff ala Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit. That wasn’t going to happen, but we’d see what we could do with what scrap wood we had and my limited carpentry skills.

This was Elliott’s drawing of what he wanted this robot to look like. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of detail, so his actual demands were minimal. I told him this was called a blueprint or something. I’m not a real engineer.

Blueprints

First we scoured the garage and the basement for wood and other things we could use to build the robot. Here’s some stuff we found.

IMG_2275

The best find was an old small coat rack which we could use for the robot’s “skeleton”.  I took the hooks (two were broken) off the coat rack.

IMG_2276

Then we found a piece of plywood that we could cut in half to make the robot’s front and back. Once we had that done, we found a wooden stake for arms.

Arm stake

We cut the arms and then screwed them into the front of the body.

body

The screws were just tight enough to stay together, but loose enough so we could pose them. Next we screwed the body into the coat rack. The robot was starting to take shape.

mounted body

With that done, we could screw the robot’s back on.

back

Then Elliott wanted the robot to have hands, so I used the two unbroken hooks from the coat rack. They look kind of menacing if you ask me.

hands

For the head, we decided to use two plastic flower pots. I screwed the bottom one into the top of the coat rack.

head

Then I cut away the rim of the bottom so the top one would fit over it.

head halves

Finally, we cut off the bottom of some soda cans for eyes and screwed them into the top flower pot.

eyes

The robot was complete! (At least for today.)

done

Elliott decided to name him Erbert. He was thrilled. When Audrey came home, she was jealous of course, so we made a flower.

flower

Maybe I have some carpentry skills after all.

The Authoritative List of Apple Watch Specs

Since Apple hasn’t put together a comprehensive list of specs for the Apple Watch, I thought I’d throw them together based on the information collected from Apple.com and other sources.

watch_black_link_large_2x

 

Price

Starting at $349

Availability

Early 2015

Dimensions

42mm (1.7in) height or 38mm (1.5in) height

Storage

Built-in storage

Battery Life

One day

Display

Flexible Retina
Sapphire Crystal or Strengthened Ion-X (Sport)
Tap and press sensitivity
Activates on raise of wrist

Chips

S1 all-in-one processor

Wireless

  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • NFC
  • Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

Audio

Integrated speaker and microphone

Interface

  • Digital Crown
  • Side Button
  • Taptic Engine haptic actuator

Sensors

  • Gyroscope
  • Accelerometer
  • Infrared
  • Heart rate
  • Photo sensor
  • GPS and Wifi from iPhone

Case

Water-resistant

Apple Watch: Stainless steel or space black stainless steel
Sport: Anodized Aluminum
Edition: 18-karat gold in yellow or rose

Zirconia back

Connector

Inductive charging Magsafe

Supported Phones

(required for use)

  • iPhone 5
  • iPhone 5c
  • iPhone 5s
  • iPhone 6
  • iPhone 6 Plus

Built-in Apps

  • Maps
  • Remote Camera
  • Photos
  • Mail
  • Calendar
  • Messages with Sketch, Digital Touch and Walkie-Talkie and Heartbeat
  • Weather
  • Passbook
  • Phone
  • Siri
  • Apple TV and iTunes
  • Activity
  • Workout
  • Watch with 50ms accuracy
  • Calculator
  • Apple Pay
  • Music
  • Flights
  • Timer
  • Stopwatch
  • Alarm
  • World Clock
  • Solitaire
  • Stocks
  • Settings
  • Converter

Watch Faces

  • Chronograph
  • Color
  • Modular
  • Timelapse
  • Solar
  • Astronomy
  • Motion
  • Utility
  • Mickey Mouse
  • Simple
  • Photo

Available Apps

  • Nike+
  • Twitter
  • MLB
  • Facebook
  • Yahoo! News
  • BMW
  • Citymapper
  • Pinterest
  • American Airlines
  • Starwood Hotels

Elliott’s delirious poetic ranting

The context: It’s 9 pm on Friday night. The whole family is driving to New Hampshire for the weekend. Elliott and Audrey are in the back

Elliott, on a happier day

Elliott, on a happier day

seat. Both of them had a really busy day. Audrey is already asleep.

Elliott, when he gets very tired, gets extremely grumpy and contradictory. This time I managed to use my iPhone’s voice memo app and transcribe his rantings.

If he was a few years older, this would be disturbing. But when he’s 4, it’s cute and funny. In fact, it reads like some avant-garde poetry. “the light is too dark”,  “We can’t see light behind us“, “I direct my own mouth.”

[Anne plays kids’ music and then starts looking at stuff on her phone]

You don’t look right away
You wait
and I say when you do something and not do something
because that’s mean
that’s making you be mean
I’m being mean to you
that’s being mean to me and it’s not making me not happy
it’s a making me sad
you don’t go right away and look at it
i want to look at something. And I say no, you can’t look at something
I’m throwing your phone right out the window
I’m throwing it right over the highway and into the trees

(sobbing)

I need to go to sleep before Audrey
I go to sleep before Audrey
Audrey, get awake right now

[He’s suddenly getting frustrated at his car seat]

This is too tight
loosen this up
this is too tight
this is not too tight
it’s not too loose
the light is too dark
it’s too dark
it’s too dark

When are we going to be there?
When are we going to be there?
Anne: “We have a long time left to go, Elliott”
No we don’t, we have three. Three miles and 1 minute
I wish the camp was right here
Right there

Why is that police there?
Anne: “Pulling somebody over. Somebody was doing something wrong. They were going too fast or they did something wrong.”
What’s if there’s someone behind us?
We can’t see em behind us.
We can’t see light behind us.

(whining)

This is too long
This is too long of a ride

(yawning)

It’s too long of a ride
And the seat is tickling me
And a bumblebee stinged me
A bumblebee stinged me
A bumblebee stinged me

Mommy, the bumblebee stinged me
It really hurts. I need a bandaid right now
Two bandaids
Anne: “I’m sorry I don’t have any bandaids. If you’re still hurting tomorrow…”
Do you have the Mickey ones?
Anne: “If we have them, they’re back in the bathroom bag.”
Where is the bathroom bag?
Anne: “The bathroom bag is way in the back.”
Where is the bathroom bag?
The bathroom bag is way up front.
Anne: “No, Elliott”

(indiscernable rants)

TOO LONG OF A RIDE!!
TOO LONG OF A RIDE!!

It’s not fair that Audrey’s asleep and I’m not.
It’s not really fair.

When you get a bug bite, it stays there.
It doesn’t go away
How to bug bites go away? How?

AUDREY WAKE UP!
AUDREY WAKE UP!
AUDREY WAKE UP, YOU’RE MAKING ME SAD!

[Audrey stays soundly asleep]

Mommy, I can’t go to sleep. I can’t go to sleep until you turn the music on.
Anne: “Elliott, you have to be ready to listen. You can’t listen if you’re talking.”

I can talk if I want. You don’t direct me. I can talk if I want.
You don’t direct my mouth.
I direct my own mouth.
My mouth says what it needs to say every day and every night.

It’s not fair.

I’ll catch you with a net.
I’ll catch you when I’m fishing.
I’ll catch you like a fish.

Somebody’s touching my foot.
Somebody’s touching my foot and they’re not supposed to.
Somebody’s touching my foot.

Can you help me go to sleep?
Can you help me go to sleep?

I need you to do something.

You’re wrong and I’m right.
Daddy’s wrong.

Are we going to be there in a long time?
You’re wrong.

The Complete List of Officer Buckle’s 110 Safety Tips

officerbuckle

My kids love Peggy Rathman’s book, Officer Buckle and Gloria. Reading it one night and noticing all the post-it notes behind Officer Buckle, I began to wonder if there were actually 101 safety tips in the book. I sat down one night and copied them all down. It turns out there are 101 and a few extras.

Some are purely practical “Lock your bike”, some are strangely adult “Never run in high heels” and others are are just weirdly specific “Wipe up drool”.

Here’s all the numbered rules that can be made out in the book:

  1. Keep your shoelaces tied
  2. Always wipe up spills before someone slips and falls
  3. ?
  4. Do not jumping… the bed
  5. Never play with matches
  6. Dial 911 in an emergency
  7. Always wear a crash helmet when biking or skating
  8. Never hitchhike
  9. Obey all traffic signs
  10. ?
  11. ?
  12. ?
  13. Never use water [on] a grease fire. Smother it with a lid.. bak…
  14. Remember your telephone number
  15. ?
  16. Never chase a ball that rolls into the street
  17. ?
  18. Never drink and drive
  19. Never run with a scissors in your hand
  20. Never wander too far from..
  21. Never roll around in poison ivy
  22. ?
  23. Never take someone else’s medicine
  24. Always tell your parents where…
  25. Always tell your parents if someone bite…
  26. Be alert..
  27. ?
  28. Stay away from cigarettes
  29. ?
  30. Never take a shortcut through lonely places
  31. Never stand up in a canoe
  32. ?
  33. Never take ..ne
  34. Avoid rattlesnakes
  35. Cross only at the crosswalk
  36. Never play with electrical outlets
  37. ?
  38. ?
  39. ?
  40. Never play in.. em.. wa..
  41. Never play with spray paint
  42. Never leave tennis balls on the stairs
  43. Say “no” if a stranger asks you to go to their house
  44. Lock your bike
  45. Wear a life jacket on boats
  46. ?
  47. ?
  48. Never play soccer in the living room
  49. Never reach over the hot stove when wearing loose sleeves
  50. ?
  51. Never bother a big dog while it’s eating
  52. ?
  53. ?
  54. Lock up your valuables
  55. ?
  56. ?
  57. Never leave a full wading pool where someone might fall into it
  58. ?
  59. Never…
  60. ?
  61. Never play on construction sites
  62. Never listen to music playing too loud
  63. ?
  64. ?
  65. ?
  66. ?
  67. Stay off thin ice
  68. Keep sharp objects away from children
  69. Never run in high heels
  70. Always wear light-colored clothing at night
  71. Never run on a wet pool deck
  72. Never swim near a storm sewer
  73. Never sit too close to the television
  74. Never stand up in a bus while it’s moving
  75. Never use a blowdryer in the bathtub
  76. Never dry your socks in the microwave oven
  77. Never stand on a swivel chair
  78. Stay away from firecrackers
  79. Never breath… fumes…
  80. Wipe up drool
  81. Stay away from abandoned refrigerators
  82. Always swim with a buddy
  83. ?
  84. ?
  85. Stay away from guns
  86. Keep your legs inside car windows
  87. ?
  88. Turn off the TV before you unplug it
  89. ?
  90. ?
  91. ?
  92. ?
  93. Always keep a flashlight and sturdy shoes under your bed
  94. Ride bikes only on posted…
  95. ?
  96. Never play in the car alone
  97. Never accept rides from strangers
  98. Never use an elevator in a fire
  99. Do not go swimming during electrical storms
  100. Never turn your back on a strange dog
  101. Always stick with your buddy

That’s 68 rules. There’s another 42 where you can’t make out the number:

  • Never play loud music into headphones
  • Look both ways before your cross the street
  • Know your neighbors
  • Keep your eyes open
  • ..bee sting kit if allergic
  • Never lick a stop sign in the winter
  • Eat hamburg well done
  • Keep off furniture
  • Che.. foo.. We…
  • Watch your step…
  • Never fly kites near power lines
  • Prepare for fire…
  • Look before you leap
  • Check how deep the water is before you dive
  • Never give information over the phone to strangers
  • Never leave a bar of soap where someone might step on it
  • Buckle your seat belt
  • Never put anything in your nose
  • Never drink anything you find under the sink
  • …before you pet them
  • Dispose of banana peels properly
  • Clean up broken glass
  • Read the instructions before operating appliances
  • Check water temperature for climbing in the bathtub
  • No biking on the sidewalk
  • Always check smoke alarm batteries…
  • Keep necklaces…
  • …while the mixer…s on
  • …escape from fire
  • Say …no… to drugs
  • Wash your hands after you use the toilet
  • Stay away from alcohol
  • Never leave a thumbtack where someone might sit on it
  • Never put anything in your ear
  • Never accept rides from strangers
  • Never eat mayonnaise that’s been sitting in the sun
  • Never play in the microwave oven
  • Never tilt your chair back on two legs
  • Never play with spray cans
  • Always pull the toothpick out of your sandwich
  • Never run with a pop bottle in your mouth
  • …might slip on it

So that’s 110 rules. I’ll always be reminded of this book when I (too frequently) stand on a swivel chair.

Important things I learned while buying a new car

Buying a new car is lot of work and really not much fun, but I learned a few things during my recent experience. Mostly, I followed the awesome tips at RealCarTips, but there’s a few tweaks to their tips that worked for me.

It's a braaand new car!

1. Contact a lot more dealers
RealCarTips suggests contacting 7 local dealers. Because it was so easy to do online, I ended up contacting over 30 through their websites. That’s probably overkill, but it only took one to undercut the rest and allow me to use that price to get an even better price out of other dealers. In particular, you might get a dealer that’s out in the boonies to give you a great price, so you use that price to get a better deal from a more local dealer. Consider the distance to the dealer if they offer free scheduled maintenance. You’re not going to drive 100 miles for an oil change.

2. Don’t let dealers spam you
The most important part of communicating with dealers is to NOT give them your direct contact info. I have a Google Voice number that never rings. It just always goes right to voicemail. It was perfect. You might also consider setting up a new Gmail or Yahoo! Mail account for the process. I’m still getting calls and emails now, over a month after I bought a car. Their email unsubscribe systems (if they have them) don’t always work.

3. Negotiate over email
I really preferred using email instead of negotiating over the phone. It’s easier to forward a price quote from one dealer to another than describing the price over the phone and making sure they believe you.

4. Get detailed pricing
Make sure you’re really precise about getting pricing from dealers and that means getting the OTD (out the door) price. Make sure they’re breaking it down so you know if car’s price includes the manufacturer’s destination fee, the dealer’s documentation fee, tax, title, registration and other odd charges like wheel locks. Apparently, wheel theft is a real problem on car dealers’ lots, so they install wheel locks. Some dealers will add this cost to you at the end. Also ask if the price assumes any financing incentives.

5. If you’re replacing a car, get a trade-in quote from the dealer
They’re probably going to lowball you and you should refuse it and sell it yourself, but you could be surprised. The worst case scenario is they give you a quote that makes you feel great when you sell it on Craigslist for thousands more. If you do trade it in, make sure that the trade-in value is clearly separated from the price of the new car so you still know how much you’re paying.

6. Just say no to the finance guy
Just say no to warranties and anything else the finance person tries to sell you. They’re always moneymakers for dealer and are never designed to be in your financial best interest. If you are interested in the warranty for some reason, don’t let the finance person amortize the cost of the warranty across the duration of your finance/lease payment. Get the total cost.

7. Buy accessories online
For non-installed accessories like floor mats, check eBay and other sites online where you might find them cheaper. Dealers will often sell accessories at full markup when buying a car, but you can turn around and buy them from their website for cheaper!

It had been 14 years since I negotiated a price of a car and I was intimidated by the process. In the end, I think I got a pretty good deal. Thanks, internet!