Rental car review
Rental car review
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Why do people use windows for embeded applications? It sucks and costs money! How stupid can you be?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Carolyn and I went out to the Black Rock Desert to partake in the 4th of Juplaya experience. Kent Cates put together (along with Dismal crew) an amazing fireworks show, well worth the trip. We drove out in my old ‘79 F250, which is becoming a classic (apparently the 78 and 79 are much desired according to a nice ranger we met), and camped in it.
The show was really great. It was, by far, the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen. The pyrotechnics weren’t necessarily as big as a city-sponsored show, but they were close, “crowd interactive,” and very creative. Photographs, especially with a point-and-shoot digital, do not do justice the experience.
We camped with Nephology/FKO, and had a very nice time with our “neighbors.” Vera and Eric caravanned out with us and we ended up next to Simon and Julia. Between us we had brought a lot of good food and enough cooking apparatus to make very nice meals like citrus marinade for the ribs and chicken and butter lettuce and sides of seared vegetables and yams.
The fourth is a good time to head out - the playa is uncrowded and if you must avoid an impromptu rave that sets up near by you can just drive straight away until the sound fades to zero a mile or two away. By doing so, we slept very soundly in the back of the truck.
On the way out we took a very pretty dirt road that paralleled the paved road between 80 and Gerlach. We ended up driving down it a bit further than anticipated and the GPS told us to take a right at a “road” (as it was named on the GPS map) we could barely discern from the desert.
After an hour of crawling over washouts and flash creeks we found ourselves at a gate and a fork in the road. While waiting for the GPS to figure out which direction led to pavement (the battery died, the cigarette lighter in the truck doesn’t work so it was bare wires against he pins to wake up the GPS)… there was a fairly significant “BOOM” from under the hood and the engine stopped suddenly and a could of steam spurted out…
We were 25 miles or so from the last place we saw a human being and an indeterminate distance from the nearest paved road or even cell service. It was about 1pm. About 105F. Not the best time to be out in the middle of nowhere with the top blown off the radiator.
After inventorying what was in the back of the truck I dug out some ratchet straps, cut down a stick I found by the side of the road with the vestigial saw on my multi-tool, and used the stapler to fabricate a seal from a rag and strapped the radiator back together so it wasn’t blowing out steam fast enough to flood the distributor. I refilled the radiator with drinking water and we were ready to go. We found ourselves walking distance from a ranch where the lovely Annette there let us a refill our water bottles and we managed to drive over the pass and out to the paved road. With a few adjustments and minor events we made it all the way to I80 where the truck finally gave up.
There we met a friendly rattler who kept us company until AAA showed up and took us to Waynes Auto repair in Sparks. They seemed to know F250s pretty well, so they’re doing all the work the truck needs at the moment.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Rental Car Review: Buick Allure
The Buick Allure is similar to the Toyota Avalon in form and function, but isn’t quite up to the task. The Buick is a nominally acceptable American car, but Buick dashboards are (and always have been) these strange, broad flat things that don’t really appeal to me. The car is a reasonable four door sedan, neither particularly bad at anything nor particularly good.
- Quiet - generally quiet, but got a bit noisy on the 401. The AC system is a bit too zealous - it’s hard to just get a vent function on a nice day and the windows open are noisy.
- Comfortable - fairly comfortable.
- Engine - a moderate engine, responsive but not astonishingly so.
- Suspension - it works well enough but isn’t super agile.
- Basic amenities - everything that could be reasonably powered is.
- Stereo - it was good enough but the high frequency speakers point straight to the center and so it sound unbalanced (the driver’s side tweeter pointing at the passenger and being inaudible to the driver).
- Security - the trunk is large and secure.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Rental Car Review: Toyota Avalon
The Toyota Avalon is a very nice car - comfortable and large. The engine is powerful and the car is spry for it’s size, quite capable of zipping past a string of cars to make an exit.
We took it up commonwealth avenue in Boston, a street with a far, far less than perfect surface and it the suspension never got upset, nor did it get noisy in the car. While the car is roomy it is easy to navigate though narrow streets filled with stochiometric Boston drivers and pedestrians.
We found the stereo plenty loud and very quite good. The car came with satellite radio, which is kind of entertaining - a punk channel even - but doesn’t work all that well under trees or on narrow urban streets; just blacking out is a bit more annoying than the fade out of standard radio and we find ourselves tuning into the very fine local radio. The radio cover door is a bit over the top: why would you want to cover a radio? It isn’t for security - it’s just aesthetic and makes the radio hard to control when closed by the door edge is ugly when open.
- Quiet - very quiet, very silent.
- Comfortable - extremely comfortable and easy egrees. Well designed controls.
- Engine - fast, powerful and quiet.
- Suspension - very agile and stable. Never got upset.
- Basic amenities - everything that could be reasonably powered is.
- Stereo - excellent sound quality though the low frequency isn’t hip hop friendly.
- Security - a large, roomy, secure trunk.
