Isn't life exciting?

On Wednesday afternoon I received a call informing me that my recently ordered table was ready to be picked up on Thursday.  Much to my surprise, despite the fact that the store is closing and the table was suspiciously cheap, the call about the table's availability came right on time.

At about the same time I also received a call informing me the used 2000 Toyota Echo that Jeannette arranged to buy would also be available on Thursday.

Talk about synergy.

Now we could use the car to pick up the table, or at least that was the plan that was rapidly forming in my head.

On Thursday we bussed out to the car pick-up site and were back on the road within minutes.  Not surprisingly, our destination was the table pick-up site.  Of course, because it's construction season and because the loading dock is tucked away beneath a bridge getting to the pick-up point (even though it's only about 3 blocks from our apartment) took the better part of a half an hour.  Then, once we were finally on site, we found that the table was too wide to fit in either the back seat or the trunk.

So before we were back to the original table pick up plan - my hand-truck.

Of course the loading dock guys were amused to see that after the failed car-based load I came back with an even smaller means of conveyance.  Anyway, even if it looked a little funny, I made it back to the apartment with the table on the hand-truck in much less time than I spent driving around in circles trying to find the right one-way access point to the loading dock.

(I guess I somehow managed to spend more time and effort on the table pick up than I did on the new car details.  It's nice to know that even with the acquisition of a new vehicle I'm still not car (R)obsessed.)

Youth and Change

This evening while perusing the Globe and Mail I saw a story about a kid getting involved in politics. The thrust of the story was that he was hoping to have the province implement a law that would require those individuals with learner's permits (or whatever they are called in Ontario) to be forced to display a 'P' sign on the back of the vehicles they are driving.

No offense to the kid in question, but this doesn't seem like a good idea to me (and I doubt that they have any data to actually suggest that it will be effective). Such a regulation change likely won't accomplish much, at least aside from providing another way for cops to hassle young drivers. Furthermore, as parents likely won't remove the sign from the car when they are driving the sign will soon loose all meaning (as occurred to similar signs in Newfoundland). Possibly the worst impact that this proposed regulatory change might have is that it might actually make conditions more dangerous for young drivers as people may do their best to avoid these drivers with such exuberance that they actually create less safe driving conditions.

There are surely better ways to making driving conditions for young drivers safer than introducing another superficial rule for them to follow.

So while I applaud this young man's civic mindedness, I also encourage him to be careful with regards to which regulatory changes he proposes as not all such changes are created equally and some may actually have effects that are opposite to those that are intended.

Can't say that I am too sad

Thanks to the Planet Money blog I just learned that Hummer is going to be wrapped up rather than be sold to a Chinese company. The GM press release suggests that the warranties will be honoured and replacement parts provided.

While I guess I should take GM's word on these matters (as I have no reason not to), I imagine that continuing to provide replacement parts (particularly those specific to Hummers) will be a commitment that might be hard to honour. It seems that it will likely be quite expense for GM to maintain an entire line of replacement parts and appropriately trained mechanics in the face of ever diminishing numbers of Hummers and Hummer owners. I would be curious to know if I am alone in thinking that such a commitment may be hard to live up to, or if others are thinking similar thoughts. As a follow-up, I wonder if Hummers (both new and used) have taken or will take a serious price hit as a result of this announcement?


Blog-off Score

Neil: 0
Cameron: 41