Man I am getting really really REALLY annoyed with the "lady" who thinks our car park is hers.
So when we got our car, there was always a silver Audi parked in the spot I later found should be ours. So I parked in the next space along thinking I had muddled the numbers up.
No.
No I hadn't.
Someone moved in and wanted their spot. Fair enough too. So I got booted out of the spot that wasn't mine. But the witchqueen in the next spot won't give up "her" place. She knows it is not her spot but it is convenient for her to park there. We've stuck notes on her windscreen, I've complained to the office practically every day for the last two weeks. But it is convenient for her to steal someone else's spot. She got away with it for two months and now she wants to keep it.
It isn't hers.
Is this typical behaviour for someone who drives a silver Audi and/or comes from Illinois? Have they "made it" and can trample on anyone as they choose? Or is it a reflection of an egotist?
Of course since very space is allocated to a unit, I have to park in the free parking about 400m from our unit. You have to be early to get one of those spots. Normally not that big an issue but at present, walking 100m tires me out. Normally I would ride my bike but with an ear infection, I can't.
The other thing is we are *paying* for a carport space. We are being denied our right to our car park. I obviously have been in the USA for too long cos I am wondering whether we can threaten legal action against her and this place.
I wish they would just danged tow her car as the note threatens. I guess they are not allowed.
Grrr
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Monday, 2 June 2008
On cars in the USA
Where I come from in Australia, about one in four cars is a Ricer.
What's a ricer?
A little Japanese four cylinder car (eg Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer) or occasionally a 4 cylinder Korean car that has been hotted up - y'know noisy exhaust, lowered, spoiler, body skirts and wing on the boot (trunk), sometimes even engine mods. It doesn't make them fast necessarily - I dragged quite a lot of ricers off at the lights in my little bog stock standard 1.3L Starlet, even with 110kg deadweight (DH) in it - but they *look* fast, and that is their aim - style over substance. I don't include Subaru WRXs in this as they come out of the factory looking OTT - to me a ricer is an aftermarket job and individual labour of love (Aussies can now howl me down).
In the USA, after my nephew pointed it out, I realised that I have seen very few ricers. I've been counting how many I've seen in the last what two or three weeks?
Three.
That is if you include small cars with noisy exhausts. Two if you require the full on body work.
Americans like to show off in honking great big trucks. They don't show off in little cars - no, you show your status in a Ford 150 or a Chev Tahoe/whatever with double wheels on the back ("dualies") and a roaring engine that would wake the dead. Big is beautiful in the US. Small means you are po.
Wonder how long it will take for that to change? Last I looked, petrol was costing $4.17 a gallon. Diesel costs more. Small might start meaning you can still drive whilst those big expensive-to-feed things get to sit in the driveways of America (not in the garage - the enormous triple garage is full of crud).
On another matter, what is with all these American cars with flip-flop fuel filler flaps? They have a little finger flip open thing. It is not locked. Anyone could come along and help themselves to that precious petrol. The number of times I've looked for the little lifter button in a hire car and then found I have to GET OUT OF THE CAR! to open the fuel filler door on whatever side of the car it is (yes yes, of course I have to get out to fill the car up but I want service!).... plus it means I inevitably pull up on the wrong side of the bowser...
What's a ricer?
A little Japanese four cylinder car (eg Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer) or occasionally a 4 cylinder Korean car that has been hotted up - y'know noisy exhaust, lowered, spoiler, body skirts and wing on the boot (trunk), sometimes even engine mods. It doesn't make them fast necessarily - I dragged quite a lot of ricers off at the lights in my little bog stock standard 1.3L Starlet, even with 110kg deadweight (DH) in it - but they *look* fast, and that is their aim - style over substance. I don't include Subaru WRXs in this as they come out of the factory looking OTT - to me a ricer is an aftermarket job and individual labour of love (Aussies can now howl me down).
In the USA, after my nephew pointed it out, I realised that I have seen very few ricers. I've been counting how many I've seen in the last what two or three weeks?
Three.
That is if you include small cars with noisy exhausts. Two if you require the full on body work.
Americans like to show off in honking great big trucks. They don't show off in little cars - no, you show your status in a Ford 150 or a Chev Tahoe/whatever with double wheels on the back ("dualies") and a roaring engine that would wake the dead. Big is beautiful in the US. Small means you are po.
Wonder how long it will take for that to change? Last I looked, petrol was costing $4.17 a gallon. Diesel costs more. Small might start meaning you can still drive whilst those big expensive-to-feed things get to sit in the driveways of America (not in the garage - the enormous triple garage is full of crud).
On another matter, what is with all these American cars with flip-flop fuel filler flaps? They have a little finger flip open thing. It is not locked. Anyone could come along and help themselves to that precious petrol. The number of times I've looked for the little lifter button in a hire car and then found I have to GET OUT OF THE CAR! to open the fuel filler door on whatever side of the car it is (yes yes, of course I have to get out to fill the car up but I want service!).... plus it means I inevitably pull up on the wrong side of the bowser...
Saturday, 27 October 2007
On giving up the car
When we moved here, I knew that we would not be getting a car for a while. Cars are expensive and well we have rent to pay here and a mortgage Back 'Ome... and a house to set up, etc, etc. That costs a LOT of money. People here seem to think we are on easy street but we've had to buy all sorts of dumb things. Want some envelopes to send the bill payments in? Oh yeah, we don't have any! Want some scrap paper to write some stuff down on that you are working out? Ooops, none of that either. Wrapping paper for a present? Umm, yeah. It is on the other side of the world. All these dumb small things make a big difference. Then there are the big things, like chairs, beds and other furniture that is really very handy to have. When you add it all up, it costs a bomb. Plus we stil have to pay for the everyday groceries, bills, rent, etc.
So we bought bikes when we got here. Bikes have been our main form of transportation for four months now. Once or twice a month we hire a car and go places. If we only hire a car once a month it is obviously cheaper but we don't get to see so many places. The bikes have been great but we can't go very far on them. A 20 mile ride and we are stuffed.
DH doesn't like cars. They are a means to an end for him, a dirty, filty, CO2 blarting means to an end. But me? My car is part of my identity. To move here I sold my car (To a friend who loves him too). I loved my car. I had had him for nearly 10 years (so I guess it was coming time for us to part). He and I did so many fun things together. We thundered (ok, whined and zipped) across the Nullarbor Plain. We zipped and flogged around twisty mountain roads. We crept over places that only four wheel drives should've been able to go (thank you small overhangs at either end!). He took me (and DH) to so many lovely places. We did 170,000km together (over 100,000 miles). About 130,000km of that was with DH (and DH had rubbed a shiny spot on the dashboard with his knee, so now you know, Gibbering). Every single place you've seen on Yarnivorous blog up to when we came here is a place I saw thanks to my car (even if it was just he got me to the airport so's I could fly elsewhere). I miss my car.
Moving here meant leaving my cats, my friends, my family, my house, my garden and pretty much everything that was familiar to me behind (except obviously DH). It meant leaving my car behind and that cut just as deep as the rest of the dislocations. How many distortions to one's reality can one take at one time?
No wonder we wandered around here in a blur for the first couple of weeks. No wonder I hold the few things we brought from home with deep familiarity.
We will be moving to San Jose after Christmas assuming the visas work out ok. We will be moving to a place where cars are a cult - they are pretty bad around here (just ask the three boys down the road with their Subarus with drainpipe exhausts, the guys who like to go out late at night with their suby on full throttle - so charming them letting the whole neighbourhood know that they have gone out or are coming home, just ask the guys who insist on driving around in these enormous trucks, not that they are carrying anything bar themselves in them). We still won't have a car. There will be less need for a car there as public transport is plentiful and *much* faster than driving on the, ahem, freeways (DH used the Caltrain and the cars on the freeway by it were pretty much at a standstill whilst the Caltrain was full speed ahead). We'll have the bikes too. But sometimes, sometimes I just want to get in the car and drive. I've been doing that for 20 years. Just get in the car and Go Someplace Else. I want to be able to look at My Car and examine any little dings some klutz has put in his panels, and wash him and drive him and get him serviced and have him spirit me away to magical places. We can still hire cars or use the car share programs in SJ and SF but it isn't quite the same, y'know? They are not *my* car, just my borrowed baby for the weekend. I regret that. I want my own baby. And not the sort that squawks and wails and pees and poos and seemingly never endingly wants me to be a milch cow, no I want a baby that rolls on four wheels and flings himself around corners at my bidding.
I want a car.
So we bought bikes when we got here. Bikes have been our main form of transportation for four months now. Once or twice a month we hire a car and go places. If we only hire a car once a month it is obviously cheaper but we don't get to see so many places. The bikes have been great but we can't go very far on them. A 20 mile ride and we are stuffed.
DH doesn't like cars. They are a means to an end for him, a dirty, filty, CO2 blarting means to an end. But me? My car is part of my identity. To move here I sold my car (To a friend who loves him too). I loved my car. I had had him for nearly 10 years (so I guess it was coming time for us to part). He and I did so many fun things together. We thundered (ok, whined and zipped) across the Nullarbor Plain. We zipped and flogged around twisty mountain roads. We crept over places that only four wheel drives should've been able to go (thank you small overhangs at either end!). He took me (and DH) to so many lovely places. We did 170,000km together (over 100,000 miles). About 130,000km of that was with DH (and DH had rubbed a shiny spot on the dashboard with his knee, so now you know, Gibbering). Every single place you've seen on Yarnivorous blog up to when we came here is a place I saw thanks to my car (even if it was just he got me to the airport so's I could fly elsewhere). I miss my car.
Moving here meant leaving my cats, my friends, my family, my house, my garden and pretty much everything that was familiar to me behind (except obviously DH). It meant leaving my car behind and that cut just as deep as the rest of the dislocations. How many distortions to one's reality can one take at one time?
No wonder we wandered around here in a blur for the first couple of weeks. No wonder I hold the few things we brought from home with deep familiarity.
We will be moving to San Jose after Christmas assuming the visas work out ok. We will be moving to a place where cars are a cult - they are pretty bad around here (just ask the three boys down the road with their Subarus with drainpipe exhausts, the guys who like to go out late at night with their suby on full throttle - so charming them letting the whole neighbourhood know that they have gone out or are coming home, just ask the guys who insist on driving around in these enormous trucks, not that they are carrying anything bar themselves in them). We still won't have a car. There will be less need for a car there as public transport is plentiful and *much* faster than driving on the, ahem, freeways (DH used the Caltrain and the cars on the freeway by it were pretty much at a standstill whilst the Caltrain was full speed ahead). We'll have the bikes too. But sometimes, sometimes I just want to get in the car and drive. I've been doing that for 20 years. Just get in the car and Go Someplace Else. I want to be able to look at My Car and examine any little dings some klutz has put in his panels, and wash him and drive him and get him serviced and have him spirit me away to magical places. We can still hire cars or use the car share programs in SJ and SF but it isn't quite the same, y'know? They are not *my* car, just my borrowed baby for the weekend. I regret that. I want my own baby. And not the sort that squawks and wails and pees and poos and seemingly never endingly wants me to be a milch cow, no I want a baby that rolls on four wheels and flings himself around corners at my bidding.
I want a car.
Friday, 7 September 2007
We need a car
and a convertible may be fun, but I think we'll pass on this one, thanks!
I'm not too keen on the colour nor on the fact it is a smoking car.
(seen on the I25 Denver bypass)
(BTW, you guys are funny - heh as if I would throw myself and my bike in front of a speeding train! How the heck could I knit and spin if I were dead or severely banged up in hospital? The ding dongs were not going, the train was over half a km away but it was fun trying to race it!)
I'm not too keen on the colour nor on the fact it is a smoking car.
(seen on the I25 Denver bypass)
(BTW, you guys are funny - heh as if I would throw myself and my bike in front of a speeding train! How the heck could I knit and spin if I were dead or severely banged up in hospital? The ding dongs were not going, the train was over half a km away but it was fun trying to race it!)
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