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So here’s my posting on my trip home in my Insight. Other than eating breakfast and dinner at a couple of decrepit cafes, it wasn’t terrifically exciting, but it was fun learning the car!

So, I finally got it. After four years of reading about the Insight, the price on used models after the “work out the bugs” 2000 model year dropped to the point I could afford it.

Picked it up last night in Spokane, WA, for a 784-mile trip back home to Tooele, Utah. Spent the night in a hotel, wishing I could already be on the road, but I was tired from the flight up. I’d effectively purchased this one “sight unseen”, except lots of pictures and my pointed questions. The folks up at Soupy’s Auto Sales in Post Falls, Idaho (right across the river from Spokane, Washington) were exceptionally helpful the entire time.

The car cost $10,895 used. With taxes, I took out a loan for $11,700, which is still less than the insurance company would pay if I were in an accident (“good” condition Kelly Blue Book plus options is what GEICO goes by). The 2001 was originally sold in April of 2002, driven for 18 months and 25,000 miles, then when the Honda dealer couldn’t sell it for two months, they put it up at auction. Soupy’s got it, listed it, I had a plane ticket to get it two days later 🙂

Anyway, the next morning (this morning), I woke up, eage to get on my way on my long drive. Here’s the relevant info:

Total miles driven: 784

The first leg of the trip (about 350 miles) was between Spokane and Butte, Montana. Temps ranged from a high of about 38 near Spokane, to a low of -10 Farenheit in a town near a pass in Montana. Snow was mostly cleared off the road, piled higher than my head in the Insight… it gave the feeling of driving in a video game at times.

Tire pressure: 38 front, 35 rear.

Anyway, I only got 44.1 MPG on that leg, averaging around 73-78 mph. MANY mountain passes, lots of assist, and even with the CVT, the battery frequently got quite low and forced a 3-4 bar charge from time to time on uphills. Only one lane was plowed in many spots, so I felt the need to keep up with traffic rather than allow myself to slow — it felt really, really dangerous passing in the unplowed icy lane. The Insight handled it a couple of times fairly well, and was quite responsive, but the stock tires definitely don’t handle icy, slushy passes as well as the all-seasons on our van. I’m not sure yet if I need to bother with snow tires for my daily commute, but I’m guessing that if there’s snow on the ground, I’ll be asking my carpool partner if we can use his car instead.

Once I hit Butte, it was dry roads, sunny, and only about 10 degrees below freezing. I made it all the way to Idaho Falls (over 500 miles) on that first tank of gas, though I was a little concerned as I was getting closer and down to about 4 bars of gas. The little car made it fine, though, as I worked to keep my speed down, drafted a little here and there, and generally tried to keep my instantaneous MPG above 55 rather than going for “a fun ride” like I did in the snowy portion of the trip. A little better on this stretch; despite a stiff headwind of about 15 mph, I still managed to eke out 48 mpg in sub-freezing temperatures on a stock Insight CVT running 75-80 miles per hour on mostly level terrain with two multiple-mile uphills.

Once I reached Idaho Falls, I stopped for gas and food, and decided to take the tires to 50 PSI. There was no headwind for this last 150-mile run, traffic was heavy, and the speed limit wasn’t 75 the whole way. I decided to try to “let the road drive me”, and slow down a bit on the uphills to maintain my MPG. It was not quite possible, with one steep pass (Malad pass) and a couple of other ones… I gave into temptation, hit the “S” button, and sailed past the minivans and tractor-trailers laboring along in the right-hand lane. I’d learned to try to avoid getting the Assist involved on longer hills by this point so I didn’t get hit with a recharge, and it seemed to do better.

Overall mileage on the last leg: 53.5 miles per gallon, running 60-75 miles per hour.

What I learned: 50 PSI in all four tires on dry pavement, plus a disciplined right foot, makes a huge difference. Even in the dead of winter here on this Washington/Idaho/Montana/Idaho/Utah run, the Insight stretches the gas tank nicely when considerately driven. I purchased a 12 volt air pump and locking pressure gauge so that, if I found myself in less ideal conditions, I could reduce pressure down to 30 psi in each tire for improved traction, but found I didn’t need to after the first leg.

Not bad for my first day, I think. The Insight proved really comfortable, but my main complaints:

* At 50psi, road noise nearly overpowers the radio * I now know why people think the radio isn’t very good — bass at certain frequencies causes higher frequencies to “waffle” terribly, and while recducing the bass level diminishes the problem, then it sounds a bit like a tin can. * I learned what people mean by the Potenza tires “tracking every gouge in the pavement” — there were a couple of times, on uneven pavement, that I nearly overcorrected for a really hard jerk on the car going over the edge. * Mud and spray severely limit the brightness of the front lights. They seem to collect dirt much more easily than other vehicles I’ve driven. She got a nice whole-body wash once I got home 🙂 * The stock tires, while almost passable in snow/ice at factory pressures, are totally inadequate for icy conditions, really, which is amplified at higher pressures. Underinflated, they are dramatically better on the ice & snow (tooling around town around 32 psi per corner was just fine on icy surfaces). * No floor mats. Ugh. * No rubber/steel stop for the driver’s left foot — I seem to remember someone on this forum mentioning they had some to sell at one point?

All that said, though, the sides of my face hurt from smiling all the way home. The car accelerates like a dream, gets amazing gas mileage even at lead-footed interstate speeds, has a very comfortable seat that does fine for long drives, has plenty of cargo room despite the lack of a back seat, and attracts looks & questions on the road and off.

On my way home, some unique things happened due to the car: 1. By a gas station attendant: “What kind of car is that?” 2. By a fellow driver, motioning me to rol down the window, shouting “Nice Insight!” (it was extremely muddy from top to bottom at this point from the Idaho rock-slush road treatments) 3. By another driver, honking and giving me a big thumbs-up. 4. I spoke to another Insight owner that happened to be sitting next to me on the plane trip up; she was very nice, and loved her 2001 Blue Insight CVT. She mentioned, though, that she was disappointed that it “only” went 109 mph when she pushed it 🙂

All in all, I’m excited beyond belief. My wife is putting a big bow on my car on Christmas day. I’ve been wanting an Insight for five years; only now did income meet opportunity!

Normally, I only post on Sundays, but recent events mixed with the time of year have prompted me to post this..

In the coming weeks, we can anticipate everything from a joyous, safe, and fun holiday.. to a devestatingly terrifying attack that will make the holidays themselves seem like an afterthought.. and it is hard to prepare for one without considering the other.

In that vein, I wanted to express my best wishes to my friends here at Barnson.org, especially those of us in The Washington area and all those traveling or living in other high threat areas such as New york or Las Vegas.

I plan to keep Christmas and try to make it a good holiday no matter what happens. And if something does, I hope to be like the “whos” at the end of the Grinch.. and keep on singing.

Please be safe, try to keep chins up, and hug your family a little tighter this year. God Bless.

Okay.. normally I start with some anecdote.. but I want everybody to read this, in case you can relate (or might be guilty).

Okay, anecdote. My friend Pete had been looking forward to LOTR: Return of the King all his life.. he arrived 2 hours early to the theatre, camped out, and finally took his seat for 3 and a half hours of Hobbit fun.. but when he walked out, he was visibly upset..

Why? Because some loser teenagers sat next to him the entire movie and talked and commented and ruined his whole experience.

This situation exemplifies the fact that etiquitte is gone.. the idea of doing something – or not doing something – because of at the most propriety, or at the least, the anticipation of the effect on another person, is lost on too many.. from the idea of saying thank you to the idea of holding a door.. to the idea of shutting your mouth in a movie theatre…

There are two types of people, those who will agree with me, and those who think I’m off base.. and to the latter, from the former.. THIS IS NOT YOUR HOME! THIS IS NOT A VCR! THERE ARE OTHERS WHO DON’T NEED YOUR INPUT. Clap at the end, cheer when others do, but please, shut off the movie commentary until you buy the DVD, and then you can hear one.

I’m flying up to Spokane, Washington, to pick up my new-to-me Honda Insight tomorrow night! I’m pretty excited. I needed a new commuter vehicle to be able to make it to my new job that I’m starting January 5. Why did I choose this Insight?

* CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) gas mileage: 57mpg highway. * Really comfortable to drive. It’s definitely an econo-box, but drives like a really sporty one. * Cool technology. Hybrids rock. * Very unique body styling. * I like the “arrest me” red. * Great deal.

My 2001 Insight costs $10,895 for a CVT model with air conditioning, and power everything. No CD changer or cruise, but I aim to correct that. It only has 25,000 miles, and was only driven for 18 months. It’s just 20 months old now! The same car, new, was nearly $23,000 MSRP. Mine is also Honda Certified, which is a nice little bonus that extends the powertrain warranty.

I looked into the Toyota Prius, but aside from it holding its value better in the used market than the Insight (hey, I’m honest, the Insight drops value like a rock mostly due to being a two-seater with very low demand), well, I just thought it was ugly. It drives nicely, and has nifty features (particularly the all-electric drive at city speeds), but I decided it wasn’t for me after driving the Insight. The Insight drives like a pocket sports car, while the Prius drives more like, well, a sedate family vehicle. The Prius has great speed off the line, comparable to the Insight (no mean feat at 800 more pounds), but doesn’t corner nearly as well. The Insight comes loaded with power-everything by default at a relatively low price, and is a lot more comfortable to drive (IMHO, as far as having a spacious front seat is concerned). Power windows, doors, heated rearview mirrors, intermittent wipers, rear wiper, remote keyless entry, the works — you pay quite a bit more for all of that on the Prius. The only things the Prius really has over the Insight are a back seat, more cargo area, slightly higher safety rating with some options (canopy airbags), less road noise, and a good stereo. Insight beats it hands-down on gas mileage, lower price (fully-loaded insight is about the same price as a stripped-down Prius), cornering, consistent gas tank size (Prius’ gas “bladder” is quite a bit smaller in winter), and some other things. I think, though, like most car decisions once price is out of the way, it really boils down to an emotional decision. I really like how the Insight looks and handles compared to the Prius, though I like the Prius’ gadget screen and ability to run in electric-only mode better.

The 2004 Prius, though, seems to have corrected many of these deficiencies: better gas mileage, better styling, faster off the line, etc. It’s a real second-generation hybrid. But, unfortunately, I’m in the market for a used car, not new, and can’t really afford a $400/month car payment over five years right now 🙂

Unfortunately, in trying to haggle with a local dealership over the price of a similar Insight, knowing what it’s going for at wholesale volume auction ($5,000-$7,000), I offered $8,000 to counter their sticker price of $14,450. I was thrown out of the joint rather rudely — a topic for another blog, I think. I thought haggling was the art of negotiating, not the art of “the dealer sets the price and refuses to budge”. Eh, well. If I were to do it again, I would probably just pick the price I were willing to pay, rather than doing math in my head to figure out if we both give-and-take equally where we’ll end up.

Anyway, the one I’m getting is in even better condition than the one at the local dealership (which was Las Vegas-owned, 29,000 miles, a little over 2 years old). This one for which I have a cashier’s check in my hot little hand, only had a single owner, in Washington State. In case you’re unfamiliar with the Insight, as a hybrid electric/gasoline vehicle, it uses a battery pack to store power generated by the gas motor for the electric motor to use to assist when heavy acceleration is necessary. Unfortunately, Nickel Metal Hydride batteries rapidly deteriorate in temperatures higher than 140 degrees Farenheit. If you’re in a southern region, like Nevada, Texas, or Florida, it’s easy to reach 170+ on the inside of a vehicle, which dramatically shortens battery life.

So it’s been kept in a cool climate, and the lifetime miles-per-gallon on it reads 56.1 MPG. That means it was driven VERY carefully by the previous owner! It’s 51 city / 57 highway rated by the EPA, and on the CVT model, the lack of “lean burn” which you can achieve on the manual stops it from getting the absolutely stratospheric mileage some Insight owners achieve. I figure I’ll be really happy with over 600 miles per 11-gallon tank of gas, though.

I’m thinking I may be willing to sacrifice some MPG for better traction in the snowy winter about to set upon us. Snow tires are pretty expensive, and will destroy my miles-per-gallon, but safety is more important than economy in my humble opinion. At least I’m consoled in the knowledge that no matter what sort of car I’m driving, they’ll be similarly impacted at the gas pump by the addition of snow tires.

If any of you loyal readers ever get out near Tooele, UT, give me a holler and I’ll give you a ride. It’s a neat little car, and Sunday through Monday I get to come to know it intimately on a 750-mile drive back home from Spokane. Insights are low-production (only 4,000 per year in the U.S.), they look really unique, and they are a lot of fun to drive. Glad I found one so cheap, and had such a positive experience with the dealer over long distance.

For those interested, click here for the pictures of it on the lot up at Soupy’s Auto Sales in Post Falls, Idaho (a bedroom community for Spokane).

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/031219/1071831840_1.html

Apparently, Matt is not the only person who feels .ppt is a terrible presentation package.

I’ve never had reason to gripe, but that’s only because my background in business management is about crunching complicated concepts and arguments into concise points. Everyone always tells us, “Make it simple for them to understand…Pretend that we’re five years old.”

If you’re five years old, what are you doing in a VP’s chair?

Excited to see what Apple has put on the market.

Sam

Check out this Department of Defense Requisition list for the twelve days of Christmas…

This morning I’m heading in for a follow-up interview. It’s for a contracting position through Smith Johnson with emWare, a seven-year “startup” that does software for embedded microcontrollers in devices such as vending machines.

The job’s a six-month contract. I don’t know whether it will go past that or not. Their lead admin is taking a several-month leave, and they need someone with Solaris and Linux skills, along with a little Java, Perl, and Bash, as well as systems automation experience. Enter… me! I seem to be a good fit, and as far as I know, I’m the only one being subject to a second interview. I hope all goes well.

I received a somewhat excited call from Bryan, the recruiter/contract lead for this position. He asked me to be “calm” for the interview, and to try to “tone down” my personality a bit. Apparently, one of my interviewers thought I was a little high-strung.

Me? High-strung? Combatative? NEVER, I have no idea what they are smoking thinking that 😉

Yeah, I am a little high-strung, all the time. If I’d gone for thirty years without figuring this out, I’d be in some serious denial. I consider it a positive attribute — let’s hope the interviewers feel the same. I told the recruiter “look, I’m not going to create a fake personality just for the interview when they’ll need to work with the real me for the next six months”. He agreed, but still asked me to work on being “calm and approachable” for this interview.

Where’s a Valium when you need one?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

My eight-year-old blonde-haired daughter stared up at me from the couch, a sullen look in her eyes, and a glower underneath her growing blonde eyebrows. Her dripping-wet hair from her shower was slowly soaking the shoulders of her nightdress, her chubby cheeks flushed pink in anger.

“But we didn’t even get to finish family night!” she shouted at me, false tears growing in the corner of her eyes.

“Done or not, it’s time for bed for you. You’ve delayed long enough, and now have two choices: you may get to bed on your own power, or under my power,” I replied. I’ve used that phrase enough times now that she’s familiar with it: it means that if she doesn’t choose to move as asked, she will be carried by me to where I’ve asked her to go. It’s a “Love and Logic” thing: present your children with two choices, and allow them to choose the least objectionable. We know that it’s manipulation, and the logical part of me screams ‘false dichotomy! false dichotomy!’, but it makes things proceed so much more smoothly, and helps maintain at least some pretense at discipline in our house.

She voiced a small, closed-mouthed scream, balled her hands up in fists, and glared at me. Her right foot inched forward. Her left foot inched forward. This was too slow. I’ve learned that, in dealing with my children, resistance, or slowness in performing that which is required, is the same as defiance. They simply try to push the limit as far as it will go. I’m no disciplinarian, but there are certain daily routines where I’ll provide the motivation if they fail to. I choose to see in black and white: she was not yet in her room, so she had obviously chosen to have me propel her there.

I set down my laptop, lowered the recliner footrest, and stood up. I generally do not spank my children (except in cases of violation of certain critical instructions that may be life-saving, such as come, go, sit, no, and stay, or if they lie to me), so rather than cower in fear at some sort of retribution, she began to fight back with words. “I’m going, Dad, I’m going!” she said, as she picked up her pace slightly.

“Not fast enough, and in my book, that means you’re disobeying. It’s no problem, really” I said as I bent down, grabbed her around the knees, and hoisted her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, “you’re quite light”.

Hmm, saying she’s light was a lie. She’s 89 pounds now. She’s built like much of the rest of the family: pudgy, but solid rather than flabby. I grunted slightly with the effort. Who spanks me now when I tell a lie like that one, I wondered.

“No! No! I was going, I was going!” she squealed. But she didn’t sound sad, upset, or mad enough. I think she was actually enjoying being carried upstairs at some level. I realized it had been a very, very long time since I’d carried her upstairs.

Just then, I felt a spank on my rearend.

I pondered for the briefest of moments — should I respond with anger, humor, or not at all? Humor comes much more naturally to me than anger. “Come on, you can do better than that!” I reassured her. “That spank didn’t hurt at all! I know you’re mad at me, so hit me like you mean it.”

I felt another smack, this one harder.

“That’s more like it. Now I know you’re angry; that one even stung a little.”

Smack. I chuckled.

Smack. I laughed harder at her efforts.

SmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmack… a veritable flurry of open-palmed hits landed on my backside. I was surprised at the strength of the little girl over my shoulder — I wouldn’t think she’d have the leverage to deliver such stinging impacts. The flailing ceased as I leaned over and set her down.

“Well, at least you let me have it for carrying you upstairs in such an undignified manner,” I said, as I winked at her and chuckled again. “Those were some pretty hard smacks!”

“I didn’t!” she responded, with half a grin fighting with the mad expression she was trying to muster.

“I did!” a little voice sprang up from behind my trousers. I turned, and there stood little Zachariah, holding up both palms bright red from the blows, a grin crooking the corner of his mouth, eyebrows raised high in self-satisfaction.

I always liked to ask the hypothetical question: If lightning strikes you, but you live, are you lucky or unlucky.

It was always a cute/annoying thing to ask, and I never really gave it much thought beyond the idea that it would make me seem smart and deep.. and somehow knowing that it did neither.

Finally this week, I got asked the question myself, in a manner of speaking. My house was burglarized on thursday, and the guys trashed my bedroom, ripped through my drawers, overturned my mattress, and collected most of my electronic equipment in the living room to take with them, when an astute neighbor noticed and called the police.

In the end.. the perps are in Jail, I have all my stuff back, my wife, my cat, and I are all fine.. and its almost like it never happened.. if you minus the lost sleep, the violation, the day spent refortifying my home security, and the muddy footprints… but really.. we lost nothing tangible.

SO now, I find myself trapped in a world with two species.. the ones who ask me “how I’m doing” and the ones who tell me “You’re lucky”.. and neither seems appropriate. I’m fine, but not really.. its very strange…

So, now before I go to sleep, after the third time I check the locks, I ponder whether I am luck or unlucky, and pray lightning doesn’t strike again.

Here it is: final proof that using Powerpoint turns you stupid.

I’m a long-term anti-fan of “presentation software” — I’ve often thought that, while it’s a decent organizational tool for helping one structure a presentation, I nearly always need to present more information than can possibly be present on the slides.

For a reasonable technical presentation, a tool like Powerpoint can be useful to highlight the most important data from the technical writeup, but nothing can substitute for the actual data, information-dense charts, and good technical explanation. Not even “gee whiz” stuff like embedding video into the presentation can improve it enough to be an adequate substitute for presenting information in a well-documented, scholarly, written fashion when need requires.

Slides are useful to present dumbed-down information, but when it comes to any complex topic, I’ll take the manual, please.

Then again, they are great when you really don’t have much to work with anyway, but you want to look like you do. Like sales presentations.