What is it exactly that makes some of you guys get such hives about cars?

Let's assume they ran off electricity, or maglev, or anything appropriately environmentally sensitive. We could, in fact, do this right now if we really wanted to.

And car parts do get recycled through junkyard part sales, or the re-melting and re-extraction of the metals in the car bodies.

Assuming all that, I get the definite feeling some people in here would still get hives about cars. My question is: Why?

Is it the atomization of society you're worried about? Other factors drive this as well; for example, the increasing emphasis on personal consumption of ALL kinds to replace interpersonal interactions, or the relentless pressure on wages and employment that leaves little time for proper social occasions, et cetera.

Or is it just... the car, period?

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

for me it is a little about the reduction of personal interaction - but I'm not sure that is valid, because if you look at Manhattan (a place where very few people actually drive except to go to Buffalo) there isn't alot of talking going on during the Subway ride, or in the elevator, or on the sidewalk. You know? I just read an article in a recent New Yorker about traffic. I find traffic very interesting - probably, of course, because I'm one of the best drivers around

However, I would like to see more pedestrian walks - it is better for health reasons. I remeber all those Sim City games where 20% of my development was road! (As an aside, I remember reading an argument somewhere about the new Sim City game having an "auto-road builder" and how this was an inherent political statement and was teaching kids about the inevitability of roads). I think it *would* help build tigher communities. I think suburbs are probably going to happen in some sense, but instead of mini-malls, I'd like to see parks, pedestrian walks/centres, combined with commerce and other facilities *and* a reduction of road space.

Properly designed urbanism would make frequent, efficient public transport feasable and enable people to walk and cycle. An important aspect of good public transport is indeed adapting it to the climate, so stops LRT and electric buses would be heated and enclosed in cold weather.

I've been a militant for cyclists' rights and "car-reduction" for over 25 years, in Le Monde à bicyclette. The car is a wonderful invention, but not for urban areas. I don't have time to go into this subject in depth now, as I'm interpreting today and have to leave now, I'll return to this subject later on, this evening or tomorrow.

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: lagatta ]

The car doesn't create sprawl by itself. There are other important factors -- cheap land outside cities, for example. But the car -- that's to say, the easy availability of cheap personal transportation -- is a major contributing factor too. Sprawl destroys both urban and rural space, by creating a hideous hybrid.

The damn things just take up too much room. Too many giant garages, parking lots, gas stations, drive-ways, paved roads, junk-yards - all ugly.
They take too much of our money, in buying, leasing, insurance, gas and repair.
They require too much of our time in maintenance, washing, snow-shovelling, idling in traffic, looking for a parking-space.
And they have far too important a place in our emotions and thoughts.
They dictate foreign policy, for heaven's sake!

Now these kids grow up and move to Saskatoon to go to university. Not all the 20000 people can park their cars at the U of S, but do you think you can get them to give up their cars? Nope.

quote:

---

Kids start driving at nine or ten on the farm - which is perfectly legal and sometimes necessary to help work the land. Then they get a car at 15 or 16 of their own, because, well, its too damn far to walk or ride their bike to their friend's house - and the parents are tired of driving them everywhere. This is a land where 16 year olds are putting 200 or 300 kms on their car everyday driving to school and back and then going out to their friends. This is the land where booze-cruising is still a regular Friday night activity.

---

I don't particularly love my car. It takes me from A to B. It works most of the time. I don't really think about it that much as the bank owns the car, the house and probably me.

But university is easy to get to by transit. A 15 minute walk to the Skytrain, *SHOOOOOOOP* and I'm on a bus up to uni. Badaboom.

Just for fun, though, I took a car once. Under the most optimal conditions I can get to uni in 45 minutes, about. In a car, I can, under optimal conditions, be there in 20 minutes.

Lots of students would love to live next to the University, but there are only so many houses there - and because of the demand the prices go up.

I think more people would like to live downtown if it was more liveable.

quote:

---

Well, take my own situation. I use a car to get to work most times because bus service out there, frankly, sucks. By Vancouver standards, anyway ...

---

... and when bus service sucks by Vancouver standards, it really sucks!

Edited to add: good Segway (tm), wei-chi. The only realy way to reduce car use is to increase urban density.

As to your university travel-time calculation, Doc, when I lived in Vancouver those figures applied almost exactly to my daily work commute to Richmond -- i.e., about 40 minutes each way by transit, or 20 minutes by car, on those days when I was using a work vehicle for some reason.

So, imagining I was using a car only for commuting, I'd have "saved" around 40 minutes a day (assuming optimal conditions, indeed -- let's say 30 minutes on the average), or, say, 3 hours a week. Multiplied by 50 work weeks a year, say, that'd be 150 hours a year.

Now by conservative estimate, I'd judge operating a car in Vancouver would cost me at least $6000 per year, not including purchase price. So those 150 "saved" hours would have cost me around $40 per.

I put quotes around "saved" because I never regarded, and still don't regard, time spent on transit as lost time. I can do a considerable amount of reading while riding, or if I don't feel like reading, can listen to music much more attentively than if I'm driving.

Of course, if I'd had a car, I'd also have used it for other purposes, so that $40/hour figure would have been less. But the point stands: the economics just didn't, and don't, make sense to me.

Now if I lived in the country, or had kids, or both, I'd doubtless need a car, or anyway would find life difficult without it.

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

quote:

---

Everybody I talk to is amazed that BC Transit got 1996 System of the Year, you know.

---

Yep, way I heard it this was based entirely on fiscal calculations, and had nothing to with expressions of rider (dis)satisfaction.

quote:

---

I put quotes around "saved" because I never regarded, and still don't regard, time spent on transit as lost time. I can do a considerable amount of reading while riding, or if I don't feel like reading, can listen to music much more attentively than if I'm driving.

---

Precisely why I like Transit.

However I was still amazed that I managed to cut the commute time in half just by taking a car.

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

quote:

---

Germany is not an oil-producing nation, and the typical German consumes less than half the overall energy and oil of the typical American. The German government offers incentives to architects and companies to design and build energy-efficient or even energy-producing (as in active or passive solar, etc.) buildings, and public transportation (particularly the train system) is cheap, efficient, and very well maintained.

England is an oil-producing nation, and the oil lobby in the UK, like in the USA, is powerful. In England using french-fry oil to power your car is considered unpatriotic, and can even land you in court.

---

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: vaudree ]

Without having seen any research on it, though, I'd be very surprised if burning canola or other vegetable oils was a whole lot cleaner. Maybe somewhat, but it'll still produce nasties of various kinds. Just the fact that the exhaust smells like french fries shows you don't have complete combustion.

But it won't contribute, at all, to global climate change. The big thing about burning fossil fuels is, it brings back into the carbon cycle carbon which has been sequestered deep underground for tens or hundreds of millions of years. And it does it very rapidly -- a matter of two hundred years or so, since we started burning coal in large quantities; something over a hundred for oil, and less than that for gas. The effects... well, the effects are beginning to make themselves apparent.

I love driving. I find it relaxing. I find it fun. I find it a great place to talk to myself and answer myself and sing and just unwind.

quote:

---

I already framed the parameters of the discussion by saying "let's assume the cars we drive run off an environmentally sensitive technology".

---

But at the risk of being rude, Doc, I think it's a somewhat over-optimistic premise. There will always be an environmental down-side to the private car, or rather to private cars in large numbers. Admittedly, it might be made considerably less than now.

But to take one example: suppose hydrogen-based fuel cell-powered cars become economical. Great. Except that we'd then have to generate large amounts of hydrogen. Which would mean generating large amounts of electricity. Which would mean... well, with current technology, more hydroelectric plants, more thermal generation (coal-, oil-, or gas-burning), and/or more nuclear plants.

Yes, we should expand wind and solar electric generation. But those have ecological implications, too.

My feeling is, the search for "environmentally sensitive" technologies take us only part of the way. And the environmental economics (to coin a phrase) are, I suspect, quite perverse. That is: the more "environmentally sensitive" a technology is perceived to be -- and, of course, the cheaper it is -- the more it will be used, and the greater the cumulative environmental impact, smaller though such impact might be in individual cases.

i love the TTC and the little adventures i have on the bus and on the subway. time to read, write, or practise observing people without their noticing. walking is good. i have long legs and am a speedy walker.

The problem is that heating the water won't let you cheat the overpotential very much, (which is why I said it was negligible on the other thread) and I have yet to hear of any good catalysts besides palladium for minimizing the overpotential.

I doubt that if I snapped my fingers and all of a sudden every car in Canada was run off a fuel cell that so many new cars would be bought as to negate the effect of the shift away from the gasoline engine.

quote:

---

'lance: Well, the assumption in the case of British Columbia is that we have sufficient hydro capacity to do the electrolysis of water in large quantities.
The problem is that heating the water won't let you cheat the overpotential very much, (which is why I said it was negligible on the other thread) and I have yet to hear of any good catalysts besides palladium for minimizing the overpotential.

---

I have no idea what overpotential is, or why palladium comes into it, and to be honest I'm not much interested, but I think we're talking two different languages -- technical vs. economic/social.

All technologies have undesirable consequences, which can maybe be reduced but can't be eliminated; and the individualism the private car both requires and sustains makes it especially difficult to minimize those consequences.

Re the techical vs economic/social - they actually do intersect.

The mate and I are going to quit cold turkey.

She is more committed than I. (Will my testosterone level plunge irrevocably if I don't have a car?)

(I'm going to look into a car co-op, just to be on the safe side.)

Will I need Birkenstocks? What if I'm allergic to granola?!!!

We are doing it for many reasons.
It feels like a big "F*** You" to Ralphie, Georgie , their ilk and everything they stand for.

That Big Box Store Urban Sprawl Blues ruined my childhood haunts and is taking over my current home. Cars are responsible for gutting our neighbourhoods, having determined urban/suburban development since the 1950's.

Impulse shopping is a co-addiction, yech.

Every penny I withold from those vultures in insurance is a small victory for all that is good and decent.

Fuck you, Shell, Exxon and Esso!

There's nothing I need in Iraq.

You nailed the essence of the issue so beautifully that it needs to be shared as wide as possible.

quote:

---

I've been a militant for cyclists' rights and "car-reduction" for over 25 years, in Le Monde à bicyclette. The car is a wonderful invention, but not for urban areas.

---

I think it depends on the size of the urban area, too. Large centres, like Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and the like often have at least adequate public transport.

Just to add to wei-chi's point:

quote:

---

And really, have you waited for a bus in Saskatoon in February? You freeze...but you're more concerned that the bus actually stops! I've seen too many full buses fly right past my cold ass.

---

Having lived these many years in Saskatchewan, I have quite literally gotten frostbite waiting for a bus. It doesn't go down to -40 in TO, Montreal, Van, etc... It does, here in Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Edmonton. And taking Saskatchewan cities as a particular example, there isn't enough ridership to make a reasonably accessible and efficient public transit service economically viable. Buses have long intervals, and sometimes you have to walk a long way to get to a route. In a city where you can drive to anywhere in 15 minutes or less, the bus will take at least a half hour, often more.

There are some places I can walk to faster than taking the damned bus. If I'm not traveling with the wee ones, that is. And I'm sure as hell not making them wait outside for a bus at -20 or colder.

Numbers aside, it was the cost (of gas, of insurance, of maintainence) that made me give up my car. Plus I was a student living 5 blocks from school. What the hell would I need a car for? Now I work 10 blocks from home. Still don't need it.

Even if cars were powered by some environmentally friendly source, there's still the matter of the costs: of building and maintaining roads, of sprawl, of health (think of how many people will simply drive a few blocks to get groceries?) and so one.

Not everything was good about pre-car planning, for example old Québec and the city where I lived in Italy are not very friendly for disabled folks. A lot of measures have been taken in both cases to correct this situation, but the retro-fit isn't easy.

Good public transport in cold prairie cities certainly requires heated, enclosed stops for passengers! And good transport everywhere must make provision for parents with small children, the elderly and the majority of disabled people who don't require special assistance - and enable people to carry bulky packages - outside rush hours, of course!

Such good planning may never eliminate cars, whether for emergency purposes, heavy deliveries, etc, but it could well reduce a family's car use to the point where private car ownership could be replaced by car-sharing schemes.

For me, yeah, I own a car and drive it about 3 times a week.

I bought it out of necessity, as Atlanta, outside of the immediate downtown (where only 10-15% of the Atlanta population lives) has abyssmal public transit. Only in the past 2 years did this area even get bus service at all, and this area of town constitutes about 700k people! And it's just one route really, from the parking lot they pick up in to a combo bus/subway system downtown to either go to work or go to the airport, neither of which help me. I couldn't just say "Screw the car, I'm riding the bus to the grocery store". Atlanta is also super-duper spread out, as you may at times to make purchases or get a job have to drive 30-40 miles plus EACH WAY, and that barely gets you to the other side of town.

Just an example, to buy something that was out of stock at the closest store, I had to drive 68 miles roundtrip from here on the north side of town to barely the south side of town, and still I was nowhere near outside the "metro" area. Atlanta is famous for being the most car-crazy, gas consuming, furthest-driving city in the world, I really don't like it much can you tell Combine it with a severe lack of planning for growth, and you have serious problems.

I don't like driving cars. If a bus existed that I could use, I'd use it. I used to live in Las Vegas and they have a fabulous bus system, and consequently little traffic along with well-planned roads (probably for tourism reasons though). I don't like destroying the environment and contributing to the USA's foreign policy oilmongering.

On car politics, all the ultra-right wing editorialists and radio personalities uphold the automobile as the "defiant symbol of capitalist liberty" because "the USA, as a society, encourages and supports people going where they want, why they want, and when they want. No restrictions." And from that, they press the point that only anti-freedom Hitler/Stalin/Mussolini/Evil-incarnates oppose the car. And not because of urban sprawl or enviornmentalism, those are just covers. It's really about "anti-freedom" advocates pushing for more control over people, to control where you go why you go and how you go. Not only is public transport a "waste" and a "crime facilitator", it's positively revolting to a decent size of people, it seems.

Getting long (I'll attempt more brevity in the future, sorry! ) but for example at least 1 time a month someone writes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how MARTA (what the bus/subway system is called) should cease operations, and directly give used cars to people who ride it regurally, because it would contribute to lower taxes, less traffic (!, yes, its always mentioned) , more "freedom" , and "economic stimulus". The automobile is yes, a great invention, but a curse as well that in my mind where feasable, should be fazed out.

quote:

---

By the way, it can get VERY cold in Montreal. Minus 40 is rare, but I've often seen -30, and it is very damp on our island!

---

Hah! If you can still talk about damp, you don't know REAL deep cold! I'm talking about the kind of cold that is so cold it freezes your breath before it leaves your mouth, so damn cold it sucks the moisture right out of your skin. You don't get cold out there like we get cold. Dry cold my eye, when it gets cold enough, it CAN'T be a damp cold anymore. I've been to Montreal, I've got family that lives in Montreal, originally from Saskatchewan -- trust me, you just don't know whereof you speak on this one.

Uff da, these easterners!

quote:

---

Good public transport in cold prairie cities certainly requires heated, enclosed stops for passengers!

---

The thing is, if we can't afford frequent and accessible runs, we can't afford heated bus shelters. Hell, we don't have shelters at all for most stops! Having heated bus shelters could prove a little cost-prohibitive for us.

I will agree that bad urban planning is partly to blame, and I'd like to see people in more neighborhoods where walking and cycling is easier. But there are limitations, and I'm just pointing out that although those limitations may not exist in your stomping grounds, they are serious considerations in others.

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

I have lived in Lac Saint-Jean where is often goes down to -40, and indeed is much drier than Montreal. My only experience with the prairies in the winter is an interpreting gig in Edmonton where I didn't once set foot outside. I don't like winter period.

quote:

---

Vancouver...adequate public transport...

---

Dammit Zoot, I spill enough coffee on my keyboard already, without spitting it out when I see those words in the same sentence!

Still, I see your point, when compared to Saskatoon. Amend it to "barely adequate, on a good day, with the right phase of the moon and no Rs in the month..." er, you get the idea, and I might go for it...

quote:

---

You must remember that most eastern cities grew in the pre-automobile era, thus making densification quite necessary. After all, how far do you trek in the mud, where do you park your mule, etc. Now western cities experienced most of their growth in the automobile era, the thinking being that it doesn't matter how far you are from Zeller's, you can always drive there conveniently.

---

I don't know... in the cores of, say, Calgary and Edmonton, there's sufficient density to support LRTs and other accoutrements of decent transit. Meanwhile, a city like Toronto experienced significant growth in the automobile era, from the 1950s on. I don't know about population, but I suspect most of the area added to Metro Toronto and environs was added in a sprawling, suburban, car-dependent fashion.

quote:

---

Still, I see your point, when compared to Saskatoon. Amend it to "barely adequate, on a good day, with the right phase of the moon and no Rs in the month..." er, you get the idea, and I might go for it...

---

Oh, come now, 'lance, Vancouver's transit isn't so bad. I've used it me own self on visits. Certainly not optimal, I'll admit, but much better than Regina's.

I think Calgary and Edmonton have enough population base for a good transit system, certainly, although Calgary has an awful lot of sprawl, and it's expensive to live more centrally. However, Regina and Saskatoon are only in the neighborhood of 200,000 people and the infrastructure costs are a lot. That and land and detached houses are relatively cheap here.

For heaven's sakes, Vancouver's a major urban center with a highly mobile population and the transit system SHUTS DOWN between 1 am and 6 am. Like, come on. A city like this needs 24-hour-a-day transit with lots of busses and tons of light rail.

quote:

---

Oh, come now, 'lance, Vancouver's transit isn't so bad. I've used it me own self on visits. Certainly not optimal, I'll admit, but much better than Regina's.

---

Well, I daresay. I was exaggerating a bit for comic effect, there. But there's no doubt the service got worse after the regional district took it over from the province. They were such muggins (mugginses?), they did it without an ironclad guarantee of a stable funding mechanism; and in general it became apparent they hadn't much clue as to what they were doing.

The province, of course, bears some responsibility. It was Glen Clark's government that locked in that absurd, and ruinously expensive, SkyTrain extension.

Edited to add:

I've forgotten what the fares are, now. $1.75 for one-zone, $2.25 for two-zone, $3.00 for three? Vancouver babblers, am I out to lunch?

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

quote:

---

Good public transport in cold prairie cities certainly requires heated, enclosed stops for passengers!

---

quote:

---

And good transport everywhere must make provision for parents with small children, the elderly and the majority of disabled people who don't require special assistance - and enable people to carry bulky packages - outside rush hours, of course!

---

Yes, to the first part. But a lot of people (female ones, mostly) have to do their shopping and pick up their babies from daycare, on their way home from work - in rush-hour. So there need to be a lot more buses running at that time. Running would be the correct word, if not for all those damn cars with one person in each. It's rather a difficult chicken-egg situation for the planners.

quote:

---

Such good planning may never eliminate cars, whether for emergency purposes, heavy deliveries, etc, but it could well reduce a family's car use to the point where private car ownership could be replaced by car-sharing schemes.

---

This makes sense, right? This way, more people can live around the subway, and then not need to rely on the automobile, which despoils the environment like a bulldozer in a woodlot.

quote:

---

I've forgotten what the fares are, now. $1.75 for one-zone, $2.25 for two-zone, $3.00 for three? Vancouver babblers, am I out to lunch?

---

It's even worse now.

$2.00 one zone, $3.00 two zones, $4.00 three zones.

feerit, brevity is not a virtue when you've got something to say. I enjoyed your post. For a tropical creature, you can sure express yourself . I agree that this "At least it's a DRY cold" is one of those statements that only Easterners make. Wait for a bus at Osborne and Broadway streets in Winnipeg in late January at 6 AM when it's friggin' -38c with 60 km/h winds.... I'll give you dry cold...[mutters obscenities]....
but, as a daily bus rider in the 'Peg for 9+ years, I can't say enough good about the bus system there, though my frost-bitten ass was passed from time to time by a bus full of warm souls on the way to MY destination

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

quote:

---

And really, have you waited for a bus in Saskatoon in February? You freeze...but you're more concerned that the bus actually stops! I've seen too many full buses fly right past my cold ass.

---

quote:

---

I can't say enough good about the bus system there, though my frost-bitten ass was passed from time to time by a bus full of warm souls on the way to MY destination

---

In high school, at one point I gave up taking the bus and walked everywhere. Two miles to school, two miles home -- except on the day I had music lessons, for which I did another mile and a half and back again.

I figured you couldn't freeze if you kept moving.

quote:

---

I agree that this "At least it's a DRY cold" is one of those statements that only Easterners make. Wait for a bus at Osborne and Broadway streets in Winnipeg in late January at 6 AM when it's friggin' -38c with 60 km/h winds.... I'll give you dry cold...[mutters obscenities]....

---

Believe me, having that with 8% humidity IS NOT A GOOD THING. Your lips look like they lost a fight with a tiger, and your ears hurt for hours

And its quite nasty after it being above 100F for half the year <-- yes, those are necessary

The 50mph wind and 110F temperatures are the polar opposite, and feels like your sitting in an oven on BROIL with someone blowing a hairdryer in your face. Why a car with air conditioning is necessary there, and nice air-conditioned regular buses too!

quote:

---

(And found that moccasins with felt packs are the very best winter boots for warmth, bar none!)

---

That's one of the differences between those in the southern U.S. and Canadians. Those in the south read that line; Canadians understand it.

It hasn't dipped below -25ºC for a few winters here. That's not too bad. But around -35ºC and below, the cold takes on a lethal feel.

quote:

---

"Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold, it stabbed like a driven nail."-- Robert Service, "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

---

"If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
'Til sometimes we couldn't see.
'Twasn't much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee."

Know it by heart, since I was about 3.

No contest, you guys get worse heat than we do. Just don't talk to us about "dry" cold being not as bad....

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

quote:

---

Know it by heart, since I was about 3.

---

Last time I started noticing my memory fraying around the edges, I brushed up on "The Cremation of Sam McGee", rememorizing it. Ever notice that Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" has the same ryhme and rythm scheme?

I also memorized "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, and a few tidbits from other poems, like "Horatio at the Gate" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter".

If tested now, I'd stumble on both McGee and the Highwayman, I think.

No, I will not make a crack about dry cold. My northern experience isn't extensive, but niether is it absent.

Most Winters in SW Ontario though are four solid months of inconvenience. A lot of freeze thaw cycles, so there's all the pain in the ass of ice and snow, but not enough to take advantage of winter activities, unless you're willing to drive a bit. Not too far, really. Just a couple of hours north of here, they get "real winters".

On the whole though, I prefer this over a North Bay or Winterpeg winter climate in the winter time.

quote:

---

Ever notice that Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" has the same ryhme and rythm scheme?

---

For that matter, you can sing "Pinball Wizard" to the tune of "Folsom Prison Blues." Works best if you sing the first verse straight, and then in the second, launch into "Ever since I was a young boy..."

quote:

---

If tested now, I'd stumble on both McGee and the Highwayman, I think.

---

I learned "Sam McGee" so young, I think it's embedded in my neurons. My father taught me that, and "The Iceworm Cocktail". He used to get me to recite them at parties. I don't remember, but apparently it was pretty funny and I always got a big round of applause.

Then they wondered why I wanted to be an actor when I grew up...

Returning to the "dry" cold... As much as we bitch about cold here -- and it is smart to remember that the cold here is serious enough to injure or kill -- I actually don't mind the climate. I only hope we get enough snow for cross-country skiing this year, and as a kid, I loved to snowshoe. Would go for miles and miles. Ice fishing, too, another favourite outing my father and I used to have.

And there's something about curling up in front of the fireplace when it's deadly cold...

The net effect is that you get this phenomena where there's a pillar of light above ever street lamp, and it's truly magical.

......as viewed from a personal automobile.....

quote:

---

The net effect is that you get this phenomena where there's a pillar of light above ever street lamp, and it's truly magical.

......as viewed from a personal automobile.....

---

It's better if you're out walking.

First time the blond guy and I went out, there were ice crystals producing that very effect. I knew when he stopped to admire it despite the cold that he was "the one". That and a tendency to pull over to watch the Northern Lights.

I have a great affection for cold phenomena.

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

I drove north out of town to get away from the light pollution, and parked on Medway road. The light was pulsing from the north and running overhead, mostly green.

I've always been the type of guy to come home from work right away, or if not I always called.

Towing to the garage after much swearing at the car was $60.

My worst fear is that the engine's totally seized - and this is somewhat justified because the car likes to eat oil, and while I've been keeping an eye on the oil level, you never know.

I keep a CAA membership. You're not likely to need a boost out your way, but here, it's good to have one available without unexpected expense. Or an unexpected towing charge...

Over the weekend her car broke down seriously. Apparently, there was transmission fluid all over the road, and she couldn't change gears. I was out of town, so I gave her the use of my van for the weekend.