Monday, October 27, 2008

Chevy Colorado - Test drive

So today I met Angie for lunch and on the way home stopped at the local Chevy dealership and took an '07 Chevy Colorado for a ride. Its a pretty nice truck, Z71 offroad package, 245hp I5, auto trans, spray on bedliner, rack behind the cab to protect the window, blue...
Rides nice, the seats are not overly padded but comfortable, plenty of power although its high up in the rpm range. 245hp is more than my Dakota that has a v8 although the 318 has more torque and makes power down low.
They want $19k which is a crazy starting price. Blue Book is more like $18k and a little research shows comparable trucks for more like $16k. This one has been on the lot for at least 2 months so I'm reasonably sure I've got negotiating power. I've never had any luck negotiating for anything but I resolve not to pay the asking price on the next vehicle I buy.

Anyway I've tried to find less biased reviews on these trucks for awhile and got nowhere. Today it occured to me to try a forum and right off I found coloradofans.com. The tech section shows the facts right off, stay AWAY from the early years. '04 was the first year and seems to be a disaster with fewer complaints from each year after that. Few complaints I could find on '07s but I'm not sure if that might just mean there aren't all that many...

I've got to talk it over with Angie as I'm reasonably sure we don't have $320 a month to spend on a new truck no matter how much I like it. There are a couple cheaper trucks around that I need to get time to try out...

Anyway my quick review is that the Colorado seems like an okay inexpensive truck. If you're not expecting super high quality. The interior is cheap plastic, I already spotted one broken clippy in the '07, fortunately its a clippy you probably don't need anyway...

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The economy

Its not a new great depression folks, its not a good depression, not even an okay depression... Recession is here, long live the recession. We NEED this recession. "Yeah right" you say "I need a recession like I need a hole in the head". Well I can't see why you need a hole in the head but you do need this recession.


We're in this trouble because the idiots in finance believed their own press. They've gotten too big for their britches and need to be taken down a peg, they need to lose some money and some of them need to learn how to do legitimate work. Unfortunately we've all become part of the "financial system" as its never been easier to own stock in companies. I own stock in a couple companies directly and more through my 401k fund. I know I'm losing money as I write this but I'm actually glad.

Companies will go out of business in this environment and thats good. The companies that die will be the weak and sick. This is the natural order like the herds of animals in winter the weak and sick die, the strong survive and become stronger. Once the recession works itself out my investments will come back better than they were before.

Or rather they will if our government doesn't screw it out. With the 700B bailout they are essentially rewarding the idiots who got us into this trouble. They say companies are 'too big to fail' but what they really mean is "I have too much invested in that company to let it fail, I need to bail me out". Make no mistakes, the jackasses in Washington are writing money for themselves and their cronies...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Camp

Next week is our the second of our twice yearly trips to camp in Maine. Its a camp, not a cottage you pilate. Cottages are things useless rich simps have a the seaside. They go there to complain about it being too "rustic" because there isn't cable tv or the cable doesn't have enough channels and they might miss out on finding out who Paris' new BFF is...
Its a camp, its 16'x24', all one room. Heat comes from a woodstove light is from propane lamps. When its real cold you huddle down in your sleeping bag and pretend you're dead hoping somebody else will get up and stoke the fire...
We don't have any real plans for this trip, usually we'll be planting trees or have some major improvement project but this year is pretty much open. I'm going to take this time to work on Dad's swamp buggy. Dad built the swamp buggy in the '60s, used it for awhile but had trouble with the exhaust. This was back in the day before just about any shop could custom bend you an exhaust pipe. So it sat in the barn for years. When Uncle Reg moved he took it with him and so its sat out for ~20 years now. The engine is stuck but considering it was covered I'm fairly confident we'll get it going again without too much trouble... Good fun.