If I didn’t have my car now, we’d probably get one of these Honda CR-V’s (but in Black!!!). The other contenders would be the Hyundai Santa Fe and Tucson, Mazda CX-7, Audi A3, Subaru Impreza hatchback (also in Black! or something other than Blue!!). The Subaru would be the top choice. From Consumer Reports, the top 4 automakers are Honda, Toyota, Subaru, and BMW.
[First off, Mitchell Baker’s blog is a must read if you’re serious about being in the Web industry. If you don’t know of her, what’s wrong with you. She doesn’t blog often but when she does it’s important and her more personal posts (as much as a CEO can get personal) are pretty funny.]
Mitchell wrote about her experience with traffic school, and I had a good laugh at that (not that I was surprised, it was just funny). Anyway payback sucks in terms of schadenfreude and I got my first ever speeding ticket in April on my way to San Diego. I’ve gotten a bunch of tickets lately, a no U-Turn ticket in Alameda (on Park Street), and a couple of parking tickets. And I’m like what the heck is going on!
Anyway, I used http://www.gototrafficschool.com/. It took me a little over an hour to complete the course and test which was pleasant. It was a good refresher but I don’t remember anything (thank goodness for tabbed browsing and the nifty find feature).
What differed with my experience from Mitchell is that verification of who I am was done online (otherwise a notary or some other method is required). I did my verification through Experian the credit history people. I gave them information about my accounts that really only I should know and they gave a time limit for me to answer them. They asked about accounts I’ve held and also how much my mortgage was and a few other challenge questions. [I’m wondering if someone could just buy my credit history and do the same thing.]
Now, there’s got to be a better way to verify identity than me having to pay Experian a $15 convenience fee. I need to read about DSS some more which I guess is standardized? And I don’t know about personal certificates either. People just won’t get how that works.
This is what my drive to Arizona looked like a couple weeks ago. I’m in the Blue X3. (I need to help reset the marketing around BMW X3 so that soccer moms stay away from this car dammit)
“Do not touch me or even look at me. I am too expensive for you.”
Thus sayeth the Ferrari 250 GTO that I saw Saturday morning at a car classic. Apparently this Ferrrari 250 GTO:
And, folks who own these cars actually drive them around the track and race ‘em w/ no insurance. Damn, it must be good to be rich.
There were a lot of cool cars at Infineon Raceway last weekend for the Classic Sports Racing Group. Saw a birdcage Maserati (above), a Shelby Cobra, a forumla one car driven by Andretti, and several cool Lotus cars — even got to ride in one around the track, that was freaking fun!
The classic race car hobby is a little pricey. It’s fun hanging around people with that kind of money though. It would be cool to take racing school. Skip Barber is supposed to be pretty good, a three day intensive course.
Let’s just say I get to ride in this thing once in a while and maybe get to drive it to Mountain View especially since it gets 24/32 MPG. It’s got Navigation, the Luxury Package (whatever that means), but I have to say my favorite feature is the keyless entry. You just walk up to the car, open the door handle, and go right in. Press the button, and the engine starts. No messing around with a key.
The handling isn’t as good as a BMW, it’s a little soft on turns. The sports shift is cool and the paddle shifters aren’t bad either. It’s going to take a little getting used to, I’m old school and love manual cars. But, this thing is fast, fast, and smooth. On the practical side, this car will be around for like 20 years and it’s pretty darn safe.
Tough life right? Never expected I’d take part ownership in a red sports car/rice rocket. I’m still more the dark blue Jeep wrangler, khaki soft top, off-road type, while wearing Keen sandals, khaki shorts, and some blue or black generic polo shirt. I have no idea what to wear in this car. I need to bust out the Armani suits I guess.
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A few more things:
I’ve seen a couple of 2007 Saturn Sky convertibles on the road and parked and I’ve done a double take each time. I’ll bet the Saturn Sky is the “it” car for 2007, replacing the VW bug of a few years ago and the Mini Cooper of late. It’s like the 1989 Mazda Miata and maybe it’ll do the same for the Saturn brand that it did for the zoom, zoom Mazda brand.
The Saturn Sky photo gallery is pretty neat too. They’ve done a great job with it.
Not sure if I like the 2008 Mercedes C Class, it may grow on me, I don’t know. They still have a stupid foot brake for their manuals. The design seems kinda mish-mashed, BMW 3 + Acura TL + their CL. The interior is kinda whacky too, copied some things from BMW’s interior and kept some of their old weird dial interior. I don’t know what’s going on with Mercedes. It’s still a Mercedes though — safe, fast, good engineering (w/ suspect reliability).
Photos and more photos
the 2007 C Class for comparison
