It is called a “turn signal” and should be used when “turning”, which involves moving your car from the lane you are currently in to another lane or perhaps when “turning” onto another road.
This weekend, Louisa and I had a chance to check out some NHRA Drag Racing at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, CO. The weather was pretty good – it was very sunny but didn’t rain – and the crowds were definite race fans. One worker was trying to get a car to the starting lineup, and asked “Do you mind waiting?” To which a guy replied “Wait? For a car? Of course!” Yep, we were definitely in gear-head territory. Which turned out to be a pleasant experience, as the crowd grew in size from super street to top alcohol to top fuel and funny car. The crowd was great, close-packed, boisterous, and willing to stand as the dragsters zipped by in a cloud of dust.
The day started out with the sportsmen’s classes, stock and superstock, top alcohol (where one of the dragsters broke down) and then to the much-anticipated top fuel, where we saw the top fuel dragsters and the funny cars. The dragsters produced the appropriate amount of bass rumbling and exhaust, and the speeds left the crowd feeling pretty good about coming out to see the events. The funny cars were also entertaining, even though they were not as physically commanding as the dragsters.
Things Louisa learned about drag-racing fans:
1. Not all the rules will make sense to you outsiders. That’s fine with us. We like the rules the way they are. (In reference to the rules where some classes need to go as close to but not faster than a certain posted time.)
2. There is no dress code. Clothes of any style are acceptable for any age.
3. Forget any ideas you had about personal space. We make Italians seem up-tight.
4. We love cars. We like beer, and we like men / women, but we love cars.
5. Tatoos are optional, but preferred.
6. Suntans / sunburns are mandatory.
7. We drive fearlessly, just like our idols. The parking lot is car-land. Forget everything you knew about pedestrian crossing and assigned parking spaces.
Despite the heat, and the resulting sunburns (even though we used good sunscreen), we had a great 6.5 hours at the racetrack. Check out our photos from the race.
Dear Met Life,
I understand all of your agents work on commission. I know that can be stressful and increase the pressure to generate new accounts and maintain existing ones. I get that. What I don’t get is why some of your older agents think it’s a good idea to send letters to people who requested quotes from you two years ago with the quoted information. I understand that you might think the quote is really good (it is, actually, pretty low). But why oh why didn’t it occur to you to rework the cover letter? Instead of saying “here’s the quote you requested” you could just as easily have written something like “thank you for previously requesting a quote from Met Life. We are here to help you find the lowest insurance possible. Please review this quote and call us with any changes. We are excited to offer some of the lowest auto insurance!” That way, people don’t think that someone has stolen their information (the quote has ss#, dob, address, car information, and full claim information) and freak out.
Thank you.
A De-freaking non-customer
Louisa and I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!
I also want to start a rant about replacing a headlight in a Ford Taurus….
I guess they expect you to have the hand size of a 10-year old girl to be able to change the headlights with any ease at all. I mean, my hands aren’t that big and they got pretty scratched up during the replacement. Louisa had a hard time reaching the bulbs as well. I don’t know where they find the engineers to design some of these systems, but you’d think that they could put the light bulbs in an easy to change place. Good thing I’m an IT guy and not an automotive guy… I’d probably go crazy dealing with some of the boneheaded designs that car makers have done over the years. It’s definitely not just Ford, as I’ve done some work replacing parts on GMs too.
If you take one thing from this rant, I guess I would suggest wearing some kind of gloves when doing the bulb replacement. If that is not possible, then just hire a 10 year old girl to do the replacement. It might be easier.