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Saturday, September 30. 2006
... because of the way your eyes burn.
I have on occasion used other woods when smoking bbq. But when it comes right down to it, none of them give the meat that great smokey taste like mesquite.
The draw back of it is that it burns my eyes. I mean I have never been pepper sprayed, but I imagine it is about 10 times worse than getting a face full of mesquite smoke. Oh yeah, and then there is the smelling like mesquite for days on end afterwards. But it is a labor of love, so I'm not bitching just giving my 2 cents.
I would like to think that Amanda from the office read my blog and got the idea of making a casserole for lunch next week. However, I doubt it. She is just that way, she loves to cook for people.
In the spirit of that sharing nature, I offered to smoke some pork shoulder for Monday. Providing the Jaduka group with some hopefully tasty pulled-pork sandwhiches. Gina and I hit CostCo on the way home yesterday. And to my suprise they had some pork shoulder this time. The times we have been shopping before, they have never had it.
So I bought about 15 pounds of pork and a small beef roast. I am going to brine them overnight and smoke them tomorrow. They should be finished by the time I need to head out for Dallas.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
Amanda is going to arrange for some potato salad, coleslaw and buns to eat the pork on.
Who knows maybe I will have to break out into song during the week.
Thursday, September 28. 2006
I just can't seem to shake this feeling of being tired.
I normally try to get to bed around 10 or 11. This was easy when I was sticking to the schedule of no caffeine after the noon hour.
That hasn't been the case lately. With the deadline for the launch of Jaduka coming up, I have been burning the midnight oil the last few days. I crawled into bed close to 2am last night.
I got the blog software installed on our shiny, speedy new web servers that our IT group put together in a miraculously short time.
"Once more into the breach, dear friends..." is how I feel lately.
I will be in Dallas all next week for the launch of Jaduka. So what does Shakespeare have to do with Dallas & Jaduka? Not a whole lot. But I remember back in high school when we were getting close to opening day for the musical or play. We would hunker down, focus on what needed to be completed, got a little more serious about it all. We would start to have night rehearsals. Parents would bring in food (potluck style) for us so that we could eat dinner and get back to learning lines, sewing costumes, constructing sets.
It has been about 14 years since my first round of night rehersals and 10 years since my last. I don't remember everything, but I remember that it was usualy about 2 weeks before the opening night, maybe 3. I remember that the various teams really came together during night rehearsals. Comradery between everyone grew, rivalries more often than not would be cast aside in the interest of the common goal.
So I am looking forward to spending some time with the Jaduka team in Dallas. Not sure if my mom will be able to drop off casserole though, maybe she could overnight one. From what I hear we are going to try play some a running game of Monopoly (or two). I look forward to taking all the monopoly money away from my co-workers.
It should be an interesting week. Our company is fairly distributed between the three corporate offices of NetworkIP. Two graphic artists and myself are down here in Austin. The President, VP of Marketing, Director of Marketing, Director of Sales, and Market Development Manager are all in Dallas. And we have an Account Executive in Longview, TX.
The bulk of the call processing and API development staff for NetworkIP is down here in Austin. The Dallas office is primarily Sales and Marketing. The Longview office is the headquarters and houses the bulk of the staff. Support, Operations, Accounting, IT, and application/web development lives in Longview, TX.
It makes for an interesting triangle setup when you look at it on a map. Dallas is 180 miles from Austin and 120 miles from Longview. Austin is about 260-300 miles, depending upon which way you got to get there, 260 straight shot, 300 if you go to Dallas and hang a right.
Well, I best get back to the grind.
"Once more into the breach, dear friends..."
laterz
Monday, September 25. 2006
Of course, the rumors about the rumors of my demise are also probably grossly exaggerated.
I wanted to get a quick post in as I wrap up lunch here at the office. Mmmmm... frozen fully cooked chicken breast from HEB. Not that bad actually, I need to keep a bag of salad mix at the office too.
Back to the rumors. Having seen the fact that I didn't post the rest of my birthday weekend. I could just imagine the folks that had asked me about my plans and I replied "Not sure, but it involves drinking." might have gotten the idea that I had drunk myself into a stupor, or worse.
My birthday did involve drinking and just maybe one beer too many. I felt a wee bit hungover the next day. Which is odd, since the hangover tends to skip a day. Regardless, the feeling bad on Sunday was because of two things.
1. Cleaning the garage out. Gina put up with my crabby attitude while I did some manual labor. In the end I am glad she got us to finally do that. Because she can finally put her car in the garage. But also, because it brings us one step closer for me to be able to bring my car in the garage too.
2. Michigan State LOST to Notre Dame. I mean come on guys. You had be very excited for the first quarter. It looked like we were going to sweep the Fighting Irish out with the rest of the trash. Nope. I mean once MSU started messing up, I lost the excitement and the beer started to take over, making me sleepy. I passed out and missed the rest of the game. At least MSU did me the favor of keeping it a close game. A shut out on my birthday would just be entirely unbearable. 40-37.
You might be wondering what we did on my birthday. Right?
First, I had fallen asleep on the couch on Friday night. It was about 1:30 in the morning before I passed out watching DS9. So when I woke up around like 2:30, I figured it would be better to just sleep on the couch than wake Gina (and the dogs). This means I woke up on the couch. Which, also means that as usual when sleeping on the couch I woke up early. It used to be a comfortable couch, but it has seen better days, and the remaining days are numbered.
I woke up early (8:30 or so) finished watching the remaining DS9 disc that I had. Afterwards, I went to get the mail. Two reasons there. Gina told me that her parents sent me a package (ie birthday gift) and I had another DS9 disc waiting for me.) That was probably close to 10:30am.
I received a snazzy looking orange tie, a little bit of a retro feel to it. When I wear it I will post a pic. And some dress socks. Now, of course dress socks at first mention sound like a bad gift. But for me they are not. I am not sure what happens to all of the dress socks I buy. But I know that I am always in short supply. Personally I think the dogs are eating them or dragging them into the backyard.
I should mention that my pops got me a very good and again practical gift. A gift certificate for Northwest Airlines. It should pay for a flight home and part of a flight for Gina. This means that we can fly home for x-mas and not break the bank. (Remember, when we fly we have to pay to have someone watch the petting zoo. New pet sitter is going to be around $35/day.)
Back to the festivities. Gina brought in my gifts and asked me. "Do you want them wrapped?". To which I replied "Nah, just a waste of paper. But make sure you wrap the x-mas gifts."
Gina got me a subscription to The Economist. I love that magazine, it appeals to the "Amateur Economist" in me, more on that later.
She also got me a DVD player for my home office. That way I can watch DS9 in there and not hog the whole living room. She also got me a little carrying case for my MP3 player that can also hold my headphones and some other stuff.
We went to Enchiladas y Mas (Enchildas & More) for breakfast. I had potatoes (papas), refried beans (frijoles refritos), egg & chorizo taco (huevos y chorizo taquito) and a barbacoa taco (usually cows head, not sure but it was beef). When we had the barbacoa at Arrandas it was very, very good. The barbacoa at Enchiladas y Mas was not as good. Everything else was great.
We decided that we wanted to go to a movie. I had wanted to see Invincible that came out a week or so ago. The gateway had one at around 12:20. We headed over there. Popcorn is a vice for me, luckily they had burned the popcorn and that burned popcorn smell is just not enticing. Not that I needed popcorn, seeing as we just had a very filling brunch.
Invincible was a GREAT movie. I was never into sports, probably for the same reasons I don't like manual labor. However, movies like Invicible, Any Given Sunday and Mystery Alaska make me wish I had gotten into sports as a kid. My boss has joked around with me joining his hockey team, in the off season. Who knows, who knows. But Invincible made me wish I had played some football in high school.
While, as a former AMC Usher I do not condone the act of theatre hopping. I cannot say that I have never done it. I would have to say that if the theatr was truly looking to prevent this they can. I mean at theatres like the Gateway Regal, they open themselves up to this when they rip tickets at the front door. Rather than down by the two main halls they have.
While, ripping the tickets at the front door does help to ensure that everyone that is in the building has a ticket. It means that your staff isn't conistently in those hallways making sure that no one is coming out and going back in without a ticket to the individual theatres.
At the AMC Elmwood Plaza 8, we ripped tickets at the door. But we only have 8 theatres these guys have around 24. I think there are like 12 in each wing.
Anyway, I just want to say that The Last Kiss was also a good movie. I bought a Soda and some Nerd's rope, again the popcorn didn't smell good enough to buy. The Last Kiss was a movie I wanted to see because of the actors in it, I had no idea what the premise of the movie was.
After, the movies we headed home. We stopped at Cavenders and I bought a new wallet. I will keep the old one as a keepsake, but it was time to retire it. The new one is similar to the old one, but different. Pics will come later.
We then headed over to Fry's. Gina had to return some headphones she bought. I had to pick up an RCA-RF/Coax converter, for my DVD player to connect to the little TV I have in the office. Oh yeah, a monsoon decided to spring up as we were leaving. Gina got DRENCHED. I would have been the one to get wet, but we took her car and well she still won't let me drive it. Even if she was bleeding and on the way to the emergancy room she would probably want to drive.
We picked up a pizza on the way home and rented some DVDs. We had just started eating when her phone rang. It was Anthony, calling to let us know that the MSU - Notre Dame game was on. An event that had completely slipped my mind.
The rest of the story you know.
Laterz
Friday, September 22. 2006
I will need to pull out my birth certificate to find the exact time. But I always seem to remember my date and time of birth as:
September 23rd, 1978 - 12:11am, eastern.
So in about 1 hour I will officially be 28.
No real idea what we are going to do tomorrow. I think a good part of that revolves around the weather.
However, I have a another DS9 DVD on the way. I have taken a break from watching for the moment to watch some SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. So there you go. I am a nerd!
I am going try to finish a post I start a couple of days ago.
Wednesday, September 20. 2006
If you know that almost infamously classic line, you probably are a lover of the movie Office Space.
It has to be one of my all time favorite movies.
Why have I started this post you may ask?
To try to explain to my family, friends and those that ask me questions like "What exactly is your job?" or "How do you make a living?"
My favorite answer and subsequently most common answer "I do stuff."
My official designation at NetworkIP is that of a "Senior Product Manager." Fancy huh? But doesn't exactly state what it is I do, unless of course you go with the smart-ass answer of "I manage products, duh."
Product Management is a fanscinating and what I would consider to be a better (yet sort of complex) form of corporate management. Shortly after accepting the promotion to Product Manager I figured I should buy a book. Which I would like to make a comment on this idea. When I first started with my previous company I thought the ideal of "Buy a book and read it vs training courses/classes." was just something that was promoted within the company because of it's obvious cost savings. However, after reading a number of books that about the time of the American revolution and Age of Enlightenment.
I have read about Generals in the American Continental Army that were made generals because they had read books on soldiering. There was one guy that ended up being in charge of the artillery not for his experience, but for his readings on the subject. Quite fascinating in today's world. I mean I could read about artillery and soldiering but honestly never feel like I should be a General in charges of troops.
Anyway, so having spent the first 5 years or so of my career. Yeah funny to think of it as a career vs a job. But my career with the idea in my head that if there was something I needed to learn that I should just buy a book, I bought a book on Product Management. I did learn quite a bit about what my role SHOULD be.
Obviously, a text book can only provide the "should" and "could" of how things work. Actual application of such knowledge is up to the individual and sometimes the group (ie the company). I believe that my current company has done an ok job trying to implement the concept of Product Management. However, "Rome was not built in a day." so the work continues.
Back to what it is that I do for a living. Typically a Product Manager is a multi-disciplined individual, someone who can cross over between the different departments that are required to support a product. Now, in the book(s) this is stated as a very hard individual to find. I would agree with that. As someone who has sat on the fence between technical & sales, I can state first hand that it is hard to do both well. And obviously stating only two categories is a understatement. Before moving on, let me just say this. That in a room full of sales, marketing, and business folk I am more often than not the most technically inclined in the room. In a room full of developers and support staff I am more often than not the most marketing and business inclined.
"Jack of all trades, master of none." I have since High School tried to know a little bit about everything. When I attended a journalism conference in Chicago my Senior year I decided this philosophy was best. The more you know and can do, the more valuable you are to a company.
So I do consider myself a multi-disciplined individual the more colorful saying is "Jack of All Trades", except I have become very technical in the last few years. I spent the first year of my career as a Technical Writer, it was my job to produce the software manual. I am more than willing to say that I did not produce a GREAT software manual. I produced a reference manual, a manual that told you the limitations and basic functionality of our software interface. This ultimately was not very glamorous. The software wasn't complete so writing a "How to.." manual is kind of hard. Not to mention that the overall interaction amongst the various parts of the platform weren't known by any one person, one could argue they aren't fully known to any one person 8 years later.
Because of the manuals relationship to customers that led me to helping out with the Sales department. Helping with the Sales dept. led to me helping with the Marketing department. Sales & Marketing go hand in hand. I spent about 6 months or so being sort of a liason between the Marketing department and the Development (R&D) group.
Then I got promoted to Sales Engineering, a newly formed department that was supposed to assist Sales on the technical aspects of software, in part to help ensure that the Development group wasn't constantly being interrupted by Sales folk. Which brings up another quote from Office Space "I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!".
I have met a few engineers in my day that have the capacity to interact with customers and quite a few that honestly should never be put in front of people you are trying to strike a deal with. There are various reasons, intense personality, lack of personality, personal hygiene, etc. Mind you I by no means consider myself a people person, but I have managed to get some compliments from customers.
A lot of those compliments came from the time I spent in the Professional Service Group, PSG department. My job was more of a consultant and account managment role. We were tasked with getting our customers to be happy with us, the ones that weren't particularly pleased that is, and getting the ones that liked us to like us even more (ie buy more software and services).
Ok, so back to Product Management, I was going over the history of what I have done. I have spent time writing documentation, time building sales proposals, crafting marketing campaigns/messages, training customers, pitching sales deals, project managing, writing technical specs for features/services, invoicing customers, custom development (programming), installing hardware and software, wiring T1s, design databases, attending tradeshows, competitive analysis, support (troubleshooting), and much more.
I by no means consider myself an expert in any of those areas.
Product Management needs not necessarily the ability to perform these actions as part of the job, but knowing what these tasks entails definitely is a requirement. The book(s) often talk about splitting the roles of Product Management into two functional roles. Product Marketing Manager and Technical Product Manager. Again, finding individuals who are GOOD in both Sales/Marketing & Technical stuff.
Now, I have rambled on for a bit. Have I really answered what it is I do for a living? Or did I just give more definition to what "stuff" is?
I am responsible for getting the product developed, tested, documentation written, sales staff trained, marketing message crafted, and support organized. Some of this I have to do myself. I have turned a personal interest in PHP programming into a very useful skill for work. I am not going to quit my day job to go and be a PHP programmer, but I do enjoy being able to say "I only play a programmer on TV."
I prefer to delegate work out, but I will admit I have a tendancy to want to just do it myself. However, learning to teach someone to do something may take more time upfront, but it pays for itself many times over in the end.
In the last two years I have worked on many product. None of them have been widly successful. But each one has yielded lessons for me and I would like to think that I have learned the lessons well.
I will get to prove that soon. NetworkIP is launching a new company soon. Soon enough that I figure it is ok to leak it here on my blog. I mean we have already sent out notice of a name change to our customers.
Our new company is Jaduka. I have a new title. Chief Technical Officer. My boss still introduces me as "Acting Chief Technical Officer" which is fine by me, because I have business cards. Take a look...
So in addition to my Senior Product Manager duties I get to wax poetic about technology and think about the bigger picture.
Ok, so hopefully that answers a little bit about what I do for a living.
If not, just remember "I do stuff." and sometimes I try to describe it as "I do computer stuff."
Not bad for a Journalism major though, huh?
Office Space Quotes
http://quotations.about.com/cs/moviequotes/a/bloffice_space1.htm
Tuesday, September 19. 2006
... but then I lost it.
Don't you hate it when that happens.
All is well. I am back from Dallas.
If I remember the thought I will write about it in the morning.
laterz
Monday, September 18. 2006
I should have posted this last night. But I had already shutdown and put away the laptop for the night.
The pork shoulder turned out absolutely perfect. I am however already plotting for the next time. I did about a 7 pound shoulder this time. I think I will do two about the 8 pound range.
The first one I think I am going to try to make a little sweeter. Im going to boil some apples in with the brine. As I was eating some pork last night I thought that a little hint of apple would make it all the better.
The other one I am going to try to spice it up some more. The garlic flavor definitely sunk into the meat. However, I think I want to get some crushed red pepper or some hot sauce. I don't want to kill it, just make it a little spicier.
I will probably do beef again. Maybe not a brisket, maybe just a roast. My Smoker is a decent size but isn't really big enough to put a whole brisket in there. So I end up having to cut the brisket in half. The roasts at HEB tend to be the perfect size.
Oh yeah, the rain did stay away all day. However, shortly after I pulled everything out of the smoker it started to sprinkle. Then during dinner it started to rain very HARD.
Talk about perfect timing.
The "Mission Accomplished" headline is more so related to the fact that we just dropped off the Achieva at Champion Toyota. It made it all the way down there and didn't dump the anti-freeze on the way. That issue is now Champion's problem.
Gina says that they will most likely auction it off, after cleaning it up just a little. Again, not our problem.
The sales guy, Jack was very helpful. Gina pointed out a few tiny paint defects (dings, a couple of scratches) that she was hoping they could touch-up for us. Jack spoke with their touch-up guy who was there today and he said that he already knew about it. Apparently it was on his list of cars to touch-up, but we bought it before he could.
I must say I am almost looking forward to the cross-country trip in this car. The passenger seat area is roomier. The car gets better gas mileage. The driver side is definitely much roomier. There is overall more cargo space than the Achieva (the cargo area + roof rack). And most importantly, the gas tank is about 2 gallons smaller. "Why is this a good thing?" you ask. Because now we will have to stop that much sooner.
And you know me, I love to stop and smell the roses. I mean what else are you going to do on a 1200+ mile trip.
Speaking of... my sister, Rachel is driving cross-country to Portland Oregon, right now. I need to get an update from her on where they are. They are going to be stopping at Mt. Rushmore and one of the national parks around there on the way. I am quite envious. There are not any reall attraction sites on the way too and from Michigan and Texas.
I will post up what I think her route is later today.
laterz
Sunday, September 17. 2006
I think I might have managed to wish the rain away until tomorrow.
It was raining this morning, actually more like sprinkling. This was happening while I was trying to start the smoker.
I bought a pork shoulder earier this week to smoke this weekend. We got a big bag of mesquite chunks and also found a decent sized beef roast. I didn't want to do a full brisket this weekend.
Anyway, after a few false starts of the fire, it was finally smoking.
I put the pork shoulder into the tinfoil about an hour ago. That means in about 2 hours it should be done.
I brined it this time a little diferently. I boiled the brine (salt & water) along with some spices and a TON of chopped garlic. Last time i just did salt, water and some spices in a bowl and mixed it.
After drying it off I put some rib rub on it and put it into the smoker. I used "fajita spice" on the beef.
I will give a post on how it turned out later tonight.
I am going to through in the sausages at about 6pm.
laterz
Sunday, September 17. 2006
Now, before anyone freaks out. No we are not pregnant.
Gina's car, the beloved 1992 Oldsmobile Achieva SL has driven it's last trip. And replacing it is a sporty new(ish) 2005 Pontiac Vibe.
Back in July, we were getting the Achieva an oil change at Fast Eddies in Lansing. They changed the oil and told us that our "soft metal plugs" were leaking. We checked under the care and didn't really see any leaks. We hadn't seen any leaks under the car for the weeks leading up to these grease monkeys telling us about them.
So we decided to chance the drive back to Tejas. Obviously, we made it home just fine. However, during one of the 100+ days that we had in August, Gina was driving back from Longview, TX and saw that the car was heating up too much. So she added some anti-freeze and went about her way. With my Corolla I have occasionally had to add anti-freeze after a very hot summer, it seems to just evaporate over time.
However, the Achieva was needing more and more anti-freeze, weekly basically. But there wasn't an evident leak. With having to run the A/C in the car there is always that puddle of water under the car, which is in just about the same spot as the anti-freeze leak. The two were mixing and making the anti-freeze leak harder to see.
Well, not wanting Gina to be stranded on the way to or from Longview. I took the car into the shop yesterday. The same shop where I now know the manager by name and for now he has won our future business. He has to be the most honest mechanic that I have worked with.
They checked out the Achieva and informed me that the "metal plugs" in the front and the rear of the engine are corroded. Which, is causing the leak.
He proceeded to inform me that the cost of replacing the front plugs would be around $400. Replacing the rear plugs would be around $1200. Why so much for the rear plugs? Well apparently the design of the Achieva engine is such that the transmission would need to be removed to get to the rear plugs.
This means that it would be at least $1,600 to fix the Achieva. Then there was the caveat that Corey said, "Due to the amount of corrosion under the hood, I can't guarantee that we wouldn't break anything trying to remove the exhaust manifold to get to the front plugs or the transmission for the rear plugs."
So that means between $1,600 - $2,000 (assuming they only break the exhaust manifold related items).
Yeah, not a good idea to put another $1,600 into a 14 year old car with 143k miles on it.
Gina and I had already decided that before we drive home again in the summer that we want a new car. However, we had been planning to replace the Achieva in like 6 months.
I of course asked Corey about whether or not replacing the front plugs would get us by. He told me that it would fix the primary leak. However, that he couldn't guarantee that the rear plugs wouldn't empty out and dump all of the anti-freeze within about 4 minutes. Of course, a few minutes afterwards the block would crack.
Corey also told me that he wouldn't want to be driving that thing on the highway for the fear that the plugs could go at anytime. Leaving us with a boat anchor.
I called Gina and gave her the news. She didn't take it very well. I am sure that I wouldn't be happy if she called to tell me that my Ghetto Sled had died or couldn't be repaired. She was volunteering at the shelter that morning and was just finishing up lunch when I had called her.
She came home and got ready to go out and look at cars. I looked online using AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and a few local car dealership websites. I found a few good deals here and there. Nothing spectacular though.
It was around 1:30 or so I guess when we left the house. We headed to I-35 and made our way to south Austin. There is this stretch there along the road where there are about five to seven dealerships in a row.
We figured we would start with South Point Pontiac, as Gina wanted a Pontiac Vibe. Go straight to the affiliated dealership. We saw some nice news ones sitting there when we first pulled up. Around $21k, too much for what we wanted to spend. Not to mention that buying a car brand-new is just not a good idea. It depreciates immensely as soon as you drive it off the lot.
We asked them about used Vibes. They showed us a Kia Spectra and a Dodge Calibur. Again, not a Vibe. Finally someone from the Used Car builing walked out and showed us a Silver 2005 Pontiac Vibe. It had 36k miles on it, the inside of the car had some wear and tear on it. The rear cargo area had some soda stains in it. Oh yeah, and there was an Orange in the back, yes a piece of produce.
We took the car for a test drive. It was zippy for only being a "four banger", only having "four squirrels" under the hood.
Gina loved the car. That meant it was time to delve into negotiations. The first thing I found interesting about South Point was that they didn't have any prices on their used cars. This apparently was explained by the sales guy (I don't remember his name) that the lack of prices on the cars was a benefit. It was to supposed to allow them to make sure we could get the payment that we wanted.
Gina wanted a payment in the $250 range. So we negotiated with the sales guy on the price of the car for about an hour, at least. The first 30 minutes we focused on the payment. Which kept on being in the $325-$350 range.
The price of the car was apparently originally like $17,999. But they had sent out a "Roach Flyer" announcing a $2,000 off sale. This means that the car was $15,999.
Since Gina's dad is selling cars, she called him. He told us that a 2005 Pontiac Vibe at the very most should be like $14,700 retail. That means if the car is in great condition it should have been priced at $14,700. Apparently, severe wear and tear have it valued at $12,000.
Well the vehichle they showed us and that we negotiated over was not in great condition. It wasn't in terrible condition. But it had high mileage for a vehicle that age. It had definitely been a rental vehicle (Enterprise is whom they bought it from at auction).
What is funny is that the manager (again, don't remember the name) was from Michigan. And had sold cars in Lansing at one point. There had been this dealership near the corner of Logan and Holmes, I think that is where he said that he used to sell cars. They apparently were desperate enough to follow us out of the building and ask to speak to Gina's dad. With whom we had been consulting with throughout the course of negotiations.
The simple fact of the matter is, we didn't want to pay more than $13,000 + TTL for the vehicle. They were willing to sell it to us for $14,100 (ish) + TTL. They told us that they couldn't give us $13,000, because it would mean they would not get enough for the car vs what they paid. Obviously, this can't be entirely true. I took the statement to mean that they wouldn't be able to make the margin/profit that they needed to make on the car @ $13,000.
Did I mention that on the way to the dealership (now about 2 hours prior) I told Gina that I was starving? So I was hoping we could grab a bite to eat. But no such luck, Gina did want a soda. We grabbed a diet coke from Arby's and decided on what to do next.
I have to say that I was very proud of Gina during the negotiations. She stuck to her guns and didn't back down. And on top of that we had a nice little "Good Cop, Bad Cop" going with the sales guy. I was the "Good Cop". While, gina was the "Bad Cop".
We decided to take a look at another dealership, you know before feeding me. We did a once more around the block and got back to the start of the line of dealerships.
Now, it isn't necessarily a closely guarded secret that the Pontiac Vibe is basically the same vehicle as the Toyota Matrix. And when I say "basically the same vehicle" I don't mean same kind of vehicle. I mean it is the Pontiac style of the Matrix. They get made at the same plant(s) in California. The Geo Prism is a different style of the Corolla. The whole thing is quite interesting, I will have to do a post about it later.
The Toyota dealership was two dealerships down from South Point. We pulled into Champion Toyota and were very pleased to see that they were not very busy. Reason being is that less customers means a better chance for us to make a deal.
We parked and walked up, Gina saw this little Chevy Aveo that she was loving. First thing I noticed was that they had the price tag hanging from the rearview mirror. That was the first of many differences between Champion and South Point. Given the distance between the two dealerships I was quite suprised at how differently the two organizations were run. And yet, not suprised.
A nice older sales guy walked up to us and offered to help us out, Jack Whitmire. He immediately got out their little golf cart and began to drive us around their lot to look for any used Matrix vehicles. They had none, but he did drive us by two Pontiac Vibes. A silver one and a burgundy red.
The silver one was $16,991 and the burgundy was $15,991. Both of which were more than $13,000. However, both were in immaculate condition in comparison to the one over at South Point. No produce in the back, they had plastic on the floor, they had obviously been vacummed. It was almost like they wanted to sell the car. Go figure.
We told Jack a little bit about our recent encountour with the guys over at South Point. He told us that he could probably get the price of the burgundy down to $14,991. The burgundy Vibe had 22k miles on it. And the condition of the car was much better than the one at South Point.
Jack had our licenses copied to allow us test drive the car. Gina wanted to test out the Aveo first. Which suprisingly is a really nice little car. I might have to look at them as an alterantive to the Yaris, but I am a pretty die-hard Toyota fan these days.
The Aveo was a manual. I don't drive stick and probably never will. Gina does drive manual on occasion. I just about got whiplash while she remembered how to drive stick. Anyway, I survived and we decided that the Aveo is too small.
The next test drive the the burgundy Vibe. It drove as well as the other we had driven about 2 hours before. But the reason I bring all of this up is because when we test drove with South Point, the sales guy came with us. This meant that we couldn't talk very freely about what we thought about the car.
Jack's salesmanship style or Champion's standard operating procedure has much less pressure. Jack allowed us to drive the cars by ourselves. This allowed Gina and I to speak very freely about the vehicles. This was the second big difference that I noticed between the two dealerships.
After the test drive we walked into the Used Sales office building to speak with Jack. This was when I noticed the third big difference. The sales office at Champion was modern. Each sales person had their own little cubicle area. They each had computers on their desks. They had a water cooler and coffee machine in a little waiting room in the back.
While the South Point Used Sales office building honestly looked like a hole. It was actually a little reminiscent of Boiler Room. There were no set desks or cubicles. There were just seemingly randomly placed tables and mis-matching chairs. There were no computers on the desks. No water cooler or coffee machines, just a coke machine.
Did I mention that Jack offered us a soda out of a little fridge that he had near his desk?
We began the negotiation process with Jack. Which was much less pressured than the one with South Point. Jack had some carbon copy based documents that looked very standard. The South Point guy had some very crappy copied documents.
Jack explained the sales process to us immediately. The South Point guy was more interested in getting us to agree in principle to the price.
A good deal of this difference could be derrived from these two things.
1. Jack is a retired gentleman, who doesn't NEED the money from this sale to survive. Thus, he can afford to cut us a deal and not PRESSURE us. The South Point guy was younger, an immigrant from Mexico (he has been in Austin for about 10 years).
2. Champion is actually regional brand name of Auto Nation. A nation-wide auto sales company. This means that their procedures and forms are standardized. South Point is just one dealership and obviously is more on the shady side, upholding the saying "slimy, like a used car salesman".
We got a good price on the car. A decent amount for the trade-in on the Achieva. The checkout process in the finance office took a bit longer than I would have liked. Again, remember I was starving at 12:00. It was about 9:00 or so when we got out of there.
We headed home. I convinced Gina to go to see a midnight showing of PCU at the Alamo Drafthouse with me. I had a very tastey salad with chicken. Gina had a good turkey & avocado wrap (i stole her chips and salsa). Oh yeah, we had mozzarella sticks too.
The movie was good, but it was a very long day. I nodded off at least once for a couple of minutes, Gina fell asleep a few times.
That is basically the end of the day and the story.
On Monday (tomorrow) we will take the Achieva over to Champion Toyota and drop it off. I just hope we don't have to get it towed there, knock on wood.
Saturday, September 16. 2006
If I was a person who thrived on the night life and going to the clubs on a Friday night. I might get a little bummed about having to drive back to Austin on Friday nights. For those that don't know it already, I spend a wee-bit of time in Dallas on a monthly basis.
I would say that on a to-date cycle that it has been an avg of probably every other week I am in Dallas. As there were months upon months that I did not leave Austin. However, of the course of the last year it has been consistently every other week, and lately it has been almost every week.
I usually only spend 2 days or so. Normally I prefer to spend be in Austin on Monday. Tuesday night I would drive up to Dallas. Spend Wednesday in Dallas. Thursday around 5 or so packup and head back to Austin. Friday all day in Austin.
Starting and ending the work week in your home city seems to be a bit more comfortable to me. Ending the week in another city makes the weekend seem a little shorter. I think it seems shorter because of the fact that I just spent 3 hours in a car and it is usually around 9 or 9:30 when I get home.
Now, I know this may sound like I'm whining about traveling for work. I am not, I am quite used to it by now, so no worries. I will say that I find it personally ironic that I drive so much now adays, since I HATED driving before.
I also find it personally ironic that I now know as much about the city of Dallas as I do. On some level I almost feel like I know Dallas better than Austin. Mainly because of the fact that I don't spend a lot of time in downtown Austin. As a matter of fact, I don't spend much time in Austin south of 183 and Burnet. I go to the office and I go home.
We shop along that route, CostCo is on the northbound side of the 183 near Great Hills Trail. There are two Home Depots near 183. There are four movie theatres, my favorite being The Alamo Drafthouse. One major mall off of 183, only about 2.5 miles from the house.
All of this means that we don't have to go across town to shop for the house or for ourselves. So it is nice to live in the suburbs.
Growing up in Lansing things were different. There were only two malls, the Lansing and the Merridian mall. The Lansing mall was the ghetto mall. They have managed to fix up the Lansing mall pretty well. The Merridian mall has always been the fancy mall and still is.
Well the Merridian mall is out in East Lansing (technically I think it is in Okemos right near the Haslett border.) And the Lansing mall is on the west side of Lansing.
There were several small cities surrounding Lansing. Nothing like the cities that sprawl around Austin, all of which pale in comparison to the cities that surround Dallas.
In Lansing you have East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Dewitt, Diamondale, Holt and Grand Ledge.
In Austin you have Cedar Park, Lakeway, Westlake, Round Rock, Pfluegerville, Dripping Springs, Manor (and a few others).
In Dallas I know of Frisco, Plano, Richardson, Garland, The Colony, Addison, Carrollton and many more.
What does all of this mean?
In Lansing you might have lived in the one of the burbs, but you probably shop and go out to eat in Lansing (or East Lansing) and you probably work in Lansing.
In Austin you can live in one of the burbs and maybe you shop in Austin, but you probably go out to eat in Austin and your probably work in Austin.
In Dallas, you can live in the burbs, shop in the burbs, eat in the burbs and work in the burbs.
I have found myself describing Dallas lately as a textbook definition of "urban sprawl". There are parts of the greater Dallas area that you can drive through and wonder to yourself why is there this big open field here? Why isn't the burb like 5 miles closer to town?
Why is it that there is a ten to twelve story office building out here in what looks like the middle of nowhere, when compared to downtown Dallas?
Anyway, I have to say that I like the city of Dallas. However, I don't know if I would every truly want to live there. It has it's advantages in the fact that there are WAY more cool places to eat and the downtown area feels like it has more culture. Of course Austin has a ton of culture too, maybe Dallas' culture seems like more because it is different than Austin.
Either way, I like Austin and Dallas way more than Lansing. And for those of you who are still in Lansing, sorry about that. I don't like Lansing it feels burned out, especially since they are demolishing the GM plants now.
I still like Michigan, especially norther Michigan up near the Coscarelli Cottage. That whole area is great.
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