HinesSight

I wore socks with sandals and...survived!

As the saying goes, I felt the fear and did it anyway. No, I didn't climb Everest. Nor did I surf a 50 foot wave. My action was way more courageous. 

Two days in a row, I wore socks with sandals out in public. 

And not just any old socks and any old sandals. I went for the gusto, the full enchilada, the maximum shock.

I paired the colorful limited edition version of Teva's Hurricane sandal that's a collaboration with Outdoor Voices, and equally colorful Darn Tough socks that I found at the Salem Summit Company.

Voila! Socks with sandals. 

When I walked into my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem, rocking this combo on my feet, I shared my anxiety about committing a fashion faux pas, noting that I recognized that wearing socks with sandals was a highly contentious issue.

My classmates agreed. No one expressly told me that I was dressing like an ignorant fool, though I had the feeling that some people held this opinion.

Perhaps a bit (or a lot) defensively, I told them that I'd Googled the question of sandals with socks and was pleased to find a 2018 GQ article, "Wearing Socks With Sandals Is Cool Now." 

Now, more than ever, the traditional rules of menswear exist mostly to be broken—and that feels especially true when it comes to footwear. This past year has produced too many wild sneakers to count, fancy new-wave sandals, streetwear-friendly Ugg boots,and fashion-goth clogs.

On top of that, one of the most cardinal style rules—never wearing socks with sandals—has been broken with zero regard by the likes of Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Tyler, the Creator. And don’t let the fact that the weather is getting chillier by the day stop you from wearing your favorite cozy footwear.

Me and Kanye. Yeah, we're fashion brothers (sort of).

Today I doubled down on my fashion statement after finding another version of the Darn Tough socks on Amazon that the Salem Summit Company didn't carry. 

I liked how perfectly the light blue at the end of the socks matches some of the straps on the sandals. Clearly the universe intended that they go together, and I was an instrument of that cosmic destiny. 

Once again I survived. I didn't hear peals of laughter following me, though my hearing isn't what it used to be.

Doing some additional Googling before I wrote this post, Wikipedia informed me that socks and sandals were being worn by Romans at least 2,000 years ago, and importantly:

Socks and sandals is a regular Pacific Northwest phenomenon. Seattle based insurance company PEMCO used the "Sandals & Socks Guy" character as part of a 2007 advertising campaign that portrayed this as a typically Pacific Northwest fashion. The Daily Dot highlighted "sandals and socks" as a term entered into a web search engine more often by Washingtonians than residents of any other state.

Here's a video of the PEMCO ad.

And here's an entertaining debate on this subject between some young people.

Guess I should mention that one of my motivations for wearing socks with sandals isn't warmth, but rather comfort. I've been wearing really comfortable soft wool shoes from Allbirds and Giesswein for so long, my feet aren't as pleased as they used to be with sandal straps. Socks make my feet happier.

Sirius XM on Toyota's Entune 3.0 disappoints

I'm a big fan of Sirius XM. That's all I listen to when I'm driving around in my 2017 VW GTI, even though my car offers Apple CarPlay. 

Here's how Sirius XM looks on my GTI's screen. In short, beautiful.

My Sirius XM favorites show up as large icons with the names of the stations clearly visible. I can easily reach out and touch an icon to change channels, which I do frequently since I abhor advertisements.

News and political junkie that I am, I'll listen to MSNBC until an ad comes on, then shift to CNN until an ad comes on there. If both MSNBC and CNN are playing ads, I'll head to POTUS (Politics of the United States). 

Along with the rest of the VW GTI, which I love dearly, the infotainment system is crisp, clear, well-designed and easy to use. 

Now, here's what Sirius XM looks like on our recently-purchased 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, which features Entune 3.0 -- which must be one of the most poorly designed infotainment systems, at least when it comes to satellite radio.

When I got the 3-month trial of Sirius XM up and running on our new car, then programmed in some preset stations, I couldn't believe that the only thing that shows up is the channel number, not the name of the station, or even an icon.

Checking the infotainment system manual, and Googling this question, I came to be a believer. So far as I can tell, Entunes 3.0 only offers the small preset buttons on the touchscreen, which don't have the names of the selected stations.

How anyone at Toyota could think this is smart design is beyond me. My wife and I like almost everything else about our RAV4 Hybrid, but the infotainment system is seriously lacking.

We also have a leased 2018 Chevy Volt. At least, until we can figure out how to get out of the lease, now that we've bought the RAV4 Hybrid. The sun was shining on the screen when I took this photo, and the screen was rather dusty, but you can get the Sirius XM picture (which includes a reflection of my finger),

Not as nice-looking as the VW GTI, but the Volt sure surpasses Toyota's Entunes 3.0. The icons are small on the touchscreen, yet they have the names of the Sirius XM stations. 

(Note: my wife is a proud progressive, as am I. She likes to listen to Fox News now and then just to hear how conservatives are talking about current events.)

I'm hoping that Toyota will come out with a much-improved Entune 4.0 soon, and make it available as an upgrade to existing Entune 3,0 owners.

After all, Tesla provides over-the-air upgrades regularly to buyers of its cars. Since Entune is software, not hardware, Toyota should do the same, though I'd be more than willing to bring our RAV4 into our local dealer for an upgrade.

2019 WillaMutt Strut photos

Today's WillaMutt Strut at Salem's Riverfront Park (put on by the Willamette Humane Society) was a poignant dog event for me. Our dog, ZuZu, is in the late stages of chronic liver disease. Her vet has told us that likely she will live weeks or months, not years.

So this probably was ZuZu's last Mutt Strut -- which she and I have gone to quite a few times. We had a good time, though. I was grateful for that. I'm also grateful that while we humans can grasp impending death, dogs can't.

Why we sold our Highlander to Carmax rather than Capitol Toyota

Buying and selling cars isn't my favorite thing to do. Usually there's some degree of frustration involved. Yesterday was no exception.

My wife and I did our best to trade-in our low mileage 2014 Highlander XLE as part of our purchase of a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid, but Capitol Toyota engaged in some tactics that were irritating enough to cause us to decline the purchase offer and head to Beaverton's Carmax instead -- where today we sold our Highlander for $600 more than Capitol Toyota offered, and with much less aggravation.

Our Highlander in the final stage of the CarMax process

I chatted some with the Carmax employee who finalized the sale and gave us a check for $22,000. After I complimented her on how efficient and organized the Carmax appraisal/offer/sale process is, she said, "We strive continually for improvement. We're always asking ourselves how we can do things better."

So this blog post is offered to Capitol Toyota in the same spirit. 

(Note: it's as long as it is not only because I'm wordy, but because our salesman said, as have other salespeople I've talked with, that the survey we'll get from Toyota about our sales experience needs to be 100% "exceptional," or he won't get proper credit for the sale. That seems crazy to me, since without honesty, surveys are meaningless. But he says that salespeople are held responsible for every aspect of a sale, even those they have no control over -- as you'll read below.)

We've bought eleven cars from the Capitol Auto Group over many years. Today I joked with Kelly Stewart, who manages the Subaru dealership now, about how I wished we'd gotten a card punched with every car purchase, since it sure seems like we should be getting a free car at this point.

Kelly has sold us most of the cars we've bought from the Capitol Auto Group: Toyotas, Subarus, Chevrolets. We like him a lot. But he wasn't involved in yesterday's haggling, which helps explain why we walked away from Capitol Toyota tired, hungry, and irritated at 8:30 pm last night.

UPDATE: Seeing the Capitol Auto Group slogan on the RAV4 when I went out to get the paper this morning reminded me that no, we didn't get our way on the parkway last Thursday.

As described below, I wasn't able to get a trade-in offer in the early afternoon even though I'd made an appointment with our salesman to do just that. And on our second trip in the late afternoon it took almost three hours to finalize a deal, even though I'd emailed and texted to Capitol Toyota the prices that we wanted for the RAV4 and trade-in of our Highlander and asked that Capitol Toyota do as much as possible before we arrived, given that we had a sick dog and my wife had gone through a long tiring day.

Yes, we ended up buying the RAV4 Hybrid for $500 over the wholesale invoice. That basically matched the $1,597 Consumer Reports Car Buying Service discount that Gresham Toyota offered for a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid in Limited trim. It was how we got to that point that exasperated my wife and I.

At 1 pm yesterday I took our Highlander to Capitol Toyota for a trade-in appraisal after we learned from the salesman we'd been working with that our RAV4 Hybrid had arrived. We'd waited almost four months after putting down a $500 deposit in early February for the car we wanted, which was before the 2019 RAV4 had been officially released.

Given that it had taken me less than five minutes to come up with a Kelly Blue Book trade-in value for our Highlander, I figured it would be a brief and simple process to get an offer from Capitol Toyota. However, that isn't what happened.

Instead, after talking with his Capitol Toyota supervisors, our salesman told me it wouldn't be possible to get a trade-in offer until we negotiated the RAV4 Hybrid purchase price. That surprised me. I didn't like being told, "We'll work with you on finding a balance between the trade-in offer and purchase price."

Rather, I said, "I agree with Consumer Reports that a car buyer should get separate prices for the cost of a new car and a trade-in offer. That keeps things simpler and cleaner." 

Our 2019 RAV4 Hybrid in the Capitol Toyota lot, along with some of my finger

Now, the RAV4 Hybrid Limited that'd come in had everything that we'd ordered, except for the interior color. It was two-tone, rather than black. (Toyota doesn't make cars to order for some reason; so an "order" really is a customer request, not a certainty, as I wrote about previously.)

Since my wife needed to see the RAV4 to make sure she liked the interior color, there was some uncertainty in the early afternoon yesterday about whether we'd actually be buying the car. But I don't see why this would prevent Capitol Toyota from giving me a trade-in offer, especially since I'd been clear that I wanted to get separate prices for the RAV4 and our trade-in.

Before continuing with my trade-in tell of woe, here's my central problem with how Capitol Toyota sells cars: the ordinary salespeople have no real negotiating authority. Meaning, they have to disappear into a back room to talk with supervisor types, then return to tell you what those unseen people want.

This is old-style car-selling. It's not quite as bad as the "Gosh, I'd love to give you this deal, but my boss is in a bad mood today, so the price is going to have to be higher than what we discussed," but it's disturbingly close.

When I bought my Mini Cooper in Portland, I was told that Mini only sells cars at the sticker price. OK, that made things easy. When I bought my GTI from VW of Salem, I was told that the dealership offers a standard discount from the sticker price. That also made things easy.

And when we'd bought some Capitol Auto Group cars fairly recently from Kelly Stewart, things went easy because Kelly was both the salesperson and the manager who approved sales. So we only had to deal with one person.

What aggravated my wife and I when we went back to Capitol Toyota at about 5:45 pm yesterday was how ridiculously long it took to get some simple prices for the RAV4 and our Highlander trade-in. I'd told the salesman in a text message several hours before we arrived the prices that I thought were fair, and asked him to do as much as possible before we came in.

He knew that our dog is in the late stages of chronic liver disease.

Capitol Toyota is pleasingly dog-friendly, but our dog already had sat on the showroom floor once that day, when I sat around waiting for a trade-in offer that never materialized. And my wife had spent the afternoon walking dogs at the Humane Society, then driving to Sweet Home to look at a possible second dog, given our current dog's limited life span.

But it took over two hours for us to get a price for our Highlander and the RAV4. I give credit to our salesman, who kept telling us, "I don't know why it is taking so long" and "I've told the guys in back that you're tired of waiting and need the prices."

Meanwhile, our dog was lying tiredly on the showroom floor, and my wife was dreaming of the dinner that she hadn't eaten before we left home.

Finally a guy that we'd never met before materialized at our table with a sheet of paper and some annoying words. "You probably could buy 100 RAV4s, right?" I said, "No, we can buy one RAV4, and we've been sitting here for a couple of hours waiting to find out how much it will cost us."

He pointed to the wholesale price and said "We'll give you $500 over invoice." OK, I thought, that should have taken ten seconds to calculate.

Then he pointed to a trade-in price of $22,400 (as I recall; we never got an offer sheet), which was crossed out, adding, "But we want to offer you $1,000 less." So, $21,400. I peered more closely at the offer. I told him that this showed our car was in Fair condition, then pointed out that it didn't have any of the Fair criteria listed on the offer sheet. Like, rust spots.

In my view, I said, the Highlander was in Very Good condition. But surely not Fair. 

The guy from a back room who we'd never seen before didn't attempt to explain the appraisal. He just listened as I said that in my view the Highlander was worth about $24,400, then disappeared again, apparently to talk with another manager/supervisor. Meanwhile, our salesman sat with us and tried to explain why the offer was so low (Capitol Toyota certifies used cars, etc).

I appreciated the explanation.

However, sitting there for several hours, tired and hungry, with a sick dog who deserved to be comfortably at home with us, not lying on a hard showroom floor, put me in a bad mood -- which again, was a rare Capitol Toyota feeling, since our car buying process had gone so smoothly when Kelly Stewart had been handling things.

Eventually the guy from the back room returned and told us that the $21,400 offer was the best they could do. I said, fine. We appreciated the offer to hold our check for the RAV4 purchase until after we went to CarMax the next day.

We'd been promised by the guy from the back room that it only would take another half hour to finish up the RAV4 purchase. But it was more like an hour, after which my wife, dog, and I were even more tired and hungry. Another back room guy handled the sale paperwork.

He gamely tried to sell us add-on's like an extended warranty. I was going to refuse them regardless, per Consumer Report's advice. Having endured the Games Car Dealerships Play for almost three hours, I refused them more quickly and curtly, for sure.

By contrast, everything went super-smoothly at CarMax. Yes, we only got $22,000 for our Highlander, $600 more than Capitol Toyota had offered. It was worth it, though, both monetarily and psychologically.

I felt that our Capitol Toyota salesman had treated us fairly and courteously. However he was powerless once the guys from the back room got involved. Which is a crazy way to sell cars. I'm sure some people are OK with waiting hours at a dealership to do something that should only take a few minutes.

I'm not. Neither is my wife. Buying a car should be a pleasant experience, especially when it costs a bit over $38,000, as our RAV4 Hybrid did. As noted above, CarMax continually works at improving the car selling/buyihg experience for its customers. 

Based on what happened with us yesterday, I think Capitol Toyota should emulate CarMax.  

That said, we did enjoy getting a tour of the RAV4 Hybrid basics from our salesman this afternoon, after we returned from CarMax (in Beaverton). And our new car seems happy in our carport. I look forward to writing about it once we get to know the RAV4 a bit better.

June 1 update: I just sent this email to several Capitol Auto Group managers. Took out our salesman's name.

Since I said in this blog post that I wrote it in the spirit of helping Capitol Toyota, and Capitol Auto Group, improve, I wanted to share a link with you guys. I don’t have our salesman's email address, just his phone number, so if one of you could forward this message to _____, that would be great.

https://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2019/05/why-we-sold-our-highlander-to-carmax-rather-than-capitol-toyota.html

 

As you can read, my wife and I had a frustrating experience Thursday after the 2019 RAV4 Hybrid we’d ordered in early February finally came in.

 

I want to stress that _____ did a good job, and we have no complaints about him. It was back-room supervisors/managers who made the car-buying process so frustrating, which resulted in us selling our low-mileage well-maintained (all at Capitol Toyota) 2014 Highlander to CarMax yesterday in a pleasingly quick and efficient fashion.

 

Kelly and Nate, when we’ve dealt with you, things have gone pleasantly fine. Thursday was a Capitol Auto Group exception. But our experience raised questions in my mind about some general dealership issues. Such as:

 

(1) After customers have established a good relationship with a salesperson, it seems wrong to have them cut out of the loop at the end of the buying process. Meaning, it was clear that _____ had no authority to do some simple things - like give us a trade-in price — after he disappeared for a while, apparently to consult with supervisors. This sort of thing is irksome to customers like us, and it is different than how other dealerships I’ve bought cars from do things. Like Mini of Portland and VW of Salem.

 

(2) We’ve heard, from _____ and other salespeople, that it is very important to them to get “exceptional” ratings across the board on every question in a post-purchase Toyota survey. Apparently the salesperson is held responsible for all aspects of customer satisfaction, even though they aren’t able to control much of the purchase or trade-in process.

 

Honesty is crucial to satisfaction surveys, since otherwise they’re next to useless. Why does Toyota and the Capitol Auto Group continue with this “survey game” where anything other than 100% satisfaction leads to a penalty for a hard-working salesperson? It puts customers in a tough spot. Should we be honest or should we deny a salesperson we like from getting a bonus and good marks?

 

(3) I  realize that some car buyers must like to haggle, or Capitol Auto Group wouldn’t have the policies it does. But it seems to me that increasingly, people aren’t willing to put up with the Games Car Dealerships Play. You should consider moving to a “no-haggle” approach like many of your competitors have.

 

As an aside, when I was chatting with the CarMax staff person who handled the final stage of our Highlander sale, she told us that she and her husband recently bought a new car from a dealership where they had to wait five hours to complete the deal, even though a price already had been agreed to.

 

Would anyone buy an appliance from Lowe’s if they had to wait five hours (or three hours, as we did Thursday) to complete a fairly simple transaction for a purchase?

 

      — Brian

Beyonce's Coachella show was mind-blowingly beautiful

Thank you, Netflix. There's no way my wife and I would have seen Beyonce's astounding  2018 "Homecoming" show at Coachella without streaming it the past two nights, courtesy of our Netflix subscription.

For one thing, the many shots of the crowd showed that if anyone our 70'ish age saw the two live performances (over two weekends), they sure weren't in the front rows. For another, our willingness to travel long distances and put up with large crowds to see a concert are long behind us.

So it was a gift to be able to sit at home and stare with rapt attention at our big screen TV displaying one of the most amazing performances we'd ever seen.

If  you haven't watched the Netflix film, Homecoming, make this a top priority.  

Most of the two hours and seventeen minutes is a masterfully edited view of the two live shows. Yes, two. It took our senior citizen minds a while to figure out that the seemingly miraculous instant costume changes actually were the result of virtually seamless editing of footage from the two Coachella performances of Homecoming.

The scenes of how the performance came to be also were fascinating. I was especially impressed by how Beyonce was able to handle the rehearsals and other preparations for Coachella so soon after giving birth to twins.

There's a reason evolution has females reproducing us humans: men wouldn't be capable of doing this.

I found Homecoming to be an amazing piece of performance art. Anyone who doubts that a lavish outdoor music show doesn't deserve to be in the same artistic category as a symphony, opera, or whatever needs to fire up their Netflix subscription and watch Homecoming start to finish.

Rarely do I stare at the screen of our TV all the way through the closing credits. I did with this film, though, because I wanted it to never end.

I don't believe in reincarnation. However, if there's a Rebirth God out there, here's a request: next time around fashion me into a black person who can sing, dance, and have a rollicking good time like the performers in Homecoming.

By and large, I don't believe there are big differences between blacks and whites. Still, this thought kept going through my head as I watched Homecoming: Maybe it would have been possible for Beyonce to populate the stage with equally talented white performers, but this would have been really tough.

This show, and the film, was a tribute to black culture -- especially the amazing marching bands at black universities. The energy, enthusiasm, and joy of the performers, led by Beyonce herself, was beyond belief. I wanted to bottle the good feelings I had while watching Homecoming so I could take sips when I felt down and uninspired.

I got exhausted just watching the Coachella performances. How Beyonce was able to do all that singing and dancing without seeming to break a sweat astounded me.

(Well, she did appear to have a wind machine follow her on stage to blow her hair, so maybe that helped.)

From my male perspective, I found it fascinating, but really not all that surprising, that Beyonce and her crew of female dancers, singers, and musicians could be both sexually sensual and womanly empowered. Somehow Beyonce and the other artistic directors were able to make shaking one's booty into a feminist statement (much to my delight).

It also was great to see the two French dancers, Larry and Laurent Nicolas Bourgeois, a.k.a. Les Twins, prominently featured in Homecoming. They competed on World of Dance and blew me away with their unique appealing dance style.

Here's the official trailer for Homecoming. There are homemade videos on You Tube showing the performances,  but they're nowhere near as good as the Netflix film.

 

Photos of Willamette Humane Society Food Truck Frenzy

Here's photos of today's Willamette Humane Society Food Truck Frenzy that a friend and I took. Theme: cute dogs! Plus a cute llama. Oh, there's some people in the photos also.

Why SelectCBD.com isn't accepting VISA

I'm a believer in CBD, the non-psychoactive component of cannabis/hemp. I've read enough about CBD to decide that taking it for general health promotion makes sense, since I take quite a few supplements for the same reason. 

SelectCBD.com has been my main source for CBD drops, which I take twice a day.

But around ten days ago I saw that the site wasn't accepting VISA, just MasterCard, due to "technical issues" with their payment processor.

------------------------------
NEXT DAY UPDATE: This is either a bit of synchronicity, or this blog post has magical powers (my favored explanation!), since today I got this message from Select CBD. Note, however, a comment from another CBD provider that I'll copy in below.

Hello!

  

We have good news! After the long wait, we are now able to accept Visa payments again. Even better, we are now able to accept Discover and American Express as well. Thank you so much for your patience as we worked out these improvements.

  

As promised, we want to make it up to you. Instead of $10 off, we'd like you to enjoy 20% off your entire order. Please use the one-time use code VISA20 at checkout, this will be valid through the end of June.

Please note that discount codes cannot be used in conjunction with other offers and promos. That said, if you originally had a coupon code applied that you feel gives you better savings, then please use your best judgment as these savings will not be able to be retroactively applied. 

 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact our team.

Best wishes,
Select CBD Support
------------------------------------

 

OK.  But I wanted to get their CBD for pets, since our dog has a chronic liver problem that's gotten worse recently, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to see if CBD could help her. 

So after a few days of seeing that the technical problem was still preventing me from using a VISA card  (I don't have MasterCard), I emailed the support staff at SelectCBD, asking how long the technical issues would take to be resolved.

I didn't get an answer then. However, I did get a free bottle of chicken-flavored CBD drops for pets, which was much appreciated.  

Yesterday I emailed the support staff again, noting that it sure seemed like this must be more than a technical problem. Here's part of the response I got:

Hi Brian,

Thanks for reaching out to us. 

We do apologize for any inconvenience you're experiencing through this matter. We are experiencing issues due to the fact that our credit card processing merchant has decided to drop all CBD accounts with no notice. We were caught off-guard by this just as much as you and our other customers were. This is the current state of our industry, as it's very new and we're treading on new legal ground. There are a lot of grey areas and land mines for us to step on just like this one. 

PayPal doesn't accept payment for CBD products either. You can find this information with a little bit of research. 

We are currently in discussion with a new merchant but these things do not happen over night, hence the long wait. 

So that's the reason. I suggested to the support staff person that being a bit more open about the problem on their web site would be better than simply saying "technical issues."

After all, I felt more empathy for SelectCBD after learning why they can't accept VISA. Here's what the site currently is saying about the problem.  (Hard to read, due to the small type.)

SECOND UPDATE: Here's a comment another CBD seller left on this post. I wanted to share it in the post itself to give it more visibility. It's really disturbing that both CBD and THC forms of cannabis get singled out for financial and legal discrimination when other much more dangerous products, such as alcohol and tobacco, are sold without any problem.

Hi Brian,

This frustration is real for both merchants and consumers. I run an ecommerce CBD site, and we are with the same processor/bank as Select.

To make matters worse the processor/bank with the most clients, Elavon/US Bank, is shutting down all CBD processing as of today (May 15th, 2019). The processor SelectCBD and we are with is not Elavon, but a high percentage of CBD ecommerce sites are currently looking for a new home to process payments due to the Elavon/US Bank exit.

The information we are hearing is that the few banks that are currently accepting applications are only taking on large clients right now. I've heard minimum per month processing for new merchant accounts right now with some of these banks is in the 500k/month range. We have applications with multiple processors and they are saying our application could take at least 3-4 weeks due to the number of applications they have.

The shutting down of Visa payments from our processor was immediate with no warning on April 30th. Our transactions were 80% visa prior to the visa issue. To say the least, it has been a significant impact to small businesses such as mine.

I hope this adds a little color to your post.

- Mark H. from EarlybirdCBD

My (not so) secret shame: car lust

They, whoever they are, say that confession is good for the soul.

Even though I'm an atheist who doesn't believe I have a soul, I like the idea of confessing -- perhaps because I was Catholic for a short while as a child, and found the idea of being forgiven your sins for the small price of saying a few Our Father's and Hail Mary's to be way cool.

So here's my confession: I spend a lot of time on the Internet lusting after hot models... of cars.

Yet I'm happily married to my 2017 VW GTI, who I love a lot. That doesn't stop me from looking around, though. Fortunately, I have no indication that the GTI is bothered by me browsing automobile web sites and perusing reviews of models I find attractive.

During the first part of my driving life I viewed cars as utilitarian, a way to get from here to there.

But in the mid-1980s I bought a BMW 325ix (the "x" stood for all wheel drive). When I first turned the key, I was struck by an unfamiliar sound and sensation: powerful engine rumbling that caused the car to vibrate slightly standing still.

I was immediately infatuated.

That was my first relationship with a car that was super fun to drive. Other flings followed: a Toyota MR2, a Honda del Sol, a Volvo 850 turbo wagon, a Mini Cooper S, and two VW GTIs, one of which I drive now.

I've taken two car control classes, though in no way do I consider myself an expert driver.

One was at the Portland International Raceway with the Toyota MR2 where I was mildly embarrassed by being the only one to answer, "No, not really," when the instructor asked the class if they felt proficient with double-clutching. 

So I was sent off by myself to practice, after which I got to race around the track in a quasi-competent fashion. The high point of the class came when I took a few laps with the instructor as a passenger. When he yanked on the emergency brake, spun the car around at speed, and managed to keep going in the same direction I was duly impressed.

More practical was a car control class I took with my daughter at the Willow Springs Raceway in California after she turned 16. I figured that if she was going to drive crazily at times (pretty much a given with teenagers), it would be good if she knew some basics of how a car handled.

I loved it when a skid pad was wetted down and we learned how to go around in a circle without moving the steering wheel, instead steering with the gas pedal, since the Toyotas we got to use were prone to understeer, as most cars are for safety reasons.

(Meaning, I believe, if you go into a curve too fast and feel like the car isn't going where you want, if you lift your foot off the gas pedal a bit, the car will move back into line without spinning out.)

Currently I've been pondering a couple of car questions.

Such as, is a Tesla going to come into my life, and that of my wife, at some point?

I suspect it will, since we're avid environmentalists and want to do our part to reduce carbon emissions. We've leased three Chevy Volts and like how they utilize plug-in technology with a back-up gas engine (generator, more accurately).

Our current Volt is entering the second year of a three-year lease. When the lease is up, it might make sense to get a Tesla. I've been aware that VW, along with most other car manufacturers, is emphasizing electric vehicles. However, a recent story I came across talked about how far behind VW is, electric-car-wise, compared to Tesla.

On the flip side, it concerns me some that so far Consumer Reports has loved many feature of the Tesla Model 3, while giving the car an overall mediocre rating of 65, in large part because of reliability concerns. And I don't like the idea of having to use a touchscreen to activate most of the controls of a Tesla.

I do enjoy watching videos of super-fast Model S Tesla's in Ludicrous mode bringing screams of glee, or panic, to passengers. And there's a lot to like about the regular updates/upgrades Teslas get over the air. It's always bothered me that a $3 iPhone app gets updated routinely, but a $30,000 car I buy gets zero upgrades, even though it is highly computerized.

When I think about divorcing my VW GTI and getting a younger model, I'm torn.

The eighth Golf/GTI generation is coming to Europe this year, though not to the United States until 2020 as a 2021 model, from what I've heard. It sounds great, but apparently there won't be a plug-in hybrid version, which I'd love to be able to buy.

Along that line, it's deeply irritating to learn about way-cool cars that are only available in other parts of the world. For example, the BMW X1 is about the same size as my GTI, nicely subcompact or maybe a smallish compact car. China is getting a plug-in hybrid X1 with 68 miles of electric range, more than our Chevy Volt gets. 

But it's going to be made in China, and only sold in China. Which sucks.

In case I fall out of love with the VW GTI, recently I've been looking at the Hyundai Kona -- a car that had escaped my attention until I saw an article about it in the newspaper a few days ago. Like the GTI, it comes in a turbocharged model that has a dual clutch automatic transmission.  

(Don't ask me to explain what dual clutch means; it just  works great in the GTI.)

The AWD (all wheel drive) Kona comes in lime green, a color that I like. I believe only lime green Kona's have matching accents in the interior, which jazzes up the otherwise rather bland look. 

(Note: my wife believes this color looks like baby poop, which is pretty harsh. Thus I'd face an uphill battle to have a lime green Kona  in our carport, though there is a very slight chance my wife will develop color blindness. Or at least lime green blindness.)

However, I've become picky about what features I want in a potential car-mate. Two are rain-sensing wipers and adaptive cruise control, both of which my 2017 VW GTI has. Now that I'm used to these great features, it's really tough for me to consider a car that doesn't have them.

For some reason, the Kona lacks adaptive cruise control. I have no interest in going back to clicking away on up and down buttons to adjust the cruise control. Hopefully Hyundai will add this in the 2020 model year.

Lastly, my wife and I have ordered a 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid to replace our Highlander.

But as I wrote about recently in "Toyota's special order process for cars is irritating," our order really is just a desire to get a certain model in a certain exterior and interior color, with certain features -- since Toyota doesn't actually build cars to order. 

Battery X-Change guys made me feel like less of a fool

I give two thumbs up to Battery X-Change on the corner of 17th and Center Street.

One thumb is for selling me two hard-to-find batteries for my mower at a good price. The other thumb is for making me feel like less of a fool after I managed to fry the first battery they sold me within a matter of hours.


My battery saga is a good illustration of why small locally-owned stores need to be patronized, because without them Salem would be much diminished.

It began when I turned off my DR Field Mower, a walk-behind mower with a 16.5 hp Briggs & Stratton engine that I use for both lawn and field mowing on our rural south Salem property. After getting a snack, I went back to the mower and turned the key so I could finish cutting a couple of small fields.

But it wouldn't start. Total silence. Not even an attempt at a start. That perplexed me, since the mower had started completely normally earlier in the day.

My first thought was that the neutral switch had gotten unplugged, since this was the reason the mower wouldn't start one time last year. However, as far as I could tell the neutral switch (which prevents the mower from being started in any gear but neutral) seemed properly connected.

The next thought that popped into my not-very-mechanical mind was that the battery could be dead. I didn't have a battery tester, but I went out and bought one at an auto parts store. It seemed to show very low amps. So I phoned Country Home Products in Vermont, which makes the DR Field Mower.

They told me that, sure, they could send me a new battery for a mere $60.

It would take about a week to get to me, though. I said that the grass was growing like crazy here in Oregon. Couldn't I pay extra for faster shipping? I could -- a seemingly crazy $68 for two-day air. Batteries are heavy, but  that still seemed overly expensive.

After complaining about the delivery time and cost, I was given the phone numbers of a couple of places here in Salem that might have the battery I needed, which isn't a common size.

Neither place had the battery.

However, one of them suggested I call Battery X-Change, which once I heard the name, I realized I should have tried right away. The guy who answered the phone at Battery X-Change checked after I gave him a part number and said that he was pretty sure they had the battery.

Which turned out to be the case. I walked out with a new battery for $48, considerably less than Country Home Products would have charged me.

Then things went downhill.

I installed the battery. The mower still wouldn't start. My next (reasonable) idea was to hook the battery up to the trickle charger that I use to maintain the mower battery during the winter. But the following morning I had another idea: check the battery charge with the tester I'd bought the day before.

The tester had large clamps made for car battery terminals.

The mower battery had small "terminals" that fit slide-on engine wires. I could barely fit the large clamps on the small battery. Worse, as I was adjusting them, the clamps touched -- producing an impressive POP, a bright flash of light, and a display of sparks.

That left the terminals half burnt off, not long enough to attach the starter wires.

So another trip to Battery X-Change was in order. I explained my stupid mistake to a different employee than had sold me the battery the day before. Pleasingly, he said "Hey, let me tell you what I did one time."

His story involved something like 100 batteries the size of mine, all connected together for some industrial application. He cut some wires that contained both a live and neutral wire. The tool he was using caused a short that melted the tool and created a way more impressive electrical display than I'd experienced.

"We all do crazy stuff at times," he said. And then proceeded to just charge me $30 rather than $48 for the second battery, adding that I could keep the first battery for jump-starting a dead mower battery, or whatever.

Now, it turned out that my mower still wouldn't start after I'd fully charged the second battery. That led me to phone a neighbor friend who is way more mechanical than I am. He did some testing and found that the neutral switch was defective. After bypassing it, the mower started fine.

The original battery was at least four years old, so it likely would have needed to be replaced soon anyway.

Thus I'm pleased that I was able to get a new battery (two, actually) locally, even though I probably didn't need one at the time. I'm also pleased that my first inclination that the neutral switch was the problem, was accurate. I just didn't know that it was broken, not disconnected.

Bottom line: the guys at Battery X-Change were helpful, competent, and made me feel better about my battery-frying mistake. Head their way if you have a battery problem. You won't regret it.

Toyota's special order process for cars is irritating

Don't get me wrong -- I love Toyota cars.

But I'm not loving what's happened since February 5 of this year, when my wife and I thought we were putting in a special order for a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid in Limited Trim -- Blizzard Pearl color with black interior, plus several option packages.

Based on my experience with special ordering several other cars fairly recently, a Mini Cooper S and a Chevy Volt, I expected that after we told a salesman at Capitol Toyota here in Salem, Oregon exactly what we wanted in a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid, that information would be used by Toyota to manufacture a car to our specifications.

In retrospect, the first hint that this wasn't what was going to happen came around the first of March, when we asked the salesman if he could give us an update on our order. He said something like, "Toyota hasn't started making RAV4 Limited's yet."

That didn't send off major alarm bells, because I figured that as soon as Limited's did begin to be made, Toyota would manufacture ours -- since we had ordered a RAV4 Hybrid even before the car was officially introduced, basing our decision on reviews we'd read of the 2019 RAV4.

However, March came and went with no news about our order. This month I decided to check out what RAV4's were showing up on dealer web sites in our area, including Capitol Toyota's site. I saw that several RAV4 Hybrid Limited cars were available, though none with the color and options that we wanted.

This caused me to phone our salesman again, and to also do some Googling about "Toyota special order car." What I learned was more than a little disturbing. 

So far as I can tell, Toyota doesn't actually build a car based on a special order.

Rather, that order merely tells the dealership what sort of car you want. If they ever get one that matches those specifications, the dealer will sell it to you (assuming someone else hasn't put in an order for the same sort of car before you did).

Or, the dealer might be able to get another dealership to send them a car that matches what you want. How long could this take? Last time I talked with our salesman, who knows? It could be a month. Or two months. Or longer.

It just depends on how long it takes for a 2019 RAV4 Hybrid Limited with the exterior and interior colors we want, plus the options we want, to become available in the Pacific Northwest.

This seems screwy to me, but it sure appears to be Toyota's policy. 

Toyota has a FAQ site. One question is "If the dealer doesn't have the vehicle I want, can I place a special order?" Here's the answer. 

Toyota dealerships work with our regional offices to determine what vehicle combinations are in demand in their geographical market, and request vehicle allocations accordingly. Because of this, some model configurations and options may not be available in your area, while other options may be available, but only as part of a combination of packages. Your local Toyota dealership can advise you whether a preference can be submitted for your desired vehicle. This preference request does not guarantee you will receive the vehicle with the exact options requested, and may create an extended wait-time.

To which my blunt response is, WTF? 

My wife and I want a fully-loaded 2019 RAV4 Hybrid Limited, which retails at around $40,000. When we put down a $500 deposit on our special order, we didn't view this as a "preference." We want to buy a car that has the colors and options we asked for.

Yet Toyota thinks it is just fine to make customers endure an "extended wait-time" for the car they want, whereas Mini Cooper and Chevrolet built us cars to order within several months (our Mini came from Great Britain, even).

Another FAQ is "Why can't I configure a vehicle with the equipment I want using the Build a Toyota feature?' Here's part of the answer to that question. 

Our vehicles are generally equipped with options and model grades that we have found to be popular in the geographic area in which they are marketed. We do extensive market surveys and studies to assist in forecasting product features and equipment that will be desirable to the consumer.

And in some instances, particularly with new models just launched, your region might have limited or no availability of certain trim levels or selected options while we build up inventory.

So again, Toyota isn't going to manufacture a car from our special order. Rather, our order, which turns out to be not very special, simply means that if Toyota ever sends our dealer a car that matches what we want, we have a good chance of being able to buy it.

Someday. Date undetermined. 

Now, maybe I'm not completely understanding the Toyota special order process. A Capitol Toyota supervisor told me that after a VIN (vehicle identification number) is connected with our order, the car can be tracked.

But it still seems to me that this won't be because a car has been specifically made for us, but because a car that matches our order happens to have been made by Toyota.

Hopefully our special order saga will have a happy ending. I just hope that ending occurs fairly soon, since right now we have no idea when we might see the RAV4 Hybrid we've ordered.

And I want to emphasize that my wife and I are totally pleased with how Capitol Toyota has treated us. We've bought several Prius'es, several Highlanders, and a MR2 from Capitol Toyota over the years. It's just Toyota's special order process that I find irritating and in need of improvement.