HinesSight

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.

Express yourself! City Club talk on Salem art scene was inspiring.

I'll begin with the end. Of talks by two art-encouragers here in Salem, Sandra Burnett of the Salem Art Association and Carlee Wright, producer of Press Play Salem. 

After listening to Burnett and Wright speak yesterday at a Salem City Club meeting on "The Crucial Role of the Arts in Our Community," I got to ask a question. It went something like this.

Carlee, I heard you say "express yourselves." As someone who writes almost every day, I know that I feel better when what is inside me is expressed to the outside world, and I then get responses from people about what I've written. But there has to be more to why people embrace art than this. Hopefully you can give me a fuller answer than what I've just said.

Now, I've got to confess that I don't remember much of what Wright said in her response to me. It certainly was in line with my question, as was Burnett's reply to me. I recall that one or both of them said it is indeed nice for artists to get responses from others about what they've created.

Leaving the City Club meeting at the Willamette Heritage Center, I walked down the stairs with Chris Hoy, a Salem city councilor.

Chatting with him about the talks, I said that when my wife and I go to the Salem Art Fair, we're careful about what we say about booth art, since occasionally we've made a negative comment, then saw that the artist was sitting on the other side of a partition. Hoy said that he's a photographer who has had his work exhibited.

"Do you hang around and listen to what people say about your photos?" I asked him. "Sometimes," Hoy said. That spurred me to observe that often I don't read Facebook comments after I've shared a link to a blog post I've written, because the comments can be both mean and uninformed.

Hoy and I then agreed that because art springs from the mind of someone, and is a personal expression of how they see the world, it feels much more problematic to critique someone's art face-to-face with them, while social media and online communications in general facilitate more negativity and nastiness because the other person isn't there in cyberspace.

So expressing ourselves can be risky.

If we only sing in the shower, the risk is minimal. If we choose to get up on stage and sing in front of an audience, there's the possibility of getting only a smattering of applause. Or even some boos. (Of course, we need to remember that just as we're entitled to share our creative impulses, other people are entitled to respond with their own reactions.)

Yet we humans still love to express ourselves.

Burnett said that this gives us a sense of how we stand in time and place. I agree. I suck at drawing, painting, and music, but I've always enjoyed writing. Partly it is because I never know what I'm going to say until I see it on my laptop's screen. The words come of themselves, though they come from me. 

A deeper part of me that I'm not really aware of until I make an effort to create a blog post, book, Christmas letter, or whatever. When what is within comes out, it's pleasurable. Not orgasm-like pleasurable (unfortunately). More like when you really need to go to the bathroom, and what is demanding to come out with such urgency does, there's a sense of relief. 

Until the next urge arises.

Carlee Wright, shown above in an artistic photo that the Great God Google Images bestowed upon me, said that she had an urge to share her love of all things art'y in Salem after her days at the Statesman Journal ended. Appealingly, she went counter to the digital trend and decided to produce a -- gasp! -- paper publication, Press Play Salem.

The publication is attractively priced: free. It's advertiser supported, so pick up a copy and support the advertisers in turn.

I liked how Wright talked differently about the oft-heard geometry of Salem: the nothing-much that sits an hour from Portland, Eugene, the coast, and the mountains, where you really can do something. Not true, she said. "We are the center, not an hour away from everything." 

Adding, "I often hear people say that I don't want to go to Portland, fight the traffic, find a place to park, and pay an exorbitant ticket price. It's so convenient to go out here in Salem!" Which is absolutely true. Three hours of parking is free in downtown Salem, and it isn't difficult to find a space on the street or in the parking garages.

Burnett shared her own take on the arts via a slide presentation. I learned that the Salem Art Association is 100 years old in 2019, though it began under a different name in 1919. The Salem Art Fair started in 1949, so it is now 70 years old. (Just like me! Can I get in free?)

She presented interesting information about how cultural events boost the Salem economy, noting that we have ten cultural institutions in this town. Burnett said that when corporations decide whether to come to Salem, they view the arts/culture scene here as part of the livability standard that has to be met.

Lastly, I like the new logo of the Salem Art Association. It's, well, artistic.

Open letter to the robin pecking on my GTI's mirrors

Dear Mr. or Ms. Robin (likely Mr.), I'm sorry to address you in such an impersonal manner, but I don't know your name.

Also, I don't know if you're able to read blog posts. If not, I sympathize, because we live in a rural area with crappy slow-speed DSL "broadband" (not!) for us humans, so I can only imagine how poor Internet access is for you birds.

Regardless, I wanted to thank you for your dedication in bringing some challenges, along with bird poop, to my generally serene retired existence.

You are not the first robin to come into the life of my wife and me. Back in 2003 I wrote "Further evidence of male idiocy."

Now, there's a title for a book, a really long book. I have an item to contribute to it. Not involving me, of course. That would be ridiculous, to think that I have ever, am now, or will in the future engage in any act that could fall under the rubric of "male idiocy" (the skeptical laughter from cyberspace is already ringing in my ears).

No, this is about the bird I like to affectionately call Bastard Robin, or even nicer names, depending upon how many tons of bird poop I find splashed on my Volvo wagon each day.

I'm no expert on bird behavior, but I believe these are the basic facts.

Bastard Robin wants to father some offspring. It isn't enough that he screw some sweet young female robin. In his delusional, and seemingly infinitesimal, robin brain, he is determined to be the only male in the whole wide world screwing a sweet young female robin, so all the baby robins everywhere will carry on the genetic heritage of Bastard Robin.

Hence, his singleminded determination to rid the neighborhood of other male robins. Now that makes some sense, I guess. But now the male idiocy kicks in, stimulated by what a character on Ally McBeal was fond of calling the man's "dumb stick."

In searching about for other male robins, so he can kick their feathered ass, Bastard Robin always comes upon himself first thing in the morning.

He (or they; I can't tell them apart) used to wake us up by fluttering against our bedroom window, trying to chase away that robin S.O.B. he could see when he peered at the glass, and who bore such a strking resemblance to himself, and who mirrored his every move, the crafty kung fu fighter.

We put shades over the window and carefully drew them down every night, believing that this had solved the Bastard Robin problem.

Actually, it just moved the problem.

Now he has found the windshield and rear view mirrors of my (previously clean) car. When I drive into the carport, I often see him flying off from a rafter, where he has been lying in wait for Bastard Robin2 to return.

And yes!, there he is, just as before, on the other side of the windshield and mirror, taunting with his antics that are so similar to Bastard Robins'. He thinks, "I am so angry! I am so frustrated! I can never reach Bastard Robin2! What should I do? Why, I will poop! And poop, and poop, to show Bastard Robin2 just who is the Biggest Baddest Robin around here."

Then, in 2011, I wrote "How we stopped a robin's pecking on window glass." The solution, which you're aware of, because I've used it on you in 2019, as shown below, was netting that I attached over several bedroom windows.

(Note: in that post I mentioned how female robins also are territorial, and can peck on windows or glass.)

I apologize for using the term Bastard Robin in my first post. Like I said, this was an affectionate term, at least insofar as a semi-profane name for a bird can be viewed as affectionate. In what follows I've tried to be more respectful to your species. In fact, even laudatory.

First, thank you for making the concrete floor of our carport so much more artistic. The splashes of white robin poop have a pleasing abstract quality to them. Random, yet purposeful. There is a special message accompanying the precise placement of your poop so close to the tire track of my VW GTI.

I believe I understand your message. Likely it is, in line with my 2003 blog post, "I'm going to drive away that damn male robin that I see in the rear view mirrors." Yes, actually it is you, so you are at war with yourself. But aren't we all, to some extent?

I'm sorry to interfere with your battle of Me vs. Me, but the Lifesource Natural Foods grocery bags I've been putting over the rear view mirrors are necessary to keep my daily poop cleaning to a minimum. And they add a certain flair to my car absent in the original VW design.

Now, I realize that you birds are complex beings, so I may have erred in assuming that your sole motivation in attacking my car's rear view mirrors was to drive away a robin that looks just like you. The oft-heard saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" could be adapted in your case to "Absence makes my robin heart pissed off." 

The absence being the removal of a nest from this area under our carport's roof. When you started pecking at the windows of our house a few weeks ago, I looked around and found the nest. I admit that I was the one who got a ladder and removed it, but it was my wife who took it into the woods and put it on a stump. 

So I'd like to suggest that if you're pissed (or more accurately, pooped) at me, you should direct half of your ire -- and poop -- at my wife's car -- which is the Chevy Volt to the left of my car. 

And in the interest of transparency, I want to add that even though I don't think you have any emotional attachment to this nest, this afternoon I removed it from a bush to the right of our front door that has been a home for robin's nests in the past.

My wife believes a bluejay was contemplating this as a home, but decided to pass on it -- maybe because it didn't have a three car garage, or fast broadband. At any rate, it's sitting at the base of an oak tree if you'd like to use twigs from it in your nest far away from our house, and my car. Oh, did you see the mention of far away?

Lastly, I want to express my thanks for you leading me to make this addition to our house, albeit a temporary one. I certainly wouldn't call myself a handyman, but you helped me explore the fine art of using masking tape and netting to create a robin barrier over four windows that, while admittedly lacking in artistry, has a certain rustic flair to it.

And when I look out of the window from inside our house, I'm reminded of how precious freedom is -- since the netting offers up a glimpse of what prison life would be like, assuming my cell was designed to keep robins out, rather than humans in.

First day report on Salem's plastic bag ban: I not only survived, I thrived!

Monday is my habitual weekly grocery shopping day, this being my role in our marriage. Today, April 1, coincided with the first day of Salem's ban on plastic bags at large retailers. 

Which didn't affect me at all, given that I carry around six Trader Joe's reusable bags in my car, typically bringing two bags into each of my trifecta grocery shopping destinations: Trader Joe's, Fred Meyer on south Commercial, and Lifesource Natural Foods.

Naturally, when the checkout person at Trader Joe's asked me how my day was going, I said "It's exciting to be here on the first day of the plastic bag ban. Of course, you guys don't use plastic bags, just paper, so I gather nothing has changed for you."

I couldn't resist adding:

"However, the ban is going to take away from my judgmental satisfaction when I'm in a checkout line at Fred Meyer behind someone buying $150 or so of groceries, and the checker puts a zillion (more or less) plastic bags into their cart, with like four items in each bag. I feel morally superior with my reusable bags in hand. I find this as irritating as the women who spend an hour (more or less) searching for exact change in the depths of their purses."

Our brief conversation ended with me blurting out a bit of quasi-philosophical wisdom.

"The way I see it, if I'm not getting annoyed at something, I'm not alive." Pleasingly, the Trader Joe's checkout person agreed -- though maybe it was because she didn't have time to disagree with me.

Plus, I got an absolutely free Trader Joe's reusable bag, which must have been in honor of the plastic bag ban.

At Fred Meyer, I also brought up the plastic bag ban when asked how my day was going.

Since I was at the store where many times I"d noticed people sucking up over a dozen plastic bags to put their groceries in, I repeated my comment about how this irritated me, adding, "I bet plastic-bag-customers are going to be thankful for the ban when they realize how many fewer bags they have to carry into their house now that they have to use either reusable bags or paper bags."

The checkout person said that she's glad plastic bags have been eliminated. "They tear easily," she told me. "And they don't stand up like reusable bags do," I noted.

I didn't hear any enraged Fred Meyer customers fuming about the goddamn City Council taking away their precious plastic bags.  In fact, as I wheeled my cart away I could hear the woman in line behind me speaking positively to the checkout person about the plastic bag ban. 

Councilor Tom Andersen was featured in a KGW TV story last night about the upcoming rollout of the plastic bag ban. Andersen spoke about the environmental benefits of the ban in this video.