View from the Mountain

Not her first choice

The real fishermen that might catch this post know that fishing on the coast often is at its peak in the fall.  I've been dreaming of a fall fishing trip to the North Carolina coast for years.  Work has always gotten in the way.  This year there seemed to be a little break in pace of things towards the end of October. 

I sent a note to Captain Tom Roller of Waterdog Guide Service in Beaufort, NC.   He said he could take me out either Friday morning or afternoon, October 28.  Knowing that my wife and oldest daughter would likely enjoy sleeping in the first day of our trip, I picked the morning.  The weather even looked good when I picked it.  Of course weather never stays the same.

Captain Roller agreed to pick me up on the dock at the Beaufort Inn at 6:30 am.  I always get excited before a trip like this.  The knowledge that it might be one of those unforgettable days catching fish makes it hard to sleep.  I was up by 5:20 am and had a hearty breakfast of nabs and a coke.  There's actually not a lot of choice at that time of the morning when you're in a hotel room.  As soon as I had rolled out of bed I stuck my nose out to check the weather, and it didn't look good.  There was a steady rain and gusty winds.

About 6:15 am I made my way out to the car and grabbed my rain parka.  Unfortunately I had neglected to bring any rain pants.  As I was sitting on a dry bench watching the dock for Captain Roller's Jones Brothers Skiff, I started wondering if I was absolutely crazy.  It was about fifty degrees and the wind was gusting over 20 mph.  Before I had time to come to my senses, Captain Roller slid up to dock, and the adventure began.

We made a short trip out into the marshes and starting fishing.  It wasn't long before we started catching some serious fish.  The speckled trout came first.  There were three beautiful ones just under four pounds each and a number of smaller ones.  Then a few really nice flounder started mixing in with the trout.  Finally the puppy red drum starting hitting.  They were absolutely gorgeous, some with an iridescent blue on the ends of their tails.  I caught so many puppy drum that I lost count and returned all of them safely back to the waters so they could fight again.  We kept a few trout and some flounder for eating.

Captain Roller tells me that I got an inshore slam by catching keeper size trout, flounder, and puppy drum.  All I know is that I had the best half day of fishing in my life.

It only stopped raining and blowing long enough for us to take a few pictures before heading back to the dock, but as far as I was concerned the sun was shining the whole time, and things couldn't have been better.  Of course I have to admit to spending a long time in a hot shower once I got back.  My jeans and tennis shoes were soaked, but I'll never forget what a great time I had.

When I told  my wife, what a fantastic trip she had missed, I suggested that she might want to consider joining us the next outing.  She looked at me like I had lost all my marbles.  Then she said that fishing in the rain and wind at fifty degrees Fahrenheit would not be her first choice even if she didn't have to get up before six to do it.

Apparently my wife and our daughter had slept until 8:30 am, had a leisurely breakfast which included the Beaufort Inn's famous Katie's Breakfast Pie and then had wandered through the shops in Beaufort.  They had even driven the car the short distance to the shops so they wouldn't get wet.

Some people just don't know how to have fun.  However, she did seem to enjoy the fresh trout that I cooked Sunday night and the fresh flounder we had for lunch today. 

That certainly won't be my last fall trip for fishing in Beaufort.  I hope the weather is just as good the next time.

To see how fishing is going, sign up for a newsletter from Captain Tom at this link.

Hitting the nail on the head

There are any number of theories as to why government doesn't work these days.  Lewis Gould's article, "Stop the Campaigning," in today's Washington Post has some interesting suggestions.   A number of his arguments ring true.

Stage-managed events, orchestrated by masters of spin, provide the appearance of a chief executive in charge of the nation's destiny....

The Bush team brought its campaign skills from the 2000 presidential contest into the White House and never stopped its reliance on these methods.

The realities of governing are much different than campaigning.  As Gould says, "Campaigning is easy, governing is hard."

Age teaches us that just when we think we have all the answers, we are likely setting ourselves up for a series of hard lessons that show us just how little we know. 

Bush attained (particularly in the minds of his base) a status that embraced both the imperial and in some cases the quasi-deified. Why then become involved in the details of running a government from the Oval Office? Appoint the right Republicans to key posts, and the federal government would run itself while providing an unending source of patronage for supporters, contracts for friendly businesses and the sinews of perpetual political dominance.

Just as the details of running a business are key to long term success, attention to the details of the US Government make the difference between success and failure.  Appointing unqualified people to important jobs often leads to failure or even at the best, less success than necessary for the health of a business or the body politic.

I can remember the criticism of Al Gore that he was too detailed oriented and too much involved.  How ironic that we are now saddled with a leader whose crisis involvement is often limited to a media event.

In spite of the failure to meet the challenges governing, all the deaths in Iraq, and the insane policy of creating debts that will end up on the shoulders of great grand children, still well over one third of this country thinks this administration is doing well.  Perhaps their knowledge of the world around them is limited to carefully crafted media events.

Interestingly Gould lays some of the blame for poor governance on the media.

The Bush presidency will end in three years, but the larger problems revealed by his faltering second term will remain to plague the nation. There is as yet no meaningful evidence that the president, Congress and the media are prepared to abandon their infatuation with continuous campaigning as an alternative to actual operation of the federal government.

I for one am not looking for a government that will entertain me.  I would like one that makes efficient use of the money they seem to determined to take from me.  I would like to see greater protection of the environment, a "moon landing" style challenge to develop alternate energy resources, investment in our crumbling infrastructure instead of foreign wars, and a policy that makes it attractive for countries to bring jobs to the US instead of ship them to foreign countries.  I also believe that regaining our competitiveness means developing single payer health care which includes coverage for everyone.  I'm not looking for a welfare state, I just want a fair state which is one where the ultra rich end up paying much of their billions in stock options back to the country that created a system which let them become so rich.  As long as we leave them with a hundred million or so to live on each year, they should be fine.

Unfortunately I think we have a long way to go.  As we continue down a road to a society with increasing numbers of people who will never have a chance to better themselves because of the disappearance of those class busting manufacturing jobs, we have got a long way to travel before things start to get any better.   Our whole country rests on the belief that with education, hard work, and a fair opportunity, you can not only better yourself, but also put your family on a road to a better future. 

We need to make keeping that dream alive a national priority.

Politicians often brag about how history will view their decisions in a different light. Aside from the fact that our current politicians are ever more allergic to tough decisions,  I think that boast might be a challenge for this administration.  Even a year ago in an article by Robert S. McElvaine, "Historians vs. George W. Bush," it was clear that those who will likely be writing the history of this era were already leaning in one way even before the dark days of 2005.

A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University’s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.

That's pretty impressive considering that at the time nearly 50% of Americans supported the President.  It's interesting how times have changed.

I wonder if any of those still clinging to this administration believe that the record $36 Billion in oil company profits are just a coincidence and have nothing to do with an administration full of oil men?  Perhaps some of them would be interested in a slightly used bridge that I have for sale.

First Frost 2005

That first icy white grass is always a sign of the passing from one season to the next.  My mother used to get excited when that first frost came.  She would say it was time to put the garden to bed for the winter.   Since she worked hours each day in the garden, winter was like a vacation.  She could tend to all her winter craft and cooking projects without any guilt.

About the only thing that she cared about watching bloom all winter would be some fall pansies.  We've about given up on pansies since the deer seem to consider them especially delicious.  That ends up being one less fall chore.

With the tomato plants cleaned up, the flower beds mulched, the fall weeds in the ravine cut one last time, and the outside water pipes drained,  we're almost ready for winter.

Also I cut the grass yesterday afternoon so my timing was pretty good.   I might have to mow one or two more times, but most of the growing season is gone now that nights are cold.  I am actually ready to put the mower, trimmer, and blower away for a season.

I'll look forward to some swimming over at the Salem YMCA for my exercise instead of my weekly yard work and the brush trimming down in the ravine.  It's actually nice to see the temperature down in the lower thirties.  I can't believe how good the grass looks for this late in the season, so I don't think there is any worry about it going into the winter in anything but great shape.

Now if we just coax a little more color out of the fall leaves, things would be just about perfect weather wise here in the Roanoke Valley.

High tech car, low tech dealer

We bought our first Volvo in 1974.  Our second one was purchased in 1983.  We went through the nineties without a Volvo.  Then in 2001 we got Volvo Cross Country AWD.  It was one of the first in town.  It was a great vehicle.  My wife fell in love with her Volvo wagon, that is at least until our dealer started "fixing it."

Today's modern cars can last a long time if properly maintained.  We've always believed in having our cars serviced at dealers even though it is more expensive.  This year we gave a friend our 1991 Toyota Previa which had nearly 185,000 miles on it.  The oil was never changed except by a Toyota dealer.  We never really had a problem with the Toyota.  I expect it will easily hit 250,000 miles.

We expected no less from our Volvo, unfortunately we didn't get it.  Yet I'm not certain it was the car's problem.  We had the car for five years and slightly over 50,000 miles.  For the first 47,800 miles the car had zero problems and performed exceptionally well.

At just over 47,800 miles I noticed a stutter in the engine at highway speeds.  We took it to our dealer.  It took them nearly three days to figure out the problem.  It turned out we needed a new throttle body.  It ended up costing us $992 since we were a year out of the four year warranty.

When I got home, it only took seconds of Internet searching to find that Volvo throttle body problems are well known and actually part of a class action law suit.  Immediately I started wondering why our Volvo dealer had taken three days to figure out what turned out to be a well known problem.

This comes from the "Auto Prophet" and was posted two months before we took our Volvo in for repair.

Now, there is news that Volvo is having problems with its electronic throttle bodies in 1999-2001 models. Since the throttle is computer controlled, if the ETM fails, you are not going to drive any further, as there is no mechanical backup. Customers are stalling, and are having to replace the throttle bodies well before 100,000 miles.

Of course this is only the beginning of the story.  Shortly after the repair we noticed a few drops of oil of the garage floor.  We assumed it was some spilled oil from the repairs.

Since my wife drives very little, her car stays parked a lot.  We made one day trip to Charlotte in the car which was about 400 miles.  Other than that trip the car was driven 1,448 miles after the throttle body repair in three months.  There still was an occasional drip of oil so we finally decided to take it to the dealer on September 28.  In a phone call with the service advisor, we were told that they had found five oil leaks and that the mechanic thought we should consider trading the car.  At this time the car had 50,588 miles on it.  We were flabbergasted, and it got even worse when we were told it was going to cost us $2,600 for the repairs.

Then the service advisor told they were going to talk to Volvo see what they could do.  They eventually came back and said Volvo was going to pay half.  Despite many misgivings, we went ahead with the repairs.

My wife finally got her car back on Oct 7.  I dropped her off at the dealership and headed off to do some errands.  I  was just walking into Circuit City when my wife called me and told me that she had driven less than a mile to the first stoplight, and the car started pulsating when she stopped at the light.  I told her to take it back to the dealership.  It was late Friday afternoon so they gave her a loaner and promised to have it fixed early the next week.

We got a call that the car was fixed late on Monday, October 10.  We picked the car up and drove it immediately home and parked it.  It wasn't driven until Wednesday night when we went to a late dinner at a neighbor's house which is less than two miles away.  When we started to pull back into the garage, we noticed a puddle of oil on the floor.

If you look closely, you can see some of the original oil drips just to the right of my wife's foot.  Obviously the oil spill that greeted us after our late dinner was much greater than our original drips.

We cleaned up the puddle, and put down newspaper.  There was an equally large puddle the next morning.

We took the car back to the Volvo dealer on Thursday, October 13 and got another loaner.  We got a call that day. Apparently the mechanic already had a full day and wouldn't be able to get to it until the next day.  The next day we got a call that they were going to put their best mechanic on it, and he wouldn't be able to get to it until Monday.  Of course I immediately deduced that if they were putting their best mechanic on it, we likely had been a victim of their worst mechanic.

We picked the car up on Monday October 17, took it home and there was no oil leak the next day.

Of course there was no charge for the last repair.  Given we had already paid them $1,442 on top of the throttle body repair, I doubt I would have paid more if they had tried to bill me.

Of course while this was all going on, I was called for a dealer customer satisfaction survey.  I gave them an earful.  I also gave our service advisor my thoughts on the subject, especially after the second trip when the first mechanic accused us "having a gasket installed" not by them.  The Volvo never even had its oil changed anywhere but that dealer.  If there were any strange gaskets put in the car, the same Volvo dealer did it.  Of course when challenged, the mechanic admitted he was wrong or in other words he was lying and probably trying to cover up his own ineptitude.

On top of all this, the dealer told us that were was no warranty on the repairs. They said if something more happened in the "next little while" they would take care of it.   There was a weird explanation as to why no warranty was the case. Supposedly it was because Volvo had paid part of the repairs.  Of course it didn't make it sense.  However, it didn't really matter to me.  I had already made up my mind.

On Wednesday, after no oil leaks for two days, I traded my wife's Volvo.  I had completely lost all confidence in the dealer.  No one ever apologized to us for what they had done to our car.  I'm convinced a clueless mechanic screwed up our car, and we ended up paying for their mistakes.  Of course the original throttle problem appears to have been Volvo's contribution to our disaster.

We live in a world of cars loaded with technology.  Unfortunately there must be some mechanics out there who not only don't understand the technology, they can't even do the basics.  No car springs five oil leaks at one time.  I should have hit the roof when they even suggested this.  Yet I continued to trust the dealer.  I'll never do that again.

Will I ever buy another Volvo?  I seriously doubt it.  I don't care how much they talk about their high mileage club on their web site.  If the dealer who messed up our car is any indication of their dealers, then buying a Volvo is like buying a time bomb.  As soon as it needs real service, you'll need a new car.

Unfortunately I think the day of taking your Volvo in and having a few bolts tightened with the result of the car feeling almost like new are long gone.  I guess I'll have to amend the favorable rating that I gave the purchase of Volvo by Ford in my post, "Maytag's funeral."

We drive a Volvo. Ours was purchased in 2000 just after Ford purchased Volvo, the company.  We have owned other Volvos and found no difference in the quality and safety of this one.  Friends who have recently purchased don't seem to have had any different experience than what we've had with our current Volvo, so I think we can reasonably conclude that the Volvo acquisition by Ford was a win for both companies.

In just a couple of months, I've certainly have changed my opinion of Volvo.  Of course, I would never buy a car or have one serviced at the dealership where we had our problems.

A comedy of the absurd

It's really hard to believe that a Vice President of the United States would propose that we legalize torture.  The editorial in the Washington Post, "Vice President for Torture," summarizes very well with the following statement.

The vice president has been a prime mover behind the Bush administration's decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the U.S. military. These decisions at the top have led to hundreds of documented cases of abuse, torture and homicide in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The idea of torturing prisoners is so repugnant that it is hard to believe that we have a Vice President campaigning to legalize torture and a President threatening to use his first veto on Senator McCain's bill to ban torture.  Just how much more out of touch with the American people can the administration get?

The McCain effort to ban torture passed in the Senate 90-9, but again according to the Washington Post editorial this hasn't stopped the administration from wanting to continue torturing people.  They have now decided the best course of action would be to legalize torture by the CIA.

So now Mr. Cheney is trying to persuade members of a House-Senate conference committee to adopt language that would not just nullify the McCain amendment but would formally adopt cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as a legal instrument of U.S. policy. The Senate's earlier vote suggests that it will not allow such a betrayal of American values. As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture.

How much more do the American people need to see before realizing that as a country we have fallen off a moral cliff?  What good are family values if we legalize torture?   I hope the Senate and the House have the courage to resist this further plunge from the standards of civilization.  America managed to win the hearts and minds of the world before our current executive branch set out on an evil path into darkness that will forever be remembered as the hallmark of their administration.  It has taken our country that once was a shining beacon for the rest of the world into unfamiliar territory.

It amazes me that we have a war based on phony evidence, 2,000 American soldiers dead, thousands maimed for life, untold thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, and we're less safe from terrorists than we were years ago.  It is no secret we have created more terrorists and given them a perfect training ground in Iraq to hone their techniques.  While we have trouble recruiting enough American soldiers to die in a war that should never have happened, we have given the terrorists the biggest recruiting tools ever, proof of Americans in the lead on torture and uncounted deaths of civilians at the hands of Americans.  Now the Vice President wants to legalize torture?  It seems as though the administration is seeing things only from the inside of their own bunker which prevents public opinion from penetrating the inner circle.

It has become a comedy of the absurd as we wait for indictments of administration officials who attacked those who opposed the cooked up evidence for war.   Just maybe a little light will shown into the "heart of the darkness" as Maureen Dowd in this NY Times article has termed the Vice President.

It's exactly what we thought was going on, but we never thought we'd actually hear the lurid details: Cheney and Rummy, the two old compadres from the Nixon and Ford days, in a cabal running the country and the world into the ground, driven by their poisonous obsession with Iraq, while Junior is out of the loop, playing in the gym or on his mountain bike.

We'll at least we finally have found some efficiency in government.  As reported in another Washington Post piece, "Rearranging the Chairs,"  the investigation into the current administration has been much cheaper than the investigation into President Clinton.

Consider that over about the same period of time that Fitzgerald spent $723,000, independent counsel David M. Barrett spent more than $3 million.

Who the heck is Barrett? He was appointed more than ten years ago to investigate then-Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros. It's not clear what he's been doing lately, other than tidying up. He's spent more than $21 million in all.

And as George Lardner Jr. wrote in The Washington Post on March 31, 2001, by that point independent counsel investigations of Clinton had cost almost $60 million -- about $52 million by Kenneth W. Starr alone.

Well since we aren't getting much bang for our billions dedicated to eliminating terrorists, it's nice to see that at least we might get a few indictments for less than a million.  That's certainly more effective than the $60M spent on putting Clinton under the microscope.  It's hard to believe the tortured sexual truths of Clinton has been supplanted by US government endorsed torture of prisoners of war.  While Clinton's fall was highlighted by the distinction between oral sex and intercourse, we now have a government still in power but  seemingly willing to go to any lengths to protect their specious distinction between "enemy combatants" and "prisoners of war."

As an electorate, I hope we have the courage to erase from our government these people who have changed the definition of the American way.