It's a New Car!

2012 Honda Odyssey

Last night, my wife and I did our civic duty to improve the economy by buying a new 2012 Honda Odyssey.  We had an...interesting...car buying experience and I wanted to share it here.  Before I delve into the story, I need to tell you that my wife is the negotiator in our family.  She's good with money, finances and figures, plus she doesn't take any shit from anyone.  I cave in negotiations at the first sign of a struggle.  Not to mention that if you add a dollar sign in front of a number it transforms somehow into an unintelligible figure for me.  I'm good with numbers, but not money.  Not a good thing.  Also, she's a really awesome negotiator.

Our experience started on Saturday while the kids were staying over at their grandma's house.  We knew that we wanted to get an Odyssey, so we headed on over to Walser Honda in Burnsville.  We walked in and were immediately greeted.  We were told that they are a best price dealership.  That means that they don't negotiate on price.  Okay, that's cool; we don't like high pressure sales pitches anyway.  So we saw a couple of Odyssey's and test drove one.  We were already sold on the idea of buying one, and we were trading in our 2004 Honda Accord.  We gave them the keys and they drove it and looked it over and came back with a very low offer.  Well, we thought that this was where the wiggle room was and my wife told them that we needed a certain amount to make this work.  They "reminded" us that they are a best price dealership and didn't negotiate.  Well, long story short, we left without buying the van.

We were a little disappointed by not having a new van, so later that day (with our kids in tow) we headed over to Inver Grove Heights Honda.  My mother-in-law bought her Civic Hybrid from there and we'd had our Accord serviced there a few times, so we thought it would go smoothly.  Ha!  It started out good enough.  The kids were behaving well and we saw a good Odyssey and the kids seemed to love it.  They literally climbed over every inch of the interior.  Next came the negotiation part.  The kids were starting to get restless, so I took them to the little kids area that they had there while my wife negotiated with the sales guy.  So, I wasn't there during the negotiations, but from what my wife tells me, the guy was forceful and conniving.  At one point, he made her initial a hand written note that she would accept a certain price so that he could bring it to his manager.  Guess what?  He came back with a price higher than that!  She called it quits then and he tried to rally with "one more attempt" to talk his manager down.  Well, guess what dude, you had your chance.

By now, we were frustrated with the whole process, not disappointed.  We talked it over on Sunday and decided that come Monday, we'd try one more time at Walser.  Monday came and my wife called them and asked them if they had a certain color Odyssey and they confirmed that they did.  After I came home from work, we went there (sans kids, thanks to grandma again).  We walked in and wanted to take a look at the van and the same sales guy we talked to on Saturday went to get the keys.  About ten minutes later he came back and said that they couldn't find the van.  Apparently, sometimes the computer gets updated to say that the car is on the lot even when it hasn't arrived yet.  How stupid is that?  They literally had no idea where the vehicle was or when they'd get it.  UPS can track packages and tell you within the hour that they'll arrive, but a car dealership can't tell where their $35,000 car is?  Well, after discussing the color options (which were not satisfactory), we asked if they would let us have a loaner for the weekend if the van hadn't arrived by then.  They said no.  No negotiating power at all.  What a waste of time.  We left as frustrated as before.

On the way home, my wife called the third dealership that's relatively close to our house and asked if they had the color we were looking for.  They didn't, but they told us that the Hopkins Honda had two.  We drove the ~20 miles to Hopkins.  My wife was on the phone with the sales guy so that he would have all the paperwork as ready as he could for when we got there.  We were hoping for a relatively quick process with no negotiations involved.  We had two prices for the van and trade-in and she told the guy upfront what they were and what we were expecting.

So far, we'd had two extremes.  We had Walser which wouldn't budge on anything price-wise.  We had the Inver Grove guy who was getting to the price we wanted, but only after jumping through hoop after hoop.  We got to Hopkins and found something in between.  They are also a "best price" dealership, but the guy wanted to sell us a car, so my wife did a little negotiation with him on price and we all agreed on a price and trade-in value in record time.  We had to wait on a finance person, so I unloaded the car seats and other stuff from the Accord and put them in our new Odyssey.  Once the finance guy was ready, we went in and signed everything and drove off in our new car just before the dealer closing time.

Overall, I'd say that we saw a wide range of strategies regarding negotiation.  We had Walser, on the far end of the spectrum with absolutely no negotiations.  Then we had the far other end of the spectrum with over-negotiations at Inver Grove.  Finally, we had a good mix at Hopkins Honda with limited negotiations in the middle of the spectrum.

When we bought our G6 two and a half years ago, the dealer had the same kind of strategy that they used in Hopkins.  We were in and out in a couple of hours and everyone was happy.  While we ended up with a good deal and a good van, the experiences that two of the dealerships gave us were anything but good.

Do-Over Day

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinaphotography/6912731931/

Today has just been one of those days that you wish you could have a do-over on.  Ever have one of those days?  Of course you have, everybody has.  Well, before I tell you about it, I'll give you a little background since not all of you know me personally.  I travel for work a lot, though normally I leave late on Sunday evening, this week I was supposed to leave on Monday morning to save a couple of hundred dollars on the flight.

So, in order to get to the west coast and be able to work an almost full day, I had to book an early flight.  Now, you might be thinking that a 7:35 AM flight isn't an early flight, but you have to consider that I had to wake up at 5:15 just to get to the airport to fight the long lines at security and get to the gate at the recommended 45 minutes early.  I was able to do this without a hitch, so I should have known that something was up since things were going so smoothly.  I mean, I didn't wake anyone up when I left the house, I found a decent parking spot in the parking ramp and I was running on time.  Of course, I had to go through one of those stupid scanning devices at security, but overall it was good, so far.

The first negative event happened then.  I get to the gate at 6:45 and put in a $5 bill to get a Mountain Dew.  What comes out of the machine?  A Diet Pepsi!  Not really a big deal, but my first pop of the morning ended up costing me $4.50.  At least I was able to gift some random person a free Diet Pepsi.  Pay it forward, or something like that.

So, they start boarding at 7:00 AM and I get on the plane.  It's a 767, so I figure that there will be plenty of room for everything, but I didn't realize that I'm sitting behind a bulkhead.  Oops, no under seat storage for me.  Oh well, I can deal with that.  But, I have an aisle seat, so every third person is hitting me with a backpack as they walk by.  Okay, my patience is wearing thin right about now.

So, we're all boarded and they close the door.  Okay, now I get to sleep, right?  No, wrong.  They stop the plane about one hundred yards from the gate and the captain comes on the PA and announces our pending return to the gate.  All he says is that apparently the tires didn't pass the pre-flight check and although they had gotten the green light before, it had been revoked and we were being recalled to the gate so that someone could inspect the tires.  I've been on planes that have had tire problems before, so I immediately know that they're going to eventually have to take us off the plane if they're going to change it, but they don't let us off.

When we get to the gate they open the door and people start pulling out their phones and calling Delta.  The moment I had my phone on the Delta iPhone app told me that we were delayed until 8:35 AM and it was about 7:45 at this point.  I knew that I was either likely to sit on the plane for an hour or that something else was going to happen like a plane change.

The captain comes on again a few minutes later and explains the situation.  Now, get this because this is the really stupid part.  The plane had had some routine maintenance done the night before and someone had put a tire meant for international flights on the airplane.  Seriously?  They have different tires for international versus domestic planes?  If someone could explain the reason for this, I'm all ears.  Anyway, they don't have any domestic tires for a 767 in MSP, so they're flying one from Atlanta for the plane.

Pretty stupid, right?  Here's my theory.  The maintenance guy reached into the barrel of domestic tires and oops, we're out!  Oh, no one will notice if we put on an international tire, right?  This is a case of poor inventory control.  Why would you schedule maintenance on a plane and not have the right parts around?  Why wouldn't someone realize that they're running out of tires and order some?

So they let us off the plane and announce that the flight is delayed, but they can't give us a definite time of departure.  Now, this really sucks because if they could have told us then that it would have been a 12:35 PM departure, I would have gone home for a couple of hours.  Instead, they strung us on for about an hour and then told us that it would be 12:35 and at a different gate.  By this time it didn't make any sense for me to run home and then come back as I would only be able to stay at home for about half an hour or so and would have paid to get out of the parking ramp.

The silver lining of all of this is that I got a $6 meal voucher* and a $100 travel voucher (which is actually pretty sweet).  Plus, apparently the internet at MSP is free now.  Does anyone know when they started doing that?  It used to be around $7 for a 24-hour period or something like that.  Also, I tweeted about this and @DeltaAssist replied back almost immediately asking if there was anything they could do to help (like rebooking).  That was also pretty sweet.

So, overall, even though the situation really sucked and I ended up spending almost seven hours at the airport this morning, Delta has been really good about admitting their fault and (overall) keeping us informed about the status of the flight.  I know that they've been working on this as a company and I think that this is an improvement over my experiences with mechanical issues in the past.  Now they just need to work on keeping their maintenance and inventory so that preventable issues like this are avoided in the future.

*Meh, wasn't even enough for a foot long at Subway.  I got two $10 vouchers at SEA once for an hour delay.  Why so cheap, Delta?

TSA - Police State Agency

So there's a video circulating around the internet right now of a little six year old girl getting an "enhanced" pat down search. I've watched it a couple times now and I'm just shocked and appalled on two levels. One, how can anyone claim that this isn't a violation of our rights? And two, how could the parents of this child let the TSA get away with this?

The behavior of the TSA and their agents is getting out of hand. This is the kind of thing that the founding fathers of this nation feared from the English kings and why we have a BILL OF RIGHTS. The Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches. Now, this is an unfortunately subjective wording. The TSA and therefore the entire United States government are claiming that the searches and pat downs are not unreasonable in order to protect us from the possibility of terrorist attack. I say that we need to find another way. I understand their logic and I do think that their methods have probably made some terrorists think twice about their tactics. I do not think that the threat is great enough to warrant the blatant disregard of our "unalienable" rights. It's just a matter of time before some terrorist will find a way to circumvent the current TSA protocols and then things will get worse. We, as American citizens, need to put our feet down and say "This is unacceptable!".

It should be unacceptable. If I were travelling with my wife and children I would rather go to jail myself then subject my children to this kind of treatment. If the TSA insisted that my children go through that kind search, I would shout and make a fuss and do whatever it took to make sure that it didn't happen. Because it shouldn't! I wouldn't let them get away with it either. If they arrested me, I would call the ACLU so fast that it wouldn't be funny.

Wil Wheaton recently wrote about his experiences with the TSA. He mentions that he is speaking to a lawyer and the ACLU and I don't blame him. In fact, I applaud him for it. I would do the same and I would be glad for a celebrity on the side of good in this instance because it seems that these days people listen to celebrities more than they pay attention to right and wrong. I've been lucky in my travels to not have experienced this myself and I am not looking forward to that day. I'm sure it's coming and that saddens me. This nation is supposed to be about freedoms. I'm saddened because I'm sure that someday soon the government will try to violate my Fourth Amendment freedom while I'm traveling. I'm not sure, yet, how I'll react to the situation. Will I stand up for my rights or just take it and complain afterward? I just don't know yet.

Now, contrary to public speculation and rumor, the TSA is a government agency that reports to the Department of Homeland Security. The current administration is within its power to direct the TSA's activities and I think that an overhaul of its policies and procedures is overdue. Perhaps a changing of the guard as to who runs this agency is even necessary. I'm not sure exactly because I'm not a government expert, but it needs to happen before things get out of hand (which might be too late).

I'm going to end this post before it turns too much into a rant (might be too late!), but I'd like to encourage you all to watch out for yourselves and don't let the government trample on your rights. Remember that authoritarian regimes aren't always built overnight.

Open Letter to a Thief

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
I claim no rights to this image.

No, I'm not talking about the popular PC game.  I'd like to open up this post with an apology. I'm sorry if this post is a little pessimistic or angry or harsh. I'm just a tad bit upset and I thought that venting those feelings out in a blog post might help me get over it. I might delete this post later, but I had to get this off my chest now.

The world just keeps finding new ways to show me how much it's full of lazy assholes. For those of you who don't know yet, my wife had her car broken into this evening and some items were stolen. The worst part of this is that I'm stuck here, about 1300 miles from my family. I can't be there to help and protect them in their time of need. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.

I'm not terribly upset about losing those possessions, after all, it's just stuff and our insurance is likely to take care of it all. I'm really upset about how some low-life, lazy asshole saw that stuff in our car and said to himself, "Man, how easy would it be for me to break this glass and take those things? I might make a quick $100 pawning all of that crap."

Open letter to the jerk who broke into our car:

Hey, asshole! I worked really hard to make the money that bought all of that "crap". Some of that stuff were gifts to my wife and kids. When I think about my daughter crying because she is missing something that you took, it just makes me so angry that I would beat you into a pulp if you were standing in front of me right now. If you knew me, you would know how out of character that is for me. Jeez, I quit karate because I couldn't hit my sparring partners. You, I'd have no problem with.

Crime is NEVER a necessity to survive. It's a lazy person's excuse to make money because he doesn't want to buck up and EARN a living by WORKING. There is NO EXCUSE for not having ANY job. Walmart and Target are ALWAYS hiring. Just walk into one and fill out an application! Walmart and Target won't hire you because you're an idiot and they know you'll steal from them? Try McDonald's or Burger King! Or maybe, and this might be a stretch, DON'T STEAL! Most people don't have a job because they don't want to lower their standards to the level of job that is available.

Guess what, asshole? When I couldn't find a job in my field after I graduated from college, I worked at Target in the produce section. During the worst part of the recession, I managed to find a job. Sure, it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Sure, it was menial and not at all aligned with my interests. It paid me! It put food in my family's mouth! It's what normal people do!

If I somehow managed to lose my job and couldn't find one in my field, do you know what I'd do? I'd work at Target again! Or, if Target wasn't hiring, I'd find work somewhere else until I could find something better! If you show people that you're a hard worker and that you can be trusted, better opportunities will come along.

Oh, and if you claim that it's "too hard", well guess what, that's life! Life is hard! Just ask the dinosaurs, or the dodo. Get over yourself!

And, hey, I believe in the class struggle. I do believe that "The Man" is trying to hold you down. Do you know what? Fuck "The Man"! The best way to beat them is to show them that you can work hard and provide for yourself and your family. Stealing from your own people doesn't help anything, it just makes matters worse. The reason that the lower class is still the lower class is because of a lack of solidarity. You don't see billionaires sniping at each other in any serious way. No, they're too busy banding together to keep the lower class down!

This tirade has gone on long enough, I think. I'm tired of giving you so much attention. You're such a coward, thief. Grow a pair and get a job, like the rest of us.

Your friend (not really),
Erik

PS: I put the "not really" in there because you're probably too stupid to get sarcasm.

Flying Etiquette

I do a lot of traveling for my job. As such, I’ve noticed a lot of behavior of other travelers that I have come to despise or find annoying. I’ve been contemplating writing this blog post for quite a while, but I am a generally easy going person and I don’t want to ruffle any feathers. My annoyances have finally gotten to the point where I feel that I either need to vent or let other people know what I find annoying in the hopes that they think, “Oh, yeah, I bet that is annoying to other people” in the hopes that they cease this behavior.

Most of the complaints below are just things that I think should be common courtesy in everyday life, but that many other travelers ignore when in the airport for some reason. I don’t particularly understand that. People who are normally pleasant to everyone seem to think that just because they’re in an airport that they suddenly have permission to be a dick. Like my idol, Wil Wheaton, says, “Don’t be a dick”.

Let’s start this off with some annoyances that derive from people waiting at the gate before they even get on the plane. Prepare for /rant.

• Know where your liquids are packed. It’s been a rule long enough that you shouldn’t be surprised anymore when the TSA asks you to pull out your liquids in a Ziploc bag and put them on the x-ray conveyor belt. You slow everybody up because you didn’t think to keep all your liquids in a single place and have to practically repack while in the security line.
• Same goes with your laptop. Two weeks ago I was behind a guy that had packed his laptop at the bottom of his rollerbag and had to take out most of the contents to get at it. Plan ahead, people.
• Don’t argue with the TSA guys. Not only are they then going to choose you for a “random” screening, but you’re not going to change their minds. They don’t care if you have to walk through the metal detector barefoot or have to throw away a half full bottle of water. You need to follow the rules just like everyone else. Once again, you should have planned ahead better.
• Don’t take up more than one seat when the gate area is getting full. On Sunday, the gate area was very full because there were three gates all boarding within twenty minutes of each other, so there were a lot of people milling about. I noticed one particular person who was laying across three seats. Seriously? I gave up my seat to an elderly gentleman and sat on the floor, but you get three seats for yourself? Wow, dude.
• Don’t crowd the boarding area before it’s your turn to board. Nowadays, most of the airlines have a zone boarding scheme or go row by row. If you’re in Zone 4 or in the back of the plane, don’t stand around the boarding area. You’re just in everyone’s way and you’re slowing down the already slow paced boarding process. Also, don’t try to board in earlier zones. Sure, you might slip through, but chances are the gate person isn’t going to let you pass and will send you back to wait some more.
• Don’t be rude to anyone working in the airport or on the airplane. These people are responsible for maintaining a safe and comfortable way for the rest of us to travel. Most of them have tough jobs that I personally wouldn’t want to do. Plus, if you’re rude to them, you’re just being a jerk. Knock it off.
• When boarding the plane, don’t try to fit huge ass bags into the overhead area. Also, don’t put it in there sideways. You’re taking up room that another person might have been able to use. If it’s too big, check it. Or, better yet, pack your stuff in a smaller bag to begin with so that you can fit it in the overhead bin.
• Related to that is: Don’t put two bags in the overhead area. I don’t care how much foot room you want. When you put two bags up there, you’re taking up space that someone else could have used. If you’re bringing enough stuff to fit into two small rollerbags, you should probably have just put it all in one larger one and checked it.
• Stand up whenever someone is entering or exiting your row. Even in the exit row. I don’t want to stick my ass in your face anymore than you want it there. Quit being lazy and have some consideration for others.
• Don’t tattle on someone on the phone or listening to headphones after they close the door. This isn’t Soviet Russia, no matter how controlling the flight attendants are. The flight attendants will tell that person off, and if they don’t it’s not your job to do so anyways. Plus, I personally feel that it’s 100% bull that I have to turn my iPod off during takeoff and landing. Is the meager radiation that my iPod puts out going to crash the airplane? No, the person next to me wouldn’t even be able to detect it with the right instrumentation, much less get through all the stuff between me and the cockpit.
• Don’t watch raunchy or scary movies on a laptop or any player that others might see. Chances are there are children on your flight and they might see.
• Same applies to websites that you might visit. Go to the public library for that stuff.
• This one isn’t so much an annoyance as it should be common sense: don’t talk about your confidential business practices/information on an airplane. 1. You never know who is listening; 2. You probably shouldn’t be sharing that information with random strangers anyways when it’s supposed to be confidential. I doubt your boss/shareholders/etc. would like to hear that you were sharing that information.
• Never recline your chair. Everybody hates that. I really wish that none of the chairs ever reclined. I originally wrote this as the person in front of me reclined their chair back as far as it will go. I could literally rest my head on their head without being that uncomfortable. Amendment: when you recline your chair back so far you can see up my nose, don’t turn around and complain that my knees are sticking into your back. Quit being a jerk. I’m six feet tall, my knees touched your chair before you leaned the damn thing back. It isn’t exactly comfortable for me either.
• If you’re in the aisle seat, stand up when the plane gets to the gate. That way at least one of the other people in your row can stand too. I’m mildly claustrophobic and always pretty eager to get off the plane and I hate when the aisle person waits to the last moment to stand up.
• Don’t wait for the last moment to get your stuff together when everyone is getting off the plane. You’re holding everyone up. See the point above this for more information.

I try to follow all of these suggestions whenever I’m traveling (which is twice a week at this point). You’d be amazed at the behavior that I’ve seen that I haven’t even posted here since I’ve only seen it once or twice, or extreme examples of any of the above points. /Endrant

On a lighter note, most people do follow a lot of these suggestions. It’s just the jerks who stand out to me, I think. If you have seen some behavior that appalls you, or you have some additions to my suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.

And, now it’s time for my favorite song of the moment: Beefy – I’m No Superman