Cars and Consumer Reports

When I first started seriously thinking about what kind of car I wanted I became enamored of the Volkswagen Rabbit.  I loved the idea of the tiny little hatchback that I'd be able to park pretty much anywhere.  I expressed my interest to my father and he immediately handed me his authority on used cars.  Cue my first significant encounter with Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports is an American magazine and "the world's largest independent consumer-product testing organization". Every month, CR comes out with an issue full of reviews of consumer products including, but not at all limited to, cars, electronics, appliances, kitchen gadgets--even things like health insurance.

They buy all of the products they review, they don't accept paid advertising or free test samples, and are a nonprofit organization.

So when my dad handed me that year's used car dedicated issue of CR, I was more than willing to trust their results.  I was a little sad to find that the Rabbit ranked so poorly overall as a reliable car, but the same section turned me on to the existence of the Honda Fit, the Nissan Versa and the Toyota Echo (what is now the Yaris).  Those cars, all equally tiny and available as hatchbacks, all scored significantly better across the board with Consumer Reports and became the new objects of my automobile affection.

The ultimate moral of the story is that even though a particular make, model, and year of car may be what you want technically speaking, it's a really good idea to look into the car's long term reliability.  Consumer Reports is a great resource for doing just that.

This is a little bit of what I've been putting together for the potential book on dealing with adulthood that I mentioned in a previous entry.  One sizable section (or one of a series in this vein; I haven't decided yet) will be about cars, buying vs. leasing, new vs used, etc.

Route Loops

While listening to NPR with my parents a few weeks ago, I heard about a gentleman who had, in his quest to change up his bike route, developed a program that would take your starting/ending address and requested route distance and generate a random route over your immediate geography for you.

I’ve been walking my dogs along the same basic route for years now and, every once in awhile, I’d felt the urge to go a completely different route.  I was not quite willing, however, to just wander off into random exploration.  So when I heard about this website, RouteLoops.com, on the radio, I skipped on over as soon as I was back at my computer.

http://www.routeloops.com/

I was firstly pleased to find that the website offered a free iPhone app which I promptly downloaded to play with later.

My default browser is Google Chrome for Mac and I was a little dismayed to find that for some reason the website would not let me enter a Start/End Location in that browser.  I was presented with the same issue in Safari, but it turned out the Firefox could handle it just fine.

So I asked RouteLoops to build me a 2 mile walk/run starting and ending at the Kennedy Plaza bus terminal in Providence, RI and it quickly and dutifully executed it’s function.

From there I had a bit of fun pressing the “Create a Different Route of the Same Length” button, each time being rewarded with a new, random route I could run.

There are a number of options to fiddle around with on here.

-You can choose between a walk/run, bike, or car/motorcycle route.
-You can set the route to run clockwise or counter clockwise,
-start out heading in whatever direction (north, south, north-east, etc.) you want,
-and toggle between miles and kilometers.
-You can even tell it you're willing to take a ferry while on your route.
-They even have options for importing and exporting from/to a GPS unit, including advanced controls for Garmin users.

I've been playing with the app (which, I believe, is also available for Android users) a bit on my iPad.  I had a little difficulty setting the route length initially, but going back a page and selecting "Create New Route" solved this problem for me.  Most all of the other options for the app appear in the preferences tab.  The app does not appear to have the same fun little randomizing button, and the user must go back to the Routes page to re-enter the info.

In any case, the app provides you with a map and written directions to guide you along your route and the option to save that specific route to your favorites should you find it particularly pleasing or interesting, or fitting to the level of physical challenge you were looking for from your run or bike.

Since I'll be house and dog sitting for a family friend during the next two weeks, I'll be testing the app out frequently to change up my walks with their german shepherd mix, Sam.

To Do Redo

I’ve been absent from the blog for a while which is something I’m a bit sad about.

Camp was downright demanding.  Any time you weren’t spending teaching or supervising you spent hanging out with co-workers and students anyway or just simply crashed and asleep in your room.

But camp has been over for about two months now, so that excuse for neglect is right out.

I have started a new job as a Teacher’s Assistant/After School Counselor at Magic Years Child Care.  The age group is notably different than what I’m used to (infants to age 12 as opposed to iD’s 7 through 17) as is the structure of the day.  It’s tiring and interesting in its own unique way and I’m considering it a sort of crash course in behavior management.

In any case, now that I’ve settled into my new job and my new apartment and what is a pleasantly routine daily life, it’s high time to revisit the blog.

I have a few things I’m thinking of for the coming week or so, but for the moment I’d like to revisit my To Do list.  I’m scrapping the previous ones in favor of a complete rework since the flow of my life has changed so much over the past couple of months.  I’m going to start this off big.

Learn to Fly

This may seem like an off base goal, but it’s actually one I’ve had sitting in the periphery of my mind for a while now.  As I have mentioned previously, my grandfather was an aeronautical engineer and served for a time in the Air Force.  His love of planes had at one point driven him to purchase a small private plane whose make and model I cannot at this moment remember.  He and the rest of my mother’s family would often take trips in the plane.

The most interesting result of his owning this plane was, to me, that my mother learned to fly it a good deal before she learned to drive a car.  So, as I watch one of my room mates continually looking for new and interesting (and sometimes dangerous) hobbies to take up, I found myself remembering that old echo of a dream to learn to fly.

As such, I’m now seriously looking into it and have found a number of semi-local organizations by which I may accomplish this goal.  I will surely write more on this as I go about the process over the coming months.

Ride a horse

            This may seem relatively simple, but I mean to actually RIDE a horse, not sit on one in a line with other tourists on a trail.

I mean to ride a horse such that I am actively guiding it to move where I would like it to.  This goal may ultimately require some form of riding lessons, which I honestly may be totally willing to endure.  I haven’t taken lessons since I was… probably ten years old.

Join a gym

            I’ve made a lot of good progress health wise over the past 10 months.  Winter in RI, however, does not make for great outdoor running and walking weather.  There are a couple of gyms within reasonable walking distance of my apartment that I’m currently looking into.

Write, design, and publish a book

            This is something I’ve had on my mind for almost a year at this point.  As I was coming into adulthood, I would often wish that I had a manual for it (“it” being “adulthood”).  I kept finding myself wondering about things like buying and maintaining a car, paying taxes, renting a home as opposed to buying one, what kinds of insurance I was likely to start needing out of college, etc.

It occurred to me that creating such a thorough but concise guide to figuring out those things would be an interesting challenge for myself as a writer and a designer.  It’s definitely something I will be working on in the long-term, and pieces of it may show up here.