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Two of my favorite things (Early Intel Mac edition).
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Chuckle, LOL. 😀
Yes, there are buses. All of us have payment cards for the bus, although my kids are now using it the most. But, at least in this particular area, the routes do not run north/south and south/north. They only run east/west and west/east (depending on if you are on the north or south side of the street).
We live between two major E/W, W/E streets. Starbucks is on the street to the south of us. And since the buses don't run that direction it's either walk, ride a bike or call an Uber.
I'm not calling an Uber for what is essentially a five minute trip there by car, and then a five minute trip back. I'll walk. The grocery store and the pharmacy are all in the same area that SB is.
I do have a bike and at some point I'll start using that. But yeah, Phoenix (like almost every other major American city) is car-centric. The East Valley has light rail. But I live in the far West Valley. And it's the East Valley that gets all the good stuff, not us poor step-children in the WV! 😀
Fair enough. I should've asked whether there's a limited bus service. 😀
The image came to mind of you in a secluded location with no bus service and forced to walk for a good distance to reach places because I've been in that situation whilst living in the Caribbean and seeing as I can't drive, it's a major reason why I don't spend more time out there because it's a serious hindrance to getting around, so that's something that I'll have to address.
Walking is always good exercise - so too is cycling. Do you think that you'll maintain both after the car issue is resolved?
If we hadn't moved out here 25+ years ago, it would be likely that we'd be fairly screwed right now. The area we used to live in in California has expanded and a lot of stuff has come in. But in California, you drive for work - unless maybe if you live in Los Angeles or the Valley there. And in that area where we lived, we would have been stuck because the larger communities with the jobs and major businesses were 25-50 minutes away in either direction. Basically, it was rural when I grew up there, and it's just a small town now with limited transportation if you do not own a car.
Fortunately, we live here. And being within walking distance of things was ONE of the reasons we moved here. And for the last 25+ years, everything has just expanded. Our house was built in 2007. It wasn't built yet when we moved here in 2000. There was a field next to our community when we moved in. A couple years later a developer dropped in small rental units into that field. It's an entirely separate community of it's own. So, I'm totally grateful that the area is expanding. Just wish the city government would fund certain projects it currently seems to have no interest in. But then, we don't live downtown either - where the city council actually meets.
I'm not seeing the car issue being resolved any time soon, and we seem to be doing okay without it. But if someone gave me a car tomorrow, I'm pretty sure walking and riding would probably go back to where they were before this.
I really want a silver 30" apple cinima display. Steady on the hunt to hopefully find a nice one locally. I just love the silver bezels thats why the early 2008 MacBook Pro is my favorite with the silver keyboard.
This should be updated I guess…
First, (you guessed it) Venti Flat White and Mac…
Second…the update.
So, I get a call in November from my boss. He wants me back at work because what I'm going to be doing is changing. There is a raise involved but the problem is that I have no car.
A deal is made, money is advanced and now we have a car.. We've paid about half of it back in cash and there will (eventually I guess) be deductions out of my paycheck. So far, that hasn't happened yet.
Anyway…2009 Ford Flex, about 172K miles when we bought it. V6. It's got issues, but it goes forward and it goes back and it handles the freeways just fine.
Since we got it, I've had one blowout on the freeway (bad tire). Both rear tires were bad, they got replaced. Fortunately there was no rim damage. A week later, I'm on my way to pick up my wife and the oil light on the engine comes on. I get it to Walmart and start dropping in oil. Then I notice that the oil is coming right out as fast as I pour it in!
By this time, I've re-established our AAA membership so I get a tow home, then follow up in the morning with a tow to a garage. They replace the oil filter and put 6qts of oil back in the engine.
Turns out that whomever had the car before used an oil filter for a Kia on this car. It's a Ford! They didn't even get the model right. So what happened is that the filter eventually just blew out and all the engine oil came out!
No engine damage. I cannot imagine what COULD have happened if this had been on the freeway at 70mph!
PS. The red car behind the Flex is the Sentra with the bad transmission.
Man that is a blessing, Erik. I am very happy your car didn't get totaled because of a garage error - nice looking ride btw. I've always thought the ford flex had a pleasing line/design to them. AAA is an awesome service. Tows by themselves can be hundreds of dollars on their own.
When I had the tire blowout it was 6:30am. I was fortunate enough to take refuge in the parking lot of a specialty hospital. I was also fortunate I'd been paid that day because the AAA membership had lapsed 6 months prior. I paid it, but as it turns out they require you to wait 48 hours before using it. So I called. I got charged an additional amount, but they sent a truck.
So, by the time the oil filter incident happened I'd already had the service back for a week. I suspect it was someone who did their own oil change and not a shop, but I have no idea. At this point we've had the car for almost two months so not really positive on the history.
We got it from a guy who flips cars, a friend of an Uber driver who'd given my wife his number. From the paperwork that they seemed to have missed taking out of the car it seems it was originally sold in Chicago. It's the SE model, but it had Remote Start installed at some point. Eventually, I'll have to track down a remote for it.
The main problem is that it needs new cats and O2 sensors. Not as expensive as $8k for a new transmission on the Sentra, but still plenty expensive. It needs some other superficial parts replaced (tailights, fascia, headrests, a new center console lid, etc) and I need to get the TPMS system fixed too. I am also told (by a garage that inspected it) that all the motor mounts are blown. Not sure how true that is, but that's going to be an expense too if true.
Lastly, because of where it came from it's got rust. Not bad, but will eventually need to be addressed.
I can't complain. Like I said, it goes forwards and backwards and handles the freeways fine. The cats are the priority though, when the money comes for that.
But it IS a cool car. I've always wanted one. It drives real nice and having a V6 is very cool.
PS. We have AAA Premier. Once…long ago we got stuck at Chiriaco Summit halfway between Blythe and Indio. My parents were able to get the car towed from there to their house because they had AAA Premier. About a 78 mile tow.
Premier used to cover a 300 mile tow. It's 400 miles now, but split into two types. 1x200mi tow once a year and 2x100mi tows. At the time I originally got it (2009) there were regular trips between my house and my parents house and the distance between the two is roughly 400 miles. So, a safety net. I know I can pretty much get the car (and us) home since we don't really go anywhere.
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I like your new car! 😀
A very cool car.
The Ford Flex (to my knowledge) isn't available in the UK so I've never seen it on our roads but it bears an uncanny resemblance to older models of the Range Rover vehicles.
Thank goodness that you had a lucky break with the filter issue!
I hope that you have many years of happy motoring ahead with the Flex. 🙂
Thanks!
My wife likes and has always liked Volvos, particularly the station wagons (er, estate wagon or shooting brake to you 🙂 ) and as it turns out the Flex was designed by a Volvo designer when Ford owned Volvo.
Having been a passenger in three of my parents old Volvos as a kid, I'm not so much a fan of Volvos. But I do like the stying on the Flex.