But, I’m finally what I’ve been most of my life, a two-car family. I found out there is a spot you can turn the ignition not quite off and still remove the key. The battery is on the charger right now. I used the time to drive the scooter around to get the remaining details taken care off. It is a pity how the system still causes such headaches to the new vehicle purchaser. Show any sign of affluence in Florida and you’re knee-deep in scumbags.What a difference a unique vehicle makes. I’m back in the saddle with this one. I’ve always said that what you drive should not make any difference, but it does. But regard the big difference between unique and expensive, they are not the same. Anybody can borrow enough money, but you can’t take out a loan on the way I manage things. And, in case there is any discussion on the point, I did not buy the sidecar to get women, any more than I worked to get rich. My goals were elsewhere, but of course, should the women and the money come along, hey.
This sidecar must be learned. How to drive it, how to corner it. The passenger can do a lot to help control the ride. When you see all the acrobatics in the movies, that is more than play-acting. The Ural is very rugged but you don’t want to fly the chair, as it weighs nearly as much as the Honda. Overall, the rig is about twice as powerful as it needs to be, so watch that speed.
I mentioned how I killed the battery. This taught me how to push-start the Honda, and it will start that way with less than 1 mph forward speed. If I get just a little healthier, I may be able to push it fast enough myself. It sure rolls forward easily for such a heavy piece of equipment.
Since this vehicle made me broke (I think I have eight dollars left), I went to Karaoke and sang to an empty house. That’s boring to me, too, but the blog rules say I report outstanding events, even if it involves monotony. The good news is, no matter how broke I get, there is now always more money where that came from. My situation recognizes the “re-acquirement of long-distance transportation” to be a major achievement. There is much more to the big picture than just the sidecar, for it represents a successful upgrade of my entire logistics system to once again support travel, no thanks to anyone. I’ve paid every one of my bills throughout.
Be informed if you want to live in a warm climate, so do all manner of other critters. Your house will be attacked by ants no matter what you do. I’m waiting my turn, I just finished spraying the perimeter, they will return. But danged if somehow a small red biting ant didn’t get in my left sock, under my pant leg as I walked across my driveway. Little prick bit me six times before I found him. And it was that species that causes those two-bump red welts. Six times, because you are outside and can’t exactly tear off your trousers to find him.
In general, things went pretty well, since the [robot] club has the resources to make it so. That’s where all the tools, parts, money, and cars are. But consider the food, coffee, brains, and time are there also; I believe most men do not have a quiet or cerebral place to drop in. This isn’t some Tuesday poker club. Let me tally up the cost of this motorcycle above what I paid for the actual vehicle. Including the gas and food to Sarasota and the registration, $358.00, quite a financial concentration for me.
But it’s a sign of the times. Which have changed.
ADDENDUM
Well, I researched the 2005 strike at the old company. It was over the timeless issue: money. The company paid well, but that was dictated by their monopoly contract, not their benevolence. The operation actually ran itself smoothly enough that all the company needed do was leave well enough alone. Instead, they developed a fatalistic corporate culture of scheming to get more work out of you for the same pay. Company oil and union water don’t mix well at such pressures.
It seems the company was “outsourcing the pay raises”. I confirm they are fully capable of such behavior and if there was a strike, they planned that, too. There is no practical way any management shave-head was going to come along and squeeze more money out of a 125 year-old company without getting his balls kicked. That’s a dream world, I know I certainly never met anyone there who could run a Miami shoe store. It takes real brains to effect change. (I left the company in 1996, so it’s not like they never had their chance.)
We know how challenging it is for non-union workers to understand strikes, but there is a different commitment process to taking a union job that isn’t so obvious to outsiders. For openers, you must be far more qualified than average people, who may not even consider job security as a negotiating point. With a union, you make dissimilar fundamental choices that obligate you to the job, such as buying a better house in a safer neighborhood or making riskier investments—you move up the food chain. In a union, you don’t want some management joker fiddling around with your job, and consequently, your life.
When people say no job is worth more than what they’d pay a replacement worker, consider the source. Look at my decision to join the company. I was making $18.88 per hour when I quit to take their $12.05 per hour. I took a 36% pay cut to get out of my factory job. But I was promised benefits, course reimbursements, on the job training, and a job description. I won out over thousands of applicants—and I was also led to believe that I would not have to work shifts unless the whole company had to work shifts.
It’s an old tale by now. After I’d been with the company seven years, their hidden agenda said by that time, the worker in debt and would do anything to keep his job. This didn’t apply to me, so yes, when the force transfers came along, I was the only one who dared to protest. Not one of my co-workers could understand I was not a troublemaker; that I was promised a spcific job environment and did not like the company people who took that away from me.
I was standing up for my rights and indirectly, the co-workers as well. Neither they nor the union grasped how precarious things would become when the company could promise you one job and transfer you into another. To new hirees, it was just a transfer, to me it was first-order treachery. But the company was past-masters at playing employees off against each other. They ensured if you protested, it had to be done in a room full of cronies and ass-kissers, of which our union was well over-stocked.
Bottom line: you NEVER tell a man like me to “be glad” he’s got a job.
