ShadowDog

My last boss was an excellent leader. The only problems were that he'd been at his job for so long and had subordinates whom were more popular than proficient at their jobs spreading negativity about him to others. Respect for him from some of these 'others' isn't high as they consider him a warlord of a rule-maker. These rules are simple customer service guidelines that are put into practice everywhere, "No cellphones on the floor", "Be on time for your shift", "Meet your deadlines or stay late", etc. The only thing that irked me about him was that he sometimes had unattainable goals and large projects that required more manpower than the sales per man hour budget could afford. I tried scaling him back a bit, providing spreadsheets and support over more than just the usual, "...can't be done" argument; however, he always pushed us to make it happen. This usually meant me staying an hour or two late every day on a weekly basis. Even worse, he felt I need to find an answer to my efficiency issues that kept me from getting home instead of staying at work. Still, he was a great guy and I miss working for him. My current boss is ... oh, anything but a manager. Sure, he owns the company and knows how to do everything but some of the administrative; however, he keep stating, "We need to make sure we... (insert rule here)." But he never follows through on his own rule, as if 'Do as I say, not as I do' applies. His communication sucks, plain and simple. He takes calls on his cell but doesn't relay the information to me. What ever calls I receive that require his attention are recorded on my Comm Log for him to review later. He might look at the log once a week while I end up receiving calls from people wondering why they haven't got an answer yet. I'm supposed to co-ordinate the projects; however, half the time the crew tell me where they've been told to show up the next day. At least they feel the same I about the boss as I do. They know I'm always kept in the dark and they know why. Despite being hired to assist in the development and expansion of his business, I can't help but wonder how much of it is completely out of my hands because of his complete lack of budgetary concept and cash-flow understanding. If it keeps up the way it's going he'll be out of business before next summer. Until then, I'll do what I can to ease the blow. Maybe I'll consider talking to my previous boss about another position. Heh. At least we'd both be happy again.

The concept of neutral-lock is the stupidest design feature I have ever heard of. I fail to understand why the driver did not have the sense to even consider dropping to lower gears. The engine would eventually have blown and the car would have been significantly easier to slow down. I suppose it all comes down to panic and lack of clear thinking in an emergency situation. Bummer. Anyhow, speculation on murder-suicide is easy for us to consider. Heck, considering the circumstances and all the questions we have, why rule it out?

Curious. How do you mean?

Holy crap, this just reminded me of something that really made me upset. In Calgary, while waiting at a set of lights to cross traffic there was a city bus to my left in the left-turn lane. When the green-turning arrow illuminated I eventually heard a horn honk from somewhere behind us and noticed the bus wasn't moving. When I looked over at the driver, the bitch was hunched over her steering wheel with a Blackberry-sized cell device in her hands with a big smile on her face. She looked up, but instead of putting the phone down, she continued with it in her hand whilst spinning the steering wheel to start her turn. I don't think she was looking at it after that, but who the hell knows?! About the only thing that made me feel a bit better was that the bus was 'off duty' at the time, so no passengers. Still, would you like to be the one slammed by a 12 ton vehicle? I damn-near reported #5080 at the time; however, I didn't think it was my battle to fight. Still, I feel a little guilty about not calling.

What possible reason would a car company have to shift a steering wheel off centre to the seat? If there isn't an extremely good reason, that's a completely stupid oversight.

I can't think of any other way to die from something less significant. Linkity If it were an aftermarket product, that's another thing. Still, what a way to go.

Laziness knows all professions. Case in point is the ambulance workers union in our local region. They're on strike right now, performing essential services but on strike pay at the moment. I happen to know one of the paramedics and saw some of her postings on Facebook a few times regarding their down-time. At the call center, they're asleep on the couch or will find a quiet place to sleep in the ambulance. They'll go online and fart around on Facebook, complaining about how bored they are. All the while self-documenting their laziness and sloth-speed train of thought through the day. Why is this such a big deal? Well, a few years ago the Health Services in our area closed two hospitals and is directing all non-emergency and major-emergency traffic to a third. The public wasn't pleased with this cost-saving measure and protested with no positive outcome. What did the ambulance workers do? Nothing. They didn't even have a statement to the issue. They would be in greater need to shuttle patients for emergency calls and pending operations, so they were happier than pigs in $h!. They're on strike now, on one hand because of wages, layoffs and work conditions. Seriously? I'm seeing pictures taken with cell phone cameras of paramedics 'catching' each other sleeping or putzing around on a regular basis and they're complaining about wages and work conditions? I'm already annoyed with their huge signs playing the political game of gathering public support. They make it out to seem like the cuts in their labor-force is going to make wait times increase for 911 calls, etc. At this point, the only thing I'd be worried about is how long it takes to wake their fat ass and ensure they took off in the right direction with the ambulance.

Actually, I found that my relay controls both my hazards and signals. My relay is a variable load type, working with a 2/4 lamp system. This website directed me to identify my problem. I kept getting directed to style EP34 as the relay to replace my OEM variable-load; however, it didn't work. I realized my OEM relay needed either EP35 or EP36. At the parts store, we determined EP35 would fit my needs because it was for 2/4 lamp systems. (EP36 was for 3/6 lamp) Plugged it in, tested my hazards, then my signals and they flash at normal speed again.

Video - 30 second clip Picture - Headlights and park lamps Picture - Headlamp assembly profile Picture - Park lamp profile Picture - LED lamp closeup Picture - Tail lamp clustre Picture - Tail lamp profile Picture - Reflector Picture - LED lamp closeup

Yeah, that's what I thought... that is, until I told my wife that she had to turn on the park lights if she wanted to get the damned car out of park. She been unimpressed, but she'll get over it.

I thought about the load equalizer, but a guy at the ricer site I also go to gave me a link that helped me determine the relays I've tried had incorrect polarity. I'm going to try an alternate relay with the same polarity as the OEM relay to see if it works first. Either way, it's $15.

I'll set the camera up at dusk for that. It's nothing dramatic, but for the strobe turn signals. I received (x8) #168-194 equivalent, (x6) #1157 equivalent, (x2) #1156 equivalent and the relay for $112.30 CDN (incl. shipping). At a local retail with my business discount, I'd have paid well over $250 before taxes for all of it. One 1157 had a couple LED clusters that don't light up, but the seller just put another in the mail today at no charge. Here's his listings and store on ebay. LED sales Now, I'm not expecting them to be 100% glitch free. I mean, while the quality of the soldering is good and there is nothing cheap feeling or loose, I'm willing to accept that there may be problems in the future. But with them being so cheap, I'm willing to buy extras just in case.

Damn my grammar sucks today...edit edit edit Attitudes of entitlement are my pet peeve. When employees expect to be paid for three minutes they're on the job past the end of a scheduled shift, but complain when they're docked pay for being over fifteen minutes late. When a co-worker I know spends more time doing her personal business on the phone than getting back to the clients who've left messages while the line was busy. There are plenty of others; however, this one is my personal favorite: A 35 year old employee at one of the stores in my division had community theatre three nights a week. He literally whined to his manager that he didn't have time between the end of his work day and the start of his theatre rehearsal to get dressed in character (makeup, etc.), so he said, "I came up with a great idea. I think I'll change and get ready at work a half-hour before the end of my shift so I can just lock the doors and go." What he failed to realize was that: a) he wears a uniform for his shift and can't be doing business with a damned clown costume on; b) the last fifteen minutes of the day is when final tidy and tally is performed, all hands on deck; c) never had any store been able to lock the doors and go home until at least ten minutes past the end of the day because of lingering staff, customers, duties, etc. He simply expected his co-workers to pick up his slack. When his manager had difficulty dealing with the situation, I stepped in and offered a compromise. I asked him if he was willing to take an earlier shift and not have to worry about being late for rehearsals. He said no because that shift was a 1/2 hour shorter and he didn't like cutting his hours. I asked him if he was willing to come in a half hour earlier so he could leave a half hour before closing. He said no because his kids school is on his way to work and not his wife's, so his shift allowed him to always drop them off on time without having to get them up even earlier (a lousy half hour?). I asked him if he knew of any other jobs he could work that would allow him to get paid for standing in front of a mirror for half an hour. He wasn't so friendly with me after that meeting.

Well, they came in yesterday and I installed them all. Here are my observations: - They're nice and bright and effective and I now hope this will allow me to never have to go through the pain in the ass of replacing a dead lamp on this car again! - The LED flasher relay I bought with them was ineffective (no operation); however, the OEM variable-load relay works, albeit rapid-flash. The same relay operates the dual-lamp signal, or the quad-lamp hazard. I even attempted to use a low amperage variable-load relay (designed for LED lamps) however, it was also non-operational. Solution? Well, I imagine I should install a proper diode downstream of the OEM relay in order to create more load and reduce the rapid-flash. So what do you think? Trial and error? Anyone wish to offer a clue as to what size to start with? Oh yeah, the funny part. The shift-interlock of the car utilizes the brake pedal to take the transmission out of PARK into gear. Apparently, by replacing the eleven incandescent lamps that light up with the brakes applied with LEDs, I have removed enough load that would otherwise be required to disengage the shift-interlock. So, in other words, even with the brake applied, I can't get the car out of PARK. While I originally used the manual shift-interlock port (which normally gets used if the car happens to be on an incline and the transmission is locked in PARK), I soon discovered that by merely turning on the park lamps and applying the brakes, there is just enough load for the transmission to release out of PARK.

Hey, is it at all possible that her parents filled her head full of crap to insist she take this to the authorities? If not, I can imagine her fright if she were completely plastered, only later to find out about it and question how it happened in the first place with to blame him entirely. Still, parents with the 'my child can do no wrong' play a heavy role in cases like this.

My wife just made sighing and moaning sounds better than when we have sex. What does that tell you?

But booze is cool and sex is fun and teens are clueless about cause and effect in life. ...not that this sort of thing doesn't happen to adults anyway.

The bummer here is not knowing what tipping system they use, meaning: My wife worked varying positions from hostess to floor management at Moxies restaurants in Calgary. Their tipping system also contributed to the chefs as well. The chefs received a percentage of the total tips each individual server earned. On top of this, they received an amount per dish, so if the server sucked ass the chef still made something for his food and the server had to pay for that if the guest didn't tip. The only time this really sucked for the server is when the guest was a cheap-ass tightwad or was extremely picky about good food and tipped very little. The whole point was that the food very rarely was the reason for a guests' dissatisfaction, so the server had to hold up his/her end of the dining experience if they wanted to earn the big bucks. If the food was a problem and the guest gave the server a good tip because of how it was handled, that didn't matter. The guest didn't get to dictate who got the tip by telling the server he/she did well and not to share the money. They had to share, regardless. While she was a server, my wife made a whole lot of cash, that's for sure. I don't tip minimal out of guilt; rather, I'll offer a minimum of 10% for service. I rarely get crappy service and am usually satisfied with my food. The only time I'll question my tip offering is when a restaurant doesn't manage to handle a problem with at least an ounce of satisfaction.

It pays to be at #2 for a while, if that's where GM is happy to sit. The media do a pretty thorough job to pick apart at the success of a company to find any possible story; not that this story is small, by any means. Still, I'd like to see a screen-shot of GM big wigs standing next to Toyota's champagne and balloon party upon reaching #1 saying, "You got it!... and everything that comes with it!" Like a horde of paparazzi that suddenly flows as a wave would once the next celebrity pulls up in their limo, the leeches turn to the next ripple in the water. Have fun Toyota!

I'm going to have to pay closer attention to the traffic around here, seeing as a Hyundai dealership recently opened in town.

But hell, better now than later or never!

Well, that's one side of the story so far. I'd imagine there would be an impact from the public... but their Kool-Aid is strong!

Very classy. Excellent visuals and with the 'Re-ignition' concept. It has a great deal of intrigue that left me wondering what was next with each rocket stage. I especially appreciate that it wasn't over-the-top with a cheesy, used-car salesman voice-over. That last shot with the logo and the dust trail was absolutely beautiful. I say this was a fantastic job!

Well, I had to replace a size 168 marker lamp in the rear bumper of the car. Without going into details, it was a pain in the ass. I've never had to remove so many parts just to gain access to a lamp socket. I reviewed the other lamps for what they required for access and shook my head. Head and tail lamp housings all need to be removed just to change out a lamp. One of my rear tail lamps must have been burning hot as the filament has blackened and dimmed the light. No biggie, but I just don't want to deal with all the hassle for a third time later. Anywho, is an LED replacement lamp worth it? Seeing as the cost is, oh, 23x the price? I did some research on ebay to find that replacing all of my marker, signal and tail lamps would cost me roughly $150 CDN, incl. shipping and a flasher relay resistor (unknown if I need it or not). Should I become a ricer and throw these on the car? Or should I just go, "Meh, I have half-an-hour to take apart my trunk once every couple of years." Thoughts? Opinions? Experience? Criticism?