Buying a new car is like picking out a new lover

First, you have to identify one that looks good and you are attracted to.

Do you want something with some power or are you more interested in comfort?

Do you like a muscle car, a vintage car, a sporty car, or a simple domestic?

Are you looking for something steady and reliable or something more sleek, fast, and with a hint of danger?

Once you’ve identified a possible winner, you have to examine it more closely. You know, check out the features.

Do you want an automatic so you can sit back and enjoy the ride or do you prefer a stick-shift where you get to be in control and wield a little power?

Can you picture yourself driving it? If you can then perhaps you’re ready to take it for a test drive.

When you first get in you have to make a few adjustments because it’s not a one-size fits all. Once you are prepped and ready to take it for a spin, I suggest you start out slow and easy, kinda like going out for a lazy drive on a sunny afternoon. Let it warm up a little bit.

Once the engine is revved, let it go, and see what this baby can do.

When you put your foot on the gas is it smooth and fast, rough and hard, or does it do the herky-jerky?

Does it hold a steady course, slip and slide, or just miss altogether?

Does it hum along, whisper quietly in your ear, or roar and rumble as if never driven before? Then again, maybe you want one that has no mileage instead of some.

At the end of the test drive you have to shut it down. Does it sputter, go quietly into that good night, or is it revved and raring to go for the next ride?

Before you can make a decision to keep this ride, you have to consider the maintenance costs. Is it high-maintenance and after a short period of time you will want to trade it in or low-maintenance where you can cruise for a while before you have to worry about bumps in the road?

What’s the warranty?

Working from home could save jobs

. . .and people's personalities

Three hours a day in traffic makes for a cranky woman! I should know, I'm that woman.

Funny thing happened as I started to write this post this morning. A friend of mine sent me a message and wanted to know why we had to go back to work. I feel his pain.


If businesses wanted to save money then why not allow for folks to work from home. Isn’t that why technology folks built the routers, cable modems, wireless access points, VPNa, and even the Internet? So folks could do their jobs remotely and have access to more information than what is in a book or a document or in an internal application.

Think of the overhead cost that would be saved if each person worked from home just one day a week. Or, to put it in black and white figures or draw you a picture, try this on for size.

Let’s say the average overhead cost for an employee is $27 per day (not including salary and benefits). In some case this will be high, but in many cases this number will be low. If an employee worked from home just one day a week for 50 weeks (two weeks off for vacation) then the net overhead savings is $1350 per employee/per year.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the average number of employees in a company is 25. Multiply 25 times $1350 and we have a savings of $33,700. Just for letting each employee work from home one day a week. Imagine what a larger company of say 500 employees could save. That’s a whopping total of $675,000.

Holy cow! That’s like almost a million dollars. Well, close enough.

Take the average salary of an employee being $50,000 and divide that into $675,000. That’s a total of 13.5 employees that a company would not have to let go in tough times. Like now. All for simply letting a person leverage the technological tools that some very smart people created and made available to us. And most of us have these tools readily available at our fingertips because we have them at home for our own enjoyment.

Let’s take this a step further.

How many of you cannot stand your commute? Me, I get a little irritated at wasting 3 hours of my day in a car instead of doing something I enjoy…like writing. In 3 hours I could write a good 1000 to 2000 words.

With the cost of gas averaging $3.75, why not save a little extra money and the environment?

Let’s say the average person drives 30 miles each way to work, which wouldn’t be bad if you didn’t have to contend with traffic. That commute will average about 4 gallons of gasoline, which right now would equate to $15 per day. Take that $15 and multiply it by the 50 days we now get to work from home and that’s a savings for us of $750 per year. Not to mention the savings on the wear and tear of your car as well as your frazzled nerves. Can you imagine what you can do with an extra $750 in your pocket each year?

Since the government and politicians haven’t figured this one out maybe we can help them. Aren’t they talking about Green this and that? Aren’t they always paying some overpaid politician to do another study on energy and employment and who knows what else?

I have an idea for them. Why not have a government incentive program that would give a bonus to a company that advocates a 4-day work week or a 1-day a week work-from-home program? Better yet, incent them if they don’t let anyone go due to economic downturn because they were smart enough to sign up for this program? That way the company doesn’t benefit and still let employees go.

On top of all this, employers get the benefit of employees who are happier because they are driving to work in traffic one less day and they are saving money that they can use toward a vacation or a new car with better gas efficiency.

Plus, we can all work in our PJs one day a week!

Cars, Hero, and Personalities

What does the car your man, boyfriend, or hero drive say about his personality?

Every once and a while I look out my car window, okay, more than once and a while, but the point is I look out the window and notice the driver inside a car next to me. Or when I'm out and about I meet someone and notice what they drive. Yeah, admit it, you’re checking out the car they drive as much as the guy’s ass in the faded jeans. If you’re a man maybe you’re checking out the woman’s assets.

What does that car tell you about that person? How does that relates to your hero/heroine in your story?

It depends on what they drive. Now, this is not a scientific survey, but something that swishes around in my mind. In fact, this started when I was younger when a girlfriend (older friend as I was not driving or dating at the time) of mine used to only date guys who drove "hot" cars. Seriously. She firmly believed the car told her a lot about the guy. Now at age ...oh never mind that...I would have to say that I somewhat agree.

For example, if a man drives a white Oldsmobile Cutlass what does this say about him and does it make good hero status? Here’s my example of how this guy fits or doesn’t fit the hero mold.

My thought on this granny mobile driver is that he doesn’t have a set of you know…balls, gonads, cojones. One of the engineers I work with shot back, “Or they’re hanging too low to the ground they get kicked.” This is the type of guy who would ask you out. Wait! He wouldn’t actually ask you out himself, he would have one of the waitresses at the little local restaurant you visit ask you out on his behalf.

How about a man who drives a Hummer? Not the baby Hummers they came out with, but the original behemoth. What does this say to you?

First, if the guy has to jump out of the Hummer instead of gliding his feet to the ground after opening the car door then he is too damn short to be driving the Hummer. Is your hero an accountant who wears a suit every day to the office, but drives a Hummer?

Then honey, what the heck is he overcompensating for and do you really want to find out?

Let’s say you run into this gorgeous hunk of a man at the gas station, he introduces himself and asks you out on a date. Odd scenario, but it could happen. When you watch him walk away, cuz of course you do, you see that he hops into and drive off in a mini-van. What is the first thing that runs into our heroine’s mind?

The dude is married! He has a wife and 3.2 children at home along with a dog and a mortgage he can’t afford. His “real” car is a ten-year old Chevrolet sedan. You know what this says? This tells you that the dude probably has minimal education and has a job that pays him too little.


Oh! Here’s a good one. You’re standing on the street waiting for the street light to change and a little red sports car zooms by and zips over to the curve. Tipping your sunglasses down on your nose, you take a closer look at the little red Honda S2000 two-door sports car?

Sports car? This is not a real sports car! This is a wanna-be sports car. It makes all the right VROOM VROOM noises, but under the hood does not beat the heart of a Corvette or Porsche. The man who drives this toy is a guy who wants to be perceived as a player when in reality he drives the Honda because it’s safe and cost-effective. This is a guy who takes no risks and is all flash with no action.

What about a truck driver? Hm…this depends on the truck. Are we talking about a Ford Ranger or Nissan Frontier or are we talking about a F-150? How to put this nicely…If a man is tooling around in a 4-cylinder truck, he is not a man, he’s a boy trying to mirror his father only his nuts haven’t dropped yet so he has to wait before he can get a big boy’s toy.

Now, if the man is driving a F-150 and you see a gun rack hanging on the back window and a Confederate flag hanging from his pole…no not that kind of pole, the antenna pole on the truck then darlin’ you better not run for the hills because that is where this hillbilly is heading. And he’ll be hanging out with his cousin, his other cousin, and his cousin’s cousin…it’s a very close family – if you know what I mean.

Note: Beware of the man who drives a truck with a cab on the back…he may be a serial killer in disguise of a local fisherman.

SUVs are for people looking for adventure or maybe they drive off-road, backroad, or any kind of dirt, bumpy road in the boonies. Okay, the living in the boonies can be a scary thing but in the end if you want some quiet time alone with your hero a little bumpy ride to the sticks will get you there. Besides, the man who drives a Jeep Wrangler not the Jeep Liberty sissy mobile (come one, chicks drive that SUV) is likely to go surfing, snowboarding, or off-roading in the mountains for a picnic by a stream.

Whew! This is just a small list of automobiles and the personalities that they portray about the driver, but you get the idea. My girlfriend from long ago was right. Only date guys with the right kind of car.