cars « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘cars’

The Trip To Nowhere

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Since coming to Atlanta, I’ve relied on my car’s GPS system a lot. However, it hasn’t been 100% accurate. To my frustration, it often will refuse to let me input the address I want because it’s not in a range that it believes belongs on that street. The GPS has been wrong.

The worst experience, though, was the one I call the Trip to Nowhere.

My parents and I were determined to buy a recliner for the house. I found a store in Newnan, GA and wrote down the address. GPS didn’t like the number of the building for the street. However, there was a street name, south and GPS did like that, so that’s what I set as our destination.

Things started out okay, but then it began to rain. They drive like Maniacs here, I don’t know where I’m going, and it’s raining??? Gah!

Despite all the weather, we kept going, confident we’d make it to the furniture place. Things started to get iffy when GPS directed us off the highway. It got worse. We ended up in the middle of a residential neighborhood, nothing even remotely retail in the area.

GPS Fail.

Or maybe it was me. After all, I did select Street South instead of street. I punched in the street name, lied on the number of the building so GPS would accept it, and we started out again. This time we ended up near a hotel that appeared vacant. It wasn’t, but it sure wasn’t doing a booming business either. It was raining harder now and it wouldn’t be too much longer before it started to get dark. We decided to go back home.

I selected home on GPS, turned out of the parking lot in the direction from which we’d come, and was led on a roundabout route that ended up turning just in front of the rundown hotel we’d started from. Um, what? Why the hell didn’t GPS tell me to turn right when I went past the road the first time?

GPS Fail. Again.

We did make it home after a drive through several Georgia towns, including one I’d never heard of before. I don’t know if this was the most efficient route ever concocted, but we did arrive back at the condo.

Tags: cars, GPS
Posted in Adventures | 4 Comments »

I Miss My Cargo Space

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

In December, mere weeks before I had to move to Atlanta, my beloved Explorer decided it needed a lot of expensive repair work done. Since it was a 1998, I opted to buy a new car instead and went with the Edge. I call it my James Bond car. With all the high tech electronics on it (especially for someone who was driving a 1998), it can only be a spymobile. I swear the only thing missing is the hidden missile launcher.

I do like my Edge. A lot. Really. But there are definitely things I miss about the Explorer. And when I was packing up to leave Minnesota, the cargo space was a huge factor. Things I was planning to pack to take along, things like a vacuum cleaner, suddenly didn’t fit and I needed to buy new down here.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, my day job was relocated from Minneapolis to Atlanta. I chose to relocate with my job, but because of how difficult it is to sell a house in MN in the winter, most of my stuff is still up north and will stay there until I do sell my house and I officially move. Right now, I’m officially a commuter between the two cities.

I did make sure there was room for the important things like my computers. There was no way I was leaving those behind. But my couch? Still in MN.

Some of the lighter things, like my storage containers will get shipped down via UPS or the USPS. Other things that are too bulky or two heavy or not cost effective to ship will have to wait. I even had to leave my blankets and duvet behind because there just wasn’t room in the Edge. As it stood, we were smashed into the vehicle. If only the Explorer could have hung on another few months.

Tags: cars
Posted in Life | 2 Comments »

The James Bond Car and Publishing

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

One final James Bond car post and then I’ll find something else to talk about. I promise.

When I wrote In the Midnight Hour, I gave Ryne (my heroine) keyless entry. In my mind (and in the scene), she opened the doors to her vehicle by pressing the button on her key fob. As I proofread a test print of the book, everything was fine. Then, months later, I got my author copies. My keyless entry had been changed to keys entry.

This bugged me. A lot. It still bugs me.

My guess, and this is only a guess, is that whoever did the proofread of the galleys for the publisher lives in New York City and doesn’t own a car. I can’t see how else that would have been changed. The thing that’s so frustrating is that at the time I didn’t have that feature on my SUV and I had to research to find out that keyless entry was called keyless entry.

Fast forward to my James Bond car. Can you imagine if I wrote a character with a car like this? One that responds to voice commands, automatically hooks my cell phone into the system as soon as I get in the car, and has a remote start? I can’t help but wonder what these features would be changed to.

Let me close by saying I love copy editors and I’ve been lucky to have really good ones on all my books. I’m grateful for all the mistakes they find and fix.

Tags: cars
Posted in Life, Writing | Comments Off

Adventures In Rental Cars

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

I’ve taken to calling my new Edge the James Bond Car because about the only feature missing is the covert missile launcher. The options are cool except there’s one small problem–I’m still having trouble figuring it all out. I am a computer/gadget geek, so I found this rather embarrassing. Until the business trip to Atlanta.

Our entire department needed to attend a meeting in Atlanta last week, and because it was only an overnight trip, three guys rented cars and the rest of us rode along with them. The one I rode with most of the time had a Dodge Durango with the same kind of dashboard screen that I have. He couldn’t figure out most of it either. We both were poking at buttons, trying to figure things out and still couldn’t get what we wanted to happen.

But the best part was on Wednesday night. The driver of the Durango had come in the day before so this was day (and night) 2 for him with the SUV. The entire group drove about 45 minutes from our hotel for dinner. There were three of us in the Durango as we left to return to the hotel.

The driver makes a comment, "There’s a police car behind us."

We drive a little farther and he says, "We’re being pulled over."

We’re all confused since he wasn’t speeding or weaving or anything else that would warrant being pulled over. The officer comes up to the car and says, "Sir, would you turn on your headlights."

Huh? Aren’t they on? Um, no, they weren’t. The driver thought the lights were on auto, but they’d been turned off, and because of how bright the screens on the dashboard were, no one realized the headlights were off. We didn’t get a ticket, but the driver swore us to secrecy–and then he ran around the office the next day telling everyone the story.

Technology is generally awesome, but sometimes it makes life more complicated.

Tags: cars
Posted in Adventures, Life | Comments Off

The Unexpected New Car

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I bought a new (to me) car last week. I didn’t want a new car– Okay, let me rephrase. I didn’t want to have the car payments that go with a new vehicle. If someone was handing out free cars, that would be a different story.

Anyway, I didn’t plan on buying a new car this year, especially when I move to Atlanta just after the first of the year, but my beloved Explorer was having issues. It was a 1998 and it needed transmission work and a new muffler/tailpipe assembly. There was no way I could justify putting that kind of money into a 14-year-old car. I’d known this day was coming and I’d already made my decision on what the replacement would be, but it was still a "no, not now" moment.

I loved my Explorer to bits, but I decided to go with the Edge as a replacement instead. It’s a crossover vehicle–part SUV, part car–and I liked the look. The price tag? Not so enamored, but sadly the prices on all cars have gone ridiculously high since I last bought one.

I’d checked out used Edges online, found one I really liked, and took it for a test drive last Thursday. I didn’t plan to take it home that night, but since the Explorer I was trading in could die at any moment thanks to the transmission issue, I wasn’t left with much choice.

Beautiful, isn’t it? (Please ignore the mess in the garage.) I’m trying to get used to it. My 1998 did not have any of the fancy stuff in it that this car does. It’s like going from a World War I biplane to flying the space shuttle. I actually had to read the instruction book and my motto has always been: If all else fails, read the directions. Sadly, I bet I’ll only use a fraction of the car’s features because I’ll forget they’re there or forget how to turn them on.

Some of what I’m learning. No keys needed. I just have a remote clicky things. I need it with me, but I just keep it in my jacket pocket and press the dashboard button to start.

My cell phone is hooked into the car via blue tooth and I can verbally tell my car to call someone without having to touch anything. I’m not much of a phone person and I hate people who yap on their cells while driving, but this could come in handy at times.

However, I won’t need to call anyone for directions on how to get somewhere. Not anymore. The car has GPS built in! This is the feature I really wanted because I don’t know the city of Atlanta or it’s suburbs at all and I’ll need all the help I can get to find my way around.

It’s all cool, but TBH, I miss my old Explorer. I recognized the sounds it made, I knew where to look and how to handle it. I do like the Edge, though, and while the car was used, it was still a 2011 and has a ton of bells and whistles on it. More than I needed, but I took what was on the vehicle.

Tags: cars
Posted in Life | 6 Comments »

The Atlanta Trip

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

I was down in Atlanta last week to look for somewhere to live. Despite working for an airline, we drove down because Thanksgiving had the flights packed. Over the course of the week, there were lots of events that I thought would make entertaining blog posts. Unfortunately, I forgot most of them by the time I got home.

There are some things, though, that are stuck in my mind:

It gets dark early now. We were in Illinois and there were no lights on the sides of the freeway. It was drizzling. I was going 70, which was the speed limit. I got passed. Constantly. By cars doing 80-85 mph. There was one guy driving so fast, he had to doing 90. In the dark. So FYI, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Michigan drivers go far too fast. I wasn’t even a little surprised when we came across an accident in the center median involving 4 vehicles.

And in the dark, somewhere in Illinois, I had to slam on the brakes. I was lucky no one was tailgating me at that time. As I zipped down the freeway, my headlights picked up an animal in the middle of the two lanes. I don’t know if it was a dog or a coyote, but I nearly hit it. That was major scary.

My impressions of Atlanta. I liked it. They drive like maniacs there, too. Seriously. I didn’t think it was possible to get a more stressful commute than I have in Minneapolis. I was wrong. I might have to check into a van pool to get to and from work. Although if I had a clue where I was going, it might not have been so bad.

The weather was great! Okay, so the people in Atlanta were complaining about how cold it was, but I’d been wearing my winter jacket and hat in Minneapolis. In ATL, I was wearing my spring jacket and I was comfortable. I actually hated the idea of going home because I didn’t want to go back to the cold (and it snowed the day after I got home). The weather in MN got even worse since then. On Tuesday, it was 15 degrees in MN at 5am. It was 62 in ATL. I’m thinking Mother Nature is trying to make me eager to move.

The trip home also had a few moments. Like the rest area we stopped at in northern Georgia where I almost got a cat. The two workers who clean up around the place found an abandoned house cat who was as friendly and sweet as could be. First thing in the door, they asked me if I wanted a cat. I thought about it while I washed my hands and thought, well, why not? Then I found out the cat was pregnant and I was like I can’t deal with that on top of all else I have.

After dark, again in Illinois, I caught movement in the corner of my headlights. A deer was on the edge of right-hand lane. All I could do was think: Please, don’t let her run out in front of me. Luckily, she didn’t, but that was enough to encourage me to stop for the night. In the hotel room, the radar showed freezing rain ahead of us so stopping was definitely the right choice.

The next day, in Wisconsin, we stop for gas. My dad notices my tailpipe is broken. We stop at a Ford dealership at the next exit and they took it off. The mechanics were awesome! They didn’t even charge us for doing that, but the rest of the trip home was a little on the loud side.

And of course, we hit Minneapolis in rush hour. But it was good to be home. When I saw the snow coming down on Saturday, I reconsidered that statement.

Tags: atlanta, cars, travel
Posted in Life | 2 Comments »

Adventures In Vehicle Ownership

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

The other morning, I stepped into the garage to leave for work and discovered my left, rear tire was flat. Completely flat. This is the one tire on my car that manages to find any nail in a five-block radius. It doesn’t matter where it is on the car, this is the one that picks up the debris. It’s been plugged many times and had developed a leak around the bead seal. I thought that had been fixed, but as I looked, I thought: Guess not.

I took a vacation day, realized it was far too early for any car service center to be open, and resigned myself to a frustrating day once they did open. I called my dad later in the morning and told him the problem. He suggested I buy a new car. Um, yeah, dad, sure.

Now, to be fair to him, my car is a 1998, but there’s been nothing mechanically wrong with the car. Everything I’ve dealt with has been routine maintenance and things like replacing the battery. I wasn’t ready to get rid of her and take on a car payment again.

So after calling around and making a decision on where to bring the car, I called AAA and someone came out to inflate the tire. Only problem? This wasn’t a slow leak around the bead seal as I’d assumed. I could hear that tire hissing air out fast and furious. Adrenaline kicked in. I leapt behind the wheel, started the car, and drove like a maniac, praying all the way that I’d make it to the car place before the tire got too low for me to drive on it.

I think I hit every light. No lie. Panic rose with each delay.

Finally, finally!, I made it. The service guy found a hole in the tire, on the corner where it can’t be plugged. But that tire already had so many plugs in it, that the last time it was patched, I was told it probably couldn’t be done again. I also knew that I needed new tires this fall anyway.

Bottom line was four new tires and getting all the corrosion polished off my rims. Sometimes owning a car isn’t the awesome experience I imagined it would be when I was in high school.

Tags: cars
Posted in Adventures, Life | Comments Off