Friedman: Six Wars and Counting

Third, this Suicide War has badly alienated the only party that can deliver the Palestinians a state — the Israeli silent majority. The whole history of the peace process can be reduced to one simple point: If the Palestinians persuade the Israeli center that they are ready to live side by side in peace, they will get a state; if they don't, they won't. Everything else is just commentary.

After some wandering in the desert, Friedman seems back on track. I missed this quote from his 5/15 column:

Israel still does not appear on many of Mr. Arafat's maps. So let's cut the nonsense that the only thing that all Palestinians want is an "end to the Israeli occupation." I wish that were true.

  

Car Wars IV: A new beginning

Thought I'd keep you updated on the fascinating car saga running through this site.

On Monday, Ali at Honda of Seattle left us voice mail. He offered to take $1,000 off the price of the car I'd bought, had checked out, and returned. The more I'd thought about it, the less interested I was in a car that had been in an accident. The car just didn't have good karma, mojo, or what have you. Plus, it seemed not to have been well-maintained.

I decided to wait. I'd already offered $2,000 less than the original price, but even that felt like too much. I checked the paper and found five cars that met my specs. Cool.

Sondra (bless her heart) offered to make some of the calls for me, since I've burned out on this kind of leg-work -- I'm not constitutionally suited for it and I've invested waaay too much in this search.

On her third call, Sondra found the jewel. A 95 Accord EX Sedan with a 5-speed manual. Sondra got on well with the woman right off the bat. The car was her daughter's. She was the first owner and had driven it to and from college in Portland and had taken many road trips with it. And get this: they'd actually done maintenance on it. The woman was going to bring the records even! They'd even replaced the timing belt a little early. To top it all off, Sondra got her to re-arrange her schedule and deliver it to High Road for the inspection. Wow.

Ali called this morning and I politely declined his offer.

Sondra and I took it for a spin around the block before remanding it to the clutches of our obsessive-compulsive mechanics.

To shorten the story: it came out with several things wrong (of course), but nothing to write home about, and nothing to queer the deal. I agreed to their asking price (something I never do). We'll do the deal tomorrow.

High Road's going to do the work tomorrow, and I should have the car by Thursday.

What a relief!

I'll complain only about the color. It's white. Frost White in Honda's parlance.

Observations:

I've noticed that people don't take care of their cars very well, which mystifies me until I realize that folks are leasing vehicles nowadays. They rent the car for three years and hand it back to the dealership. Where's the incentive to maintain?

Also, I think that people are buying much more expensive cars than they can really afford. They're thinking that they can afford to pay $399 a month for the car. Just barely. They've left themselves zero room for any unexpected expenses, so they skip a few oil changes and don't do the 15,000 mile service or the 30,000 mile service, or the -- you get the picture.

Here's a conversation I overheard at the dealership last week:

Ali's cell phone rings.

Hi [unintelligible name]. I've got good news! You're approved.

Uh-huh, yes. Honda Financing approved you at 4.9%. When can you come in and pick up the car?

Today at six? Great. I'll have it ready for you. They also approved your brother, so he can get his car as well. They would only do 10.9%.

Your brother has no credit. 10.9 is the best they can do.

Great. I'll see you both at six.

I don't think I want to buy his brother's car when he sells it.   

I guess it's heron time, because I saw one up close, hanging out in the shallows at Greenlake as I walked this evening.   

Christopher: How many people died?  

Memorial Day at Carkeek Park

We had a record low tide Monday morning, so Sondra rousted us out of our stupors and got us out to the beach!

I love walking barefoot at the shore, even with water as cold as Puget Sound. I also love poking around looking for sea life. I suspect that humans have destroyed all but the hardiest species at the beach, but the distribution intrigued me. We found pockets of seaweed and anenomes and some vast expanses of seemingly lifeless sand.

Clearly the height above/below median sea level makes a big difference, but I found a spot where there were literally hundreds of anenomes packed closely together. I started walking through it and soon backtracked when I realized that I couldn't take a step without standing on one. Getting crunched is a much bigger inconvenience to them than a rockier detour is for me. A few steps away, nothing but plains of ridged sand.

We saw a pair of herons. I finally figured out how to use the multi-shot mode on my camera, so I obsessively took about 30 heron pictures: wading in the surf, in flight, looking at me like I'm a lunatic, etc. A few of them came out. Many rest peacefully in the bit-bucket.

I got a very interesting one. I think the camera screwed up the exposure: