Still reeling from MECO...

I got to sleep at almost 1 am last night, after putting a very nice dent in the stuff due this morning. Despite the fact I had called and warned the client of some items arriving in her mailbox after the 8 am deadline, I felt duty-bound to minimize the tardy items. By the time I hit the sack, I had sent 8 of 13 items, including the big file that accounted for more than 42,000 of the project's overall 47,700 words (a record, if memory serves).

I fully intended to get a full night's sleep (to the extent Shiloh will allow something like that) but I was awakened at about 4:30 am by the sound of our contractor, Kosta, out in his garage, loading up our van and his truck for the trip to Pagosa, where he and a couple of guys on his crew will be doing a basic renovation of the house. Galina had intended to leave at the same time and follow closely in her car, but wasn't able to get much sleep last night, and so stayed back to catch a few more zs.

I knew when I went to sleep there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of the project left to do, so I sat down and did it. In the end, the second part of the assignment was sent at 7:15 am or so, which is good news, deadline-wise. The plate is now officially and squeakily clean. The nut for the month has been made, with margin to spare (though its won't last, I'm afraid).

And it's only the 24th!

In the end - or maybe that's not quite the wording that fits, because it's not the end, but I digress... I went back to bed around 7:30 am and was awakened by Galina about an hour ago. She had breakfast - I wasn't so hungry - and then she got in the van and took off, so it's just me and the animals for now.

My next order of business, after taking care of physical comforts (a shave would go well about now, and some fresh clothes), will be to figure out what I need to do/buy/etc. before leaving, and to do that, I'll need to figure out what I'll need while I'm in New York. I've given up ideas of trying to make the trip in two days (850 miles per day? not any more!), so if I leave tomorrow morning, I will expect to arrive at the homestead on Sunday evening.

I've been studying the instructions provided by mapquest and wonder why they route me from Jersey to Long Island via the GWB and the Bronx? It seems to me it would be more straightforward to go through Staten Island and use the Brooklyn highway system up to Queens and the LIE.

Obviously, this is not something that needs to be decided now, or ever... but I am curious.

Cheers...

Looking for a Ford dealership...

Google still says there's a dealership nearby, but it's been gone for a while. Interestingly enough, Google also provided a link to a review from a site called InsiderPages, which starts, "Stay away from their service department!" (Sort of the way I feel about Dell, but I digress...)

What caught my eye, though, was the other "review" which is in scare quotes because it doesn't sound right:

Our family and friends have purchased 14 cars in the last 10 years from this dealership. We like Bay Area Ford because they have won so many President Awards - which is the top ...

Ex-squeeze me?

They like doing business with some outfit because the outfit wins some award? That pushes the bounds of credibility. In fact it pushes back by one giant step an observation I first heard on a Zig Ziglar tape: Nobody buys a 1/4" drill because they want a 1/4" drill. They buy the drill because they want to make holes with it!

Cars are, of course, a bit different. Few will buy a Toyota just to own a Toyota, but at the high end, people buy Ferraris to show the world they own one. But I cannot, in my wildest ravings, imagine anyone buying a car because the dealership wins customer service awards.

In other news, it's not easy to find someone around here to sell me a spare for an '02 Focus. The Ford dealerships aren't interested, and the other places I've called don't have 'em in stock.

I may have to wait until I get to New York.

Cheers...