Tag Cars

Some People’s Children

Michael Leave a comment

If you aren’t yet you should be looking forward to the day when you become the parent of an adult child.  Oh when you get down to it they really aren’t all that much different from the non-adult child.  Your parenting skills will still be questioned but then, so will their childrening skills.  Many of the issues you already faced yourself.  Most of the problems will be expected, if not actually anticipated, or at least remembered more clearly.  And usually more expensive.

We figure the expense of childhood issues is going to catch up with the little ones shortly.  It all has to do with the recent wave of television commercials portraying children as members of real families and part of the decision making process.  We’ve had kids in commercials since there have been commercials.  Millions of people know that “Mikey likes it” but probably have no idea exactly what it is that Mikey likes.  But Mikey was cute.  And even at today’s inflated prices, we’re talking about a $3.00 box of cereal.  Not a big budget buster.

No, today’s kids are pushing thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in single transactions just by being, well, by being bad kids.  Let’s start with the youngest in the crowd who carries his blanket with him wherever he goes.  Big deal, lots of kids do that.  But this one seems to take great pride into turning his blanket into an ice cream bowl just for kicks.  Grandma scoops out a nice big portion of ice cream and the kid immediately and deliberately dumps it onto his blanket.  Here that blanket would have then been declared garbage and tossed out with the trash.  There Grandma chuckles and the kid wins.  Again, not a budget buster but far from Mikey’s cuteness and a harbinger of things to come.

Those are the small victories that give other commercial children the audacity to demand their way or the highway.  Take the dad and child off the highway and park them on the rim of the Grand Canyon.  One of the Seven Wonders of the World and the kid sits in the car with the look of “yeah, I’ve seen pictures, so what” across his face.  Dad tries to find a way to “get to” his child, finally deciding to drive his new $30,000 car onto a bison range.  There one of the furry beasts walks up next to the car, fogs the window, and the kid is finally impressed.  You can tell he’s impressed because the voice over tells us so, and for a mere $30,000, plus travel expenses and release statement, you too can impress your child.

Perhaps the greatest display of petulance is the 9-ish year old whose parents determine that he should be part of their spending upwards of a quarter of a million dollars on a house.  House after house they look.  House after house he becomes more and more irked at the selections.  What’s missing here?  Why does he not like any of these fabulous structures?  Because there aren’t any big trees where he can build a playhouse.  It’s not just a house; it’s where you raise your family.  Or so says the pleasant voice at the end of the commercial.  Yeah, right.  And in a year he’ll forget about the tree house and for the next 10 years resent all of the leaves his parents will “force” him to rake every fall.  Them and their darn big trees.

Trust us, you’ll welcome being the parent of an adult child when most of the problems are expected.  And maybe not even more expensive.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Automatically Yours

Michael Leave a comment

It’s funny how much television and radio commercials shape the modern landscape.  But then, isn’t that the point?  Very recently there was a commercial on the radio for remote controlled window blinds for the home.  For a large meeting room or conference center, or for a series of office suites that somebody wants to look all the same from the outside, the remote controlled blind could be, and in some cases probably is, a good idea.  But for your home?  Unless your living room windows are in Jack Nicholson’s house, your blinds probably aren’t that far away from where you’re sitting.

Remote window blinds might seem to be the height of lazy right now, but if we look at some of the remote and automatically controlled conveniences – and some necessities even – we might see how our landscape has changed over the past not too many years.

There could be some of you who have never seen a television without remote control.  There used to be a time when the remote was optional.  It was there but the set still had all of its power, volume, and channel buttons right out in the open.  Before that, if you wanted remote control you had to have children.

Cars are a treasure trove of automation.  Some don’t even need their keys.  You get close to the vehicle and it unlocks, you press a button and it starts, you stop long enough and it stops.  Now that might still be a pretty fancy car but even daily drivers do stuff for their drivers daily.  When was the last time you turned on your car headlights?  Most cars now come with light sensors that automatically turn on the lights when needed and off when not.  They also know to turn off airbags protecting an unoccupied seat.  Doors lock and unlock, trunks and hatches open and close at the touch of the right button.

Automation has been with our major household appliances for years.  Consider the self-cleaning oven.  It’s hard to find one now that isn’t.  Need ice?  Probably your freezer handles that chore on its own.  Generations have grown up not ever knowing when to stop a cycle to put the fabric softener in the washer.  You put the pretreatment, bleach, detergent, and softener all before you start it up and the machine doses them to your clothes at the appropriate times.

Probably someone thought it was laziness when each of these conveniences hit the landscape.  Today, even those critics rely on an inanimate object to get their clothes clean; even the daily jogger isn’t so wrapped up in physical exercise that he or she actually walks across a room to change the channel on a television set.  So blinds that open and close at the push of a button aren’t all that unexpected.  Now the real challenge is for someone to invent blinds that know when to open and close.  Until that happens, if you want to handle that chore remotely you better have more kids.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

It’s Two, Two, Two Vehicles in One

Michael Leave a comment

Due to circumstances beyond his control, which are almost all circumstances, He of We took a different route to work one day not long ago.  It took him past an apartment building’s parking lot where facing the street was the shiniest, brightest, chrome-iest, mid-80’s Chevy El Camino.  A car/truck that few ever give a second thought to but was always around from its first release in 1959 until the last one rolled off the assembly line in 1987.  If it seemed like there were a lot of them on the roads there was even a GMC version produced from1971 through 1987 called first the Sprint then later renamed the Caballero.

The El Camino was a cool vehicle.  It and Ford’s Ranchero were the SUVs of the 60’s and 70’s.  It was a car when it was people hauling time, a truck when it was stuff hauling time, but it wasn’t a dowdy station wagon any of the time.  If you asked most American men who were gasoline-fueled teenagers then, they would be able to tell you quite a bit about these early utility vehicles . They could quote horsepower ratings, top speed, payload, wheelbase, and similarities and differences between these light duty pick-ups and the cars they were based on.  Perhaps even with more clarity than they could describe their own garage built hot rods.  That’s because that’s what gasoline-fueled teenage boys did back then.

Although it’s been over 25 years since an El Camino sat in a new car showroom, 35 years for a Ranchero to do the same, every once in a while one shows up on the road.  They are reminders that the “crossover” vehicle segment did not begin with the Toyota RAV 4.  (There were similar vehicles built in the 1930’s but they never made it through World War II.)  If you happen to be reading this in Australia or South Africa it’s possible that you might see a brand new car/truck drive by.  GM’s Australian division Holden still produces an El Camino type vehicle called the Holden Ute in Australia and the Chevrolet Lumina Ute in South Africa.

Perhaps someday the El Camino will return to American roads.  When it does (ok, if it does), it might be enough of a draw to create a new generation of gasoline-fueled teenage boys.  Now if we can only bring back malt shops and sock hops.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

What MPG Does Your Cup Holder Get?

Michael Leave a comment

Sometime in a different century when mini-vans only held 7 passengers and only a couple of manufacturers even made mini-vans, one of the Chrysler divisions (that was back in the days when Plymouth was more than just a rock) highlighted in their advertisements that their mini-vans sported 10 cup holders.  This was in a vehicle that sat only seven people.  Why would any vehicle need more cup holders than passengers?

There are a few people who can manage to get from Point A to Point B and keep nothing in their cup holders other than sunglasses, spare change, or dust.  Those people are to be envied.  Last evening He of We was getting himself ready for the drive to work this morning and had to make sure that there was a bottle of water chilling in the refrigerator for that ride and that the travel mug’s lid was somewhere close to the travel mug, all while pondering if he should leave a few minutes early for a breakfast treat on the way in that would include a large iced tea.  Let’s see, that’s a 3 cup holder requirement for only one rider.

Not to be outdone, Daughter of He routinely leaves the house every morning with a coffee and a smoothie.  Another multi-cup cup holder needer.  (Someday we’ll explore the current smoothie world.  Back in the day when seven passenger vans sported 10 cup holders, smoothies called up images of fruit blended with ice or ice cream and were prone to cause cold headaches.  Today those same called things include nuts, berries, grains, seeds, yogurt, and juices.  They still have fruit but no ice cream.  What fun is that?  But back to the cup holders.)

This got us to thinking.  Just how many cup holders are there out there?  Out there being on the driveway.  He’s chariot has 8 cup holders and five seats.  Four of those cup holders are in the front seat.  The front seats that hold two people.  That’s two cup holders per person up front.  The still means that if He and Daughter of He were to car pool, there could be some days one may have to ride in the back just so there will be enough holders for all the cups.

So that brings us to the real quandary of this.  These two aren’t alone in their liquid refreshments commute.  He knows that because he has seen the occupants of other vehicles’ cup holders in his work’s parking spaces.  They are just as crowded.  So the question is: are all these people really drinking all that much just to get to work?  Is it a daily test of bladder control in preparation for the morning meetings?  Or is it just to have a variety available to match the commute’s traffic mood?  (And if it was going to be for that reason, why aren’t more of those cups holding a good shot of bourbon?  Um, passenger side only!)

Those guys in Detroit back in that former century might have had something.  Nobody talks of engine displacement or horsepower anymore.  Wheel size that once seemed so important is today’s unknown.  Gas mileage always shows up on the ads but it’s just a number to compare models.  The number of air bags pops up in commercials more often than price but neither of these is a big selling point.  Will they really make or break the deal?  But watch a dealer try to sell a car without a cup holder.  It might not be on the spec sheet but it will get asked about during the test drive!

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Everybody, Hit the Road! Oh, Look. They Already Have.

Michael Leave a comment

You know we don’t just pull stuff from the Internet and repeat it.  We’re always looking for the reason, the story, the lesson.  Well, ummm, this one from the Associated Press has none of that.  But it sure is fun to read.

A New Mexico man faces multiple charges after police say he was having sex with a woman while driving drunk and crashed, ejecting the woman from the vehicle.
The Albuquerque Journal reports the 25-year-old man was found with one shoe on and his shorts on inside-out Monday night after he wrecked his Ford Explorer in Albuquerque.
Police say his female passenger was found naked outside the SUV after being ejected. She had deep cuts to her face and head.
Authorities allege he tried to drive away after the crash and leave his passenger behind, but a witness grabbed his keys from the ignition. He also allegedly tried to hide from responding officers behind a cactus.

So tell us, what have we learned from this?

When trying to get it on while on the road, be sure to get your underwear on correctly.

Female passengers should always keep at least a light sweater for those unexpected airborne moments.  A crash helmet may also come in handy.

Check with “What Not to Wear” before going out with only one shoe.  It could be suitable for certain events and may beef up an otherwise questionable alibi.

It’s bad manners to leave your date on the side of the road.

But, just because there are lessons to be learned from this experience doesn’t mean that they have been.  We move from New Mexico to Florida to review the new definition of auto-erotica reported by the Sarasota Herald Tribune::

Two individuals were charged with misdemeanors after a police officer reportedly caught them having sex in a moving car.
The officer spotted a blue Hyundai driving erratically on Hyde Park Street on Thursday and turned on his emergency lights to see if the driver needed help.
The car suddenly pulled across the road and came to a stop. When the officer went to the driver’s door, the couple quickly tried to pull up their pants.
They had been sitting together in the driver’s seat and “it became obvious that they had been engaged in sexual intercourse,” the officer wrote in an arrest report.

When will they learn?  Our search revealed at least a half-dozen other recent reports of driving while under a completely different influence.  When will they learn is probably never.  What will they learn?  Keep a light sweater handy and don’t hide behind the cactus!

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Drive On

Michael 1 Comment

It’s been a few months now.  Actually it was last October.  It was then that we wrote the most recent installment of cars driving into buildings, a phenomenon happening so regularly we can’t miss it.  If you’re thinking you must have missed it, you didn’t.  We never got around to posting that one.  Something else more blogworthy must have come up.  Then we took another look at it and it and found something else instead. Then something else.  Then Thanksgiving.  Then Christmas.  Before we knew it, it have gotten moved into the “unposted” folder and just sat around. And since then we’ve actually not thought much at all about cars being driven willy and nilly into buildings.  Until yesterday. 

Oh buildings were still being assailed by cars.  Some were little taps into a door frame.  Some we quite spectacular and took out entire corners of buildings.  And then there was yesterday.

Yesterday there was this perfectly innocent building, sitting along a perfectly picture perfect downtown main street.  So perfect a main street it is that it is named Main Street.  And along that street were stores you don’t see much along main streets lately.  There is an insurance agency with just a couple of agents always handy, a deli-style sandwich shop where everybody knows your name, a florist with real flowers in real vases and a carnation for you, a real estate office with pictures of houses for sale taped to the inside of the front window, and up until yesterday, a chiropractic office manned by Dr. C., of course.  Now gone is the building façade.  Gone is the receptionist’s desk.  Gone is the waiting room.  Gone is most everything in the front half of the building.  Fortunately the driver responsible for doing all that did it along about 8:30 at night, long after everyone in the office had themselves gone.

So why such a big deal over such a little office along such a little street in such a little town?  We’ve written about big buildings getting plowed into by big trucks.  We even wrote about an airport getting in the way of a crazy lady on a mission.  So now we’re up to some 350 words about that little office along a little street in a little town. But it’s special. It’s She of We’s town.  And it’s her Main Street and her deli and and her florist and her buildings.  These are people she knows. 

Now it’s not just an interesting topic to post for you to read.  It’s not trying to figure out how many building assaults per how many days. Now when we pose just how distracted does a driver have to be to not notice a two story, glass front, brick and mortar building getting bigger and bigger in the windshield it’s a building that we’ve seen, driven past, walk by, pointed to.    

We know we aren’t the only ones to know a building that has come under attack.  In the Buffalo NY area, petitions began circulating calling for guard rails around buildings at street level for goodness sake!  But now She of We enters the elite club of not only knowing buildings that have been disrupted by drunk, disorderly, or distracted drivers.  She knows the people in that building too.

Where will it end?  Last year in our metro area almost 100 times did the cars and trucks run through mortar and glass.  We stopped counting at the end of the year.  We still noticed them.  We pointed them out on the news. We just didn’t pay attention to them.  Until yesterday.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

Look Here

Michael Leave a comment

Last week She of We was in an accident.  A car accident.  She’s fine.  You can’t really say she had an accident because her car was the innocent bystander. So we guess you have to say she was in an accident.  Nothing terrible.  Not even hardly bad.  But an accident none the less.  An accident caused by . . . distracted driving.

No, she wasn’t hit by anybody writing or reader a text message.  And there was no building involved.  Regular readers know we have been chronicling the ongoing incidents of vehicular buildingcide.  See Drive Through Service, Drive Through Part Two, and Drive Around Please while we continue to gather information for our fourth installment.  But we digress.

She of We was in an accident caused by distracted driving.  She was at a stop at the end of an exit ramp from one of the interstates leading into town when a lady rammed her SUV into the back of She’s SUV.  How did she not notice a two ton black vehicle in broad daylight at a complete stop in front of her?  She (the rammer) was rooting about for loose change to give to the homeless chap panhandling at the end of the ramp.

It seems the rammer lives not far from that exit and may see the vagabond on a regular basis.  Knowing he would be at his post with his cardboard sign, she wanted to be ready to toss him some change.  We said She of We wasn’t hit by anybody driving while texting but looking for change is just as distracted.

The next time you are in your driveway, with your car turned off, time yourself to see how long it takes to look toward your cupholder and determine if there is any change in it.  One second?  Two?  Three?  Let’s say 2 seconds.  At 60 miles per hour your car would have traveled 176 feet in two seconds.  That’s 11 times the length of a Chevy Impala, 12 times that of a Toyota Camry, almost 15 times the length of a Mini Cooper.  In two seconds you would have driven over half the length of a football field and never seen any of it.

There are some pretty good public service announcements out there about not texting while driving but you have to remember that’s not the only way you can become distracted.  Remember that the next time you are dialing your phone because you haven’t set up your voice dial yet, checking the display on your satellite radio, or reading the bumper sticker on the car in the lane next to you.

She of We wasn’t hurt when the distracted driver drove into her rear bumper.  Don’t you become the next distracted driver to get to say “thank goodness you’re not hurt.”

That’s not a bad public service announcement.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Just Stuff

Michael Leave a comment

We’ve made no secret that we like to do a little joy riding when we feel the need for a little joy in a weekend.  He of We has a little 2 seat roadster and She of We keeps a bottle of sun screen in her door pocket.  It works.  Usually.  Sometimes we find ourselves scratching our heads over something somebody – sometimes us – has done.  Let us explain.

Once on an afternoon drive through the park we stopped at a “little bit of everything” store.  They have tools, hunting and fishing gear, canned goods, sports memorabilia, boxed candy, various needle-works supplies, furniture, plumbing fixtures, wheelbarrows, doll houses, and trees.  How can you pass up a deal on trees.  We couldn’t.  Just because the tree was about 20 miles from where it was going to be planted might make mere people say “let’s think about this.”  Not us.  We’re Reality People.  And we did not want to drive back and forth a few times to get the right vehicle with the right storage capacity in the right parking lot to transport a tree.  It’s just a tree.  To make a long story short, in order not to damage the trunk or the trunk, it ended up between She of We’s legs in the front seat, extending about 3 feet above the windshield.  We drove slow.  Which made eating the ice cream we stopped for easier.

On another excursion we passed a row of simply beautiful houses.  It’s easy when you seek out a high end housing plan where somebody is turning out mansion after mansion just like a suburban factory project.  Often we find the people in the million dollar homes have the same things in their driveways and side yards we have in ours and we smile happily.  This one afternoon in this one neighborhood we weren’t in a plan.  We were among bona fide multiple million dollar manors rivaling anything Hollywood so to be exes would fight over.  Just beautiful.  And we weren’t but 100 feet from their front doors.  We wanted to walk up each rolling expanse of lawn and ring the bell just to say hello.  And among them, among the carefully landscaped, fenced, fountained, and paved portraits of residential indulgence, lay a deflated 24 foot round, 4 foot tall inflatable portable swimming pool.  Complete with knocked over steps.

Then there was the time we stopped at a farm market.  We’ve stopped at several and usually find the freshest bargains for the evening’s dinner.  If they have a good gift shop we could pick up birthday, anniversary, and Christmas gifts for several occasions.  But this stop took the cake.  Or rather, took the pie.  Not to say it wasn’t home-made but on this display case sat several absolutely identical looking $14 pies.  Right next to the $10 peaches, $6 blueberries, and $16 skirt steaks from “local” beef.  Trust us.  We’re local and there’s no beef where we are.  A little checking and we found that their corn might be theirs.  The rest was bought from the same purveyors that the mega-mart on the hill goes to.  Shame on them!

Not on a weekend drive, He of We recently was at that mart.  He did his shopping (New York Strip, $8 for a 12 ounce cut) and moved over the giant home supply store that shares the hill.  There he found a guy tying a set of mini-blinds to the back of his motorcycle.  “Let me tell you about this tree,” He of We said to him.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Drive Around Please

Michael 3 Comments

We tried to wait but we couldn’t.  Buildings are STILL jumping in front of cars.

We first told of cars driving into buildings at a quite alarming pace at the beginning of the year.  (See Drive Through Service, January 29, and Drive Through, Part Two, February 13, in HUMOR.)  We figured at the rate they were going we’d see a car/building collision on a daily basis before the end of the year.  While the pace has slowed, the variety has not.

Ripped form the local headlines we have reports of cars driving into 10 houses, one making it all the way into the living room.  We’ve had one office building, one bank, one restaurant, one bookstore, and one billboard all become the objects of vehicular buildingslaughter.  Two locations of the same supermarket chain were targets of a pair of misguided motorcrafts.  Perhaps the chain should consider a drive through to replace one of its indoor express lanes.  One convenience store attracted its car-nal companion so well that the same driver plowed the same car into the same storefront twice.

Some smashes were particularly smashing.  There was the lady who drove her car into the airport.  We thought it was because the driver couldn’t wait to head for a warmer climate and the people mover from the parking lot wasn’t moving people fast enough.  Actually it was because she had a flat tire some 2 miles before she got to the parking lot and didn’t want to stop to change it for fear she’d miss her flight.  By the time she got to the lot she had no rubber on the wheel and the car had taken over in terms of finding its way.

One driver had his sights set on an unsuspecting suburban home and managed to eventually get all the way through the yard and nuzzle his vehicle against the front porch.  Along the way he found the house’s fishpond.  Unfortunately only 9 of the 12 known inhabitants of the pond were saved.   One driver, probably because he knew this was going to hurt, piloted his sedan through the front window of a hospital outpatient clinic.  Just as the weather was turning to consistent 70+ degree days did a car find its way into a backyard pool.  Then there was the lady who knew all this mayhem was occurring and felt it needed prayer.  So she drove right through the side entrance of a church.  God told her to.

And since we’ve been keeping things local we haven’t even mentioned the car that drove into the French subway station mistaking the wide stairs for a parking garage entrance.

Our tally since 2012 began?  Forty-four stationary objects have been the target of very bad driving.  Actually we’ve been holding back on one incident.  That was the driver who drove through a cemetery tilting a dozen headstones as if they were windmills.  We aren’t certain how to count that one.

What we are certain of is that what we were certain of – these were all cases of distracted driving – we aren’t certain of any more.  Could there really be that many drivers who are so oblivious that they can’t tell when they are about to hit the broad side of a barn?  We think this needs more concentration.  At least by the drivers!

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

UDNTSAY

Michael 5 Comments

For some people, a bumper sticker just isn’t enough.  They have to say it officially with their license plates.  That’s ok.  We like the creativity you see on the back of some cars.  And we like a good challenge.  With many customized license plates we have to figure it out how many words, where the breaks are, then what those words are, and what you mean by them, all at 60 miles per hour.  Just remember, no texting a mobile shout out for help.

Some people like to put their occupations on their license plates.  Usually it’s just a trio of initials and a recognized abbreviation, like ABC RN, or DEF MD.  Recently He of We was driving behind a basic American made sedan with CO PILOT on the plate.  He wondered who was actually driving.

Some plates add a bit of whimsy to the road.  INDULGE might mean the car’s owner indulged himself or herself on the purchase of the vehicle or maybe the car owner is also owns a boutique, or an ice cream stand, or a salon, and is trying to ply a bit of subliminal messaging.

There’s always a message to be delivered in plates.  The big pick-up truck that passed us on the highway had the plate DSL PWR which we figure to mean Diesel Power.  Sometimes between the delivering and the receiving, the message gets blurred.  Was he proud of his diesel because he was maximizing his fuel dollar in such a large pick-up?  Was he proud of his diesel because he had a pick-up truck worthy to be in the truck stop next to the big rig?  Or was he reminding whoever was behind him driving uphill on a cold morning that it might take a while?

Sometimes there is too much frankness on the road.  We recall seeing the plate ALIMONY.  Although it was on a fairly pricey vehicle it wasn’t on a true luxury car so maybe the owner could have worked out a still better deal.   An oft-spotted vehicle for She of We on her way to work is one heralding the owner as CONTESSA.  We wonder what kind of work she must be off to every morning.  And what might be a sign of total excess might have been on a top of the line Mercedes, convertible of course, with the plate EXPNSV, just in case there was any doubt.

Then there are some that defy explanation.  Just this past weekend Both of We walked passed a car in a parking lot with the state issued plate proclaiming BEETLUV.  A perfectly great plate to put on a VW Beetle.  But it wasn’t.  So the only thing we could think was that particular Jeep owner loved beets.  We didn’t try to guess if they were pickled, boiled, or roasted.  A few days ago He of We was passed by a sub-compact bearing the plate DDAY.  The driver wasn’t old enough to have been in military service on the famous June 6.  Nor did he look like the world’s oldest fraternity brother of Animal House fame.  What was he saying?  We’ll probably never know.  Nor will we know the meaning of GRMLIN1.  If it was on a 40 year old American Motors compact we’d think the owner proud of his or her very well preserved car but it wasn’t and we already went down that road with the beet lover.

Sometimes the owner wants you to know where he or she is from.  We think TRACI CA must be from California even though the plate isn’t.  Is the 412 in FROM 412 the owner’s area code?  Or maybe street address?  Apartment number?  Rural route?  Maybe they aren’t always clear.

So do we have vanity plates on our vehicles?  Nope.  Thought of, yes.  And perhaps someday.  Till then we’ll stick to the bumper stickers, window decals, tire covers, and magnets to express our likes and not so hidden messages.  Besides, the best one has already been taken.

Seen on an older, but well-kept every day driver.  PAID 4.  That’s a classy plate.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?