I’m sitting in the Starbucks at the corner of Rainier Ave. S. and MLK Way S., waiting for my tires to be replaced at Firestone… and tapped into the WiFi network emanating from the construction site at Sound Transit’s Mount Baker Station across the street.
While I appreciate the free wireless access, and I’m certainly not sucking up much bandwidth, I wouldn’t recommend they leave their WiFi router wide open like this. I’m just sayin’.
Goldy…thanks for the giggle!
Dang it, that violates one of the prime fiscal conservative principles. Someone somewhere might be getting something for free! That is not allowed. We must, therefore, scrap the entire Sound Transit system and start from scratch, with a completely privatized version, where everyone pays for everything.
Because in a perfect conservative world, there is no sharing, there is no commons. Everything is owned, and everything is charged for.
That probably explains my little driving adventure in Everett on Saturday. I tried to get on the NB I-5 lanes at Everett Ave., only to find the ramp closed. I followed the detour, only to end up going in a very large circle, back to my point of origin.
Must’ve been a hacker…..
Hey, hack in and reroute that puppy through my neighborhood, will ya?
slingshot @4,
You do your own hacking. I’m busy editing ST’s construction plans to get the S. Graham St station back on the map.
Breaking News: King 5 is reporting that a “computer malfunction” has solved the region’s transportation woes.
“We aren’t sure how it happened…” a contractor for Sound Transit working on the Mt. Baker Station said, “…but we looked at the plans to figure out how much rebar to lay, and there it was!”
Transportation analysists are still studying the changes to the region’s transportation plans, but preliminary estimates indicate that it replaces the Viaduct with a tunnel and replaces the 520 bridge, brings light rail to all of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, at roughly half the budget the DOT now uses for filling potholes.
“We’re still trying to figure out what happened.” the head of the construction company working on the project said. “But you can be sure we are going to take credit for it, and bill the state for half the cost of the savings….”
@ 6
Are you sure they didn’t say commuter malfunction?
ba-dum-bum-psssh!
WTF!!!
Goldy–
Let me get this straight–
1) You pay more for your tires by buying them at Firestone rather than Costco.
2) You drink $4 coffees
3) You solicit money from other KLOWNS
Sheeeeesh!
@2 Those fuckers would charge us for the air we breathe if they could figure out how to privatize the atmosphere and collect tolls.
@6 Sounds like a malicious hacker uploaded Rossi’s transportation plan.
@9 Think of all the stockholders who are making a profit, Cynical. Stay focused, man!
Cynical @9,
I shopped around. The sale price at Firestone was within a few dollars of the regular price at Costco (of which I am not a member), and comes with free rotations at a neighborhood location.
And no, I don’t drink $4 coffees. I don’t normally drink coffee at all, but since I was sitting there for an hour and a half, I bought a $1.75 grande drip coffee.
So here are my questions for you:
1) Why do you always make up stuff without having access to all the facts? It makes you look stupid. And,
2) What is it to you, if other readers find HA a valuable enough service that they’re willing to chip in some cash, exactly the way they would support NPR or PBS? Do you and your BIAW brethren find me that threatening that you would seek to undermine my financial support?
Just wondering.
@13 Maybe Mr Cynical thinks that the only time one should give money away, should be in an approved church.
And how dare you vote with your wallet for service and value, when all that matters is the lowest price under any circumstances! Isn’t there a way you could have illegals put your tires on, and save a few bucks?
Goldy–
1) Seems like anything you disagree with is characterized as someone making stuff up.
Did I make up stuff about O-blah-blah and all his shady pals?? Rezko, Ayers, Wright…the list continues to grow like O-blah-blah’s lying Pinocchio Nose!
2) I actually find you to be a decent, well-intentioned KLOWN…just misguided. Seems like you got all the support you asked for and then some. I’m just tryin’ to help you KLOWNS from fallin’ off the Left side of the Earth!
I hope things work out for you with your Firestone Tire Rotations! Lord knows, since it’s free, you’ll probably be in there daily!
Free for you. Nort free for the company, they are paying the employee to do the work.
Here are tax $$$ at work:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvn....._83964.asp
WHY DO WE continue to pay the salary of this moron?
Marvin Stamn,
“Free for you. Nort free for the company, they are paying the employee to do the work.”
No shit Sherlock.
But…they are…um…charging Goldy for the tires. Overall…they make money on the transaction.
Sheesh…you fucking wingnuts sure have your heads up your asses.
Just don’t have Firestone do any mechanical repairs. They wanted $350 to put a starter in my uncle’s ’86 Caddillac. NAPA’s retail price on the starter is $100. Explain to me how it takes $250 in labor to install a starter? I got a $13 junkyard starter and installed it in 1/2 hour. $250 for 1/2 hour of labor? Firestone sucks.
19: You probably know, there’s a book out there which indicates how long it is supposed to take to do a specific repair on any given car. The auto repair shops take that time estimate and multiply it by the “shop rate” (i.e., the hourly charge), and come up with a figure they sometimes call “book rate”. It’s not supposed to matter whether they do the job in less time or more, although they obviously make more money if an experienced mechanic can do twelve hours of “book time” in an eight-hour day.
That being said, most “shop rates” are still under $100 per hour, and I doubt the book time on installing a starter in a mid-80’s American-made car would be over 2-1/2 hours. Sometimes they add on by charging for stuff which really should be free, such as 3/4 of an hour for “diagnosis”, etc.
If you really want to see some high prices, check out the Bellevue auto shops. The air conditioner in my mid-1990’s Ford Explorer went out, and I knew it would involve a conversion to the new system to even be able to re-charge it. Since I work in Bellevue, I went over to the local Ford dealership to ask how much they would charge. When I told them the year of my car, they actually got pretty snotty (which I thought was pretty funny, considering this was a FORD dealership).
Anyway, they told me to bring my car in for a diagnostic, minimum charge $150.00. I said, “Gee, you guys are a Ford dealership, this is a Ford, I’ve already told you what needs to be done, can’t you just give me a ballpark figure? Surely your mechanics can just check out the book rate and let me know?” “Nope, bring in your car first and hand over $150.00, and then we will give your car an inspection and diagnosis of the problem, and then we can give you a quote”.
Of course, I told them not to bother, which is probably what they wanted anyway. They probably prefer to give $500 “semi-annual inspections” on $50,000 SUVs which are only a couple of years old, rather than actually get their hands dirty doing actual work on a vehicle.
rhp6033 @ 20
I figured that since I am a hack, used ramps and a $10 tool kit from Schucks; that my 1/2 hour worth of work would take a real garage about 1/2 if one includes the time to write up the bill.
I’ve heard that car dealerships make most of their money on repairs. I’m sure they are looking forward to the hybrids crapping out. Two drive trains make for 4x the profits.