Marco! Polo! And the Parking Lot

With the Christmas season upon us I did what most of us do this time of year, I visited the local mall to get some of my Christmas shopping done. As expected the mall was full to capacity with shoppers and I was forced to park all the way out toward the outer edge of the parking lot. I knew I would have to park this far out so I was ready for a long walk to the stores.

As I left my truck and started my long trek across the parking lot toward the mall entrance, a young girl, about 13 or 14, came out from between a couple of cars near me, stopped, turned around and yelled, “Mom, I found it.” I figured she was looking for their parked car. From off in the distance I heard a quick, “Where are you?” While I continued my walk toward the mall entrance I looked above the rows of parked cars looking for this girl’s mother but I did not see her. The daughter replied, “Over here!”

After a few moments I hear the Mom yelling across the parking lot. She yelled, “Marco!” The daughter returned her reply, “Polo”. For several minutes they repeated “Marco” and “Polo” as the mother came closer to her destination. When I was about halfway toward the mall (yes it is a big parking lot) and I saw a lady pushing a stroller with a small child and she was carrying dozens of bags and packages. As she emerged from behind a car she yell out, “Marco.”

She looked at me as she yelled and I pointed straight down the row toward where I parked and said, “She is right down there.” She looked in the direction I was pointing and saw her daughter way at the end of the row. She said “Thanks” and headed down the lane. How often has a simple childhood game solve the problem of a lost car? I thought it was pretty good teamwork.

I told this to my friend yesterday and they said that they just hold their remote high in the air and press the Panic button. If a vehicle’s horn starts, “Beep, Beep, Beep” he figures he found his vehicle. Personally, I would rather hear, “Marco” and “Polo” over the “Beep, Beep, Beep” of a vehicle horn.

A Swindler and My Car Dealer Did Right By Me

If you have read my last few blog entries you know I have been having problems with my Dodge Dakota Truck. Chrysler has determined that my engine needs replacement and that the problems with the engine are due to the lack of proper maintenance. I will not go into the details here, but I will say that I disagreed with their assessment. Since I do have an extended warranty, I have repeatedly complained to Chrysler and appealed their decision, but reluctantly I was forced to agree to have them order a replacement engine at my expense.

So I waited and waited for more than a month only to receive a call from my local Dealer apologizing to the fact that Chrysler gave them the wrong part number for the engine. They now have the correct part number and they have the correct engine ordered. Unfortunately, I am back at the beginning of the waiting period and it could be another 6 to 8 weeks before an engine becomes available.

About a week ago my Sales Representative at the dealer called me up. He told me my Dodge Dakota truck was, in his words, “very clean and well maintained”. Yes it is, my truck is a pretty sharp looking truck and many people have commented on that. He wanted to make me an offer on my truck in trade for something on their lot. He asked me what I wanted or needed in a vehicle and I told him. I also told him that a Dodge truck does not interest me at this point. Fortunately, this dealer sells Dodge and Ford, and I like Ford vehicles, so a Ford Truck it must be. Off he went to figure out what he could do.

A few days later he called back and made me an offer I found hard to refuse. He offered a full size Ford F-150 SuperCrew (4 door) pickup with a slightly larger engine with similar or better features that my Dodge Dakota. He came by my office at lunch and we took the truck on a test drive. Boy, it was nice. The color was my second choice of color but the color is acceptable to me. I had to remember, the deal hinges on what the Dealer had in stock on the lot. Since trucks are not selling well this fall, he had a good selection to choose from.

I told him I liked the truck and I would like to see the deal they propose. He provided me with the figures and they didn’t look right. They were offering me approximately blue book value (possibly better) for my Dodge Dakota in trade, even with a bad engine, towards the Ford F-150 Pickup. I check the numbers over and over. They deal seemed pretty good.

I checked with friends and family to see where the hole in the deal was. They could not find any problems with the deal for me. We figured the dealer has another deal in the background for my old truck that would make up for the fact I have a bad engine. Regardless of the deal they had, the deal they offered me was pretty good. So, I accepted.

I am now very happy with my Dealer and my new Ford F-150 Pickup Truck. I have been a good customer to this dealer over the years and they appear to appreciate my business. This will be the 5^th new vehicle in a row that I have purchased from them.

The funniest thing about this entire process is my salesman name. My Sales Representative’s last name is Swindler. Yes, “Swindler”. What a name for a salesman. But he is a good salesman and this is the 2^nd vehicle in a row that I have bought from him.

I can say with confidence, I will gladly buy a vehicle from this “Swindler”, again.

How Not To Handle Snow

We had our first snow fall of the season last night and boy it was a big one. Fortunately, we missed the brunt of this storm. We were forecasted for up to 12 inches of snow but we only received about 4 or 5 inches of snow in our city area. By morning the snow had stopped, the clouds were gone and a clear, crisp winter morning greeted everybody. Coming out of my house this morning, I found our street almost cleared and the city plows working carefully on the secondary streets in my neighborhood.

When I got to work this morning in the downtown business district, I noticed a different method of snow removal. I have seen this technique they use in many areas around the country and if you sit down and think about the process and the available options for snow removal in this area, this technique makes sense.

Instead of plowing the snow to the sides of the streets, as it is done in all the residential neighborhoods; our city plows the snow in the downtown business district to the center of the street, making a wall of snow down the middle of the road, and then scooping the wall of snow up and depositing the snow in huge mounds strategically placed in the middle of downtown intersections. This snow removal not only clears the street and the parking areas in front of the businesses, but it also cleans some of the sidewalks. If done correctly there is enough room for vehicle traffic to travel around these snow mountains so that customers can park and visit the downtown businesses. While these mounds of snow are being built, dump trucks are stopping by to pickup a new load of snow which will be hauled to some nearby open field where the snow is dumped until the snow melts naturally.

Local businesses need to remove the snow in front of their business like anybody else. Except, in the downtown area they have no place to shovel this snow to. They have no front yards or open areas to pile the snow. In the front of their businesses they have a sidewalk and street parking spaces, and nothing else. But the snow needs to go someplace. So, it is plowed away and piled to be moved elsewhere by city crews.

Our little city does there snow removal a little differently that others. Once the snow is piled and scooped into these large mountains in the middle of key intersections, the mounts of snow sit there, sometimes for days, before the snow is hauled away. In the mean time vehicle traffic has to negotiate around these Snow Mountains while trying not to run up on the curbs and hoping no vehicle has decided to go around the mount in the opposite direction.

I walked around our square at lunch time to try to gauge the snow removal process. Most of the mounds were already created as I got to work. At lunch time I found no evidence of any snow mound being scooped and trucked off. What I did find was several people climbing up to the top of these mini-mountains to have their picture taken. I also saw several vehicles jump the curbs as they avoided these mountains of snow.

I give the city credit for quickly clearing the streets throughout the city. But for the final snow removal in the downtown area, I give the city poor marks. For the next few days as kids and spectators climb these mounts, and vehicles pass too close to these mounts as they travel around this newly created traffic circles, these piles start to fall apart spreading snow across the travel lanes only to be trampled on and driven over which will quickly create an icy condition on the road surface around the mount.

I say to the city, to paraphrase the saying from a national makeover show, "Move That Snow!" And move it fast.