Recent content by Gearhead Jim

If someone is going to program a new electronic fob with your car, best to do it in the parking lot of your favorite dealer with transmission in Neutral/Parking brake set. If something goes wrong and it turns your car into a brick, they can easily push it inside and use whatever shop equipment...

When we bought our current Corvette new in 2017, the dealer activated the data reporting system without telling us. For the first month I was driving the new car like Grandpa, to gently break in the engine, transmission, brakes, etc. But at the end of that month I got the report and it was...

DW will be needing cataract surgery soon, and is very conflicted about which type of lens to use. The surgery practice recommended by her optometrist wants her to use the LAL, but my own optometrist is cautious about the relatively new technology. It's been approved for a while, but the total...

In one sense, I totally agree with your statement. But... There have been complaints for decades that the various European governments find ways, large and small, to subsidize Airbus. IIRC, the unions at Boeing have gotten some nice contracts in recent years. So perhaps Boeing feels backed...

My wife has purchased a few furniture items from Wayfair. When they arrived, the quality each time was less that what we expected. We don't buy from them any more.

32 of my 36 years flying at United were on Boeing airplanes. I also flew the DC-8 and DC-10, the 8 was a cumbersome antique and the 10 was a nice flying airplane with serious mechanical issues. The old saying was "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going." I never really bought into that, but...

Almost no parts commonality between early B737s (1960's) and the latest designs. Much more parts commonality between B737's made over last decade and current production. Huge training commonality between the various 737 models any particular airline flys. When I was flying for United (now...

That's the best advice anyone can get. Follow it!

Can you record Prime on a VCR? Record the show and then fast-forward through the commercials? We've been doing that for years on regular TV, if we have to watch live then we hit the mute button and talk about the weather during the commercials. Not perfect but gives us the satisfaction of...

If they were offering me a thousand dollars more than the other outfits, I'd do it. A thousand dollars for an hour for waiting sounds like a good deal.

A quick look on immediate annuities.com for our ages (78 & 76) shows $18,264 per year for a $200k purchase, unknown company. (I posted our ages 15 years from now as 93 & 91). Policies for higher rated companies or with some kind of inflation rider, would surely be less.

Will DW or I want to be managing our portfolio 15 years from now (ages 93 and 91)? Will we still have enough brain cells to do so? I'm not good enough with FireCalc to get the comparison, but it looks like $200k in a joint SPIA would get us $18k per year "forever" with no hassle. Interesting...

We do the same. But... A few months ago we were on a multi-stop river cruise in France, 120 passenger ship for 10 days. DW and I both came down with Covid at the same time, fast. What we needed was simply a clinic to get us Paxlovid. NOBODY in the crew spoke enough medical english to fully...

20+ years ago I was thinking of buying a new Corvette, and asked our agent (State Farm) how much my premiums would increase. He looked it up and said the only increase would be from the increased value of the car, State Farm had very good results with Corvettes. Here we are after 22 years in a...

Recently I read an article about the declining percentage of men in college. There was a comment about the problems of a future with lots of young, undereducated, underemployed, lonely men. Not a good thing.