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Showing posts from May, 2013

The Nissan Leaf Gets a New Rear Axle

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Well, I finally have a salvage title for the 2013 Nissan LEAF (Actually I dont have the title yet, but I think they mail it to me. We are far from settled with the insurance company for sure. It has been six months since Angie was rear ended. The following chart shows a very sad and disturbing trend. Insurance companies aren't paying out. It should be criminal. I went shopping for a new rear axle so I can get the car driving again. The rear ended axle was so bent, the car couldn't move. The new one with no connecting bits was over a thousand dollars. The cheapest used ones I could find on ebay were over 500 dollars. I finally scored at a local used parts place for 95 dollars (removed) and with associated bits such as bearings, bushings, parts of the brakes. It took me a concentrated day with cancelled and moved meetings to get the axle replaced and the car running again. The accomplishment felt good. I am now configuring the car with tractor tires and other modifications t...
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After Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands for work I took a few days vacation. Fate would have it that the setting was in the Middle East. I flew through Doha, Qatar to Dubai, UAE. Dubai in many senses is the most extreme city in the world. The unparallelled vision and speculation of investment, business, tourism, multi-culturism and infra-structure is making (and has made) Dubai a window of the World's future. From the world's tallest building, indoor snow-skiing facility, outrageous architecture, huge man-made islands, and the world's best hotels are sure to keep Dubai as a target of attention for quite awhile. It is clearly a place of best, biggest, fastest and most outrageous. It is not a city looking backwards, but one of moving forward at astonishing speed. Swimming in the Persian Gulf was a treat. It is the saltiest place I have ever swam. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world and really dwarfs all other tall buildings at 828 Meters (2707 feet). The...
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I have been in Germany for a week or so. I have had many productive meetings in many different cities in Bavaria. The weekend I am in Bamberg. Monday I will be in the Netherlands.
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Things are great! We had a lot of rain in Atlanta. It felt like a monsoon or something. It was relentless for days and days. I had a very old friend show up in Atlanta for a conference. I don't think we have seen each other in 13 years. We had some outrageous laughs over a Peruvian meal. Peruvian cuisine is unique; if you haven't had it before check it out. I have some interesting travel coming up, as well as some intense business challenges, as usual. This was a quick snapshot of my bird feeder. I will be taking hi res photos soon. The variety of birds is astonishing. We had a community work day on the clubhouse and surrounding areas. We did it in the rain.