Most car critics judge a car’s quality by the panel gaps. The smaller the gaps, the better the car. My 20-year-old Jeep has no such pretenses. In fact, the headlights were designed with a large gap on purpose – to change the turn signal bulbs, you have to remove a screw and the only way to get to that screw is between the bulb covers.
To those who criticize the build quality of this Jeep, what’s your car going to be doing when it is 20? I don’t care as much about build quality as I do about the design quality. If the vehicle was designed to last, that’s the quality I want. I take build quality out of the equation by buying used cars. If it wasn’t built well, it’s either been repaired or junked after 10 years.
I personally think it is a bad user design have the screw there, but I don’t mind the gaps themselves.
I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.
Ezekiel 22:30
Posted in Driving | 1 Comment »
I bought a used lawn mower (Hustler Mini Z zero-turn) when we moved into our new house almost two years ago. Hadn’t talked to the seller since then.
Until just recently.
He called me, out of the blue, and asked if I still had the mower. He regretted selling it and wanted to buy it back. And he was willing to pay what I originally paid.
I wasn’t really that attached to the lawn mower, and this guy did seem to be. There was some suspicion that he knew something I didn’t. Maybe it was a collector’s item and he could sell it for double. Should I keep it and prevent him from profiting? Or should I keep it and deny him the joy of using the lawn mower he wants.
I didn’t have a good reason not to sell it, other than a vague suspicion. So I sold it back to him.
My justification was along the lines of this: if he had approached me two years ago with the proposal that I could borrow a zero-turn mower for almost two years at no cost to me, would I have accepted that offer? Sure would have.
It does feel a little different than that offer, but the basic concept is the same.
My wife’s reaction was “But now you’ll have to go buy another mower.”
My response: “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
So I got a used Worldlawn Viper ZTR. Sounds fancier than it is. It’s slower than the Mini Z was, but it has a wider mowing deck, so the mowing time should even out.
The tires don’t have a good grip (i.e. they slip on the wet grass rather than moving the mower) so I’ll get some new tires with better traction. My plan is to not only get a different tread, but also get a bigger size so the top speed will increase.
What appliances/tools/machines do you have that you wouldn’t sell back for the same price you originally paid?
If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.
Leviticus 25:25
Posted in Life | 3 Comments »
This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
