This past weekend, the transmission of my 2001 Honda Odyssey died. The car has over 130,000 miles on it and has done a fairly good job raising our family. It sort of reminds me of the latest “Modern Family” episode (see “The Old Wagon“) where they just can’t seem to part with the old family “junker”, at least until it rolls off a cliff and is totaled. Unfortunately for me, the Kelly Blue Book value of our Odyssey as a trade-in is less than the cost to have the transmission replaced. Ouch! I will be donating my Odyssey to charity though.
So now I’m currently on a mission to find a new family car at a set CASH price of $18,000. I don’t want to finance. I just want to drive off the lot having paid ONLY that price. And I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (dealers are you listening?! Read through this post for my OWN Dealer Incentive for YOU!)
You might think that this is a piece of cake, but I have learned otherwise. The problem is, we are a bit picky on the type of car we want/need to get (and get soon). Our requirements:
- Good safety ratings –> must protect my family
- New –> for a good warranty (see below)
- Comfortable –> for a family of 5 (sub-compacts and compacts don’t quite work for us)
- Techy –> in some way (my request)
- Good gas mileage –> gas prices won’t be coming down any time soon
- Reliable –> tired of spending money on repairs
- Warranty –> don’t want to purchase a warranty on a used car, dealer certified perhaps but you don’t know the true history of a used car & how it was driven or cared for
- Automatic –> while I like and can drive stick shifts, my wife cannot
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Earlier this summer, my family and I headed out on a week long family vacation up to a Dude Ranch in Northern California. As part of the trip, we had a new traveler with us, someone who would guide us on our way, let us know when we were going to arrive and provide a source of tech for the driver (me) along the way. That someone was more of a something, it was a TomTom XL 340S GPS, and I will cut to the chase, it got us to the Dude Ranch and back safe and sound (as did the driver).
This was not my first experience with a TomTom nor a GPS, in fact the first GPS that my family used in the car was a TomTom 300. I had played with a handheld Garmin which was fun when it first came out but it was small and has a monochrome screen. The TomTom 300 was definitely a step up from the hand-held Garmin. I have also done reviews of the Magellan 1470 and currently am still testing out the iPhone app versions of TomTom and Navigon GPS applications.
Honestly, I’m a bit torn between recommending a stand-alone, single use GPS for a car, or simply using an iPhone or Android application for GPS navigation. I think it must be more of a personal preference. However, I do always carry a dedicated GPS with me in my cars. There is the advantage of a dedicated device that easily mounts to a windshield as well as has a much larger screen to see as you drive. I think that dedicated GPS devices are better for longer roadtrips as well, however you can’t beat the immediacy and ease-of-use of having a GPS application on your phone.
But let’s take a look at the TomTom XL 340S GPS. It actually has siblings, the 340M, 340T and 340TM which give you lifetime maps or lifetime traffic and maps respectively. I tested the “entry level” TomTom which was more than adequate for my needs.
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by Michael Sheehan on September 22, 2010
in Apple, audio, Cast of Dads, Consumer Electronics, Family, Gadgets, General, Humor, Opinion, parenting, PodCast, Safety, social media
We are still trying to get back into the regular scheduling of our “Cast of Dads” podcast. It’s definitely hard to schedule 5 busy dads who are juggling family and work and play times (what’s that?). But we did have our weekly virtual convention over the phone and managed to bang out another great episode titled “Silent But Deadly“.
Note: we are always looking for sponsors! If you would like to sponsor an individual episode or a series of episodes, please do let us know.
So where did the title of the Cast of Dads Podcast #31 come from? Could it be:
- From not having your kids wear helmets?
- “Hearing” an electric motorcycle or car sneak up on you?
- Going deaf from riding a Harley?
- Reading a Playboy at the age of 13?
- Turning off Social Media at predefined times?
- Responding to kids’ memories of something you did or said?
- Or something that Apple clearly stated they don’t want any more of in their App store?
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Have you ever wondered about how Wallis and Grommit or Mr. Bill and Gumby or Davey and Goliath or Christmas shows like Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer were made? Well it’s a pretty simple but incredibly painstaking process called stop motion animation. It is sometimes known as claymation if the objects are made out of clay. Regardless, the premise is simple. You set a scene, take a picture of it, move one of the objects ever so slightly and then take another picture and continue with this process. Then you take all of these still pictures and piece them all together. Some people have become masters at this art, and others, like me, are just beginning to discover the fun of it.
Wait! Stop! Before you go on any further, I am giving away a copy of this book and a couple of others. Read on to find out more!
Well, I have to tell you about a great book that gets you down the path quickly and easily in terms of creating stop animation, and you could win a copy of this book that teaches you how. The book is from the Klutz series (which I actually bought many many years ago to learn how to juggle). This book is called “The Klutz Book of Animation” (by John Cassidy and Nicholas Berger) and it will teach you how to easily do incredible stop motion animations in literally a few minutes.
And, to help you get a better understanding of this book, the Klutz team has set up a virtual book tour. HighTechDad.com is Stop #1 of a 16 Stop multi-blog virtual book tour for the Klutz Book of Animation!
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