At one point in time, I belonged to three different unions. Can't remember all of them, but I do remember there were three.
I may still be a member ('retired in good standing') of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 149 (long story).
But I wouldn't really call myself a 'union' man.
Still, when I see the abuse that's being heaped on the United Auto Workers (UAW) union by right-wing commentators over the UAW's failure to win an 'organization' vote at Volkswagen's Chattanooga Tennessee plant - saying that it means the South won't be dragged down like Detroit was - I marvel at these people who fail to study history.
It's as if the UAW was to blame for all of Detroit's faults.
I don't think it was a Union man who decided that all GM cars should look exactly the same back in the 1980s.
And I KNOW it wasn't a union man who designed the Edsel or the Pontiac Aztek.
In fact, if you look at the half-century starting in the mid-1930s when the auto workers unions began, the United States and Canada produced by far the most cars in the world.
They were also the best cars in the world, leaders in design, in technology, in safety, in efficiency.
Not to mention constituting by far the biggest component of the 'Arsenal of Democracy' which built the machinery that won World War II.
After the war, this system allowed legions of hourly workers to make decent wages, put their kids through school, and look forward to a comfortable retirement.
Sure, both sides made mistakes.
But the major flaw in the system was that in the States anyway, the unions forced the manufacturers to provide the benefits their own governments were too stupid to provide.
Geez; they're still fighting over universal medical care down there.
Because the cost of these social needs was forced onto the companies rather than onto society as a whole, companies with ageing work forces were penalized compared to newly-established companies, like the foreign-owned 'transplants' that began arriving in the 1980s.
The 'legacy' costs of supplying pension and medical benefits to their older work forces meant domestic manufacturers had something like $1,200 in every car before the first weld was made.
Toyota can compete even-up, thank you very much.
Give them a $1,200 head start - at cost, not at retail - and they'll eat your lunch.
Opposition by Neanderthal Republican politicians in Tennessee was the main factor that derailed the organization drive. They were claiming VW would move all the jobs to Mexico if the workers unionized.
What? And walk away from a multi-billion dollar three-year old plant?
Hardly.
VW was remarkably neutral in all this. It actually allowed the UAW access to its facilities to talk to the workers. VW is used to dealing with the gigantic and powerful IG Metall, the union in Germany. Relations aren't always pleasant, but Worker Councils are part of the way things are done over there.
Now, some of my best friends are Americans.
But sometimes, you have to wonder if they'll ever make it into the twenty-first century.
When did 'cold snap' become 'polar vortex'?
Did I miss another meeting?
And what the heck is a 'frost quake'?
Is that like a 'frost heave'?
Whatever, this has been among the worst winters in living memory.
And among other things, it has made a mess of our roads.
Road crews have already patched more than 4,000 potholes this year, compared to about 1,500 at this time last year.
There are stretches of the 401 where metre-long chunks of pavement have just disappeared.
And I'm not even talking about the sinkhole (pictured) that opened up on Bayview south of Finch last weekend. That was the result of a broken water main which caused the supporting soil to be washed away.
It isn't just Toronto, of course. Chicago had a massive weather-related sinkhole last year that swallowed up three cars.
And eight valuable vintage Corvettes were devoured when the floor of the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Kentucky caved in. That apparently was caused by a previously unknown cavern beneath the building - natural caverns are common in that area.
The 'normal' potholes we are experiencing are caused by moisture seeping into cracks in the pavement. When the water freezes, it expands, breaking up the pavement.
So it's really the freeze/thaw/freeze cycle that does the damage.
Great - there would be an advantage if it just stayed ridiculously freezing cold all winter...
But I wonder - we've been paving roads in this part of the world for, oh, over a hundred years. Haven't paving companies figured out a way to stop this from happening?
The cars that drive on those roads are warranted for up to five years. Do our governments - do we citizens - who pay for this work get any such warranty for our roads? Do we not have some recourse?
You often see fairly recently re-surfaced roads where the pavement starts to break up after only a few years. Often, it's very localized, so surely there has been a flaw in the paving process?
Are paving contractors not duty-bound to fix them at no extra cost to the taxpayer?
The other major weather-related issue which initiates grave doubts about our transportation infrastructure is the ice storm over the holidays which literally broke our electrical grid. The massive blackouts lasted for up to eight days in some parts of our city.
I remember seeing a quote a while back from a senior official at Toronto Hydro, saying that if any significant proportion of our vehicles were electrics that needed to be re-charged overnight, our system couldn't handle it.
As if we needed further proof of the fragility of that system.
Have we built our entire system on the cheap?
And failed to look after it?
I am reminded of the old Fram oil filter commercial, where the mechanic says, 'You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.''
Maybe Rob Ford's Gravy Train has just fallen into a huge pothole.
***
E-mail me (jim@jimkenzie.com) a photo of your best pothole, and I'll see if I can find some car company swag to send you.
A couple of years ago, a road-testing colleague from the US (wish I could remember who it was) told me of driving his eight-year old daughter in one of the rare 'entry-level' Hot Rods du Semaine road-test cars we sometimes drive.
“Hey Daddy,'' she asked innocently, “what are those?''
She was pointing to the window winder handles.
She had never driven in a car that did not have power windows.
Sort of like how teenagers don't know what 'clock-wise' means.
In a similar and perhaps more important vein, a friend of mine told me recently that the main body system computer on his car failed. (Neither the friend's name nor the car brand are really relevant to the story, so I'll save them all from any possible embarrassment.)
All of a sudden, the family bus had no ABS, no electronically-controlled four-wheel drive, no Electronic Stability Control system.
In the middle of the worst winter in decades, his wife was now driving a car with none of the safety systems that she had become accustomed to.
For example, she had never driven a car without ABS.
As we also found out during the power outages over the recent holidays, how do we cope when the technological advances we base our lives upon are suddenly taken from us?
Is anybody going to find out which fuse controls all these functions and go to snowy parking lot to see how the car reacts as if it were, say, a 1965 Chevy?
Probably not.
But if, as some believe, advances in technology encourage us to drive more recklessly to maintain the same level of perceived danger, giving this prospect a bit of forethought might lead you to plan ahead.
IF something like this should happen to you, be prepared to drive much more cautiously.
One of my Christmas presents this year was the book written by fellow Miltonite Chris Hadfield, “An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.'' Among the major lessons he teaches is how much training astronauts go through in order to be prepared for unlikely but almost assuredly fatal occurrences.
Sure, there are way more drivers than there have been or ever will be astronauts.
But we kill way more people on our roads than have or ever will die in space.
Maybe if we were better prepared...
As the only engineer in history to graduate without taking a course in statistics, I may not be the right guy to apply the old joke about the three types of liars - liars, damned liars, and statisticians.
I mean, we should be basing policy on facts, not fiction.
Unless of course you are our federal government. To paraphrase Stephen Harper: "Yes, crime is down markedly in all areas, so let's build more prisons with the money we would otherwise give as pensions to wounded soldiers!"
The trick is sifting through all the 'statistics' to find the 'real' facts.
Sometimes, the obvious 'facts' are neither obvious nor factual at all. E.g., it is plainly obvious from looking out the window that the earth is flat. Only when you get Chris Hadfield's perspective is that 'fact' perceived to be incorrect.
Right now I'm dealing with a long-standing argument that has just been bolstered by another report supporting what I perceive as the 'opposition' - a US group says advanced driver training, including skid control schools, leads to MORE crashes, not fewer.
So we should not teach people how to get out of potentially dangerous situations, because such training gives people a false sense of confidence and encourages more risky behaviour.
That set of 'facts' does not conform to my personal experience, nor to my preconceived notions.
So either their 'facts' are wrong, or I am wrong.
Perish THAT thought...
To me, the extension of that idea would be: Let's not bother training surgeons to deal with blood vessels that might burst unexpectedly.
Or air line pilots on how to get their planes out of stall situations. It will just encourage them to fly closer to the edge of the envelope.
In fact, maybe we shouldn't bother training pilots at all. If they can pass the written test (in their language of choice; never mind that the aircraft instrumentation and verbal instructions from Air Traffic Control are not given in Swahili or Urdu or whatever) and can manoeuvre the plane out onto the runway from the gate and push the 'GO' button, that should be good enough.
And let's not bother re-training them every six months either. SO expensive!
Sure, once they're 80, we can bring them in for a wee interview (no re-testing; that would be discriminatory...). If it looks like they can still walk and chew gum simultaneously, we'll let them keep flying until they die.
Or we do.
Which brings up another point. A retired RCMP officer appears to be quite exercised these days over the possibility that seniors might actually be required to be re-tested before re-issuance of their driver's licences.
As, may I remind you, used to be the case, in Ontario anyway.
He claims it would discriminate against seniors who, he also claims, still have lower crash numbers than younger drivers.
I am dead-set against discrimination under any circumstances - except when it comes to ability.
When the car you crash into might be mine or that of any of my children, I say “Let's discriminate like hell!''
Let's make sure every driver on our roads is as well-trained and well-evaluated as (s)he can possibly be.
Whether they're 16 or 86.
I have always advocated mandatory re-testing for drivers of all ages, every five years or so.
That's for everybody.
No discrimination there.
What harm could that do? Unless you believe as some do that all training is not only pointless, but dangerous.
Neurosurgery residency? What a waste of human life...
But as I also always say, we have nearly the equivalent of 9/11 every year on our roads in this country.
That is a fact no-one can deny.
When is somebody going to try to do something about that?
*****
The Toronto Auto Show starts this week.
Officially, it's called the 'Canadian International Auto Show', although hardly anybody who doesn't work for the Show organizers calls it that.
It is the biggest show in Canada, in terms of attendance, number of vehicles, and, as far as I know, square meterage.
By 'International' standards, it doesn't rank with the Detroits, Frankfurts, Shanghais or Tokyos of the show circuit.
But it does give residents of the GTA a chance to see all the new cars, trucks, SUVs and Crossovers under one roof.
One roof now that they no longer use SkyDome...
Just the North and South buildings of the Metro Convention Centre, the only buildings I have ever been in where the floor numbers go UP as you go DOWN stairs.
Whether you use the show as a prelude to shopping for a new vehicle, ogle some exotic machinery you'll probably never be able to afford, eyeball hot rods old (Cruise Nationals and Muscle Car Alley) and new (Sport Compact Evolution), or visit the tribute to Ron Fellows, one of Canada's premier race car drivers (not to mention one of the nicest people to ever walk the face of this earth), there's no shortage of things to see and do.
Click on http://www.autoshow.ca for everything else you need to know.
Another 25 cm of Global Warming fell on Kenzie World Headquarters over the weekend.
As I always say, it's been doing that in this part of the world for, oh, 15,000 years or so.
So, why does it come as such a shock to so many people?
My focus today is on the province of New Brunswick.
Not normally a focal point for those of us who live in TCotKU (The Centre of the Known Universe).
But they're fighting a battle down there which all Canadians should be following.
At the moment, it appears the Forces of Evil are prevailing - the provincial government seems to have decided not to follow the lead of its (and our) neighbours in Quebec, and will not make winter tires mandatory.
Regular readers surely know the advantages of winter tires.
In addition to better traction in snow and on ice provided by the 'blockier' tread pattern, winter tires have a softer tread compound which does not get as hard in the cold.
This means it can conform better to irregularities in the road surface, providing better grip even on clear, dry pavement.
This is why modern 'winter' tires are called just that - they're not just 'snow' tires any more.
Depending on tire and road conditions, winter tires can mean stopping distances up to forty pecent shorter. That could be three, four car lengths. In urban traffic, that is HUGE.
Rubber chemists who formulate these compounds say that 'all-season' tires have already lost a significant amount of their flexibility and grip when the temperature drops below 7 degrees C. That's still a pretty nice late fall/early spring day.
In other words, you don't need winters as severe as Quebec's to gain tremendous benefits from them.
'All-seasons' are a compromise for summer use too, which is why I call them 'no-seasons' - they're no good in summer, and they're no good in winter.
Heck, even Pirelli, exclusive tire supplier to the Formula One circus, announced today that they will be bringing 'winter' tires to the first test sessions in Jerez Spain, in case the ambient temperature gets too cold.
The New Brunswick government claims the local economy is poor, and requiring winter tires would be too much of a burden on the populace.
Try telling that to the families of the eight teen-aged basketball players who were killed in a crash on a snowy highway in 2009.
There's no proof that winter tires would have prevented that crash.
But they sure wouldn't have hurt.
And there are hundreds, thousands, of collisions every year that could be prevented by the adoption thereof.
Not to mention millions of dollars in lost productivity due to idiots who can't get up the slightest hill in a snowstorm.
There really isn't much of a cost penalty (if any) in running winter tires either, because your summer tires in effect last twice as long.
There can be an up-front cost if you do as recommended and put the winters on a set of 'sacrificial' steel rims. This reduces damage to the alloy wheels that so many new cars come with these days, due to kissing curbs and corrosion from road salt.
And when you compare that with the cost of even a minor fender-bender (and/or the increased insurance premium) - well, winter tires are just about the best automotive bargain out there.
I personally don't need legislation to make this happen; all of the 'Kenzie Fleet' run winter tires, and always have, including the cars my children drive.
It is downright irresponsible to let your kids drive cars without proper tires, in any season.
My third daughter noted the other day that people who don't run winter tires don't 'get' it until they drive a car that DOES have them - the difference is that significant.
Over this past weekend, we had our Jetta TDI wagon on brand-new Swedish Gislaveds, which Lady Leadfoot actually thinks may not be quite as good as the old Gislaveds that were on this car before.
Number One daughter had her gasoline-powered Jetta wagon on brand new Italian-made Marangoni winters, a brand I had never even heard of before but which VW dealers seem to be stocking and promoting.
The aforementioned third daughter was in our VW Passat TDI wagon on an older set of Goodyear winters.
We all navigated the deep, freshly-fallen snow with underlying ice with little drama.
The new Marangonis were particularly sensational. If the trees had enough snow on them, that car could climb them.
At one point, I had to 'rock' the Passat with the older Goodyears a little to get it rolling. Maybe the rubber was a bit worn, or maybe it is evidence of how much progress there has been in winter tire development in just a couple of years.
My hot rod du semaine is a 560 horsepower Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet. Its Pirelli SottoZero winters, combined with its four wheel drive, could have turned it into the world's fastest snowplow.
But that's me; if other people won't take proper precautions on their own, well, that's when government has to step in.
Because their un-equipped car might well run into mine, or that of one of my kids.
Incidentally, winter tires MUST be put on all four wheels.
At a Continental Tire test a couple of years ago in Montana, we were driving what might just be the worst possible winter car - a Ford Mustang GT.
High power, high torque, rear-wheel drive - a bad combination for snowy conditions.
We drove one on all-seasons through a slalom course, one with winters on the rear only, and one with winters all around.
Perhaps needless to say, the winters-all-around car handled it fine. Some wheelspin, sure - a Mustang GT can spin its wheels on dry pavement no problem, never mind on snow.
The all-season car could barely get going (nothing is safer than staying at home!) Could barely brake or steer either.
At least once it did get going, it was balanced and predictable.
The winters-rear-only car could accelerate decently. But once you had to brake or steer - disaster. The car just plowed straight ahead. Fortunately in that case, the only damage was to some orange plastic pylons.
So, it is MORE dangerous to put winters only on the driving wheels than leaving the 'no-seasons' on all around.
I wish New Brunswick's safety crusaders all the best in this fight, and wish other provincial governments would get on board too.
I doubt anything will happen, because it seems nobody in any Ministry of Transportation in this country really gives a damn about traffic safety.
Except in Quebec.
How's that for irony?
***
Infiniti announced today that Stephen McDonnell will become managing director for Infiniti Canada, starting February 15.
This appointment has a more personal connection than most car company executive appointments, because during his 18-year career with BMW/MINI Canada, he was among other things Chief Poobah of the MINI brand when that car was our mount in the Targa Newfoundland car rally.
Stephen, as usual for denizens of the British Isles, is a motorsport freak, and was a stalwart supporter of that project.
We managed three Divisional wins for MINI, two in the lovely Cooper S JCW that also protected me during a double-end-O when I threw it into the woods at a buck-sixty in 2008, and the third in the MINI Challenge race car that replaced the crushed JCW.
His motorsport enthusiasm should be a nice fit for Infiniti considering their sponsorship of the Red Bull Formula One team, headed by apparent World Champion for Life Sebastian Vettel.
McDonnell's challenge in making Infiniti a Top Tier brand in Canada won't be an easy one.
There has never been a lot wrong with the cars. From the start, the G35/G37/Q50 (despite the ridiculous new nomenclature...) was/is by far the best-driving, most BMW-like, of the Japanese 'near-lux' products.
But cars are just hardware, mere technology, engineering, science. You can either figure that out, or you can buy it.
Creating a brand image strong enough that people will essentially over-pay to be a part of it - well, that's the trick.
Few people know that business in Canada better than Stephen.
Should be an interesting fight.
There are so many Car/Truck/Utility/Technology of the Year awards, it's not surprising that people get confused.
Various magazines and web sites have their own awards programs, each of which may have their specific - well, 'prejudices' may be too strong a word; 'emphasis', perhaps.
A sports car magazine will lean towards vehicles with outstanding acceleration and handling; a high-tech web site to what they perceive as advanced technology; a 'green' association to the electric hot rod du jour.
Recently, the North American Car / Truck of the Year jury, of which yours truly is one of five Canadian members, voted for the Chevrolet Corvette as Car of the Year, and the Chevrolet Silverado as Truck of the Year, a rare if not unprecedented Twin Win for a single brand.
Another failure of democracy.
I had my messages pre-typed and ready to send off into the twittersphere as the envelopes were being opened at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last Monday, announcing that the Cadillac CTS would be Car of the Year (it finished a distant third amongst the three finalists, with Mazda3 coming second) and Jeep Cherokee as Truck of the Year (it was second, with Acura MDX a distant third).
Am I somehow anti-Chevrolet?
Not at all. The obvious Car of the Year - obvious to me; apparently not to others - was a Chevrolet. More on that in a moment.
Given the three finalists, I just thought that Corvette, as brilliant a car as it is, is a relatively expensive, relatively low-volume car. OK, so is the Cadillac, but not to the same extent.
Maybe my colleagues felt that giving Cadillac the prize two years in a row (ATS won last year) was not on for some reason.
Dunno.
Likewise, the Silverado is a nice-enough truck, not that I know that much about pick-up trucks.
It just seemed to me that the new Cherokee really raised the bar in its class, and that's what any “of the Year'' vehicle should do.
In Canada, Graeme Fletcher in conjunction with Brad Diamond chooses the Car of the Year for TSN's Motoring TV show. I have been on that show for all but the first of our 27-year run, but never get a vote on this. At least partially as a result, Graeme almost always gets it wrong.
The 2014 show doesn't air until this coming weekend, so I shouldn't tell you what his choice is.
His track record doesn't give me confidence.
The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) conducts what is surely the most thorough, broadest-based evaluation process in the world. I have played a not insignificant role in the development thereof over the decades, and am fully committed to it.
But it is no more accurate - 'accuracy' here being defined as ”agreeing with me'' (ahem) - than the others.
Either there's something wrong with the process, or there's something wrong with my colleagues.
Any other possibility is simply beyond the pale...
In the AJAC system, vehicles are driven back-to-back and evaluated against others that are similar in design intent and price - e.g., 'Family Car over $30,000'. Voters chose winners in each category, and also choose which of those they believe should be overall Car or Utility Vehicle of the Year.
The Category winners are here on the AJAC web site as I type; the three finalists in each division will be revealed later this week, I believe.
But they/we collectively have already got it wrong.
Because the true Overall Car of the Year for 2104 didn't even win its category at the AJAC Test Fest last October.
That car?
Drum roll please...
See? I don't hate Chevrolet.
Here's a car that in one generational change went from essentially being a taxi - a big chunk of Impala sales in recent years have been to fleets, rather than in the harsher crucible of the retail market - to being the best mid-size sedan Consumer Reports magazine has ever tested.
And CR has hardly been favourable to domestic sedans over the years. If it wasn't a Toyota or a Honda, they didn't want to know.
Impala is by any definition a handsome piece.
Interesting though: At Detroit last week, I mentioned my choice (of Impala) to Ed Welburn, vice-president of global design for General Motors. You could forgive him for being not totally impartial, but you would also think that any such impartiality would be in the direction of its styling over anything else.
But Welburn told me, “I have one as my personal car now, and it drives even better than it looks.''
Jack Keebler is a former journalist colleague who went over the wall before the bankruptcy to become sort of GM's 'internal' auto journalist. He gives GM cars tough reviews while there is still time to correct flaws which he knows the rest of us would eventually complain about. He never did and still doesn't pull any punches. He told me in Detroit that he also has an Impala as his personal car, and really likes it.
These are people who can drive any GM car they like.
They choose a mid-size, popularly-priced sedan, which competes in the largest passenger car market segment in the USA, one which has been dominated by Japanese-branded cars for over two decades.
Did I mention Impala is assembled in Oshawa?
So, how did we collectively screw things up? On both sides of the border?
I have spoken with a few of my colleagues on the 55-strong North American jury. They too had assigned a big chunk of support to Impala, and were surprised it didn't make the Top Three.
There can be no understanding.
***
On a related note, AJAC's Best New Technology Awards were announced at the Montreal Auto Show last week. Yes, I am on that jury too.
There are two categories within this program, one specifically for safety-related technologies, one for innovation.
Again, a Twin Win for one brand - one individual model, as it happens: the Infiniti Q50.
The Safety award went to the Q50's collision prediction/prevention system, which can apparently 'see' a potential collision two cars ahead ofitself.
Several other car makers have something similar, but it's the 'two cars ahead' thing that stands out here.
Contrary to the impression that may be gleaned from the TV ads, it does not only spot oranges falling off a truck.
The Innovation award went to the Q50's available 'steer by wire' system, which eliminates a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels. Substituting electronic signals and activators, this allows the car to change steering ratio and effort level, depending on driving conditions and/or driver preference, and even helps keep the car running straight and true on a cambered road.
For belt-and-suspenders types, there IS a potential mechanical connection - a clutch re-engages said connection in case the electronics should fail.
Perish the thought.
Despite a ten-year research project and input from four-time World Driving Champion Sebastian Vettel, I'm not convinced they really have the feel properly worked out yet.
But overall, this is an 'enabling' technology which really advances the science of suspension development.
And again, real advances are what 'of the Year'' awards should be all about.
This time I actually voted for the winners, as did my colleagues.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
A somewhat belated Happy New Year to you all.
I trust you all had a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year.
I think Jerry Seinfeld might have been on to something when he simply called it “Festivus''.
Today's epistle may not have a lot to do with cars, but I deserve to be cut some slack due to what has happened over the past couple of weeks.
We 'won' Christmas last year. All our sprogs and their Significant Others were at Kenzie World Headquarters; we had a tree and everything.
This year, it was looking like Lady Leadfoot, me and some cats. Everyone else was somewhere else, ranging from Chesley to Whitehorse to Canberra Australia.
No point in roasting a turkey for two. We were thinking of splitting a 12-inch turkey club from Subway around a roaring fire.
Then the lights went out.
Saturday evening before Christmas.
Trying to sleep with shotgun blasts every few minutes as trees and branches crashed to the ground.
No heat, no light, only the water that was in our storage tank, plus some drinking water we always keep on hand for just such an emergency.
No clue as to when power would come back. Estimates that it would be as much as a week proved accurate - Friday evening after Christmas for us.
So much for Festivus.
We did enjoy the irony of living in our adult child's basement - our daughter Laura's townhouse in Guelph. Her roommates, fellow U of Guelph students, were all away for the holidays so there was lots of room.
To complete the trope, I did play some video games...
Here's a shot of the main damage chez Kenzie World Headquarters. The big branch fell off a tree to the right of the barn, bounced off the barn roof (you can just see a bit of damage to the fascia board on the upper part of this photo, with the 'scar' from the tree from which the branch fell). It pinned the Dodge Journey test car, and punched a hole in the Miata's roof.
Initially, it looked as if the Dodge broke the fall of the tree so the Miata was not more badly hit! But amazingly, the Journey did not appear to be damaged at all.
Through a clever bit of engineering (above) I got two floor jacks, managed to get the big branch off the Journey, and backed it out.
Further examination once the debris was cleared showed two holes in the Miata roof, and the hood lightly dinged.
Could have been a lot worse.
Don't worry - the Hornet was IN the barn.
The barn roof needs to be re-shingled anyway, and some of the roof sheathing replaced, so it won't be much more expensive for the roofer to fix the fascia board too.
We don't know what it would have cost for an arborist to clean up the fallen trees and branches. But Bill Gardiner, our Motoring TV mechanic, texted me out of the blue and asked if I needed someone with a chain saw. Well, yes...
He said he much preferred to do that than help his wife take down their Christmas decorations. So, come on over!
On New Year's Eve day we cut up all the trees and branches that were in the driveway, yard or over the pool.
Stuff that fell in the woods stayed in the woods.
There is one big birch branch still leaning against both our power line and phone line - we were afraid to touch that one for fear of causing more damage, but it will have to be dealt with eventually.
Our beautiful little Christmas tree lies on the deck, as undecorated as the day Lady Leadfoot bought it.
Beside it sits a face cord of firewood. Maybe we will have to buy that wood stove after all.
We were actually luckier than some of our 'better-prepared' neighbours. Some of them heat with wood - one even had a propane feed to his barbecue, so that's how their turkey dinner got cooked.
(Subway was closed Christmas Day by the time we got to it, so we nuked leftover pizza...).
But those who weren't clever enough to put perishables outside or in their garages lost much of the contents of their fridges and freezers.
Our house stayed cold enough that nothing was affected.
OK, so the cats were a bit cranky. We checked on them every day, but they were fine. We couldn't take them with us because Laura has four of her own.
Our neighbours two doors down had just installed a big generator so they were OK - except a fallen tree knocked out their power and phone lines, and Hydro/Bell don't fix that. He somehow managed to find an electrician - he knows people, but you know those guys got a bit of an extra Christmas present this year... - but he needed to get some parts so they weren't back on line until three days after us.
A Christmas we won't soon forget - unfortunately...
We've never had anything remotely like this in 40 years out here. Given that they KNEW an ice storm was coming you wonder why they weren't better prepared.
Some back-up service people we heard from who came in from places like London, Listowel and even Winnipeg said they weren't contacted until Tuesday, by which time the full extent of the damage was well-known.
Sure, the service people probably got triple time and a half.
We thank them for their tremendous service at a very awkward time of year.
But emergency planning obviously needs to be re-thought. Some areas of Toronto were power-free for even longer than us in the boonies.
Our roads out here are barely clear even now. There are still big trees leaning on poles and wires.
Another foot of 'global warming' sits in my driveway as I type; I can barely imagine the added loads on the remaining trees.
It was interesting to observe traffic during the blackout. For the most part, people seemed to understand that uncontrolled intersections were to be treated as four-way stops. Everyone stops; whoever gets there first goes first; tie goes to the car on the right (easy to remember - 'right' of way...).
But you had to be careful. All it would take is one guy not playing nice and you'd have a Big Time crash, with limited emergency services to help you out.
Another aspect of driving under these conditions - we just aren't used to seeing obstructions that have fallen across the road. It wasn't a matter of only looking well down the road, but also of looking up, to see if overhanging branches were going to bash into your windshield.
Road crews couldn't keep up; I must have cleared a dozen big branches off our sideroad myself.
Long after the ice had melted off the trees, they were still falling; I guess they had been weakened, and another stiff breeze was the camel-back-breaking straw.
We have had a couple of minor power outages since.
But the worst seems behind us now.
The joys of rural living!
Or urban living, for that matter...
***
Next week, what Astronaut Extraordinaire Chris Hadfield can teach us about driving, right here on Earth.
Hope the above thumbnail photo collage got your attention.
That's a preview of my 2014 Charity Photography Calendar in support of Parachute, Canada's leading injury prevention organization, which is hot off the presses.
As always, some pretty cool cars, shot in some pretty cool locations.
If I dare say, a perfect holiday gift for the car freaks on your shoppign list.
Or for your own self.
And, it supports a very good cause.
For more details on the calendar or on Parachute, please visit my web site, www.jimkenzie.com and click on 'Calendar'.
Meanwhile, SO sorry to have been off the grid for a couple of weeks.
Well, not so much off the grid as off the blog...
I was in Tokyo for their Motor Show, and it seems whenever I go to Asia, I don't have any problems with time zones or jet lag until a couple of days after I get back.
Then I get zonked...
Anyway, to paraphrase Mark Twain, any report or suspicion of my demise has been an exaggeration.
That said, there are changes afoot to this blog, and to the way I communicate with all of you out there. Not entirely sure what form they will take at the moment, but we will be attempting something new here with The Star's Wheels on-line coverage.
Whatever, you all will be among the first to know.
Thank you!
ROUND KNOBS FOR RADIO VOLUME AND TUNING!
I know; type face that big is usually reserved for "Cure for Cancer Found'', or "Maple Leafs Win the Stanley Cup''.
But in the car game, this is huge.
And to me, it is the biggest and best news coming from the reveal of the Lincoln MKC 'premium' compact crossover.
Finally, some sanity is returning to automotive interior design.
Sure, Lincoln Design Director Max Wolff can and does wax lyrical over what he calls "our best execution yet'' of Lincoln's controversial 'split-wing' grille, and the wrap-around tailgate with full-width LED taillights which allowed his team to make the car look wider and more substantial.
It requires a huge hydroformed stamped steel panel, produced in AMINO's plant in St. Thomas Ontario (Canadian content!)
And yes, like the Ford Escape with which MKC shares its basic architecture, if you kick under the rear bumper, the tailgate opens.
Also sure, the MKC débuts a new 2.3 litre EcoBoost turbocharged direct injection engine, producing 275 horsepower and delivering what Lincoln claims is fifteen percent better fuel economy than V6 engines with comparable power.
It is the one-up option to the 240-horse 2.0 litre EcoBoost four - yes, an all-turbo engine line-up for MKC.
All that pales compared to round knobs on a car radio; the Nobel Prize Nominating Committee will be notified.
Wolff admitted that the touch screen and slider controls used on recent Fords have had heaps of abuse dumped on them, by the media (and no, not just me), by Consumers Reports, and even by customers, through J. D. Power reports and other streams of invective.
Ford's Corporate response has been that the 'Take Rate' and Customer Satisfaction scores for MyFord and MyLincoln and the associated SYNC systems have been high, sales are up across the board, so what's the problem?
The problem is, round knobs are simply better ergonomically.
This is science, people, not opinion; I don't really have to go through this all again, do I?
MyLincoln and SYNC are still here, but at least this is progress.
While the MKC is close enough to Escape to be built on the same line in Ford's Louisville Kentucky plant, the underpinnings are quite different.
For starters, chief engineer Lisa Drake notes that MKC's track is wider for a better stance on the road, both visually and handling-wise.
MKC also gets a Continuously Controlled Damping system, allowing the driver to choose from three damper settings, sport, comfort or 'normal' - I guess that last one splits the difference.
The gamut of electronic driving aids is run - Lane Keeping assist, the irrelevant and redundant Blind Spot Warning system, and a collision warning system which flashes and beeps, then brakes the car automatically if you continue to ignore it.
The 'Park Assist' system which steers your car into tight parking spots and is typically shown to your friends once then never used again, adds 'Park Out Assist' - it helps steer your way OUT of a parking space.
Really people...
MKC will be available in front-wheel drive in the US, but full-time four-wheel drive - optional down there - will be standard in Canada when the vehicle débuts in mid-year 2014.
Lincoln will also be introducing an all-new dealership look in the soon-to-be-dominant luxury market of China.
There, Lincoln is known as a 'presidential' vehicle, according to global brand director Matt VanDyk, but the actual product is barely known at all.
The dealerships will feature a 'boutique hotel' look, with warm, welcoming customer reception areas and service bays visible from the showroom through glass walls so prospects can see, says VanDyk, "...that they are not getting counterfeit parts.''
A problem in China, you say?
US dealers will be encouraged to upgrade as well, although VanDyk admits they have to sell more cars before they can convince these hard-headed business people to make the necessary investments.
He allowed that Canadian Lincoln dealers are generally in better shape that American ones; whether Lincoln's relatively better success in Canada is the chicken or the egg is a discussable point.
Lincoln is attempting to do what Cadillac has done in the past decade - rebuild a once-famous 'American' brand.
Cadillac has done it partly on the backs of existing vehicle architectures (Escalade / GMC Yukon Denali; XTS / Chevrolet Impala), and partly on unique platforms (CTS, ATS).
Lincoln so far is adapting existing Ford hardware (MKZ mid-size sedan / Ford Fusion; MKC / Escape).
But do customers care where the oily bits come from?
Will this even be a factor in whether Lincoln prospers or not?
It's among the many things that make this business so fascinating.
The answers should start to become apparent next summer.