Predatory Lending Association
Check out this site, Predatory Lending Association (PLA). It's so on target, and so viciously funny. I have a friend who got caught in the payday loan trap, and it was pretty much the end of the road. Between payday loans and getting completely screwed on a car loan, there was no way she wasa ever going to make good on her debts. It may have turned out for the best, though, since it was the "rock bottom" she needed to finally file for bankruptcy. C'est la vie.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
A Week in the Life of a Caravan - Day Two
Whew! No Halloween vandalism to the Caravan, which is living in the driveway this week. A few years ago I wouldn't have even considered vandalism a possibility, but our town has seen a bit of trouble lately with bored teenagers, including car windows being shot out and silly spraypainting.
Anyway, I was happy to find all of the windows intact when I went out to make an early morning run to the grocery store for some chili cookoff supplies. The windshield was a little frosty, which had me stymied for a second because I didn't know all of the controls yet. Isn't that always how it is with new cars? New cars and rentals. Can't tell you how many times I have turned on windshield wipers when I meant to hit a turn signal. I did find the defrost, but didn't wait to see how long it took - just hit the windshield wipers with a squirt of washing fluid and off we went.
I suppose I should mention the rear view camera. I have a friend who has had this for a few years and it took her way longer than a week to get used to it, so I'm not even going to try. I'm OK with the trusty old "look in the mirror" or "turn your head around" method. I did notice the night before last that the car beeped when I was backing up in a parking lot, I think because I got close to a curb. That's great, but I didn't realize that's why the car beeped until I got home and read about the "rear park assist" feature that is supposed to warn you about hazards beyond your line of sight in the back. Since cars have so many beeps and blips nowadays, it might be nice for that particular one to be something more distinctive, like an enthusiastic "LOOK OUT!"
Back to the day ...
The Chili Cookoff for our local MOMS Club was a great success. We only had six entries, and it was hard to disguise which one was mine because I made green chile. If you've never spent a lot of time or just don't green chile often, here's a little tidbit of information - it's always a surprise to see how hot your particular batch of green chile stew has turned out. In this case, I tried it early in the morning and my lips almost melted off. I like spicy, but this was crazy. In an effort not to maim my friends, I drained all of the liquid off and poured in a fresh box of organic vegetable broth. In the two hours between the broth transfusion and the cookoff it still picked up plenty of heat, and was pretty much perfect. I didn't win, but that's OK - I think a few people got to try something they'd never had before, so that's great!
The recipe, you ask? Sure ... but it's an approximate recipe. If you don't want to roast, peel and chop your own green chiles (and I don't blame you) or are not in an area where green chiles are easy to find from local growers, check the freezer section of your grocery store. Go for medium heat, at least. The mild ones in the cans in the Mexican section of the store are pointlessly mild.
Slow Cooker Green Chile
1 pound pork, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp vegetable oil, or enough to brown the pork
2 Tbsp flour
3 Russet potatoes, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled and chopped
Chicken or Vegetable Broth
Toss the pork with the flour and brown in oil in a heavy skillet. Transfer pork to crockpot, add potatoes, onion, garlic and chiles. Add enough broth to cover. Cook on high 4 hours or on low ... pretty much as long as you'd like.
Check for flavor and add salt or a boullion cube if you'd like.
If you would like to thicken your stew, mix a little cornstarch or arrowroot to a very little bit of cold water. Add to slow cooker, turn to high and cover - the stew will need to come to a boil to thicken.
That's it! HOW EASY can you get? Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and flour tortillas. I think the next time I make it, I'll toss in a bag of frozen corn just for some more texture.
I didn't have the Caravan for the rest of the day because my husband decided he wanted to take it in to work, mostly because he found a Sirius radio station that is all Grateful Dead, all of the time. Since I'm not a Deadhead and he's not going to get to listen to it when we're all out together this weekend, it was the least I could do for the guy, right? When he got to work, he mentioned the Dead channel to a fellow fan who said that he had been trying to decide whether to go with Sirius or XM radio, and that channel just made the decision for him. We might not help Dodge sell any Caravans, but we created a new Sirius customer!
As for today's thoughts on the vehicle in general, I have to say that I'm not fond of the key at all.
It's not a key, it's more like a plug. In a way, it reminds me of the little keys you can get at some arcades instead of tokens, or a locker key. This is a completely irrational dislike, I'll freely admit - and it's partly because the key made me feel like an idiot on the first day.
You see, the rep had shown me the function that allowed you to start the car remotely, which I tried out later from the kitchen (in the back of the house) just to see if it would work and to startle my older boys, who were out waiting in the car for me to get my stuff together to run errands.
I go out, get in the car, and try to put the car in reverse. No go. I press the brake (which I have to do on my car to get out of park) - nope. I check the doors, thinking maybe there is some overzealous protection thingie - that's not it. It didn't occur to me for a few minutes to actually insert the key into the ignition since the car was running, but that was the problem.
In hindsight, this makes perfect sense - you wouldn't want to have your car out in the front driveway ready for anyone to come, bust out a window and drive off. Still, when a car is running, I expect all of the usual "car" functionality, including the ability to move. Call me crazy.
Two days down, five to go! We're having fun!
Whew! No Halloween vandalism to the Caravan, which is living in the driveway this week. A few years ago I wouldn't have even considered vandalism a possibility, but our town has seen a bit of trouble lately with bored teenagers, including car windows being shot out and silly spraypainting.
Anyway, I was happy to find all of the windows intact when I went out to make an early morning run to the grocery store for some chili cookoff supplies. The windshield was a little frosty, which had me stymied for a second because I didn't know all of the controls yet. Isn't that always how it is with new cars? New cars and rentals. Can't tell you how many times I have turned on windshield wipers when I meant to hit a turn signal. I did find the defrost, but didn't wait to see how long it took - just hit the windshield wipers with a squirt of washing fluid and off we went.
I suppose I should mention the rear view camera. I have a friend who has had this for a few years and it took her way longer than a week to get used to it, so I'm not even going to try. I'm OK with the trusty old "look in the mirror" or "turn your head around" method. I did notice the night before last that the car beeped when I was backing up in a parking lot, I think because I got close to a curb. That's great, but I didn't realize that's why the car beeped until I got home and read about the "rear park assist" feature that is supposed to warn you about hazards beyond your line of sight in the back. Since cars have so many beeps and blips nowadays, it might be nice for that particular one to be something more distinctive, like an enthusiastic "LOOK OUT!"
Back to the day ...
The Chili Cookoff for our local MOMS Club was a great success. We only had six entries, and it was hard to disguise which one was mine because I made green chile. If you've never spent a lot of time or just don't green chile often, here's a little tidbit of information - it's always a surprise to see how hot your particular batch of green chile stew has turned out. In this case, I tried it early in the morning and my lips almost melted off. I like spicy, but this was crazy. In an effort not to maim my friends, I drained all of the liquid off and poured in a fresh box of organic vegetable broth. In the two hours between the broth transfusion and the cookoff it still picked up plenty of heat, and was pretty much perfect. I didn't win, but that's OK - I think a few people got to try something they'd never had before, so that's great!
The recipe, you ask? Sure ... but it's an approximate recipe. If you don't want to roast, peel and chop your own green chiles (and I don't blame you) or are not in an area where green chiles are easy to find from local growers, check the freezer section of your grocery store. Go for medium heat, at least. The mild ones in the cans in the Mexican section of the store are pointlessly mild.
Slow Cooker Green Chile
1 pound pork, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp vegetable oil, or enough to brown the pork
2 Tbsp flour
3 Russet potatoes, cubed
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled and chopped
Chicken or Vegetable Broth
Toss the pork with the flour and brown in oil in a heavy skillet. Transfer pork to crockpot, add potatoes, onion, garlic and chiles. Add enough broth to cover. Cook on high 4 hours or on low ... pretty much as long as you'd like.
Check for flavor and add salt or a boullion cube if you'd like.
If you would like to thicken your stew, mix a little cornstarch or arrowroot to a very little bit of cold water. Add to slow cooker, turn to high and cover - the stew will need to come to a boil to thicken.
That's it! HOW EASY can you get? Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and flour tortillas. I think the next time I make it, I'll toss in a bag of frozen corn just for some more texture.
I didn't have the Caravan for the rest of the day because my husband decided he wanted to take it in to work, mostly because he found a Sirius radio station that is all Grateful Dead, all of the time. Since I'm not a Deadhead and he's not going to get to listen to it when we're all out together this weekend, it was the least I could do for the guy, right? When he got to work, he mentioned the Dead channel to a fellow fan who said that he had been trying to decide whether to go with Sirius or XM radio, and that channel just made the decision for him. We might not help Dodge sell any Caravans, but we created a new Sirius customer!
As for today's thoughts on the vehicle in general, I have to say that I'm not fond of the key at all.
It's not a key, it's more like a plug. In a way, it reminds me of the little keys you can get at some arcades instead of tokens, or a locker key. This is a completely irrational dislike, I'll freely admit - and it's partly because the key made me feel like an idiot on the first day. You see, the rep had shown me the function that allowed you to start the car remotely, which I tried out later from the kitchen (in the back of the house) just to see if it would work and to startle my older boys, who were out waiting in the car for me to get my stuff together to run errands.
I go out, get in the car, and try to put the car in reverse. No go. I press the brake (which I have to do on my car to get out of park) - nope. I check the doors, thinking maybe there is some overzealous protection thingie - that's not it. It didn't occur to me for a few minutes to actually insert the key into the ignition since the car was running, but that was the problem.
In hindsight, this makes perfect sense - you wouldn't want to have your car out in the front driveway ready for anyone to come, bust out a window and drive off. Still, when a car is running, I expect all of the usual "car" functionality, including the ability to move. Call me crazy.
Two days down, five to go! We're having fun!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
A Week in the Life of a Caravan - Day One
A few weeks ago I was made aware of a marketing campaign offering the use of a 2008 fully loaded Dodge Caravan for week. Participants were asked to simply drive the minivan for a week and write/talk about their experiences – “Word of Mouth” advertising.
Now, I am not a naïve girl. I know that our family was chosen because I have three kids, lots of activities, and (most importantly) said that we were looking to buy a car within a year. I am sure the expectation is that after spending a week in the new Caravan, we would be more likely to look in that direction come car buying time. Ideally (from their point of view), a week of Sirius TV, DVD players, video game plug-ins, and swivel chairs would be so appealing to my eight and eleven year old son that they would beg, plead, badger and whine for us to go out and buy a Caravan immediately.
Well, here’s the thing: We ARE planning to buy a car in the next year or so, but only if one of our current cars dies completely. That isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility, since my husband’s Subaru has about 200,000 miles on it and my Oldsmobile has almost 100,000 miles (anyone want to guess which one we think will die first?), but what IS impossible is that my kids will whine me into submission. Regardless of how much we might like this minivan, there’s no way we are going to go out next week and drop $40,000 on a comparably equipped one for ourselves.
That being said, we decided that we were going to have fun with this project and go whole hog into the “word of mouth” bit, so for the next week or so I’ll be posting regularly updates on our doings, starting with yesterday, Halloween …
Our Caravan was dropped off at about lunchtime, and the most important requirement for me was met immediately – RED! Technically, I believe it is “Inferno Red Crystal Pearl,” a darker red than the typical Dodge red, and an improvement.
It’s a boxy looking minivan, I guess decent enough looking – but very few cars make me good “ooh” and “aah,” so my opinions on the exterior are pretty worthless.
Immediate positives – the swivel chairs and tables. I know that for longer trips, including jaunts to Broomfield for sports games, my boys would enjoy the ability to turn the chairs around a central table to play games.
We found pretty quickly that the swivel doesn’t work well with our toddler seat, at least as it’s installed currently – the recline makes it necessary to move the front seats up into knee cracking range. I don’t think either of us are really above average in height (I’m 5’8” and he’s 6’0”), so this would probably be a fairly common problem. If he was still rear facing in that seat, I’m not sure the front seat could be moved far enough forward to accommodate the swivel. Even though he can’t participate in games with his older brothers, he definitely wants to be able to watch!
This picture was taken with the chair swiveled about 45 degrees – NOT in a locked position, just enough for a photo op. He’s Roo, by the way. As we found out when we went to our elementary school for Halloween parties, Roo is not a recognizable character. Everyone thought he was Piglet, Pooh, a rat, or a dog. I guess that’s why there is a big “ROO” written right on the front of the costume, which you can’t see in this picture.
Another immediate positive, for the boys at least – the DVD/Satellite TV. Sirius knows who sits in the backseat, so they’ve chosen to use their bandwidth for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network. My husband rode around in the back seat to play around for a while and said that the picture isn’t that great compared to the DVD we popped in, but he’s in broadcast and is a total video snob. I’m sure most kids don’t care if Spongebob is in high def. Then again, if I was paying for a subscription to the service, I’d probably want a pretty good picture. I’ll update later with reviews from the youngsters.
After our Halloween parties, we came home and did the trick or treating thing, and then the baby and I went out after dark to run a few errands, which brings me to my first negative – the interior lights. This isn’t really a negative because I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but the interior lights are a blueish LED that just threw me off. I think the intent was to provide a light that wouldn’t distract the driver, and the targeted lights are definitely an improvement in that arena, but … it’s blue! Can’t really explain it, just a different kind of light. I’m such a creature of habit.
I didn’t drive around nearly as much as my husband probably would have if he’d been able to skip work last night, but we have big plans for the week! More later, as events unfold …
A few weeks ago I was made aware of a marketing campaign offering the use of a 2008 fully loaded Dodge Caravan for week. Participants were asked to simply drive the minivan for a week and write/talk about their experiences – “Word of Mouth” advertising.
Now, I am not a naïve girl. I know that our family was chosen because I have three kids, lots of activities, and (most importantly) said that we were looking to buy a car within a year. I am sure the expectation is that after spending a week in the new Caravan, we would be more likely to look in that direction come car buying time. Ideally (from their point of view), a week of Sirius TV, DVD players, video game plug-ins, and swivel chairs would be so appealing to my eight and eleven year old son that they would beg, plead, badger and whine for us to go out and buy a Caravan immediately.
Well, here’s the thing: We ARE planning to buy a car in the next year or so, but only if one of our current cars dies completely. That isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility, since my husband’s Subaru has about 200,000 miles on it and my Oldsmobile has almost 100,000 miles (anyone want to guess which one we think will die first?), but what IS impossible is that my kids will whine me into submission. Regardless of how much we might like this minivan, there’s no way we are going to go out next week and drop $40,000 on a comparably equipped one for ourselves.
That being said, we decided that we were going to have fun with this project and go whole hog into the “word of mouth” bit, so for the next week or so I’ll be posting regularly updates on our doings, starting with yesterday, Halloween …
Our Caravan was dropped off at about lunchtime, and the most important requirement for me was met immediately – RED! Technically, I believe it is “Inferno Red Crystal Pearl,” a darker red than the typical Dodge red, and an improvement.
It’s a boxy looking minivan, I guess decent enough looking – but very few cars make me good “ooh” and “aah,” so my opinions on the exterior are pretty worthless.
Immediate positives – the swivel chairs and tables. I know that for longer trips, including jaunts to Broomfield for sports games, my boys would enjoy the ability to turn the chairs around a central table to play games.
We found pretty quickly that the swivel doesn’t work well with our toddler seat, at least as it’s installed currently – the recline makes it necessary to move the front seats up into knee cracking range. I don’t think either of us are really above average in height (I’m 5’8” and he’s 6’0”), so this would probably be a fairly common problem. If he was still rear facing in that seat, I’m not sure the front seat could be moved far enough forward to accommodate the swivel. Even though he can’t participate in games with his older brothers, he definitely wants to be able to watch!
This picture was taken with the chair swiveled about 45 degrees – NOT in a locked position, just enough for a photo op. He’s Roo, by the way. As we found out when we went to our elementary school for Halloween parties, Roo is not a recognizable character. Everyone thought he was Piglet, Pooh, a rat, or a dog. I guess that’s why there is a big “ROO” written right on the front of the costume, which you can’t see in this picture.
Another immediate positive, for the boys at least – the DVD/Satellite TV. Sirius knows who sits in the backseat, so they’ve chosen to use their bandwidth for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network. My husband rode around in the back seat to play around for a while and said that the picture isn’t that great compared to the DVD we popped in, but he’s in broadcast and is a total video snob. I’m sure most kids don’t care if Spongebob is in high def. Then again, if I was paying for a subscription to the service, I’d probably want a pretty good picture. I’ll update later with reviews from the youngsters.
After our Halloween parties, we came home and did the trick or treating thing, and then the baby and I went out after dark to run a few errands, which brings me to my first negative – the interior lights. This isn’t really a negative because I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but the interior lights are a blueish LED that just threw me off. I think the intent was to provide a light that wouldn’t distract the driver, and the targeted lights are definitely an improvement in that arena, but … it’s blue! Can’t really explain it, just a different kind of light. I’m such a creature of habit.
I didn’t drive around nearly as much as my husband probably would have if he’d been able to skip work last night, but we have big plans for the week! More later, as events unfold …
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