Reminds me of the old bulldozer that I very seriously thought of purchasing (always wanted a dozer). But in my case it was only about 5 miles away in a farmer's front yard with a "For Sale: $1,700" sign on it. Getting it home probably wouldn't have cost more than about $300.
I Bought A Firetruck
211–220 of 284 posts
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, this is true. Thanks for this. The realization that it is also in the best interest of an airline to reduce emissions, especially as the price of oil increases, really helps make me feel better. Not flying doesn't really reduce emissions though... Those planes are going to fly whether or not you are on it.
>Not flying doesn't really reduce emissions though... Those planes are going to fly whether or not you are on it. On an individual level, sure, but not flying reduces demand, which in turn reduces the number of flights.
> On an individual level, sure, but not flying reduces demand, which in turn reduces the number of flights.
Try to get flights from London to Paris or from Paris to Lyon. Not flying stops planes from flying very quickly.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…
To give you some sense of how "local" 60 miles can be in the US, I live a more urban life style than most people in the US (although likely less than most people on this board), but I frequently drive 60 miles simply to have dinner with friends or family. We never considered that a hike, it's just a quick trip in the car. Our 2005 Honda CRV is approaching 120,000 miles, and both myself and my fiancée telecommute.
I'm in the UK (Scotland) and I don't think twice about driving 6 hours in one day to go skiing (3 hour drive, say 6 hours skiing, 3 hour drive back) - in fact thinking about doing that tomorrow.
A colleage just drove/ferry back home from Germany - which nobody regards as anything unusual.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…
To give you some sense of how "local" 60 miles can be in the US, I live a more urban life style than most people in the US (although likely less than most people on this board), but I frequently drive 60 miles simply to have dinner with friends or family. We never considered that a hike, it's just a quick trip in the car. Our 2005 Honda CRV is approaching 120,000 miles, and both myself and my fiancée telecommute.
I'm in the UK (Scotland) and I don't think twice about driving 6 hours in one day to go skiing (3 hour drive, say 6 hours skiing, 3 hour drive back) - in fact thinking about doing that tomorrow.
A colleague just drove/ferry back home from Germany - which nobody regards as anything unusual.
The idea that most people think that 100 miles is a long way is silly.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is long established common law. Just because it is your property, you cannot escape your obligation to mitigate obvious hazards, particularly where children are involved. So hanging a tree swing that is unsafe and snaps, injuring a child playing on it, still creates liability for you even though the child was trespassing.
Parental neglect is a well established law as well.
One that is not defined by watching your kids 24/7 as you seem to think
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…
The sense of scale is noticable even in this article. The author is parking a fire engine on his driveway . Here in Europe a driveway is one or two car lengths of gravel or paving blocks. In the US, everyone's driveway is more like something approaching a major civil engineering undertaking, being the size of a tennis court, consuming several cubic metres of concrete, steel reinforcing, etc.
They're really only that big out in the exurbs.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sense of scale is noticable even in this article. The author is parking a fire engine on his driveway . Here in Europe a driveway is one or two car lengths of gravel or paving blocks. In the US, everyone's driveway is more like something approaching a major civil engineering undertaking, being the size of a tennis court, consuming several cubic metres of concrete, steel reinforcing, etc.
They're really only that big out in the exurbs.
[deleted]
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#218Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler? First it was stretch limos, then Hummers, then Hummer stretch limos. I wonder if we're gonna see stretch limo fire trucks… Edit (since I'm being downvoted): The story is cool, I just find the fact that he's driving it daily to work completely retarded. What the hell I consider driving a car to work to be…
Whatever you do, don't Google "Unimog".
Oh, Gods, why did you have to say that ;-)
I have fkn loved Unimogs for years. To make matters worse, I live near a dealer. Lucky for me I can't afford a new one and even the used ones command a pretty penny.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry about your dog. A school bus got my cousins' dog under the same circumstances. The two of them had to helplessly watch the whole thing from the bus.
better keep kids away from school buses, clearly dangerous /sarcasm
You'd be surprised to know how many kids are run over by school buses every year.
Re: I Bought A Firetruck
#220I just bought a warehouse. Similar - I always wanted one. I'm going to turn it into a house and put a roof garden on it and put a sweet garage in to fiddle with cars and set up some office space and generally cause havoc in there. I could drop dead tomorrow. It's nice to tick these ambitions off, although my ambitions always seem to make it more likely that I will drop dead tomorrow. (It's in Manchester, UK if anyone…
What's the bureacracy like with that? Are you just keeping a low profile and doing it on the "beg forgiveness" principle or are you doing all the proper paperwork? Or is it actually less of a hassle in that respect than I imagine? I'd assumed that converting a business space into a residence within the UK would be like one of the more byzantine scenes from Brazil.
I'd be very interested to hear more about it generally.