{"id":8088,"date":"2014-03-10T06:06:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T06:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/10\/automotive-frugality-and-manual-air-conditioning\/"},"modified":"2014-03-10T06:06:30","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T06:06:30","slug":"automotive-frugality-and-manual-air-conditioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/10\/automotive-frugality-and-manual-air-conditioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Automotive Frugality and Manual Air Conditioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an old post rescued from the old blog, dated 20 May 2007.  Some things have changed.  But all the details were true then.<\/span><\/p>\n

…………………….<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some people with whom I would not want to enter a frugality contest. Keith Burgess-Jackson is one of them. I seem to recall him saying that he doesn't own a clothes dryer: he hangs his duds out on a line in the Texas sunshine. Not me. This BoBo (bourgeois bohemian, though not quite in David Brooks' sense) uses both washer and dryer. But I have never owned an electric can opener (what an absurdity!),<\/span> nor in the three houses I have owned have I used the energy-wasting,  house-heating, noise-making, contraptions known as dishwashers. The  houses came with them, but I didn't use 'em. In the time spent loading and unloading them, one can have most of one's dishes washed by hand.  And tall guys don't like bending down. Besides, a proper kitchen clean-up job requires a righteous quantity of hot sudsy water.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I'm a frugal bastard too. And on the automotive front, I've got Keith beat. His car is old as sin, but mine is older, as old as Original Sin. It's a 1988 Jeep Cherokee base model: five-speed manual tranny, 4.0 liter, six-cylinder engine, four-wheel drive, off-road shocks, oversized tires, and manual air conditioning despite the fact that I live in the infernal Valle del Sol<\/em> — from which I don't escape <\/span>in the summer like some snowbird wimps I could mention. Manual<\/em> air  conditioning: if you want air, you use your God-given hands<\/em> to roll  down the windows. In this part of the country manual A\/C is also know<\/span> to the politically incorrect as 'Mexican air conditioning.' 'Roll down the windows, Manuel!'<\/span><\/p>\n

One blazing hot August I drove straight through from Bishop, California to Chandler, Arizona, 600 miles, alone. Stopping for gas in Blythe, on the California side of the Colorado river, I noted that the afternoon temperature was 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Bouncing along Interstate-10 I saw that the<\/span> only people with their windows down were me and the Mexicans.<\/span><\/p>\n

It's no big deal, really, driving through 115 degree heat in the middle of the day in the middle of the desert with the windows down.  You take a bandanna and soak it in the ice water in your cooler and <\/span>wrap it around your neck. When the dry blast of desert wind hits the wet bandanna some serious evaporation takes place cooling your neck and with it the rest of your body. Feeling a little drowsy after four hundred miles of nonstop driving? Stoke up a cheap cigar, say that Swisher Sweet that's been aging under the seat alongside those oily shop rags, and throw another audio tape into the deck. May I recommend Dave  Brubeck? Or how about Kerouac reading to the piano accompaniment of Steve Allen? Or perhaps that latter-day beat, Tom Waits.<\/span><\/p>\n

With four on the road, one in the hand, a cigar in the mouth, some boiling hot McDonald's drive-through java in the other hand, Brubeck on the box,  proudly enthroned at the helm of a solid chunk of Dee-troit iron, rolling down a wide-open American road, with a woman waiting at the end of the line, you're feeling fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

I bought the Jeep around Thanksgiving, 1987 and come this Thanksgiving it will have been twenty years. Expect another post in celebration. An old car is a cheap car: cheap to operate, cheap to insure, cheap to  register. My last registration renewal cost me all of $31.39 for two years. My wife's late model Jeep Liberty, however, set us back $377.93  for two years. With a five-speed manual tranny, a six cylinder engine,  and no A\/C I can easily get 25 mpg. With a tailwind, 30 mpg.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I don't want to hear any liberal bullshit about all SUVs being gas guzzlers. Your mileage may vary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Americans are very foolish when it comes to money. If you want to stay  poor, buy a new car every four or five years. That's what most Americans do. And if you finance the 'investment,' you compound your  mistake. Buy a good car, pay cash, and keep it 10+ years. Better yet, live without a car. From September 1973 to May 1979 I lived and lived well without a car. But I was in Boston and Europe, compact places.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This is an old post rescued from the old blog, dated 20 May 2007.  Some things have changed.  But all the details were true then. ……………………. There are some people with whom I would not want to enter a frugality contest. Keith Burgess-Jackson is one of them. I seem to recall him saying that he … Continue reading “Automotive Frugality and Manual Air Conditioning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-money-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}