COTE - The end of an era

As i write this, there is an empty spot in my garage. It's been 7 years since that's happened, but it finally happened again. The celica has been sold. 

That concludes a decade of me driving a toyota celica. The first 3 years and 98.000km were driven with the one and only black celica. The last 7 years (and 200.000km) were driven with the gray, which never really truly could fill the footsteps of the black one. 

So yesterday I sold the car to two Libanese brothers, the older one paying for the car the younger one is going to drive. Given his enthausiasm for the car, and his brothers sceptism, I thinkit's going to a good home, maybe even a better home than it had with me, since for him it really is the one :-)

This also means that my COTW rants are going to have to come to an end, since I'll have to decide on what car I want to fill that empty place in the garage. For the moment I'm chasing down a BMW Z3, so keep your fingers crossed for the next post to arrive very soon. 

RANT - FOD economie Arbeidsenquete

Dear Readers, 

Some time ago I got a letter telling me that I was one of the lucky ones selected to take part in a mandatory survey. Some random person would get in touch with me in due time. 
Apparently the guy came to our place some evening around 18.00. Needless to say we weren't home, so he left a card saying that he would be back. In case I wanted to make an appointment he left a phone number. A landline number. That's alarm bell number one. 
Being a good citizen I gave the guy a call and made an appointment for saturday morning. But not before calling the FOD and asking if i could take part by phone. The nice lady told me that this was only possible for pensioners. So let's get this straight. Working people, who are all day occupied at work and have to cram their household chores in the few waking hours are supposed to waste some more time. This would be alarm bell 2 for you. 
So anyway, saturday morning, I eagerly await the FOD guy. Turns out it was an 80 year old guy. 
He installed himself and took out his laptop, on which he typed the answers to the questions. I had trouble restraining myself from taking the laptop out of his hands. 
Anyway, the questions were 
- Do you work
- Since when
- Where do you work
- How do you go to work
- What kind of work do you do
- What kind of contract do you have
- How much do you earn
- What's your highest education
That's it ... nothing more. It took about half an hour in total. Yes you read that right, half an hour for those few questions. 

I really honestly wonder why they didn't just use an online survey. So I asked them. Here's the question and the answer i got from FOD : 

Geachte heer, 

Hierbij heb ik uw mail overgemaakt aan de verantwoordelijke van de dienst arbeidskrachtenenquete van de fod economie. Hij zal u verderhelpen met uw concrete opmerkingen.

Met vriendelijke groeten,



U hebt op 14-2-2015 om 9:32:59 de volgende vraag aan ons gesteld:
Beste, 

Ik heb daarnet een enquêteur op bezoek gehad i de het kader van de arbeidsenquete. 
Deze man was van redelijke leeftijd en moest mijn antwoorden op computer intypen. Zelf ben ik programmeur. Ik hoop dat je de ironie kan appreciëren. Zelf had ik de vragenlijst nauwkeuriger en uiteraard vlugger kunnen invullen. 
Is het niet stilletjesaan tijd om dergelijke enquêtes online te doen? Dit zou enorme besparingen met zich meebrengen, zowel op gebied van tijd voor beide partijen, geld voor de FOD, en gemak bij het verwerken van de resultaten. 

Hopende dat er volgende enquête de 21ste eeuw waardig is, 
Groeten.

This is the answer I finally got on my mail. Apparently the participation rate is higher when they send people instead of going online. A slight improvement would be to send people to the xx% of people who don't reply online. Giving us good citizens a break :-)

Bij de Algemene Directie Statistiek organiseren wij al jaren enquêtes bij huishoudens via internet. Enkele voorbeelden zijn: het Reidonderzoek, de ICT-enquête over computer- en internetgebruik door huishoudens en de Adult Education Survey over levenslang leren.. 

De reden waarom wij voor de Enquête naar de Arbeidskrachten een beroep doen op interviewers die aan huis komen, heeft met kwaliteit te maken. Bij internet enquêtes neemt slechts tussen de 20% en 30% deel. Als wij de enquêtes laten afnemen door interviewers, dan stijgt de participatiegraad tot 80%. Wij hebben die kwaliteit echt wel nodig om een correcte schatting te maken van het aantal werkende, werklozen en niet beroepsactieven in België. 

Intussen hebben wij een project opgestart om na te gaan hoe we in de toekomst wel het internet kunnen gebruiken voor de Enquête naar de Arbediskrachten, zonder al te veel in te boeten op kwaliteit. 

Met vriendelijke groeten,

RANT iCoyote part 2

In my last post about iCoyote, you'll remember that I wasn't all that chuffed about how the upgrade worked.

In the last couple of bugfixes, some of the bugs got fixed. So I now have, or should i say had a working program. The last update broke it again. When I stepped in my car the other morning after an update the program would just crash. It took me a clear data / force stop / reinstall / wait a day / reinstall / clear data / .... you get the idea before the damned thing would start again. 

Bear in mind that I recently paid 90€ to renew my licence. I must be erred but I expect an expensive piece of software to just work. Especially since it's a rather simple program. Face it, it's a database with a front end on evey smartphone. hardly rocket science. 

Anyway, it worked again, but the interface is crap. Let me specify that for you, the text prompts are a real mess. It all starts with the first startup, where it gives you the choise of what country you're in. I'll ignore the fact that a GPS enabled program has to ask this for now. So you chose your country and then you can chose your language. Here the trouble starts, not all languages are available. I live in Belgium, so the official languages are French, Dutch and German. Two of which are available, yes you read that right, there is no English to choose from even if my phone is set up completely in english. Ok, let's just select dutch shall we. 

That's where it get's really funky. None of the prompts are proper Dutch. The best ones are google-translated from French, some are in German and some are just not translated. 

I'll see if I can get you some screenshots in the next couple of commutes.

Here not a prompt, but a rather funky average. Mind you, all the prompts are in English.

 The text says "radar gemiddelde snelheid" which is a direct google translate from French. The voice prompt uses the official Dutch "trajectcontrole"

 Here we have a couple of typical google translates. Oh and you guessed it, "Nein"and "Ja" aren't Dutch either. In this case German is used, in another case (no screenshot) it's in French.

This is a funky one, not a clue what a "Rijdende mobiele" is, but somehow I got warned about it.

COTW BMW Z3 coupe 2.8

Those following this site might have a déjà vue, but bear with me. I'll tell you how I came by this car  ... again.

I decided that I really want to replace the celica with something else. I've been driving celicas for the last 10 years and covered 300kkm in them. Time to move on.

Soooo I want rwd (shouldn't come as a shock to you guys) I also wanted it to be cheap, i.e. if something goes wrong with the car, I don't want to have to go back to driving a lesser car. So the Porsche is out of the question. This leaves us with the MX5 and the S2000. 

There's a world of difference between the two of them, but in the end it boils down to one is cheap and modifiable the other one is a finished product at a higher price. So MX5 it is. 

That explains that for the last couple of weeks I've been looking for my ideal MX5, which is a black on black 1.8l with aircon. Of course this being the one I want, makes it about a rare as they get. 

In my wanderings along car sale sites I've recently came across a Z3 coupe 2.8, which made realise I still love that car. So I wandered off in another direction and did some more research on the car. 

You'll remember, or you can just click my previous post, that I wanted to change a lot of parts on it. Well it seems the latest 2.8, which was introduced in 1999, already has double vanos. I only need to make sure the engine is a M52TUB28 instead of a M52B28. There you have it, some motivation to accept a 2.8 in my life other than the tax advantage compared to the 3.0, the fact that they are easier to find and they look gorgeous. 

Anyway, I'm off searching for some cars :-)

Beemer was thirsty

Yesterday the beemer was very thirsty.

She told me the range was 0kms. Where the 4 dashes are, there used to be a number indicating how many kms I can still drive. But she was still running as you can see on the tach.

And when filling her up, I put in 62,32l, whereas the tank capacity is 63l

Guess driving LPG this long has made me less sensitive to the fuel needs of a car. In the Celica there's always fuel or gas just a press of a button away.

The beemer gets the Greg treatment

Well, the beemer has been my Faithfull companion for the last couple of weeks commuting. So long enough to start modifying it beyond the foam cup holder.
Two things have been bugging me.
1. The complete absence of cupholders, which might seem a small issue. Not so small if you factor in 270km a day starting at 5:30. Think morning cup of Joe and you get the idea.
2. No aux to the radio. Which is not too bad as long as you stay within range of a decent radio station or have a big cd collection. I was planning a round trip to bologna, so there goes radio coverage and my cd collection amasses to 2, of which one is a Michael Jackson cd I got as a birthday present when I was 12.
The first problem was quickly solved by cutting some foam in shape and sticking it in the central ash tray. Looks weird but gets the job done.

The second problem can easily be solved by giving bmw 60€. This buys you a 3.5mm jack you need to install in the car. Rather pricey for a stupid wire so off to Google for a better solution. I was rather disappointed not to found something better so I go thinkering. The schematics for the cable are easily found, I have a bluetooth receiver laying around collecting dust. So there you have a better solution, just put one and one together and hide it somewhere in the dash. Unfortunately that's way too easy. I wanted a completely integrated BT receiver, so I cracked open the receiver case, soldered on some wires. Now all I need is 5 volts to run the receiver off. So I  cracked open the the radio and went hunting for a power line. That's where I got lucky and found a nice accessible 7808. Combine this with a 7805 I had laying around and pronto 5volts :-) Now a that's left is to solder the previously soldered  wires to the corresponding pins and hot glue the receivers print inside the radio unit.
Here are some pics for you :
The all important collection of resistors and capacitors to trick the radio in thinking it has an AUX-IN attached to it.

 Some wires soldered to the BT receiver :

 Here's the 7805, which will feed the project

 And the 7808 which was already mounted in the radio. With all that metal to cool it, it should be possible to feed the 7805.

 The inside of the radio, with the pins where I'll solder the BT receiver

 Some more metal to cool the 7805

 All soldered up, ready to add hot glue (sorry no hot pics)

COTW - the final one

With a title like that this is bound to be a good one, so enjoy.

This morning I had the dreaded MOT visit again with the Celica.

I made it there at 6:45, before they opened and was first in line. I guess i'm not the only one crazy enough to do that, since at 6:46 we were already 4 waiting for the gates to open. So I drive in, the guy pours all over the car, slightly cursing at my LPG installation, which gives him more to do. But  in the end all is fine and the car still conforms to what's written on the documents.

That is until the time comes to pay. The guy in front of me is called to the desk and is given an LPG price, on which I step in and tell them that will be mine. I pay my dues and walk off with my papers. Having a bad feeling about the name mix-up i check my documents, and they are for a Renault ... yuck ... a Kangoo of all things. So I head back to the guy and sort out the documents with him. Upon which the desk clerk wants to see all the documents and spends another 5 minutes rummaging through them before realizing her mistake and handing both of us the correct papers. I guess that's a downside to arriving this early, they haven't had time for coffee yet.

So I go out to the Celica with a green ticket and a new LPG sticker to put on the windscreen. After which I drive off and decide to take the small windy roads home in celebration. Of course paying homage to my old adage "life starts at 6200". After some slight speeding on the tones of AC/DC combined with a screaming engine I arrive home with a huge smile on my face.

That's about when it hit me. Of all the cars I have been rambling about, there's actually only just one which can give me the same feeling as the Celica. The S2000. There is just no substitute for revs. The feeling you get when the car kicks you in the but at 6200 after a nice smooth buildup of power throughout the rev-range ... I confess, I'm an addict :-)

So there you have it, if the Celica will ever be replaced, it will be by another high singing car. For the moment the only car worthy is the S2000.