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I just love how I feel when I ride my mountain bike to work, that blast flying down Corning’s Hill and how pumped I am in the office. After at somewhat rough night’s sleep and opening up a new pouch of coffee and downing some homemade banana and Maine wild blueberries, I am getting ready to shower and head off to work.

Yesterday was pretty goddamn cold riding my bike down to the dentist. 🚲 I should have gotten an earlier start and put my bike on the bus, but then I would have been there early with the dentist. 🦷 Of course, my flustered nature, a soaked duck 🦆and the dentist kindly suggestions about how awful stained my teeth are from all the coffee ☕ I drink, allowed him to scam me out of $27 into  the flouride paint they put on your teeth but it’s certainly gone almost as quick as the money is out of your account. But the doctor ordered it, your teeth are bad, yeah, whatever. You got my $27. I guess it’s a lesson learned for car shopping. 🚙 Don’t shop when your flustered or feeling pressure. Just thank them and walk away. My usual hygentist also used to play that game but I  had gotten good at pushing back and he stopped doing that.

I dried out by midday with the always hot office where I work and a fan blowing on my boots and feet. ⚛️ It was good, kind of a busy day, a lot of usual shit come down and thinking breaking in the data work. It’s fun when you can write a 5-liner R script and solve some big problem people are having. Though mostly things are held up because of a vendor issue, so there was also a lot of downtime before we can preform the next big update. Of course, it was kind of late day, because I didn’t get in until 10:30 AM with the dentist appointment, followed by of course the required strong cups of coffee. ☕ That’s because I sleep like such shit and are up half the night reading about the automobile business and pickup trucks, and random shit like goat farming 🐐 and private equity owning rental real estate.

Been continuing to study the auto industry and car shopping and the art of negotiations. 🔎 It’s really fascinating how to play the game and get a fair deal. Basically the trick is to get a total out the door price, and then a written broken down quote of all fees and taxes that go into the OTD price. Never discuss anything but those things until you are in the finance office. And then you look at the fees and negotiate over them, as most of them aren’t real, and even those who are real but excessive can be reduced by changing other parts of deal. 🤝 Get quotes from multiple dealers. 🚘 Find out what incentives are out there, which ones the dealer is likely to claim but not tell you about. I figured out 14 years too late that the dealer on my Chevy made my deal work at the rate I wanted to pay, by claiming to the manufacture I lost my previous truck to Hurricane Irene, even though I sold it. GM at the time had a program that if you didn’t trade in your old car, and you were impacted by Hurricane Irene by any way, I don’t know, my office flooded in Utica, you could claim a $3,000 rebate from GM. Dealer questioned me about it, and honestly told him I didn’t think I was impacted by the hurricane and the rebate is not on the bill of sale based my answer, but dealers actually apply for manufacturer’s rebates after the sale and can request any reasonable ones – only audited after the fact by manufacturer when they choose. 🤪 So who knows what the dealer told GM, probably my house and old truck was washed on the down the Schoharie in their telling. I’m honestly not crying that much about the stealership scamming the General, I mean manufacturers often set up their rebate programs with vague language that are intended to be scammed by either the buyer or dealership.

And take your time, walking feels good, put the pressure on the salesman not yourself. 🚘 Don’t get the scam of the rushed sale on doctor’s advice at the dentist office, as you’re a wet skunk 🦨 after riding in 34 degree freezing rain. I’m glad I’m in no rush to get a truck but I do want one by end of March or sometime in April. Despite what dealers may claim, prices do not change day from day, the only think that changes each month is manufacturers’ rebates, and dealers don’t know what next month will be until it’s announced to general public. People say auto dealer’s are scammy, and some ways they are, but also if you understand how the game is played, it doesn’t have to be game, and you can get a fair deal and be respected by understanding how the auto dealership system actually works. 📚 I still have a two plus months to keep reading books and learning everything I can about he auto industry. It’s fun to learn about big trucks and auto dealerships, and far more practical then let’s say goat farming or building an off-grid cabin at this point in my life, but being informed on such things too isn’t a bad thing for the future. 🔮