If you are going to charter a bus ,,,You should ask "Do you do Maintenance and Preventative Maintenance?",,,otherwise you might be in for a Very Rude

Shock, in the form of a BREAKDOWN,,,out in the middle of ,you guess it, NO WHERE !! And what a huge waste of TIME that might be,,,for You ? Don't forget to get this IN WRITING, such as " Yes , we do preventative maintenance on all our charter buses,,,and for instance replace the engine belts and fuel filters every six months(/year), regardless of waiting for total failure of the part,,,so that you might avoid a preventable breakdown."

That way you have grounds to sue in the USA,,,if you do breakdown,,, and find the bus was not maintained,,, and the fuel filter is 3 years old,,,and the main engine belt is,oops, original ! From reading the bus industry magazines, this is a very low priority for the industry and individual bus companies, who tout new buses, when the Canadian Prevost is the bus you want for all long over the road trips,,,not the canadian new-ish mci,,,maybe a Van Hool from Holland ,,, maybe a Volvo bus,,,new Setra's from Germany come with a roof leak right over the driver and lots of other mechanical frailties ,,,

Also recommend you ask about the number of CHP citations the drivers in the company ,,,and especially Your driver has had ,,, in the last 3-5 years or ever. Any drunk driving citations? Any health problems for my driver? How old is my driver and how healthy is he/she and how long have they been driving for you,on this run?,,,are all smart questions. Can they read a map? Some limo and bus drivers currently can not. Can they speak and read English? I have worked with some safe Mexicans who can not read English,,,

Does the driver have a nicotine addiction,and constantly is trying to sneak a foul-smelling smoke, while driving or while loading ? Here is a good one: "What if we do breakdown, for more than an hour, for something preventable like tires less than 1/4inch of tread, are we going to get a refund, and how much,,,and will you put that in writing, signed by the manager or owner ?"

A company that says we have had no accidents or tickets ever, nor breakdowns over the road ever,,,is either lying,,,or doing the job right. Probably lying. Many bus companies are cutting overhead by cutting most maintenance,,,and all preventative maintenance. Yeah, shocking, i know,,,especially as we have to drive this un-safe bus accident-waiting-to-happen !! And don't expect the CHP to make sure all California buses are safe,,, or i'll have a San Francisco bridge to sell you!

Just going by the posed-pretty website can get you in a lot of trouble. Ask for a everyday ,real picture of the yard and current photos of all buses, showing all the body damage, especially the front windshields with multiple cracks for months,,,and months. Does the bus have a ladder and Windex and paper towels to keep the front windows clean in this bug season ? A broom and a mop and a bucket to clean the floor daily when the driver goes to refuel ?? Also pictures of drivers, as some are truly scary ones, even before they meet you at the airport !! If you see a lot of broken glass and broken parts all over the yard, plus piles of dog poop,,,you can imagine how often the seats get steam cleaned of drinking drunk's vomit,etc.

Happy trails !!

More Acura(Honda) Integra problems,,,in 9th year, the clutch pedal went out,,,for $400

at Santa Cruz's Bobby's Pitstop garage, a good private/independent garage, much better i think than most dealership garages.
The master piston and slave piston for the clutch pedal, $200, had to be replaced,,,plus about $200 labor.

A 'luxury" car such as an Acura(Honda) should have a clutch pedal assembly that lasts more than 10-15 years,,,


Also, the 4 head light lens covers can not be independently replaced,,,in case they get cracked,damaged, or painted over by Bay Cities body shop in Burlingame like mine were...Instead you have to buy the entire headlight unit---talk about bad $$$$$ design--- at $495 EACH , or about $2000 , just for 4 new lenses !!

Recommend you not buy Acura.

"Dancing with the Stars" JUDGES ARE TOO BLAME for mediocre amatuers still being AROUND,,,

The 3 judges have been too lenient with the brilliant-mind and good-spirited WOZ and the slacker STEVE !! THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER GIVEN 5s and 6s , but 1s for trying and smiling,,,because the geek voters are going to keep avalanche voting for the dear WOZ,,,and the reality freaks are going to keep voting for the STEVE , even tho he is barely trying.

So we lost Belinda and the other woman who should have been given more time to improve, if only the judges had graded more accurately on the charity grades of the WOZ and STEVE.

Please ,judges, do not do this any longer. And to the British judge, do you really think Brits are proud of your insensitive remarks to struggling amateurs, tho not as bad as that jerk simon ? Please be more polite to these stressed-out amateur performers, as most folks do not like rude insensitive comments. You can grade harsh instead.

Thank you.

30 March 2009: "Burn the Floor",,,Fantastic sexy dance show in San Francisco,,,has been extended !!,,,to at least 10 APRIL,,,!!,,,YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS

,,,More fun and exciting than "Dancing with the Stars",,,!!,,,It is at the Post Street Theatre,,,so get your 1/2 price tickets in person at the "1/2 price office on the east edge of Union Square ,in person only form noon to 6pm,,,or call the Marine's Memorial Theatre to buy tickets over the phone at full price,,,or go on line to Goldstar and get at less than half price maybe,,,

GREAT NEWS,,,such talented , beautiful and handsome dancers,,,DO NOT WAIT,,,YOU MUST SEE THIS SHOW IF YOU LOVE TO WATCH professional DANCING,,,!!,,,Can you tell i am a huge fan ?

Enjoy !!

Let's stop soft-pedaling how bad the financial system is due to "dishonest derivatives", not just toxic assets

Will the Republican Party ever admit to their utter failure at governing the Nation ,,,and how close they brought us all, the U.S.A. and many international countries, to the brink of a depression, probably greater than the so-called "Great Depression" ? It is too near to talk honestly about it,,, isn't it ?

Probably not. They still,,,March 2009,,,talk about natural bubbles ,,,and recurring cycles,,,next it will be the 'fates' and 'the gods on Mount Olympus'. Yes, Clinton did not help by taking away the Glass-Stegal Act and other follies,,,but before the last 6 months of Bush43s term, the Reprobate Republicans actually seemed to be enjoying their grand illusion of "Deregulation" and their religion of Capitalism, One World Economy and Free-such a fraud and lie-Markets to the detriment of city, county, and national identity and standards.

A.I.G.'s products were over valued with their hidden down sides and under secured by a lack of cash when the parent company was down rated from "AAA". The employees got their huge bonuses then,,,and they got up to $6M each recently with their exposed failure and financial support of the American taxpayer,who will probably be not fully reimbursed for their sucker generosity, as usual.

Remember how the public was fleeced-- and the Feds just watched--by the huge Savings and Loan Ripoff of the 80s,,,and then we were told to 'disregard the normal stock measures' when we again were fleeced in mass with the Dot.Com Bubble of 1995-2000, remember,,,and now again, many of us have lost most or all of our life savings and jobs to still greedy,Congress-buying bankers and paid-to-lie rating agencies and a small tiny division in London / Connecticut of A.I.G. that went crazy selling very dishonest derivatives ,,,remember ?

Don't you see a pattern here ? About every 10 years now we too-busy-working and too-uninformed-to-understand Americans have our life savings stolen from us by Corporate America,,,with our supposed protectors, the Federal Government looking the other way,,,and stumbling and fumbling, again with our tax dollars and generations of debt, to band-aid the problem.

This is both the Republicans and Democrats and a urgent reason why we must immediately elect all Federal Reps and Senators with public money to at least stop some of the obvious lobby-pac buying of Congress. We voted in California to stop the state legistature from continuing to gerrymander/draw their own corrupt districts, but the state legislature does not like public initiatives like this and now wants to rewrite the state constitution, probably to take away public initiative, recall (of the lying bum Grey Davis ,governor) and referendum,,,and re-instate gerrymandering. It may be too late for California to be pulled out of the dark swamp of corporate-paid campaigns and backdoor politics with little or no effective political "sunshine".

Our state and federal governments have grown use to not telling us the truth,,,and lying to us most of the time. Rent the "ENRON" movie dvd and the "WHO TOOK AWAY OUR ELECTRIC CARS" to see exactly how bad this lying and corporate theft of our government has become in California and the USA. If you have to stomach for it,,,and give a damn about the future of this supposed democratic republic.

Good news,,,$12 for polarized, pink-red lens wraparound sunglasses vs $175 across the street at Oakley

I was at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose , in their gift shop, and noticed a cylindrical display of $12 polarized wrap around sunglasses with a sport frame. Since there was free parking and free admission to the gift shop, i walked across the street to enjoy Santana Row, opposite the Valley Fair Shopping Center, the number one grossing shopping center in California.

Saw lots of beautiful shops and restaurants, and walked into Oakley to see their sport frame, polarized, pink-red lens for great cloud contrast and truer colors. Theirs were $175.

I went back to the free entrance,north side, not east side , of the gift shop and bought a pair of the $12 fine wrap arounds !!

The San Jose Mercury News-paper prints its Weather Page entirely from info. from the NWS, part of the former Bush Dept. of Commerce,,,

and i do not believe their rain total inches numbers for the San Jose airport for one second !! Do you think we are in a drought as bad as 'they' say ? Do you have a $3 rain gauge from Home Depot or Lowes ? Because if you do have a simple rain gauge , i think you will see that someone is LYING TO US, AGAIN !! Check it out,,,

season reminder: March 2009,,,Before you go out in the coming Spring in the Coast Range or Sierra Foothills to 6000ft, be sure to buy some "TECNU",

in case you get too close to that skin poisonous plant, poison oak, "leaflets of 3 let it be" !! "Tecnu" is amazing, as a white liquid soap , to add to your shampoo soap,,,or dog shampoo a teaspoon maybe,,,or your clothes laundry soap. So stock up, because it is everywhere on the coast,,,and in the Sierra foothills !!

you have been unofficially warned.
Happy hiking !!

INSIDE SECRET: Buy books retail, and with 'membership' at BORDERS or BARNES & NOBLE ?

Borders books usually has some great deals at the doorway, but did you know that some of these books are still FULL PRICE at other Bay Area Borders books ? I recently saw "THE ULTIMATE ROSE BOOK" a big coffee table reference book, for $14.99 ,,,when it is STILL selling at other Borders for full price of $75.00 !! So next time you walk into Borders by all those "sale" stacks of books, don't think like i use to, oh these are books no one wants and they can't sell. This rose book is 'fantastic', or so my Mom the beneficiary says,,,

Seasonal reminder: March 2009,,,at home or traveling , use Google's free 411 phone number

of 1-800-466-4411. It isn't perfect, as voice recognition will sometimes correctly hear you say, and repeat back, "san francisco" and then start to give you all kinds of listings only in,,, "phoenix",,,??!!?? But it sure beats paying the unfriendly skies phone company $1.50/EACH information call !!

I use the "details" voice option alot to get the phone number into my cell and then use the "connect me" to be dialed to the business without hand fumbling, at $95 if you get caught while driving. Also use the "more results" voice option and sometimes just give a category like "sports stores" in a city and let Google give me options.

Tower Records folds,,,Virgin Records closes,,,no wonder if you treat your customers like 'marks' !!

I was in Border and Barnes & Noble recently, both mainly known for selling books, and they do a pretty good job of it. Competitive, polite, informative, willing to help you find that weird piece of author misspelled or title one word or subject that might get you to a mainstream or obscure book you would buy and enjoy reading.

Then why does the RIAA/recording industry and stores like Tower and Virgin and Borders and B&N do such a half-ass job of selling cds ?! They don't even publish my favorite music review, "Musichound", any more,,,not even digitally. And if you go into any of these stores and ask about music,,,remember for some this is their only game, their main game,,,they can only give a personal opinion. YIKES !!

Even MTV forgot its primary mission ,,,showing music videos, and went to teen soaps,,,

No pc terminals with websites listing all of an artists published works, which hit #1 as singles and which sold how many albums. Professional critics opinions and the publics opinions. NOPE. Maybe 'they' just don't want you to know. And that is sad in this 21st Century. On the web, it is sooo hard to find music lyrics and print them so you can sing along with the song !! Dumb , dumb, dumb .

Amoeba Records in SF tries, but the software is not there,,,yet. And SillyCone Valley is just down there at the south end of the Bay. The record industry does not want you to be an informed consumer is the take away impression, basically. Maybe they want to fail. They are succeeding at failure.

From what artists have been saying and writing and singing about the record industry for decades about taking an artist's creation,his ownership of the song, in order to promote and publish his work, sell several million records/cd s in jewel boxes you can barely open with a knife,,,maybe the basic model for the music business was just too wrong-headed to have ever lasted.

Maybe a new model will emerge, where the artist is treated much better. Why does "MCA" have to have its name so much bigger than any famous artist it has ever signed ,,,on every one of the millions of cds that it sells worldwide? Talk about a major insecurity and inferiority complex!

It is March 2009,,,and still Congress has its hands in its pockets, rather than doing what is IMMEDIATELY NEEDED

Why have 'A.R.M.'/adjustable rate mortgages, that even a high school student can assess as a stupid contract, not been OUTLAWED HENCEFORTH ?? These were so profitable to the bankers,et al , back then,,,but that was on the HORRIBLE SLIDE DOWN. The bankers took too many risks and falsified how risky these products like CDS where to all of us, with the rating agencies lying for them. So when, let us pick a date, are we going to be honest with each other about exactly how awful these bank products were and are and how close the USA came to FISCAL AND ECONOMIC COLLAPSE LIKE THE SO-CALL 'GREAT DEPRESSION' ? We can lie like a banker or rater long enough to sell this crap, but isn't it still going to come back and bite us ?

Why has not Congress taken the payroll tax cap off and taxed all income for Social Security ? Another year of lost opportunity and lost taxes,,,such federal irresponsibility !! Does anyone need that small percentage after taking home more than ,what, less than a MILLION DOLLARS ?!! Obviously, Congress is still owned by banks and other corporate lobbyists and does not have the internal ethics to do the right thing. So we have to move quickly to NATIONALLY FUND ALL STATE AND FEDERAL ELECTIONS WITH FREE TV AND RADIO TIME, ETC. Otherwise, we can expect the same knuckle dragging from this critical body in the national order.

The Republicans don't want a Congressional committee to study how all their much ballyhooed policies went so horribly wrong. So we can do this again !? And lose TRILLIONS in paper retirement savings for school teachers and common folk,,,and investments, more than was ever lost before ? The PBS evening news says there are $600 TRILLION in bad bank products out there in the USA,,,not counting the rest of the world. Thank you President Reagan, and President Bush 41 &43. California is on the brink of financial ruin.