| 22 July 2006 Valentine's Day I rented a Caddie this month for some around-town travel. I like to drive a nice luxury sedan once in a while, though parking in an underground garage as I do, it doesn't make much sense to own one. I find the cushy seats to be a little like having a mobile living room couch. It is also a useful way to experience features that you would never purchase on a bet. The Caddie, for example, had a row of lights along the top of the dash that showed the distance of the front bumper, way out there, to the nearest sheet metal or pedestrian. It was some sort of infra-red device, I assumed, or maybe x-band radar. A Caddie is a fine car to drive, after a war. That is what Bob Dylan said a long time ago, and as soon as this one is over, I may consider it. Driving helps keep my mind off the unpleasant nature of the world today. The kinetic component of the global conflict has spiked up again. Not being in the middle of it makes me uneasy, since I have no informed information on wher it is going. It seems limited at the moment, though it has the potential to morph into something truly horrible. Long distance travel is something else. I found that using the corporate rate and unlimited mileage, it was sort of fun to take a Caddie or a Lincoln on a long drive to get the kids back to school in the Midwest, and I could keep the miles off my personal vehicles. It is nice to give the wear-and-tear to someone else, and let the wide road just float under tires that belong to Avis. They try harder, after all. I rented a pretty hot Mustang last summer, visiting my folks in the corner of Michigan where they have retired. I was impressed with the car, and scornful of the interior. The dashboard looked like one of the boom-boxes you could buy at Target or the K-Mart. It was a nice visit with the folks, but I had a late flight out of Cherry City, and I had forgotten that the regional carriers have a cavalier regard for things like schedules. I drove the seventy miles down to the airport, turned in the car, and had the flight cancelled. I reversed the process, got the Mustang back- it was a steely gray monster- and drove with more than my usual élan back toward the Bay City. I got nailed, naturally, on a long wide stretch by an eager-beaver Trooper who had instant-on laser speed detector. It was my first moving violation in a few decades, and I was beyond irritated. He was nice enough, though. I sat by the side of the road and he reviewed my life history on his computer in his cruiser. At the moment I was using an identity that was compatible with the locale in the state, fortunate as it turned out, and instead of the Big Ticket, he issued me one for five miles an hour over, and smiled as he let me go. I was talking to the Judge a few weeks later and he told me what exactly was in the law enforcement data bases, and it surprised me. There is more on me than there was on Mohammed Atta, and maybe that is why the trooper let me skate. Professional courtesy, maybe, with a slight kick in the shins for being a Fed. Anyhow, I turned the Caddie back to the Avis people and went back to the sleek little two-seater, and realized the mid-life crisis was over. I needed something with a back seat, since having guests sitting on top of one another was not only undignified, but potentially dangerous. That is how I found myself in the Quality Previously Owned lot of the dealer next to the Harris-Teeter supermarket, and after a series of misadventures, the owner of a Quality Previously Owned backseat with a V8 engine. Those were really the only two factors I cared about. If the planet is really running out of fossil fuel, I want to get to the end as quickly as possible, and with global warming, I think the V-8 is necessary to keep the air conditioning running. Particularly if the top is down, and I have to try to cool Northern Virginia all by myself. The negotiations were a little fractured. My salesman, Mohammed, was distracted because his family was on the West Bank, visiting the extended clan. The news of the air strikes into Lebanon was making him jumpy, and he was wearing the colors of Palestine on his sleeve. I have absolutely no answers for any of it. When both sides have perfectly logical reasons for everything they are doing, I have to throw up my hands. I wish they could find peace, and do not think that there is a way. Over the whole mess looms the face of the Ayatollahs back in Tehran, and nukes, and I can't deal with it any more than I can with the end of the glaciers and maybe the species. So I bought a car from Mohammed. We were both distracted, and I drove away with only a cursory familiarity with the stolid silver cabriolet. It is fast, and it appears to be gently used, all things considered. It took a few days to discover some of the features. Some were straightforward, and other were not. How to program the garage door opener, located on the mirror, or the five buttons to adjust each seat. The top alone was a marvel, with at least seven fully independent motors and sensors. The car was a marvel, even if it was a few years old. The features made me appreciate why I could never hope to purchase one new. The one thing that baffled me was the device located on the mirror itself. It had a beeper that could emit several discrete tones. There were several LED indicators, and arrows that pointed up and down and to the sides. I thought it might be some sort of traffic proximity detection system, since one was mentioned in the owner's manual. But it did not correlate to anything in the book, and trust me, those German engineers are thorough enough to take Poland again, even if they would only give it to the Turks. I wound up back with Mohammed late in the day. He was still angry about the war, and about Secretary Rice, and even angrier that his friends were nervous about talking on the phone about what was going on. He has an idea about America and freedom that was violated after 9/11, and the fear that his phone was tapped was real to him. Not theoretical like the rest of us. He told me that he had asked the Service Manager about the device that was embedded behind the etched symbols on the mirror. “It is a radar detector,” he said, waving his hands expressively. “An expensive option, when the vehicle was purchased. They are illegal here in Virginia, as you know, so this one is incorporated into the frame of the car. It is quite undetectable, but because it is a custom installation, we do not have a manual for how it operates.” I nodded. The Old Dominion was adamant about the prohibition. The State enjoys the revenue from the speeding tickets, and with the major north-south interstates passing through, they can add to the fines for those out-of-staters with the detectors plugged into the cigarette lighter and deployed on the dashboard. “The Service Manager says it was provided by Valentine Research, and is a commercial version of a military Electronic Warfare Support Measures receiver. It is calibrated to detect all the radar bands, and has a capability against laser range-finding.” I thought about how useful that might be, times being what they are. But of course it would be wrong, and me a former Federal official. “I would like to have it removed, so that I can be in full compliance with the law,” I said carefully. “Even if they cannot tell that I have one, and I have no instruction on how to use it.” “Of course,” agreed Mohammed. “Perhaps we can make an appointment next week….” “Or at the next regular service appointment,” I said. “Those are annual, aren't they?” Mohammed smiled. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |