Category — General

Not our Santa Fe

In 2004, my wife and I traded in our 98 Pontiac Sunfire and bought a  Hyundai Santa Fe. It just turned 5 years old and we were thinking about how much we love the thing. Over 140,000 clicks and the only problem we’ve had was a faulty mirror switch. I’m a complete car ‘tard; I don’t know a damn thing about them other than how to drive ‘em. The only time I’m under the hood is to add washer fluid. So the fact that the Santa Fe starts each time I turn the key and runs just as efficiently as the day we bought it is enough to make it a winner in my book.

By contrast, the Sunfire was a complete piece of crap. I think the “Check Engine” light came on as soon as we drove it off the lot. We must have paid for a dozen engine scans (which never found anything conclusive, but always seemed to warrant the replacement of various sensors and other expensive parts). The ABS brakes acted up, making an ominous grating sound and shaking the car violently if we applied pressure to the pedal at low speeds. Once, during a routine checkup before a long road-trip, the technicians informed us that the brake lines would need to be flushed and repaired. Trip = postponed, wallet = empty.

Of course, it seemed to be GM policy at every dealership (from BC to ON to NS, as the car followed us during our moving adventures) to up-sell and gouge us for as much as they could get. “Oh, you need this…” or “Oh, you need that…” Always something. I don’t think we ever just paid for the oil change or services we booked, they always found something to charge us extra for. Hell, MacPhee Pontiac in Dartmouth wouldn’t even shuttle us home (we live 20 mins away). But they did value our business so much that they offered us a rental to use while we waited for the servicing to be completed. Thanks, assholes!

When we got tired of the greedy and useless GM dealerships, we started taking the car to Coast Tire. For the most part, they did a good job, until this one time they gave it an alignment. During a trip to Magnetic Mountain in Moncton, they actually refunded our money because the car would not play along and be dragged up the hill by the “mysterious” magnetic forces (i.e. a “mysterious” slight downhill slope). We didn’t know it at the time but the alignment was way off, and after a few weeks the tires ended up being stripped to the steel. It seemed we couldn’t win with that car.

For five years now we have been taking the vehicle to the Hyundai dealership for servicing and not once have they found “issues” that required extensive billing and repairs. The servicing has been professional, courteous, and always completed on time. They have no problem shuttling us around or giving us a loaner. This is how loyal and repeat customers are made. Suck it, MacPhee.

I’d recommend the Santa Fe to anyone who wants an affordable, decent rig to truck around in. Sure, you won’t be able to waste money on premium fuel and outrageous parts prices like you would with a so-called “luxury car”. But it will get you from A to B safely and reliably. And after the servicing nightmares we faced with GM and their craptacular vehicle, its nice to have a dealership that actually sells a decent product and seems to take customer service seriously.

Everyone has certain regrets in life. One of mine is that I’ve never made the trek to The Amazing Meeting, a get-together for skeptics, rabblerousers, atheists, and debunkers, originally organized and hosted by James “The Amazing” Randi. Randi is 81 now and has intestinal cancer, so the sad reality is that he will likely be leaving us before we’re ready to let him go. But his legacy, the influence he has had on thousands, is undeniable and will last for decades to come.

During my first year of high school, I found his book Flim Flam in the school library. The book exposed all sorts of frauds, such as the cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young girls who had supposedly photographed fairies in their garden. Many people were fooled by the hoax, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame.

Randi also revealed the chicanery behind all sorts of paranormal claims, such as mindreaders and psychics, and showed how easy it is for someone with the right kind of skills to fool people into believing almost anything. Even scientists, who were supposedly too smart to be duped. But duped they were. Repeatedly, in fact.

Shortly after that, I saw a NOVA special where, among other things, he demonstrated the techniques astrologers and religious “faith healers” use to deceive an unwitting public (watch some segments on YouTube). Suddenly, I was looking very differently at all the things I had, to some degree, believed in. Information wasn’t as abundant in those days, and if you weren’t looking for it, chances are you wouldn’t come across it. It was easy to remain intellectually idle about the weird and wonderful things we saw in magazines, tabloids, and daytime talk shows.

But Randi taught me that things aren’t always as they seem. The mind and the eye can easily be fooled, and we must always approach any extraordinary claim with a demand for extraordinary evidence. It wasn’t too long before religion also found itself under a more scrutinous eye, and my feet were planted firmly on the road to secularism.

Whether it is seeing him face off against “psychics” on talk shows, reading his columns in Skeptic Magazine, or recognizing his influence on shows such as Penn & Teller’s excellent Bullshit, Randi has been educating and entertaining me and countless others for years.  He truly is a legend of the skeptic community and his works have left a lasting impact, one that will no doubt continue to reverberate for generations to come.

I was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Richard Twomey, a History professor at Saint Marys University in Halifax. He taught my American History class when I was a “student” there in the early 90’s. I say “student” because at the time I was just bouncing around from class to class with no real plan or purpose. I was no more a student than a rocket scientist.

To be honest, I did not enjoy his class, but that was more a reflection of my attitude than his. I was simply too young, too immature, and too stupid to take my studies seriously. To this day I can barely remember the names of the various professors and instructors I had during those few years of  university learning, but I’ve always remembered him. There is an honest reason for that, which I’ll get to in a minute. But there is also the “incident”…

In Professor Twomey’s class I would usually sit in the back and daydream, read books, or snicker with a friend who was also killing time and wasting money. I do recall that Professor Twomey was passionate about his subject, and he often lectured with a beaming smile, enjoying the times he was able to engage students in discussion. On this particular day I was sitting there reading the university paper, The Journal, and there was a cartoon on one of the pages. It was Spider-man’s head, surrounded by squiggly lines, with a caption that read: “Mary Jane must be near—my Spidey nuts are tingling.”

This struck me as being hilarious, and it kicked off a fit of giggles. I attempted to stifle them but in the effort I let out a snort that instantly turned heads in my direction and stopped Twomey in mid-sentence. There was silence for an eternal moment and then he resumed. But I could just not shake the hilarity of Spidey’s tingling testicles and though I was quiet, a huge shit-eating grin remained on my face. After a few moments, Twomey had had enough.

“I’m sorry,” he said, visibly irritated. “I can’t help but notice you are really enjoying yourself back there. Are we amusing you?” He said some other things, too, that time has made vague, but to my perception were slightly condescending and designed to humiliate me in front of everyone else.

Now you have to understand that by nature I am a very quiet and private person. I do not enjoy being the focus of attention, and feeling the stares of 30 plus students caused my face to redden and burn and a sweat to break out. I’m not a confrontational person, but for some reason, on this day, at this particular time, I drew my line in the sand.

“Would you rather I sit back here and grimace?” I asked, using my best smartass inflection.

I don’t recall what was said next. But I do remember being asked to leave, which I did. In my mind I was completely innocent. After all, it was my time and my money and aside from a brief snort (hey, maybe I needed to clear my sinuses), I was sitting there quietly. So what if I was smiling? Afterwards, I went to his office to complain about being called out and humiliated in front of the class. If there was a problem, I said, I would rather you deal with it one-to-one rather than embarass me. It was actually a cordial visit and a civil discussion. I saw his point of view, he saw mine. There was no further unpleasantness in his class.

But what I mostly remember Professor Twomey for, and for which I am most grateful, is introducing me to Thomas Paine. At the time I barely paid attention to the lectures on Paine’s intellectual activism, but some of it sank in. And years later, when my own curiosities were awakening and the seeds of humanism and atheism were taking root, I recalled some of his lectures on Paine and dug out some of the old books and reading material. I knew he had been very keen on Paine, but now I was finally allowing myself to learn why.

I can’t say that Professor Twomey changed my life or dispensed the nugget of wisdom that forever altered my perception of the world. But in addition to giving me one of the most prominent memories of my brief time at SMU, he also managed to squeeze something through the cracks despite my academic apathy. Though I wasn’t prepared to look upon it when he gave it to me, it sat there in the back of my mind and waited. What’s the old saying, “When the student is ready the teacher appears”? Well, sometimes the teacher appears before the student is ready.

Thank you Professor Twomey. Sorry that it took so long for me to finally try and be a worthy student. Rest in peace and my condolences to your friends and family.

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” – Thomas Paine

This blog has been dead for so long it was starting to stink up the joint. So I’ve brought it back to life. I’m hoping to update it frequently enough to keep the flies off, but as always, there are no guarantees.

Except death, taxes, and of course, my eternally sunny disposition.