Just have to say that thank God I have AAA.

Anyway, in my home town, I went shopping for B'Day cards for my great niece's birthday (Huntsville) yesterday. Well, my car died at the Big Lot parking lot so I had it towed to my trusted auto repairs shop. Anyway, Dad said I could take his Van, so I did (air conditioning is good; car has none. lol). Well, I was on my way back home when, just before I hit the Interstate (around 10 miles from my sister's home), my Dad's Van busted (both Van and Car appears to have had transmission failure; weird that both would experience this on the same day and I'm paranoid enough to believe that someone may have sabataged my car and my Dad's van). Well, AAA to the resque again and they coordinated a tow to my home town (they even paid for 100 miles of the 165 mile trip and it was only $4.00/mile afterwards). Now, I'm going to have to coax an old (1982 vintage) car for transportation and hopefully it won't also die on me. Sorry for my spiel, but now got that off my chest.

We own a 2001 Ford Taurus wagon and we have full coverage on it.You gotta love that free towing coverage, and we have used it twice already.Sorry to hear about your duel troubles Lyle.Hope everything works out.Transmissions are pretty expensive.

lylejk: so much bad luck in one day can make anyone a bit grumpy! i'm glad i don't have a car, they always break down when you most need them to work and then they cost money to repair.

I don't have a car now since it's in the shop AnMal; so is my Dad's Van. Right now, I'm driving the '81 Green Bomber (think it's a Buick Century but not sure). Man, I only drive this one once a month since it gets lousy gas mileage but now I have no choice until my car comes back from the shop (and I continue to go broke). Oh well; I guess I'm continueing to spiel. lol

Argh, lucky you have that 3rd car, but doesn't your triple a coverage have car rental included? Triple A has saved the day many times over the years for us.

It's not free rendtal though as I understood it 2-ton; why pay $25/day when I can drive nearly free.

Yeah but see, everything in Europe is in walking distance. Here you're pretty much done without a car to get around in.

Yeah; Euros have to understand how huge our landmass is. Where those in Europe can't even flatulate without someone else noticing, we, here in the U.S. (except the major metropolitan areas of course) have more then enough elbow room to enjoy life, but that does mean we have to have cars to get where we need to. Just a fact here in the states.

i hear you haven't visited rural sweden...

Don't they eat a lot of pickled herring in Swedan AnMal? lolol

My Dad had a Buick Century and I was sad to see it go. It had a 350 in it, with tons of power. Yeah, it sucked gas but back then, gas was cheap.

Sorry to hear about your problems and hopefully, you're just being paranoid. Do you keep your vehicles in a garage? If you have transmission fluid around that you use to top of your reserve, you could check to ensure it hasn't been contaminated in any way. Better yet, just get rid of it and grab a new bottle. It's cheap.

Never noticed any leaks Tux but don't keep any vehicles in a garage since Dad converted the garage into a man-cave many years ago (and now it's just a pack-rat's den; lol).

Yeah, here in Finland it's hard to keep penguins and ice bears from ripping each other in our shopping malls which are just around our refrigerators. And of course we are so tightly packed that we need to be careful not to collapse to a black hole.

Isn't it Finland that has all the volcanoes Kimpii? If so, I guess all the pressure from so many people in such a compact area creates the condition for volcano eruptions. lol

Oh yeah, those penguins and ice bears make such a racket that I forgot to mention volcanoes. Fire and brimstone from the sky all the time. Especially to densely populated areas (makes those penguins and ice bears very bloodthirsty to boot).

(Btw, sorry for your car fleet.)

Lyle, here's a Google map overlay (Earth Alerts) for you so you can keep up with your volcano's, earthquakes, etc. It covers a bunch of disasters but I'm not sure if they do raging polar bears & penguins?

Some visual aid that puts things into perspective. You can't walk this far in a lifetime.

I promise the Great lakes (well Lake Michigan anyway) won't try to drown Swedan EK22. lol

I was just trying to help with a little perspective. I'm not going to drown Sweden anytime soon. Unless I find the right image of Sweden and a matching wave and cram them all into gimp and well, you know...

ek22: my geography isn't what it should be, so you really had me fooled with that visual aid . then i started to think and realised it couldn't be right, so i looked it up: sweden is about twice the size (449 964 km²) of the full combined area of the great lakes (244,106 km2) - which is lucky for us, since it means sweden won't be drowned if someone chops it off and drops it in the great lakes.

i also looked up some population density maps:

- looks like many u.s. citizens have a shorter walk over to their neighbours than many swedes. i'm still looking for a comparative pickled herring density map to prove lylejk is perfectly right about us crazy swedes eating lots of pickled herring but i've had no luck so far. i do know i'm usually in a minority position when swedes gather around their smörgåsbord and i pass by the pickled herring section with a disdainful look, though!