It went down a little more, to $25.60, but not enough to buy more (I decided I didn't want any more anyway). Yesterday it sprang back to life very quickly, up 15%. This morning it opened with another big gain. My newest shares had a target sell price of $35.50, so I entered an order to sell at that price. At the time the shares were selling in the high 34's, so it wasn't a lock that the limit would be met and the order would be executed. I checked back about an hour later anyway. I noticed I had too many shares and that my order had gone through at only $34.66. In fact, what I had done earlier was to enter a buy order at $35.50 which had executed immediately and instead of dumping some of this stuff at a better price than 2 days ago, I had just bought my 4th batch. Don't worry, it gets worse.

By this time, calmer heads had prevailed and the stock was on its way down. I quickly calculated the price I would need to sell the shares just to break even (and pay for the $7 commission twice): $35.30. So I put in a sell order at that price, but by this time the shares were down to $33. It gets worse. Around 11 AM, Suntrust was actually below yesterday's closing price of $31.83. Now that mess up was costing me $76. I hung tough, hoping for the best.

It got better. For some reason it was off to the races again and the stock climbed up to 34 again before closing at $34.58. I would have sold at that price and taken the small loss but the network crashed at about 3:30 and I wasn't up and running again until about 4:30, after the market closed. So I never sold the shares, but I hope that I can tomorrow. There were some earnings reports that didn't meet analyst expectations, so tomorrow could be rough, plus with the stock up over 20% in two days, the chances of it going down tomorrow are pretty high.

The lesson here is to be careful. I put some blame on the broker, Scottrade, and their website since it seems like they could warn you that you are entering a limit order that will execute immediately, but they can't make the system idiot-proof either. And I was an idiot today. Also I have to question myself for buying Suntrust again. I think part of it was a desire to buy the stock back for less than I had sold it for and really I should have been happy sitting it out.

AdSense remained pretty anemic at less than $15 per month. Even though I deleted all of their ads off of the iPod battery pages in lieu of the new ads, revenue in June was still up a little bit from Dejumbler and iPod-Sony ads alone, perhaps because the higher page rank boosted the price of those ads.

We spent about a week packing stuff up and throwing away everything we could. I personally probably threw away about 8 garbage cans of paper. We packed everything into crates stacked 4 high and I probably had 16 crates of stuff. The new desks are bigger, but the storage space is definitely less. It's been a challenge getting moved in. I volunteered to go over this past weekend to help facilitate the move and was there from about 10:30 to 5 Saturday.

Nicole

Նիկոլ

To create these letters on the web you have to know the 4-digit unicode number of each letter. Nicole's letters are: 1350, 1387, 1391, 1400, 1388. Each number has to start with an ampersand and pound and then end with a semicolon. It helps if you increase the size of the font.

Ted (1359-1383-1380)

Տէդ

To do the same thing in Word 2007, you have to use the hexadecimal version of the number. You just type it in, then you highlight the 4 letters and press ALT+X. The hex codes for Nicole are 0546-056B-056F-0578-056C. For Ted it is 054F-0567-0564. In previous versions of Word I was able to hold down ALT and then type in the 4-digit decimal number. When I let go of ALT the character appeared. Using Character Map is practically useless for this exercise.

It was helpful to refer to this page which lists all of the letters and codes as well as this page which includes the sounds each letter makes.

Now I need the word for "uncle."

It seems to be an American painted lady, Vanessa virginiensis, in the family of brushfooted butterflies. It looks very different on top than on the underside of its wings which you see here.

I liked the picture so much that I cropped it and added it to my banner pictures at the top of the page. The pattern of the red-tipped flower spines is pretty dramatic up close along with the butterfly's pattern.

This article talked about changing the sensitivity of the loops, but it also pointed out that the best chance you have of being detected is to be right on top of the wire, whereas I guess I believed you should be in the center of the loop itself. Being in the center is actually one of the worst spots because it puts you the maximum distance from both sides of the wire loop.

Some signals use some kind of radar on the signal head itself that is pointed at the lane and therefore "sees" traffic waiting. The advantage there is that when you repave (every 5-10 years) you don't have to reinstall loops that typically get torn up or buried in a paving opeartion. I think those would be better at detecting motorcycles and bicycles too.

. . . and into the recycling bin it goes!

So I was antsy as I watched the progress of the second tank. When the tank was half empty I had gone less than 150 miles. Some fuel gauges are off. As I got to a quarter tank and with gas prices expected to spike soon, I went ahead and filled up. With 197 miles on the trip odometer, I was hoping for about 7 gallons of gas to fill the tank. But soon it reached 8 gallons (down to 25 mpg) and then didn't stop until 8.8. I entered the numbers into my calculator right away and was disgusted: 22 miles per gallon.

Obviously from my posts on car shopping, mileage was very important to me. Based on user comments on internet forums, I was expecting 28 mpg and hoping to get 30 (the number Consumer Reports gave as the overall expected mileage), well above the EPA city estimate of 24. 22 is simply not acceptable (20% less than the 28 I expected), but I'm pretty much stuck with the car.

I think I will take it in for service and see if the dealership can find something wrong with it. Maybe one of the tires isn't spinning or the brakes are stuck or they left the oil out.

I have no idea who this person or this number is, so I can only assume it is some kind of spam. There may be a chance that it is not since it is a local number. I don't know what Verizon charges for a text message (used to be 10 cents, now may be 25), but this spam has cost me (actually Jeb) from 40 cents to a dollar already.

Jeb said no question I should get a Canon. Consumer Reports seemed to rank the Canon a little higher, but Panasonic's repair history was better. The Panasonic is a little more compact and weighs a couple of ounces less than the Canon (9 oz. vs. 11). The Panasonic looks better too and I was leaning that way. Finally today I got the latest Consumer Reports which ranked the Canon higher than the previous (but very similar) version of the Panasonic. They also liked a Sony, but the Sony uses Sony memory sticks instead of SD cards, which was a deal breaker for me. The deciding factor was probably image quality and the Canon had the edge, getting a half full circle from Consumer Reports while the Panasonic got a neutral circle (one increment lower). Also, one thing I thought would be good about the Canon was it uses 2 AA batteries while the Panasonic uses a unique internal battery. But people were saying the battery life of the Canon was very short and the Panasonic was amazing. Consumer Reports, however, said they could take hundreds of pictures with 2 AA batteries, so that seems to be a wash (though I bet CR used some kind of super AA batteries that I am too cheap to buy).

So tonight I went ahead and ordered the Canon. It comes in silver or black and I got black.

I will keep iGirder, but maybe only as my personal homepage while Speedfactory becomes the more technical site.

One interesting thing I found out was that Mazda of Roswell will automatically give you invoice price if you are a USAA member. It is part of the S Plan, which is normally for families of Mazda employees. I got mine for a little below invoice, so it wouldn't have helped me to know that earlier.

The internet is full of people who are insane about taking care of their cars. There are all kinds of different products out there, but one new thing to me was the idea of claying a car. It consists of applying some kind of liquid to the car and then rubbing clay on it. The clay isn't abrasive, but picks up specs of dirt that give a rough finish. It only picks up things that stick above the surface, so it isn't intended to fix scratches. It seemed pretty extreme, but as I read about it, it started to intrigue me. There are How-To clay videos about how to do it on You Tube. Meguiar's, a reputable "over the counter" car wax maker (as opposed to online only), sells a Smooth Surface Clay Kit that includes two blocks of clay (like modeling clay), the liquid, a buffing towel (it's all microfiber these days, no chamois), and some cleaner wax. I wound up visiting AutoZone last night and picked up a kit for $18.

Anyway, the clay doesn't really do anything except give you a smooth surface for you to apply wax. It offers no protection in itself. So you still have to find a wax (not a polish which technically is abrasive and removes material). The one that fanatical people on the internet use is called Zaino. It is a process consisting of six different bottles of stuff and an entire kit costs $84. But it leaves an amazing shine that is more durable than a conventional wax (a regular carnuba wax only lasts a couple of months tops; the synthetics last 3-6 months). The Zaino process takes all day and is kind of expensive and is only available online or through distributors. People posting messages at autopia.com like to make fun of Turtle Wax and other readily available and inexpensive products and then say "there are other products that are better and not that expensive." But they don't tell you the name of those products. Then they might point out that other discussion threads go into the details. Eventually I found out about Duragloss products.

The first thing I found out about is a synthetic coating that gives the car a wet and shiny look. That product is Duragloss AquaWax. It's about $8. They also make a more conventional wax that you should apply first called Total Performance Polish 105, $10, (not actually a polish). But for best results they recommend another product called Polish Bonding Agent 601, $7.50. This is some kind of wax which chemically bonds the 105 to the finish of the car and then hardens like an epoxy. I guess eventually it wears off without affecting the paint. Some people swear by that system, though it doesn't give the shine of Zaino. They say it is more durable than anything Meguiar's makes (apparently Meguiar's is geared towards people who wax their cars monthly). Duragloss is not available at AutoZone or most other chains, but it is available at CarQuest. There are a few stores in Atlanta, so that's what I plan to use.

Not wanting to waste any time and having already taken the morning off to take the dogs to the vet, I went to visit Roswell Mazda today. They did not have any manual transmission cars because they said with Atlanta traffic most people seem to want automatics (I think cell phone usage in cars is playing a part too). There was nothing particularly great about the car. It was very similar to my Civic but with some nice touches. For instance, it has an aux input for the car stereo so you can hook up your iPod. Rather than have a jack on the front with wires hanging out, the jack is in the console along with a power port. So the iPod can sit in the console with no wires showing. If you want to have the iPod out in the car, there is a wire passthrough into the console. Also the console has a top compartment where you can put an iPod if you don't want to put it in with whatever other junk is in the console. The glove compartment will hold a laptop computer. It has air bags all over the place: front, side, and side curtain. It comes with some nice doo dads like alloy wheels, fog lights, cruise control, floor mats, power windows, sunroof, mirrors, etc. It's pretty much loaded.

The only problem was getting the car I wanted. The 3 comes in a 5-door hatchback and a souped up hatchback called the Speed3 shaped like small station wagons and not what I wanted. The sedan comes in an i and s version as well as touring and sport. The s version has a bigger engine, goes faster, gets worse mileage, and costs $2,000 more. The sport model seems to be stripped of most options. To further complicate matters, they came out with a newer version in the middle of their 2008 year, called a "value" edition because they put all the options on and charge more money. This model is called the Mazda3 i Touring Value 4-Door. Of course there are automatic transmissions and manual ones. The only option I wanted was the combined moonroof and 6-cd stereo upgrade which is $890. I didn't think I was picky on colors, willing to go with silver or gray. Originally I also wanted a bright blue, but that one comes with a tan interior that I think would show too much Katie and Austin fur. Silver and gray both come with dark interiors. The gray is called Metropolitan Gray and is a charcoal gray with blue in it. The dealer said it was very similar to a gunmetal gray they offered a few years ago. The only car like that in the southeast was at a dealer in Raleigh. They said that was too far for them to go without charging me additional transportation. I said I would fly to Raleigh and pick it up (on the way home Clark Howard was talking about a $39 deal AirTran is having to Raleigh), but they said then I would have to get the sale from the dealer in Raleigh and it would probably cost me more (they just do a one-for-one trade when they get a car from another dealer, so very little money changes hands). They looked some more and found another gray car in Nashville but it had a spoiler on the back which added $325 to the price. It's a pretty dinky spoiler (not the bigger wing spoiler they also offer, it is called a lip spoiler and is just a piece of molding that fits on the top of the trunk). I asked if they could just order the car I wanted and they said that since the cars are made in Japan that it would take 3-4 months. So I'm buying the spoiler.

They're supposed to get it as early as this weekend, but probably Monday. They were also interested in my car, saying 1998 Civics are very easy for them to sell right now with students looking for cars. The good thing about a trade-in, if their offer is what I want, is that they apply the cost of the trade-in to the price I am paying, which reduces sales tax on the new car (I think). Jeb has also expressed interest, so we'll see.

For completeness, here's a table of the cars I was looking at with the Mazda3, including EPA city mileage and gas costs for 100,000 miles at $3.80 per gallon:

Car	Price	Mileage	100k Gas
Toyota Prius	$26,126	48 mpg	$7,917
Civic Hybrid	$24,473	40 mpg	$9,500
Civic EX	$19,532	26 mpg	$14,615
Civic LX	$17,816	26 mpg	$14,615
Mazda3	$18,105	24 mpg	$15,833

Honestly, I think the car will get better mileage than 24 mpg, even mostly in the city. If I use EPA's higher numbers for the hybrids and Consumer Reports' higher numbers for the non-hybrids, the chart looks like this:

Car	Price	Mileage	100k Gas
Toyota Prius	$26,126	48 mpg	$7,917
Civic Hybrid	$24,473	40 mpg	$9,500
Civic EX	$19,532	31 mpg	$12,258
Civic LX	$17,816	31 mpg	$12,258
Mazda3	$18,105	30 mpg	$12,667

Here's another one taken May 23, getting feathers:

By May 29, the nest was empty but the parents were still hanging around and protective. I found a fledgling under the tree hidden in the ivy: