Art, Automotive, Business, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

The Cosmic Kitty

30 Comments

You probably never thought that you wake up to Verily Sherrilee recommending a car shop. Well, I guess recommend is a strong word.  Here’s the deal.

Last month my BFF and I went to a concert downtown (same night as *45s rally but luckily no consequences from that). As we were parking the car in the underground ramp, I saw this crazy decorated car.  It looked like one of those “art cars” that you see at the state fair.   I know I wouldn’t want to drive this around all the time (heck, I can’t even bring myself to put a bumper sticker on my car) but I thought it might be fun for a bit so I took a couple of quick pictures.

As we were heading back to the car after the concert, there was a woman unlocking it so I stopped to talk. I told her that I loved the car and hoped she didn’t mind if I had taken a couple of photos.  She said not a problem because it wasn’t her car.  It was a loaner car from the garage where her car was getting repaired.

Turbo Tim’s Anything Automotive was easy to find online and they are different than most other garages. They have photos of all their employees (mostly younger than you would expect) online, have a nice-looking garage cat, are involved in a lot of giving back to the community and then there are the art cars.  Looks like there are at least two: Cosmic Kitty and another sedan with oceanscape scenery.

They look intriguing to me so in the future, I might have to schlep farther north for car repair to see if I can get the Cosmic Kitty on loan!

Who do you trust to fix YOUR stuff?

30 thoughts on “The Cosmic Kitty”

  1. We have a wonderful plumber named Dale, a good electrician nephew/uncle duo, and a good veterinarian who fixes our animals. There used to be a fixit shop in town, but he retired. We had to take a lamp to Bismarck for repair, and it took three months to fix it, but now it is fixed and works great. We are expecting the plumber friday to fix a leaky shower head. I know that many Baboons do their own repairs. If I had the time I could fix more myself, but I don’t need the stress. Husband has very little mechanical aptitude, so it would be up to me. I would rather hire a professional.

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        1. That makes it sound like products are intentionally designed to fail. I don’t buy that. It seems more likely that products are being built to sell at low prices, meaning it is simply too expensive to fix them. That might sound like the same thing, but I don’t believe that. One reason we don’t fix things like we used to is the cost of a new products keeps coming down. My computer monitor cost $700 a decade ago; a replacement might sell for $120 now. That’s not all good or all bad.

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        2. What happens, especially with electronics, is that they become obsolete before they stop working. There’s little incentive to design products to have a long life. Instead, they are designed to be inexpensive and to last as long as they remain capable in an ever-changing technology.

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        3. you gotta pay $50 an hour for a 35 dollar appliance to be reapired. i saw a st paul community school flyer advertising to teach deisel technicians with a picture of a 20 somethong gitl with an i pad saying all the mechanics are retiring. now is your chance. pretty cool

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    2. leaky shower head is a washer or silicone tape or soap
      lamp… what could it be there is a cord that hooks up to a thing the bulb screws into with maybe an on off switch in the middle. you tube teaches the easy stuff and the hard stuff. type in.. how do you fix a … showerhead, lamp. brain tumor… whatever

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  2. I used to have a handyman, Ed, who would take on any sort of project. He was ADHD, or so he told me, and some of his work was imperfect or worse. I stuck with Ed because he was sincere and inexpensive, plus he needed money because his wife had expensive health issues. Ed had a compulsion to explain things to me, as if I cared or understood, and it amused me to go through the ritual of sharing before he could actually start a project. He wasn’t quick or polished or reliable, but he was Ed.

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    1. Rise and Fixit, Baboons,

      I tried to like this post today, because I really like it. For awhile on this computer WP let me like things, and now I am back on its naughty list, I guess. The only device on which I can like a post is my iPod which is the device I am least likely to be using to do this. WP needs repair. When I need computer repair or advice, I text my so. He has been kind and generous with his knowledge, and the price is right. He says programs like WP often are problematic because they never really get programmed correctly and the patches are also flawed.

      Did I mention that I really like this post and the idea that someone would decorate a loaner car like this, then use it for marketing. I think this is creative.

      I chose a surgeon to fix my knee who I researched, and who had replaced my friend’s knee successfully. After a year of recovery and a minor surgery to remove scar tissue, she has full use of her knee. She can even kneel on it. Knee replacements can be finicky and difficult (and, yes, I have found it difficult) so I wanted someone with a history of success to restore my mobility. So far, so good. That said, it is miserable.

      The electrician we used was a neighbor who retired and moved to Atlanta near their daughter. We have not needed another electrician since he moved. He was difficult to communicate with, but once on the job, he replaced much of our flawed aluminum wiring. The plumber, next door to him has also retired, but he still lives here. Last year when we had to have a gas line installed for a gas stove, we hired the former Uptown Plumbing. That was a mistake. It took four trips and city inspections for them to get it correct. While in the house they set a tank of some chemical on my area rug and stained it. They had to clean the rug, So they are a company I will not do business with again.

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    2. ive got ed the repairman over by your old place steve. he is a neighborhood activist on his answering machine. he likes to talk about his work instead of doing it. i have had to kick him int he ass three times on three needs. he has explainations just no results. ive done it myself 2 of three and on the one he did do under duress he took a shortcut that will require me to redo it later. i can handle issues as long as it gets done.

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  3. I was talking to our initial contact folks at my agency yesterday. They are the ones who get the initial referrals for therapy and triage and make initial appointments. They told me that they are getting up to 5 referrals a day for my therapy and evaluation services from our local doctors for their child patients. We just had parent-teacher conferences, so I know that is the reason. I don’t like this situation, as I can’t be the go to child fixer in this region. It is a dilemma. I am training colleagues as fast as I can to pick up as many cases as possible.

    Daughter was quite upset on Tuesday, as the grandfather of some of the children murdered in Mexico lives here, and was one of her regular customers at the local coffee shop she worked at, and she worked with one of the children’s aunts at the same place. My irrational fear is that they will send the surviving children here to live with family and they will need therapy services and how on earth will we help them.

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  4. I used to do some of my own car maintenance and repair when cars were simpler and I was younger, but I never enjoyed it and it’s the one kind of repair work I’ve been happy to leave to someone else. My car guy is one I originally found through the Car Talk website. He’s maintained our various cars for about 15 years. He’s honest, does good reliable work and has a small fleet of (distinctly not cute) loaner cars.

    Just about everything else around the house I fix or modify myself.

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    1. I also used to do a few small things on the car including change the oil and air filter. But now there’s just too many computer parts and things that I don’t understand and can’t get too. Even though window shield wipers are complicated these days and I also haven’t changed any lightbulbs on this car either.

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  5. My motto is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If it is broken, depending on what it is, ask husband to fix, toss it out, or take it to, or call, a repair professional.

    Husband is a fearless fixer of things that are broken and is typically pretty good at it. Unfortunately, his idea of what needs fixing doesn’t always coincide with what I think needs fixing. After forty years of marriage, that’s not likely to change. Tonight we have two large pieces of some material that I’m not sure what is, sitting in our dining room. Apparently he has spotted something that he intends to fix, and I’m just staying out of the way. Whatever it is, I hope it’s not a messy proposition, our house was just cleaned today.

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  8. i take my car to kenny. i have currently 6 cars with 200,000 plus on each
    kenny understands. i tae him my blown up engines if they can be replaced cheaper than a new car. soter is my mechanic who comes to my house to help with stuff when its over my head. i often dont finrd out its over my head till its all over the garge floor in pieces. soter will fix it for cheap and we have a nice talk and he teaches me as we go but he cant to big stuff, wont do electronics and sometimes leads me astray. i had a bad shimmy in my 4 wheel drive when it would get up to 60. i replaced everything ‘ 30 here 50 ther 100 there and it ended up being a piece i need to put on my to buy list now that winter is coming. it turned out to be the transaxel that turns it from 2 wheel drive to 4 wheel drive. the axel will be cheaper than the u joints i replaced.
    kenny is bulletproof but buried with people who pay more than i do. i went over to ask abi=out a fix this afternoon and he showed my how on one car and made an appointment to look at another next week
    steve i owe you 100 and will get it to you asap. suburu here i come sooner or later.

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  10. my 11/11 will be special this year with a fixer who will weld a couple of vertabrea together for me and take bone spurs off the other side of my spinal cord. i trust dr smith. with a combo like smith and jones what could go wrong.
    i always remember veterans day. used to be armasist day for ww1 guys but some ungrateful patriot thought it would be better to celebrate all military guys at once and get it over with than have too many holidays. you know there are too many wars to be having government holidays for each one. we might have to stop getting into them for fear of another holiday to celebrate the next batch of dead heroes. kurt vonneguts birthday and double lucky number. and day i get my feeling back in my hands and feet if all goes right. pinched nerve be fixed one way or another. we’ll try this one first.
    organ recital as my sister calls it. old farts talking operations medications and screwed up body parts.

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