Vent Time

I will try to make this short but that doesn't really matter now does it. This blog isn't read by many.

Today was a big day for me and a few more that 15,000 former and current retirees of Delphi Corporation. On Feb. 4th the corporation asked the bankruptcy court for permission to stop being responsible to the men and women that had worked for them with the understanding that we would receive our health insurance, dental and eye care along with some life insurance that diminished with time. We, the retirees paid into this on a monthly basis to help offset the costs. At no time were we given the opportunity to pay more on a monthly basis until 2/4/09, pay 100%. On Feb. 5, 2009 we received the docket from the law firms representing Delphi via Fed-Ex overnight. It said it all, Delphi would STOP offering any insurance to the salaried retirees on April 1, 2009. On Feb 6, 2009 we got another overnight package, this time from Delphi. It had more explanation as to why THEY HAD to do it. They owed their debtors. What, we aren't considered debtors. I worked for you (Delphi) and retired with a promise and you backed down. Maybe we should have formed a salaried union but we didn't. Maybe we should have said, keep your insurance, pay us more and we will find our own. At least we would have insurance during retirement and pre-existing conditions wouldn't make a difference.

I digress, when the Delphi package came it was like I said, a cheap explanation (pity me) as to why they had to do what they did. They also had made a decision to offer the same insurance you have but you would have to pay for it all. Wow, that helps some, those with pre-existing conditions but it also hurts most if not all. You plan your retirement around what you know and what you think you can expect. To go from $300 a month insurance payments in some cases to $1400 for the same insurance is extreme. There are pensions out there that might pay for that insurance but there will be absolutely nothing left. In fact, those individuals might owe money at the end of the month to survive.

Take a look at your own case right now with your current income. I know many retirees that are getting anywhere from $2400 to about $2800 a month. Lets say you make $4000 a month and you take out 6% state taxes, 20% federal taxes and the $1400 for insurance. That leaves you $1560 a month for utilities, house payment, house insurance food, limited entertainment, cloths etc. A car payment can drop it to $1200 or less left over. You should get the picture....the retirees are not going to make anymore money and they are going to have somewhat the same bills. And NO, they won't get $4000 a month.

Well, like I said, the news came today. The judge found in favor of Delphi. We are loosing our retirement insurance. I personally have three years to medicare. I live with a pacemaker and I am still considered a cancer patient because they keep finding spots that they remove, even though are mostly pre-cancerous thank goodness. All you have to do is see the cost of replacing the pacemaker. I am due one now and my best bet is somewhere over $50,000 since the last one was near $40,000 seven years ago. There are those that are younger than me and have pre-existing conditions. I feel sorry for them.


We did not run Delphi into the ground with bad decisions. We did not give out bad loans. We did not try to get rich in schemes that were unbelievable. We left our company in good stand, in some cases we were forced out by the bankruptcy, not ready to retire with more time left age wise.


It was said but it will never happen, lets take the health care away from all the retirees in the federal government. I'll bet that there would be a reform act then. I'll bet Judge Drain of New York would see a different light then. What gets my goat is that there is some sort of rule or law called 1114 that speaks of this action by Delphi and it is easy to read. It simply states that a corporation in bankruptcy cannot eliminate retirees health care without proper notification and time. We were given 12 days to write letters of protest to the judge. The retirees weren't a formed committee, we are scattered all over the place. We don't have a union that controls all this.


Now I don't care and that is really a bad thing to say. I don't care if and actually hope in someways that Delphi doesn't emerge from bankruptcy. There has been too many greedy hands in the pot from the day GM split them off. Yes, GM is as much at fault as anyone. I don't care if anyone buys a GM vehicle or not. They (GM) complain about their legacy payments, how about their legacy of WHO they are and where they came from. If GM was to start selling cars again do you think the American worker is going to go back to work. Over 60% of the parts supplied to GM come from Delphi. Most of which is in foreign countries now. My former plant in Kettering, OH is in several states...........of Mexico and China. One of these days we will be sending flags, shoes, clothing and toys to these countries. It will be our major exports to the countries with the major manufacturing industries. Cynical, yes, true, possibly. Support NAFTA and we will find out. Support Wal-Mart and we will find out. When you see Made in America in Wal-Mart you will know the tides have turned.

The only thing left is for Delphi to turn over my pension to the federal government, the PBGC, and in someways that might be a blessing. At least there would be no more worries as to what Delphi could take away or cheat me out of.

There are 15,200 retirees. Giving each retiree a cash buyout like they have the union workers over the years of lets say one million dollars would be $1,520,000,000. Big number right? They have spent this plus on lawyers since 2005. It's a wash because they say they are going save this and more by screwing the retiree. The only people in this whole mess that cannot win, that Delphi has always taken from to pay for something else, is the salaried worker.

Okay, I done. Well, not really but I am for now. It's never going to be over until.........

This is NOT the retirement I had tried to save for or plan for.

Done!

Well, two years after moving in I finally finished the 1/2 bath that was roughed in when the house was built. You would have to look back in this blog to see some of the things that went on and how I finished some of the work. The builder made mistakes that were major in how the room ended up. The offsets drove me nuts because they would not have been needed if the builder had done it correctly in the first place. I guess I should have caught it but being in the basement with limited lighting it is easy to overlook some items. This is one I didn't imagine would happen. In the future I know who will be doing the measuring.

The room turned out fine and no one will be the wiser. It actually looks like it was planned for things to fit like they do, for the sink to have its own wall space, the toilet to have its own space and then the place for the table and lamp. This area could be converted into a closet, however, we plan on finding a piece of furniture that will serve as storage for towels and or out of season items.

Bottom line now is I just added a lot of value to the house for under $300, I don't have to run upstairs anymore and it's done.

Another light from another source

My good 'ole buddy Gene, scroll down the side pictures here and look for the boob, I mean buddy, on the motorcycle. Yep that's him many years ago. The yellow Vette shown in various places in this blog is his. He even has the nerve to put a bull on it, the Lambo bull no less. Well he saw my headlight and had to send the one he wants in his garage. I'll have to admit, he has a Vette sitting in his and all I have is two airbrushed images of Porsches with a yellow Vette too. Parked in it is a Vibe (wow) and a '02 Miata SE. I am proud of it and it does bring back the old days of MG's, TR's and the like. I guess if I am going to keep the friendship I will have to post his rendition of a pretty headlight. Next I will be going to have coffee with him and trying to convince him he must change his ways. You be the judge, mine or his?


Corvette


Porsche

Something to write about

Well, it's been a week since the opening of the racing season and I am still just as excited now as I was before the Dayton 24 Hour Race started. Brumos is back. They were so close last year. All the hoop la with Jimmy Johnson, Danica Patrick and some for Jeff Gordon doesn't even begin to make the standing of the name of Donahue. I said Brumos is back but the real biggie is the name Donahue in the winners circle. I started watching and reading about Mark back in the late 60's. I have watched and waited for the day that son David would take his place in racing history and that happened on Jan. 25, 2009. I watched from the beginning to the end taping, of course, the parts that I needed for sleep. It was one of the best finishes I have ever seen and if anyone was watching and left before the end without a good reason then, just too bad for them.

I have listed in my profile that a good read is the book "The Unfair Advantage". I use to keep some of Mark's quotes posted over my desk for various reasons of encouragement or motivation. Now, I think I will revisit the book, not for the work needs as I'm now retired but more for the enjoyment and life in general.

We can talk about the Unser's, Petty's, and Andretti's, these are all great race families but the second and in some cases third generations didn't have to get to their level without the help of their fathers. David did and in a very fine way.

One last comment is that you don't have to always turn left to race. What with all the gossip and turmoil in NASCAR, the new IRL/CART and F1 the ALMS and Grand AM series might be the only place to get good racing without someone trying to screw with the points systems.

Enjoy the pics below.

This is a light

Now this is a head light. Clean and somewhat compact unlike so many today that seem to try to hide the bumper or quarter panel they are attached to.

I have posted for awhile.....weather related blahs I guess. Can hardly wait until I can go out and sweat over both of my vehicles and detail them. One really needs it and one needs it because I say so, doesn't see much bad weather, only 18,500 miles and it is 8 years old this May.

Wish I had more than just the headlight above.....in my garage....and not airbrushed on the walls.

Not Yet

Well, I guess you could say I lied. I haven't started anything yet in the cupboard area. My last entry was right before Christmas and as always, there are things to do.

Another very important point that I failed to mention is that on the Friday morning before Christmas, about 2 in the morning, three of us got what appears to be a case of food poisoning. We had gone with a niece on Wednesday to assist in the purchase of a new TV. We went to her first choice (price drove us there) for her purchase and she saw why I kept saying "not a good idea". She tried two sales associates [get the hint of the location] and neither one could answer her questions or even find the remotes so she could check some things out. We made the decision to leave and to go to a place that specializes in the product she wanted. "How may we help you" couldn't do anything for her. Well, we left and decided to eat first. I made a choice on quick service and price. It was Mexican and that 's all I will say. We got seated quickly but waited on slowly. Plenty of servers standing around because we were ahead of the rush. When we did get our food, the niece and the wife said their foods were either tasting funny or not hot enough. I liked my food. Remember this is Wed. evening.

About 3 AM my wife disturbed me. She told me she had been up since 1 or 2. I got up to see if I could do anything for her and then went to the family room so I wouldn't disturb her if she got comfortable. It only took about a half hr. to hit me. Around 8 or so the niece called and said she wasn't' going to work, she wanted us to be sure not to get what she had......too late. We had not seen her for days before we got sick. The fact that we all got it within a couple of hours and that we had eaten at the same place a day and a half before just said food poisoning. We called the county health office and they took all of our individual statements and agreed that it sounded like the food was the issue. They are doing an investigation. I'm not, for some dumb reason, looking for restitution but there is a waiter or cook that needs to go home, south of the boarder.

To show someone how bad it was, we almost didn't have Christmas dinner because food made us sick and I didn't take one picture...........now that is unheard of. Just ask anyone in the family. They'll tell you.

I can safely say that it probably won't be for another week or so before I get to it. You know, when you're retired you never have time to do things. You even wonder how you got things done before.

Back soon, I hope.

Sup?

Wow, it has been a while since I have posted anything. Nov. 18th. I guess that since the official crash of the economy took place and I vented in my last post that there hasn't really been too much happening. After all, winter has arrived and the cold has been just that, cold! We've gone through Thanksgiving, that was good as usual. The economy still sucks. Congress has made a fool out of themselves again. This time they tried to cover it up by challenging the car companies while ignoring the outcries of what went wrong and where did the money go for the banking institutions. I will post more on this as I do have opinions, biased in some ways and just plain American in others. Remember, I am a car guy, all cars, but I do have feelings, American.

Now, on to more important issues. I do have a new project that I am going to take on. I will have pictures of the progression. It is a cabinet remodel, just one, but important. It starts out like this.

After we moved in and were here for a bit the wife kept complaining about a few things in the kitchen. One was a switch to the disposal. It was located six feet to the right of the sink while a foot on either side of the sink was receptacle. This I took care of by replacing the one on the left with a combo switch/receptacle setup. The switch parts flips sideways instead of up and down. I replaced the switch that to the disposal with a receptacle. Cut back all wiring and marked it for new owners in the future and ran a new cable to the disposal.

Next issue was the complaint that the dishwasher was too far from the sink. There is a bend in the counter top when moving from the sink to the right. Then there is a narrow cabinet for cookie sheets and then the dishwasher and then a lazy-susan corner cabinet. I looked at pictures I had taken of the model home so that we could try to make some decorating plans etc. When I went back and looked at them I discovered that the dishwasher and cookie sheet cabinet were reversed in our home. When our ten month inspection and repair came along I asked the contractor if the cabinet installer could make changes or if they had to go by a print or layout. He said layout. I pointed the issue out and he said he would move everything around. After this was done he said he was not satisfied with the number of holes in the cabinet and that he would order a new one and replace it. It did have two large holes in the back down low for the water and drain lines to go through. There was also extra holes where they ran some screws in to mount it....they weren't needed. The cabinet arrived and was replaced. When the guy left I noticed a split face on one side. I called them back real quick and he returned, took a look at his boo boo and said he would order a new on. The third cabinet comes and gets installed. This whole time the contractor doesn't want the old cabinets or doors. I now have, what I consider, two perfectly good cabinets that I am eventually going to use in my workshop.

Now to the point of the project..............................finally. I have one cabinet up on a bench and plan on using it as a template to make everything so that the cabinet in the kitchen can be used (1) easier (2) kept more neatly and (3) be more user friendly, hence ergonomically. I am going to build a slide out bottom with a divider so that the small hot divots, cutting boards and racks can be separated from the larger cookie sheets, racks and cutting boards. I will have pictures as I go as usual. Hopefully I will have this started shortly after the first of the year. Gotta celebrate Christmas and 40 years of marriage first. Also need to talk the wife into letting me take the table saw into the basement for the winter. Too cold in the garage.