Second hand cars....

I usually drive second cars. Large luxury sedans are my favorite. However, the term luxury is kind of stupid because all cars can come with options that used to be "premium". Instead ill just say that I prefer large sedans with engines over 3liters displacement. I should say that I am very excited about electric cars. Ev's are the future.

But back on the thing with second-hand cars...my have things changed. For 3-5 thousand dollars in Korea and America, you can get some really nice options to choose from. Suv's, trucks, minivans and so on.

Browsing bobedream which is a large South Korean second-hand car website you can see what I mean. Very nice cards that just 4 years ago were nearly 10k USD, are now 3k. The main reason? Actually, there are more than just one reason. It is always good to have an experienced car mechanic as a friend. I told my friend I wanted to buy an Equus. He said it was a good choice to just avoid the v8 engines from a certain year. They need repeated rebuilds of the engine. When I buy a second-hand car the number one thing I am prepared to have rebuilt is the transmission. When buying the car I look very carefully for oil, coolant, and transmission leaks. Knowing that certain models need gaskets replaced or have certain issues helps when choosing a car.

20 years ago the cars you could buy were basically trash. After 5 years you would have to junk them. Now, these cars if lightly driven as many Korean cars tend to be (unless it was a taxi or rental car) modern cars can last a very long time. They can also "look modern" for quite some time as well.

It is so funny when I hear people complain about mileage when they work 2-3 kms from home at the most. Many companies even provide transportation for employees.

Today people can really drive what they "want" to drive rather than what they "can only afford".
I still say second-hand cars are the best due to cars depreciating in value very very rapidly.

A friend of mine has 2 cars a small EV, and another gasoline one. A perfect example of the options that are available today.

/tata

When it pours...

On a personal note, my family's life has been quite stable. We are back to work normally since last week. However, the world especially Europe and the United States has seen a HUGE jump in the number of infected people. My friend and I talked about this at length. We both came to the same conclusion, it would rip through the States.

Now it is.

People need to take heed that in a country like America people's movements are not going to be tracked as well as they have in Korea. My friend and boss Paul feels strongly in that the wearing of masks and washing of hand,  this is what prevented the spread of infection in Korea. I disagree. Korea has done something that they did on a smaller scale during the MERS outbreak. They tracked citizens very very closely. Shut down their social networks and quarantined them. Some simply stayed home. The main thing...people listened to the government! They followed orders..mostly. A few people did get through but they were tracked down very quickly. Masks make people feel more secure. But against virus particles they are useless. Especially when the virus can survive in droplet form for so long. You would need to wear a n95 mask AS well as a face shield.

I know that if there is one sick child it will spread quickly but it will be contained. America needed to to start tracking the first patients right away. Now it is too late.

ok gotta class!

Stay safe!

/tata

Locked in for one more year!

It has been quite a while since I have updated this blog. This update is going to be a doozy. I promised a friend last year that I would stay in Korea for one more year. But due to the corona virus outbreak it looks like even if I wanted to leave for India this year...I'm locked down! An outbreak like this immunologically speaking means it will be around for a long time, as we do not have a vaccine, and it takes nearly a year or more to one develop the vaccine then more time is needed for distribution of said vaccine. This is all well good provided that the damned thing does not mutate. So we are looking at a virus that kills 15% of persons aged 60 and up. It is lethal because we have no immunity to this. I was waiting for something like this to happen. Actually, years ago when I studied microbiology, immunology, and cellular biology; I wondered what if we have a "Spanish influenza moment". Actually, influenza outbreak did not start in Spain. Spain had a free press that actually reported on the real effects of the pandemic at that time. Other nations covered it up until it was too late.

So here we are. In the bible God told man to spread out and become many. We have become many, but we have not "spread out". Kind of makes sense seeing the numerous outbreaks we have seen all over the world year in and year out. As of writing this the virus has infected FAR MORE than the 200000 cases that have been "recorded". The nations of the world today are doing the same thing that was done back in 1918 to the early 1920's. They are falsifying reports, under reporting, or filing patients under other illnesses to protect their markets.

The United States has done a terrible job with this outbreak. First telling Americans that they have to pay 1200-1500 dollars to get tested. Right away a large portion of the population will not report to hospital just to get hit with another bill.

Hong Kong gave each citizen 1200 dollars to spur the local economy. Seems kind of counter productive. A family suddenly finds that they have over 5000 bucks to spend...should they go shopping or should they stay at home. LOL

Anyways we are locked in for actually it little over a year because of this outbreak. I am very worried as we have older members in our families. Italy is especially hard hit at this time.

Oh I also lost 3 weeks of work due to this. Staying at home and basically doing nothing work related...is ok in the short term. Long term....it is tough.

/tata