jonathanwatmough.com

Start of another day. Had a late night yesterday, working on a Corolla XRS deal. As always, driving the XRS rocks, plenty of power, smooth shifting, good ride, revvy engine. And the one we have available priced well under $19k !!!
I have a bunch of customer post-sales stuff to do today, including dealing with a paint scratch (Corolla), a minor trim problem (Avalon), and setting up a Toyota-Used certification for a already sold pre-owned car (Corolla again). Hopefully all this legwork will net a few referrals from happy customers.
After a slow (stalled) start to the month, I think it’s picking up a bit. I’m certainly glad to have sold a car on Saturday (unusual), and one on Monday (also unusual). Also, I think I have sold at least one of most of our lineup, with Tundra, MR2 being the ones I haven’t done yet.
If you’re in Houston, and you’d like to work with a salesman who’ll listen to you, and really do his best to help match you up with the right car, give me a call on (832) 244 2444. (New Toyotas, or pre-owned everything ;-) )

Spent a bunch of time last night editing down the John Peel show from last Thursday, into just the music. I love my MD player/recorder. Gonna go grab a mains adapter for it from CompUSA , so I can save some money on batteries.
The last few days have been crappy in the world of car sales. Only sold 2 1/2 cars so far this month. All three customers were be-backs, so I haven’t had a fresh customer all month. That is pretty sad and unusual. The weather has been totally brutally hot, which doesn’t exactly help. I’ve done a load of prospecting, but not much seems to be working.
Maybe I can sell cars to all the eHarmony potential dates I’ve been getting. I think I’ll suspend my eHarmony membership, as 10 matches a day, combined with eHarmonys horribly convoluted process of communicating is just a total pain in the ass, unless you have the 4 hours a day that is probably required to keep up with it. I may write some more about my experiences with eHarmony, hahah, if something actually useful happens.
On my day off today, but I will be working later. Can’t take a full day off with where I am on the sales lists :-((. I will sure try and enjoy my morning off though.

Went out to dinner at the Barnaby’s on West Gray with my friend Laura last night, and she brought the Sony MZ-R700 minidisc recorder I gave her ages ago, as she doesn’t need it anymore.
I managed to print out the manual last night, and I’ve been using the MD to record the John Peel [RealAudio: feed] show from a RealAudio feed on the UKs BBC Radio 1. The MD recorder is a MZ-R700. Features include :

• Line in / Mic in / Optical in
• Easy play/review
• Manual record level control
• Track naming
• Track editing and deletion
• Long play (LP2) recording (160 min)

Took me a few minutes to learn how the menu system works, but when recording from a potentially flaky source (like RealAudio feeds) the easy reverse play/review feature really helps to go back and be able to recue up at the right spot for recording. This type of thing is a nightmare with cassette, which is how I used to do this.
Feed quality on RealAudio is ranging from about 11KBps - 32 KBps which not too much breaking up, which is pretty good for a dialup connection. But I think I need DSL !!!!

Long, busy day ahead !! 9:30am - 9pm shift. And Saturday is always busy.
I sold a minivan yesterday to some great people. My month is getting a bit better, after a very very slow start. I’m at 2 1/2 cars in 4 days (Tue-Fri), so I am really going to try and keep it up today.
Hopefully, my friend from College Station will call me and I’ll get to go out tonight or tomorrow. I haven’t been dating since I got dumped for starting this job :-((

Man, it’s funny when you can’t sleep and have some web-surfing time … Do NOT click this Mormon guide to Self-Control, unless you are over 18, and you can take a joke. The page is about self-control and avoiding ‘onanism’. Any fans of League of Gentlemen will be ok with it though. Incidentally, here’s a good backgrounder on LOG.

I have no idea how I will survive today. Got in late last night from work after selling a car, then fell asleep on the sofa watching Seinfeld. Woke up about 4am and haven’t slept since. I have been reading the Aberdeen Press and Journal, and getting all wistful reading Robbie Shepherd’s column.

Little quine, ye’ll tak a wheen O fortune’s loups afore ye’re deen
Ballater Bairn - Betty Allan
ES LAST twa wikks wi ma radio producer, I hae been stravaigin the highways an byways o oor ain country in the company o weel-kent fowk in oor simmer series takkin’s tae some o their ain favourite haunts.
Mair nor aften it’s back tae their reets, bit that can wyte for some ither Monday.
The day, it’s Deeside Reets, as I hae jist been readin a maist fascinatin wee beuk wi that title written bi Mary Munro, o Ballater, fa follas on the skeely screivin o ither Ballater wordsmiths like Sheena Blackhall an Betty Allan.

There’s nae near enough Doric on the web!
I am up to 1 1/2 cars for the month. I can still do pretty good if traffic picks up a bit, but both those cars I have a hand in are from people that came back and asked for me.
I think I am going to have to give up on my Netflix account. I can still recommend it as a great service if you have time to watch 4 or 5 dvds a month, but at the moment, there’s just no way I have that much time. Any free time, I have, I can fill very very easily.

Just checking email etc., before my 12pm start today. Sold 1/2 a car yesterday, as one of my customers came in when I was off, and bought a car from one of the guys. I had another couple of ‘Ups’ too, and did a couple of test-drives. I have started paying real attention to tracking how many people I talk to, how many test-drives, sales; so I can get some idea of how well I am doing. Obviously the best measure of success is happy customers.
Talked to MazMax. I got a dodgy top on the Miata, so they’re going to change it out for me at the first chance. It’s not a huge deal, but the plastic window is separating a little at one corner, which shouldn’t happen.
Found out that one of the guys at work has a friend who runs a spec miata. Hmmm, that looks pretty darned cool form of racing. Might have to go along and take a look. The only motorsport I ever particpated in was 1/8th IC on-road racing. 0-60mph (real speed) in 3 secs. 4WD. Here’s a Serpent Sprint car.

Hmmm, that one has non-standard pushrod shocks at the front. I always ran mine standard as the special shock setup never seemed like it gave much advantage, plus it was just another thing to break.

This book,Code Complete, Second Edition (Dv-Professional) [Amazon.com], by Steve McConnell is the best programming book I have ever read.

I believe that my own productivity increased by about 50% at least after reading it.

Code Complete answers many of the questions that nag the working programmer, and busts through much of the BS that people spout about programming.

The book covers a huge range of material, from code formatting and style, to how to build teams. Clue: don’t put all the programmers no one else wants in a team to build an important project ;-)

The writing style is friendly and peppered with hilarious case studies such as ‘Escape from Gilligan’s Island’, where the same mistakes happen over and over again.

Everyone who has worked on large programming projects will recognise some of these anecdotes. In one case I watched from start to finish as an ‘experienced consultant’ ruined a perfectly good project with secrecy over his bad and undocumented code. All the warning signs were there. If the manager had read this book, a programming catastrophe might have been averted.

I have bought this book a few times, and given it to management in-duh-viduals to read. Sometimes it helped.

If you are a programmer or a manager, or just interested in software, buy this book and read it. I guarantee you will learn something.

This review/recommendation appears on /. [Slashdot].

I ate at Thai Spice Express [b4-u-eat.com] on Friday night. Excellent food there as always. I had the chicken curry and my companion had the fishcakes with dipping sauce and the fried rice. The fried rice was the weakest dish, but still really nice, and my chicken curry was superb, as were the fishcakes.

The whole baked tilapia is a standout dish that is worth a visit all on its own. Other items I like are the spicy shrimp soup, coconut curry chicken soup and bbq pork and sticky rice. Yum. Good service also. Highly recommended.

As always the food came to about $22 for two, including a couple of bottles of sapporo.

Happy 4th of July !!!!!!
Bah ! Humbug etc !! Usual Sunday of not doing much except housework and misc crap.
Updated my toyota page a bit with the new incentives, and downloaded some PalmOS software onto my Sony Clie.
Also updated my customer stats for my sales job. No sales so far this month, but in theory I should be getting some. I am on the curve as far as my 4 fresh customers a day is concerned. Sadly, the value of used cars is not always what people like.

Car Sales 101: Trade-in Values and Negative Equity
When you buy a new car, you borrow the cost of that car. If the value of your trade-in exceeds what you owe on it, then you are in positive equity on your trade, and you can reduce the amount you borrow to pay for your new car. If you owe more on your trade than its assessed value, that difference is called negative equity and has to be paid by the customer or added to the loan amount. However, lenders can be nervous about lending more than the cost of a new car, and will insist on some money down, or will increase the interest rate. This can be a deal killer.