I am just beginning my term as chair for the citizens’ advisory board to the City Council and the Parks and Rec department. If you have a question, problem or anything associated with our great parks and recreation facilities, please contact me at homeboyrob@frii.com and I will do my best to answer or get an answer. As chair, I have to visit parks and rec facilities, meet with the public, meet with the staff and meet with the council. Meetings and more, I call it and it is great fun. I hope to hear from you soon.
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Parks and Rec, I am the Citizen Rep
April 11th, 2012Price Versus Value
February 8th, 2012“It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything because the product you bought was incapable of doing the job it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it cannot be done. If you deal with lower price, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.” —- John Ruskin
For every product made or service rendered, there is a person who will make that product or sell it a little cheaper. For every consumer, there is one searching for a little cheaper buy. For every purchase the second person makes, that person has made himself the first person’s lawful prey.
20 Years and Counting
January 30th, 2012As I gaze out my office window to the west, I think back to the spring of 1991 when we finished building our Performance Tune facility. I used to be able to see the foothills clearly, now there is a gas station and the senior center mostly blocking the view. One thing hasn’t changed: the hand prints of three young children ages 5, 3 and 2 in the cement slab in the play area just outside my window. How things have changed: carburetors have morphed into fuel injection; brakes have gone from drum to disk; and the eye and ear for diagnosis have been replaced by sophisticated electronic tools.
With change has come an increase in fuel mileage efficiency; improved stopping ability with antilocking brake control systems; and quieter and smoother rides. And we get these and other benefits at a price.
Our vehicles have virtually doubled in price and upkeep has done the same. In order to repair today’s highly computer controlled vehicles we have to first perform tests with expensive equipment and analyze data to determine the causes of problems. Yes, we still use our senses: sight, hearing and smell but not to the extent we did before this revolution in vehicle manufacturing.
The other day, a caller asked if we charge for diagnosis and I explained that with the recent purchase of a $10,000 diagnostic tool and paying our mechanics a salary, it is no longer possible to work “for free”. Most people today understand and just ask for the cost of diagnostic work, so it is not quite the issue it was a decade ago.
What’s next on the horizon for the next decade? You can expect to see fuel being injected directly in the the ignition cylinders of the engine. We are moving away from the current generation of carbon dioxide contaminating freon in the air conditioning system to one which is much gentler on the air. You can expect to have to change the oil in your car or truck much less frequently, starting at 5,000 miles now and for some synthetics two or more times that. These are the big ones. Many more will be less noticeable.
Time marches on and we will continue to keep pace at Performance Tune. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at robc@theperformancetune.com.
Water, Water – Why You Might Want to Think About It
January 25th, 2012We are made of water. Arthur Guyton ‘s Textbook of Medical Physiology states that “the total amount of water in a man of average weight (70 kilograms) is approximately 40 litres, averaging 60 percent of his total body weight. In a newborn infant, this may be as high as 75 percent of the body weight, but it progressively decreases from birth to old age, most of the decrease occurring during the first 10 years of life. Also, obesity decreases the percentage of water in the body, sometimes to as low as 45 percent”. (Guyton, Arthur C. (1991). Textbook of Medical Physiology (8th ed.). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders. p. 274. ISBN 0-7216-3994-1. quote is verbatim, including brackets).
We drink it, espescially here at altitude and more so when we head to the mountains. We bathe in it. We shovel it (think snow). We recreate in it and on it. We apply it to our gardens and lawns. We wash our cars and clothes with it. We add it to foods, and cement and any number of things to make something. It is in, on and with almost every thing.
The Mayor of Fort Collins has designated 2012 as “The Year of Water” for good reason since our very survival depends upon it. And yet we often forget how valuable this resource it and waste it. It is time for us all to wake up and begin to offer water new respect.
We live in an area that was a virtual desert before large scale irrigation projects began to bring large amounts of water to Larimer County and Fort Collins in particular.
This first article will deal with water and your cars and trucks. Water mixed in a 50/50 mixture with antifreeze in your radiator and cooling system allows us to run engines which can reach internal temperatures of hundreds of degrees. Water from our windshield washer systems is used to allow us to see when driving in slushy weather here on on those trips into the mountains. Water is used to clean our vehicles and remove salt and other rust forming elements from rusting out our vehicles.
In the same vein, water combines with iron to form rust and destroy our vehicles. Water in the form of snow and rain can cause us to have accidents from hydroplaning (sliding) out of control. Lack of it can cause our vehicles to over heat. Too much water in the form of snow or rain can obscure our vision causing us to have collisions. In the form of hail, water can dent our vehicles and even break the windows. In the form of floods, water can inundate our vehicle’s electronic systems and cause short circuiting and rust.
So what is it with you and your vehicle’s relationship to this amazing thing we call water? Is it good, bad or ugly. Send me an email at robc@theperformancetune.com and let me know if you have some unique perspective on how water has affected your car or truck and we can expand this conversation.
Rollin’ on the River
August 1st, 2011After working in an automotive repair shop during the week: my brakes are making noise, my truck won’t start, my air conditioning is warm, my oil is leaking, and the like, Anne and I like to chill on the weekends. This last weekend we spent our time on the Poudre River. Saturday we went rafting with A1 Wildwater for half a day and it was FANTASTIC. We spent two hours on the river shooting through class III and IV rapids over a 12 mile stretch of water. And the water was as cold as the air was hot. 45 degree water and 95 degree air made for quite the contrast. We took our friend Marianne along who had not rafted before and she had a blast, as did we. It was probably the best run we have had since coming to Colorado 22 years ago.
On Sunday, we rode our bikes along the Poudre Trail and stopped to cool off in the city portion of the river. By the time the water reaches Shields Street, it is way cooler and way diminished in flow and we enjoyed getting in. What a jewel. I sure hope we can keep the river flowing, but as we all know everyone in Colorado covets water and our Poudre is no different.
Google Searches
July 22nd, 2011Did you find us on Google? We have found that there is a lot of confusion on the Google website searches where people call us and ask for a different shop in Fort Collins that does car and truck repairs. You might find that some sites we call aggregators have a number of shops in a list when your search pops up. Often these lists are abbreviated and condensed so that one automotive repair shop name is separated by ….. (dots) from a phone number of a totally different shop. Google is working to become a better search engine, but it is up to all of us to be careful about choosing a car repair shop or any other business in Fort Collins from list that is all chopped up. Why can’t it be easier? I guess we all have to be ever vigilant in the age of too much information!
Fort Collins, the Choice City
July 1st, 2011Here we go again. News has it that Fort Collins is the fifth best place in the US to do business, or so says Forbes.com a website of the respected business magazine. I guess we went from fourth last year to fifth place this year. Still it makes me wonder why the Chamber of Commerce and some members of the City Council repeatedly complain about the negative business climate here. Perhaps some in the business community will never be satisfied until we literally put the keys to the city in their hands. Having lived here now for 22 years I have heard this bogus whine from the biggest members of the business community for years. As the owner of a small business for twenty of those 22 years, I often find myself on the opposite side of the so called Chamber of Commerce and their big business benefactors. We live in an amazing community and the Chamber’s constant refrain of woe rings very hollow. Hey guys, get with the program. We live in one of the best places in whole US as recognized by a slew of folks all over the country. Maybe you should talk to your family doc and get a script for some Prozac or something.
Track and Field
March 4th, 2011I have the good fortune to be traveling to Albuquerque next week to officiate the pole vault at the Division II Indoor National Track and Field Meet. I began my career as an official when my son was a vaulter at Fort Collins High School and moved up to the NCAA when he graduated. For the past several years I have officiated for CSU and the Mountain West Conference and recently received my National Level Certification from USA Track and Field allowing me to work at any level and any championship in the USA. I am looking forward to working the Kansas Relays in April and the Mountain West Conference Outdoor Championships in Fort Collins in May. Being an official allows me to interact with and observe national and world class young men and women athletes and it is a great hobby. We are always looking forward to having more volunteers join us and if you would like more information please check out the CSU Rams website at http://www.csurams.com/sports/c-track/. Or you can always drop me an email at robc@theperformancetune.com. Life for me is not only about cars and trucks, emissions, brakes and oil changes. It is about running, jumping, and throwing, too.
Snow Daze
January 24th, 2011Anne and I went to Winter Park this weekend and lucked into a powder day on Saturday. Having gone up on Friday evening we enjoyed clear roads and an easy drive. Getting up Saturday it was coming down, but with some wind. We stayed away from the top of the mountain at Mary Jane and had an exceptional day. They got 7.5 inches as it came down all day! On Sunday the sun came out and we had great snow again. It was colder because of no cloud cover, but less wind though there was some at the top. We took the Panorama lift to the top and came down the big bowl in the middle and the snow was deep and soft. That was my good fortune as I experienced my first face plant in recent memory. Anne thought it quite entertaining, and I thought it not so, but managed to ski like crazy the rest of the day. That snow will melt in few months and the payback will be when I use it to water my lawn. Thanks, Grand County for the great weekend. And thanks, good old 1988 Suburban for all these years of hauling us up and down those Rocky Mountains to ski.
Hey Tucson, What’s Up With That
January 13th, 2011We lived in Tucson before moving to Colorado in 1989. Our three kids were born there and we have lots of fond memories of great times there. Like the time I fell into the cactus garden, ouch. Or the time four bikers walked into the Mexican Inn Restaurant with guns in holsters on their hips. But seriously, we made many wonderful friends there. Anne worked at the University Medical Center, I saw patients and attended a couple hundred home births there. Mose got Frank Thomas to sign his baseball there, too. We had a great run there, me for ten years and Anne for seven. Times change, and so do people, I guess more so in some places than others. We are thankful we live where we do, just as we did back then.
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