Archive for August, 2007

Test Drive: 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe

“Sample” cars will be used to lure buyers.

A couple of words best describe the 2008 G37 Coupe: seductive, thrilling…and “WOW” comes to mind as well. Gunn Infiniti in San Antonio received it’s first car a few days ago, so I decided to stop by and have a look. The photo is the actual window sticker with the word “SAMPLE” printed across it, and there are no prices listed.

I was immediately greeted by salesman, Adam Castillo. Adam’s knowledge of this car juxtaposed the credentials of the owner’s manual, and his sales pitch was about as thorough as any magazine review of the car with one exception in his favor: this would be a hands-on tutorial. He was quick to point out how the name was different from its “G35″ predecessor. If you’re not car saavy, the “G37″ moniker represents the larger engine (i.e. 3.5-liter vs 3.7-liter). And even if you already knew that like I did, you may not know what else the name signifies. In addition to added displacement comes Infiniti’s Variable Valve Event and Lift (VVEL) technology. This innovation allows the car to take advantage of the car’s power at every point of the powerband while maintaining optimal fuel economy and reduced emissions. Add to that a redesigned exhaust and intake…the result is 330 horsepower and 270 lb/ft of torque, which is about 20 more horses and 2 more lb/ft of yank. With that said, current G35 Coupe drivers may not notice a huge difference.

Although the car looks similar to the G35, Infiniti claims all new body panels.

What they will notice are all of the techno-geek features such as the touch screen nav system. The system includes XM® NavTraffic, which displays real-time traffic information to enhance your GPS. While San Antonio does not yet feature real-time traffic flow data, that capability is available for those communities that do, which equals 24 of 79 XM® markets in the U.S. and Canada. The “SAMPLE” also featured RearView Monitor and an available 11-speaker Infiniti “Studio on Wheels”â„¢ by Bose® audio system, three-way door speaker arrays with 10-inch door-mounted woofers. The 20GB system splits storage equally devoting 9.3 gigs of the hard drive to the car’s music storage. It even has a compact flash drive slot.

Put the Auto in “DS” mode for some F1 fun.

“I’ve seen enough. Get me some keys, Adam!”

It’s a miracle I even paid any attention to Adam’s presentation. As I slid into the seats, I couldn’t help but imagine driving this car down a track. I rudely began tugging on the magnesium paddle shifters and making engine noises. No doubt Adam was distracted by my giddiness; he immediately suggest I press the brake and push the Auto Start button. Suddenly the G37 was alive, and the sound it emitted was hypnotic. Responding to my delighted gaze, Adam exclaimed, “Wait until you open it up”. How can I pass up that offer?

My Maxima SE features a sport shift that allows me to up and downshift as I please. However, as it pegs the redline, it automatically shifts into the next gear. The G37 does not. So, on my first attempt at “opening it up”, I repeatedly nailed the 2nd gear rev limiter. After apologizing profusely to Adam, I didn’t hesitate to try again. As the five-speed automatic transmission neared its 7500 rpm redline, I tugged on the right paddle…a couple of times. And he was right…the car sounds tons better than the previous model. Very nice.

After gettting that out of my system, I decided to test out the automatic cruise control feature. When engaged, you can preset your desired speed…no acceleration necessary…and let the car do its thing. In the photo above, you’ll notice what looks like an infrared sensor in the front air dam. The G37 Coupe will slow down as you approach cars in front of you, and can apply up to 30% braking if necessary. There are three distance levels you can choose.

Steering response is great partially due to the 4-wheel active steering system. The car feels sure-footed in the bends. And the Akebono brakes worked great with virtually no fade in the pedal. That estimation is good from about 75 mph. With 4-piston calipers and 14.0-inch rotors in front, and 2-piston calipers on 13.8-in rotors in the rear, I think it’s safe to say this thing has ample stopping power beyond that.

The 2008 Infiniti G37 Coupe is available in three trim levels: G37 Coupe, G37 Coupe Journey and G37 Coupe Sport 6MT. The car I drove was the Journey model with the Sport package. If you’re in the San Antonio area, go see Adam Castillo at Gunn Infiniti or schedule an appointment with him at (210) 824-1272. A $500 deposit will ensure you get one this month…provided the one you want matches a model already ordered by the dealership.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Trade Like A Mutual Fund Manager With TheBuyList.com

TheBuyList.com contains unique data extraction and cleansing processes that gather incremental stock transaction data by top mutual funds. What this means is that someone researching stocks can query its database and to see which funds and fund families recently bought or sold a particular stock. Looks like Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) has been a hot buy as of late. Good thing. I included it the Derrich.com Stock Portfolio on August 1. Check it out for yourself.

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My Fantasy Football Picks

Last Sunday, our league got together for our NFL Fantasy Football Draft. It took place at Lion & Rose Pub in their private meeting room complete with 50″ HD plasma and DirecTV.

Last year it was Shake & Bake, this year its Rear Ball View.

In my post last Friday about Fantasy Football sleepers, I included players like Maurice Jones-Drew and Kevin Curtis. Funny. Check out my final roster (listed by round):
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Real Estate Listings In South Carolina With Century 21 Properties

Charleston South Carolina remains one of the best real estate markets in South Carolina and it provides a great coastal lifestyle and historic charm. CENTURY 21 Properties Plus, Inc. is one of the fastest growing real estate companies in the Charleston, SC area. Since the company was founded in 1997 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, it has been committed to providing Charleston-area to both home buyers and sellers. With a booming South Carolina real estate market, it is important to use a company that will provide you with a wide-variety of services to make your purchase less difficult.

There are currently 1000’s of active Charleston SC real estate listings available to choose from. By utilizing the Century 21 Properties property search, you can view area MLS listings without registering or giving up any contact information. In addition to finding your ideal property, Century 21 Properties provides relocation and property management services.

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Friday’s Finds — 08/10/2007

So many factors come into play when running a blog. It’s almost a mind-numbing experience. But once you get the hang of it and find your passion, everything else becomes second nature — did I use the right keywords in my title — is my anchor text optimized — the list goes on. Here are a few posts I’ve read over the week that talk a little about each of those factors.

• While selecting the right keywords is useful for every post, Erik Karey focuses on aligning his blog, with the term Internet Entrepreneur in his post about proper keyword selection. Frankly, I’m happy to be #1 when searching for Derrich.
• The WordPress Blog provided some stats for the month of July that I found rather interesting. In July alone, 133,000 blogs were created with over 2 million posts. Geez. Check out the rest of the July wrap-up for more stats.
• For popular searches, I like to use good ol’ Google Trends. Well, that’s good for Google searches. What about results from other sources? There’s a tool at SEOmoz.org that aggregates popular searches from other sources — Technorati: Popular - Flickr Hot Tags - Del.icio.us Popular Tags - Yahoo! Buzz - Top Overall Searches - Google Hot Trends - eBay Pulse - AOL Hot Searches - Lycos Top 50 - Ask Top Searches - Amazon, Most Popular Tags - Amazon, Movers and Shakers - Amazon, Best Sellers - Amazon, New Releases — and stuffs them into one list. The cool thing is all of the popular searches for each of these sites are also listed.
• Jamie Harrop appeared as a guest blogger on Jane May’s blog, Daily Web Ideas. Jamie suggests that a blogger’s worst mistake is breaking their blogging routine. I happen to agree. When you skip a day or two…or a week in Jamie’s case…it’s tough to get back in the groove.
• Loren Baker, editor of the Search Engine Journal, did a great job of sparking up some conversation this week. He heard that Google PageRank may be removed from the Google Toolbar. Most of his readers didn’t seem to care either way. What happened to the idea that PR is king when it comes to page validity and trustworthiness? How quickly we toss these quantifications aside. First Alexa, now Google PR?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Texas Redneck Games Under Far’ (That’s “Fire”)

Courtesy Nicole Fruge, San Antonio Express-News

Scantily dressed ladies…check. PBR…check. Kevin “F-in” Fowler…check. Truck-load of Spam…check. What else could you possibly need to organize (and I use that term loosely) a Redneck Games? Oh yeah…how about the Girls Gone Wild crew filming Mudd Chicks Gone Wild? No joke.

The 2007 Redneck Games were held this weekend just North of Athens…Texas…at the Pool Ranch ATV Park. The gatherin’ of ’bout 7,000 folks competed in a var-ah-tee of avents:
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Payday Loans & More At CreditLoan.com

Previously, I’ve written about the importance of consolidating student loan debt. CreditLoan.com offers solutions for this and more. Debt consolidation of any type of debt should be a consideration when “repairing” your credit. The possibility of reducing your monthly payments alone is worth it. The hope is to begin to provide relief on the limitations placed on your monthly cash flow making it more manageable.

CreditLoan.com also offers payday loans. While I’m not a huge fan of payday loans, they are no doubt a convenience to many borrowers. With all of the fees involved, they should only be considered as a solution for extreme cases. Imagine paying 15% interest (usually for every $100) for a 14-day payday loan. That equals 3,785% compounded interest annually.

CreditLoan.com also provides an unbiased point of view for a wide variety of loan products, for example an article about What To Watch Out For Before Availing Payday Loans. Its purpose is to help you eliminate any doubts about a particular financial product before you move forward. Once you decide which solution best suits your situation, CreditLoan.com has a large list of affiliate lenders to satisfy your specific need.

Visit CreditLoan.com and educate yourself on each of the financial services the website has to offer.

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BlogRoll

• Milk Was A Bad Choice
• CrackBerry.com
• Stock Trading 101
• For The Love Of Sports
• Project Spurs
• Busted Coverage
• WallStreetFighter

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