Wiper blades are one of the most neglected components on vehicles today. Many blades are cracked, split, torn, brittle, worn or otherwise in obvious need of replacement. Others may look okay, but do lousy jobs of wiping when put to the test.

Most experts say wiper blades should be replaced every six to twelve months for optimum performance and driving visibility. That’s because wiper blades don’t last forever. Exposure to sunlight and ozone causes the rubber to age, even if the wipers aren’t used much.

As a set of blades age, they lose much of their flip-over flexibility and they’re less able to wipe cleanly. They may develop a permanent set (called “parked” rubber) or curvature which prevents full contact with the windshield. The sun bakes and hardens the rubber. Then when the wipers are needed, they streak and chatter because they’ve taken a set and won’t follow the curvature of the windshield.

Cold weather can affect blade life, too. Freezing temperatures makes rubber hard and brittle, which increases the tendency to crack and split. The holders can also become clogged with ice and snow, preventing the holder from distributing spring tension evenly over the blade. The blade “freezes up” and leaves streaks as it skips across the glass.

Heavy use can be hard on wiper blades, because dust, abrasives, road grime and even bug juice wear away the edge that the blades need to wipe cleanly.

How well the wiper blades perform also depends on the condition of the wiper arms and holders. A blade’s wiping ability is affected by the amount of spring tension on the wiper arm, the number of pressure points or claws that hold the blade, and the design of the blade itself. If the springs in the arms are weak (which is more apt to be a problem in older vehicles), the wipers may not be pressed against the glass firmly enough to wipe cleanly. Replacing the blades won’t make any difference because the problem is weak arms not bad blades.

Ultimately, any blade that’s chattering, streaking or doing a lousy job of wiping is a blade that’s overdue for replacement. The same goes for any blade that is cracked, torn, nicked or otherwise damaged.

If you have replaced your wiper blades and chattering or streaking persists, visit the Capital Eurocars Service Department in Tallahassee to have one of our technicians inspect your wiper blades and wiper arms to ensure your continued safety on the road.

Source: [Yahoo Autos]

The unusually shaped BMW 550i Gran Turismo provides incredible long-distance touring comfort for four passengers. It’s like being in a private jet, especially if you order the business class seating in back, then pile on the entertainment and driver assistance options.  Costs like a private jet, too.

Between BMW’s two hatchback-like recent offerings, the 550i GT is the better vehicle than the two-year-old BMW X6. The GT will be even more desirable once BMW in the spring adds versions with a 300-hp six-cylinder engine and with all-wheel-drive. Only two things require acclimatization: the view from the outside looking at the side and rear, and the view from inside looking out the rear window.

I put nearly 1,000 effortless miles on the 550i GT in a long, single-day trip down the Eastern seaboard during a gloomy, damp winter day and night, the kind of day that inspired Edward George Bulwer-Lytton to take pen in hand and proclaim, “It was a dark and stormy night.” With a price starting at $65,275 and topping $90,000, the 550i GT represents excess, just not Bulwer-Lytton’s wretched excess. Virtually every one of the $1,000-here, $2,500-there options has a reason for being in the car. As with other high end BMWs, there are more than a dozen entertainment, performance, driver assistance, and pampering options. For the comfortably affluent car fanatic, I cannot imagine a better vehicle for hauling four adults and their luggage long distances. An Acura ZDX, Audi Q7, BMW X5 / X6, Porsche Cayenne or Panamera, Lexus LX 570, Cadillac Escalade, or Infiniti QX56 all lack that ultimate luxury of rear seat comfort equal to the front seat.

Great for the Driver

Slide behind the wheel and you’re in the best seat in the house. Vision systems help you in front (night vision, parking sonar, swiveling xenon headlamps), in back (backup camera, parking sonar), and to the side (side cameras, lane departure warning, blind spot detection). A $1,300 head-up display (photo left) puts only the most important information in a virtual window at the base of the windshield, reducing driver distraction. The $4,200 sport package helps the car bank through turns and the suspension and drivetrain can be set for comfort, normal, or sport-calibrated ride. So you order the sport package if you want the best ride, not just sportiest, ride.

Navigation comes standard, on a 10.2-inch 1280 x 480 display that can be split to show, say, navigation and entertainment details. The current iDrive cockpit controller is much easier to master. Order the $1,950 premium seats and you get a massage feature that raises and lowers the left and right seat bottom halves just enough to keep your butt from falling asleep. The $1,750 active steering package changes the steering ratio at low speed for easier parking lot maneuvers and the rear wheels also steer slightly, opposite the front wheels at low speed for sharper turns, same direction as the front wheels at high speed for smoother lane changes.

The engine is a 400-hp twin-turbo V8 with an eight-speed automatic transmission (BMW’s first). It gets to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds and passes most everything on the highway except gas stations. On my mostly highway trip I got 21 mpg and saw 23 mpg level-ground cruising at 70 mph; the EPA rating is 15 mpg city, 21 mph highway, using premium fuel. That’s not bad, but the coming 300-hp six will still be cat quick and probably manage 25 mpg loping along the interstate, and you won’t get the feeling, “Maybe we should top off the tank,” at every bathroom break.

While it’s not a hybrid, there is a brake energy regeneration system. The oversize battery is charged primarily by power generated when you apply the brakes. This is part of what BMW calls Efficient Dynamics.

• Great for the Passengers Front and Rear
• Once you’ve tired of watching the scenery float by, you’ve got six ways to be entertained:
• AM/FM radio
• HD Radio (standard)
• CD player
• iPod adapter ($400 or $1,400 in premium audio package)
• Satellite radio ($350 with one-year subscription)
• Rear seat entertainment (photo right, $2,200) with a DVD player, two seat-back LCD screens, and separate left and right input jacks so you could play video from an iPod.

Reclining Rear Seats with Hot and Cold

For the best rear seat experience, step up from the standard bench seat for the $3,650 rear seat package. The seats move fore and aft, recline, and have heating elements and cooling fans. And there’s plenty of legroom as well as headroom (unlike the BMW X6 where the sloping roofline affects taller passengers). The package includes side sunshades, which run $500 separately if you stick with the stock bench seat, and zoned rear climate controls.

Better View of the Sky Above Than the Road Behind

The BMW 550i GT comes standard with an enormous two-section panoramic sunroof that stretches back to cover the rear seats. The sunshade is solid unlike Audi’s translucent screen, which in Audi’s case makes for an airier cabin if that’s what you want. What’s less than enormous on the Bimmer is the rear window, or rather the view out the back window. Combine that with smallish side mirrors and you really should get the blind spot warning system that’s part of the $1,350 driver assistance package (blind spot detection, lane departure warning, automatic high beams).

The constricted rear view is not uncommon to hatchback-looking crossover vehicles. The Honda Accord Crosstour - essentially the BMW 550i GT for half the price without all that back seat room, over-the-top luxuries, or BMW logo on the hood - also doesn’t have much of a rearward view. It’s part of the price you pay for the design.

What Is It: Hatchback? Crossover? Coupe?

BMW now offers two hatchback-looking crossover vehicles: the BMW 550i GT and the BMW X6. Despite the 5 in the name, which designates a midsize BMW, the V8-powered 550i GT and pending six-cylinder 535i GT draw their dimensions less from a BMW 5 Series and more from the BMW 7 Series that is our reigning Digital Drive Car of the Year, and that explains why it’s so roomy in back, as well as why it’s tough to park in your garage. It’s big outside: 197 inches long, half a foot longer than the BMW X5 and X6, only half a foot shorter than a Cadillac Escalade.

In comparison, the BMW X6 sports activity coupe with its sloping rear roofline and slightly restricted headroom is based on the BMW X5 sports activity vehicle (BMWspeak for SUV), which in turn is based on the BMW 5 Series sedan and station wagon. The X6 (photo left), like the X5, has a cargo bay (not very big) you can access from the back seat. The 550i GT in comparison has a separate trunk with dividers between the reclining rear seat backs and the trunk. The trunk starts out big, gets bigger if you slide the rear seats forward and the dividers move forward too, and becomes positively huge if you drop down the dividers and rear seatbacks. You can also remove the stiff top partition of the trunk and turn it into a true hatchback.

To my eye, the 550i GT is better looking from the side than the X6, although it still takes some getting used to. From the side, there are some 550i GT hatchback styling cues that might make you think of a Toyota Prius where with the BMW X6 one might think - forgive me, BMW, for this slander - a low-riding Pontiac Aztek. The rear view of the 550i GT is the least pleasing but it’s still a taste you can acquire. From the front, it’s pure BMW.

Why You Can Pay Almost $94,000: Twofer Bundles Hike the Price

One reason a BMW 550i GT can cost $93,525 and my test car ran $89,875 is BMW’s habit of bundling a must-have option with a nice-to-have option. The worst offender is the camera package: In a car with such a restricted rear view, a backup camera ought to be standard the way parking sonar is. Instead, a sub-$50 (likely wholesale price) rear camera is paired with two more cameras mounted in the fenders just ahead of the front wheels (photo left); they look ahead and to the side and help you see when you’re pulling out of an alley. Total price: $1,200. Ka-ching.

Women especially like the keyless access system that lets you leave the physical key in your purse, yet the door unlocks as you reach the car and pull the handle and the car starts at the press of a button. Free or a couple hundred dollars on some non-BMWs, comfort access has cost as much as $1,000 as a BMW option and here it’s $1,900 in a convenience package with soft-close doors (get them near the doorframe and the pull themselves shut) and a power liftgate.

BMW’s closest competitors, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, charge similar prices for similar options and Porsche charges more. One reason the Hyundai Genesisi s so desirable - $43,000 max with a V8 engine — is that so many options are included or relatively affordable. For now, the Genesis’ softer ride makes it more of a Lexus competitor. But Hyundai and Ford are pushing down the cost of technology.

To be fair, the BMW 550i GT’s base price of $65,725 ($63,900 plus $825 freight and $1,000 gas guzzler tax) includes navigation, a brake energy regeneration system, xenon headlamps, HD Radio, front and rear parking sonar, BMW Assist (telematics) with four years of service, Bluetooth, and a slew of safety features with three-letter-acronym names: DBC, SC, DTC SRS, HPS, etcetera. That’s about $5,000 of options.

Night Vision: Can I See You Now?

My car came equipped with Night Vision, now priced at $2,600. A thermal imaging camera detects heat from pedestrians, bicyclists, animals, occupied cars, car exhausts, and big rocks that were in the sun all day, and projects an X-ray-like image onto the center display. It even detects pedestrians and flashes a warning if they’re on the roadway but not off to the side.

Flir Systems, the maker of the second generation thermal imager at the heart of Night Vision, says it has effectively halved component costs from the first generation system. But BMW has actually hiked the price of Night Vision since its debut two years ago. My findings are mixed: At lower speeds on dark roads, Night Vision is great for noticing pedestrians and cyclists before you see them with your headlamps. Driving on a foggy interstate at night, Night Vision doesn’t do much to spot slow-vehicles in your lane although a) BMW and Flir don’t claim Night Vision is a safety tool for high-speed overtaking so b) you have to fall back to the old standard of driving cautiously when visibility is reduced.

What Makes a 550i GT Worth the Extra Money

If you understand the component costs of electronics technology, you can’t help but shake your head at what BMW charges for satellite radio ($350) or why it charges anything for a USB / iPod adapter. Drive one for a year and you’ll begin to understand some (not all) of the costs.

BMW iDrive (photo left) finally works well and lets you manage all the features in the car without needed an extra 50 dashboard knobs and buttons. (It still helps if you spend an hour or two practicing after your take delivery.) The 10-inch transflective display is the biggest and brightest currently offered on any car. The backup camera display displays your path, turning lines, wraps color blocks around obstacles and as you get closer, the blocks change from green to yellow to red. BMW foots the bill for four years of telematics and emergency calling (worth $300 a year) and for four years of maintenance (which, since the cars are well maintained, props up their resale value when dealers take them in trade). BMW’s crash sensors don’t just report an accident, they predict the severity of possible injuries and BMW’s call center can report that to the police. BMW’s implementation of Bluetooth tends to work with more phones and pass on to the car more calling features.

The seats, even if you don’t pop for the premium leather or the comfort seats, are a delight to sit in for long periods and they don’t start to fade or crack in five years. In other words, with a car such as the 550i GT, you pay a lot and get a lot.

Should You Buy?

The traditional description of a GT, Gran Turismo, or Grand Touring car is low, fast, sexy, and comfortable for two (with seats for four) and luggage for two if they pack light. BMW makes it comfortable for four and leaves it to you to decide if it’s sexy. Fast, there’s no question. The only high-end vehicles with more back seat room are the stretch-body versions of the biggest Audis (A8), BMWs (7 Series) and Mercedes-Benzes (S-Class).

If you can live with the reduced cachet of driving a Ford product - what would the neighbors say if you imported one into Marin County or Palm Beach and it wasn’t for the maid? — the Ford Flex and cousin Lincoln MKT match the 550i GT on comfort-for-four. Perhaps the closest buyer-demographics competitor, the Porsche Panamera, has classic GT seating in back, meaning it’s not very appealing for two couples other than for short trips.

If you opt for a BMW 550i GT, here’s how to equip it and still keep the price reasonable, meaning barely over $80,000:

• Base car, gas guzzler tax, freight, $65,775
• Camera package, $1,200 (must-have option)
• Driver assistance package, $1,350 (must-have option)
• Sport package, $4,200
• Head-up display, $1,300
• Premium sound and iPod adapter, $1,400
• Power rear sunshade, $500
• Rear entertainment system, $2,200
• Satellite radio, $350
• Total MSRP, $80,025

I left off my mythical and near-perfect 550i GT configuration the luxury rear seating package because it’s a bunch of money unless you really do a lot of long-distance driving with four not two people aboard. Want to save a few bucks? You could find a third-party DVD player with two seatback screens for half what BMW charges, but it’s one thing to mess around with a $35,000 SUV that overcharges for rear seat entertainment, and another to splice into the wiring harness of a $75,000 car.

The only waste-of-money option on the 550i GT is ceramic controls: You pay $650 for knobs that are slippery to the touch, in order to get knobs that feel cool to the touch and have more apparent heft.

Actually, were I buying, I’d wait for the six-cylinder version and the all-wheel-drive version. Then you’d have the ultimate car for trips from your house in the city to your ski house in the mountains. I’d also wait in hopes BMW added adaptive cruise control, a must-have feature for long distance touring.

Other reviewers have noted how much more costly this is than a BMW 5 Series station wagon or the 550i V8 sedan. True, but so what? Neither has the rear passenger room of the 550i GT. (The next 5 Series, arriving this year, will have improved rear seat room but probably not like the 550i GT.) If you want comfortable grand touring with performance, safety, and cachet - the cachet that has bystanders saying, “I bet this thing costs almost a hundred grand” - then the BMW 550i GT has no competition.

Source: [Gear Log]

The redesigned 2010 E350 Coupe is not only priced lower than the ‘09 version, it’s also one of the best cars Mercedes has ever made.

Up Front

I’m a big fan of Mercedes’ newly redesigned rear-wheel-drive E-Class sedans and coupes, and I’m not the only one. The E is the only class of Mercedes that has shown a sales increase in the U.S. market this year. Total sales soared 113.1% in November, to 4,828.

A major reason for the E’s success is obvious: It’s reasonably priced, at least by German standards. The new E-Class sedan is actually cheaper than the outgoing model, and the coupe is cheaper than the CLK coupe it’s replacing. The E350 coupe starts at $48,925 and the E350 sedan at $49,475. The higher-end E550 coupe starts at $55,525, the E550 sedan at $57,175. Add an extra $2,500 for all-wheel drive in either sedan. (AWD isn’t offered in the coupe.)

In redesigning the E-Class, Daimler did what it does best. The V6-powered E350 and V8 powered E550 sedans are classic luxury cars that fall in the middle of the product range in terms of price and size but have traditional styling, solidity, and high-tech options reminiscent of the top-of-the-line Mercedes S Class. The sedan gives Mercedes a clearer alternative to the BMW 5 Series and Volkswagen’s Audi A6, one that’s more comfort-oriented without making big compromises on performance.

The new E-Class coupe (the version of the car I test drove) is smaller and sportier than the sedan-nearly seven inches shorter, six inches narrower, three inches lower, and 200 lbs. lighter. About the size of the Mercedes C-Class, the E coupe competes more directly with the BMW 3 Series than with the 5 Series. It’s a marvelous vehicle if you can get past the fact that it isn’t available with a stick shift. A seven-speed automatic with manual shifting function is the only transmission in both the E sedan and coupe.

As with other German cars, one appeal of the E-Class is the wide variety of niche models it comes in. For speed-lovers, there’s the E63 AMG (powered by a 518-hp V8) that competes with BMW’s M5, VW’s Audi S6, and General Motors’ Cadillac CTS-V. A four-seater E350 Cabriolet with a new sound-dampening soft top is due out next May. The following month, a diesel-powered E350 Bluetec is due out. A new E-Class station wagon, designed to compete with models such as the Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon, will also hit showrooms next June.

The available engines provide plenty of power. The E350 coupe has a 3.5-liter, 268-horsepower V6 under its hood while the E550 is powered by a 5.5-liter, 382-horsepower V8. The E350 Bluetec sedan comes with a 3.0-liter, 210-horsepower diesel V6 that generates an incredible 400 lb.-ft of torque.

As with other sport luxury models, fuel economy isn’t great. The E350 coupe is rated to get 17 miles-per-gallon in the city and 26 on the highway for an average of 20; the E350 sedan does slightly better, at 18 mpg city and 26 highway, for an average of 21. The E550 Coupe and Sedan are both rated at 16 city and 24 highway, for an average of 18. (The Bluetec isn’t yet rated.)

Behind the Wheel

Tooling around in a Mercedes coupe is an experience everyone should have at least once. The E-Class coupe isn’t the sportiest or fastest car in its group, but it’s fun and just so damned classy and comfortable. The cabin has the quietness and solidity of a more expensive Mercedes and the suspension eats up bumps like no other. There’s a library-quiet, dead-air feel to the cabin when you’re cruising on the highway.

Yet the driver still feels a direct connection to the road and the new Es are very quick. Mercedes says the E350 Coupe accelerates from 0 to 60 in about six seconds (about the same as a BMW 328i) while the E550 does it in about five seconds (about the same as a BMW 335i). However, I consistently found my loaner E350 a bit slower than its rated time while the BMWs were faster.

Choosing a coupe over a sedan is a triumph of the heart over the head. The sedan accounts for about 85% of sales, Mercedes says, I suspect that most buyers figure it offers better value because it is roomier inside and has four doors instead of two. But the coupe has definite appeal. Fewer doors, lower weight, and smaller size make it nimbler and tighter than the sedan. The E350 coupe also comes standard with sport seats, leather upholstery, and a panoramic sunroof, while the E550 coupe has sport suspension, paddle shifters, and 18-inch wheels.

Surprisingly, the coupe actually has more headroom and legroom in its front seat than the E-Class sedan does, although hip and shoulder space are tighter. The front seats are narrower and more bolstered than the sedan’s, but I found them very comfortable. Trunk space is equal to the sedan’s-15.9 cu. ft., which is adequate for most purposes. In contrast to the fixed rear seats in many coupes, the E350’s rear seats fold down in a 60/40 pattern, creating extra hauling space.

The painful aspect of owning just about any coupe is how bad you feel when adult passengers have to use the rear seat. The E350’s front seats slide well forward, so getting into the back seat is fairly easy, but knee and head space in back are very tight. With the driver’s seat set for my height (5 ft. 10 in.), I barely had enough leg space in the rear seat. Sitting back there and watching the front seat automatically move back into place was a little like being in one of those horror movies where a room’s walls start to close in. A taller person would have been scrunched.

Like other Mercedes, the E-Class is heavy on standard safety gear. The new E350 hasn’t yet been crash-tested in the U.S., but it comes standard with traction and stability control, an optional night vision system, and a full array of air bags, including both side and pelvis-protecting bags.

There are also “seat belt presenters,” little arms that poke out from behind the driver’s and front passenger’s shoulder, bearing the seat belt and reminding them to buckle up. And there’s an innovative monitor that sounds an alarm if the driver seems to be growing drowsy. The thing didn’t seem to work very well. During more than an hour of evening driving, I repeatedly struggled with dozing off but the system never made a peep.

Buy it or Bag It?

Once you factor in options, the E350 sedan sells for an average of around $53,000, according to the Power Information Network, roughly the same range as the BMW 528i, Audi A6, and Jaguar XF. For me, it’s a toss-up between the BMW and the Mercedes, with the BMW getting the nod for handling and the Mercedes for looks, interior quality, and comfort.

Less expensive alternatives include Honda’s new Acura TL (average price: $38,055), and Toyota’s Lexus ES 350 ($37,397).

PIN doesn’t have average price data for the E350 coupe, but it probably averages slightly less than the sedan. The main competitors include the BMW 328i and Audi A5 coupes, both of which are cheaper. The Bimmer, for instance, goes for an average of $41,275. I love the E350 coupe, but I’d have a hard time paying more for it than for a 328i, one of the all-time great models on the market.

The budget alterative is the Hyundai Genesis coupe, which sells for an average of just $26,722. Yup, a Hyundai, priced like a Hyundai-and it’s a great little car. That’s Mercedes’ challenge. The E-Class is much improved and cheaper than before, but the competition just keeps getting tougher.

Source: [Business Week]

The German sports car manufacturer has released a new video presenting the 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo technology in detail. The clip was shot on the company’s tracks at Experience Center at Silverstone. The 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo is powered by a 3.8 liter engine that outputs 500 hp that can catapult it from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds and to a maximum speed of 312 km/h. The new model it’s priced from 122,400 Euros and comes with the company’s seven-speed PDK gearbox.

Source: [ZER Customs]

Volkswagen is a good study on how to take a common compact sedan and make it into something inventive and imaginative. Take the Jetta SportWagen and the CC. The sport wagon is inspired from the Jetta sedan and turned into a functional yet fun-to-drive sporty vehicle. The four-passenger CC sedan has four doors yet appears more coupe-like.

Volkswagen stays interesting in the 2010 market by producing models that raise expectations in the compact-car segment.

Introduced as an all-new vehicle to the brand for the 2009 model year, the CC carries over into the 2010 model year unchanged. Two major unusual characteristics regarding the CC: It is a sedan that seats only four people, yet it’s a four-door, which as a vehicle category typically seats five passengers; and it’s a sedan that is designed to look like a coupe.

Breaking away from the bland compact sedan segment makes sense. There’s a whole market of buyers who want the functionality of a four-door but whose self-image is more grounded in the coupe market.

The CC starts at $27,100 and comes equipped with a six-speed manual transmission that is hooked to a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder, turbocharged engine with direct injection.

A six-speed automatic with manual Tiptronic is optional. The engine generates 200 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque. My tester had EPA fuel economy ratings of 21 miles per gallon city and 31 mpg highway. The CC also is available with a 3.6-liter V-6 that produces 280 horsepower and 265 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is listed as 18/27 mpg.

The four-passenger interior has seating that is ergonomically formed to hold passengers snuggly for lateral support. The exterior design is probably one of the best for Volkswagen. Designers have managed to give VW a model that tilts toward luxurious looks. The sweeping lines from front to rear make the sheet metal look like a jewel, and the rear-swept roofline is the signature element that imaginatively redefines this sedan into a seemingly virtual coupe.

The famed Jetta easily captures the sports wagon market with a stable reputation of easy-to-handle, nimble compact fun. The 2010 Jetta SportWagen starts at $19,265 for the 170-horsepower, five-cylinder base level S model.

Volkswagen reports that the TDI wagon model is eligible for a $1,300 federal tax credit through its qualification as an Advanced Lean Burn Technology Motor Vehicle. I drove the SportWagen TDI that achieves fuel ratings of 40 mpg highway.

The 50-state compliant turbo-diesel wagon features a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder that delivers 140 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. The tester was optionally equipped with the $1,100 six-speed automatic transmission. The $1,300 power panoramic sunroof was a breath of luxury. Loading gear and packages through the rear gate is effortless, of course, as this front-wheel drive vehicle is a small wagon - not at all in the same class with midsize crossovers or even compact SUVs.

New for 2010, the Jetta SportWagen has an all-new front end with a narrow double-bar grille that sits above the bumper, giving it a more aggressive, sporty look.

Volkswagen demonstrates with the Jetta SportWagen and the CC that it’s an inventive brand and quick to listen to customers. In the Strategic Vision 2009 Total Value Index, the CC and the Jetta SportWagen received high ratings from buyers who were satisfied with the value and price.

Source: [New York Daily News]

Volvo has released a new promotional video for the upcoming 2011 Volvo S60, showing the stylish sedan bolting from the factory and heading to the hills and beyond.

Aside from the usual advertising guff, the new video offers the first look inside the cabin of the new S60.

Volvo has yet to offer any technical details for the S60, although the Swedish marque’s new turbo-charged 2.0 litre GTDi engine - announced last week - is likely to figure among the S60’s powertrain options.

In the S80, the GTDi engine offers a 0-100km/h time of 8.5 seconds with the new PowerShift automatic transmission. In the S60, an eight second run should be achievable.

The 2011 Volvo S60 will make its public debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, while production is slated to begin mid-2010.

Source: [The Motor Report]

Florida has one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. The state is last in what it pays for children’s health care - with as many as 800,000 children going without health insurance. Infant mortality rates in some counties are as high as a Third World country. A national study has shown the Sunshine State’s prekindergarten program to be one of the nation’s worst in terms of quality.

And Florida ranks third in the number of child deaths linked to abuse and neglect.

The Children’s Campaign, focused on bringing children’s issues to the forefront, is working to turn those numbers around. But with Florida legislators ready once again to slash state spending because of declining tax collections, children’s advocates are worried that they are fighting a losing battle. The state needs $2.7 billion it doesn’t have just to keep government operating at its already scaled-down level. The public school budget alone could face a $1 billion deficit.

“The broad consensus is that people care about kids, but that falls apart when it’s time to pay for it,” says Roy Miller, longtime president of the Children’s Campaign.

This is where you, the residents of Tallahassee, come in.

Miller’s challenge is simple: Are you ready to step up for children?

Miller wants to “get beyond the existing choir” and be able to call on local residents to speak out on behalf of children when the Florida Legislature convenes in March and begins its budget work in earnest. The idea is that state lawmakers might pay more attention to children’s programs - and be less likely to cut funding - if members of the public come to personally testify in support of them.

While others in the state may be willing to help, it takes time and money to travel to Tallahassee - and sometimes legislative committee meetings are scheduled on short notice. That’s where Tallahasseeans can help fill the gap, Miller said, adding that testifying before a legislative committee isn’t as tough as it sounds.

“People get scared off because they think they don’t know enough about the issues,” Miller says. “But all they have to do is rely on their personal experiences, to do a little reality therapy with these legislators.

“I’m not optimistic about the upcoming session … that’s why we want people in the community to watch,” he says. “This is a special opportunity that Tallahassee has. My challenge is, are you ready to step up for children?”

You can find out more about the Children’s Campaign at iamforkids.org or by calling (850) 425-2600.

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

There is just one day each year - Valentine’s Day - dedicated to celebrating couples. We all know the well-worn rituals: Snag a good dinner reservation, order flowers, buy a box of chocolate and hope that you’ve done enough.

But what if your plans fall through or, in the aftermath of an exuberant Christmas, you’re looking to save a little money without sacrificing romance?

You don’t have to look any further than your own home.

A house can be more of a romantic retreat than a fancy restaurant or resort spa, say interior decorators. And it’s not just the obvious places, such as the bedroom, that can help set the stage for romance. Unlikely spots such as the living room, dining room, outdoor patio and even bathrooms can easily, and inexpensively, become love nests.

“Overwhelmingly yet subtly indulging all of the senses and setting a mood - that’s the essence behind creating the enhancing experience of a romantic space or retreat,” says Tamera Massey, an architect and interior decorator with offices in Seaside and Tallahassee. These spaces must be crafted with intimate attention to detail, Massey says, mixing the mystery and excitement of romance with a warm and tranquil atmosphere.

Rose petals on the bed are for amateurs, these decorators say. To really transform a room into the ultimate romantic retreat, you must indulge all five of your senses: taste, smell, sight, hearing and sound.

“It’s really pretty simple,” says Tallahassee-based interior designer Julian Mathis. “Stop and think about your senses, and go with that.”

First, think about what puts you at ease, says interior designer Jackie McHaffie of Tallahassee-based Designs Unlimited.

“For some people, romantic is a very clean look because it’s uncluttered,” McHaffie says. “For other people, it’s a very fussy look.”

When McHaffie was hired to help Jim and Maureen Daughton transform their 3,000-square-foot Tallahassee home from a traditional red brick residence into a glamorous sanctuary, she says the busy couple, who have two children, wanted a spot where they could focus on each other. The master bedroom, with its double doors, crystal teardrop-studded chandeliers, expansive marble-floored bathroom and walk-in closet with custom cabinetry became the romantic haven they were looking for.

“We want somewhere we can come and relax at the end of the day,” says Maureen Daughton, an attorney. The Daughtons point to the muted blue color of the wall, the thick white crown molding along the ceiling and doorframes, and the doorknob’s silver back plate as small details that helped contribute to an overall atmosphere of luxury and warmth.

“It’s very inviting,” Daughton says. “It’s a place where we can unwind.” Their bedroom is a no-television, cell phone and computer zone.

“It’s a soothing room,” agrees Jim Daughton, a lobbyist.

Stella and Raymond Cottrell also aimed for a romantic master bedroom when they built a custom home in SouthWood in 2008. The walls are painted “roasted red pepper-red,” Stella says, and there is a coffee bar and crackling fireplace steps away from the bed.

Their home, and especially their master bedroom has the warmth of a cozy ski lodge, with wood furniture used throughout the home and framed photos of winter landscapes.

French doors from their master bedroom open to a patio with views of the SouthWood golf course’s green rolling hills. Stella says there’s “nothing better than coming out here and watching the sunset,” though she also finds the occasional golf ball in her backyard.

At Florence and James Brainerd’s 2,600-square-foot custom-built home in Tallahassee, special care was given to the master bedroom. Florence Brainerd decided the best way to make it a romantic retreat was to not have a wall separating the bathroom from the bedroom.

“I was going for something Romanesque,” Florence Brainerd said. Her dark wood bed is draped in white lace and a fireplace offers flickers of light. Her bathtub is mere steps away from her bed, only separated by a wrought-iron screen with a another bit of white lace dangling off its edge.

“My wife is very romantic,” James Brainerd said with a chuckle. The couple built the home in 1987 and have been married for 30 years.

But if you don’t want have the time or money for a take-it-down-to-the studs renovation or custom-built home there are simple, inexpensive tricks that homeowners can use to achieve a romantic atmosphere.

Adjusting the lighting, adding a few decorative touches, and focusing on sentimental themes are some of the recommendations decorators have for heightening romance.

The Right Light
Just as Realtors preach “location, location, location,” interior decorators tout “lighting, lighting, lighting.” When designing a room for couples, decorators say using soft lighting is important.

“If you have a dimmer, use it,” says Susette Crosby of Affinity Design. “If you don’t have one, then there are other options, one of which is throwing a scarf over a lampshade. You can pull one out of your closet, and it romanticizes the light in the room.”

Then there is the obvious choice: candles. If it’s for a special day, drape the room with candles, using different sizes and shapes in order to achieve a staggered look.

“If you have a mirror in the room, sitting candles in front of the mirror doubles the effect,” Crosby says. Chandeliers are ideal, and if one isn’t available, string candles from a ceiling fan. “It creates the effect of a chandelier even if you don’t have one,” Crosby said.

McHaffie calls it “mood lighting.” Lighting the corners of a room, or putting accent lights on art, is a less expensive way to set the mood. A more expensive option for homeowners is installing dimmers so the mood can be instantly changed with a single button. Make sure any lighting changes also add convenience, she says. For instance, don’t install lighting that requires crawling out of bed to flick off a switch; instead, use remote controls or have a switch near the bed.

Harsh overhead lighting should be avoided, Mathis says.

“You really don’t want to see the light source if possible,” he says. He suggests putting a light on the floor behind a plant, allowing the leaves to cast soft shadows.

A Walk Down Memory Lane
Arranging a room around a theme helps, Mathis says. For couples, celebrate your love by taking a walk down memory lane, with photos, mementos, music and art that evokes a favorite vacation or honeymoon locale.

“It could be a trip to Italy,” he says. It will invoke “those wonderful feelings you had by doing a room around that.”

On the wall could be art or a photo of Venice and its abundant gondolas gliding down a canal. On a table could be photos from the trip of you and a loved one kissing at a piazza, posing in front of the Coliseum in Rome, or twirling spaghetti in Florence.

“You want to capitalize on all of your senses,” Mathis says. Scented candles, soft music, candies or chocolates on a nearby table - all can add a splash of romance to a room. Depending on how far the theme is taken, wine could be offered from an Italian vineyard, the music could be Pavarotti, and the candles could be hand-dipped from Florence.

If you’re after a more permanent transformation, go for the glamour by hanging a Venetian chandelier, which is more conventionally seen in dining rooms but can be placed in a bedroom for a romantic effect. To invoke the luxurious lifestyle of European royalty, shop for an ornate four-poster bed draped in Italian silk, with matching dressers with solid bronze or gold handles.

“That is where I’m coming from with taking a room and making the design that more from that location in the world where you brought back fond memories,” Mathis says. With the workday pressure gone, it puts you in the mood for romance because you’re in vacation mode, relaxed and comfortable.

Try translating what made a good hotel or resort experience into your own home, decorators say. Hotels are excellent resources for romantic settings because they don’t contain the typical clutter one finds in a bedroom. There are no books, no messy nightstand and no misplaced furniture. Hotels offer simplicity, and many are designed to emphasize romance over other practical needs, with bigger beds, whirlpool baths and hammocks on balconies.

Soft Touch
Don’t forget about one of the most important senses - touch. Decorators say soft, inviting fabrics are key to setting the stage for romance. This extends from the window treatments down to the type of rug or carpeting, sofa, bedding, and tables and chairs.

While modern furniture might appeal to you aesthetically, designers say to watch out for sharp corners and stiff furniture that may look great but not feel so good.

If a homeowner has wood floors, McHaffie suggests placing a soft rug on top of it to add warmth. Or choose carpeting such as a long-haired California Berber.

“It’s the old version of a shag carpet but with longer fibers,” she says. “It has movement to it, versus something tightly woven. It can be a nice romantic touch.”

In the bedroom, go with sheets or comforters that are soft to the touch.

“In the bedroom, you can be more sensuous,” Mathis says. “In the summertime, use linen, and in the winter, throw in silks and satin.” In the dining room, just using linen napkins, or having chairs with a smooth texture such as suede, can help soften the room. Use a table centerpiece that is inviting to the eyes, nose and fingers, such as roses, an orchid or lilies.

Beyond the Bedroom
Bedrooms aren’t the only place in a home that can be transformed into a romantic retreat. With the right decorative touch, practically any room can have a seductive appeal.

Backyards are sometimes overlooked but can be the perfect spot for a romantic evening. If you have a pool or whirlpool, use floating candles with waterproof candleholders. Tiki torches along the perimeter of your backyard provide a gentle glow. The Daughtons, for instance, installed a covered back patio with ceiling fans and chaise lounges that overlook the pool and can be used for a romantic evening or a backyard barbecue. And if your backyard offers some privacy, try setting up massage tables with aromatic oils.

“Front porches are another great spot,” Crosby says. “Treat it as an indoor space with portable items, such as throw pillows and candles.” She also says garden tubs, which are becoming a common amenity in most master bathrooms, offer opportunities for romance, with scented candles lining the tub. “To me, that is very romantic,” Crosby says.

Living rooms or family rooms can also be transformed into a romantic hideaway. Many of these rooms have televisions, which offer the opportunity to settle into a cozy couch and watch a romantic movie.

Mathis encourages homeowners to program lighting and sound systems through a remote control.

“You can lower the lights, turn on the soft music and be close to the dining room where you’ve had a romantic meal,” he says.

These transformations need not be temporary, decorators say. The best part about turning your home into a romantic retreat is that you don’t need the excuse of Feb. 14 or the pressure of the right dinner reservation to achieve the spirit of Valentine’s Day any day of the year.

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

While a student at Florida State University in the early 1980s, Andrew Bachmann would accompany a friend to a shop in Tampa’s Ybor City, where he would buy old postcards. At the time, “I thought that my friend was insane spending 10, 20, 30 dollars for a postcard,” Bachmann recalls.

A quarter-century and well more than 10,000 postcards later, Bachmann, a Jacksonville mortgage banker who has worked on Wall Street and as an investment adviser, is singing a very different tune.

“He was collecting in the ’80s and the cards were much cheaper, so the cards he was paying five and 10 and 15 dollars for are now worth one and two and three hundred dollars,” Bachmann says of his college friend.

“Unlike stocks, I think collectibles, as an investment, are a fantastic way to go. I’ve never lost money on a postcard.”

But the joys of postcard collecting aren’t limited to making money, Bachmann says. The hobby also offers pleasures that make the hobby part history lesson, part detective work and part treasure hunt.

Bachmann says his postcard epiphany started about 10 years after his initial introduction, when he and his wife moved to Jacksonville.

“As a way to learn the city, we just started looking at vintage postcards that we found at an old bookstore,” he says. “The images intrigued us, and then our goal soon became ‘Let’s collect every postcard that was ever made from Jacksonville.’”

Once they had made inroads into gathering Jacksonville images, Bachmann decided to branch out and start collecting cards from his alma mater. He currently owns about 180 images from FSU, the oldest a shot of the front entrance dated 1906, from the earliest of the postcard eras. (See the description of postcard eras on the next page.)

The FSU postcards run from the iconic (the Westcott Building, aerial views of Doak Campbell Stadium) to the odd (the Geology Building), and Bachmann has scanned them all to a photo CD that he sells on eBay and at flajax.com. (He has similar CD compendiums featuring Florida, Jacksonville and University of Florida postcards from his collection.)

Several FSU postcards show the same buildings at different points in their history.

“I may have four shots of the same building over four different decades,” Bachmann says. “(Other) buildings pop up around the one center point that was a constant in all the images. And then (some show) a building that’s totally knocked down, and then there’s another (card showing a) building right on top of the same spot.”

For example, Bryan Hall is shown in black and white and in hand coloring, with ivy-clad walls and silhouetted in the moonlight.

“I have a preference for the hand-colored cards,” he says. “To me, they look like a miniature painting.”

Bachmann enjoys sleuthing for clues that can date the images. The easiest is a postmark. As long as the postcard isn’t bent and creased, a postcard that was mailed won’t lose its value, he says. However, “if they do have writing on the front, a lot of people don’t like that.”

Don’t count on the stamps being valuable when you buy a used postcard, though.

“The stamps were at 1 and 2 cents for 30 or 40 years, and there’s billions of them out there,” he explains. It is interesting to read the messages - on the FSU cards there are several reports back home to relatives - and many got to their destinations with an address that only included a person’s name, town and state; no street address or ZIP code was required.

However, the postmark can be valuable to certain collectors.

“Some collect just the postmarks,” Bachmann says. “Sometimes the postcards that were mailed from trains or ships … make the card worth a lot more because they don’t have that type of postmark anymore.”

The look of the postcard also offers a hint as to when it was created. For example, the divided-back card - with space for a message on the left and an address on the right - didn’t exist before 1907. Cards with a white border were made between 1915 and 1930, and those that had a linen-like texture were made over the next 15 years.

The appearance of cars and people in the picture are another way Bachmann zeroes in on a date; his postcard of Strozier Library is obviously from the 1960s based on the buzz cuts and khaki paints of the three young men who are walking in front of it. Another of his notable cards is a street scene in Jacksonville that had to be from about 1911, because it showed strings of light bulbs, which one wouldn’t see in the days before electricity.

Bachmann paid more than $50 for a card showing the landmark Sweet Shop restaurant adjacent to FSU’s campus, but it is far from being the most expensive acquisition in his collection. That would be a rare “Alligator Border” postcard featuring a scene from Palatka that cost him $250. A German company produced a series of the distinctive embossed cards in 1908, with scenes from Florida’s major cities (there were about a dozen at the time, and Tallahassee wasn’t one of them) surrounded by a border of three alligators. Bachmann now has all 165 cards in the series, and he says complete sets have been sold at Sotheby’s for $30,000.

One of his favorite places to find cards is at the Orlando International Postcard Show Auction, held in early January each year.

“There’ll be 100 dealers with millions of postcards … all with dividers and everything labeled and categories that would make a librarian jealous,” he says. “The postcard show is like Christmas Day for a kid … you get an adrenaline rush because you just don’t know what good card you’re going to find.”

Bachmann also frequents garage sales and antique shops, but his habit has taken on a new dimension with the advent of eBay for both buying and selling.

“You’ve got the whole world brought to your fingertips by just typing in your particular city or topic, and then it’s great to sell the card because all it takes is two people who want it to bid up the price,” he says.

Bachmann says it can actually be thrilling to participate in the online auctions.

“I’ve gotten some cards for a dollar or two that I would have easily paid $100 or $150 for,” he says.

To novice collectors, “I would say to pick something that means something to you,” Bachmann advises. “Most people, I find, like to collect what they consider their hometown.”

But beware: “Postcard collecting is very addictive, so you may start collecting one category and then you find another category that you like,” he says. “My wife’s from Huntington, Long Island, so we’ve started collecting Long Island postcards. I used to work on Wall Street, so I have a collection of Wall Street and financial-related postcards from New York City. My twins and I love to go bowling, so I have a collection of bowling alleys across America.”

While the bulk of Bachmann’s collection stops in the 1960s, he has discovered a use for modern postcards.

“When we go on vacation, my wife and I will address a postcard to ourselves,” with the date and the highlights of their trip, he says. “The kids love picking out something that represented what they did in that town. In our old age, we could look back at all the trips we took in our lifetime. A hundred years from now, our great-grandkids could be going through a shoebox filled with our travels. And maybe they’ll mimic some of our road trips and see some of the same sights.”

Vintage postcards can be a thoughtful, and often inexpensive, gift, according to Bachmann.

His collecting friend sent Bachmann a card from his hometown of Hoboken, N.J. A $3 card of his mother’s Waterbury, Conn., high school is now “hanging in her kitchen, and she loves it.” The subjects that can inspire a fond memory - a college, a city, a restaurant, a sport, an alma mater - offer possibilities for a sentimental postcard present, he says.

While Bachmann has parlayed his postcards into commercial enterprises - selling cards; the archive CDs; a picture book he coauthored with his wife, Maria Mediavilla, about historic Jacksonville; and selling enlargements - all of the profits he makes are plowed back into the quest for more cards. He slips his latest acquisitions into plastic sleeves and sorts them into storage boxes, to be riffled through with pleasure.

“I would say I buy nine cards for every one I sell,” Bachmann admits. “I have people who have found my Web site and contacted me to see if I was interested in buying their old postcards. I’m always game to make a drive over and visit and make an offer of what they think is outrageously high, but what I think is an incredibly low price, so everyone’s happy.”

Where else, he asks, “Can you get an antique for 10 bucks?”

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

Event Spotlight: ‘Voices of Florida Women’

Florida Clark, born in Gadsden County, worked in the early 1930s at McCrory’s Five and Dime on Monroe Street and the Singer Sewing Center on College Avenue. She taught girls how to sew and made clothes for prominent women in town, including Gov. Reubin Askew’s wife, Donna Lou Harper Askew. Clark is just one of the women whose story is told in “Voices of Florida Women,” a historical exhibit now featured at the Museum of Florida History. The exhibition, which runs through March 23, includes exclusive permanent collections from the museum, telling the stories of how women changed the economic, social and cultural fabric of Florida. Florida natives from throughout the state who have made Florida history include Florida State University benefactor Ruby Diamond, actress Frances Langford, Seminole tribal representative and craftswoman Ethel Santiago, auto test driver and adventurer Betty Skelton, and Florida’s first black woman legislator, Gwen Cherry. Brown-bag lectures, guest speakers, live performances and book signings will be held throughout the exhibition’s five-month run. All events are free and open to the public during regular museum hours. For more information, visit museumoffloridahistory.com/mfh/calendar. The museum is located downtown in the R.A. Gray Building, 500 S. Bronough St. The exhibit coincides with Women’s History Month in Florida, which is held throughout March. - Corbin Robinson

Best Bets: February

Feb. 19-20
Annika Experience at WaterSound
Be prepared to break a sweat at this celebration of active lifestyles and wellness education. The weekend’s events - taking place at WaterSound’s Origins Golf Club, Camp Creek Golf Club and the WaterColor Inn and Resort - will include a celebrity golf match with golf superstar Annika Sorenstam, a children’s fitness clinic, a meet-and-greet luncheon, a charity golf tournament, and a food and wine reception. All proceeds will be donated to local charities. “The Annika Experience at WaterSound is a special opportunity to promote St. Joe’s innovative, active-lifestyle communities while raising awareness and funds for local charities and health organizations,” says Britt Greene, president and CEO of the St. Joe Company. Accommodations packages will be available at WaterColor Inn and Resort and at WaterSound Beach, and will include admission to all ticketed events. Visit joe.com/watersound-community for more information. - Aniko Gomory

Feb. 28
Children’s Home Society’s 25th Annual Chef’s Sampler
Mark your calendars and plan to have a good time while supporting a great cause. The Chef’s Sampler is a local tradition that demonstrates all that’s wonderful about our community, as well as giving participants the one and only “True Taste of Tallahassee.” This year will mark its 25th anniversary, with more than 50 of the area’s finest restaurants and caterers generously preparing their culinary creations. All proceeds benefit the North Central Division of Children’s Home Society of Florida, which in 2008 alone provided services for 4,500 children and families in the Big Bend area. The Chef’s Sampler runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Tallahassee Mall. Tickets are $60 and can be purchased either in advance or at the event. To purchase tickets in advance or for sponsorship opportunities, call Children’s Home Society at (850) 921-0772 or visit chstallychefs.com.

Calendar of Events

Through February 26
‘Space Relations: Joelle Dietrich, Owen Mundy, Chad Erpelding’
A look into how individuals react to their own environment within the context of the global community, this exhibition encourages audience participation. Art from the Florida State University Art Students League will be showcased in the Nan Boynton Memorial Gallery. No charge. Opening night 6 p.m.-9 p.m. After that, regular gallery times: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 621 Gallery (Railroad Square), 621 Industrial Drive. (850) 224-6163, 621gallery.org

Through March 14
Figure Drawing Exhibition
Artists Bill Thompson, Ron Yrabedra, John H. Woodworth, B. Harper Frost and Barbara Harrison focus on the artistic tradition of the visual exploration of the human form. Admission: $1 (no charge for members and children). Opening-night times: 6-9 p.m., with a talk at 6:30 p.m. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Gadsden Arts Center, 13 N. Madison St., Quincy. (850) 875-4866, gadsdenarts.org

Through March 21
‘The Kinsey Collection’
Florida A&M University alumni Bernard and Shirley Kinsey share art and artifacts from their personal collection. (See story, page 47). Admission is $5 for children, students, seniors, and military, and $10 for adults. Museum hours are Monday-Saturday 10 a.m., and Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mary Brogan Museum of Art, 350 S. Duval St. (850) 513-0700, Ext. 229; thekinseycollection.com

Through March 28
FAMU Annual Faculty Art Exhibition
Present and retired faculty of Florida A&M University’s School of Architecture and its Visual Arts Department share their work in all mediums, including printmaking, photography, quilting, ceramics and oil painting. $1 (free for members and children). 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Gadsden Arts Center, 13 N. Madison St., Quincy. (850) 875-4866, gadsdenarts.org

Feb. 18
Carla Connors and Timothy Hoekman
Enjoy love songs presented by Carla Connors, proclaimed one of the best sopranos of the decade by the Detroit Free Press. She is accompanied by Timothy Hoekman, who has performed as a soloist and accompanist in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. $35 ($45 nonmembers). 7 p.m.-9 p.m. Gadsden Arts Center, 13 N. Madison St., Quincy. (850) 875-4866, gadsdenarts.org

Feb. 19-21
‘Exploring with Dora & Diego’
Your favorite search-and-find duo, Dora and Diego, will take youngsters on a fun-filled adventure during this performance Call (850) 386-6602 for show times and ticket information. Young Actors Theatre and School for the Performing Arts, 609 Glenview Drive. youngactorstheatre.com

Feb. 26-28 and March 3-7
‘Hamlet’
One of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays, “Hamlet” tells the story of a prince’s struggle to avenge his father’s death in the new state of Denmark. $20. Wednesday through Saturday performances, 8 p.m.; Sunday performances, 2 p.m. Lab Theatre, Florida State University, 502 S. Copeland St. (850) 644-6500, tickets.fsu.edu

Feb. 26-March 7
‘The Light in the Piazza’
Theatre A La Carte presents this award-winning musical by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas. $16 for adults; $14 for students and senior citizens. Friday and Saturday performances, 8 p.m.; Sunday performances, 2 p.m. Tallahassee Senior Center, 1400 N. Monroe St. (850) 224-8474, theatrealacarte.org

Feb. 27
8th Annual Winter Garden Symposium
“Infusing the Garden with Your Personality” is the topic of this presentation featuring Tovah Martin and Carleton Woods. $45 per person, which includes lunch. 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Goodwood Museum & Gardens. Carriage House Conference Center, 1600 Miccosukee Road. (850) 877-7592, goodwoodmuseum.org

Feb. 27
Tallahassee Local Authors Day Program
This annual event celebrates local authors and their accomplishments. A poetry contest will be held as a part of the celebration. The event is free to the public; contestants must pre-register. Noon-3 p.m. Amen-Ra’s Bookshop, 812 S. Macomb St. (850) 264-3341, tallahasseelocalauthors.ning.com

Feb. 26-Feb. 28
Thomasville Antiques Show
View antiques and crafts while supporting children’s programs. $15. Call for event times at (229) 225-9354. Tallahassee Antique Show Foundation, 135 N. Broad St., Thomasville, Ga. thomasvilleantiquesshow.com

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

Motor oil is the lifeblood of your engine. Just as your body operates best with a specific blood type, your engine operates in a similar way. Do you know what type of motor oil helps protect and optimize your engine’s output?

When you take your vehicle to a service department for an oil change, do you know which oil to request in your vehicle? With so many motor oil choices available, it can be confusing to know what type of oil will work the best in your vehicle’s engine. The easiest answer to this question is found in your owner’s manual. For most passenger car and light truck gasoline engines today, any oil that meets the American Petroleum Institutes “SH” rating. While that’s a pretty broad range of oils, here is a breakdown of the different types and functions of motor oil to help you choose which type is best for your engine.

Every motor oil is rated by viscosity, which indicates the oil’s resistance to flow. The higher the viscosity the slower it will flow. Most engine wear occurs immediately after a cold start, so it’s important to have oil that is thin enough to circulate easily.

5W-30 - most new engines today require a multi-viscosity oil for all-round driving. The lighter 5W-30 oils contain friction reducing additives that help improve fuel economy, and also allow the oil to quickly reach critical upper valvetrain components when a cold engine is first started.

10W-30, 10W-40 - used in older engines and engines that are driven at sustained highway speeds during hot weather.

20W-40 - used in high RPM, high-load applications primarily and are not recommended for cold weather driving.

Synthetic oils are also an option when choosing the right oil for your vehicle. Synthetic oil offers greater engine protection in high temperatures, increased durability and a better all-around performance than ordinary petroleum-based oils. These can cost up to three times as much as ordinary petroleum oils because they are manmade rather than refined. The premium priced synthetic oil is recommended for vehicles operated in extremely cold or hot climates, turbocharged or supercharged engines, performance or high output engines, vehicles used for towing and anyone who wants ultimate engine lubrication and protection. Synthetic oil improves the performance of your engine in virtually every aspect:

• Superior temperature resistance. Synthetics can safely handle higher operating temperatures without oxidizing (burning) or breaking down. The upper limit for most mineral based oils is about 250 to 300 degrees F. Synthetics can take up to 450 degrees F. or higher. This makes synthetics well-suited for turbo applications as well as high RPM and high output engine applications.
• Better low temperature performance. Synthetics flow freely at subzero temperatures, pouring easily at -40 or -50 degrees F. where ordinary oils turn to molasses. This makes for easier cold starts and provides faster upper valvetrain lubrication during the first critical moments when most engine wear occurs.
• Better engine performance. Synthetics tend to be more slippery than their petroleum-based counterparts, which improves fuel economy, cuts frictional horsepower losses and helps the engine run cooler. The difference isn’t great, but it can make a noticeable difference.
• Longer oil change intervals. Because synthetics resist oxidation and viscosity breakdown better than ordinary motor oils, some suppliers say oil change intervals can be safely extended — in some cases stretched to as much as 25,000 miles. Such claims are justified by the fact that synthetics don’t break down or sludge up as fast as ordinary mineral-based oils do in use.

Synthetics are available in the same grades as ordinary motor oils (5W-30, 5W-20 and 10W-30) as well as “extended” grades such as 15W-50 and even 5W-50.

Are you still unsure of what oil is best for your engine? The next time you take your vehicle for service at your local Capital Eurocars Service Department, be sure to talk with our knowledgeable service advisors to determine what type and viscosity of engine oil will help keep your engine running like new for years to come.

Source: [Yahoo.com]

The Apple iPhone has a built-in accelerometer that rather accurately detects even the slightest motions. Developers have been quick to create applications that capitalize on the iPhone’s hardware, including software that helps enthusiasts obtain g-force and 0-60 times from their phone. We’ve tested a few ourselves and they work pretty well, although most of these apps come at a cost, ranging from $4.99 to $10 or more. If you like the idea of timing your vehicle with the aid of an iPhone but don’t want to pay for an app, BMW has a free solution for you.

It’s called the M Power Meter and does most things those paid apps can do, but it’s free and also very easy to use. Simply download the software from the app store, place your phone upright in a cup holder or flat in the direction you intend to drive, hit start, accept the terms and go. The M Power Meter defaults to timing a jaunt from 0-50 km/h, but you can change that by clicking on settings and choosing from several acceleration options up to 200 km/h or distances ranging from 100 meters to 2,000 meters. We downloaded the M Power Meter app and found it worked fairly well for being free and nearly as good as those apps we spent a few bucks on in the past.

If you have an iPhone and a car, test it out for yourself (without breaking the law or doing anything that could endanger yourself or others). It’s free, so it couldn’t hurt to give it a whirl.

Source: [Autoblog]

Mercedes-Benz has announced that its next-gen S-Class will be launched with a plug-in hybrid model. As promised, it will be a full-sized luxury sedan capable of doing 0-62 mph in under 6 seconds, at a fuel economy of at least 70 mpg. The hybrid technology that will feature in the next-gen S-class will eventually be rolled out across the rest of the automaker’s range.

The information was the result of an interview between Mercedes-Benz’s Research & Development boss Thomas Weber and Autocar magazine. In the conversation Mr. Webber explained that “it makes a lot of sense to bundle the high price tech option to the sort of customers willing to pay for this sort of thing.”

Any doubts regarding a purely electric version were ruled out by Mr. Weber mainly due to concerns over its [battery] range. As a reply to it he said, “It could be possible, but no. Our customers expect a certain range and a level of comfort, safety and space. Such things lead to a certain weight, and that won’t mean a good range.” However, for short distances the plug-in hybrid version could drive on electric power alone.

The hybrid technology was first observed in the Vision S500 Plug-In Hybrid Concept last year. It had a combination of a 3.5-L V6 gasoline engine with an electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries. The next-generation S-Class is expected to undergo a drastic weight reduction program and an aerodynamic make over. That, when combined with the hybrid drive-train, allows the sedan to easily achieve the promised 70 mpg mark.

The rest of the Mercedes’ line-up includes less expensive versions of the next S-class. It will be offered with next-gen “MoVe” modular V-6 and V-8 engines that will have direct injection and stop-start. It could also implement a turbocharge technology that can be used in conjunction with electric motors. Even more, the company claims it will be better than the existing petrol engines in terms of power by 10%, torque by 25% and fuel economy by 25%.

Source: [Nitro Bahn]

With Porsche’s new four door Panamera, the German sports car maker is trying to appeal, at least in part, to your sensible side. It’s inherent practicality, with four doors, four seats and a hatchback style trunk with a reasonable amount of cargo room, making the Panamera much easier to convince yourself into over one of Porsche’s many two-seater sports cars.

While Porsches have always been about what you want, the Panamera adds a bit more of what you need.

And then they went and built the Turbo model.

A V8 ENGINE, TWIN TURBOS AND 500 HORSEPOWER

Having just completed out test already impressively powerful 400 horsepower Panamera S, we just had to grab a Turbo model for a short stint.

With the same 4.8-liter V8 motor mounted up front and two turbochargers, this model makes an exotic 500-hp … and feels even faster. There are few cars on the planet that really push you back into the seat. We’re not talking about a slight tap or a nudge, we’re talking about a burly lumberjack putting his two hands on your shoulders and making sure you leave an indent in that pricey leather coated sport seat.

There’s more than enough power across the rpm range and it really doesn’t take long before full torque is available. Unlike a lot of turbocharged cars that need a good bit of time (and rpm) to spool up, the Panamera Turbo has access to a 516 ft-lbs of the good stuff at just 2250 rpm. That engine speed seems to be just perfect. Any lower and the power would almost be too smooth. This way, when you accelerate, you feel the power come on, and then at 2250 rpm it really comes on. It’s a good thing there’s Porsches fabulous AWD system, or you’d be left with aluminum wheels sparking on the asphalt after turning your tires into a smoky cloud.

Keep on the power as the gears fly by and you’ll soon be wondering if the afterburners ever peter out. The Turbo model is rated at an incredibly quick 4.0 seconds to 60 mph. Opt for the Sorts Chrono package with quicker shifts and that time is reduced to just 3.8-seconds.

Helping in the acceleration department is a lightning quick dual-clutch gearbox, which Porsche refers to as PDK. With a fully automatic setting, as well as a manual mode, you can choose to let the car do all the work or finger the steering wheel buttons yourself.

The technology behind this gearbox is incredible, with this new dual-clutch setup the latest and greatest - so much so that even Ferrari has opted to use a similar setup on its new road cars in favor of what, up until now, was the best paddle shifter system on the market.

It’s also the only available gearbox as Porsche has decided (for practical business reasons) that it’s just not worth the expense of bringing over the manual transmission model from Europe for the four people who would buy one.

ACCELERATES SO FAST YOUR ADRENALINE WILL HAVE TO CATCH UP

Things get scary fast in a hurry and it’s not until you run out of room, or realize just how much you’ve exceeded the posted speed limit, that you lift off the throttle and grab hard on the brakes. Only then do you realize you haven’t taken a breath and in the calmness of this moment you feel your adrenaline start to catch up. And that primal feeling urges you to do it all gain.

Like I said, this car isn’t about what you need, as much as Porsche would like you to believe it is. Absolutely no one needs this much thrust. This is a want car, and after just one drive you’re going to want it.

And yet, there is so much that makes the Panamera practical, but you’d never guess it from the driver’s seat. If you could pilot this car on a racetrack with blinders on, it would take a seasoned racer to know there were two extra doors out back.

Porsche attributes this to the fact that the Panamera is a purpose built car, designed exactly for this application. Cars like the BMW M5 or Mercedes E63 are built as standard luxury cars first, and then transformed into high-powered machines afterward.

ACTUAL SPACE FOR PASSENGERS AND USABLE CARGO ROOM

As for those practicality aspects, the Panamera has ample seating for four and even boasts cargo room of 15.2 cubic feet (432 liters). That space can be expanded to 44.1 cubic feet (1,250 liters) with the rear seatbacks folded flat.

It’s important to note that while there are four doors, there are also just four seats - not five. The rear area is almost identical to the front, with two well-bolstered, yet comfortable, sports seats divided by a rather wide tunnel, which runs the length of the cabin, straight from the dash back.

Rear room is spacious thanks to seats that actually recline. In fact, there’s enough room for a 6″-plus passenger to sit behind a driver of the same size.

LUXURIOUS AND SPORTY DRIVER-ORIENTED INTERIOR

Up front it’s a driver’s paradise - mostly. Rather than a complex iDrive-style system that requires you to drill down through menus for even just the simplest command, Porsche has opted for individual buttons - lots of them. Somehow, however, the designers managed to not make the dash and center console look crowded.

About the only thing we don’t like about the driving experience are the shift buttons on the steering wheel. After a while we managed figure out a comfortable way of using them, with fingers on the back for up shifting and the base of the thumb on the front of the wheel for down shifting.

After a while it wasn’t all that bad, but we’ll still be thankful when Porsche does introduce more conventional paddle shifters - which they have already debuted on the 2010 911 Turbo.

Had we only driven this particular model we might not have a very glowing review of the car’s interior design, especially with the blue (yes, blue) leather interior (not shown here…thankfully). The Panamera S model we drove just before gave a much better idea of what the Porsche designers are capable of. So depending on exactly how an owner equips his or her model, it will depend, but there are certainly the right options to make a first rate luxury interior.

On item we just have to point out is the additional navigation screen that sits inside the traditional five-gauge cluster on the dash. While slightly more basic and limited than the large LCD screen in the center stack, its location means the driver doesn’t have to look far from the road when in need of a little route guidance.

STILL NOT THE PRETTIEST OF CARS

From the outside, the Panamera is less impressive, although it’s starting to grow on us. We’d rate our current feelings on the car’s design as having improved from disgust to indifference. Possibly a bigger issue is that, like all Porsches, its hard to tell one model apart from the rest. From the front and at a distance it could be confused with any vehicle in the Porsche lineup. More importantly, however, from up close, it’s hard to see where it differs from the less powerful and significantly less expensive Panamera S model; or worse, from the upcoming V6 versions.

At least the larger 19-inch wheels help to spice it up a little and the lower profile tires help to diminish some of the car’s overall rotundness.

Source: [Auto Guide]

For 2010, Volkswagen offers the Eos in two trim levels: Komfort and Lux. Also, all 2010 Volkswagen Eos convertibles come with the same engine: a 2.0-liter, 200-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder with plenty of torque across the rev-range, strong thrust, and a brisk 0-60 mph time of 6.4 seconds. This fuel-efficient mill can be matched with a choice of a six-speed manual or dual-clutch transmission, the latter having the ability to be shifted like a manual without the clutch pedal. One of the Eos’ best attributes is its handling, which is relaxed enough so that you can enjoy the convertible experience but still firm enough to power through tricky corners. Taking fuel economy into consideration, the Eos is impressive at 21 mpg in the city and 30 mpg on the highway.

When compared to other hardtop convertibles such as the Volvo C70 and Chrysler Sebring, the cargo area is a larger 6.6 cubic feet with the top stowed, which is impressive. In less than 25 seconds, a total of eight electric motors work in conjunction to unlatch the roof from the windshield header and flip and fold it under the metal trunk lid. The convertible roof also has a setting that opens the front section only like a sunroof.

Safety is a strong card for the Eos, which boasts as standard traction control, head/thorax airbags for front seat passengers, and a pop-up roll bar located behind the rear seats. The 2010 Volkswagen Eos also gets a rating of “good” from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for front and for side impacts.

The 2010 Volkswagen Eos has been slightly updated for the latest model year, with new chrome accents for the Lux model, which also offers optional 18-inch wheels and a sport suspension. Standard on all models are Bluetooth connectivity and a touchscreen interface for the stereo, as well as a leather-wrapped multifunction steering wheel and instrument cluster.

Visit Capital Eurocars in Tallahassee to test drive the new 2010 Volkswagen Eos today!

Source: [The Car Connection]

With competition for a slice of the sales segment in the beleaguered auto industry so high, manufacturers have turned toward more innovative methods to launch their products.  Volvo is no stranger to viral marketing and announced plans early today that they would release the first official video of their new S60 on You Tube, ensuring it will be the first new car video on You Tube for 2010.

Like many companies these days, Volvo is relying on social media to reveal products to its target audiences, rather than on the more traditional and mainstream media forums. Accordingly, Volvo says that its ‘Facebook fans were the first to see [the S60] exclusively already in 2009. The video will then be released to the general public on You Tube as soon as the new year begins.’

“We will ensure that this is the first car video on You Tube in 2010. It will be released on Volvo Car’s channel on You Tube a few seconds after we have entered the new year,” says Olle Axelson, Senior Vice President Public Affairs at Volvo Car Corporation.  The first photos of the all-new Volvo S60 were released to the world press on 10 November 2009, however no TV or video footage was released at that time.

“We want to acknowledge all the Volvo enthusiasts around the world by giving them an exclusive pre-view of this video on the Volvo Cars Face book fan page. Then it will be available to everyone through Volvo Cars’ channel on You Tube right after midnight on New Year’s Eve,” says Olle Axelson.

The all-new Volvo S60 video will be released to the public on the You Tube channel VolvoCarsNews a few seconds after midnight on Jan 1, 2010 CET (Central European Time).

According to a company press release, production of the sporty sedan model will start in early summer 2010 at the Volvo Cars’ plant in Ghent, Belgium.

Source: [Examiner]

Pulsating pop music bounces from the plush leather lounge chairs to the flat-screen televisions on the wall to the chandeliers that look like cascading bubbles.

The lights are dim, and the murmuring crowd mingles as cocktails are ordered from the bar. A new nightclub? Hardly. It’s the lobby of Hotel Duval, one of two boutique hotels that have opened in Tallahassee over the past six months. Aloft Tallahassee Downtown, affiliated with the W Hotels chain, opened a block away from Hotel Duval in September 2009.

Boutique hotels, which emerged in the 1990s, are typically smaller hotels not affiliated with national chains. They’re often outfitted with trendy furnishings and attract a younger clientele. These fashionable accomodations eschew the cookie-cutter décor and floor plans that many national chains offer. Instead of carpet, one might find wood floors. Instead of room service, a martini bar.

Traditional hotel perks, such as room service and pools, may not be available at boutique hotels. Such amenities are often swapped for moderate prices, modern furniture, bright colors, flat-screen televisions, hip music, and popular bars and restaurants.

“It’s like a bed and breakfast on steroids,” said Christopher Muller, a professor at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida.

In Tallahassee, Aloft Tallahassee Downtown and Hotel Duval opened their doors within a month of each other.

Florida’s capital city is attractive to hoteliers because of its young population and its steady flow of tourists to the town’s universities and state Capitol, according to hospitality industry officials.

Tallahassee isn’t a large enough market to attract five-star luxury hotels like the Four Seasons or St. Regis, Muller said, so boutique hotels fill the need for more high-end options without resort-style amenities, such as a spa or Olympic-size pool.

Major hotel chains don’t flip a coin to decide which markets to enter, hotel experts say. It’s a strategic decision, made after thoroughly examining a community, its demographics, its need for hotel rooms and average room rates.

Tallahassee’s new boutique hotels are here because their operators are confident they will fill their rooms, said Woody Kim, director of the International Center for Hospitality Research and Development at Florida State University.

In the first six months of 2009, Tallahassee’s average occupancy rate was 54 percent and its average room rate was $77.46, according to Smith Travel Research, a hospitality industry research firm. These disappointing figures reflect the economic wallop the hotel industry is experiencing statewide, industry experts say. Still, Tallahassee typically offers better occupancy and room rental rates than other Florida cities, Kim said.

Aloft chose Tallahassee as only its second Florida city to debut its brand.

Hotel Duval is owned by Hunter & Harp Holdings, a real estate development firm headed by local investors Chad Kittrell, Frank Whitley and J.T. Burnette. This is the trio’s first hotel development project, though they have worked on other commercial properties.

“We did a lot of feasibility research,” Kittrell said. “There was a need for a high-end, full-service hotel that hits a certain price point that is affordable for the Tallahassee market.”

Aloft and Hotel Duval’s rates vary, with summer and winter offering lower rates than spring and fall. Aloft’s rates range from $100 to $200 a night, and Hotel Duval’s rates start at $159 a night and rise to $589 for its top-floor, apartment-size suites.

A Block Transformed
They sit only a block apart, on opposite sides of North Monroe Street, and opened at around the same time. But although they both cater to a hip clientele with trendy, modern furniture, Hotel Duval and Aloft Tallahassee Downtown offer different amenities and atmosphere.

Hotel Duval is steeped in history. Called the Duval Hotel when it was built in 1951, it later became an FSU dormitory and offices. In the 1980s it was retrofitted back into a hotel under the Radisson banner and later became a Park Plaza hotel. In 2007, Hunter & Harp bought the property and sank $15 million into a down-to-the-studs renovation that aims to evoke some of Hotel Duval’s namesake history.

The managers and owners of Hotel Duval and Aloft say their goal is not just to lure out-of-town visitors, but to become a popular hotspot for Tallahassee residents looking for a place to eat, have drinks after work or host a work meeting, birthday party or wedding.

“Our goal is to reach anybody with good, disposable income who is looking for an upscale experience in Tallahassee,” said Hotel Duval general manager Marc Bauer.

In hopes of meeting expectations of clients with polished tastes, Hotel Duval offers three dining options: Shula’s 347 Grill, a steakhouse named for Hall of Fame NFL coach Don Shula; a lounge, LeRoc, that transforms from a Starbucks-serving breakfast stop in the morning to a lunch bistro at midday to a cocktail bar in the evening; and the posh Level 8 rooftop lounge, with much-raved-about views of downtown and Florida State University.

Down the block, visitors to Aloft Tallahassee Downtown are greeted with “Aloha!” by a peppy desk clerk.

Rock music blares from well-hidden speakers, and the lobby is swathed in swirls of vibrant turquoise, purple and green colors against muted shades of gray, black and brown. A news ticker scrolls headlines above a round reception desk.

The open lobby encourages visitors to enjoy the billiards table, stop by the WXYZ lounge for a drink and appetizer, or hit the snack and breakfast bar.

“I wouldn’t tie us to one demographic,” said Cara Hardiman, the general manager of Aloft. “It’s young families, a tech-savvy crowd, business professionals, attorneys, lobbyists. We’ve had members of Congress stay with us.”

Aloft was built on what used to be a vacant lot at the corner of Monroe and Tennessee streets. It was the site of the Floridan Hotel, which was demolished in 1985. Tallahassee Mayor John Marks helped the city purchase the site for $3.4 million in 1989 with the idea that the valuable land would one day hold something worthy of the Floridan’s footprint.

“I wanted to get a development that would fit that particular corner,” Marks said. When developers approached the city with the Aloft hotel concept, Marks approved. “I consider it a signature corner … The concept of putting another hotel there appealed to me.”

There are some major differences between the two boutique hotels. Hotel Duval, for instance, offers three dining options and catering, while Aloft has no sit-down restaurants and limited in-house catering options.

Aloft has a pool and outdoor patio, while Hotel Duval does not. Aloft visitors can self-park, while Hotel Duval offers valet parking only. And Hotel Duval has large suites, while Aloft only offers traditional rooms.

The Downtown Vision
Aloft Tallahassee Downtown and Hotel Duval are considered integral components of the city’s push for a more vibrant, 18-hour downtown, with shops and restaurants open late in the evening.

Though the hotels are competitors, managers of both say the synergy of two boutique hotels near one other may boost the popularity of the area with local residents.

“Each will appeal to a different market and audience but will play very well together and really be the anchors of this 18-hour downtown vision that has been bandied about for the better part of 10 years now,” said Bauer, the Hotel Duval general manager.

Hotel Duval will help “bridge the gap between Midtown and downtown,” local investor Kittrell said, as well as help retain students who might flee a city that is sometimes perceived as lacking in social life.

“We wanted to create an experience in Tallahassee for both travelers and local folks,” he said. “You can come and experience things you wouldn’t normally see.”

Hardiman agrees.

“Downtown Tallahassee needed something new and fresh,” said Aloft’s general manager. Out-of-town visitors who weren’t pleased with hotel choices may reconsider, Hardiman said. That means more people downtown, and more dollars going to local restaurants.

Tourists will be happy to see a hotel that can meet expectations for luxury they’ve seen in other cities, said Muller, the UCF professor.

“The people who come back (to Tallahassee) have some money and are willing to spend it in a semi-luxurious environment,” he said.

Muller also believes Hotel Duval and Aloft’s proximity to one another is a good thing. The competition between Hotel Duval and Aloft will likely keep room rates low, he said.

“There will be some great deals.”

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

On a cold day in February 1959, William Harold “Harry” Harper looked like he’d been in a hatchet fight. His face was scratched up and bleeding, his tailbone busted. But he was alive. “I was some sorry-looking stuff,”
he recalled.

Despite years of service during the Cold War and in Vietnam, this wasn’t a war story: This was the story of the night he had to bail out over America’s heartland.

At a well-rounded 83, the Waverly Hills resident is far removed from his lean, ramrod-straight days as an Army officer and pilot, which included a stint flying for three U.S. presidents. Those glory days live on in a large, wall-mounted shadow box frame containing photographs, presidential seals, letters of commendation and the various medals he has earned in his career. And in the adventures he recalls … .

Any Landing You Walk Away From …
On the fateful day in 1959, Harper was flying home to Dothan, Ala., on a weekend trip from his studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. He had borrowed a small, single-engine observation plane from the Iowa National Guard for this trip.

At 33, he was an experienced pilot and was on the staff at Fort Rucker, Ala., the Army’s new flight training post. Before Fort Rucker, he flew fixed-wing observation planes through the mountain passes of the Austrian Alps during the Korean War. After Austria, he learned how to fly the MASH-style helicopters of the 1950s. In 1957 he was stationed in Iceland as part of NATO’s Iceland Defense Force.

“If you can fly a helicopter in Iceland, you can fly one anywhere,” he said.

But it was the start of the Cold War, and in that era of new technology the Army demanded smarter officers. Those who didn’t have college degrees got sent back to school. That is how Harper, a captain at the time, found himself taking classes at the University of Nebraska.

During this particular flight, the engine of his small plane quit when he was somewhere over Russellville, Ark. He was 7,000 feet up, wasn’t wearing his parachute, and the 3,000-foot Ouachita Mountains were somewhere down below. Harper’s restart attempts were futile, and so were his distress calls. So he slipped into the parachute and tightened the straps.

At 4,000 feet, he jettisoned the door and rolled out into the cold, empty air. He deployed the chute and gently dropped through the clouds, unaware that he was drifting and not going straight down. With a mountain looming beneath him, the parachute started swinging him around like a pendulum.

Unable to stop the oscillating, Harper crashed parachute-first into the trees.

Dazed by the impact, he turned loose of the parachute and fell to the ground. He tumbled down the slope and lay there a moment, checking himself out.

“The only thing that was broken was my coccyx, and there were scratches on my face like I’d been in a hatchet fight. It’s cold and I’m in my shirtsleeves, but I didn’t mind (because I was alive),” he said.

Shaking off his stupor, Harper walked back up the hill and found a barbed wire fence, which he followed for a while, not entirely sure he was out of the woods quite yet.

“I thought, ‘Here it is, Friday night, in the middle of nowhere, in Arkansas, and I know I’m not going to be welcome company to anybody out here,’” he said with a laugh.

Luckily, Harper found a helpful man who wasn’t averse to aiding a bloodied stranger and got the man to take him to the hospital. A week later he was back in class.

Charm Will Get You Anywhere
Harper relishes telling stories about his 30-year career in the Army, the highlight of which came right after he finished his college studies in 1959. That’s when he flew the helicopters transporting presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Harper laughs when asked how he got picked for such an elite mission.

“My savoir-faire, my charm, my personality - and a good friend in Washington,” he said.

But at the time, it was no laughing matter.

“Well, it was a hell of a responsibility,” he said. “For one thing, you just prayed nothing went wrong.”

Harper’s assignment came at a historic time. Just two years earlier, in 1957, Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to make regular use of a helicopter. Back then, the Marines and the Army shared the White House flight program, called Marine Helicopter Squadron 1, or HMX-1. Harper shuttled presidents around until 1965. The Marines took sole charge of the program in 1976.

When Harper was picked for this duty, the chopper of choice was the Sikorsky VH-34. The cockpit was configured such that pilots sat high above the cabin and had to climb up from the outside. This meant that pilots had very little actual contact with their Very Important Passenger.

“We sat up above, so when Ike would come to get in, I would salute him and sometimes he would salute back but most of the time he’d wave a little bit, you know. But that’s about all the contact I had with him,” Harper said.

During the Kennedy administration, Harper flew a new helicopter, the VH-3A Sea King, which featured a cockpit in line with the passenger cabin. This allowed friendly exchanges between crew and passengers.

“We generally turned around and said hello, or something, and (Kennedy) would shake hands with you.”

Picking up JFK at the Joe Kennedy home in Hyannis Port, Mass., was always memorable.

“While sitting there on a Monday, Jackie came down with clam diggers and no makeup and John-John would (get in the cockpit) and pull all the levers,” Harper said. “We’d have to slap his hand away. He was bad about that … but it was fun to watch him.”

Harper was not as enthralled by President Lyndon Johnson.

“He was bad news,” Harper said. “He was always complaining. I was glad when I left that unit and got away from him, because he was so bad.”

Shuttling the Weekday Warriors
Early in 1967, Harper - at that point a lieutenant colonel - commanded a helicopter battalion in Vietnam.

“We had over a million troops in Vietnam in ‘67,” he said. “I was leading the parade getting in.”

Harper commanded the 13th Combat Aviation Battalion in IV Corps, based in Can Tho in the Delta region. The battalion had just more than 200 helicopters and airplanes. Aside from his outfit, there were hardly any American forces nearby.

“That was all Vietnamese - Army of the Republic of Vietnam,” he said. “There were three divisions of ARVN down there, and my battalion provided their helicopter support.”

The ARVN troops looked at the war a bit differently from the Americans fresh on the scene. The American soldiers were there for only a year and wanted to “get in there and really get with it,” Harper said. The South Vietnamese, he added, treated it like a 9-to-5 job.

“They had been fighting that war since ‘62 or ‘63 … and treated it like a business,” Harper said. “They didn’t want to get picked up for their combat assaults until 8 or 9 in the morning, and then they wanted to be brought back by 4 or 5 in the afternoon so they could go home to mama-san. They also didn’t want to do anything on the weekends.”

Harper said the only way to tell friend from foe was to have an ARVN officer or interpreter riding along in the helicopter who knew where the VC operated and could identify them. Harper said you could also use age as a guide. Young kids were supposed to be in the army, and old men could reasonably be expected to be peaceful farmers.

Even so, if a “farmer” dropped what he was doing and picked up a rifle to take a potshot at you, “it was pretty obvious who they were,” Harper said.

During his one-year tour, Harper earned the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross and 20 Air Medals. He returned to the United States that December and was promoted to colonel in 1969. Harper taught helicopter tactics at Fort Rucker until 1974 and retired from the Army in 1975.

Back Home
Harper and his wife, Jean, moved to Tallahassee in 1975. He worked for the state Department of Natural Resources until 1980; from there, he was a bureau chief for the Florida Marine Patrol. Harper retired again in 1988 and two years later founded Eagle Aircraft, which offers flight instruction and airplane rental services at Tallahassee Regional Airport.

In 1996 he retired for good, loaded up his Beechcraft Bonanza, and flew all over Canada.

“Gas was cheap in those days,” he said.

In 2005, the Federal Aviation Administration awarded him its prestigious Master Pilot Award for 60 years of flying. The next year, he was inducted into the Tallahassee Airport’s Aviation Hall of Fame.

Harper is no longer an active pilot - but he’s OK with that.

“I logged about 14,000 hours in my career, so that’s enough,” he said.

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

How to decorate your home’s interior is a big decision; it sets the mood for your life in that space. If you’re moving into a new home, or redecorating your current one, here are a few new trends to look for in 2010:

• With the economy struggling, and threats of global warming, the idea of natural, “green” products has struck a chord that resonates throughout the house. Nature-like patterns featuring the colors of sand, sea, sky and trees are in full force, while materials from the earth, like stone, wood and glass, predominate.
• Just as the fashion industry is cyclical, so goes interior design. Vintage is in, especially looks from the 1940s and colors such as beige, off-white and faded yellow. Pieces with a history, such as a bureau made of aged wood, can serve as centerpieces of rooms in the new decade. And wallpaper is back - this time with large, bold, graphic, eye-catching prints.
• The watchword for the new decade is “adventurous.” Redecorators are encouraged to layer and mix fabrics with a variety of patterns and textures. Or embrace your inner Bohemian with bold colors and funky styles.
• In 2010, kitchen appliances will be all about convenience and camouflage. Stainless steel remains a strong trend and, because the surface isn’t magnetic, it tends to stay clutter-free without the notes and magnets. Also, appliances “disappear” when covered with overlays that match the cabinetry, another look that’s gaining traction in the New Year.

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]

Jesse O’Shea Seeks to Recruit College Students Worldwide to Help Haiti

Some of my best ideas come to me while I’m in the shower.

An unlikely forum, but Jesse O’Shea isn’t kidding when he says his best leadership initiatives have popped into his head in random places. A Florida State University junior, O’Shea is no stranger to leadership programs. But his grandest idea, and the one with the most national success, is the Global Haiti Initiative. Most 20-year-olds don’t have life-changing revelations, but O’Shea has been passionately pursuing his goal to change the way Americans view and aid Haiti since the day a year and a half ago when the idea came to him.

After an initial trip to Haiti, O’Shea wrote about what  he found there in a blog (jesseoshea.blogspot.com). Calling his trip “a crash course in poverty,” he eloquently writes of the fetid smells and ubiquitous trash he found there - as well as children playing soccer and “dancing and running around as if the world is fine.” He continues: “Although through all of the political turmoil, through all of the corruption, the killings, the murders, the starvation, they still hold their head up and manage to smile. Despite it all, they still have hope.”

Bill Moeller, the educator O’Shea calls his mentor, is the founder of the FSU Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, which oversees the Global Haiti Initiative and provides the program with student support as well as a network of staff. Moeller heaps praise on O’Shea, calling him “energetic, charismatic and ambitious,” and points to the potential longevity of the Haiti initiative.

“Many successful nonprofit organizations - Teach for America and Break Away come to mind - were started by college students with a passion for a cause and a drive to make a difference,” he says. “The Global Haiti Initiative, with sustained leadership and a little bit of luck, has the potential to be one of those.”

O’Shea has been involved in several intercollegiate groups, including the Student United Way and Protect Our Professors, but the Global Haiti Initiative is his biggest project to date and the one that promises the most national engagement. As stated on its official Web site (haiti-initiative.com), this is the “first intercollegiate clearinghouse for developmental programs in Haiti.”

The beauty of the program is the freedom that it allows. Each participating university founds its own chapter and then decides what type of work to accomplish in Haiti.

“For example, MIT could have more of an engineering and agricultural focus, while FSU might have more about education and small health care pushes,” O’Shea says.

The program is currently in universities across the nation, ranging from the University of Florida to Skidmore College in New York. O’Shea is hoping to have it on 60 campuses nationwide by the end of the year.

Though this might seem like an ambitious undertaking, O’Shea’s vision for the program is crystal-clear - and he is taking his time putting it together to do it right. The Global Haiti Initiative’s Web site is simply yet effectively organized, even featuring a direct link to PayPal where visitors can make a donation.

The initiative, which officially launched in the fall of 2009 at Florida State, already is gaining significant support from students. With an understanding that technology is the best way to reach out to college-age students, O’Shea began a Facebook page (http://tr.im/BBfK). When he posted on Facebook that he needed members for his board of directors, he got 60 responses for a handful of positions. The same kind of outpouring occurred when he asked for donations of toys, clothes, sports equipment and other items.

“I believe in humanity - whenever I need something, I am not afraid to just ask people, and it ends up working successfully,” he says.

Although he has taken several individual trips to Haiti over the past year, O’Shea put his research to the test and brought two other students with him on a trip in mid-August 2009.

“This was a preliminary trip to see how we would be received in Haiti before we bring a huge group of 40 students,” he says.

So with suitcases packed with donations, Lucas Parsons and Matthew Chapman, both juniors at FSU, joined O’Shea on his trip. The three young men helped a nongovernmental organization organize a sports tournament. This was especially well received because of the lack of recreational activities in the impoverished country.

Since it was an exploratory mission, the students’ days were filled with organizing a town festival, volunteering in local clinics, working with children in schools and even assisting in surgeries. O’Shea speaks some Creole, and between hand signals and a translation dictionary, the resourceful students were able to make themselves useful.

It’s impossible to describe the joy of the trip without mentioning the state of destitute poverty that people are born into, the students say. Ninety-five-degree heat, minimal electricity and no Internet are hard for Americans to adjust to, but not shocking. Instead, it was the little things that surprised Parsons: “I’ve never been out of the country, let alone to a Third World country, so I noticed that I take for granted our transportation system in America, like smooth roads and stop signs.”

To O’Shea, the trip was successful because of the human contact he had and the friendships he forged. An example is the 18-year-old whom O’Shea calls his Haitian brother. Makendy (pronounced McKenzie) is from a village called Destra, which O’Shea describes as “a National Geographic picture of a clan that hasn’t been touched by technology.” Makendy is like an American teen at heart; he loves hip-hop music. After losing his father at a young age, Makendy was adopted by the nonprofit organization O’Shea has been working with. And with the Haitian trait of perseverance, Makendy still seems to be the happiest person in the world despite his situation.

The trip had lighthearted moments too. Both O’Shea and Parsons laugh and agree that their minor vehicular accident was adventurous.

“We got around on these precarious motorcycle taxis and one day, someone came swerving toward Lucas and just hit him head on,” O’Shea says. “Fortunately, everyone was OK.”

O’Shea is the youngest member of a clan with values deeply rooted in civil service and volunteerism. All four children are pursuing careers in those fields: Eldest brother Rob is a recent graduate of FSU’s law school and sister Mykal is at Duke University studying nurse practitioning. Joe, a former FSU student body president, is completing his Rhodes scholarship in Oxford, England.

The O’Shea children have been struck by tragedy, with the untimely deaths of their father in 2007 and their mother in 2008. Without their parents, the siblings use each other for their main support system.

“Though we are very independent, Joe and I push each other to help other people,” Jesse O’Shea says. “Whenever I have a solution to an idea about helping society, the first person I talk to to bounce ideas off of is Joe.”

The youngest of the family, Jesse O’Shea admits that it’s hard to live in the shadow of such accomplished siblings, though he is certainly blazing his own trail.

After returning from the trip, O’Shea has even clearer goals. He hopes to unite various nongovernmental organizations in Haiti; get college students to come down during every school break; make the Haitian cause “sexy,” similar to what Hollywood has done with Darfur; and document the whole process on film.

“I used to say that people in America were dying simply because they could not afford life; but in Haiti, people are dying simply because they have no other choice,” O’Shea says.

The Global Haiti Initiative and Jesse O’Shea have dreams to change that.

Source: [Tallahassee Magazine]