Meet an Autonet Teammate – Russ Bond

It’s Russ Bond, the team’s “prime consumer of fossil fuels” – his bio.

We can.

Russ owns a fleet of go karts, no like 40. He runs the Canadian Karting League, as well as the Toyota supported kartSTART for kids, up at Sunset Speedway.

He also makes videos!  Watch his 2 minute test drive of a Ford Mustang Boss 302, it has a ‘track key’.

An awesome ending starts at 1:45.

Find all Russ’s stuff on Autonet.

(Note – because the team is all freelancers, we don’t really hang out, so this is a rarity. I’ve now blogged 55% of the team, nice. Meet more of my team here)

 

 

Stick Families are a Terrible Idea

Can’t believe they’re still popular, like…. still?! 

Even their location is dumb – why put them directly in the rearview mirror’s view?

Favourite line:

Stick families broadcast personal information, and are an unnecessary breach of personal security.

I’ve been collecting photos for a year.

Bottom right is mildly amusing.

Surely you’ve seen the “Anti-Stick Family” stickers.

Maybe, but you still have a stick family on your car.

Worst sticker I’ve ever seen:

A good social engineer will use that information,
to get directly into the victim’s mind and heart.

Example: the attacker Googles the name of the deceased, finds the cause of death.

Then, they “run into” the car’s owner, “yup, I’m just passing through here, trying to reach my donation goal for my charity, it’s to benefit [cause of death].  Oh, that’s a cause close to your heart, and you’ll donate?  Thanks so much.”

Blog tag = Social Engineering

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Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index

 

 

Same Photo but 6 Months Apart

(taken at a desk at BHG – they manage fleets of press cars)

In the fall of 2011, when I was getting press car after car, I decided it was full blog steam ahead, in one direction – I chose cars.

When I returned in May, from living in the States, I was right back to driving a different car every week. I took the June photo above, then tucked it away under, ‘future collage’; waiting for when I felt I could back it up.

As of Today:

– auto team member of one of our largest newspapers
– 3 months of my weekly opinion column, ‘Keri on Driving’
– news articles every week
– first proper, detailed car review done
– hit my goal of  testing $1 million worth of cars ($1,096,300) by end-of-year
– might hold the nation’s record for ‘longest duration with the same press car’ (4 weeks)
– probably produced, single-handlely, more content for Honda Canada than anyone else, this year
– 1 AJAC ‘Test Fest’
– 5 mini-track days
– 1 huge track day, that turned out to be an airport, COMEon

BOOM.

And that’s that. Now I am an official Auto Journalist.

I removed “New” from my bios, the occasion has been documented with this post, now, on to the next.

Titles mean: work harder

Drive more cars, get faster at writing news pieces; have better consistency;  maybe take an engine class; I found my opinion voice, now find my review voice.  Then guys, I think where I can really bring it all together, is: car adventure videos.  That’s what I’m daydreaming of, these past pensive weeks.

Thanks for cheering me on over the years, please keep doing that.

 

 

My First Ever Car Review – 2013 Honda Civic

It was published last week.

How it looked in print, across Canada, in the big newspapers that you have to unfold to read, ha.

(Read it on Autonet.ca)

Favourite line:

… the 2013 is noticeably more upscale than previous Civics, bringing a subtle classiness to the car.

I gave them high report card marks.  Not because it’s my first one and I’m being a pleaser, but because I like it that much.

I would, and do, compare other cars to the Civic.

Non-car nerds: the industry turned its thumbs way down at 2012 Civic, so this 2013 was heavily anticipated.

I’ve been driving different press cars for 16 months now, but have never written about it so technically, so filled with specs and math.

Until this, I’d written news and opinion pieces only.

All my columns: Keri on Driving         All my news articles

I had to get 3 months under my belt at the paper, before I was allowed to do a review.

After this printed, now I feel like a real auto journalist.

Remember the embargo 3 weeks ago?  

It was for this.  I went to Honda Canada one morning, walked into a classroom-type setting, with some of Canada’s biggest auto journalist names. I was the only girl.

We were informed of the changes to the new model, then were each given 15 minutes to test drive AND photograph the car (this is normal in the industry).

I was like omg :O ermahgerd. So I went last, and kept the car for 45 minutes and 300 photos.

Despite all that, the paper still had to use some stock images (gallery here), because my photos were weak, and it never occured to me, to check for my relection in the paint.  Rookie move.

I’ll leave you with a video; click here to watch me drive the high-end version of the Civic (HFP), on a track, at an airport, with great enthusiasm.