When this Baby Boomer got her first car, it HAD to have a working radio…the tires could have been bald, the finish not quite perfect, but the radio had to be perfect. I got my first car as we entered the year 1970, there was only a front speaker on the dash for the radio. My second car had front and back speakers. Then there were the cumbersome 8-Track players, then cassette tape players, and finally CD players…that’s what I still listen to in my car, but not my husband…read on.

The advances over the past 40 years have been amazing to watch, and now Dual Electronics has multiplied the “amazing-ness” almost beyond my understanding…but not quite.

My husband has the best iPod money can buy right now, sleek and attractive looking. But he has also purchased this very odd looking gadget he uses so that he can listen to it through his car radio…I mean really strange looking…I can’t quite describe it. But he still has to reach down and do all the adjusting directly on the iPod…hopefully at a stop and not while driving.

His experience would be much nicer if he had one of the new and attractive units that Duel Electronics offers for car entertainment, like the the XDMA7650, providing a front panel with a USB connection giving you easy access to controls for your iPod® and/or your iPhone®. Though sound quality is important, the feature I think I like best as I think of him out on the road trying to tune the iPod, is the wireless remote control, which I would imagine would be safer than looking down at a contraption plugged into a cigarette lighter like my husband is using right now. And here’s some “techie” info that I don’t really understand, but may impress you, it has 3.5mm auxiliary input & 3-RCA preamp outputs.

This is not all that you’ll find at the site, there are many other car entertainment units available to suit a variety of needs. Take a moment to take a look.

As for those hubcaps, I keep losing one of them, and replacing it, today I decided that my car is just going to go around without “pants” for a while.  I’m going to clean the wheels, etc., and then paint all the metal parts black and sell the hubcaps to someone else who wants them.  Then I’m going to give the car a good over-all cleaning and get her ready for some summer driving with the top down.

People ask me about driving a convertible in the winter, assuming that it must be cold in the car…people without convertibles that is…it’s not.  The car drives GREAT in the snow, very helpful especially this year, and is as warm as any other car.  The top is black and if the sun is out, it gets warmed up no matter what time of year because black draws heat.

My car is 12 years old, and had about 113,000++ miles on it when I bought it, now it has about 120,000++ old.  It’s not driven a lot, because I work from home, but it’s showing it’s age.  We have a couple of rust spots to repair, and it needs new brakes and tires in the rear.   It’s been a decent car, and this week, in honor of car care month, will receive a little more TLC than usual since we’re enjoying such beautiful weather for at least a few more days.