1977 Series III Two Door 109 Land Rover for Sale

Below please find pictures of my 1977 Series III Land Rover. The vehicle has two tops, a soft top which is new in the last 3 years and a hard top. The Rover was mostly restored when my wife and I bought it seven years ago. It has a new chassis, new drive shafts, reconditioned body panels inside and out, and it runs well. The Rover has a tow bar that I have used several times in towing the vehicle short distances (less than 10 miles). The seat box and the rear tub have also been reconditioned; they are not new but are in relatively good shape - only a couple of wear spots. The Rover has passed state inspection (first Virginia and now Vermont) since we have owned it. The petrol engine and drive train work well and have no major issues. I cannot tell you the mileage as I have replaced the speedometer with one from another Rover. We have put approximately 20,000 miles on the vehicle since we have owned it. The tires have approximately 85% tread wear left on them and have inner tubes. If you were to finish the restoration you would want to replace the dash, install inner liners for the doors, manufacture a rear door for the soft top (mine is constructed from wood), replace the door posts, and use Rover parts for some other small items.

Vermonters Should Choose School Choice

For nearly 140 years Vermont has supported school choice. Since many of its small towns do not have schools or have schools that do not span the entire K-12 spectrum, Vermont law allows families in those towns to choose a public or independent school that best fits the educational needs of their children. The benefits of school choice are many.

1. Schools are not one-size fits all. Children respond differently in a variety of educational settings, and parents ought to have the ability to choose the setting that best suits their child.
2. School choice creates competition in the marketplace. Competition drives quality. School choice ensures that we do what we say we do. If not, families and their tuition dollars will go elsewhere.
3. School choice promotes "higher levels of academic achievement in areas where competition for students was greatest; benefits from a competitive environment that were not limited to specific demographic groups; and significant cost savings to Vermont taxpayers."
   
   Christopher Hammonds, “The Effects of Town Tuitioning in Maine and Vermont,” Friedman Foundation, 2002.

Currently, the Vermont legislature is grappling with a serious budget shortfall of $150 million for the next fiscal year. School consolidation is seen as a way of providing some of this savings. Please join me in ensuring that school choice is part of the solution. For information, visit http://www.schoolchoicevermont.com.

Did You Know 4.0

Recently, Darren and Jared Bachynski published a Fall 2009 update (Did You Know 4.0) to a now famous Did You Know video that has circulated on YouTube for some time. The information, if accurate, is startling. We are only just beginning to understand the Digital Age's impact on education and learning.

From iPhones to Twitter, our communities are rapidly changing the way we communicate. Surely, this will have an impact on our schools. Isn't it interesting to consider how these technologies impact language development? An argument could be made that English is still the language of international communication, but what happens when "lol, OMG, ru" and other common "tweets" begin to replace the formal language we now use? Should we be teaching "tweetglish" in our classes? Also, what happens to the human brain now that we are communicating differently? Will it structure itself differently?

Though many of us tend to suggest that the Digital Age has changed "kids these days," I argue it has had as big an impact on adults. I think it's time we embrace this stuff, work with it, and begin to figure out how we can capitalize on the good and remediate for the not so good. What do you think?

109 Series III Land Rover Station Wagon Restoration Project for Sale

Gail and I are selling our Series IIa restoration project. Please find some pictures below...

On Success

This afternoon the Long Trail School middle school boys' soccer team won its 8th straight game. While I am a firm believer that a team and a player can learn as much about themselves in a losing effort as a winning one, it sure is nice to taste success on a regular basis. The confidence that our boys built over the course of the past few weeks is evident on the playing field. They were excellent teammates today, sharing the ball well, looking for each other on give-and-goes (the best play in the history of field sports), and, in general, demonstrating passion for and skill in the game of soccer.

I was especially pleased with the way some of our more gifted players sought to collaborate with the other guys on the team. Instead of dribbling past two or three defenders for a shot on goal, they sought out their teammates, creating opportunities and allowing our guys to make a play on the ball.

Soccer can be a magical game when played correctly. Today was one of those days where the flow of the play seemed to be orchestrated by a conductor of a symphony.

Macroeconomic Confusion

Every day I read conflicting stories about our economy and our markets in the popular press. Months ago we were worried about inflation, now we are worried about deflation. Then, we thought that Americans were playing a perilous game of roulette by not saving for our futures. Now, we are concerned that increased savings rates could negatively impact consumer spending in an already declining economy. High oil prices this summer spelled doom for consumers; low oil prices today are crippling suppliers who locked in at higher prices. Good news drives the stock market downward and bad news seems to drive it upward. What do we make of this?

It seems to me that we are learning a lot about ourselves and our country during these times of economic turmoil. The historical standards that we used to rely on are no longer prescient, and the new culture of the market has not yet been created. As a result, our economy, our moods, and our markets are subject to wild swings - up 6%, down 3%, up 4.5%, down 5.2% - that are not likely to soften until we come to an understanding of what kinds of reasonable expectations will guide us into the future. What will acceptable rates of saving and spending be? Will the threat of $4 gas create lasting change in our driving habits and how will that affect domestic and foreign automakers? Will high unemployment rates cause the structure of our labor force to change so that workers gravitate to new, successful industries and away from older, troubled industries?

In the meantime, we are forced to have very real discussions about the things that matter to us at the national, state, local, and familial levels. Though the current conditions have caused a great deal of pain in this country, I would argue that the conversations that are happening in my household and yours, in my community and yours, and in my state and yours, are beginning to lay the groundwork for a successful, focused, and more secure future.

Last night I had the privilege of taking my four daughters (three of my own and my exchange student) to dinner. Looking for a topic of conversation, I asked them if the US government should help out US automakers by loaning them money in their time of need. Below is a summary of their thoughts.

Madison is my 8 year old third grader. She is a social butterfly and she thrives on relationships. She thought that the US government ought to loan GM, Ford, and Chrysler some money because it was a nice thing to do. She also thought it would help out those who worked for the companies.

My 14 year old 9th grader, Elizabeth, had the opposite opinion. As the oldest of the bunch, she is a rule follower and very much into justice and accountability. She argued that Chrysler, Ford and GM should have been more careful to begin with and that there is no reason to believe, given their track record, that they would use the money wisely. Furthermore, she wanted to know why these large companies with millions of dollars at their disposal did not foresee high gas and oil prices and the effects that they would have on demand for cars and trucks.

I suspect that most Americans would fit somewhere along this compendium. Isn't it refreshing that our children sometimes see things more clearly than we do?