[mergen]

When I was a kid, I saved my 50 cents/week plus "pecan money" (we had pecan trees) and bought a transistor radio for $60. This was when $60 was a lot of money for anything and before most people had ever heard of "transistor radio." I didn't realize at the time that I was born to be an "Early Adopter." All I knew was that they had a radio that you could carry around and listen to with no wires, and I wanted one. It had non-rechargable mercury batteries that were very expensive and eventhough it had only two knobs, it had some mechanical problems, too. For awhile, I had to remove the batteries to get it to turn off.

Many years later, I acquired the first HDTV in town. I went online and rented DVDs for a few years until there was actually some HD broadcasts available. That was when it occured to me that I was an "Early Adopter" and there was nothing I could do about it. I have learned that, in addition to paying "bleeding edge" prices, an EA must be able to go with the flow and be flexible while things work themselves out.

A few weeks after leaving the BMW dealer without buying because the 3 series was "nice, but just a little too big to zip around in" in my opinion, I accidentally discovered online the existance of the 1 series. Of course, being me, I signed up immediately. Since then, my understanding of the pitfalls and tragedies of being an Early Adopter have served me well. I know that errors on the BMWUSA site and misinformation coming from dealers, who have no more information than we do, can be frustrating, but that's part of the deal. I also expect things to get worse as the ordering process proceeds. Not being able to actually see some of these options on a car, it's hard to say exactly what they are. Audio options and color/trim options, as well as some other features, seem to be creating a lot of unanswered questions. I'm sure there are many other unknowns that will resolve themselves as time goes by. Many will be resolved when the car arrives and I actually see what it is that I have bought. I will just have to "wait and see."

I just HOPE that the Terracotta option is REALLY Terra !!!

This post is not entirely off topic, but I just didn't know where else it would fit in, so here it is.

Merry Christmas !