Got a Car

 

September 2008 in Los Gatos, CA

Make/Model: Pontiac G8 GT, 2009

(Original post; backup link)

Vroom vroom Ren Ren

So, I dragged poor Allie to the Renaissance Faire at Casa de Fruita. This is the first time she's been to one. She was a good sport about the whole thing, and I'm sure found it to be a bit over the top. Though she didn't get into it, she was taking in all the sights.

In the past, the quality of the headliner events at the Ren Faire have degraded. There was a time when they had actual knight melees held by the local reenactment groups and actual jousting. Then, main event become a show where the players would pretend to joust and battle. It turned out to be a silly WWE style show. I wanted to go this year to see if they got be on track. Though they didn't have the melee's of olde, they did have full on jousting again! It was more fun to watch than the fake show in years before.

The show that Allie liked best was a juggling show with a guy and his kid brother. The kid knew how to sell it. They put on a good show.

Car hunting

Allie and I have been car hunting for a long time. We’ve test driven a multitude of vehicles. We’ve given a second look at a myriad more. The reason for all this is the fact that I currently have a rather nice car, with a rather nasty habit. My Acura TL-Type S 2003 is a great car except that it needs a new transmission every 11,000 miles or so. Not good for the long run once the warranty is up. At this point, I don’t mind the nickel and dime costs associated with the average car once off warranty. I just don’t want to get hit with a $4000 repair bill and a week long car rental every 10 months or so. So, we need to trade in my TL for something else.
While car hunting, I’ve discovered features that used to be special only to the higher end cars are now included in the average cars. Of particular note, the high trim of 2009 Chevrolet Malibu has more features than my old TL, all for 10K less than what I paid for my car 6 years ago, and for nearly 15K less than the current price for a new TL. The level of quality across the mainstay brands keeps going up. Reliability is something that fluctuates, so it’s a good idea to always keep an eye on Consumer Reports and other sources. Right now, it appears some GM brands are doing well, while others haven’t quite got things figured out yet.
Given what I’ve been looking for, GM cars have been attracting my attention more than others. This surprizes me. Then again, I pretty much hate all the car brands for one reason or another. In general, I tend to gravitate towards American and Japanese, and show less interest in Korean and European cars. OMG, have you see the Smart Car? How dumb is that? Anyways, we think we know what we will end up with soon.

Weeks are flyin by

As October approaches, it really seems the weeks and months of 2008 are flying by. It dawned me recently while I was reading something terribly unimportant that I was literally wasting my time. I could be reading something more important, or doing something to improve my self, skills and what nots. I'm not wasting all of my time. I'm glad to spend time with my family.

This week, my cuzin is in the hospital awaiting labor. I visited her and her new husand in their room. It's funny I call him that. Her sister, myself and her all got married within the past year or so. Funny how that works. We were all in long term relationships and it just all kinda turned out that way.

On my way to a business type meeting thing, I visited my aunt and her husand yesterday. He was also in the hospital a recently for a serious matter. He was released quickly, so I didn't get a chance to visit him at the hospital, so I stopped by yesterday to see how he was going.

Man, why the heck did my parents move to some place that is literally more remove that the infamous Bumfuk, Idaho. I haven't seen then in aeons now.

What? Someone is VP pick for McCain?

Let’s patronize women in the 21st Century because it worked so well in the 20th Century. McCain’s pick for his running mate is one of those things that says, “See, I listen to you women. I know what you want because I’m smart like that.” It is an idiotic move that may have already backfired. For all the phony praise Palin got for her convention speech, in reality, she came off as seeming like she doesn’t really belong there. Her energy was strained and her message was without substance. I noticed very few people talking about the message itself. Most of the praise was about her poise. Joy. It weakens the McCain bid for the presidency.