My new car: A saga

In my current job, I have a pretty long commute that is mostly through traffic. I do what I can to avoid the worst of the traffic, but the fact of the matter is I usually spend a couple hours every week inching my way home on a ribbon of pavement with thousands of other commuters. My Prism gets decent fuel economy, but it does not have AC, so in the summer I was acutely aware of how much exhaust all these cars are dumping into the air. Bleck.

I had basically made up my mind to get an electric car next, and over the holidays we had enough time to make those shopping decisions (and by we, I mean Matt). He had settled on a Chevy Spark EV- a small hatchback electric. One little wrinkle, it isn't sold in WA. But it is sold in Oregon. After a bit more research we learn we cant just go down there and buy a new one, but we can buy a used one.

I want to tell this story, but its a bit complicated and quite drawn out, so I will try to fit it to a timeline for you. Its a little more fun if you try to imagine a laugh track being played along with it.

Dec 25: We celebrate Xmas with Betty. We tell her we might spend a few days in Portland car shopping.
Dec 26: Return home.
Dec 27: Water pressure drops- main line is leaking int he yard. We turn off water, and dig a hole to find the leak.
Dec 28: We schedule a plumber. They fail to show up. Matt watches some YouTube videos and fixes it himself.
Dec 29: Plumber comes and tells us to fill in the hole. Not to worry about the line until it gives us serious problems. (This is foreshadowing.)
Dec 31: Matt finds a used Spark online, contacts a dealer and agrees to buy it if they will ship it. They agree to overnight us the papers to make the sale final.

Jan 2: No papers in sight, but we go to Mt Rainier for the weekend. We go snowshoeing and stay at a lodge in the park. It is wonderful. The lodge has a shared shower facility; we opt to shower when we get home.
Jan 3: We go snowshoeing, and head home, fantasizing about warm showers. At home, there is a note from the city on our door: We shut of your water, it was leaking and freezing in the street. Please call the utility. (For the record, no papers from the auto dealer. Also, different leak than the one Matt fixed.)
Jan 4: Plumbers come to give us estimates on replacing the mainline. We connect a hose to the neighbors house to run water. The plumber is scheduled for a week out
Jan 6: Matt calls dealer to ask about missing paper work. They agree to over night it right away.
Jan 7: I get a ticket for expired tabs on the Prism. Which I would not be driving if my new car had arrived.

Jan 9: Paper work arrives, post marked Jan 8. We sign and return it, expecting it to arrive Jan 11.
Jan 10: Matt calls dealer. Loan goes through (Matt will call the dealer every day this week to ask various versions of whats the hold up?) The plumber comes to start the replacement process. He goes home sick
Jan 11: Replacement plumber comes to finish the job. Water is turned back on. Faucets no longer smell like hose.

Jan 14: Shipment of the car is scheduled.

Jan 16: I fly to Austin for a week. Later that afternoon, the car arrives. The dealer has not included temporary plates. Matt calls the dealer. Again.

Jan 20: Temporary plates arrive. Real plates should arrive in ~3 weeks if the dealer has done this properly. (Not real confident that this is the case.) Matt can legally test drive the car. The car we agreed to buy Dec 29.

Jan 25: I take the car for its first commute. I get rear ended on the way home. *rimshot*

Now at this point, the claim on the accident AND the actual permanent  plates are still outstanding, but we are hoping the worst is behind us. A friend suggested I needed to make amends to the old car, to clean up my car Karma and maybe make things right there.

The Adventures of Temporarily-Single Father

Yikes, it's been too long. What have we been up to?

Well we got our windows in a while ago, and it has already made a huge difference in the comfort level of the home. The Weather has started to cool off to pretty chilly at night, and we haven't even had to turn on the heater yet. Just ambient heat and good windows is good enough to keep us going through the night. The other major boon is that the neighbors' barking dogs are much quieter now. It's subtle, but pleasant.

We had our pseudo-annual neighborhood grill-out on Saturday. Not a lot of turnout, but a few families did show up, and everyone was really pleased that we were taking the time to do this, so it's worth it just to foster a sense of community around here. Also, Tyler learned to share toys. Sorta. He still needs some practice on that.

Also this weekend, the silver car had its battery die, so I got to be all manly and get that fixed. I considered just taking it in somewhere, but I've messed around in the electrical system of enough vehicles for work at this point that I felt it wouldn't be a insurmountable task, especially with the internet and friendly auto-parts people to help me through. Anyway, I went out and bought a battery (getting a jump to get home after I discovered the battery wasn't low...it was dead. Got some tips from the guy that sold me the battery (as well as some goop to help ease corrosion) and read up on the process on the internet, then took out some wrenches and went to work. As those of you that have ever done it before know, it's not a particularly difficult process, once you know how. But I got to surprise Jessie when she woke up from her nap and the car was totally fixed before she knew it. Still have to take the old battery back for recycling, though.

And this week, Jess is off on travel, so I'm single-fathering it again. It's not so bad, of course. Tyler gets to see mommy on Skype fairly often, and as long as he has lots of things to play with at home he's pretty easy to manage. Went to sleep just fine a little while ago and shows no signs of waking up in the middle of the night with “where's mommy” sweats.

Speaking of Tyler, the baby dictionary has completely fallen off the rails at this point. I couldn't even guess at how many words or word-like utterances Tyler knows at this point. I was always impressed by the ability of parents to understand the babbling of their children, but what I didn't know was that usually the parents don't have any idea what the kid means the first time he tries out a new word either. We just have more practice at it.

Those are the highlights of the last few weeks. I'd write more, but I have a few more e-mails to write and some research to do on how to 'base' miniature figurines. (Look it up, it's pretty cool). And then I have to hit the hay. A temporarily-single father needs plenty of rest.

-N

Detroit Autoshow

Fact: I need better hobbies.

Remember a few posts ago when I said I tend to get restless if I have too much free time? And that I'm gonna graduate, and hopefully move back West? It makes a person think about the things we'd been meaning to do, and a bit irrational about pulling them off.

We decided we may as well just nip off to Detroit to the autoshow, since it might not be so easy in the future. Ah, my glamorous lifestyle...

Here are pictures of some of the highlights- editing for ones that actually include us. There are lots of cars behind velvet ropes or with strangers sitting in them.

This is beyond the biggest autoshow I've ever been to, all the major manufacturers and some minor ones were there, showing their current models and some concept cars for the future. The majority of the concepts are electric vehicles- usually the brand's smallest car with an EV sticker on the back. That's what the future holds.

There were also displays of engine components and other gearhead stuff that Matt totally loved. There were also tons of people lapping it up- sitting in expensive luxery cars and collecting swag bags from vendors.

We walked around downtown a little, and enjoyed a brewpub while watching the Steelers game. And then we went to see the Green Hornet- we saw the car at the autoshow. Fun!

The next day we decided to take in the Henry Ford Museum, which is a beautiful old building, full of cars. It's and interesting way to tell the story of America. Antique bicycles developed into motorcycles which when hybridized with the old fashioned carriage gave us automobiles. The National park system is demarcated in history by the development of the RV. The industrial revolution brought us more powerful generators, that powered the factories we used to build the cars. They have presidential limousines (and a presidential carriage!), Rosa Parks' bus and an Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile. It was a really interesting museum, and there is a lot more to do on their campus. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us...

My Camera has been busy, even if I haven't

Hello,

Here we present a selection of pictures from the last few months. With captions.

From New Pictures 8/09

Jesta Menace donning her All Scar Army duds for the tournament a few months ago. You'll take special note of the 'Mathematical Equation Armbands' provided by yours truly. I think one of them was the integral equation for the area of a sphere. The other one was gibberish.

From New Pictures 8/09

Two cars in my two car garage! Victory is mine!

From New Pictures 8/09

Here is our new car, a Mazda 3, in much the same style as Sandlin and Matt's new car, but without the crazy turbo power. We really like it. Having an Aux Audio input so we can listen to the ipod in the car is really fun.

From New Pictures 8/09

My breadmaking binge continues. This is my most photogenic loaf to date, I think. I've been making whole wheat loaves, too, getting the kinks out in my technique. Definitely better for us, but not as devastatingly delicious as the white loaves.

From New Pictures 8/09

Jess and Myself at a wedding in Florida. Not ours. Jess got to be a bridesmaid. SHE IS SO PRETTY LOOK AT HER IN HER DRESS AND ALL DONE UP AND EVERYTHING I HAVE SUCH A GREAT WIFE! Whew! Just had to get that out of my system.

From New Pictures 8/09

Here are the birds from Nana's awning. They may still look like dependant little babies here, but just a few days later they were out and around and hopping around the yard, looking all adolescent and everything. They do grow up so fast!

We've had to scrap the idea of going to China. We might have both lost our jobs over it. It would have been, admittedly, an unlikely scenario, but the decisions would have been completely out of our hands. We'll make ourselves feel better by taking a Caribbean cruise. Seriously, that's our new plan. We've found some that fit in our schedule before the end of the year. We are also, therefore, pegging Australia and/or New Zealand for next year.

Other Micro News:
-Jess continues to both hem *and* haw about derby next year. I've decided to stop paying attention until she makes a decision.
-I got 6th rank in Wing Tsun. Hooray for me!
-It is officially too hot to go out running on Saturdays. Jess can go if it's under 101 degrees or so, but any hotter than 95 and I just have no energy to exercise outdoors. Texas, baby.
-I've received much lovely feedback about my second draft. Thanks to all that have read it.

Much love to one and all,

-N

Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix

This weekend, we went to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, a car show, street race fund raiser extravaganza. This weekend's activities were set in Schenley Park, just blocks from our apartment, and benefit one of Myron Cope's organizations- supporting care and research for Autism. The car show is incredible, there are rows and rows of cars from all makers and all eras. This kind of event had a huge crowd, despite temps well over 90. The crowd is a "only in Pittsburgh" mix of fans, enthusiasts and aficionados (or pop, coors light and champagne). There were old minis and triumphs, a few very old model Ts, and some very new hotrods and sports cars. You can imagine Matt was really in to this.

The car show itself takes place on the Golf Course in the park, so there are plenty of rolling greens to park cars on. Ha. This is of course convenient to the race track, which are the winding roads in the park. Right there! They really drive these real old cars! Fast! To truly experience a vintage grand prix you would have to imagine the noise of a gang of bikers combined with the smell of burned alcohol and rubber. For the benefit of the movie, I've added a blues soundtrack, since I've found this is the best way to cope with the heat. Although the race is almost a mile away, we can hear the cars from home. I cobbled together a couple clips for those who might enjoy seeing this.