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In the year 2006 I resolve to: |
Dec 302005
Dec 282005
Chevrolet HHR wagon – I saw there was a funky wagon in Consumer Reports and when we parked at the auto mall there it was. We walked up to take a look and they asked if we wanted to drive it. We did and it’s a pretty good car overall. It has a lot of interior plastic, but the seats are comfortable captain style seats which is impressive since it isn’t that tall. The big drawback is the visibility is poor.
Toyota Highlander Hybrid – Our second time driving it and still just as nice. It’s about the same length as our Passat Wagon, slightly wider, and definitely taller.
Toyota Highlander – We drove a low-milage used Highlander and it was pretty good too but not as nice as the new hybrid. Not as smooth.
Honda Pilot – We didn’t actually drive this because we couldn’t find a sales person and they only had three on the lot anyway.
Hyundai Santa Fe – I liked this car. It handled well, and it seemed well put together. The big down side is that there wasn’t any leg room so my knees were next to the steering wheel.
Volvo V70 (5 cylinder turbo) – Unfortuately Nicole drove this first and fell in love with it. Unfortunate because by the end of the test drive I couldn’t wait to get out of the driver’s seat which fell like it was pressing into my back and sides. The seat is made to hold smaller people in place. It’s a shame because I was looking forward to driving it from my memory of the one I drove when I got the Passat.
Mazda 6 Wagon – I totally forgot about the Mazda 6 wagon, which is the only reasonably sized wagon under $30k. So when the Volvo/Mazda salesman suggested it we went for it. It’s a fun car to drive and has plenty of space. Nicole was afraid she might forget she had the dogs in the back and start tossing them around on turns because it felt more like a car.
Dec 282005
Two weeks ago we were told that the transmission and clutch are in need of replacing. No one does rebuilds of them because with 5 different manual transmissions used for the 97 Passat it just doesn’t make sense unless you are VW. The cost of a new one installed is $3500. The average yearly cost of maintenance on it has been running about $1800, and $900 on a light year. All that totalled up is way more than the value of the car which is $4000.
Last Friday Sandy came over in a new Highlander Hybrid to get the key so she could look in on the dogs on X-Mas eve. We asked and she let us test drive it and Nicole and I both though it was pretty nice. We were thinking about new cars but we weren’t going to start looking until after the first so it would be more calm in general. That night a noise and feeling in the handling started which turned out to be the CV joint making the car not so safe to drive any longer.
Saturday I scrambled to find a rental car that could hold dogs and ended up with the B9 Tribeca SUV from Subaru. We drove to Sacramento and back for X-mas eve with Nicole’s family and then Sunday morning we drove to LA for Channukah with my family.
Monday morning my dad brought out the latest Consumer Reports book and car magazine that he had from my sister’s recent car purchase. I saw in the “Bad Bets” list the 97 Passat and that VW in general is one the maker some of the most unreliable cars for the past few years, beating out Lincoln and not really anything else. Also, European cars are the least reliable right now, followed by American cars, and Asian cars are the most reliable. We decided to go car test driving in the land of many cars so we went to the Valencia Auto Mall, parked, and walked among all the dealers to test drive. After a day of test driving we liked the Toyota Highlander and the Mazda 6 wagon. The Toyota being rated excellent in every catagory and the Mazda being rated average.
Tuesday we went to a bigger Toyota dealer (two parking structures of Toyotas instead of one smaller one) but they didn’t have the Highlander Hybrid that we wanted but we got a nice golf cart ride out of it. We decided to call Toyota of Santa Cruz to see what they had. They had one that was rejected but it wasn’t one we wanted and the waiting list was 2 months to 1.5 years. I decided to call over the hill Toyota dealers and found that Capitol Toyota in San Jose had one we wanted. After about 15 minutes Capitol called back saying that if we came in today they would knock off $500.
We started back home from LA and on the grapevine Capitol called saying that the one we wanted actually was sold yesterday. All that was left was the gold colored ones that Nicole really didn’t want. They offered to knock off another $500 if we wanted the gold but we said “No thanks.” Then the dealer from the on-line quote called but I couldn’t hear his name before we got disconnected. I remembered that one of the ones calling was from Fremont so we looked up the number and called there and found that had a number of them in stock that we wanted. Nicole called back to see what the prices were to see if they were jacking the price up with some dealer incentive. They weren’t so we mentioned that we were offered a car for $1000 off at Capitol and they told us they would knock off $1500. Which allowed us to get the 4×4 for the full price we were goign to pay for the 4×2 to begin with. Yay!
We got home, unloaded the car and drove to Fremont and at 10PM drove home in a nice car with 17 miles on it.
Dec 222005
I saw Aeon Flux the other day and it was bad in many ways, but the kind of bad that’s fun. The script was bad, most of the acting was bad, most of the ideas behind it was bad. What was good? It was clear a lot of work went into making the look and it looked good. Hand-feet are good. Charlize Theron looked good.
You’ll probably want a few beers before you see this.
Dec 222005
Liana had Peter call me to offer insurance advice about my scooter accident. I forgot the specifics because I was running errands at the time but I called back for more specifics and put them to use and I was successful! I will be compensated for the day off work and my medical co-pay and for “pain & suffering.” Now I just need to get the lady to pay up for the scooter itself.
Dec 192005
At work we have these little devices where you press a button and it gives you a code to type in. I don’t use the services that make use of that so I just press the button a few times a day. The thing that makes me feel it isn’t as secure as it should be is that the code is 6 digits ranging from 0 through 9 and only 6 times has there not been any duplicated numbers. I’ve had the entire thing made up of 2 digits more than I’ve had all digits unique.
Dec 152005
I heard back from the insurance company of the door opening woman and they said that since her coverage was lapsed when the accident occured that wouldn’t give me anything. I didn’t really expect them to but I figured it was worth a shot. So now I have to try and get money directly from her. Any ideas on the best way to approach this?
Dec 142005
“The Whole 9 Yards” was a fun movie so as I sat down to watch “The Whole 10 Yards” I was hoping for more of the same. Instead it’s mostly pretty boring. I didn’t care what happened to any of there characters and none could hold my attention except for those played by half of the leads, Amanda Peet and Bruce Willis.
It’s an entertaining enough movie to watch while you’re doing something else.
Dec 122005
Not much videual has happened in the last week so I put it all here as a one week update. A lot of the work has been framing what needs to be framed and getting all the plumbing in and planning for electricity and such.
The kitchen has the openings framed to the size they need to be.
The bathroom has the shower, tub, and toilet areas in place.
Dec 112005
So I went to the doctor on Thursday and he said internally everything was fine and to keep taking ibuprofen and icing my bruises. Then they bandaged every cut. I iced everything and rested and Friday morning my hips were feeling slightly better than the day before. My neck and shoulders were really tight though, showing their role in the landing. Saturday morning I was feeling pretty good, no muscle soreness, swelling down a lot on my hips, and it only hurt a little to go from sitting to standing and vice-versa. Today (Sunday), swelling is almost gone in my hips but they still have the lovely colors and I don’t have any pain, just minor discomfot when I stand or sit.
I’ve included hip pictures for those of you who don’t get ooked out.