And so it begins

Finally got our car bought yesterday. This has been the most drawn out tiring thing I have done in a long time. For those of you that don't know, we had an accident just before Christmas. We lost our cat Turbo, in a freak accident involving Sara's car, a '99 Grand Prix. It was really hard on both of us, as Turbo was very much a part of the family. After the car was cleaned the car up and repaired a few nit-picky things. We then put our car on consignment and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

We finally sold it about three or four weeks ago. In the process of selling it we traded for a little Honda. It was a good car, but didn't get us any closer to our ultimate goal of getting Sara her new car. We polished it up, put it out on the lot, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I finally got it sold and the CV joints went out as I was showing it. So I replaced those and did several hundred dollars worth of work to it to get it right. I thought there for a short time, I might actually be able to eek out a profit to put towards our new car. Nope. Every penny I would have made on the car went towards different repairs needed. The car was basically in great shape. I just didn't want a customer to be upset if something broke. I'm picky like that.

There is more (a lot more) to it, but long story made short. I finally picked up Sara's new car. A black '04 Grand Prix. I had the windows tinted Thursday night, had exhaust tips put on it today, and have wheels coming for it next week. Overall, I think the car will look pretty good. When we started the paperwork on it, it looked like a rental car. Now it is already starting to look like something I won't mind making my payments on for the next couple of years. Besides, when it come time to turn it, the better it looks, the quicker I should be able to sell it. It worked with my last one. And he is one very happy owner.

This my inspiration. We'll see how close I actually get.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

I've had about a month of bad days, all in row. What is that exactly? Is it a bad month? Or is it just a bunch of bad days? Either way it sucks. I won't elaborate, but I'm sick of being on edge, and I need a flipping vacation.

My kind of USB drive

This is the kind of Tech that can change the world. Well, maybe not. It would be cool to drive a little car around your desk on slow days by using your cell phone.

Pointless Gadgets: Cell phone controlled toy auto flash drive

When a group of people, such as the Asians, have practically invented/manufactured everything else in the world, why not mass produce a completely pointless but none the less amusing design someone probably sketched on a dinner napkin. Marsilli has created this mobile phone controlled toy car that has a little usb port where the exhaust pipe should be. When you place it on the board you can control where it drives with your cell phone. We assume there must be some sort of infrared controlling this device. The board reminds me of a 1980’s board game like “Operation”. But in this case if your little toy usb car crashes into another one your cell phone bursts into flames. Posted by Dani Via: Engadget

CARSCOOP

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Yo-Yo Fool

I don't know if it was the Smothers brothers or not, but since I was a kid, I have always been a yo-yo fan. Someday when I grow up, I might be as good as these guys.



It's a long video, so it needs some extra time to load...

False sense of security

We moved into the new neighborhood not long ago. The house is really nice, but not near as nice as the people that live in our little cul-de-sac. We are quite secluded from the rest of the neighborhood, let alone the rest of Stillwater. Hardly any traffic. Our last house was like having a track side seat at a NASCAR event. Plus, if anyone ever drove through, we generally knew who it was. Well, yesterday my wife goes out to check the mail and finds some rather personal information on the ground. Ours. We had shredded a pile of old paperwork, but somehow these "items" were not shredded. Why? I don't know. Most upsetting is the unfamiliar footprints around our mailbox. We have called the credit bureau and alerted our banks etc. Whoever did this will probably not end up impacting our life much. But it will make me tighten down the hatches a little more. I'm just glad that they weren't after something I couldn't replace. My family.

Ms. Dewey: The search for lonely single men...

I was reading the Wall Street Journal today, and read an interesting piece on search engines. It was about all the different ways search companies are trying to attract new customers. The unique part, was that many of the companies set up an alter-ego search engine. If the type of search engine fails, they don't devalue the brand at all. Alltheweb is actually Yahoo!, SearchMash is actually Google, and Ms. Dewey is actually Microsoft's. Ms. Dewey, actually, is the one that caught my attention most. Not because she's "a sexy new search engine," but because it was just plain spooky. The star of the new page is Janina Gavankar. Some sort of a movie star that I am not familiar with. While you have her page loaded, she reads magazines, talks to you, and complains that you're not paying attention to her. It is certainly a different approach, but I don't know if I'll use this as a default search just yet. If at all.

Ms. Dewey

Finally, someone is paying attention....

I never thought I'd see this, but it is something that can make my day a little bit brighter. It appears that the more fundamentalist eco-movement is finally starting to pass on the kool-aid. As good as Toyota is, not all their cars emit sunshine and happy feelings through their exhaust pipes. Nor does GM emit only turmoil and smog...

Toyota, the longtime darling of the environmental movement, takes flak for the attention paid to its new Tundra fullsize pickup at the North American International Auto Show here.The campaign, backed by groups such as the Rainforest Action Network, cannot afford to “give Toyota a free pass,” a spokeswoman says.Campaign organizers commend Toyota for its track record of addressing fuel economy. They also laud GM for expanding its plans for hybrid-electric vehicles.

Green Groups Target Toyota Tundra

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