Buick - The new non-white car in our yard

Picture: Nighttime shot of the new old car.  Technically a pretty crappy shot, but you get the idea.

So after weeks of sporadic searching, I found my car.  Let's revisit my car goals.  I wanted a car as good as my minivan, with less than it's 150K. The parameters were pretty open for a variety of cars to fit.  Oh, and cheap.  I was looking at Mercedes (didn't like the repair costs and that it is recommended to take it to a german oriented repair shop which was an hour away from my house), Lexus, Honda and Toyota (in the NW, I don't know about where you live, but people love these cars and still charge alot for a car with 100K) and lastly, Buicks.  I ended up with a decked out Buick with 44K for $7500. I have bells and whistles on this car that seem a little over the top for a mid-level car (heated seats, seat memory, two tone leather, on and on).  My intent was to get a good transportation car with better gas mileage than the minivan, with money left over for a big trip with the kids.  It does not blend with the white truck, minivan, and horse trailer, but I can deal.
I got it!

The crazy thing I have been doing

I drive a minivan. A white, bland, reliable workhorse of a car that can carry bales of hay, bathroom vanities, saddles, kids, dogs and one day a cat that sneaked in. I bought it with 13k miles on it and was hoping to see it through to 200,000. I am at 147K and it is making a funny noises, which I already paid $1400 to the repair shop to fix. And it's going through oil a bit faster than it should.
So somehow I got to looking at used cars for sale online. I don't want to spend alot of money on this so am looking at older vehicles. Us Northwesterns have a penchant for the Subaru/Honda/Toyotas... so consequently they are hard to find a good deal on. Here is where you come in. I need your help. These cars are all the same price(or I can get them down to the same price)... which would you get?


2005 Honda Accord, 100K miles, one owner all the maintenance records.


1999 Mercedes, 40K miles, one owner. Literally owned by a little old lady, she and her sister drove around with me. Lila can't drive it anymore, she has the beginning of dementia. Super sweet ladies, the cleanest car ever, but Mercedes are $$$ to repair if things go wrong.


2002 Buick LeSabre, 50K, one owner. Cushy. Reliable.
Something I notice a bit hinky is all the cars are silver. Hmmmm. One thing I should add is a friend said I would have to dye my hair blond and get a bob cut if I bought the mercedes... she thinks I would be snobby. I told her... HAVE YOU SEEN MY CARS? I think to live with me the mercedes would be "well-loved" and have the fresh scent of dirt and dog. Just driving on my property puts mud in the car, so we can't put on too many airs. Hey just because it is a mercedes, doesn't mean it won't be hauling hay! I like the Buick because it is nondescript and reliable.
And yes, I am still working on Wilder's room and the upstairs bathroom....

Car buying tales - Ford Fiesta sales

I am going to list out my recent car buying adventure. I was told to try to get a) Ford Fiesta or a b) Honda Fit.

This first part will be about the Ford Fiesta.

A side note is that friends and family take me when they need a new car, since I enjoy the car buying process, and many times people hate it.

First tried to track down a loss leader car for this since it is new. These are the vehicles advertised in the weekend paper that they sell at a loss to get you in the door of the dealership, with the intent that you will upgrade the car or that they will be able to finance you at a higher rate. Either way this great deal car is to get you to the dealership where they can do their best to have you buy a more expensive car. Some of the snakiest dealerships use this tactic, so you have a lot of confidence and stick to your guns when buying one of these. If you can do that, you will get an amazing deal. My first two trucks - toyota and nissan - were loss leaders and both sold two and three years later for more than I paid new.

Since it was a Renton area Ford dealership with a nasty reputation that was holding the loss leader special the week I was looking, I ripped out the ad and took it to my local Ford dealerships in Kitsap. One of these dealerships was so low key, so calm and pleasant and straight-dealing that I would have bought the car in a heartbeat if I didn't feel I was overpaying. The problem with buying a car on a nice day in spring is that is car sales high season, with customers having their tax return money in hand. You want a different time of year for a better deal. Also, when trying to buy a gas miser car, do it when gas prices are lower. You want to aim to buy a car that is not 'in season'. A luxury vehicle when gas is expensive. A convertible on a rainy winter day. When buying a new car, I will pay about $500 more for no pressure. If I get pressure, I want a huge discount. The nice kitsap ford dealership could not get close to the $11499 loss leader price. They could do $13300.

I went to the other dealership. Had a nice salesman, with a crappy sales manager, that got in my personal space and told me I was wasting money by buying a car flatout. I needed to lease a car, that was a better return on my money. He was telling me that paying them thousands of dollars in car rent for two years on a car I will never own is better than car ownership. I am shortening what he said, he actually talked circles very rapidly and I tuned it out, since this is one of my least favorite sales techniques. Act like the customer is : your dumb daughter or wife, doesn't know anything and try to bully them.

Wrong on so many levels.

I worked a Fiesta for a couple of weeks, and could not get (what I consider) a deal at this point. The fleet lease Fiestas are coming back after use in June, then there will be deals again.

Went on to the Honda.

Pic: Ford Fiesta image courtesy www.treehugger.com

Snow Pics - to remind us of crazy driving

Top to bottom: This is the type of snow that cripples our area. In our defense, there is a bit-o-ice under there....
Okay here is the story.
1. We are all driving along a whopping 3-11 miles an hour, if that fast. More like a fast walking pace. The car in front of me, in the middle pic is a rear wheel drive lexus(?) acura(?) type thing. The rear wheel drive was killing this car, it went up this little hill somewhat sideways, with very little traction. Had it had to stop, it would have been stuck. And me and the 30 cars behind me would have been stuck, too.
Note in middle picture the truck that is in the same lane as us. You know what that dweebie toyota truck was doing? Passing. Passing to nowhere. It is not like there was one slow car holding everyone up. There was hundreds of cars, all being slow. So this guy pulled into the downhill lane that the poor acura was barely making it up... to pass the car in front. He did not have enough room, so when he gunned it and turned his steering wheel to go back into his own lane, his car continued on it's slow and straight motion trajectory of impact with the acura. Since we were all on ice.... his 4WD vehicle cannot drive on ice any better than the rest of us. It was all so slow, that I could just sit and take pics, almost comedic driving. At the last minute, his tires must have gripped the center line where the snow was not smooshed into ice, and his truck swerved back into his own lane. the bottom pic is the acura putting on her/his brakes and cursing him out. The funny thing was, that the toyota driver was going to get all up in the acura's face... but he couldn't stop.

Dingbat.

Memory Loss and Photography

Is this your car? How about your garage? Why did I take a picture of it? And why do I have absolflippinlutely no inkling or iota of a smidgen of a memory of taking this picture?
Early onset alzheimers is coming my way. At least I have a lot of time to prep my kids.

Matronly lady Jumps a Battery

Driving out of our road onto the main highway. There was a truck smooshed onto the side of the road (not much room for a car before the road dropped off into forest) with battery cables draped over the sideview mirror. As I was waiting to turn right and zoom off to work a wee little lightbulb went off in my head. Duh, he wanted a jump. I threw the minivan into reverse, pulled up alongside and asked if he was waiting for a jump. Answering yes, I pulled in front of the truck, he hooked up the cables and it started right up. He looked up at me kinda awkwardly and stumbled over a very gracious thank you -- "an angel stopped to help me today... a beautiful ( lovely /somewordlikethat) angel." Now, to put this in perspective remember where I live. I bet never in a million years has a woman ever stopped to help that he wasn't directly related to. He was expecting the jovial man-talk of work and trucks etc etc and got this perky tall woman stopping. And, I never think of myself as lovely nor an angel, I am just a person that see someone needs help and I had the ability to solve that particular problem. I actually embrace the matronly, middle aged type lady I may be-- who drives the white minivan with the small dent because said lady backed her own truck into her own minivan.
Then, got taken out to a surprise dinner by a friend,
and then was told to have a --lovely evening, Miss-- by a stranger. (see matron reference above)


Photo credit : This photo is so appropriately from www.artofmanliness.com

Encaustic Art

Not encaustic art. Metal art. One of Don's many studebakers.. this one is named "Ruby."

Friend Colleen told me of an art class she signed up for. So I did too, not wanting to be left out of an encaustic art class, especially since I had no idea what that was other than wax. And the word caustic is in it. Making it seem both gentle (beeswax!) and wicked (caustic!) A long, long time ago rumor has it that I got an art degree, you may not know that other than I can B.S. about pretty much anything. (this is the side effect of art school, with our class reviews where we all gave our inspiration and what-not usually on very little sleep) Probably why I like writing or telling stories, it is elaborating on a commonplace happening. I tell my friend Don that I could probably tell a story about ANYTHING. As in, turn any ordinary happening into a story. I trip on my way to the barn on a tuft of grass. STORY MATERIAL.

Anyway. Encaustic art is layering wax on a board and doing all sorts of things to it. Carving, coloring, scraping, drawing, imbedding images, the sky is the limit. I am very hooked on this, and the woman giving the class is amazing. If you are in the Seattle area and want a great GREAT class... ask me. She not only teaches you all the ways you can work with this material, but she tells you where to get the stuff, how to make the colors, what a studio needs, etc etc.

Commuting - Don't do this in public

Rose and I are waiting in the ferry line to go home. As we wait and share her ipod which she is singing to... the fellow in front of us in the 1992 Honda Accord hops out of his car (license number 536TPR) and bends over. He pulls out a razor and begins to shave his head. All of it. It looked like he was already bald, but obviously when you are up close there must be sprigs sprouting. When our line begins going, he is holding down his ear to get those sneaky to reach hairs back there and waiting for the last minute. Obviously, I was captivated by his ability to turn a very public place into his own personal bathroom. I felt like we were standing in the bathroom with him shaving his head, and I didn't even know him. Plus, we had our cars in the bathroom with us, and trees bushes and ferry traffic. What a bonus ferry travelers behind us will have when they step out of their car and see all the hair clippings.
Today one of our most stalwart volunteers was reading a book about the blurring of public and private because of commerce. I am not sure where this falls in that, but I am sure it does.

Things I Have Learned

Things I have learned recently:
1. Police SUV's are very fast, but don't have any special engines.
2. Police officers after a while do not react to things with adrenaline. Such as walking up to a dark house, walking into a domestic dispute, dealing with cranky people
3. Police officers get asked questions all day by their commanding officers, etc etc so they don't want to go home to a wife that asks them more questions. It irks them.
4. The seatbelts in the back are controlled by the officer in the front. You can't unbuckle without their assistance.
5. Sometimes in non-emergencies police run red lights and speed a bit.
6. My 911 line is okey-dokey with people calling for a non-emergency. No matter how much they pound that into your head when you are in Seattle, when you hit my neighborhood, don't worry about calling for something mild. They will even act like a guest services desk in a mall and look things up for you. (even if you tell them you don't need it because you feel guilty for using the line)
7. My neighborhood/city police are super, super, super nice and helpful.
8. Sheila's Cafe has a great waitress. This may become my "Vera's" replacement.
9. Mor MOR's has excellent hot chocolate.
10. Tizley's is a place I highly recommend, good view, great staff, great food, good beer, games that are fun to play with kidlets.
8. Wilder is taking the WASL this week, and loved it yesterday. Writing is today, he is a bit concerned.

Lucky Days 2

Old Happy Dog Dancin' in the Snow.

The two workhorse vehicles around the place. And the one fluffy ornament dog. The van odometer just rolled past 100,000! Thanks big-butted white minivan! (note cop -magnet truck in the background)

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Loveliness in the house during the wintertime