Life is so interesting. Recent highlights...
On Wednesday, we (I!) got a new car. My old one was a 2004 bright yellow Chevy Aveo 5-dr hatchback :
The new one is a 2008 bright yellow Aveo 5-dr hatchback:
Yes, I know the photos are identical. The cars are [virtually] identical. The only visible differences between our old one and our new one is that the interior changed from gray to black and the upholstery changed from a knit fabric to something resembling Kevlar and which (we hope) will be less of a dog hair magnet.
These cars get 30-35 mpg, have enough power to be fun to drive, and I have enjoyed driving it for four years; Smokey also likes it because it is an ideological successor to the VW bug. The real kicker, though, was fiscal: after the current GM "employee discount for everyone" campaign, a rebate based on Smokey's GM MasterCard purchases over the past four years, some miscellaneous other discounts and rebates, and the trade-in of our old car, we walked out of the showroom with a brand-new car with a brand-new 100,000-mile/5-year warranty for $3,600.
Sweet.
* * * * *
I just ordered myself a new Mac Mini -- 1.83gH dual core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. No more beachballing* for the Kat™.
We had intermittently been checking the Apple site, eBay, and various other resellers and refurbishers to see what was available and at what price. This turned out to best the best deal for the Mac that seemed to suit my needs best. Stay tuned for further developments once it arrives.
* * * * *
I am feeling like a self-indulgent little consumerist pig after the above purchases.
We are so, so lucky to be financially secure enough to afford such things. Times are tough; 2 of the 6 houses on our road are in foreclosure after the owners lost their jobs in the past couple years. One had been the sales manager for a local boat dealer, but he lost that job soon after buying the house; then he drove a dairy truck for several years but apparently that job is gone now, too. The other guy was a long-time employee of a local building supply place, but he had to take out a second mortgage to buy out his wife's interest in the house when they got divorced a couple-three years ago; then he lost his job and couldn't make it as an independent carpenter. In both cases circumstances combined to give each the 1-2 punch and now they are losing their homes.
I am making several charitable donations that I wasn't planning on, just to suave my conscience. I feel very lucky to be able to do that, too.
* * * * *
That's enough stuff about money, eh? Let's look at some photos from our North Shore camping trip in August.
This is the campfire enclosure and grill. In back of it is the red can that holds dogfood. We found that by setting the can right next to this big iron immovable object the dogs were not able to knock it over with their cable tie-outs.
Guess what happens if you leave the dog food can uncovered for half an hour or so? Someone else notices.
...and comes to investigate...
...and discovers that his nose has not betrayed him:
Yummmm! he says.
Please notice the size of those fully-packed chipmunk cheeks.
Time to store away these morsels:
Happy, happy chipmunk.
* That's the Mac equivalent of the Windows hourglass or the Windows Vista round blue rotating circle. All equate to fingers tapping on the desk.
