Category: Jake

I mentioned that I was looking for a new car, and went and picked up my nearly dead car today and went shopping for a new one — and I got one.

Don’t have pics yet, but basically held a local dealer to a price they were advertising on their web site for a 2001 Hyundai Accent (which was a mistake, as it was like a third of the Blue Book for it). It’s a small little car, which is is perfect for what I need, gets great mileage, and has only 76,000 miles, and for a twinky little four cylinder engine, it has a bunch of get up and go.

Now I just need to get some studded tires for it so I can actually make it to work and move my CD player from my old car, and we’ll be good to go.

Does anybody want a 1990 Subaru Legacy sedan for parts?

My car was having overheating issues when I was driving out to Sunriver yesterday, which was odd considering it was 15°F outside. It would overheat, the heater would kick on cold air, and then it was like a switch flipped and it would go cool again and then heat up again and then cool again. The engine was cool to the touch, so I don’t know what was going on. I took it into the Subaru Guru, who I’ve had look at my car several times and I know they know what they’re doing. The diagnoses? A blown head gasket, which is, needless to say, a really expensive repair at $950 (because they basically have to dismantle the entire engine to get at it).

The car has 204,000 miles on it, and I’m not about to spend $1000 on a repair for it when it could (and should) put that towards a new car. And since we already have one car payment, I’m hoping to get a second that’s dirt cheap.

Anybody have one for sale? I don’t need anything powerful (would even prefer a wussy little car) as I drive daily to Sunriver and back from Bend and gas milage is key. If you have a small little truck, that’d be great as I’m constantly needing to haul stuff around and have to borrow trucks from people.

I’m open to options outside of Central Oregon, if the deal’s right.

Comment here or e-mail me at utterlyboring [at] gmail [dot] com.

I’ve survived two days of family and holiday spirit, and it’s nice to get back home and just relax. Too bad I have to go back to work tomorrow.

All in all, it was busy but enjoyable holiday for everybody in the family. Among the gift highlights (from and for all the folks in the family):

• Some Nintendo DS Games: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, and my daughter got a Hamster game for the DS (can’t remember off the top my head which one).
• A Cuisinart Power 11 food processor.
• A silver 4GB iPod Nano. I’ve finally joined the 21st century and gotten an MP3 player.
• A Craftsman 2 gal. Wet-Dry vac.
• A few Cranium games: Triple Triumph (I enjoy this one) and Hoopla (great party game) and the kids got a Carnival Clubhouse Super Fort (we already had the base Super Fort, so we can now build a fort through our entire house, if need be).
• A Nikon Coolpix L11 digital camera (far better than our old and dated three megapixel Canon).
• My daughter also got a Pink Polariod digital camera from grandma (which she bought on sale months ago). That’s probably her favorite gift, next to her newly madeover American Girl doll (we got a new head for it from the American Girl Hospital).
• My youngest daughter’s favorite toy? Probably this little dinky drum that you can take in the bath. Nevermind all the other cool toys she got, this is the one she bangs on all the time.
• Some much needed clothes (remember how when you were a kid and you hated getting clothes? Not so much anymore).
• The kids got one of those wooden train table sets that you saw at Costco.
• Got some gift certficates to Applebees, Costco, Lowes, and Netflix (1 year sub, which I’ve never done, so that’ll be cool).
• Movies: A Mel Brooks movie collection (has all of his classics), Airplane, and Gremlins.
• My annual tool from my brother in-law (this is always handy and appreciated). This time it was a set of nut drivers.
• A set of Geek temporary tatoos (they look like this).
• (Forgot this one) A new, big, stick bag to hold all my mallets and drum sticks that were overflowing my old stick bag.
• And I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but that’s the bulk majority of what all of us and our girls got (the kids got a bunch more little things, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head).

All in all, a great Christmas was had by all (kids were spoiled rotten, as always), I just really wish i didn’t have to go back to work tomorrow (especially considering tomorrow’s a heavy tourism travel day and the roads are in bad shape).

So, what else did everybody get?

I’d like to wish everybody a safe and happy holiday, be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus or whatever. We’ll be celebrating Christmas with my wife’s family tomorrow and with my family on Tuesday. I don’t intend on being online much (or at least blog much) over the next couple days, so everybody be safe and be sure to avoid the crazy “I don’t know how to drive in snow!” tourists that will be descending upon the area on the 26th.

And to get everybody in the festive spirit, here’s a picture I took of our tree at home.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Actually, I don’t hate winter as much as I hate the way jackasses drive in this kind of ugly weather we’re having. We got five inches of snow at my office today. Needless to say, it was a very long drive home today, and during my entire 60 minute commute (usually 30 or so), I was just hoping I’d make it home alive. not because of my driving ability, but because of the way other morons were driving in the blizzard conditions that swallowed Highway 97 from Bend to Sunriver. It was dark and horrible, and the commute home tomorrow will probably be worse as it’s snowing hard in Sunriver right now.

While I like the folks I work with in Sunriver and I enjoy what I do out there, this time of year I really hate my job because of this. Driving in fear of your life because you’re surrounded by big ol’ SUVs that are driving far too fast and you’re driving a small, 20-year-old, sedan isn’t all that much fun.

But I rant about this every year, so I’ll quit. I need to reinstall Firefox before I go to bed as my profile borked itself.

I never usually participate in memes at all, but since all it requires me is to quickly copy and paste and mark stuff as bold or not, I’ll play along since I was already working in my HTML editor anyway.

Dave, Jen, and Keeneye have all done it, so what the heck. Everything below that’s in bold is something I’ve done. If you have questions or are curious about any of them, comment below.

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So tonight our office had our annual staff holiday party. We always have two traditions at our parties: A white elephant gift exchange and a poker tourney. During the gift exchange, I got the dreaded coonskin cap that’s been passed around for the six years I’ve worked at the company — which I guess I deserve for wrapping up a paint mixer that you hook to your drill and giving that way.

Last year in the poker tourney, I was out in about four hands. This year, I was nearly out again in four hands, but got a lucky draw on the river in hold ’em to stay in. A couple hours later, I had won a few more big hands in a variety of games, I knocked off co-workers, and when the game was called, I had the most chips, which meant I got the first place prize of a cool $75.

I’m quite positive the reason I won was because I was the only one at the table that was still sober, as most of the folks at the table had put down a few beers already. But I’ll take what I can get. I was pretty proud of myself, though I’m sure that Chris could still very easily beat me since he got second in the Jake’s Diner tourney. But at least I can say I didn’t get beat by a pre-teen.