New Car Smell

Well it’s finally happened. I broke down (or should I say my old car broke down) and finally bought a new car. Watching my old car, Allycia, die a slow, painful death at the relatively young age of 7 years and a mere 64,000 miles became too much for me (and my pocket book) to take. Thinking back to the nearly 2 grand I dropped on her to get the engine running back in September still makes me cringe. About a month ago the engine started to over heat which turned out to be the last straw for me. It seems she had sprung a coolant leak. She was also burning oil like a mug. I refused to put a forth of a container of coolant into that car a week (especially during the winter) so she and I had to finally part ways. While evaulating her for trade in value at the dealership they discovered that she also had leaky head gasket meaning I had a very expensive repair bill looming in the near future. (I’m sure my mechanic is crying over me and Allycia’s parting of ways more than I am.) It was just time. If the dealer can get her repaired, and back on the road I wish her new owner the best of luck. She was a reliable companion for the 2 1/2 years we were together. Until the last 6 months that is. Good by Allycia. You’ll be missed.

Now on to newer and better things. So what did I buy? Drum roll please……. I bought a 2003 Ford Focus SE. I know. I know. Not all that exciting but I’ve had my fill of exciting. A major reason why Allycia is going to an early grave is probably because I drove and beat on her trying to make her into the exciting car she wasn’t. She was a Toyota Paseo for pete’s sake. A freaking Toyota Tercel in a sporty dress. She wasn’t a performance car but I tried to drive her like she was. I figured I’d drop the pretense and get reliable point A to point B transportation and leave it at that. Two Toyotas with engine problems and the advice of my Dad later I decided to go Domestic. There was a time even a short time ago that I swore to never drive a domestic car. Alas I’ve changed my tune a little bit. I’m going to give it a try this once and see what happens. So far I like my new car. The only nod I made to my wannabe performance vehicle dreams was to get a manual transmission. The manual on this car is almost silky compared to Allycia. Road noise, a way of life in my Tercel and Paseo days, is greatly reduced. It’s a solid car. It’s substantial. Definitely the biggest car I’ve ever owned. Another word I’d use to describe it would be sedate. When I was younger sedate was the furthest thing from my mind when it came to cars but now that I’m older, sedate is fine. I’m 26 soon to be 27 years old. It’s time to settle down and get on with life. I’ll probably never own my dream car (Nissan Skyline GT-R) and real life isn’t the Fast and The Furious. It was time to stop frontin’ and get real.

So what’s am I naming my new car? Ichiban. As in Japanese for #1. It’s my first new car ever. Being my first non-Japanese car I had to put some sort of Japanese spin on it. Ichiban seems fitting to me. Besides I ran out of ex-girlfriends to name it after so it was time for a change in my naming convention. Plus I think sub-consciously I mis-treated my other cars because I still harbored ill feelings for the ex-girlfriends they were named after. I plan on taking extra good care of Ichiban. Like my Dad always says, “If you take car of your car it will take car of you.” Ichiban is number one and will be treated as such. Here’s hoping I’ll have many happy, trouble free years with this new car.

Know Your Zip Code?

Zip Decode : As far as time wasters go(am I the only one that has started to view the entire internet as one huge time waster?) this is kind of cool.

Putting Things In Perspective

Nicked for doing 406mph : Sucks to be this guy. This helps put my recent speeding ticket in perspective.

Stealthy Exit

Taxman Dies Unnoticed At Desk : This is sad. How can a person expire from the land of the living without anybody knowing about it? Talk about working yourself to death.

Sleep

Sleep. It feels like all I’ve done this year is sleep. I guess my body is really tired. Maybe I’m trying to front load all my sleep to make up for lack of sleep in the months to come. My girlfriend moving to Memphis was supposed to facilitate us being together more not less. Thanks to me new all sleep all the time habit the only place I see her is in my dreams. I’m nothing if not well rested though. Whenever I’m actually awake I’m extremely refreshed. That’s a good thing I think.

Sad Face

It’s New Year’s Eve and where am I? Work. Oh joy of joys. Not! Of all the years to have to work on New Years why does it have to be this one. The first year I’m actually not alone I have to work on New Years. I would trade the last 4 years I’ve had New Years off to have this one off. I’m used to spending New Years alone. That’s old hat but to have someone who loves me and wants to be with me and me not be able to be with her on this night of nights really hurts. My heart aches. But here I sit. Alone. Longing for the one I love. At least I got my New Year’s kiss an hour and a half early. That was nice. 15 minutes and counting in the Central Time zone.

I wonder what 2004 holds in store. 2003 has been an incredible year. I think I’ve grown a lot. (Happy New Year!!!! It’s not starting off so happy. I don’t want to be here. It’s so lonely here just me and the security guard. I want to be out with my friends having fun.) Sorry had to get that out. Back to reflection time. I’ve grown a lot I think. A lot has changed. I’ve gone from barely scraping by (with tremendous help from my roommate) to living fairly comfortably. I have a good secure job finally after spending the previous two years not knowing if I’d have a job the next week or even the next day. I’m not exactly happy or content with the job I’m doing but I learned a valuable lesson this year. My job is what I do. It’s not who I am. I’m learning to derive my happiness and self worth from more meaningful things like my family, my faith, my girlfriend, my hobbies and most importantly from within myself. Work is work. It pays the bills and puts food on the table so in that respect it’s important but it’s not my whole life any more. All I used to do was work. Work, come home, sleep, go to work. Over and over again. That’s all I did. That’s no way to live. I feel like my life is much more rich and rewarding and fulfilling now. I look forward to expanding my horizons even more in 2004.

I just wish I wasn’t starting it off sitting in this stupid chair, terribly alone, in this dreadfully quiet building.