Today, I’m grateful for play.
Play is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Its a gift from Allah that allows us to exercise our bodies and minds, sharpen our skills and develop new ones, relax, even compete. When we play, at our best, we get into states of flow and, indeed, we thrive. Don’t believe me? Check out some Ted videos, maybe, or some psychologists. Continue reading “Play”
Today, I’m grateful for recycling, for our recognition that Allah’s creation (here on Earth, anyway) is finite and worth reusing, for the understanding that old things can be given new life. Continue reading “Recycling”
Today, I’m grateful for hands. Continue reading “Hands”
Today, I’m thankful for Caroline, for the ingenuity and ability Allah blessed humanity with that allowed us to create such machines, for the gift of His sustenance, which allowed us to purchase her, and for His infinite, uncountable, unfathomable blessings, Alhamdulillah! Continue reading “Caroline”
As mentioned earlier, I test drove a white Alltrack SE with the driver assistance package on a Thursday. I told Chris I would return the following week, ready to buy a black Alltrack SE, and again specified the driver assistance package. The buyback money came through on Saturday, and was available to me on Monday, so I took off work a bit early on Monday afternoon, called Chris to let him know I was coming, and went to the bank for a cashier’s check.
My wife and I arrived at Metro VW (now Principle VW) about 2:30pm on Monday. My wife is a master of haggling and she enjoys it, so we were all ready to make a deal on a black Alltrack SE with the driver assistance package. We waited about 30 minutes for Chris to bring the car around, had a quick look at it, and commenced to haggling. Continue reading “Buying a New Car: the Alltrack”
My first car was a 1968 Chevrolet Suburban. It had issues (an undiagnosed cracked manifold among them) and after many months of frustration, sat in the driveway for a few years before being sold for scrap metal. After that, I drove a Civic (flipped 1 ½ times, totalled), an Accord (transmission failed), a 1971 Beetle (t-boned by a mid-1980s Blazer, totalled), a Prelude (rear-ended, totalled), and the Forester that I traded in when I bought Hank.
Hank was the first car I bought all by myself, and the only one that I said goodbye to over many months. It was hard.
Hank was a great car, for a single, apartment-dwelling, man, and it was ok for a newly married, apartment-dwelling couple, but with only two doors, it wasn’t really practical for more than 2 people, and while the huge hatch space and 1100lb payload was great—I carried 18 bags of mulch, twice, and a ¼ cord of wood in the hatch—I really needed something bigger for both family outings and for home improvement-type tasks, something with 4 doors, a decent payload capacity, and a roof rack, and something that wasn’t too much of a departure from the comfort and quality of Hank, that also looked good.
That’s not so much to ask, is it? Continue reading “Buying a New Car: Brainstorming, Research, Test Drives”
