rollercoaster of life

The past couple of days was quite the up and down affair. At work I had lunch with a man who had lived in the Middle East and we had a great time talking about our past experiences. He had also lived in Houston and his wife helped him decide it was time to leave just like my wife had helped me. After getting back to work, I had a meeting with a screaming woman who obviously hates me for some odd reason. The most unprofessional immature meeting I have ever encountered. Within a few minutes I went from feeling great to feeling awful. After taking 30 minutes of abuse, I got up and walked out of the conference room. I felt so bad that I had to take a sick day on Friday to recover. I guess she won in accomplishing what she intended to do and that was to make me feel really bad.

Yesterday, we bought my son a car and then on the way home we stopped by to see a local car show of hot rods. We had a good time as all of the boys at one time had enjoyed looking at cars. My son commented that now he understood what a really fine automobile looked like. After eating supper at home and sitting down to watch our latest Indian movie, our daughter entered the room and said one of her classmates had killed himself by a rope on a tree in their backyard. How horrible is that for a 14 year old to have to deal with. From happiness to horror in just a couple of hours. Such is the rollercoaster of life.

car shopping

There just is nothing worse for me than shopping for cars. I don't mind bargaining as that part is kind of fun but the vulture like car salesmen scare me with their forceful mannerisms. This weekend we were trying to find a car for our middle son, who is the latest in the succession of boys to have cars in our family. Like our next to oldest, I let him search the web to find cars he likes as he knew the amount that he had to spend and what he wanted to get. In these economically troubling days, small dependable cars are a bit hard to find as the days of the gas burning SUVs is on the downturn and people want just the car my son is looking for. He wanted a small car with good gas mileage and finally found one in north Raleigh last weekend that he wanted to see. He has been searching for the last couple of months but had to pass his final road test to get his unrestricted driver's license first before a car could be considered. That extra time was good as it enabled him to figure out what kind of car he really wanted. We test drove several cars so he got a feeling of what he liked also. Yesterday was the big day when he drove with his other two siblings and myself to see this car. It was a beautiful sunny day, which I tried to convince everyone that it would be a great day for hiking, but I got overruled as car shopping got a higher priority. The whole affair was fairly painless as the small used car dealer where the car was located had just bought this car at an auction and was happy to sell it to us. I bargained a little and before we knew it we had a car. We pick it up today as I did not have enough money with me and our son did not feel comfortable driving it by himself for the 30 minutes to our home through downtown Raleigh. Today we have yet another Hyundai in our family.

Car shopping brings back memories of past events with the other kids. Our next to oldest did his own searching for months and we bought his car at the local flea market since that is where the owner met us for the exchange of money for the car. He as so happy when he got home with his car, and yet just after a couple of months he accidentally ran into the post at a local gas station when his flip flop caught on the gas pedal. That resulted in a very nice "V" in the front of his car. His gray car became two shades of red as he found a bumper and hood at junk yard near our house. Then as he was driving home the hood flew back and smashed the windshield as the hood was not latched properly, so yet another car repair. The most amazing thing ever is that this car made it all the way across the USA as my son drove it with his best friend in a cross country road trip. Recently the car stopped working and may have met it's very end. Hopefully this latest car to enter our family will not be inflicted with such car abuse.

Then our oldest son was in such a hurry to buy a car in San Antonio that he quickly found a car and bought it in one week. The used car dealer was not a very reputable one and basically ripped us off. The good news is because we were buying a Honda from him, so the car could take much abuse and still keep going. He failed to tell us the radiator had a leak in it and since it was 100% plastic, it could not be repaired. The brakes were pretty much shot as well. In my son's frantic desperation, we had a car but just barely. Once we made a couple of expensive repairs, he decided to drive all the way back to North Carolina in a non-stop 22 hour driving spree. Eventually when he lost his driver's license, we sold the car to someone else by advertising with a for sale sign as it sat in the nearby WalMart parking lot. The car was in pretty bad shape but still with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, someone bought the Honda Accord for the good gas mileage. May our son's car make it that far as it has a little over 100,000 on it now.

road trip is over

Well, it is official, the next to oldest son's road trip is over. He arrived in Emeryville today after seeing the beach in Morro Bay and then traveling up Highway 1 for a while and then looking all around San Francisco. Tomorrow he has his orientation at school and moves into his apartment.

Even though I was all the way across the USA, my day was pretty exciting in a bad way. My car has not been starting very well since Saturday and then today as I was leaving work my car would not start. Fortunately the person who was car pooling with me knew the number to call for our company's security desk. He showed up within a couple of minutes as he was just driving our way when he was paged. He jumped my car even though it was raining lightly. Instead of going home I stopped by my favorite mechanic. It turns out that my car had a good battery but the starter died. After a two hour wait, I finally made it home. Not exactly what I needed was an extra expense with the road trip, but better this happen to me than my son on his road trip!

car keys

One last post for today as some strange things happen to me this week. I am car pooling almost every day I go to work. It is over 20 miles from our house to work. I typically have to drive in my car only one day a week, so it is so worth it for me. This week I had car trouble again. This time my car was over heating as I left it running too long in the hot weather. The black electrical tape I put on the key was so hot it melted off the key. When I got home I had a great idea to use some of the extra metallic tape I used on our shed to seal the attic vents. It is extra sticky, extra strong and just right for the job or so I thought. When I got ready for work on Monday, I could not start my car. I have a friend who is a mechanic so I called him. He towed the car to his shop and found the fuel pump had gone bad. It seems like I cannot have anything repaired on our cars these days for under $300. At least I am helping a friend feed his family! Late Monday I called him and he said that the electrical system had reset on my car and that only a dealer could fix it. I had my wife take my spare key to him on Tuesday morning after dropping me off at my car pool meeting location. Later I called him and he said the car started with my spare key! Turns out that with these new fancy electrical car keys, you cannot cover up the plastic part of the key, especially with metallic tape. Problem solved and now my car is running as it should.

car dealers

On top of everything else last weekend, we sold our Ford custom van. At a wonderful 14 mpg and the quick rise of gas prices, I just could not take it any more. It a momentary lapse of judgement I told me wife we should take the van to the Wal-Mart parking lot and leave it with a For Sale sign in the window. We sold the van within a couple of hours and so we were down to a single vehicle between us. Not a bad thing, unless you consider the fact that I have to drive to work which is 20 miles away in one direction every day of the week. Since it was late Sunday, we had a couple of choices and decided to try Enterprise Rental cars since they are just down the road a couple of miles. All week long my wife searched the internet for the best car for us. We did not consider a brand new car because of the high price and we do not want to have monthly payments for 5-6 years as that is no fun. Yesterday we checked all of the local small-time dealers in the huge metropolis of Fuquay Varina. One sells high end cars, one sells perfect cars for teenagers which you don't mind if they trash or crash them, one struck me as not very honest, one was from the county of Jordan. Quite a mixture for such a small town. We then ventured outside the town limits to a couple of new car dealers right outside town, as they sell what are called "program cars". These are cars that are owned and driven by dealerships and then sold as used cars. We ended up driving just about every reasonably priced SUV on the market for sale: Ford Escape, Jeep Liberty, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Honda CRV, Nissan Xterra, Mazda Tribute, Toyota Rav4, Hyundai Tucson, and Suzuki Reno. Like my wife said yesterday, there are just too many vehicles to choose from and that makes it even harder. We ventured to the Cary Auto Park in the evening, where there are just about every vehicle brand for sale in the USA can be found. The final place we visited illustrates what I think of dealerships. We drove around most of the dealers looking for the used cars on display in the lots. As we were leaving the final dealer, we saw a nice Mazda Tribute displayed nicely as it was parked on the sidewalk. We went back, which was our first mistake, and asked to drive it. At the big dealerships,someone rides with you from the dealership while you take a test drive. Since the price was too high as said we were not interested. The salesman went inside and said the owner would do something silly to get rid of it as it had been on the lot longer than any other vehicle. I told him I would buy it for $3000 under the price listed right then. He made me sign a paper saying that and ran off to talk to the owner. He came back and told me that was too low. So much for doing anything to sell it!