New glasses!

A Winter Day At Work

Today was a beautiful winter day. This post on the Enjoy Illinois Blog caught my attention early in the day and got me investigating cross-country skiing (you know, because regular skiing isn’t exhausting enough for me ). So, that put me in a winter mood. I decided to take a long lunch break to run an errand out in McHenry, IL (about a half hour from my office or home). While I am working today (and tomorrow!), there’s so few people here that I can really work at my own schedule, which I LOVE. I got spoiled to having my own schedule for the 5 years or so I worked prior to this most recent job, and having a manager who believes in having you in the office from 8am to 6pm and knowing exactly where you are when you aren’t is really grating on me. I mean, seriously, this is the most monitoring I’ve ever had, and this is the most senior I’ve been…how ironic is that? At any rate, having a return to my previous self-management has been a welcome change.

From 1pm to 3pm, I went out and got to enjoy a surprisingly warm day (I should note…warm in this context = 29 degrees, which means that I don’t really have to put on a coat to run from office to car or car to shopping). There was a light dusting of snow in progress. It wasn’t floaty, fluffy snow…more like a smattering of frozen raindrops that are too light to be hail. Still, it was nice. Driving to McHenry was lovely, because most of what is between here and there is farmland (horse farms, corn farms, etc.). I drove past a large lake that had lots of ice-fishing huts. You know, I want to walk out on a frozen lake at some point. I’ve never done that..and the ones that are thick enough for trucks and fishing huts are my best bet for safety.

After my errand was done (returns/exchanges at what is now my closest available Lane Bryant…I swear, I love their bras and pants, but between the outrageous prices, arbitrary coupons/sales, and the fact that they’re at least 30 minutes away from me, I’ve taken most of my business to online shops…the only reason LB gets any business from me now is because they do at least have in-store returns for online purchases), I grabbed lunch from Steak & Shake during their 2-4pm happy hour promotion…1/2 price shakes and beverages! I had a peppermint chocolate chip shake that I could only finish half of, but it was delicious.

As for now, I’m still at work, but I’m headed out soon. I’m hoping the car wash will still be open, as Victory needs some attention.

We Came, We Saw…

Marriage Meme

Gacked from a friend on Facebook, with slight privacy edits.

How long have you been together?
7 years as of this month…it’s funny because he was 31 when we started dating, and now I’m 31. So I finally caught up to him!

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
A few months, not counting that we may have seen each other at rallies or Mensa things and not known each other really

Who asked who out?
Well, funny story. I kind of tricked him into going on our first sort-of date. I sent out a mass e-mail to a bunch of people to go to the renfair with me, because I’d happened upon some free tickets. I knew the renfair was up by him, and I knew everyone else on that e-mail list was busy that day. But our first real official date, he called and asked me out.

Where was your 1st date?
Unofficial: Bristol Renaissance Faire
Official: My apartment to watch Harry Potter on DVD, on my birthday. I’d hurt my back at horseback riding, and I didn’t feel like going out anywhere. We ordered pizza and stayed in.

How long did it take after your 1st date to get serious?
Heh. Not long. I spent the night at his house the weekend following.

How long after you started dating did you become engaged?
3 years

How long were you engaged before you got married?
A little over a year

Whose family do you see more?
His; they live closer, though still pretty far away.

Do you have any children?
Nope, and it’s staying that way!

What about pets?
Pancake

Did you go to the same school?
Nope.

Who is the most sensitive?
I don’t know. We each have our touchy points. It just depends on what we’re talking about.

Where do you eat out the most as a couple?
These days, it’s probably Moe’s. Or, for sit-down, we end up at Friday’s pretty often.

Where is the furthest you’ve traveled as a couple?
Ireland

Who has the craziest ex’s?
Hmm…I don’t know. It might be a tie.

Who has the worst temper?
Oh me, totally. I’m a maelstrom waiting to happen.

Who is more social?
I’d say him. I’d be a total misanthrope if it weren’t for him. I’d just play XBox 360 all the time on my own. Then again, he’d probably say that I’m more social, and that he’d just be at the casino all the time if it weren’t for me. When I was single, I was more social, but now, I’m just happy to stay home.

Who does the cooking?
We rarely cook. If there’s cooking to be done, I do it.

Who is the neat freak?
I get bothered by disorganization, and he gets bothered by things like the floor not being vacuumed.

Who is more stubborn?
We’re both stubborn, just about different things.

Do you get flowers?
Sometimes.

Who eats more?
It depends. Probably me in general, but it really depends on the day and situation.

Who sings better?
I do, but it’s nothing to write home about.

Who does the laundry?
I do most of the time, but since he’s home more, he helps out with it when I’m swamped.

Who is better with the computer?
I am, but he could be just as good…he just doesn’t have the patience to figure stuff out when he knows he can ask me.

Who picks where you go to dinner?
Depends on who has a preference. Most often, neither of us have a preference and we end up kind of swinging an axe.

Who wears the pants in the family?
Well, today I’m wearing a skirt, so I’ll say him.

Who has a better sense of humor?
He does, I think. I’m sarcastically funny, and he’s just witty and silly and willing to make an ass of himself to amuse others. He makes me laugh often.

Who eats more sweets?
Him, though they’re all sugarfree.

Who cries more?
Me. I bawl at movies.

What are your favorite TV shows that you watch together?
The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Dollhouse, Big Bang Theory, Survivor, The Amazing Race, Lost (when it’s on)…but our schedules keep us from watching them together as much as we’d like

Who hogs the bed?
We both do in different ways.

Who gets up earlier?
Usually me, but he does if there’s something going on that he needs to do early.

Who drives when you’re together?
I do, as often as possible. I’m not a great passenger, although I’m better now than I used to be.

My Birthday Cakewrecks Cake

Basic, but still hilarious:

Birds!

One of my benefits for joining the Milwaukee Zoo society was a free pass to their special exhibit, Wings From Down Under. I had initially blown this benefit off because I don’t really like birds. They kind of freak me out. I feel like they’re too close to dinosaurs, and they don’t have features I can anthropomorphize. I don’t like the beaks, either. I mean, really, what’s up with that? Have teeth or don’t, but a beak is just *odd*. If you know me well, you probably know this, as you’ve probably heard me comment on it or seen me run away from birds before. So, I imagine this photo will shock you:

This is from the Wings exhibit at the Milwaukee Zoo. I decided to go, and it was a blast. The entire exhibit boils down to that you walk into a giant birdcage with a popsicle stick that has millet adhered to it, and then you’re there with hundreds of parakeets and quite a few parrots and cockatoos, all native to Australia. The birds are smart, too. They would immediately set upon anyone walking in the entrance, because those people definitely have fresh millet. ? You could buy additional millet sticks inside, too, but the people walking in were a guarantee of millet, and the birds had that figured out. So, like, the minute you walk in, you just feel these whooshes of air and then you have birds all over your arms and hands. I’m not going to lie…I was completely freaked out at first…but it was like immersion therapy. After a bit, I felt at home…and I even began to notice some characteristics I liked about the birds. For one thing, I liked that they were smart enough to focus on the new people. I liked how they totally blew off and avoided the kids that seemed overly interested in touching them or poking them but did give plenty of attention to the nice, calm kids and parents. At one point, I found one bird who just seemed kind of shellshocked and clearly wanted some millet but wanted no part of the people associated with it. I held my millet stick up to him, and he went after it hungrily and eventually inched toward me a bit, but he wouldn’t leave his branch. I’m guessing he’d been terrorized by someone. Poor guy. (Oh, and I learned from the keepers that the little stripe above their beak usually tells you if they’re a guy or girl bird, so I know he was a he.)

It was so much fun that Ms. Moo and I called my DH in. He’d stayed outside, since I just had the one ticket and he was listening to the game anyways. We had all thought the exhibit would just be one of those walk-through aviaries or a bird show or something like that. We had no idea it would be so hands-on.

The only disappointment was the lack of education. I really wish I could have learned more about why the birds are so varied in color (is it just breeding? Or do certain colors have certain qualities) and why the parrots from Australia are so much smaller than the ones I saw in Mexico. But, overall, it was a blast. Check out the Milwaukee Zoo 2009-09 gallery for more pictures from our visit. (Note that the gallery has two separate visits in it, one with my dad over labor day weekend and one from this past weekend.)

(“Real time” note: I’m typing this on the train, by the way…we just stopped at Wilmington, Delaware. It’ll be backdated when I post it.)

Grayslake Farmers’ Market

I had a great time at the Grayslake Farmers’ Market on Wednesday. It’s one of the few farmers’ markets in this area that operates on a weekday evening, instead of on a weekday morning or afternoon. I’d been meaning to go for most of the summer, but one or another thing always interfered. A desire for berries finally motivated me to get over there, and it was lovely. It was like a street fair. There were all sorts of yummy produce booths, as well as 3 different fresh butchered meat vendors with their freezer trucks. I ended up getting some raspberries and some blackberries from a farm that’s actually near the Moos’ house. I also got a small package of apple-infused ground pork, for making a burger or two at some point. My last purchase was a small package of homemade Apple Donuts, from an orchard in Harvard. Every vendor was very friendly and not at all pushy. Most of them offered me a sample or two before I bought anything. And, generally, the prices were on par with the local grocery store.

There were other odd and assorted vendors, too. I bought a plate of fresh fried veggies (tempura style) from one booth that was kind of partnered with another booth…they bought the veggies from the booth next door, and you could specifically pick out your mix of veggies and have them fried or grilled for you while you wandered around, in about ten minutes. Or, you could get a pre-made mix right away. There was a funnel cake vendor, and a hot popcorn vendor (who was also selling “raw” corn and corn kernels for home popping…he was a corn farmer from a few blocks away!). There were several people selling sauces that they’d made themselves. For example, Two Fat Guys Sauces had a booth, and the eponymous guys were there selling and providing samples! (It was very tasty, but I just don’t barbecue enough to go through a bottle of sauce.) Another booth was Grayslake Massage, and they were doing dollar-a-minute chair and arm/hand massages with all proceeds going to benefit Save-A-Pet (a very large no-kill shelter in our area).

I ended up having fruit and veggies for dinner that night, which is a rare (but deliciously satisfying) thing for me.

Map FAIL

Lancaster, PA

First, click to open the image in a separate window so that you can look at it while reading this.

Notice in the upper right that they provide a radius map with distances from Lancaster. Richmond is just inside the 250 mile circle. Cleveland is just inside the 250 mile circle. But, if you look in the bottom half left, you can see that the approximate distances show that Richmond is 232 miles away (expected)…but Cleveland is a whopping 363 miles away. Now, look at Toronto. Toronto is just outside of the 250 mile circle. However, the distance in the chart is 467 miles.

MAP FAIL.

New photo galleries!

I added photos to the gallery from two remarkable trips to Milwaukee in the past month:

• Milwaukee Summerfest (July 2, 2009)
• Milwaukee Zoo (July 25, 2009)

Both are captioned for your viewing pleasure. Note that I’m using a slightly different gallery theme now, and, as such, the captions are now below the pictures, not to the left of the pictures.

The Victory PT

Associated gallery: The Victory PT

Well, it took me long enough to post about this. I bought a new car on Friday. Well, technically, it’s a used car, but it’s new to me. I’d fallen in love with the PT Cruisers a year or two ago. I kept ending up with a PT as a rental car, and I really loved the versatility and feel. It had a very comfortable driving position for me, due to the raised seats. I also liked the ability to basically change it into an open van in the back when needed and to use the shelf as a privacy guard, shelf, or picnic table. When Chrysler said they were discontinuing them and that 2009 would be the last year, I was heartbroken. I’d been hoping they would do a hybrid PT.

As y’all know from the news, Chrysler isn’t doing so well, and as it happens, the PT isn’t selling so well. Plus, dealers get a glut of high mileage PTs from auctions since they are popular rental cars. I decided to take a shot at getting a good deal on a PT given the economic situation. Also, my Sentra, my Terimasu, was coming up on needing some not-insignificant maintenance and repair. I initially looked at buying a new PT, but, after research, I decided I could get a much better deal on a used PT, to the point that I could practically just buy it and re-sell it and make money on the deal.

I started scouring the internet for PTs. The problem with buying a used car is that, if you want a particular trim level or feature (as I did), it can be a bit of a hunt just to find a car that fits the criteria. But, lo and behold, I found an ad on eBay for a 2008 PT Limited Turbo that was above my needs and was priced (on the eBay ad) just at blue book, below NADA. I did as much research on it as I could do online (Carfax, etc.), and everything seemed good. Then, I made an appointment and drove down to the dealer (who was a good 30 miles from my home). I test drove the car, and it sounded fine. The oil had been recently changed. The tire treads were reasonably and evenly worn. There was some minor rust on the exhaust (pretty normal and unavoidable up here) but no rust on the exterior or undercarriage. The interior was in excellent shape. There were some dirt stains in the cargo area but nothing major. Also, there was some minor chipping around the Chrysler logo on the hatchback door.

I went into negotiations with the dealer. I started out, as recommended by a few places, by putting a time limit on our discussion. I said I was meeting a friend for lunch (true) at noon (not true) and that I would be leaving then unless we had reached an agreement. I also said that I wanted to separate my car from the discussion of the PT, that we could discuss a potential trade-in after we agreed to a price. The salesguy whinged a bit at this, but I stood (sat) firm. We eventually came to an agreement on a price that was 1K under what was posted online. In retrospect, I should have pushed harder on the price, probably could have gotten another couple of hundred at least, but I was intimidated by the fact that I was already well under blue book, so I couldn’t really point to anything and say, “match that price.” All I could do was repeatedly point out that there was another PT with the same trim and same miles in Milwaukee that was selling for less (but which I knew was a 2007, not an ‘08, and which I knew was not in as good shape as this one, nor as loaded with options) and point out the few cosmetic flaws I had seen. (side note: I ended up about 1K above the ‘07 in Milwaukee.)

Then, when we’d settled on that price, we started on the trade in. They offered $3200. I laughed. I asked for $5300, pointing out that it is a fully loaded limited edition in good shape that they will be able to sell far easier than the car I’m buying. The salesguy pointed out some minor damage on my car. I pointed out that the parts would cost them around $100 and offered to buy them the parts myself if they disagreed. I showed them my maintenance slips that proved that I’d just put some work into the car (stupidly, but I wasn’t 100% on selling it at the time). Long story short, we ended up at $4200. I accepted this because I ended up saving $300 on sales tax via the trade-in, plus it was much easier to just sell to them than go sell it myself (though I was willing to do that had they not come in with a decent price).

And…here’s the best part: I bought my PT in cash, outright, no financing. That’s a huge win for me. I’ve never bought a car outright before. (Well, in fairness, this is only the second car that I’ve bought.) I’d made a promise to myself that my next car purchase was going to be outright, and I did it.

In the past, my cars have generally been named based on the nationality of their make. My Sentras were named Terimasu and Terikumo. (My Tracer was named Kobee, which is American-ish, I suppose.) In choosing a name for this one, it needed an American name that fit its retro-chic appeal, and I wanted celebrate my accomplishment in buying it. So, I decided to call it the Victory PT. (Euro gamers may catch the pun. )

In other news:

• DH is doing well, mostly. He did get a chest X-ray on Friday because he feels like he’s getting fluid build-up. His thoracic surgeon has been bloody useless, by the way. He won’t return calls, not even to schedule the mandatory follow-up appointment, not even when DH left a message saying he felt like he was having a problem with fluid build-up and occasional chest pains. Once we’re done dealing with this guy, we’ll be leaving an extensive negative review on Angie’s List. But, thankfully, our bridge-playing doctor friend did DH a solid by reassuring him that while it’s worth getting checked out, it’s nothing emergency-worthy yet. (Thank you, you-know-who-you-are!) It’s worth noting that this problem stopped DH from going geocaching with a bunch of us on Saturday, but it has not stopped him from working a 12+ hour shift today. In fairness, VP is far less strenuous than geocaching…and far more profitable.
• DH bought a netbook! We got it from woot. It is tiny and red, and he is thrilled with it, mainly because he doesn’t have to play second fiddle to me to use a computer on the 1st floor.
• Pancake has a twitter now, and his own page. I decided I was posting too many tweets on his behalf, and also it’d be fun to have his Catbook page get updated more frequently. He’s doing just fine without those 9 teeth. He’s on a wet-only diet now, though he can chew and bite when he needs to. I got him some dried salmon treats to use for training purposes, and he is able to bite through the chunks. He’s so finicky. He won’t touch most treats. He’s never liked things like Pounce treats, but he loves the dried salmon chunks that cost 3 times as much.
• I took this past week off of work to be with DH. I was glad for it, too, because he only started to feel comfortable driving on Thursday evening. Thus, he needed someone around to chauffeur and to generally help him out during the day. We had a really fun week being retired together. We played daytime bridge, and we saw a movie during the day. If this is what being retired together will be like, I can’t wait.