Tuesday, September 23, 2008

New car!

I bought a car on Saturday, as many of you already know. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet. Every time I see it in the driveway I wonder who the hell is visiting, lol.

I'd started to think about buying a car a couple of weeks ago, after I got some of my other obligations paid off and was able to finally start saving a decent part of my paychecks. I figured I'd save what I could over the next few months and hopefully find something decent used around the beginning of the year (and actually one of the goals I wanted to add dealt with saving a part of every paycheck for that purpose). I mentioned this to my grandmother, who brought up the possibility of a new car. I thought she was nuts, but she has a GM credit card and she had about $1500 credit on it that could be used for a car. The catch was it had to be new. And the credit was going to expire soon. Since GM was having a big sale this month where all of their cars were being sold at employee prices, I told her I'd look into it at least.

I didn't think much would come of it to be honest, but a decent used car costs quite a bit anymore. I'm not the type who can buy a crappy car and then fix it up. I needed something that would get me around and not need a ton of work and cash put into it. So I thought, who knows? By the time I got employee pricing plus an extra $1500 off it might not be that much more to buy new.

I went last Sunday with Danielle to hit all the GM dealers and see what types of cars they had available and get a general idea on prices. Purposely scheduled it so that I could be there when the dealers were closed and no salesmen would try and pressure me into test driving things or buying cars. I decided I would try and go the next day after work to test drive a few different cars. One of them was the Pontiac G5. I'd seen a red one at one of the dealers I'd really liked.

The next day while I was at work both Mark and Danielle went to that dealer of their own accord and test drove the G5. And then both texted me that I should buy it. I laughed at them, a lot. All I wanted to do was try out a few different cars and then see if there was any way I could work out a payment plan and get my shit together by the 30th when the special ended.

The next thing I know, I'd spent 3 hours at the dealership after work. I'd driven nothing but the G5, never made it to any of the other cars. I took it home to show my gran and she talked to the salesman. And suddenly I'm giving them $200 to hold the car and putting a sold sticker on it.

The rest of the week was spent dealing with the salesman and insurance company and whatnot trying to work out all of the details. My gran gave me a lot more money as an early graduation gift for a down payment. Mark thought I was being cheated (I wasn't, he had misunderstood the numbers I told him) and started calling around to other dealers. I'm glad he did, as it made me realize that with the bigger down payment I would be able to afford some of the extras I'd initially given up on. And still cut the term of my loan by a year.

So I went in Thursday night asking if they could get me a different car. One with the sunroof and sound system, and another package that had cruise control and ABS and better wheels and a bunch of other stuff. The finance lady was SO pissed about it. Apparently she'd spent a couple hours getting everything worked up for the first car and then I wanted to change it all. Oops!

They managed to get it all worked out and actually got the right car in from Ohio the next afternoon. I went in Saturday morning and signed a bajillion papers and it was mine.


Most of the rest of Saturday was spent learning to drive it, as it's a stick shift and I've never really driven one before. Mark, being the jackass that he is, had me out on the road after ten minutes (I thought I was going into another part of the parking lot we were in, but noooo, it was the main road). It must have been hysterical for him to watch me flip out. By the end of the day I still wasn't that great at it but I knew everything I needed to be doing and was getting a lot better. Now it's just a matter of practicing. I'm hoping to take it out with my mom this weekend and be ready to start driving it to work next week.

The downside of this is that I lost an entire week and didn't really study for an accounting exam I had tonight. Oh well...I don't think I did too badly!

And speaking of Mark I have a ton of shit I could write about, but I think I'll save it for next time. Maybe. ;)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Goals Update 15

It's been SO LONG since I actually updated this blog. I've started at least 5 entries and then never finished them. I'll get a goal update in now, at least, and then hopefully I'll get back to some sort of regular updating schedule. If anyone's still even checking this by now. :p

1. Nano novel. Plugging away but not making a lot of progress. I'm too damned busy anymore. Anytime I sit down to write it's like I barely get into it and then I've got to be off to work or class or something.

2. Play flute. My flute is all sorts of fucked up right now. I need to take it and get it fixed, but that's probably going to cost a few hundred dollars and it'd probably be better to just buy a damn new one than to try and fix the one that's nearly 20 years old. I'll figure something out, but needless to say this goal's off the list for a while.

3. Write every day. Been doing rather well with this. It's only usually 10 minutes or so, but at least that's better than nothing!

4. Let other people read my writing. I let Shel read a bit more of my novel. I'm hoping to have enough of this one finished before this year's Nano starts to let other people read it as well.

5. Take some trips. This goal's officially off the list as of now. I managed to do nearly all of the trips I'd planned. I got to DO, Philly, and New York, and I'm going to see Shelly at the end of this month. So I'm happy how all of that turned out.

6. Learn Japanese. I've been slacking on this lately. Before next time I'm going to either buy one of those books at B&N or go get a book out of the library so I can get back into it.

7. Physical therapy. Between work and Tae Kwon Do and writing in class, I've been using that hand and having to bend my finger a lot. It still doesn't bend completely on its own but I'm hoping it'll get to that point. Who knows, maybe I'll just never be able to bend it properly again. At least it's usable now.

8.
Start buying less stuff, and finish what I have lying around the house. I've been doing remarkably well with this. I've gotten some more library books and a few games once I got the PS3, but I'm getting through a lot too. I've been averaging about 3 books per weekend and 1 during the week haha. I'm even getting a bit of gaming time in every day.

9.
Organize my stuff and get rid of unnecessary clutter. I don't remember where I was supposed to be with this goal from my last update. I'm still working on it though. I rearranged my books again a week or two ago to fit all of my new stuff in. I'm going to need to do the clothes again soon as it starts to get colder and I need to get winter stuff out. But for next time I'm going to work on the couple of boxes I have left. And rearranging my games...again. I need to make space for the PS3 stuff and the DS games I got for my birthday.

10. Get through borrowed stuff. I borrowed entirely too many books from Doug when I went to visit. But I read one already at least, and finished another of Danielle's. I should finish the Indigo series of Corey's any day now. I've also stopped having 12 books out at a time from the library. I'm hoping to have everyone's books back to them in the next couple of months, and then I can start trying to get through games.

I am probably going to have to redo and update the list of goals I'm working on again, but I'm going to leave it for next time. Nano 2008 will be going back on here, as well as a few other things, probably. This is good enough for now, and at last I've finally finished a blog entry!