The daytime… of the night

But when I get to be old, cranky, (and apparently Dutch) and want to keep the rascals from speeding down my street, I’ll be looking to installing one of these speed bumps.

I’m already planning…

Snapped this little jewel in the parking lot of the VW dealership.

btw, the hood is still not ajar… despite what T-Bone has thought since Saturday.

Saturday was a good driving day. The Google maps nailed the mileage to the tenth, which pleased me.

The last 13 miles.

Here’s the plan for tomorrow. HarjesHaus -> HarjesDesignHaus -> Vitamin Cottage -> VW Dealer = 10 miles. Here’s the map if you’re curious.

Leaves me 3 miles short. Rather than try to drop those 3 miles in tonight or on an additional errand on the way, I think I’ll just circle the block. Don’t worry, there will be video.

BTW – The final in a long string of “The Touareg is too smart for it’s own good” episodes happened on Saturday. T-bone thinks the hood is open. It’s not. I slammed it shut about a dozen times trying to convince it otherwise. This means that some sensor somewhere is recording a reading outside of some set of parameters which “means” that the hood is open. In turn, it activates the hood open warning light on the dash as well as quiets all other chimes so that you don’t get distracted and forget that you hood is open… which it’s not.

Today’s drive. A strategic strike.
HarjesHaus -> Counseling appt -> VW dealership -> Zaidy’s (for breakfast, a man has to eat!) -> HarjesHaus… 22 miles.

The VW dealership was the strategic part. It’s between my counseling appt and Zaidy’s and I needed them to pop the stereo out of the dash so I could disconnect our iPod dock. The bonus part was that when I hooked the CD changer back in, I checked it and discovered 6 CDs.

For the record. This march towards 36,00 is significant because I am usually over on lease miles. On the last 36k lease, I turned the car in with 48,000 miles. whoops.

This weekend’s planned trips:
HarjesHaus -> Paulino Gardens -> HarjesHaus = 21 miles

Finally, a chance to stick it to the man. Or at least, not let him stick it to me at the rate of 15 cents a mile!

As of this morning, we are 56 miles short on our 36k mile lease on the Toureg and have it until Tuesday. I plan on turning it in with exactly 36,000 miles on the odometer. So I have to save approx 3 miles to drive to the dealership, which means I have to spend 53 miles very wisely between now and Tuesday.

Anyone have anything medium-sized and/or dirty (like a cord of wood) they need moved a short distance?

So we began the car hunt for reals about two months ago. I phoned my poppa to get his advice and to see if he would put some of his spare time towards a little research and digging. His first car suggestion: the Nissan Murano. “I don’t think so” I said, “Not really the shape we like or what we are going for.” “Alright” he said, “let me think about a few more.

And so Cara and I researched cars for weeks.
Test drove eight of the cars to which we had narrowed down our search.
Until we finally bought the Murano last night.

Cara and I are in the midst of test driving cars so we can buy a new one in the next couple of weeks. The Mazda CX-7 is the current front-runner beating out the likes of the Acura RDX, the Toyota RAV4, the Honda CRV, the Nissan Xterra, and several other contenders. Still on the test drive deck is the Mitshubitshi Outlander… but I have doubts that it will do much to rise to the top.

But this is the embarrassing part. I’m about to suggest to Cara that we add one more car to the list. The Ford Edge. Yeah, that’s right… A Ford’s I don’t know how it happened, but the intense advertising finally got to me and I went to the website this morning. It has this monster sunroof that kind of rocks. Plus it is getting actual good reviews by the critics and my people that have purchased it. If this goes down, it would be the first Ford automobile owned by a Harjes since the beautiful red Thunderbird that my mom drove in the 1970s.

So not only is it an American car, but a Ford. Yikes.

Was swings a bit too much to wrap your head around? It’s my fault, I should have prepared us for it. I should have laid better groundwork. Maybe even had Milty on here to dicuss Swings. Next time.

So here is another video offering. One that is being brought out of the vaults. I apologize for the poor quality. At the moment, I can’t rerender it without the risk of smoke wafting from the rear of my laptop, so please take time to wade through the murky dark parts and the pixelated transitions. It’s still a shining moment.