Fifty Eight Hundred Dollars
11/4/2

Aisai accepted the first offer from the insurance company. It was $5800 and, hey, I�ll also agree that it was a fair price. Though Tom said that we should counter offer. I�m not sure though, I think I�d do like Aisai did and take what was offered since that does give us more money then we paid for the car about a year ago and after we�ve paid off the note we�ll have 900 dollars for a down payment.

Heck, I don�t think we�ve had that car but six months or so.

A 2000 Focus Wagon is the car we�re looking for. I have requirements on cars and Aisai has requirements, you can sing them to the tune of Gilligan�s Island or the X-files theme:

Mine

1. Said car must be a four cylinder engine since that V6 in the 626 was rather expensive to deal with when it needed maintenance. Also, no more cars which require premium.

2. It should be Japanese. I know most Japanese cars are actually made in Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, or Mexico, but it�s the thought that counts.

Hers

1. It must be a station wagon.

2. It must be made after 1995.

3. It should be under $8000.

Unfortunately, there is no car which fits all of these except the Subaru Impreza, and I�m not sure it�ll qualify for her 3. So, what�s first to go? Well, my rule 2 of course. Hence the Ford is what we�re looking for.

Aisai initially wanted another SW2, a Saturn. Well, I deflected that one (repeatedly) with various arguments. These included �Saturns age badly� and �The myth of Saturns not depreciating is over.� But what really got her away from them was �If we go out to eat with your mom after church, we know the Saturn is considered too small for us to go in and we�ll end up taking your mom�s Camry.�

Aisai and I are not fond of the Camry. Aisai hates the lack of road feel. I hate the lack of power. I was talking about this same subject to T-boss this morning and mentioned the Camry. I said, �Take your Supra and take 100 horsepower away from it. Not acceptable.� He had a 1991 Limited Edition Supra Turbo. Man, he never should have sold that car. But he has a black Wrangler now, so it�s not like he doesn�t have a fun car.

My first thoughts on the car were to abandon Aisai�s rule 1. If that were done, I�d go for either a Prot�g� or an ECHO. (Do we still have to capitalize Echo? Was that ever an acronym anyway?) However, she�d look back and wish we had gotten a station wagon. However, I think the Prot�g� might be too small for social driving, such as going to eat out with people old enough not to want to deal with a smaller car. The Echo is cavernous inside, as is the Focus. The only other tall n� small car that I can think of that I�d like to add to the list, but it�s just too new, is the Suzuki Aerio.

Plus, the Aerio violates one of my all time rules. There must be a dealer of that kind of car in the city. Sure, there�s one in Decatur, which is only 30 minutes away, but that means very little when your car needs to be repaired. Nothing like taking off several hours since it takes a full hour to get there and back.

Now, we could always violate the 8k rule and spend more. But there�s one thing about that. We�ll probably have a kid soon. Oh, yeah, if you read this you know we won�t be the ones gestating it, but Aisai is currently looking at Kazakhstan as far as adoption. I personally am leaning toward China or the Philippines. However, the Chinese government is taking adopting parents for all there are worth and getting about $18,000 per child. We�d get a $10,000 tax credit after it�s all over, so it would only cost us $8000, and I�m fine with that. Most international adoptions are from China and to me that means that the paperwork is predictable. However, Aisai has read that the conditions in the orphanages aren�t that good. Vietnam gets deleted from the list since the orphanages are so bad that what looks like a six month old child might just be a totally neglected two year old. Not being able to get out of their crib will do that.

I need to look up Kazakhstan. And late 1990s station wagons.

Oh, and couldn�t end the entry without mentioning skateboarding or Vice City.

Skateboarding: When at Tom�s birthday party, Brad, his son, asked me if I knew any tricks. I said only kickturns and their variations really. He didn�t know what that was so I told him to get his board and I did one on the carpet. When I did it, he jumped back about a foot. He said he didn�t expect me to move that fast. Also, on their very low nap carpet I almost pulled off a frontside 360. Woo!

Vice City: As much as I love Phillip Michael Thomas's character, Lance, I think I�m going to have to kill that loser if he messes up another of my deals. First I have to terrorize a mall by myself to get them to pay me protection money. Then I have to kill some guys at a nightclub and then the security company (yes, all of them) and what was Lance doing? Sitting in my bar in my house drinking. Now one of his guys has rigged the mall with explosives and wired it wrong and I�ll have to get dressed like a cop and wire it right before I blow that thing. (And those are the same people who I had to terrorize earlier.) I think I need to fire Lance. With real fire. Oh, and General Cortez gave me a lovely katana when I helped him out of the country. (The French were trying to kill him for stealing missile guidance technology.)

(Note: I kept saying Jan Micheal Vincent rather than Phillip Micheal Thomas. Oops. JMV is the guy from Airwolf.)