Christmas couldn’t have come at a better time. I am so sick of working on this project that I am on. It’s everything from the people, to the IT infrastructure to the politics…ugh. Everything about it is just pissing me off to no end. I have to just get through Thursday and I’ll be fine, as that’s the start of my 12 day vacation…sweet sweet vacation.
On a brighter note, the first person that saw my car wanted to buy it, so that makes me pretty pleased. I ended up selling it (tentative) for $9500, that’s $500 less than I bought it a year ago. Not too bad, but not too great either. I should have been able to get more for it, but the bastards that changed oil in it the last time, forgot to use a torque wrench and cracked the cast alluminium oil pan. Oh well, no that big a deal. At least the car is soon to be out of my possession and in the hands of someone else. The Bimmer is running well, so I am happy to see the RSX go.
Things with Melissa have been going pretty well, and we’re both adjusting to the change of having her live in my apartment. I think that we’re both looking forward to getting a house outside of the Post community and having some more room to spread out a little bit. Right now it’s a little cramped with both of us living in the 1BR apartment, but we’ll make due for the next 5 months.
There is word on the street (from work) that I may be put on a project at another major communications company here in Atlanta, which would be okay as I wouldn’t be traveling, so I would be around in the evenings. While it’s not as ideal as the office at AT&T which is right across the street, it’s still not too shabby, but we’ll see if that actually comes about. They still haven’t found a replacement for me here at my current role, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to roll off without them having a suitable replacement. Anyway, it’s getting to be that time where I need to settle in and do a little bit of work.

For the past year, I have been driving around my RSX and having a pretty good time of it. The car hasn’t caused me any trouble and more often than not, it’ve been pretty damn good to me, so I really can’t complain and I can’t say that I “hate it” because I really don’t, I just never really loved it one way or another.
In that vein of thought, a few weeks ago, I started to look around at different cars and wanted to see what was out there. I ended up really looking hard at a few Z3 Coupes and S2000’s and thought that I really wanted a tiny car, but then I drove one. I climbed my fat 230lb ass into the small ass seat in an s2000 and quickly decided that this wasn’t the car for me. I also found that the e36 chassis from the BMW’s was prone to rear subframe failure, and frankly, I didn’t want to have to contend with that.
What I finally ended up with was this:

It’s a BMW 540i. It has a 4.4L V8 with 282hp running to the rear wheels and around 330 ft./lbs or torque. Not really too shabby and it was only around $1000 higher than what I paid for my last car.
Speaking of my last car…the RSX, well, that beauty is sitting in the parking lot of my building. It’s sitting there, wiaitng to be bought. I have around 3 different people coming to look at it this weekend with an asking price a whole $100 less than I paid for it, so that’s not too shabby. Worst case scenario is that Melissa drives it around for a few months while she is figuring out what kind of car she is interested in getting, but we’ll see. It’s nice not to have to bend to the will of the consumer and stand firm on my price.
Anyway, we’ll see… it’s time to head out of work, but I just wanted to post a picture of my new car.

So as of yesterday, I was in talks with a few people regarding some pretty sweet looking BMW Z3 Coupes that were up for sale, but after talking to Scott, and thinking about it for a little bit, I’ve decided against it. Why you ask? Two words…sub frame. Well, that may actually be only a single word, but it doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that model of car is a ticking time bomb which at any point could cost me $2000-$3000 to fix, and that isn’t something that I’m really interested in getting into. I feel like I would be much happier with a speedy Honda S2000 that will be reliable and I will be able to run into the ground. I figure that for the same price, I can get myself an S2000 of the same year and mileage. Granted, it’s a tiny convertible, so that’s not ideal in terms of doing a whole lot, but I figure that whatever Melissa gets will be something a bit more utilitarian, even if she ends up getting a Wrangler.
Who knows, maybe I’ll be the one to get something utilitarian. I am going to be looking at a few S2000’s over the weekend along with some BMW 540i’s. We’ll see. Those two cars are at total opposite ends of the spectrum, but they both have an appeal to me, so we’ll see. I think that I could get a pretty nice BMW 5 Series for the cost of the S2000 and it’d be a blast to drive too, so we’ll see.
Today is perhaps the most boring day that I have had at work in a long long time. The code freeze for our latest production build was taken yesterday, so there’s really nothing for us to do in terms of development, so we’re really just sitting around today. I think that next week I am going to start to work on my POV during work. There have been more and more discussions about Pentaho and how that’s working into the thoughts of clients. There may even be an upcoming opportunity for me to get involved with Pentaho implementations. It certainly would be an interesting experience if that were to happen…frustrating and interesting. I won’t really find out what’s going to happen with that for another few weeks though.
Anyway, tonight is the company Christmas party, and seeing as how I’m going to be driving, it’ll keep me in check. I am looking forward to it as Melissa will be coming as my guest of honor. Turns out that the IT people that we work with here at the client site are going to be busy tonight, implementing the release, but I’ve already mentioned that I won’t be available tonight. Oh well. I’ll be rolling off this project shortly anyway, so it’s not as though it really matters. Anyway, I need to go and book a plane flight to NY for Christmas.

Here’s a Z3 Coupe that I have been looking at. Don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have a new car this weekend

Will it be? I dunno. But one thing that I do know is that I want one. I’ve been drooling over it for the past few weeks and it totally fits what I am looking for in a car. What is it? Well..picture a clown shoe with two seats and an inline 6 pushing out 197hp. Sounds fun, eh?
Well, I found one with 49k miles in Cincinatti, Ohio and I am thinking about making the trip up there to check it out. Granted, if I go all the way up there, it’s going to mean that i’ll probably end up with a new car, which would be nice, it would also mean a bit of work getting my other one out the door. I think it’ll be a fair tradeoff. The one that I am looking at is bright red, and is listed for $13.5k I figure that even if I do get it, I’ll be spending 3.5k to take almost 70k miles off my car, paint it red and throw another 40 ft/lbs of torque under the hood. not too shabby.
This week has been crazy busy, and it’s not gotten any easier, so I’m going to get back to it.

This past weekend, I flew up to NY and helped Melissa pack up her things, and on Friday night we packed up a sweet Kia minivan and started the drive down to Atlanta. The trip went well, and without incident, so for that I am happy. Things since then have been busy, as I have been involved in testing at work and coming home to help unpack stuff and get Melissa situated. I’ll be happy once this week if over and all her stuff is put away and in place and work has calmed down a little bit.
For the time being, I am going to continue to work on the project that I am currently on here in Atlanta, but word on the street is that come January, things are going to get shaken up within my company, so not only am I going to be moved onto a different job, but there may be a massive round of demotions to change up the structure at my company. Apparently, we’re very top heavy and that’s not ideal in terms of figuring out who is building the practice and who will be billing, so there are going to be some adjustments. I don’t think it’ll really effect me all that much, but it may put a damper on my ability to get a promotion. Hopefully, I’ll still get it and be happy at my job. I figure that I have a little bit of time left here anyway, and it would be wise for me to wait until June to actually bail and get a new job, as that’s when my vesting in my 401k kicks in, but again, who knows. I don’t know what Melissa is going to be doing at that point in time and if I’ll even really be wanting to stay in Atlanta.
This evening, Missy and I went out to get a shower curtain and I ended up buying a bunch of stuff for work and home, mainly a shredder and a day planner, both things that I’ve been needing to get, so that was good, but we didn’t end up getting a shower curtain…so that’ll be something Melissa can do tomorrow while I am at work. I worry about her being busy enough at home for the next two-three months as she is getting settled in. I know that if I were in her situation, I’d be terribly bored, even with the amount of things that she has going on, but I have faith that she’ll be okay and get everything done that’s on her agenda.
I’ve been so busy at work for the past few weeks, I’ve hardly had time to think, but one thing that has been on my mind is trading in my car and getting something a little different. I’ve been itching to get rid of the RSX as it’s really not all that great. Not that it’s a bad car by any means, but I think that for the money that I am paying, I’d be happier in something else. We’ll see…I’ve been looking around at a few S2000’s, BMW M3’s and 540i’s, but nothing has really come around that has screamed at me without being another 5-6k more than I paid for my car, and I don’t know if that’s really something that I want to get into. Scott just sold his Bimmer and got a 1992 VW Coraddo, which, while it’s an older car, sounds like a hell of a lot of fun as it has lots of torque (V6) and is a tiny little car. I’m just going to bide my time with my current vehicle and see what comes around, and if I see something that really jumps out at me, I’ll take it from there.
My computer if finally back in order, as I took 4-5 hours the other week messing with it, setting up a better directory structure and organizing a year’s worth of sloppy downloads. I finally got rid of my PurDigital service and opted to go for Comcast. It’s a sad day in my house, but at the same time, at least I have a larger company that I can demand a bit more from and get a few free months of service here and there when they suck, which, is inevitable. We’ll see how that all works out.
Anyway, it’s about that time where I should be heading to bed, so I’m going to go and climb into bed and work on finishing out this week. With any luck, my employer will decide that they don’t want me on the project any more and I’ll be put on the bench for a week or so, which would nice for getting stuff done.