AfterVictory.comLast week marked the end of the road for the Celica and myself, after 9 years and 175k miles. And four mailing addresses. And four jobs. And (I think only) 3 speeding tickets.
It was the first new car I bought, right out of college. I loved driving it, loved driving around with Kate in it, and did not love putting a car seat in the very small back seat.
Here’s a photo from the fall of 2001.
Kate and Ted and I stopped by the North Carolina International Auto Show the other day. Ted enjoyed they shinyness of the cars for sure.
Here he is in the front seat of a new Dodge Challenger. Such a nice car on the outside. Kind of so-so on the inside.
This is the engine from an Audi R8. This will be my next car, assuming my lottery plans pan out.
Ted likes motorcycles.
Much like a bread-maker protecting its cargo in its final moments, Kate’s former ride protected me in its. Last week while driving to work, someone drove into the back of the car, putting an end to the Sentra’s near decade-long run with us.
I was uninjured, luckily enough, and we have spare cars around, so things could have been way worse. Still a drag to have a working vehicle taken out of service like that, though.
Its certainly sad to see the car go, it’s been through a lot with us. When Kate first got it (while still at school in Newport), she did not tell me. When I came down to visit her, she walked me by it where it was parked and asked me if I liked the way it looked. I said I did, and then she said lets take it for a ride! I was about to shout car thief! and run, but when she produced the keys I held back.
The Sentra was also the car we packed up and moved to NC with, the car I drove Kate to the hospital in for Ted’s big day, and the car we drove him home in when he still had his own new car smell.
As much as cars are mostly devices that move us about, they’re also markers for spans within a life. I know when I think about the past, I usually think of either the car my folks had at the time, or the car I was driving around it.
Here’s a pic of the Sentra in shinier days.
In light of my own recent driving shennanigans, I made the decision that it was time to teach Ted how to drive. I mean, you know, its never to early right? Why not get the basics down when his rapidly developing brain is thirsty for knowledge. Nothing too fancy, just the basics.
The first step was explaining the whole “10 and 2″ o’clock hand positions. Ted countered that he couldn’t see out the windshield, and that he really wants to eat the ‘cruise control’ buttons.
In traffic, Ted got a little too confident and kept looking at his mother. I had to shout ‘Keep your eyes on the road!‘ more than once. That boy!
Soon he learned to focus. It’s tough to tell in this shot, but he’s actually parallel parking our car into a really tight spot. He’s using those side mirrors to his advantage.
Ted seemed to really like driving, and agreed to take a leg on our trip up north next month… but says he doesn’t want to drive through Jersey because he hates the tolls. Fair enough, I said.
ps – We would never, ever drive without Ted completely secured in his car seat. The car was off, keys in my pocket.
The employment front
Did I mention I changed jobs again? This is the last time for a while, I swear. I did really love what I was doing at the newspaper (and the cool people in the media group there) but I developed a feeling that someone was about to move my cheese, so adaptation was needed.
Per the Aftervictory Code of Secrecy, all I can say is that I’m still a web designer, but now working in the public sector. It’s quite a thing to change a job when you’re the sole source of income, but they made me a pretty outstanding offer. So far so good there.
Two years
Hard to believe but it’s been two years for us here in the northern of the two Carolinas. It’s gone by so fast! Still a little weird to write ‘NC’ on our return address labels. It’s still good though, and still tough to be away from our family and friends.
Cars
We now have three cars, which for those keeping score us one more car than licensed operators. Kate and Ted cruise around in the Versa while I take either of the remaining vehicles to work.
Keeping versus trading in came down to value. While we would have received some money for a trade in, we get much more value out of having an extra car. By equally spreading the mileage over the older vehicles, hopefully we can delay having to purchase a commuter car for me for a while.
Television
As new parents, our TV time is pretty limited. After Ted goes down for the night, there’s only maybe an hour before we’re both asleep. We have to choose our viewing wisely.
We watch almost all our TV from the internet. Sites like Hulu.com and the various network websites allow us to watch what we please whenever we like, without having to pay for cable tv.
Right now we watch The Daily Show, How I Met Your Mother, and the very dark comedy Its Always Sunny in Philidelphia.
If you haven’t checked out Hulu.com yet, you need to. It’s way easy to use, free, extremely well thought out in it’s design, and has a ton of shows, many from long ago.
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