September 30th, 2006
I did the impossible today. I bought a 1998 Pontiac Firebird. Both my mom and dad came down from home to look at the car before I paid the guy. That was really shocking. I was expecting my dad to back out of coming down like he always does right before any event. I’m somewhat glad he came, but he really intimidates me most of the time. The whole right down he was pissed off and very silent. Even when looking at the car. Driving with me driving the car. I really don’t know why he was pissed. Nor does my mother. I just remember him saying “You mother didn’t need me to come and look at this car. It’s a beautiful car. You searched well.” /rant
Anyway, before buying the car my parents must have taken the car out for a half-an-hour on the road before they came back. One can say as I stood with the guy in his driveway waiting for them to come back that I began to know the previous owner of the car rather intimately. Ha.
Upon my parent’s test drive of the car they could not find a single thing wrong with it other than a little rattle from a harness that probably loosened over time. Tightened that up right away. Problem solved. The only other suggestion was to do a tune up and flush the coolant when possible. One can expect to do that at least once a year. Average. Maybe a high-speed balance is needed on the tires. Nothing really major at this point, and let’s hope there isn’t any for a while… say 5 years?
I guess I’ll be updating with some pictures of the car. None of which will have me in it because I’m too bloody ugly.
September 29th, 2006
Only a few more hours till 3:00 PM today, when my parents come down to pick me up & go to buy the Firebird. I’m somewhat excited and somewhat scared at this point. There has to be something wrong with this car if he’s holding it for me, turning down offers made by other people with cash-on-hand. My mom is somewhat skeptical because she states, “There are not too many honest people in this world anymore.” I can probably guarantee you that my parents will find something wrong with the car. They’ll state the transmission is going, the frame is bad, the engine block is cracked… Who knows? Then the promise to the guy of “I’ll be buying this car, please hold it for me” will be broken. I don’t like breaking my promises when everything seems to be okay at the moment. This car seems like a deal and a half, but who knows. Maybe my mom and dad are worried that I’ll get another lemon (having to repair basically everything in the car before I could drive it).
September 26th, 2006
By request I am updating my blog. I’ll just say that I haven’t spent too much time on the computer as usual. The most I’ve spent on the computer was to write up an Observational Astronomy lab (#2). I still have yet to complete it, but I will soon. Pretty much all that is left is to answer one simple question and draw the diagrams.
I fear that I’m getting closer and closer to a car, but it just keeps slipping away. My recent experience was with a 1998 Camaro. Ruby-red, T-Tops, 87.000 miles and a 6 cyl. In all it would have made my insurance 455 dollars cheaper than it is now. Bringing it down to a price of $1,950 a year. I actually won the car off eBay from a dealer in New Jersey, and as good faith would have it I had to decline the winning offer of $4125.00. The car’s transmission died while the guy was moving it off the front line for me. As that happened the guy told me I don’t have to pay for the car. He would have repaired it for free, but he suggested I drop the bid because he didn’t want me to get stuck with something shitty.
Now, here I am again in the same spot with another car. This time I was just randomly browsing Yahoo Autos since I haven’t looked at that site in ages. I’ve been usually sticking to Autotrader or Auto Shopper Online. To my surprise there was a 1998 Pontiac Firebird listed for $4500, when it was listed for $6,000 a month before! Man I was all over that like a ‘5 dolla hoe. So I went down to see the car, and it’s absolutely beautiful! Despite having 101,000 miles on it, it has no dents, no dings, no scratches on the body of the car. The car has T-Tops, the Y87 Trans-Am sports enhancement package for the 6-cyl, chrome wheels (17″) and dual chrome exhaust! To top it all off it’s black. =)
Like I said, I was all over this car. The guy said it was for sale with another dude looking to buy it. Man I was like bitch I want it. So I told him I had the money, which I do, but I wouldn’t be able to get it to him until Friday after 3 because my classes just plain suck fucking balls like that. Not to mention I can’t take off work at Operations tomorrow, otherwise I would do it fucking tomorrow! They wont let me take off because my request to take off was not put submitted in advanced. Fuck me. Well the guy agreed to wait to Friday for me regardless of the other interested buyers. Holy shit. Can this be true? What is wrong with this car? Will the transmission die on me 1000 miles after owning it, like my Camaro? Man, I hope he keeps his word. This will truly make my week, make my month, make the rest of my year (aside from hopefully passing all my hard-ass classes)
Which brings me to another thing:
- My classes such balls aside from them getting in the way of the car.
- E&M is just as hard as Mechanics was. That’s just E&M I, I also have to take E&M II next semester (hopefully and assuming I pass the first section). Homework for E&M is assigned on Friday and collected the following Friday. This homework set is probably the most difficult out of all 4 classes.
- Atomic Particle Physics is alright, but lectures are pretty boring. The homework for that class is not really related to the lectures he presents, so I spend hours reading the book. The books for Atomic Physics is actually pretty neat, but way above my head sometimes. Homework is assigned on Thursdays, and collected on Mondays. Damn.
- Advanced Calc will probably rip me a new ass-hole aside from E&M, and I probably bombed the quiz we had today. Not that it was hard, but I didn’t really finish the problem he had us do in the time allowed. Homework in this class is assigned on Thursdays but collected on the following Tuesday.
- Observational Astronomy is cool, but it takes away from the nights I could spend doing other work. The weather plays a big factor around here. It might be a clear night, but the light pollution can suck my fucking balls. Most of what we’re supposed to see we can’t because of the lights. Turn some of that shit off so I can see the globular cluster M13! At least we have 2 weeks to do the labs, but sometimes that isn’t enough.
- Operations: I sit there on my ass writing emails about a service that has been critical on some application named after a fucking taco.