I've seen better days . . .

Well, this past Thursday was a bit of a bummer for a number of reasons:

1) I sold my 1995 Dodge Intrepid. We bought a van a couple months ago, and thought it silly to have 3 vehicles for only 2 drivers. Something had to go, and my gray beauty lost the coin flip. It served me well for nearly a decade and I was just a little sentimental about getting rid of her.

I sent an "ad" out to my fellow staff members (one actually bought it) which seemed to be a hit, though by no means did I intend for it to be humorous. Here it is:

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With the impending arrival of Morber child number 3, we bought a mini-van over Xmas break. We now have 3 vehicles, but only 2 drivers! I'm looking to find a home for my old Intrepid; if you know of anyone who needs a car and may be interested (including yourselves), please let me know. Otherwise, I'm also looking for suggestions of where we could donate it if it comes to that. Any worthy charities that have this sort of program?

Details of the car below:

1995 Dodge Intrepid
148,000 miles
Blue Book: approx. $1000+
Sale price: $500

Pros:

--Still drives!
--spacious
--hasn't needed much maintenance over the past 20, 000 miles or so


Cons:

--transmission concern; occasionally will struggle to shift and will go to higher RPMs; stopping and putting in park briefly usually fixes the problem (I've taken it in a few times and it never acts up for the mechanic! Again, it's infrequent.)
--passenger side window sometimes doesn't roll back up
--had a mouse in the car for awhile; some of back seat is chewed up (mouse is gone though!)
--heater works about 60 percent of the time; air conditioning about 25 percent
--driver side-view mirror damaged; hit by a foul ball when my dad parked too close to a baseball field

In all honesty, it may go for another 100, 000 miles or it may die tomorrow. We've taken good care of it, changing oil regularly and not driving like a maniac. I don't hesitate to take it anywhere, even on long trips. It's been a good vehicle.

One more caveat: I'm going to swipe the custom CD player I had put in there a few years back. In other words, it will have no option of playing music at that point (I have no idea where the factory deck is).

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Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get such a deal!


2) Our "waste management" company sucks. We had to call them for the fourth time in 2 months when they picked up the trash from every other house on the street but ours, yet again. I'd finally had enough: I spoke with someone and said that either a) they could refund our money for the two months that we hadn't received service, or b) we would cancel our service with them. She had to talk to her supervisor and would call me the next day. She didn't. Wonderful customer service, huh?

And get this: at this point in our lives, we don't generate a lot of trash (though lots of recycling stuff) and I don't even set out a can every week. We might have been calling them twice as many times!

3) Pages for All Ages, a family-owned bookstore/cafe nearby in Savoy, closed its doors, due to financial problems as a result of the current recession. This was terrible news. We loved that store. It was very similar to a Borders, but with a more "personable" feel, and the fact that it was an independent-owned store made me feel a lot better about putting my dollars into it. It had a nice atmosphere, adequate selection of books, and a great children's area. The newspaper article mentioned that some of their employees had been working there since it opened, over 20 years ago! When would you see such loyalty at a Barnes and Noble?

Damn this recession. I feel like we've been shielded somewhat by it, as I didn't know anyone who had been laid off, and no store/business closings had really affected us. Until now.

Now I'm pro-free market and I understand that the family-owned business model is slowly (or quickly) going extinct. But it still sucks; I'd much rather support a locally-owned restaurant rather than an Applebee's.

And to top it all off, Shan and I still had $25 gift cards for that place that we didn't use. Crud.


4) The Illinois basketball team is in a bit of a funk, and laid an egg against Wisconsin. In the last couple weeks, they've morphed into last year's crappy team and it's starting to get a bit frustrating to watch. (I don't know how many readers we have that are sports fans, but indulge me for just a bit.)

They've definitely exceeded expectations for this year, but having such a great start to the season (they were 15-2 at one point, now 18-5) only gets my hopes up and makes me angry when they don't play up to their potential. They better turn it around pretty quickly or the last half of the Big Ten schedule is going to eat my soul.


Complaining over. Certainly, if these are the most grievous things I can whine about, things are going pretty well. I have a job, a warm house, healthy children, a loving wife . . . I'm blessed beyond belief. And sometimes, having a crappy day like this does help place things in perspective.