Cars, cars, cars

Okay, I have a few minutes and so I wanted to record in the annals of time my experience with car industry. Now, one thing you may or may not know about me is that I have to study something from EVERY angle, every possibility before I sign on the dotted line. It doesn't matter what I'm buying, I have the need to know 1) that I'm getting the best and 2) I am paying the lowest price. I'm sure it drives my wife nuts some times. When she wants something, she just buys it, no worries, no hesitation.

So, a couple of months ago, my partners and I decide that we are all going to get new cars. How exciting! How TIME CONSUMING! Now, I really don't know too much about cars. For the first 13 years of our marriage we were a single car family. When we finally had to break down and get another car I ended up getting a Dodge Neon mainly for the fact that my brother-in-law Ryan had just bought one. Pretty boring eh?

Now it was time to get a new car. A good friend of mine, Norm, bought a Volkswagen Passat. I thought that was a very nice car. Since I had no idea of anything else, I decided that is what I wanted. I drove both the 2.0T and also the 3.6 liter model. Both were nice cars. I didn't really like the dealership we went to. Sales people

I started talking to friends and family and these are the cars that I ended up taking a look at.

Acura TL

Infiniti G35X

BMW 330xi

Volvo S60

Cadillac CTS

Lincoln Zephyr

I have to say that the Lincoln and Cadillac didn’t interest me one bit. They try to be in the same class as the rest of them but they fail miserably. The interior wasn’t very nice (seemed a bit cheap), not very many features, and certainly not the power the others had.

One of my partners really wants a Volvo. I had a friend in high school that drove one. I remember coming home from Logan one year (from a basketball camp) and we drove most of the way home going 110+ mph. You can’t do that any more. Anyhow, the Volvo (at least the S60 we drove) was a bit too small. The other thing I didn’t like was that if you wanted any extra feature it was fairly pricey. Cross that off my list.

My friend Matt, owner of ScoobyTuner, told me to go drive the BMW and I would like that the best. He was right. I drove the all-wheel drive beefy engine version. It was a fun ride. Marcella loved it too. I had never been in a car where you could accelerate getting ON the freeway (going 100 mph). The problem was, I just couldn’t see myself driving this car. Too me, it has an image that just isn’t me. Cross that one out.

That left the Infiniti and the Acura. I really liked both. The G35x was faster but I didn’t like the interior as much. In fact, I was really bothered by the interior. The buttons for the power seats were in a goofy spot, the control panels were lit with outdated orange lights. The rest of the controls were not easy to figure. But I liked the drive. I liked the style of the car. I could drive one.

Everything that I didn’t like about the Infiniti, I loved about the Acura. Honda really knows how to make cars. Sure it wasn’t as powerful as the G35x. But heck, it gets about 6-7 mpg better. That’s a plus. And is rear-wheel drive THAT much better? If you talk to the BMW people or Infiniti, they will tell you it does. Well, I figured since I wasn’t actually a professional car driver, the front wheel drive would work just fine for me.

The Acura has an outstanding transmission. By far the smoothest of all of the cars. The seats are VERY comfortable. Easy to manage controls. My favorite part has got to be the stereo system. The Acura comes standard surround sound DVD audio. If you haven’t heard of this OR heard this you are in for a treat. Truly remarkable sound. It comes with a 3 month subscription to XM satellite radio. I’m learning to enjoy that. If I’m the only one in the car, the music is loud. It reminds me when I was a teenager and when my parents were gone, I would pull the big speakers out and face them a couple of feet apart. Then I would turn up the music and lie in between the speakers. Nice, eh? Give DVD audio a test (whether in a car or at home). You’ll love it.

I got my car from Mike Hale Acura. There are two Acura dealerships in Utah. I also worked with the one in Vegas and the one in Boise. The price wasn’t good enough for me to get it out of state. I felt in the end that the MH folks gave me a fair deal. Of course I read tons of pages on-line. Consumer Reports, Edmunds, and
a number of others. I read on-line forums. Anything that I could to see what kind of deals other people were getting. I think you could safely say, that for a couple of weeks I was pretty obsessed with getting a new Acura.

Well, I was going to write more but I figure this is long enough. It was fun shopping for cars. I felt like I was in control, I was calling the shots. The salespeople didn’t bother me. I felt like they had to work for my business.

Anyhow, it’s been a couple of weeks now. I enjoy driving to work and back. I have washed it once but the weather has been pretty crappy lately.

Wanna ride?

Jeffren Chavis - Mormonise Me

A friend (and recent newbie to the blog world), Sean showed me this website that generates Mormon names. Quite funny.

My new commuter car. 

Tell me, is there anything more spectacular? 

Dad and Gimpy. JJ is the epitome of a Boy Scout. Now if we could just get him to do his Eagle project. 

Here's the Sknny Guy (notice that there is still a bit of snow in the park as well as on the mountains in the background) 

One of my favorite arches, Double Arch. 

Golden Arches

No, I'm not talking about McFat. Last weekend, we took the scouts (11 year olds - 13 year olds) down to Moab for a couple of days. We camped at a group site at Dead Horse Point. It had a pavilion, running water and flush toilets. Nice. We did a couple of nice hikes, both in Arches National Park. The first one, took us to Landscape Arch (one of the longest arches in the world), to Wall Arch, Partition Arch, Navajo Arch, and then to Double O Arch. It's about 4 miles round trip and there was lots of climbing. I love Arches and so do my boys. It was a good experience for many of the scouts. Later that night during the campfire, the Scoutmaster talked about "A Scout is Brave". I had to give the spiritual thought and I spent a few minutes talking about patience. Our troop has really changed over the past couple of years. When JJ first started there were 3 other scouts. We had 21 scouts on this campout. It was great. Each troop was in charge of their own meals and the leaders (yes there were 7 of us) did our own thing.

The next day we did the Delicate Arch hike. This is about a 3 mile hike and it was beautiful. I'll post pictures. We are so lucky to have this in our own backyard. It is always fun to meet people not only from other states but also from all over the world. I talked to people from Germany, England, New Zealand, and Australia.

We are going back down in a few weeks as a family. For several years we went down for Spring Break but building our house and getting our yard in and all of that crap has kept us from enjoying one of our favorite places. I look forward to returning and I'll post the highlights of our adventures then.

Multitasking kids

As I sit here checking e-mail, reading my subscribed blogs, and checking the latest news, I ran across this article about the generation of kids that we are raising. I was just going to include the article but what good does it do unless I add my personal two cents worth. Life just seems to go faster and faster. We all seem to get caught up in this multitasking environment. I would say that I'm just as guilty as the children that I'm raising. I always have to have the TV on, my computer on, my iPod on. Geez, what a geek I am. I remember just a few years ago telling my wife how cool the interent and e-mail was. "PULEESE", she would say. But she surfs and checks e-mail just like the rest of us (okay, maybe not 24/7 like me). So, what do I do for my kids? I spend as much time as possible with them. I talk to them all the time. I take an interest in everything they do. I give them computer time but I limit their time. I spend time with them. Tonight we watched The RM. Yes we've seen it many, many times but we enjoy watching it together. We played Skip-bo. The kids are really into that game these days. The boys had fun playing a few rounds of chess with the chess set I brought back from Korea. I certainly have no intention of giving up my phone, iPod, laptop, and other gadgets but I also have no intention of becoming any less a part of my children's lives. Well, enough of the going on. Night-night

Mitt Romney, the Mormon

Several months ago I started following this Elect Romney in 2008 blog. Today I read an interesting post from the Daily Kos. I've never heard of this site before but I did find it interesting. For me it is pretty difficult to sift throught the left vs. the right crap that we are always pelted with. Anyhow, give it a read and let me know what you think.

Happy 40th Clark! We had a surprise party for him last Friday. He's the first of the gang that turns 40 this year. Clark is a dear friend and is who we named our son, Jake after 

I want my MTV

A good friend of mine, Norm Jones, has recently left his position at BYU to form a new company, CleanMedia. In truth, he did NOT leave the University. He simply started this website as a means of informing parents and guardians about the harmful influences in today's media. He has spent considerable time and effort in putting this material together. Take a look and you might learn something. You also can drop him an e-mail (njones AT cleanmedia.org) and give him a pat on the back.

"If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things"

Skiing at The Canyons

JJ and Jake were out of school on Monday and so we thought it would be a great idea to take them skiing. This was their very first time. Over the past couple of years they have wanted to learn how to snowboard but I've told them that they had to learn how to ski first. We had a blast. We rode the gondola up to mid-mountain. I gave them the basic lesson of the snowplow and then it was up the lift. The Canyons is a large and quite pretty ski resort.

Jake was a bit frustrated the first couple of runs because of all the little kids speeding down the hill past him. But he quickly got the hang of it. JJ had no problem at all. In fact, he was going down the hill about two times for each time Jake and I made it down. Mid afternoon JJ was speeding down "Snow Dancer" and was a bit out of control. He crashed pretty hard and hurt his ankle/foot enough that he couldn't stand on it. So I went and retrieved the Ski Patrol. They wrapped him up nice and tight and then took him down the mountain. It was quite an adventure for all of us. I'm glad that I had my camera handy to take the cool pictures. After we picked JJ up from the First Aid station, he graciously told us to finish out the day. We set him up with a book, his iPod, his Gameboy, and Sean Hannity. Jake and I got in several more good runs. It was a great day. Not too cold, a little bit of fresh snow and not very many people on the slopes. Later that night we took JJ to the instant care to have his foot x-rayed. Nothing broken but he'll have to stay off it for a few days.

Great Season, Outlaws! 

Shopping on Melrose! 

Here is the US Bank Building that WAS blown up by the aliens in Independance Day but almost again by Al Qaeda 

Santa Monica pier (sure beats the FFT) 

Welcome to Hollywood, what's your dream?

Okay, I finally have a few minutes to write about our short stint in So. Cal a couple of weeks ago. For the past couple of years one of the Christmas gifts I give my lover is a trip to L.A. We love getting away for a few days, away from work, away from children, away from the FFT. This year we stayed in a nice suite at the downtown Marriott and puttered around town in a convertible. On Friday night we had tickets to Riverdance at the Pantages Theater. We rode the Metro (just a few blocks from our hotel) over to Hollywood. That was very convenient. We really didn't know what to expect but we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Very good music, singing, and of course dancing. It was so nice to sleep in, get up and exercise. Marcella and I would exercise and then walk over to Starbucks for a late breakfast snack. One morning I got to swim about a mile in the pool. That was fun. We also visited Santa Monica beach and pier. By far the biggest highlight (especially for the wife) was the shopping on Melrose. Lots of fun shops. We really had a great time together and can't wait until next year.

Blogshares???

Well my buddy over at Clariticity told me about the new website the other day called BlogShares. Let me know if you would like some shares of "Why I'm Here" or any of a number of blogs. Too bad my situation is anything close to reality. A few weeks ago, the folks at SlashDot gave me a few shares and the next thing I knew they were yanked from me in a leveraged buyout. As a result I made about a million "blogshares" bucks. So I bought a bunch of cheap shares of several cycling blogs yet I still have 1.2 million in cash that I can't seem to spend. Let me know if someone has something to sell.