So, my brother occasionally makes noises about what a freakin' awesome president he'd be. He's wrong, of course. But since I enjoy arguing with people, I'm picking a fight with him right now.

What my brother, and from my point of view the major political parties but especially the Democrats, seem to forget is that, in this country, the people have the final say. All of them. Not just the intellectual elite who live in New York and LA. Not just the ones with money. Not just the ones who agree with what you say. Especially not just them. So, if he wants to earn my vote, he's going to have to convince me that even if we disagree on something, he's at least seeing my side of the issue.

So, I'm proposing a series of debates. I'll post a topic, he'll give his opinion, I'll rebut, he'll respond, I'll respond back. Then I'll let him pick the next topic. We'll see how long it lasts. The first topic is Gun Control. You've got till Tuesday.

We are now the owners of a 2007 Hyundai Sonata, and once again, our net-worth is in the red. The soon-to-be-father and husband of a woman who drives 50miles round trip every day through the heart of Chicago is thrilled that we have a car that is reliable, more fuel efficient, more comfortable and has 6 air bags and car seat anchors. The newly-financially-responsible part of me is annoyed that we weren't able to wait until we could pay without having to get financing, and is distressed that we couldn't get a better rate. (Chase, the bank we've used for 5 years as a couple and I've used for nearly 10 years, wouldn't approve us at all.) The still-thinks-he's-19 part of me is thrilled to have a dark red sedan that drives like a sports car again. (And this one has a sunroof!). The obsessive-nerd part of me had already created a spreadsheet to track fuel economy, TCO, and maintnence schedules. So, it's exciting and scary at the same time. I guess it's a warm up for the baby's arrival.

The process of getting this thing would've driven a lesser woman to a clock-tower shooting spree. The original plan was that my MIL would arrive Friday afternoon for the baby shower. TBWITWW would pick her up and they would drive to the car dealership, finish the paperwork and bring the new car home Friday evening. Thanks to the lovely weather, the MIL never got out of South Carolina on Friday. Also, CarMax determined that the windshield washer fluid sprayers weren't up to snuff, and needed to be replaced, so we'd have to wait until Monday to get the car. The revised plan became that when the MIL got into town, they'd go fill out paperwork (MIL was on the title for the old car), and TBWITWW would return to accept delivery of the car on Monday. When they arrived at CarMax, they found out that the parts had come in early, so they could take the car home that day. 8,000,000 bits of paperwork and 5 hours later, they were done and able to bring the car home. The next time we buy a car, I think we'll try not to have to have an 8 mo. pregnant woman and her lives-in-another-state mother involved!. (I was at work through most of this.)

(In case you were wondering it's the uses-too-damn-much-punctuation part of me that wrote this post.)

Those who know me, know that I'm not a car person. I accept that some people need them for their day-to-day lives, and that, in our current situation, TBWITWW is one of those people. But I also think that a car is merely a tool to get yourself, your passengers and your cargo from point A to point B. I don't understand the kind of people (like my brother) who think of cars as fun. But then, he doesn't understand my facination with other stuff.

I've owned one car in my life. It was given to me by my parents when they replaced it with something newer. I drove it, but didn't maintain it well. And then, when it died. I left it by the side of the road. Dumb? Yes. But not something that really bothered me all that much. When we got married, TBWITWW brought her car into the family. I accepted that it was useful to have. Now that her commute is insane, it's good that we have it. But it's 11 years old and has almost 175,000 miles on it. Most of them city miles. The AC is leaky, the horn doesn't work, the windows don't all go down... All of which we'e be willing to put up with if it weren't for the baby. Somehow I don't think it's a good idea to have a baby in a car that won't be easily cooled to below 90 degrees. So, we're going to replace the car. (Anyone want to buy a '97 Buick Skylark? It runs great.)

After talking to people and doing some research we concluded that given our lack of general car knowledge, and complete inability to negotiate, we were best off going somewhere like CarMax. So, we went to CarMax yesterday. We liked the idea of knowing up-front what the cost of the car was. We expected some level of pressure to buy "extras" or to "upgrade" but were pleasantly surprised. When we walked in the door we were greeted by a salesperson (Greg) who told us how CarMax does things and explained the process. They would appraise our car for trade in while we looked at the cars they had available. The appraisal was handled by a completely different department that they said does no selling, only purchasing. Meanwhile Greg asked us what we were looking for in a car. We said we wanted an 4-door import sedan, less than 40,000 miles and under $20,000. We wanted good gas mileage, and nothing older than 2004-2005. We mentioned some specific cars that we'd checked on the website. and he took us right to them. He was knowledgeable about the cars, but (as they apparently work on a flat commission) put no pressure on us to choose any car over any other. He answered all the questions we had, and sat quietly in the back seat on the test drives. 4 drives later we'd narrowed it down to a 2005 Honda Accord and a 2007 Hyundai Sonata. Both had pros and cons. The Honda was older, but had only about 3000 more miles on it. It cost a little more, but was more comfortable. Also, the long-term reliability of the Accord is a known quantity, and it's known to be fantastic. The Hyundai was less expensive and had a V6 engine, but Hyundai has undergone some major changes for the better lately, so it's long-term performance is an unknown.

We decided to have them run an application for financing. We chose to have them run the numbers in a "worst-case" scenario. No trade-in (they only offered $250 for our car, which is about what we expected), the older and more expensive car, and using only one of our incomes. After we filled out the application (the hardest part was listing a reference, as we don't know the addresses of anyone and it took 4 phone calls to find someone who answered), they took us on a short tour of their facility while we waited for the application to process. They have a very nice shop area. We got two offers for loans. Not at great rates, but not terrible either. At this point we decided that we wanted to explore some other options in terms of financing and doing further research on the cars, as well as the warranty options they presented.

We've decided that the Sonata is a better choice, so this afternoon TBWITWW is headed to the bank to see what we can get in terms of financing there. So, by the end of the week, we'll likely have a new car. This experience was quite a bit less painful than I expected. The people at CarMax were great, and although the newly-financially-aware part of me is twitchy at taking on new debt, I'm not nearly as twitchy as I thought I'd be at this stage. Once we have the car, I'll post a recap of the financing process, an overview of our plans for paying it off, and some pictures. We're also planning to keep meticulous records for this car to see what it's really costing us in the long run.

A quote from Owen:

…Habari is object-oriented. Habari supports database independence. Habari uses an MVC model to separate templates from logic. Habari supports multiple template engines. Habari has a database schema that was designed for efficiency from day 1. Habari has a different kind of community supporting it, one where people who show the ability, willingness, and responsibility to act within the community get the power to do so. This is the iceberg tip.

via Chris J Davis

TBWITWW and I each have separate Netflix queues. Because our tastes are fairly different, this allows us to have different recommendations. Also, because I watch movies as background, I have a much more lowest-common-denominator selection. Action movies and the like. However TBWITWW uses TV that way, so when she watches a movie, she tends to choose movies that require a bit move brain power to enjoy. This has led to some great discoveries. One of those was Rabbit-Proof Fence. A movie that we would have likely never heard of, let alone watched, without the recommendation on Netflix. The latest was Zelary.

While this movie tells the story of a member of the Czech resistance in WWII who is forced to relocate to the countryside to avoid the Gestapo. The only way she can integrate herself into the rural community is by marrying a local who was a patient at the hospital she worked at in the city.

All of that is really quite incidental to the real story of this movie. The story is really about how people become part of a community. The transition from outsider to insider is the underlying theme as we watch Eliska become not only accepted by the community, but also how she learns for herself what it means to be part of that community.

The best way to describe the emotional effect of this movie is by way of a fairly tortured analogy. Imagine you're going to visit a friend you haven't seen in a long time, and you've driven a long way to get there. At the end of Zelary, you feel like you've just settled down on the couch to go to sleep after that drive. You're a little bit drained and a little bit uncomfortable, but relaxed, satisfied and optimistic for tomorrow.

It's been a couple weeks since I posted my Friday Roundup (bad Sean!). So here goes.
I haven't explored ChaCha yet, but it looks like it could be very interesting. (via GapersBlock)

I like lists, and these cought my eye: 25 Ways to Jump Start Photography Inspiration, 18 Five-Minute Decluttering Tips to Start Conquering Your Mess, and 7 Insanely Simple Ways to Ensure Your Project Gets Done.

I found Thinking Rock and it seems to be a great way to organize projects in a GTD format. So far getting rolling is slow, but that just because I've got a lot of crap I need to do.

And this is just plain awesome. DIY flash triggers for taking pictures of things breaking! Expect some pictures before too long.