New Pet?

Rachelle won't let me bring him/her/it inside, but we now have an 8-inch lizard living under our palm tree. Rachelle seemed very concerned when she opened the front door and saw Larry waiting to be let in. It would probably work out better for everybody if he never made it past the door. I hate to think what Lucy would do with a new "squeaky toy" that actually ran from her. And I hate to think of how much KILZ I'd need to cover everything up before Rachelle got home. Also, I'm pretty sure the existence of Larry spells the end of any yard-work help I was hoping for from Rachelle this summer. I hope to hell she doesn't see any lizards in the back.

MPG Me, ASAP!

Damn, Rachelle's new car rocks! It's not as manly (and ruggedly handsome) as my new 4Runner, but it get friggin' great mileage. I had to fill my car up this weekend and it ran me just under $65. For about 330 miles. Rachelle had to fill up yesterday and it cost her $29 for 405 miles. Ouch. She was nice enough to beam me this picture of her drive home when she was averaging 60+ MPG (picture taken as she was stopped at a light). On the plus side, I have a sunroof. FYI, there should be some law against dealerships in warm-weather states selling any car with a sunroof or rag-top to a 35+ year old dude. Bound to be some crispy scalps. Anyway, we both took a bunch of crap from people who said "you'll never get your money back out of the gas savings". Screw that. We're getting double the mileage of anybody I know (except Shelley who also drives a Prius), and the cheapest gas I've seen in the area is running about $3.20/gallon. We might not make all our money back on getting better mileage, but Rachelle gets to drive a car she likes and she only has to fill up every 3 weeks. I'm pretty sure that was only the third time she's had to put gas in since she bought the car on March 8th. Not bad. Of course, I've only put gas in twice since I brought the 4Runner home on March 17th, but I've been out of town a lot.

Moving on to a different topic, Southwest still hasn't found my luggage, but they did send a nice letter last week telling me they were still looking for it. They also included a $200 travel voucher and told me that they were sending a check for my losses within 7-10 business days. Nice. I'd much rather have my crap back (meaning I didn't have to go shopping for all new crap), but I'll take the money. I've already used the $200 voucher for a ticket to take my brother Chris to Vegas for his 21st birthday. Hard to believe he's actually turning 21. Makes me feel really, really (really) old. Fortunately, my 17 years of post-21 drinking experience give me a really good idea of what drinks will leave him with the worst hang-over. My conundrum as an older brother is whether to use that knowledge for good or evil. Should I take good care of my little bro', or should I order him a multitude of Jaeger-based shots? Decisions, decisions. Another tough call: strip club or no strip club? Maybe I'll just take $40 in singles and let nature take its course.

Shrinkage/Stage-Fright

Rachelle and I spent the weekend in San Diego at the Hotel Salomar in the Gaslamp District. It's a Kimpton hotel, so it's got a lot of quirky, "not your average Holiday Inn" touches. One of the "quirky" touches can be found in the men's bathroom at the JBar. Got to tell you, it was really strange using this urinal. Talk about a little stage-fright. But I really, really had to go. Staying in the Gaslamp let us hit one of our favorite restaurants. The Gaslamp Strip Club is a place where you pay a lot of money for a steak that you have to cook yourself on a communal grill. On the down-side, you're cooking your own meal. On the up-side, you get the steak just like you want it. And the sides rock. Oh, and the martinis rock, too. Tried several different types of martinis. Maybe that's why the meal seemed so good.

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

Today is Lucy's first birthday. Hard to believe she's only one. Even harder to believe this is the same 7lb. dog we brought home 10 1/2 months ago. We took her to the lake today to look at the geese and play in the water. What more could you ask for? Oh, and she got peanut butter mixed in with her dry food. Happy birthday, little girl.

First "Craigslist" Post

After roughly a year and a half taking up space in my garage, I finally decided to see if I could get rid of the last two left-over boxes of bamboo flooring. Two boxes is approximately 48 square feet, and I also offered (out of the goodness of my heart) the left-over scrap pieces, too. Not having the slightest idea what I actually paid per box, I posted it in the "free stuff" section. People apparently just troll the "free stuff" section, because I had three requests within the first ten minutes of posting it. I'm going to have to keep an eye on that section for some good "free stuff" that I want. I'll update this if somebody actually shows up to get it.

Here's an update on my recent screed against Folsom Lake Toyota. They sent me a "Customer Satisfaction Survey" this weekend to see how my experience was. First mistake. Second mistake was they gave me an e-mail address of somebody to contact. Bet they were happy to check their e-mail this morning. Anyway, I got home today to a message from said e-mail contact apologizing for the problem and assuring me it was an isolated incident. To make up for my lost time (which is very valuable), they were sending me a certificate for a free lube, oil and filter change for both the Prius and 4Runner. Nice. I'm not really sure I want to go back there for a lube, but it's free. We'll see how things go this time around.

Folsom Lake Toyota Sucks

So I ended up buying two cars from Folsom Lake Toyota last month and had been pretty happy with the whole experience. Minimal haggling, decent price on both cars, didn't try to up-sell us on the "invisible under-coat". In and out with new cars in a couple hours. All that good will went down the drain yesterday. When I bought the 4Runner they couldn't find one of the three keys. Not a big deal. I really only needed two, but apparently one was the "special" valet key. So I get a call last week saying they could fit me in at noon yesterday to get my key calibrated with the computer. What the hell the key has to do with the computer is waaaay beyond me (I'm pretty sure you can start my Ford Ranger with a coat hanger and a gum wrapper), but I'm cool with getting my key. They told me it would take about 30 minutes to get the key made and synched. Easy enough. I had a bunch of paper-work to catch up on at work, so I figured I could work from home and run down to the dealership during lunch. Showed up at the service department and checked my car in at 11:53am. Went to the customer lounge and waited for somebody to come tell me my car was ready. I had taken some work with me, so I had something to keep me busy for a while. After about an hour and a half I start getting a little bored and start to wonder where my car is. I figure it must be a really complicated process and decide to give them another few minutes before I check on how long it's going to take. Go to the service counter at 1:46pm. Chick at the counter makes a few clicks on the computer and says my car is ready. Weird that nobody's come to get me, but whatever. She sends the guy to get my car and has me sign off on the receipt. I look at the receipt and see that the car was actually DONE AT 12:30PM! Now's when I start to get truly annoyed. I'd been sitting in the customer lounge for an hour and a half AFTER my car was done because (turns out) the chick who checked my car in went to lunch and forgot to tell somebody to let me know when my car was done. REMEMBER: They called me to set up the noon appointment. SLACK-ASSES! I called the service department manager as soon as I got home and (calmly) explained what had happened, told him I would never buy another car from Folsom Lake Toyota, would never take my cars there for service and would never recommend them to ANYBODY. After politely listening to my rant/complaint, he apologized and said he hoped my next experience would be better. HA! It might be better, it might be worse, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't be THERE. Enough ranting for now. I've got a cold beer waiting for me.