The Best Gift Ever!

Attention ladies! I have vital information to share. Mike received the BEST gift ever for Christmas from his sister. See link below.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/car/aa31/

The Car Chip Pro Engine Performance Monitor, you wonder? Why yes! The tiny monitor plugs into your car and voila, every time you go somewhere you can record lots of cool tidbits of information such as speed, engine performance, etc. Mike was super stoked about using this to monitor the performance of his car. What he did not plan for, however, were all of the additional features such as when the driver accelerates/brakes too hard, drives too fast, or is a menace to traffic in general, a shrill "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP" warning alarm goes off.

Last night Mike drove us to dinner. About 15 minutes and 8 alarms later we arrived at our destination safe and sound with Mike grumbling about all of the beeps and how he could not possibly be THAT bad of a driver. It was then that I came to fully appreciating the genius of this device which had, thankfully, replaced me as the driving monitor.

My New Car

Hooray, I just bought a new car! It's a 2009 Nissan Rogue and I lo-o-ove it! Mike and I will be taking it on the first road trip to his dad's and to my sister's this weekend for Christmas. While I was sad to say goodbye to the Pickle, I am SO glad to have a car that I don't have to worry about!

Goodbye Trusty Pickle!

In 1998, I bought a brand new green Monte Carlo LS. My college roommate, Trish, dubbed the car "The Pickle" due to it's resemblance of a giant kosher dill on wheels!
The Pickle has been a trusty car, but after 10 years and 131,000 miles, poor Pickle is on it's last leg. We've gone through one head gasket, a set of spark plugs, four tires, brakes, one deer (requiring headlight transplant from a '98 Lumina) and countless tanks of gas. The Pickle and I have had many adventures and she took me from Columbia to KC countless time to visit my husband-to-be.

Due to her age and mileage, Pickle's trips have been restricted to just around town for the past year. With the winter here she is less and less excited to start up and go.

Today was a sad day. We took Pickle to get cleaned up in preparation for trading her in. I think she knew something was amiss, because after we vacuumed her out she decided not to start and left us stranded at the car wash in North Kansas City. We took one last picture of the Pickle before she went on her way to meet her new owners at the car dealership.