Month: June 2007

I held off on the announcement, because I wasn’t sure if my sister Christine and her husband Jason were going to let little Paige name her new baby brother. But it looks like the name has stuck, which means that it’s time to welcome Desmond Rubino into the family. I have to admit, I didn’t realize that Paige was such a big Lost fan. At least Sayid is still available for our first born.

Since Christine has lousy timing, Desmond was born Sunday night. That means I won’t really have the chance to visit until this next weekend. So, until I get a chance to take some photos, you’ll just have to settle for this one of big sister poking her new brother in the eye:

For those who lost count, that’s number 9 of the next generation. And the boys have a healthy 6 to 3 lead – w00t!

It feels like I’ve switched themes more often than posted as of late. But while reading the response’s to Khaleed’s request for a stripped-down theme template I was directed to Brian Gardner’s themes. Very nice collection. I immediately felt the itch trigger finger moving to download, upload and apply a brand new look. And once I saw the beautiful simplicity of Silhouette, I was sold.

It feels similar to the Spotlight theme I was using earlier, but closer to what I personally wanted. I still love the work that Plaintxt.org has put out, but until I have time to adapt one of their themes to my own style, I need a little more contrast on this site.

For now I just need to figure out what that ugly search button is doing in the upper right – as if anyone really needs to search this site…

I think I can just title every entry from now on by labeling what is currently sucking in my life. Haha! Of course I won’t do that, what do you think this is, Livejournal? Ooooooo – I apologize to all of my LJ friends…

Alright, the basic story is that we only have The Woman’s minivan for another couple of weeks. The nasty downside of leases is that they actually do want the car back when you stop paying for it. Actually, that’s the nasty downside to a lot of things in life… Regardless, as much as I love looking like the coolest cat on the block thanks to the sweet ride that is a Honda Odyssey, it is unfortunately time for us to get a more practical car. You know, like… a car. Since I’m already on the hook for my hot new Corolla – remember, that’s how I roll – we decided to start looking at used previously enjoyed and then subsequently trashed cars. That’s a fun experience.

There was a time when you could wander through a car lot and get an idea of what you could afford by looking at the stickers on the windows. Now they love to give you the keys, show you how much the car suits you, take it out for a ride, and then act surprised when they realize it’s 3 times what you actually want to spend. No matter, they will then proceed to waste the next 5 hours of your life trying to figure out how to make a deal so that you can drive away with a vehicle you’re not even that thrilled with for a price that you’ll regret later. The constant question of “What would it take to get you in that car today?” is just begging for the honest answer: “Give me the keys, back away, and wave bye-bye.”

Despite the horrendous nature of the industry, we did manage to find a pretty good deal yesterday. And this morning The Woman got to drive in her not-quite-new 2005 Ford Focus. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “An American car?” That’s how I feel. But she’s paying a lot less than me, still has a fairly recent car (it’s actually a year younger than the one she’s leasing), and should get much better gas mileage than the oversized troop transport. At least we got to give that beauty a fitting send off with the trek out to Ohio last month.

So that’s taken care of, and we’re on to the next stage – worrying if we actually made a smart decision…