Vrrroooommmmm

I finally dove in head first and bought a new car. Since being rear-ended by the school bus earlier this year and getting a rental car while my Toyota Echo was in the shop, I've been thinking about and researching a lot of options for a new vehicle. I've had my Echo for nearly 10 years now, and it's been (and still is) a fantastic car. We'll probably end up selling it, but we're toying around with the idea of just keeping it around as the vehicle we use to do more messy things like hardware trips, hauling stuff around, taking to places where we don't care if it gets banged up a bit or dirty.

After my research and mulling over options for the last several months, I picked the MINI Cooper S Clubman, and ordered a 2011 model. Last week, when my friend T. came for a visit, she handed over the driver's seat in her awesome MINI Cooper S and let me give it a whirl. I was instantly in love with the look, feel, and handling of her car and became quite serious about it as a possibility. This last week, I was busy on the Internet and hitting T. up with questions, and yesterday L. and I we went for a test drive of the Clubman model at Seattle MINI. Though I love everything about T.'s Cooper S, I felt that for our lifestyle having the club door on the Clubman would be helpful with getting our precious cargo, Oli, in and out of the backseat for trips to the groomer and visits with his doggy friends. I also liked that it had just a bit more room in the back, so we ultimately went with the Clubman.

I'm busy thinking of names for it now, and will be united with my car roughly around Thanksgiving if all goes according to plan with the manufacturing. I have to say that being able to custom order so many things on the car is amazingly fun. There was a little confusion with the customizing process since they are just lining up the options for the 2011 models and a couple of the things it looked like you could select on their configuration site weren't really options for the car when we went into the dealer. But those were very small details in an otherwise very flexible process, and I was happy to adjust a bit. L. was thankfully pretty quiet through it all and let me just ride with the process. We have very different strategies to buying cars, so it was nice to have him return the favor for me this time as I had done when we looked for his Audi a few years ago.

There's still a part of me that's pretty amazed I'm doing this, but the cost for the car came out right about the same as the Mazda, Honda, Toyota, Kia, and other crossover vehicles I was considering, and my MINI is designed by me! Plus, it has the backing of BMW, so how can you go wrong with that? And it's a total icon in the auto industry. So, it gets the gold star for those things. Plus, the feeling of driving a MINI is just so much fun. I couldn't help but smile the whole time we were at the dealership.

Dog toys

Oli destroys pretty much any stuffed toy we bring into the house. If it has eyes, a nose, or appendages, you can guarantee that it won't last long in our household. When we first got Oli at 8 weeks old and brought him home, I got him a moose stuffed animal from West Paw Designs. We called this moose Maddie, and Oli dragged her around with him everywhere possible. It was by far his favorite toy.  Maddie lasted a long time compared to his other toys. I think I finally had to put her in the garbage about 8 months ago (and Oli just turned 2 years old yesterday, to give you some perspective).

The other day, I was in Mud Bay Granary to pick up some food and a few new toys for Oli, and came across a penguin made by West Paw, so I picked it up. I gave it to Oli on Sunday night, and it's like he's been reunited with a long lost friend. He carries it everwhere with him, and when he's sitting on the couch, he's basically got some part of the toy resting in his mouth. Though the penguin had two funny eyes on it, Oli ate those right away, but the rest of the toy has fared pretty well despite that. Looks like West Paw has done it again!

Change of scenery

I got a new job. I'm at the same company I've been with for almost 10 years, but I move around every so often into different groups. I feel like it keeps my technical skills sharper and helps me build a larger network to depend on. This new job will be a good challenge for me, and I'm excited about it although it came about due to some of my extreme sadness. Things on my old team just never really recovered after layoffs and some changes to the direction of the product we were working on. Add to that some some of undermining behavior by people who I was close with the last year, and I just had to move on. It was a good time to move anyway, but that just made things more imminent. Of course, it's always hard to leave good people behind, so I'll miss seeing my co-workers every day, but at least they're not too far away and like other teams, we'll keep in touch. Here's hoping that my new gig is every bit as cool as I think it's going to be, and even more!

Alphabet game

Ever been stuck in the alphabet game while on a road trip? If so, looks like you need to take a detour to Wyoming.

I can't remember who sent me this, but I thought it was pretty great and had to share. Sorry about the lack of proper credit.

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

As I was seeing and reading more about the overturn of Proposition 8 in California, I became curious about Ted Olson, the conservative who is pro gay marriage. I did some searching, and found this article (which appears to be attributed to him): http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/08/the-conservative-case-for-gay-marriage.html.

I have to say that I've made the same arguments many times with family or friends who disagree with marriage being a right for all. In fact, a quick search through the politics tag on my blog contains a bunch of older entries on the subject. The most pointed argument I always made was that we live in a country that values (or should value, based on our past, anyway) a separation of church and state, so the very fact that a religious rite affords heterosexual couples anything under the law should be unconstitutional if it is not afforded to all equally. I find this whole prop 8 thing quite interesting, and I hope that by forcing the issue and overturning it, marriage equality will finally become a reality in our country. The following video features Ted Olson's argument with Chris Wallace on Fox News. Go Ted!



In a slightly related, but dumb side thought, I wonder if this means Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will get married. I believe they once said that they would get married when marriage was a right offered to all.

Travis Wall contemporary dance on SYTYCD

I absolutely connected with this performance from So You Think You Can Dance this week. It's Travis Wall choreography performed by contestant Kent Boyd and all-star Neil Haskell. Travis Wall always has the most touching and amazing choreography, and this particular one really got to a lot of people. I really felt everything in it, especially because I recently had a "friend" stab me in the back, and the pain is always so difficult to navigate. It just really touched me.



I am pulling for Kent to win it this season, although Lauren comes in as an incredibly close second. The only one I don't like at all is Robert. The judges fall all over themselves about how great he is, but I think he's such a dork, and boring. And whenever he has lifts in his routine, it always looks like he's going to dump his partner on the floor. He just doesn't seem strong enough or very grounded in his dancing. It bugs me. I hope that he doesn't win it.

I'm thankful for...

Xanax right now. Anxiety, go away!

Pretty

This rocks!