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Merry Christmas.

Pictures compliments of Gamma, via his kindergarten work.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Pictures compliments of Gamma, via his kindergarten work.

Now that you loyal readers have endured two blog posts of my minivan-buying adventures, here’s your reward: photos.

Before:

After:

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After:

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The main downside of the new minivan is that we can no longer play cassette tapes. On the other hand, it has a hard drive, DVD player, and can stream songs from a phone via Bluetooth.

There is a learning curve with the Bluetooth/phone/vehicle interaction. For example, I was out somewhere and my wife was on her phone at home. I returned home and as I pulled into the driveway, the music stopped and some lady’s voice started talking to me. Bluetooth has a pretty decent range. I shut off the van and my wife’s conversation returned to her phone.

We are keeping the old minivan for as long as it will run. It’s good to have a backup vehicle, or a junk vehicle. Need to pick up lumber? Need to haul away an old appliance? No need to mess up the shiny new minivan or go through the hassle of removing car seats in order to fold the van seats down to make room. It’s like having a pickup truck. But it also seats 7 if you need it to.

When the salesman said “we have a deal” and I filled out the paperwork, I never saw in writing the price we had discussed. So I was worried that day and the next that the paperwork would come back mysteriously incorrect.

Minivan shopping was day 1. This is day 2 now. We told Mr. Salesman that we would be back at 6:45 pm on day 2 to pick up the minivan. I knew there would be some more paperwork to sign, so I expected that they would have it ready at 6:45 so I could walk in, sign the papers, and get the van.

We all drive in the old minivan to the dealership. The kids were excitedly discussing who would ride back in the new minivan. I did not want to trade in the old minivan, since it wouldn’t be worth much and it is useful to have a third vehicle so that no one is inconvenienced by having a car in the shop.

We arrive at the dealership and I go in to start the paperwork. Mr. Salesman greets me and takes me over to the waiting area for the paperwork. Salesmen don’t do the paperwork stuff, that’s handled by a specialist.

“You’re next,” I’m told. I text my wife that information. She’s sitting in the old minivan with all the kids.

A little while later: “Soon”. Another relay text.

After 20-25 minutes, my wife texts me for help. Gamma fell asleep while not in his car seat. I leave the waiting area, expecting that my name would be called while I’m out, and move him into his car seat. “I still haven’t started signing anything – you might as well go home,” I tell my wife. So she leaves, and I go back to the waiting area.

After about 45 minutes, I am finally called back. It might be understandable if they were busy, but I was the only one in the waiting area. There was not a literal line that I was in – just me, a bunch of empty chairs, and a TV playing a very repetative CNN station.

I go back to Mr. Finance’s office.

I had been waiting 45 minutes for them to finish with the other (invisible) customer(s) and to get my paperwork drawn up.

But when I get in his office, most of the paperwork was not drawn up. Why not? Because he has to inform me about all my other options (extended warranties, protection plans, add-ons, etc.) No sense printing out all my paperwork because the numbers aren’t final until I decline all the options. Which I do.

I had paid the extra convenience fee for the dealership to handle the government paperwork too, which includes the license plate. Mr. Finance goes to arrange for my license plate, then realizes that it’s after hours (for the government office) so he can’t. “We’ll just take care of that tomorrow and mail you the new plate” I agree, but am skeptical.

I sign and initial a bunch of papers. They all make sense and the numbers match my expectations, to my relief. The last time I bought a car, the numbers did change from one day to the next. Different dealership, but I’m still cautious.

Mr. Finance takes me back over to Mr. Salesman, who gives me the keys, tapes a temporary registration paper in the back window, and shakes my hand.

It feels weird to drive the van off the lot and head home, but no one stops me so it must be ours now.

An hour and a quarter.

It took almost as long to pick up the new van as it did to pick out the new van.

The dealership may have been slow, but they were not incompetent. Nothing was wrong. Things were fairly straightforward. Don’t know that I’d be thrilled about going back, though.

Next time I go to buy a car, I’m going to bring a book to read.

P.S. The temporary registration was good for 15 days. It is meant to be short-term, until the actual license plate is obtained. After 11 days with no sign of or notification about the license plate, I called the dealership. “I saw your name on the list, so it should be tomorrow or the next day. We’ll let you know when it’s in,” I was told. Probably just like I was next in line for Mr. Finance the whole time.

So I wait. Now it’s the day the license plate expires. I call Mr. Salesman and leave a message in the morning. In the early afternoon, he calls me. “Your plate is in.” “Ok, don’t mail it. I’ll stop by to pick it up.”

Really, it shouldn’t take 15 days to get a license plate. But it did. We wonder if the people at the dealership don’t do anything unless the customer asks or complains.

We bought our first minivan just before Beta was born. He’s now 9.

In the last year, we’ve had to get some work done on the minivan. A radiator here, a heater core there.

At the last oil change, the shop mentioned the tie rods should be replaced and the power steering was leaking. $800 to replace it all. Yeah, let’s skip that for now.

Maybe we should think about getting a new van. My wife agrees and lobbies for it to be sooner rather than later so that she’s not stranded when the old van does die and then we’ll be pressed to get a new one not on our terms.

My wife has been mentioning that the van smells a little like exhaust inside. And when I happen to be outside when she drives up, I can hear that it sounds louder than it used to. Must be a crack in the exhaust pipe somewhere.

I look under the van. No obvious cracks or rusted-out spots.

So I go to open the hood. The hood release lever snaps off in my hand.

Okay, minivan. If you want yourself not to be replaced, you need to make a better showing than this.

I pull the dangling cable to pop the hood. I look around – nothing apparent in there either.

I shut the hood.

It doesn’t latch.

I shut it again. Same result.

Reach back in the cabin, jiggle the cable.

Shut the hood. It stays shut.

I go inside and inform my wife that we’re going minivan shopping tomorrow. We agree on a dealership halfway between home and work. At lunchtime.

I have been researching prices for slightly-used minivans, so I know what to expect. We choose this dealership because they have a selection of several minivans.

“Can I help you with anything?” asks the salesman who meets us outside the door.

“We are looking for a used minivan, something under 50,000 miles” is our general reply.

He takes us on a trip around the lot. Three minivans that look nice but are listed for a few thousand more dollars than I wanted to spend. We don’t make any positive responses and he walks us to an area where some more might be.

Nope, that one’s sold. How about this one?

Wrong color for my wife.

He takes us back to the showroom where he can look up inventory on his computer.

Two more are around back. He’ll go bring them around so we can see them.

We drive the one. It’s fine. He asks if we want to drive the other one and hands us the key. We start it. My wife says it’s louder than the other one. I say it sounds rougher. We agree there’s something wrong with it. Maybe that’s why it was parked back by the service area and not in the main lot.

We debate what to do next. I know therer are cheaper minivans to be had. They sell several minivans a week here. If we wait a week, there might be a better deal. But if we wait a week, our minivan might die and there might be a worse deal.

There’s nothing wrong with this minivan. And its price seems appropriate. I am a lousy negotiator. But even I know we can’t just tell the salesman we’ll take it. So I say that it might work but it’s a little more than I was hoping to pay. He explains why the price is set where it is. We somehow get to a point where I agree to buy it if he can knock $500 off the price.

Of course, he must get his manager’s approval. He leaves. I don’t see where he goes – he could have been sitting in the bathroom for several minutes. He comes back and says “we have a deal”. I shake his hand, I make a down payment, fill out an application for the loan, and we leave. “We’ll be back tomorrow evening to pick it up,” we tell him.

I head back to work. Total time: an hour and a half. Test drove one minivan. Bought one minivan. Rather, agreed to buy one minivan.

The midwest and northeast parts of the USA had a disastrous winter, due to the effects of the polar vortex. Some would have you believe the abnormal polar vortex patterns are due to global warming. Some would have you believe it is due to fracking, or Putin, or cell phone radiation.

But I have the real story.

I stumbled upon the cause by accident. I was thinking about how this was a prolonged, dreary winter. One might even say it is like it is always winter but never Christmas. Which means that the polar vortex is being caused by

Jadis

That’s right – the White Witch of Narnia fame.

She has somehow travelled between worlds and ended up in ours again. She setup her reign in the arctic north and is gradually expanding her kingdom.

That’s my theory anyway. It might need a little more research.

If that doesn’t pan out though, the other option is that the polar vortex is a massive publicity stunt for Disney’s Frozen.

As if that needs any more publicity …

I got myself a late Christmas present this year:

That’s right – I stocked up on 60W incandescent bulbs before the ban goes into effect.

I’ve written on my opinions on the ban of incandescent bulbs before. The difference this time is that we are hoping to move this summer. I’m not about to stock this house full of expensive LED bulbs just to abandon them in a few months. And I’m not about to pay extra to change the dimmers so that we can use CFLs instead of normal bulbs.

So, I got me a bunch of regular light bulbs. Take this as a reminder to get yourself some, while you still can.