Turtle Pond

Monday, March 23, 2009

I lose. I win! I lose. I win!!

I lose.
You may have noticed that immediately following my proclamation that I would pick up on the blogging again, that I dropped off the face of the earth. Asus, Gigabyte, and Microsoft can collectively kiss my ass. First, my motherboard died - suddenly. Attempts to rebuild have been hampered by hardware failures, RMA wait times, and Microsoft's inability to allow you to load RAID drivers from anything but a floppy disk (unless you slipstream, which so far has only been mildly successful). Between all of this fun, housework, and life in general, I'm going on 4 weeks without my own computer up & running, which must be some kind of record.

I win!
The latest super-dooper 3-d sonogram told us quite clearly that we are having a boy in late July! I know I should be indifferent, and no doubt I still would love the baby if it were a girl, but I'm truly esctatic that I will have a boy to continue the family name, eat dirt with, and enjoy watching movies involving gratuitous violence with when we're older.

I lose.
As part of the new, baby 2.5 edition (oldest sister is a half-sibling) soon to be released, I have been both highly anticipating and dreading the replacement of Danger Ranger III. Alas, DR3 cannot fit 2 car seats and had thus had an expiration date equal to that of the arrival of baby 2.5. DR3, my 1999 Ford Ranger had been my nicest truck thus far, and I had heavily customized it to compliment it's street-only life. Fat tires, rear anti-roll bar, KYB shocks, Flowmaster, upgraded intake, as well as a host of other customizations. It was downright fun to drive, and will be the last stick-shift that I will have had the pleasure to own for quite some time. I will miss that truck dearly.

I win!!



My new truck, that needs a name. 2007 Honda Ridgeline RTS 4WD. Okay, Honda has the audacity to call it a 4WD. It's really front-wheel drive with automatic variable torque output (up to 50%) to the rear wheels. The short version: No 4WD low, so it's only "All-wheel-drive," and I can live with that. If it handles trails as gracefully as my wife's Pilot, I'm stoked. You know what else I'm stoked about? A 25% smaller engine (3.5L) that puts out 36% (87!) more HP. There are more cubby-holes and storage places on this thing than I've ever seen. You could probably smuggle 10 people across the border just in the trunk alone!

Since this truck is mechanically near-identical to my wife's '04 Pilot, I only have to buy 1 set of fluids, filters, wiper blades, light-bulbs, etc!

And the mother of all wins, I got an awesome trade-in on my Ranger. Awesome as-in they didn't drive it and find out that it has major engine computer issues (idle hangs at 2000RPM at stoplights) and the tranmission shifts so hard (bad syncros) it's like driving a dump-truck sometimes. I would have lovingly fixed it all if I knew I was keeping it (eventually), but it was kind of cool to get high private-party blue-book for it ($5300) as a trade in. Kinda like sticking it to the man for a change. Of course we basically paid sticker price for the Ridgeline (just below retail value), so its all a matter of semantics. We stuck it to each other.

It's a little depressing, in that this will be the frist time that I was Ford-less in about 15 years. I do love Fords, and even considered the F150 Super Crew (sorry Explorer Sport-Trac, you're ugly), but it came down to what was the smallest, and best truck that I could find that I liked, and Honda won hands-down. Counting motorcycles, this is my 5th Honda, and I don't regret "switching teams."

3 Comments:

  • EEEEK!!!!! A Honda!!!! I will duck and run when I tell Wally. He would have disowned you if you got a Nissan!!!

    BTW.....I am thrilled the baby is a boy. Hee hee..hope he is just like you.....a mother's revenge!!!!!

    By Blogger campingshadow, At March 24, 2009 at 2:46 PM  

  • Unfortunately, your dreams of a parts-truck have been shattered.

    By Blogger RebTurtle, At March 24, 2009 at 6:42 PM  

  • Shoot.....I could really use a passenger door panel, rear quarter panel and a tailgate. If I can't count on you, I may have to bite the bullet and just get a new truck ...eeek!!! Hope Truckie did not hear me say that!

    By Blogger campingshadow, At April 4, 2009 at 2:41 PM  

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