The best laid plans of mice and men

When I was a little kid, I liked to have a plan. I have been told that if I woke up on a day when I didn't have school and thought I did, there would be tears. I find this odd, since for a great period from the time I was really conscious of who I was (or sort of was) until a few years ago, I liked not having a ‘true’ plan. Sure I kept a job and a car, saved a little money for the future but I only sort of had an idea of what I was going to be doing next weekend. My single life was good for ‘Ben’ plans, which was to say, no plans. It was a life of id, although it wasn’t nearly as hedonistic as that sounds, It kept me free to say yes to just about anything that came up. I did this and saw it was good. I didn’t have a plan when I met M. Any formal plan would have been clumsily executed and taken away from my natural quick-wittedness and charm. I needed a plan to be able to get a real house and get married, but anything beyond knowing what was going in and what was going out would have been a stretch. I have since learned to embrace the plan. There have since been a few iterations of various budgets and long term projections and so far, so good. M and I even have Life Insurance. Well sort of. We have it temporarily until we get fully underwritten. It’s even a little liberating knowing what you have to do. I know that’s almost contradictory, but it’s true. And if we want to blow it all up and open a bait shop in Belize, well then como esta?
In the long period of silence since my last post, I have been doing more of the same traveling and work in New York. There was a random flight to Chicago for a day trip, but aside from that, business as usual. On a few of my flights, I have been graced with some finer reading materials left behind by previous flyers. First, US Weekly - Good for a short flight only. I’ve always wanted to get some ‘paparazzi’ photos of M and me taken. Maybe a telephoto shot of me pumping gas with some sweatpants on and 3 days of scruff and one of M with huge sunglasses and a enormous starbucks iced coffee cup walking around with some shopping bags. They could be taken to more extremes and be sort of funny to hang on the walls. This is to be continued, but the magazine is tolerable only in short doses. Next, IP = the journal of intellectual property law http://www.alm.com/almPublication.asp?profile=40. Holy crap was this unreadable. I consider myself to me a semismart and intellectually curious individual and I barely flipped through the entire magazine. It took me 15 minutes to even figure out what the focus of the magazine was. The cover only said ‘IP’, like I was supposed to infer that this was for intellectual property lawyers. I would venture to guess that IP is generally understood by the public to mean ‘Internet Protocol’, but I will bet if you started printing ‘IP’ hats or something, these jackals would come-a-calling. I am sure there’s some irony there that I am not adequately illustrating. The fact that this appears to be very big business has inspired me to develop an arcane and abstract body of knowledge that only I possess knowledge of and therefore can charge exorbitant fees to interpret for the common man. Third on the list is IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Now this is good reading! My hidden engineer ripped through this one, filled with articles about the next generation of LI-ion batteries and fly-sized flying robots. Even if I understood 4% of what was on the page, at least I was getting something valuable. Lastly is Auto Aficionado – This is another quality magazine, although it’s target audience is clearly not the family man in a 1500 sq/f home. AA detailed the evolution of Porsche’s ferocious 6 cylinder boxer engine, took me though the new Ferrari museum in Maranello, Italy and even mixed in a few advertisements for custom-made garages and limited edition supercars. Conceptually, I knew what was going on, but I don’t think I will ever understand running 800 hp wide open on a private racetrack, so this goes into the same pile as IEEE.
In other news, I heard Spring was here. We switched the clocks and everything, but I had to crank the heated seats this morning. This is not quite grilling weather yet, but that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it. I’ve already got my eye on a hardwood smoker attachment and I’ve located a source for some primal cuts of beef. Now all I have to do is convince M that we need 18 lbs of slow cooked beef brisket...

New snowshoes

The rustic New Englander transformation is almost complete. This weekend M and I traded my Boston-yuppie Saab for a New England-hippie Subaru.

The Saab, while sharp looking and fun to drive, had outlived its time. The miles were low and the car was almost paid off, but like a currency trader watching greenbacks plummet, frequent research saw his long term reliability ratings continue to decline. His warranty was up in April, and the fear of an unplanned and expensive repair loomed large. M was unfamiliar with the drivetrain, and the overall utility of the vehicle was lacking (A Saab that couldn't hold a set of golf clubs in the boot? how is the possible?).

Thus, the search for a new vehicle began last summer. Pending nuptials kept large expenditures to a minimum, but the fair weather did allow for a few dealership visits and research, research, research. There were many requirements, in no meaningful order:
1. Dual Zone climate control. The Saab did introduce us to the days when M would have 80 degree heat blasting and I would have 60 degree air conditioning doing battle. Driving a car that was lacking was a guaranteed failed compromise. Long term happiness in a vehicle lacking this feature was dubious at best.
2. Storage capacity. While the chance to drive my parents' 2nd-hand wagon 'the eggplant' has always been intruiging, L-town is a bit far to go to borrow a vehicle, especially one I have mocked. M's Corrolla has more lateral space than the Saab, and mine was the 'big' vehicle. Unacceptable. Should we procure or procreate another creature, a larger capacity vehicle would also be needed. Getting one now seemed the obvious choice.
3. Automatic transmission. The only way M is learning to drive a stick is if we move to France and they don't make automatics.
4. Safety. The Saab has the highest crash safety ratings of any vehicle in its class. Our future vehicle would have to have the same.
5. Foul Weather Capabilities. In addition to front wheel drive and a manual transmission, the Saab has heft and traction control for getting through the snow and foul weather. The future automobile would need both ground clearance and 4 wheel drive.
6. Economy. With long commutes and frequent road trips, 4 cylinders (maybe 6) was the choice.
7. Reliability. The car would need to be almost maintenance free. It was nice to have on-call mechanics, but the G-town Foreign Motors guy who specializes in Saabs ALWAYS has a full parking lot. He probably drives a Bentley. Consumer Reports agreed with my analysis.
8 Cost. The payment had to be less than the swinging-bachelor payment I had agreed to on the Saab.

Since reliability was the biggest hurdle, we sought out Consumer Reports for their famous no-holds-barred analysis of vehicle reliability. To vet their process, we compared their ratings with our own experiences and those of people we knew and saw that the ratings were uncannily accurate. This was to be our guide. Based on CR's overall ratings, 4 makes of vehicles made the cut; Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Subaru.
With that sorted, we set out finding models that met our other criteria and came up with a few options: Toyota rav4, Honda Cr-V, Hyundai Santa Fe and the Subaru Forester.
Test drives would tell us the rest. The Cr-V was up first. We had a pleasant expericene with Matt from Herb Chambers Honda Westborough. The Cr-V had been newly redesigned and was flying off the lots. It was nice enough, although it was much bigger than either of our existing cars and the model in our range didn't come with some of the nicer options. The Rav4 was similar. Although it did come with a more stylish body, the interior was a little too much like a spaceship. The next trip was to Patrick Subaru in Shrewsbury, where we drove the Forester. Our salesman was rude and not knowledgeable. While we enjoyed the car very much, no business was going to be transacted there. Bad experience aside, we were more comfortable with the car-like handling and visibility of the Forester than the mini-truck attributes of the Rav4 and Cr-V. Based on that we took a pass on the Hyundai.
By now the wedding was upon us and we were going to have to take a break from car shopping.
Fast forward to February. My Saab needed new tires and had even developed a rust spot on the roof. The heat was balky and the looming April warranty expiry put things into motion. The intervening months had given us some insight to the Forester demographic, which was about 30 years older than we were. It's an old lady car. With lots of pets. By this time, a business trip allowed me to drive another Subaru, an Outback, and I reported a positive experience. An outback fit the reliability and storage categories, so this was selected as the proposed solution.
M's research and word of mouth brought us to Planet Subaru of Hanover. We had seen their online inventory and they had a couple of candidates in their posession. Bob was our helper (they didn't hire car salesman at Planet and had a funny name for them). Our foreknowledge eliminated the 'so what can I get you into' phase and brought us immediately to test drive. The outback was sporty, stable and had lots of visibility. The base model does not come with dual zone climate control, so we had opted for a higher trim package that came with heated seats, which M had by now discovered and was enjoying. We had decided to go the used route because buying new was a known and unecessary money suck and with the documented reliability of the car, a year of driving (hopefully) wasn't going to cost us too much down the road. We also decided to buy outright rather than lease. We plan on driving this car until the wheels fall off.

There was one other big factor in buying this particular car. It's a station wagon. I have secretly loved the sport wagon since it appeared on the scene. Even little wagons always get a point and a shout when we are on the road. I attribute it to my parents, who raised me on a steady diet of wagons. Except I'm not calling it a wagon. It's an 'estate'...