Buying a car in Virginia

When we found out my wife was going to be working again this fall we decided it was time to buy a second car.  My daughter would be going to preschool and there would be days that I would need to pick her up or just be available if she were to get sick. 

I started looking on craigslist mostly at older Honda Civics.  I wanted a cheap reliable ride that gets good gas mileage (don't we all).  I found a 2000 Honda Civic EX coupe with 140,000 miles on it for $3,300.  It had a manual transmission.  The only problem was that it was 33 miles away.  I decided that it was a good enough value, if I could talk him down to $3,000, for me to make the trip.  I got out there and started looking at the car.  The first thing I noticed was that it was covered in rust around the engine.  The rear bumper would need to be replaced, there was rust underneath the car, and the driver's side door and front fender had been repainted.  I drove the car anyway and it drove pretty good, but the rust scared me off.  I made the long trip home without a new (to me) car. 

A week or so later we had Hurricane Irene.  I drove our van right after the hurricane and it was not running correctly.  It had very little power and when I finally got to about 25 mph it shut off.  This got me worried enough that I rented a car for the next week so my wife would have a way to get to work.  Later that day I got into the van and it drove great again.  It was almost as if it had to dry out after the hurricane.  I had already paid for the rental car so I figured we'd take advantage of it.  I had Monday off and looked for more cars on craigslist.  I found a 1999 Honda Accord EX sedan with 139,000 miles for $3,500.  The ad on CL said that it was a supernice (one word) car.  I emailed the guy and he told me that it was really clean and nice and that the car had no problems.  I made an appointment with him for that day around 5:30.  He too was located far away from my house in Gainesville, VA (29 miles away).  The drive out there required me to drive on I66, one of the busiest freeways at rush hour.  I left at 4 to make sure I got there in time.  It was stop and go the whole way.  One time when I stopped the car behind me didn't.  I was rear ended by a college age girl with Vermont plates.  I was in the rental car.  I parked the car in the middle lane and got out to inspect the damage.  There is no shoulder on this freeway.  There didn't appear to be any damage to either car even though I felt like we got hit hard.  Luckily my daughter was OK too.  I got her information in case something came up as cars whizzed by us and was back on my way to look at the Accord.  I met the guy in front of a Dick's Sporting Goods.  Immediately, I could see this car was not as clean as advertised.  There was visible rust bubbling up through the paint in many places.  There was a ton of rust under the hood.  The interior was filthy and stained.  I couldn't believe this guy wasted my time.  I decided to drive it anyway.  I got out on the highway and the check engine light came on.  I breaked at a stop light and the front breaks shuttered badly.  The car was a POS.  I think my daughter was more disappointed than me.  She really wanted a new car.

I decided after the first two experiences that I might want to increase the amount of money I was going to spend to like 6,000 to 7,000.  I emailed 4 people I was interested in their cars and got no response.  Again none of the cars that I liked on CL were remotely close to my house.  I still haven't found a car and am going to keep looking.  Hopefully, I have better luck than the first two that I looked at.

Strasburg Mania!

I got a tip from someone and was able to buy tickets for yesterday's Nats Dodgers game long before it was announced that Stephen Strasburg was going to pitch that day.  This allowed me to get great seats for only $5.50 plus fees from Stubhub.

Earlier in the day, the weather people predicted a 100% chance of rain and that there would be thunder and lightning.  It was not looking good that I'd get to see him pitch.  The reports that I was reading said that if the game was rained out he would pitch during the day of a day night doubleheader the next day.  There's no way I'd be able to make that.  The other thing to worry about was that if there was any rain delay he was not going to pitch either.

We got to the game about an hour early and took our seat.  The tarp was still on the field, but it wasn't raining so there was hope.  Around 6:35 Strasburg made the slow walk to rightfield to the delight of the 3,000 or so fans that were there.  As he came out to warm up the tarp was also removed.  We had good seats to watch him warm up.  We were right on the fence in front of the fair pole on the first base side of the field.  The bullpen was just behind the right field wall.  A lot of people came over to try and get pictures of Strasburg and there was a palpable sense of excitement around us.  He looked good and confident warming up.  I'm sure he had to be nervous, but it didn't show at all.

Here are a few other photos I took of him warming up:

Here are some pics of Strasburg walking from the bullpen to the mound:



Strasburg walking in with Wilson Ramos

Strasburg looked nearly as good as he did before the injury.  The Dodgers were swinging early and often trying to make contact with his fastball and hope that it found a hole.  Dee Brown found one in the outfield and made it to second on his speed.  The other "hit" he gave up was when a ball found a hole in Ian Desmond's glove.  Ian Desmond easily had three errors in the game tonight and was not credited for one.  I think this game is example 1A for why FIP and xFIP are better indicators of pitcher performance than ERA since the subjectivity of the official scorer can make an ERA much worse than it should be.  Anyway, Strasburg was throwing hard.  Most of his fastballs were 96 or 97.  I saw a few 99's on the board.  It seemed like the Dodgers were laying off of his curve and change, but I could be wrong.  He finished with 4 strikeouts on only 56 pitches.  It only rained a little while he was pitching and didn't start raining hard until the 7th inning or so which gave me a perfect excuse to leave early on a work night.  Overall, it was a great experience and I'm glad that the weather cooperated.

Here is a video of the President's Race.  Teddy almost won.

NFC West Prediction

Wow, everyone on ESPN is picking Seattle to finish 4th this year. While I'm not excited about TJack I don't think that the Seahawks will finish last. This is a terrible division. The 49ers for one have lost most of their defense this offseason and did not replace any of them. They have good weapons on offense, but I don't think Alex Smith is much better than TJack. Gore is better than Lynch, but Seattle has better receivers and I would call the Tight ends a wash with maybe a slight advantage to SF. San Fran is my 4th place team. I think the Cardinals are going to be third this year. They traded their best DB for an unproven QB. What's the difference between Kolb, TJack, and Smith? The difference is that everyone already knows that TJack and Smith are bad. We will find out soon enough that Kolb is too. He will be an upgrade over what they had last year which was pathetic so I think they will be slightly improved. Losing Ryan Williams after trading Hightower though will leave them thin at runningback. The division will be a battle between the Rams and the Hawks. Bradford is far and away the best QB in the division and I think that he is the difference maker to put that team on top. The rest of their talent, imo, is no better (probably worse) than the Seahawks.

Here is my prediction:

Rams 9-7
Hawks 7-9
Cards 6-10
4whiners 4-12 (Hopefully we see some Colin Caepernick. I enjoyed watching him in college)