Oodles of poodles with noodles
Hoping last night was an anomaly.
I have a Breeder's Cup worth of work to do on the house exterior alone, and with the weather being nice, it's time to be frolicking amongst the concrete leaves of doom of my yard and house exterior.
Unfortunately, trying to do something constructive after coming home from walkies is pushing the envelope. Most of what I have to do is significantly longer than the dribs and drabs of time that I have available after the exercise and whatever foodmaking things I need to do. By the time I actually get to dinner, it's 7:30, and easily 8:00 before I'm free to work on something-- and generally I need to be done using power tools by 9:00 or the neighbors get annoyed.
A couple of possibilities: I could try and do task breakdowns like I do in these planning sessions and drop the granularity down to an hour or less, or tasks that can be done in small pieces. That's not horrible, and it would get me to have a better handle on the amount of work remaining. Or I could wake up early and do walkies then, leaving more post-work time to do stuff.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Planning it is then.
That SUV I backed into a while ago-- the damage from that is just over $1000.00. The owner is being kind and getting a second estimate, but in the meantime I'm working to cough a wet grand outta my ass in the coming next couple of weeks, and it's not fun. The alternative of turning it in to the insurance company is worse, trust me. Puts the damper on trying to come up with a down payment on a Zaptruck soon, too.
I'm still kinda torn about the Zaptruck. I love the concept, but I'd have to keep the 'Sploder around to handle the longer-distance drives and for hauling building materials and the like, probably for another five years (figure that's the life of the car loan), where if I took out a much larger loan and got an Escape Hybrid, the 'Sploder could go away, I'd be insuring just the one vehicle, take up only one parking place, and so on. Less money and I could get an Escape that's not a hybrid and spend more for gas money (though significantly less than I am now). The Zaptruck is also a little bit too short in the cab to be comfortable.
It's not an easy decision. I've set a $4.00/gal price point as my shit-or-get-off-the-pot marker. I think this weekend we're projected to have $3.85/gal. for regular, so it's probably gonna be $3.95 for the mid-grade I usually use. I figure sometime around CONvergence it's gonna be go time.
Damn.
Edit: The point may be moot. Talked to the credit union and they may not be able to finance the Zaptruck yet-- it needs to come from a dealer that can provide an MSRP, and the newness of it means that they don't really have a mechanism in place to do that.
Of course, checking out the loan for an Escape Hybrid is a little daunting too. A $25k five-year loan causes $475/mo. car payments. That's sphincter-puckering.
Edit #2: Found a Hybrid, a 2006 at a decent price ($17,850-- you check out the damn hybrid prices) and I'm gonna drive up to look at it on Saturday.
I have a Breeder's Cup worth of work to do on the house exterior alone, and with the weather being nice, it's time to be frolicking amongst the concrete leaves of doom of my yard and house exterior.
Unfortunately, trying to do something constructive after coming home from walkies is pushing the envelope. Most of what I have to do is significantly longer than the dribs and drabs of time that I have available after the exercise and whatever foodmaking things I need to do. By the time I actually get to dinner, it's 7:30, and easily 8:00 before I'm free to work on something-- and generally I need to be done using power tools by 9:00 or the neighbors get annoyed.
A couple of possibilities: I could try and do task breakdowns like I do in these planning sessions and drop the granularity down to an hour or less, or tasks that can be done in small pieces. That's not horrible, and it would get me to have a better handle on the amount of work remaining. Or I could wake up early and do walkies then, leaving more post-work time to do stuff.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen. Planning it is then.
That SUV I backed into a while ago-- the damage from that is just over $1000.00. The owner is being kind and getting a second estimate, but in the meantime I'm working to cough a wet grand outta my ass in the coming next couple of weeks, and it's not fun. The alternative of turning it in to the insurance company is worse, trust me. Puts the damper on trying to come up with a down payment on a Zaptruck soon, too.
I'm still kinda torn about the Zaptruck. I love the concept, but I'd have to keep the 'Sploder around to handle the longer-distance drives and for hauling building materials and the like, probably for another five years (figure that's the life of the car loan), where if I took out a much larger loan and got an Escape Hybrid, the 'Sploder could go away, I'd be insuring just the one vehicle, take up only one parking place, and so on. Less money and I could get an Escape that's not a hybrid and spend more for gas money (though significantly less than I am now). The Zaptruck is also a little bit too short in the cab to be comfortable.
It's not an easy decision. I've set a $4.00/gal price point as my shit-or-get-off-the-pot marker. I think this weekend we're projected to have $3.85/gal. for regular, so it's probably gonna be $3.95 for the mid-grade I usually use. I figure sometime around CONvergence it's gonna be go time.
Damn.
Edit: The point may be moot. Talked to the credit union and they may not be able to finance the Zaptruck yet-- it needs to come from a dealer that can provide an MSRP, and the newness of it means that they don't really have a mechanism in place to do that.
Of course, checking out the loan for an Escape Hybrid is a little daunting too. A $25k five-year loan causes $475/mo. car payments. That's sphincter-puckering.
Edit #2: Found a Hybrid, a 2006 at a decent price ($17,850-- you check out the damn hybrid prices) and I'm gonna drive up to look at it on Saturday.