The Equipment Special

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the equipment we use for getting from point A to point, umm, well, to point Z-75/2L. Sorry, it's a long commute and 'B' just didn't seem appropriate somehow.


First lets talk cars. I'm not a car guy, sorry. I'm a computer guy and if this were a blog about computers I'd yammer on needlessly about bits, bytes and heck I'm falling asleep with that junk so I can imagine how you would feel. That being said, there's one thing about cars I do understand, how much cash they suck out of our checking account.


Tammy's last car was a 2005 Chevy Cavalier. She drove the stink out of that little machine. It was essentially new when she bought it and we traded it in just as it tipped 180k miles. She owned this vehicle just a tad over 4 years so 45,000 miles a year. It was paid for but just started to nickle and dime us to death leaving us with little options but to engage in one of the most loathsome tasks in all of adult life, car buying.


Thankfully Tammy had spent almost a year shopping for her replacement so she had it pretty well narrowed down into buckets that were divided into different budget levels. Where we landed was Hyundai. That left us with picking a dealership to get abused by. We figured that staying out of the big counties which reduces the sales tax rate would be smart, so we went into Silverdale and had a chat with Jorge at Parr Hyundai .


Let me say that we couldn't have been happier with both the dealership and Jorge. They did something that I have never experienced before at a dealership, they sold us a car. No, they didn't look for attachment locations for their saddle, they didn't see how quickly we'd take to their bit. Jorge asked us what we needed, showed us what he had, explained the virtues of each option and then worked the forms until we had a price that seemed fair to us. He even did this crazy thing he called a "Test Drive" where he took us out in the car and showed us all the features.

We were so happy with how the day was going (and it was the better part of a day to get the job done) that in the middle of it all we went all Costco on him and asked him to start working on a 2-pack. We ended up getting two 2010 Hyundai Elantra's . Tammy's is white mine is black.

These cars have all the things you'd hope to find in your PSCCV or Puget Sound Commute Combat Vehicle. They have great head room, comfortable seats, and enough options standard to keep you from feeling like you are piloting something that recently had meth cooked in it. We particularly like the entertainment system with the built in USB port. Combine this with things like 33 MPG, $16k purchase price, and 10 year/100k power train warranty, we feel good about the purchase. My only complaint is that both cars have annnoying rattle somewhere in the dash on the passenger side that we need to have looked at.


OK, now for the other piece of "equipment" we employ in our commute, the transit bus. One of the things we are trying to do is not drive the mileage up on both our cars and one of the great benefits provided by the company I work for is the Orca card (if you aren't a Seattle are person, that's a regional bus pass). I mentioned my bus routes in an earlier post so clicky-clicky if you need that info. I do want to mention a couple of things about my recent experiences in mass transit.


I haven't ridden a bus since I was a kid and I must say that trepidation just wasn't a strong enough word to describe how I approached this. I don't mind the little bit of walking required to get to the stops, even in the crappy weather and I do really feel lucky to have this at my disposal. In general the drivers are friendly, the passengers are polite and the experience has been positive. I want to save "bus etiquette" for its own post, but what I do want to talk about here is the buses. These are truly amazing pieces of engineering. Many of them use alternate fuel solutions which is kitch, cool, happenin' and a bunch of other words I really don't know how to use because I myself am none of these things.


The one thing I just can't get over is the really giant articulated buses with that accordion thing in the middle. I love to sit just behind this area on the bus! I'm captivated by the way the articulation provides 3 individual perspectives moving separate from one another and what makes this all the more fun is that they have placed seats in the articulation that I've taken to calling Gumby Seats. If you don't get the reference, try watching something other than cartoons with square clothing.

Well that's all for today other than to say if you happen to be sitting on a bus in one of those seats and you see an egg shaped man wearing a teardrop fedora and smiling at you in a vaguely disturbing way try giving him $20 to see if he'll stop.

Don't drive angry! Drive weird!