June 26, 2006: Car Shopping

I was extremely tired all night tonight as I worked the overnight support shift. It is a good thing that I get to work from home because I am too tired to drive safely. The night seemed to pass rather quickly but this is probably a result of the delirium and not from there being some activity to help the time pass. I got practically nothing done during the night as I was unable to concentrate on anything at all.

I wrapped up my shift at eight in the morning and went straight to bed. I was so tired.

I slept until one or a little afterwards. Once I got up and moving Dominica and I went to the Omega Diner and got some dinner or maybe it was a late lunch. It was a nice day and we wanted to find out what we thought of the Cooper Mini so we drove down to Princeton on Route 1 and went to the Cooper Dealer down there. What we discovered is that the Mini’s really are mini and are way too small for us. It might as well be a two seater for all the space that you get in the back seat. We thought that they were cute and the front seat seemed to be decently comfortable but overall it just was not a reasonable car for us. Especially not at close to $30,000.

While we were there we walked to the other side of the building and looked at the BMW’s. Cooper is a division of BMW so they are almost always in the same places. The dealer had a load of used convertibles on the lot so we got to look around quite a bit. We took a test drive in a 2005 325ci convertible and we fell in love with it. The ride is so smooth and the interior is so quiet. It is a really gorgeous car. We talked to the dealer about options and prices. They have a 2004 330cic convertible expected around Wednesday that we are really interested in. We are planning on coming back then to take a look at it. The 325 and the 330 are the same car but the 330 has a larger engine. We are definitely 330 type people. We have to look at cars that are automatic only because we are going to, if we get a car like this, get rid of both of our Mazda main driving cars now – the 2002 PR5 and the 2003 6. If we didn’t have to get an automatic I would be seriously looking at the M3 but that only comes in stick and Dominica can’t drive that. So what we are thinking is that we might be able to sell the PR5, trade in the 6, get the 330 and put my RX-7 back onto the road as our second car just for those times when I need to drive to work and Dominica needs the Beamer. We will see. The real issue is the incredible hassle that is likely to occur from buying a car in New Jersey. It might not even be feasible. But boy is that a nice car. We loved it. And it would, most likely, not cost us any more than the two of our cars are costing us now.

Dad bought a Mercury Grand Marquis in Batavia and is planning on picking it up tomorrow. Not quite the convertible that he had been hoping for.

We did a little miscellaneous shopping on the way home and then just spent the evening relaxing. I am back on days tomorrow at work and I need to prepare for the time shift. We tried ordering some pizza at eleven in the evening and discovered that just everything down here closes really early. We called everywhere and there was just no way that we were going to be able to get any pizza. We were both hungry so we just decided to go over to the Omega even though it was late.

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