all things considered, this has been a good evening! (and by all things considered, i mean, it's been a good evening despite the fact that i didn't get to go buy a car.) the c. springs dealer called me again as i was leaving work to ask what color of forester i'd like so that they can keep their eyes open at the auction tomorrow - isn't that the nicest thing ever?? even though we haven't purchased with them yet, they have provided such great customer service. i always laugh when i see the goony complimentary letters that people write to small companies that get posted on the company website, but 8 hours into my contact with this dealer, i would totally write one of those letters. (for the record, i told them i'm fine with pretty much any color except for the bright blue as long as the price is the same as the car i was looking at earlier today - they said they'd be priced the same. apparently they had their two foresters listed at $14,500 last week, they weren't selling, but then they dropped the price to $13,994 and they've had a ton of interest! i love subaru's olivey green, or their lighter "newport" blue color, but i'm also happy with silver or dark gray.)
we ended up doing a workout tonight, which was very needed, and felt great! i had sort of finished my workout but scott was still swimming, so i did 10 minutes on the bike and watched some of "i'm a celebrity, get me out of here!" - and it was AWFUL. truly. everyone on the show was just so stinkin prideful and full of themselves. i literally heard the phrases, "don't you know who i AM?" and, "i'm too famous for this!" come out of several peoples' mouths. blaah. i planned to make a margherita pizza when we got home, but i only had half of a roma tomato, so i made a veggie pizza instead - it was amazing! jiffy pizza crust (made with a little extra water), salt, pepper, garlic powder, italian seasoning, olive oil, spinach, tomato, yellow squash, onion, mozzarella, and parmesan, and it was by far one of the best pizzas i've ever made! oh, i guess i did toss a little pre-browned hamburger i had in the fridge on there as well. anyway, i highly recommend it.
or not.
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car
ahem. so the salesman just called me back again and said that they just sold the forester, but there are 40 more at auction this week, so they'll have more in stock by the end of the week and will have them online by friday. i hope they keep the prices as low. so now the plan is that we'll take a look online friday night and hopefully be able to go buy one saturday. my goodness.
c. springs it is!
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car
well, it seems to be working out quite well that the broker in littleton was closed last night - scott called today, and they were completely uninterested in any negotiations. like, they seemed offended that we had even given them a lower offer. (and i'm sure if that had happened in person, i would have been tempted to just say, "oh, okay," and pay asking price.) when i called the c. springs place this morning, they said there was a pending sale on the gray forester, but they'd know by noon today if it was going to go through or not ... the guy called me back just before 12 and said it had fallen through (one of the other salesman's mom was thinking of buying, but didn't want to part with her sports car just yet)! so we're leaving work a little bit early tonight to get down there, give it a test drive, and hopefully buy it! the salesman i spoke with did say that there's no negotiation - but since this is hands down the best price in a hundred-mile radius, i'm a-ok with that.
why you shouldn't close early
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car
i left work a few minutes early today so that scott and i could make it to the car place by their closing time at 6pm - i got to scott's office at 5:44, we discussed negotiation strategy for a minute, and were over at the auto broker's office (which is maybe 1/2 a mile from scott's office) by 5:47pm ... and they were closed. the sign in the window was still on, but the doors were locked, and the lights were all off. which was frustrating, since i was ready to just buy a new car already. (we even walked around the building and waited a few minutes in case someone was in the back.)
however, in talking about it further, i think it may not be all bad. today, i had found three '08 foresters with comparable mileage for $13,9xx down in colorado springs (vs $14,9xx in littleton). two of those cheaper foresters are bright blue (think electrocuted smurf - no, seriously), which i'm not open to buying, but one was dark grey. so scott suggested that we confirm the grey is still available, then call littleton and tell them we'd like to buy from them, but unless they match the price, we'll just go get the same product $1000 cheaper in the springs. as scott pointed out, it's worth three hours of our time for roundtrip travel and $50 of gas to go save $1000. and either way, we're going to make an appointment to guarantee that someone will be there. so, that's the plan for tomorrow!
however, in talking about it further, i think it may not be all bad. today, i had found three '08 foresters with comparable mileage for $13,9xx down in colorado springs (vs $14,9xx in littleton). two of those cheaper foresters are bright blue (think electrocuted smurf - no, seriously), which i'm not open to buying, but one was dark grey. so scott suggested that we confirm the grey is still available, then call littleton and tell them we'd like to buy from them, but unless they match the price, we'll just go get the same product $1000 cheaper in the springs. as scott pointed out, it's worth three hours of our time for roundtrip travel and $50 of gas to go save $1000. and either way, we're going to make an appointment to guarantee that someone will be there. so, that's the plan for tomorrow!
weekend report.
we had such a fun weekend! saturday, we met up with friends to go biking in frisco and had a fabulous time! we met at a set of parking lots next to the interstate to carpool up, and ended up hanging out there a while so that we could do things like change a bike tube, get gear loaded up, etc. we finally got to frisco in time for lunch (scott and i were in his 4-cylinder, rear-wheel drive truck with four of the bikes while the other two couples were in a 6-cylinder toyota highlander - on the steep inclines going up i-70, with the pedal to the metal, we were going maybe 60mph ... i think they beat us there by 5 minutes, with both of us leaving at the exact same time), had lunch in a park, then hit the bike trail that started right at the park.
we decided to go uphill from frisco to breckinridge, figuring we would go up as far as we could, then turn around and coast back down, which i think was a good plan. we got caught in a hail-storm midway through the ride, which was surprisingly painful! kinley had gotten her little helmet chinstrap stuck on the strap holding her into maura's bike carrier and was freaking out, so we all stopped while they got her untangled. they were in the midst of deciding to turn back when it started to rain, but the rest of us wanted to keep going for a bit, so we headed off and it immediately started to hail. thankfully there was a school building maybe a mile up the trail, so we made it there just in time for the hail to stop, but waited out the rain under shelter of the school. all told, we made it to probably 4 miles from breck, and my legs literally felt like they were dying and i was seriously contemplating camping out and making them get the car to pick me up - the stretch from the school to our stopping point looked flat to the eye, but obviously was just enough up-hill that it was hard on my poor unathletic thighs. anyway, everyone took pity on me and we turned around, and the ride back was fabulous - enough decline that it was mostly easy (i walked my bike up the few steep inclines), with a few really fun fast, steep declines.
after we met up post-ride, we got coffee at a local shop on main street, then found a free disc golf course! we had 5 frisbees for 6 people, so we alternated taking kinley duty so that everyone could play. none of us were good (i was particularly bad - i think my average was 9 throws per hold, and the par was 3-4), but we had a lot of fun. and the view was amazing! the back of the course butted up to lake dillon and there were peeks at of snowcapped mountains everywhere. then it started raining again, so we had an early dinner and went home. my knees were aching by the time we got home (from the biking, i assume), and i was definitely ready for an early bedtime, but it was a super fun day.
last night we had carlos and tatiana (our class's missionary couple from costa rica) over for dinner with some other friends, and had a great time! we knew them a little bit from talking the last time they were in town two years ago, and a little bit of contact since then, but we hadn't really spent any time with them. it was fun hearing all about costa rica and their ministry stuff, and just hanging out with them - they're probably in their early 30s and just very fun and energetic. we played the game 25 words or less after dinner - they were skeptical since obviously their native language is spanish. they're both very fluent in english, though, so they figured they'd give it a whirl; we did guys v. girls, and while the girls of course won, carlos totally carried the guys' team! they invited us to come down to costa rica either on vacation or to bring a missions trip, and it was super tempting - definitely something to think about.
and the obligatory car mention: we took a look online yesterday to see what the prices are on other car models we'd been considering (impreza, legacy, prius, camry, matrix, cr-v ... i think that's all), and it ended up that the cheapest models in the same model year/mileage range were all about the same price as the forester! so, we decided to go ahead with the forester. i'm excited! we'd been planning on going tonight to buy the car we test drove, but the transfer from savings to checking i made on saturday hasn't gone through yet. we're debating going tonight to get the negotiation process started (but since the cash isn't in place yet, i'm not sure how much we can do) vs waiting until tomorrow so we can do it all at once, but obviously risking someone else buying the car we want in the meantime. oh, and with erma, i think we're going to take her in to a mechanic maybe next weekend to get an objective opinion, then try to sell her on craigslist with the obvious disclaimers, and probably end up donating her if that doesn't work. i added 3 qts of oil yesterday (might should have done that earlier ... whoops - she's been burning through oil like nobody's business for the past year or so) yesterday, and she did sound happier at highway speeds on my morning commute today, which made me mildly optimistic.
we decided to go uphill from frisco to breckinridge, figuring we would go up as far as we could, then turn around and coast back down, which i think was a good plan. we got caught in a hail-storm midway through the ride, which was surprisingly painful! kinley had gotten her little helmet chinstrap stuck on the strap holding her into maura's bike carrier and was freaking out, so we all stopped while they got her untangled. they were in the midst of deciding to turn back when it started to rain, but the rest of us wanted to keep going for a bit, so we headed off and it immediately started to hail. thankfully there was a school building maybe a mile up the trail, so we made it there just in time for the hail to stop, but waited out the rain under shelter of the school. all told, we made it to probably 4 miles from breck, and my legs literally felt like they were dying and i was seriously contemplating camping out and making them get the car to pick me up - the stretch from the school to our stopping point looked flat to the eye, but obviously was just enough up-hill that it was hard on my poor unathletic thighs. anyway, everyone took pity on me and we turned around, and the ride back was fabulous - enough decline that it was mostly easy (i walked my bike up the few steep inclines), with a few really fun fast, steep declines.
after we met up post-ride, we got coffee at a local shop on main street, then found a free disc golf course! we had 5 frisbees for 6 people, so we alternated taking kinley duty so that everyone could play. none of us were good (i was particularly bad - i think my average was 9 throws per hold, and the par was 3-4), but we had a lot of fun. and the view was amazing! the back of the course butted up to lake dillon and there were peeks at of snowcapped mountains everywhere. then it started raining again, so we had an early dinner and went home. my knees were aching by the time we got home (from the biking, i assume), and i was definitely ready for an early bedtime, but it was a super fun day.
last night we had carlos and tatiana (our class's missionary couple from costa rica) over for dinner with some other friends, and had a great time! we knew them a little bit from talking the last time they were in town two years ago, and a little bit of contact since then, but we hadn't really spent any time with them. it was fun hearing all about costa rica and their ministry stuff, and just hanging out with them - they're probably in their early 30s and just very fun and energetic. we played the game 25 words or less after dinner - they were skeptical since obviously their native language is spanish. they're both very fluent in english, though, so they figured they'd give it a whirl; we did guys v. girls, and while the girls of course won, carlos totally carried the guys' team! they invited us to come down to costa rica either on vacation or to bring a missions trip, and it was super tempting - definitely something to think about.
and the obligatory car mention: we took a look online yesterday to see what the prices are on other car models we'd been considering (impreza, legacy, prius, camry, matrix, cr-v ... i think that's all), and it ended up that the cheapest models in the same model year/mileage range were all about the same price as the forester! so, we decided to go ahead with the forester. i'm excited! we'd been planning on going tonight to buy the car we test drove, but the transfer from savings to checking i made on saturday hasn't gone through yet. we're debating going tonight to get the negotiation process started (but since the cash isn't in place yet, i'm not sure how much we can do) vs waiting until tomorrow so we can do it all at once, but obviously risking someone else buying the car we want in the meantime. oh, and with erma, i think we're going to take her in to a mechanic maybe next weekend to get an objective opinion, then try to sell her on craigslist with the obvious disclaimers, and probably end up donating her if that doesn't work. i added 3 qts of oil yesterday (might should have done that earlier ... whoops - she's been burning through oil like nobody's business for the past year or so) yesterday, and she did sound happier at highway speeds on my morning commute today, which made me mildly optimistic.
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