tg.madness+

well happy belated turkey day to you all, i hope everyone gave thanks for the invention of stretchy pants, haha, i know i did!

well when last i left you, we had just had some pretty fantastic news, my truck was broke again! awesome! [anyone sense the sarcasm dripping off that?] anyhow... tuesday and wednesday were normal days, nothing to report really, we didnt do anything special, normal week stuff. all i can really say is that we came to the solid conclusion that we did not want to put anymore money into the stupid piece of sssssuh... truck and we were definitely going to find something else. we spent a little time here and there looking at trucks on craigslist, autotrader, carmax, and other various websites to see if we found anything in our price range [not to mention deciding for sure what our price range was] that matched what we wanted. 

tg.thursday[11.27.08]

well turkey day had finally arrived, gobble-gobble! we spent the morning looking up trucks online determined that we were going to try and buy one thursday if possible [which it totally wasnt, nothing is open on tg] or friday if possible... if neither of those worked out... well this weekend we had to get it done, there were no options there. we'd called wednesday night to extend the car rental through friday and we really didnt want to keep renting it after that. 

so around 11am wed exhausted ourselves looking at trucks and making phone calls to no avail. it just wasnt going to happen. oh-well, theres lots to do on thanksgiving, haha! so while i had been making phone calls, karen had been researching all the recipes that she was intending to use to cook the thanksgiving feast extraordinaire and which items we needed to get from the store. 

so around 11:30 we went to the grocery store - except not just any grocery store, we went to the brand new kroger in kenwood. and wow... this thing was nice. there was literally a wall of cheese wheels that i know my father-in-law would have loved to have seen. [if we'd had the camera thered be pictures, i assure you.] well, we spent the next hour and a half and waaaay too much money at kroger getting all the little goodies that were going to be prepared for me when we got home. [i was so excited! and so was karen!] the last little stop on the way home was at walmart where i got to spend a little birthday money on two dvd's - hancock and iron man [thanks mom & dad!] so now i was totally set for the afternoon, haha. 

so we went home from there and both got started on our tasks for the next 4+ hours. karen got busy in the kitchen, and i got busy staying out of her hair, lol! i had a blast watching hancock and iron man and karen was really having fun, totally in her element baking and cooking in the kitchen. occasionally she'd bring me a little snack or a fresh beer [i really do have the best wife ever!] while i sat lazily on the couch entranced in my movies. 

well what ended up being closer to 5 hours later, karen finished dinner [i have no idea how she had the energy!] and we were ready to go. this was our first thanksgiving alone together and the first one karen had ever made and it was really spectacular. she went all out, even making a nice little menu and printing out for me with all the items of the nights dinner. there was turkey and stuffing [obviously], some redskin+garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, two kinds of cranberry sauce [one was her mom, anne's, recipe for what she called a cranberry relish], honey-butter rolls, my grandmother's recipe for sweet potato streusel, two pumpkin pies from scratch [we decided to make one to give to our new neighbors that have been so sweet to us!], mulled wine [which id never had before and i have no idea really how to explain it, sorry], and last but not least - a from scratch cherry cheese cake that was omg delicious! [sorry mom and grandma, but karen's cheesecake has got to be the best ive ever had!! and sorry to jello too, you cant compete, youre way out of your league here...] so without further adieu, here are a few shots of our thanksgiving feast extraordinaire! [click to open the full-size, mouth-watering image]

by the time we finished eating we were totally stuffed [after only one serving each!] and spent the next hour and ahalf together cuddled up on the couch watched the remainder [id started it when karen needed more time on dinner] of superman returns - kevin spacey is awesome as lex luther, i dont care what anyone says. after that it was time for bed, there was still a lot of weekend left ahead of us. 

black.friday[11.28.08]

well friday morning we woke up a little late, but we really cant be blamed for that, its all the turkey's fault. but immediately got started on the truck hunt. this proved to be quite a long day, but for the sake of brevity i'll only touch on the highlights. [youre welcome josh...]

first we looked up all the trucks we knew we wanted to see and mapped them all out on google and printed everything out. second we went to the bank to see about getting an auto-loan. we decided what our budget was and were going to stick to it, and we had the funds available in our savings account. but because of all the house repairs we're currently involved in as well the combination of the truck and the house repairs is going to completely wipe us out of our savings, so we thought putting half down and paying the rest off in a small auto-loan would be the best way to go. well the bank went fine, they took all our information, it was painless enough, but the manager couldnt tell us immediately if we were going to be approved, it had to process through the central headquarters [or whatever evil empire lingo the banks use these days] and she's call us as soon as she heard from them. 

so we got on our way to the first location, map in hand, we hit the road. haha, well not 15 minutes later my trusty navigator informs me that she thought we'd missed one of our turns and it turned out she was right... so where it should have taken us 20 minutes to get to the first stop, lol, it took about an hour after we detoured way out of the way on what ended up being a two lane highway with road construction for a large chunk of the trip, lol! oh-well, theres no one else id rather be lost with, heh. 

so we got to the first place on our list and man, this truck was a beauty [well, at first anyway]. it was a blue 2003 dodge ram 1500 crew cab & short bed and boy it was pretty. it had 70k miles on it and it was the one i liked the most on the list. however... the tiny little lot it was on was closed... so we called the numbers and got one of the owners but he was out of town and was going to call his partner and call us back. well... half an hour late we still hadnt had a call so we gave up and moved on to the next one on the list. on the way we decided to stop at a dealership that was across the high-way and see if they had anything in our price-range, because after all, they were right there. 

well they had 2 trucks and i didnt like either of them for various reasons, so we said thanks but no thanks and got back on our way. no sooner had we gotten on the on-ramp than the phone was buzzing and it was the bank. however, it was not a great call. wed been denied the loan because neither of us had a job as long as they liked to be considered steady. [2 years! are you kidding me?!] great, oh-well, we'll figure it out as we go... so i hung up and by the time we were getting off the highway to go up the road a little for the next truck my phone was buzzing again - it was the other owner from the first lot telling me he'd be at the lot in about 20 minutes. haha, alright, well i told him we'd moved on, but we'd keep him in mind. so we go to the second lot and after a few turn arounds to actually find the place we check out the truck - a white[gag!] 2004 dodge dakota with extended cab. the guy was really nice, offered us financing with only 5% interest [awesome!] and let us take it for a test drive. so while we were out i looked at karen and told her i really didnt like this truck even though it was nice, how did she feel? well she agreed. we both felt it was too small, especially compared to the "hearty and robust" as karen put it, dodge ram we'd just looked at. so we went back, thanked the guy and decided we'd head back to the first lot and take that ram for a spin. 

well, we got there and the guy handed over the keys, so we popped it open and got on our way. however, we soon started falling out of love with this truck. after seeing the dakota which was in great shape, we noticed the ram's tired were pretty much bald - ugh, not good. secondly, it didnt have automatic doors and windows which my 95 freakin truck had, and was going to be a but of an inconvenience. we also noticed other little qwerks with it like the interior, some scratches on the exterior, the lack of a tow-package[which we've used more than a few times recently on my 95 and has come in really handy] and a few other things... well crap, now what? there were two other places on my list but they were in opposite directions from where we now were. one was in indiana and about an hour and a half away, the other was in kentucky and an hour away. well believe it or not after all this driving around and only having looked at 2 trucks seriously, it was already passed 3 in the afternoon... 

so i decided to call the place in kentucky and find out what they had available while karen talked to the guy at this lot a little longer. i found out that the kentucky place was an actual dealership and they ended up having 3 other trucks that were in our price range besides the one we knew was there. not to mention the one we knew about had some of the things this blue one was lacking according to the guy on the phone. so we said our goodbyes, got on the road, and headed to kentucky. well, about an hour and 15 minutes later [we had to stop for gas] we arrived at the dealership and found the guy from the phone he took us out to the truck and we carefully inspected it from the outside having already done this twice. well this thing was immaculate, if youd told me it was brand new, id have believed you. he handed us the keys and we took it for a test drive, and now i was determined to really test it. so i gave the breaks, engine, and other features a thorough test and we were very satisfied with the way it ran. 

when we got back to the dealership we were sold. we looked at the other options on his lot that were in our price range just to make sure, but we were definitely sold on this truck. so a few hours later after all the paperwork, we'd gotten he process started for financing, but the banks were all closed for the night. we ended up writing a check for the full amount up front pending the results of financing on saturday morning, and at a little after 6pm i drove off the lot in our new truck with karen right behind me in the rental car. at this point we were headed straight back to columbus to return the rental [3 hours away] and then back home again [another 2 hours]. we finally got home at about 1am and we were both completely exhausted and just collapsed into bed for the night. i think i still had some of my clothes on, lol!

so at the end of the day [yeah i guess i went into a few of the finer points, sorry josh, deal with it] we had a new truck!! so here are the details. its a 2004 dodge ram 1500. bright red [shiny as can be!], crew cab, long bed. it has 80k miles on it, tires with over 60% tread, a tow-package [and it even includes a towing drive setting for hauling stuff, sweet!] it runs like a dream and everything on it works like new! so we now have a new[to us] "shiny, and hearty, AND robust!" truck! [which we have aptly named sahara because of - look at it for a while and youll figure it out...]

so again, without further adieu, here are the pics! [again, click for the full-size, mouth-watering image, heh]

some of you may notice the mirror on the drivers side is missing. the deal with that is that it was cracked and they were in the process of ordering a new one when we bought the truck, so when it comes in theyre going to replace it for us. other than that, the only little downfalls with sahara are that she doesnt have power doors and windows and she needs a bed liner. but thats okay! id like to put in a security system anyway, and i think you can get power windows and locks as an option with those now-a-days, and we can get a spray in liner pretty cheap too! no worries!

well, thats all for now! check back soon for our saturday and sunday adventures!

gobble-gobble!