Muy Caliente!

Pretty pathetic… I need to get out more!

Andrew Hunter — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:58:11 +0000

visited 22 states (44%) Create your own visited map of The United States or Try another interesting project

Gas Crunch

Andrew Hunter — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:19:46 +0000

Literal Barrage’s quest for a new minivan sparked an idea I had that I just sort of passed off. When Sara was buying a new car at the beginning of this month (July), she wanted a small, fuel efficient compact car. She also wanted a 4-door since they seem a little more practical and useful – both for our nephews and friends now and possibly children of our own in the future. The problem was we couldn’t find one anywhere! Our local Toyota dealer had one Corolla which was a top of the line XLS and was about 28k. They didn’t know when they were getting more. They hadn’t seen a Prius in a while. Honda dealers expected Civic hybrids by the end of August and they had one on the lot but it was just for test drives. I heard a story on the Civic forums about a man in Minnesota bought a dealer show car model for $32k. I don’t know if it’s true or not. As far as regular Civics were concerned, the two dealers we went to probably had three or four coupes on the lot that Sara was not interested in and one or two 4-doors in either beige or red, neither of which Sara wanted. The beige car, which I agree with Sara, does not look good in the futuristic looking Civic, and her last car was the same exact tone of red and she wanted something different. Hey, if she has to look at it every day for the next 10 years, she better like the way it looks! The expect to get more in a month that you could order, but only like two or three more so they wanted a down payment to reserve it. There was one blue 4-Door Civic at the second dealer we went to but it was sold to another dealership in an inter-dealer trade or something like that. They liked the idea of Sara paying in cash a little better so they sold it to her and some other poor dealership got screwed. Subaru was an increasingly similar story. They had one Impreza Outback which is the wagon but Sara didn’t like it and a WRX which was out of our price range. They seemed to think they could get one rather quickly but their lot was pretty barren. Mazda was the exception, as long as you like the lower trim Sport model of their Mazda3. They had about 10-12 on their lot. They did have 2 Touring models which I thought was worth the extra cash with a little bump in HP, an extra gear in the slushbox (5spd vs 4spd auto), and stability control. Sara thought it was a great little car that accelerated and braked better than the Civic, but the styling won her over to the Honda side. We didn’t check out Nissan because she thought the Versa and Sentra are ugly and boxy. We also skipped VW as she didn’t want to buy a German car for her parent’s sake, even though Jetta’s are made in Mexico/US/Canada like all the others. Chevy’s Cobalt and Malibu were solid cars, but didn’t feel up to the quality of the others. This was offset by great financing and good deals. Honestly if we just drove to the Chevy dealership, either one would have been good enough to buy – until you compare it to something else. There were no Fords, Chryslers, or Dodges and interested her. We were going to check out the Mitsubishi Lancer, but other than rave reviews on looks (and it was my favorite looking as well), it fell far short on all other attributes and was comparatively expensive. We were going to check out Hyundai, but ran out of time. We didn’t think it was going to offer anything significant over anything else we looked at. Kia? Nothing going on there…She also drove the Accord, Camry & Lancer – all of which she liked but not more than the cheaper Civic. So I guess the point of all this is if you are looking a compact car, be prepared to hear “These things are selling like mad! We’re all out, have a nice day.” Is this just a NJ thing or is this going on where you all live?

New Photoblog

Andrew Hunter — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:46:53 +0000

I just started a new photoblog and I want to upload my artsy or cool photos there. The compression of the first image I uploaded looks a bit much, but I will try it out for the next few weeks and see how it goes. Let me know what you think. Here is the link!

A couple of things…

Andrew Hunter — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:25:12 +0000

My how the time flies…Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary with Sara and we are doing great! It has always been a strange feeling in our relationship that we have been together forever, yet at the same time like we just met. We are looking forward to another great year of fun and excitement.
One of those exciting things we have planned is a vacation in October to Moab, Zion, & Lake Powell. We are going with one of my co-workers, George and his wife Debbie. George is a great photographer and hopefully I will come back with some shots as nice as those in the links. We will also be taking a few side trips to other parks and try some exciting things like horseback riding and off-roading in a Jeep.

Pass the bucket

Andrew Hunter — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:21:43 +0000

It was announced today that the company I work for, CUH2A, was aquired (merged) with the huge engineering firm HDR today. I don’t know how I feel yet. We will have to see what the future will bring. Let’s hope we get a better website & I keep my job for a few years!

Conspiracy Indeed!

Andrew Hunter — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:16:58 +0000

Doug got me thinking about conspiracies the other day in his post, so I thought I would write about one of mine. The Pittsburgh Penguins will win the Stanley Cup. As a fan of the NY Rangers, you may think I am biased. Well – you can ask any fan of any team they have played since early this year. I think the National Hockey League has a deal with the refs, coaches, whatever and will do whatever they can to get the Penguins to win. Why? The NHL loves their boy toys Crosby & Malkin. Look at all the money they are making from ads for the NHL, Gatorade, etc. I personally, don’t even think they are as great as we are all led to believe by the media. They were so hyped up in the series vs the Rangers, when Jagr had the best stats so far in the playoffs and was barely mentioned except that it looked like he was trying. I’m not even a huge Jagr fan, but come on and give the man some credit! I don’t think Crosby had more than 2 assists and no goals in the entire 5 game series. Malkin played well but was certainly no superstar. Marion Hossa was really the star as he was picked up at the trade deadline. Other than that, the Penguins are ignorable and their defense is poor. How else could they have come so far? Every announcer on Vs or NBC I guarantee will mention their two names no matter which teams are currently on the ice. Why do I have to hear about them when I watch Montreal & Boston? I think the NHL is doing everything they can to get these youngsters a cup as it will improve their image and create a story for them. The Rangers played the Penguins eight times during the regular season and won 5 times. So what happened in the playoffs? Well, we won once, lost twice, and the other two games the refs gave to the Penguins with some of the worst officiating I have seen since the Rangers playoff series last year versus Buffalo. Call me crazy but that’s my conspiracy theory. Let’s see what happens in the finals…

PS – I really hate Penguin fans. To show how dumb they are, when the Rangers come to Pittsburgh the whole stadium boos when Jagr is on the ice and cheer when he gets checked hard. For years and years when he played with Lemieux he was their hero. Now he is their most hated. News flash morons – Jagr didn’t leave Pittsburgh to go to Washington for more money like you all think, Pittsburgh traded him. He wasn’t a “traitor”, they traded him!

WoW

Andrew Hunter — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:07:57 +0000

Just wondering if any of my readers play World of Warcraft. I know Brad was interested in trying the trial. My main character is Merlo and Sara plays too as Drumnia. We are always looking for more friends to play with!!

It’s been a while…

Andrew Hunter — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:13:06 +0000

Sorry it’s been so long! Well, to get back up to date quickly since my last post:
October: Cruise with Sara & Family was awesome (pics below) & Sara quit CUH2A and entered the world of real estate.
November: Thanksgiving was at my parent’s this year. Good food, good times.
December: Holidays were a blast it’s always great to see family and saw some old friends from California & Florida as well.
January: work work work! Sara also started working at the Olive Garden doing lunches because she is slow midday and the real estate is slow.
February: I slid off of the road in the snow and into a telephone pole, totaling my civic. I was OK, just some bashed ribs. Got an ’03 Mazda Protégé with the insurance check. Since buying the car it has soaked $3500 in repairs the POS. I also am fighting the careless driving ticket, court in June.
March: Betsy’s birthday was fun; great to see the nephew’s growing up.
April: When I got the brakes done at Midas, they forgot to reconnect my parking brake. I found out when my car failed inspection. With the big red FAILED sticker on my car, I got a ticket for failure to make repairs. I didn’t have the paper from the DMV because nowhere it states to have it in the car. The cop told me to go to court on May 13th and just bring the paper and they will dismiss it. I did and they basically told me the cop was an idiot (to which I agree) and that I have to plead not guilty and go to court, again in June.
May: Sara’s birthday was fun, Brad & Lauren had a baby and my birthday is just around the corner. Sara also quit the Olive Garden (today actually) and will start working for the Jewish Family & Children Services of NJ on Monday which she is pretty excited about. So far, so good!!

Vacation Photos

Andrew Hunter — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:26:25 +0000

I have finally uploaded my Cruise photos on to the web into 3 different galleries. There’s a lot of photos! Gallery #2 is probably the most interesting because it includes Cadillac Mt. in Acadia National Park. Use the slideshow feature, it’s a pretty good way to go through them.

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Gallery 3

Picture Picture

Andrew Hunter — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:44:03 +0000

I updated my Photos in my gallery. I have to go back and start putting in descriptions now. Here is the link.