this is fun

Last weekend they were supposed to be fixing the dings and scratches on my car but thanks to torrential rains they weren't able to.  I picked up my car on monday with a we owe for the things they couldn't do.

Which brings us to today, when they will be doing those things, and I will be driving this loaner.  It reminds me of this last summer.  Except in a lot of ways the 3 series was an upgrade from the roadster while this benz is a definite downgrade from mine.  I'm actually enjoying it because it's making me love my car even more.

The weirdest thing is that the interior is almost exactly the same as mine except smaller.  I feel like the roof is so close to my head, it makes me uncomfortable.  I like the color though!  It makes me feel like this:




Except for the fact that I am definitely not rolling in an SLS.  It's still cool though, and I will say the handling is better than on my glk.  But I love how comfortable my suv is, and when I want handling I can always take out the roadster.  If I ever get it back from Elliot, though to be honest I've been enjoying that he's been joyriding in it.  It's how that car was meant to be enjoyed, not commuting to the mall.  That's what ostentatious suvs are for!

Yes Andrew, I know, I'm that guy.  Shut up.

I make bad choices

I once again found myself in alligator alley with the needle dancing in the red.  I don't know what my problem is.  This time I was going in the opposite direction, and I guess I thought I had enough gas to get to the gas station that I stopped at the last time I almost ran out.  I thought this gas station was right at the edge but apparently it's not at all so I once again almost ran out of gas.  I took this picture when I arrived at the pump, I'm not sure how many miles my car had left in her.  At least the cruise control didn't shut itself off like the 3 series did.

And for those of you who said that the fences keep the alligators away from the road nowadays (scott) let me just say that I definitely saw alligator road kill this time.  I have yet to see any giant pythons but I will scream like a little girl as soon as I do.

In keeping with my theme of making bad choices I decided to put the top down when I stopped for gas.  I think I was just so relieved to have made it that I thought nothing else could go wrong.

As you can see it looks like blue skies and fluffy white clouds, but that is the florida rain phenomenon.  You never know when it's going to strike, the sun can still be blindingly bright but it's just a deluge of rain.  This was the case shortly after I got back on the road, deep in the heart of alligator alley.  There was no way I was pulling over to put the top up so I just rolled up the windows and relied on the aerodynamics of fine german engineering to keep me dry.  It did ok, I'm not sure if having the windows up and the windscreen helped or hurt the air flow in terms of keeping me dry.  The rain kind of formed a rivulet along the window which, upon reaching the back, flew around and in to the car for a gentle steady hosing. Otherwise though I remained pretty dry.  Just kind of a windy mist swirling around the inside of the car, kind of refreshing actually.

I don't think I will be making a habit of going rain riding in my car though, but it's good to know that I won't get completely drenched if I get caught in the rain.  As long as I keep my speed up.  It's kind of like that movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode.  I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down".  source

I'm glad that Jonathan sent me this as it caused me to listen to nothing but Britney the whole way down and back.  I seriously hope that article is telling the truth, I can't wait.  And maybe I will still be homeless when the VMA's come around so it will be no big thing for me to camp out for a week before hand so I can be right up close!

Silver linings, silver linings.

with 5 miles to spare

I guess I didn't understand that the drive from Sarasota to Ft. Lauderdale is a desolate no mans land.

I am not exaggerating when I say it pretty much looks like this the whole way down:

source

So there I was scooting along, talking on the phone with Dan, completely unaware that I had entered alligator alley (that's actually the name of this stretch of road) and that any hope of getting gas was apparently futile until I entered Broward County.

I have mixed feelings about this digital readout of how many miles you have left until you run out of gas.  I probably wouldn't have gotten myself in the position of almost running out of gas in alligator infested swamplands had it not been for the digital readout and my thinking, '50 miles?  That's a long way!' and continuing to drive on the assumption that I would find a gas station when I needed a gas station.  I think if I had just been looking at the gauge that showed I only had a quarter of a tank I would have probably filled up sooner.  On the other hand once I realized that I was potentially going to run out of gas it kind of put my mind at ease to know when it was going to happen.  Just counting down the miles, waiting for the inevitable.

But I guess I did find a gas station when I needed one.  I was curious about what was going to happen when it got to zero, I have a feeling there is a reserve tank.  Oddly when I got down to 10 miles left it disabled my cruise control.  I mean, I was relying on the cruise control to keep my speed steady so I could get the most out of what precious little gas I had left.  Once it was gone those final five miles was like the ultimate test in "steady foot".

I'm here now though, safe and sound.  Just looking through some listings that Rob gave me and waiting for Jon to get in so we can cruise the streets and terrorize this town.

i'm too stupid

The first day I got this rental car I didn't know how to turn it off.  I had to get Scott to help me, I couldn't understand the concept of a "start/stop" button.

I feel like the me of 10 years ago would beat myself up for being so out of touch with car technology that I've become one of those bumbling blonds in my BMW that I don't even know how to use.  Most of my experiences with this car have been similar to this:



Except ironically if I had just hit the gas cover I would have realized that that is how you open it.  Instead I spent 15 minutes scanning the drivers area for the gas cover release button.  It's like when the last thing in the world I'm looking for is a button, that's when I should be looking for a button, and when I think there should be a button there is no button to be found.

I miss my car where things make sense.

a little more my speed

I finally found out yesterday that the are estimating the damages will take a week to fix, though Leslie said that all they anticipated needing to do was a re-alignment to the back wheels.  I told her I would be happy if that's all it needed but I doubted that would be in the case.

In any event, Enterprise was very obliging to the fact that I could not drive that Jeep for another week.  They even matched my color scheme.  And though I lost my beloved satellite radio it was replaced by one of the most amazing features a car could have:

It's a good thing this 3 series is automatic, otherwise I could have fallen in love.