I only share this because it’s cute…not because it represents the content of this post…
So, Meg was born in early March, meaning she turned 6 months old in September. Her first six months involved the experience of Spring and Summer. Calvin, born in September, just turned 6 months old this past weekend. His first six months involved the experience of Fall and Winter.
Guess which one got sick more often?
We’ve added it up and came to 11 days. That’s just 11 weekdays of illness from Calvin since January, not even accounting for all the snow days we had to take off for Meg (where Calvin frequently stayed home, too, whether daycare was open or not). Here’s the run down:
4 mo vaccinations- 2 days
Random Virus – into – Bacterial Pneumonia (4 mo) – 5 days
A few of those only seem short because they started over a weekend. For example, this most recent bout of RSV started last Friday and Cal held a fever all weekend (thank God it started over a weekend, though…). On Sunday at Urgent Care, he didn’t have an ear infection. He started feeling better Monday, then got worse Tuesday. I took him to the doctor and found he had fewer signs of breathing difficulties and instead had an ear infection. The “Unnamed Stomach Virus” started on a Sunday and kept him out on Monday. By Tuesday he was fine, but Meg and I had contracted it, so even if he got to go to school, two of us became afflicted.
Just can’t win.
More generally, this Winter has been pretty disruptive, largely because of the onslaught of snow, ice, and blistering cold (that mostly affected Meg), and also because Calvin just got every sickness imaginable for an infant. Brooke and I have weathered all this by splitting days at work, or taking turns taking days off here and there. It’s great that we both have flexible jobs, but I can’t imagine what this would be like if we didn’t.
Needless to say, we’re ready for some consistency in the weather. And by “consistency” I mean “Spring.”
I’ve been meaning to write something on this subject for a few weeks but never seem to get around to it. From the beginning, we were curious how Calvin would integrate into our existing threesome (or nine-some, depending on how many creatures we’re including…), and more specifically, how Meg would deal with him and how Brooke and I both have to shift our attention from entirely on her to entirely on her andhim (that’s 200% “attention,” for those keeping count).
Surprisingly and thankfully, it’s been shockingly easy. Meg has displayed nary a hint of jealousy toward him, though she certainly still wants more attention than we can sometimes give her. In general, she’s actually been pretty helpful these past few months, frequently grabbing a rattle or other toy when we can’t reach one, or staying in the room to watch him as we go downstairs to exchange the laundry. If he starts crying, she’s quick to say “It’s okay, Calvin. I’m here!” This rarely helps, but it’s still kinda sweet…
The more surprising aspect of their burgeoning relationship is how Calvin looks at her. I mean, he gets excited when one of us walks into the room after we get home from work, but when Meg walks in, he lights up like nothing else. The other day, I was driving the two of them home and Meg was facing forward singing some song she’d made up. She wasn’t even singing toward Calvin, but he was just staring at her, laughing randomly. Meg didn’t think she was saying anything funny, of course, so she didn’t really understand why Calvin was reacting this way. Still, it’s pretty obvious that she amuses him greatly.
As I’ve mentioned to Nana and others, I’m just waiting for the relationship to turn toward the typical hostility one would expect between a brother and a sister. Clearly they aren’t going to wait until their teenagers or anything, but will it happen when he starts crawling? Walking? When he starts recognizing her toys and messes with them? There’s already some element of this, as most of “his” toys were previously “Meg’s” toys, and she’s fully aware of this. It isn’t like she says “No, Calvin, you can’t have that,” but sometimes when she’s playing with him, she’ll take a toy he was currently chewing on as she’s done playing with it, so now he must also be done.
Regardless, he almost always wants to be around her (or, at least, he is happier when she’s around), and she usually wants to be around him. She still asks to “play with Calvin” just before bedtime, despite being bored with it after maybe 15 minutes of actual “playing.”
Options for decent movies are few and far between in late-February. The next big crop comes up mid- to late-March, but we’re in the doldrums of movies that came out in December with the Christmas rush, and other Oscar hopefuls that get a late release in hopes of generating some buzz. The “good” sci-fi movies also get saved for the summer blockbuster season, so it’s rare to find a “good” one released in early February. In many ways, this year’s reboot of the RoboCop franchise may not even be that movie, as it’s had a mixed response, critically.
That all said, I should also point out that despite the zeitgeist of the time, I didn’t grow up a fan of RoboCop. It wasn’t exactly a “kid friendly” film, though I’m sure there were many in my elementary school that had seen it. I didn’t get to see it until college, well after I’d been exposed to far, far better special effects. Ketchup-style fake blood and stop-motion robots just didn’t do it for me, though I could at least appreciate that, for 1987, it was probably pretty cool.
The franchise consisted of 3 movies, a TV show, a cartoon, and countless toys. I suspect many fans of the character would have preferred that only the first movie existed, as just about everything after it was generally bad. That first movie, though, was prescient for its time, discussing such themes as militarization of law enforcement, drone warfare overseas, and corporations taking over the government and suppressing The People.
Perhaps 2014 is a really good time for a re-boot.
This new version of RoboCop includes similar characters, but is a pretty different movie, to my mind. This version of Alex Murphy (played by Joel Kinnaman, who is largely unknown besides starring in cult-favorite The Killing) is a devoted family man in the near future, and incorruptible cop in Detroit that makes an enemy out of the leader of a local crime ring, who swiftly takes Murphy out with a car bomb. Severely injured, his only hope is to have most of his body replaced by machine parts, “free of charge” by OmniCorp, which is run by Raymond Sellars (played by Michael Keaton).
Sellars is only doing this, though, because he wants his androids on the streets of the US. To replace police officers. His robots are already overseas fighting our wars for us, so “saving the lives of cops” (i.e. bit fat checks from local and state governments…) is his next venture. What he needs, however, is a “human face” on his cold cyborg army, so “upgrading” Murphy is his way of making it happen.
This movie, as compared with the original, focuses far more on the human element. The point at which we cease to be human and start to be machine. Murphy struggles with having control over his own body, as OmniCorp can shut him down remotely at any time. They can control how much personal decision-making can be applied in any given situation (i.e. whether to be more like a human cop, or more like an efficient, cold, robot).
On this front, I think the movie largely succeeds. It is more of a “thinking man’s RoboCop,” which sets it apart from the previous outing. It takes the original source material and updates it for our modern age, complete with a Glen Beck-style news anchor (played by Samuel L. Jackson) asking whether US Senators are “pro-crime” for not subscribing to Sellars’ world-view.
In the end, the acting was fine. The writing was fine. The effects were pretty good, but not spectacular. There were a few pretty obvious moments when we switched from “dude in costume” to “that’s a CGI dude…really obviously…” The original movie had quite a few bloody action scenes, and while this one certainly had its share, they were mostly shootouts, which can get a little boring without some hand-to-hand combat and explosions to back them up.
I thought it was good, but not great. A solid rental, but I’m glad we saw it in the regular theater rather than spending extra for IMAX. Some good ideas, but could have been more.
Brooke and Calvin went to Kansas City this past weekend for a baby shower, so Meg and I were home on Saturday by ourselves. For once, Meg did a wonderful job of staying upstairs in her room playing after she woke up and didn’t come downstairs to wake up Daddy until 8:15 or so. Believe you me, this was great.
She comes into our room and points out the time, I ask her if she slept well, and we go through our usual morning routine. I then ask her whether she closed her bedroom door so that Sam doesn’t go in (as that’s where her fish resides and I’d prefer not to deal with a half-eaten fish). She says she closed her door, and Sam’s in Calvin’s room. She also said…
“There’s a bird in Calvin’s room.”
To which I replied…
“Uh huh…”
I turn on the TV for her, get her some cereal, proceed to check the internet to see what happened overnight. Nothing too crazy. But then she brings up the bird again.
“There’s a bird up in Calvin’s room.”
“Meg, there’s no bird in Calvin’s room. Please don’t make things up.”
“But there’s a bird in Calvin’s room.”
“Meg, lying is not okay. Please don’t make things up. It isn’t very nice.”
We continued with our morning. To help entertain her a bit, I grabbed a few games for the Kindle and she sat on my lap while I showed her how to play.
A bird flew from the dining room into the living room, landing on our window blinds.
“There’s a bird, Daddy.”
“…..”
Needless to say, I apologized to Meg for not believing her, followed by me locking Sam in our bedroom while I opened the kitchen door in order to convince the bird to kindly leave our home. Thankfully, it didn’t take long and he/she left without much of a fuss.
How did this bird get in the house? No idea. Our landlord poked around yesterday and couldn’t find anything obvious, either. Best we can tell is it came in through the basement somehow, and then during the night, made its way up to the main floor and then the top floor where, thankfully, Calvin wasn’t sleeping that night.
At the very least, I know to listen to my almost-4-year-old a bit more carefully when she makes wild claims. About birds being upstairs.
We had our first substantial run-in with sickness this past week. To some degree, it’s pretty impressive it took this long. Meg’s teachers had all commented how she’s the only student in her class of 20 that had not missed a day of school since it began last Fall. That isn’t to say she hasn’t had a runny nose or anything, but she certainly hasn’t run a fever. Even Brooke and I have both come through thus far unscathed, again, aside from the aforementioned runny nose or cough.
Traditionally, my immune system has been pretty great. I’ll come down with an affliction from time to time, but it seems to be pretty rare. If I recall, I’ve had a fever exactly once in the last 3 or 4 years, and it lasted for a few hours one afternoon. So far, it appears that Meg has taken after me, at least to a degree. She has certainly gotten sick before, but she’s around a lot of kids at her preschool (inside an elementary school…) and she hasn’t come down with anything (knock on wood).
But as I’ve written before, the Demon Baby Disease is one you don’t always see coming. And this past week, it struck the one person in this post I haven’t mentioned yet:
Calvin.
This presents a few additional difficulties compared with last time around. First of all, Meg was born in March, so by the time we hit the Winter cold and flu season, she was already 8-10 months old. Calvin turned 4 months last week. So, he hasn’t been exposed to nearly as much as Meg had at this stage in the year. Secondly, it’s a little bit easier to determine what’s wrong (i.e. “where does it hurt?”) in an 8-10 month old than it is in a 4 month old. Thirdly, we have a second child that has somewhere to be, let alone our schedules with our jobs and other engagements.
All we knew about Calvin is that he was fussy last Sunday. This was followed by a fever that started early Monday morning. Fever means “no school,” but thankfully, it was Martin Luther King Day, so Meg was off school anyway. I went in to work for awhile that morning while Brooke stayed home, as her son was having his first semi-serious illness. Dealing with a sick baby and a(n almost) 4 year old can be trying, for sure, but it was made worse by the weather on Tuesday, when they cancelled school…so Meg was out again. That day, I went in crazy early and left late morning so Brooke could go in that afternoon. Wednesday, Meg could go back to school, but Brooke had to teach that morning, so I loaded up Calvin, took Meg to school, and then brought him back home until Brooke could arrive so I could go in for a few hours.
During this whole time, Calvin had a fever and a productive cough that was getting more pronounced. The fever was kinda “on and off,” where it’d get better during the day, and then rear its ugly head overnight. Brooke was the trooper for most nights, staying upstairs with him as he’d only attempt to eat from her directly and wouldn’t take a bottle from me. Really, he wasn’t eating much at all, but he was drooling enough to suggest that he wasn’t dehydrated. She took him to an Urgent Care clinic on Monday evening and they said it was a virus of some kind, so he’d just have to work through it.
By Thursday, though, he’d had a fever for (effectively) 4 days, so Brooke took him to our pediatrician. He had also developed a very minor rash on his chest, still have a 102 F fever, and via chest x-ray, apparently had early signs of pneumonia. Great.
[That last bit we didn’t know until Friday after the radiologist had looked at the scans and talked with Calvin’s pediatrician].
On my way home Friday, I picked up some antibiotics to hopefully take care of pneumonia. If you didn’t know, there’s a viral form and a bacterial form, the latter of which is more common. If the antibiotics were effective, he’d have to have bacterial pneumonia.
Thankfully, that’s what he had. As of Saturday, he was almost back to normal. His sleeping schedule is still a little bit off and his eating is steadily improving, but importantly, he’s just acting like a happy baby again. No more constant and incessant moaning and whimpering. He still has a cough, but he doesn’t get nearly as mad about it anymore, and can lull himself back to sleep after he wakes up briefly. All in all, we’re mostly back to normal. Finally.
Nana and Papa came in to visit on Saturday, which was a big help for everyone. Some much-needed “distraction” for Meg and another set of arms to hold Calvin. All in all, a good visit and just in time to help Brooke and I re-adjust ourselves after a long week of half-days at work and half-nights of sleeping.
Let’s just hope this is the last time we deal with D.B.D. for 2014…
Last year’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was something of a mixed bag. Fans of the book enjoyed it for the most part, and fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy generally liked it, but it ran long and was a tad boring for the wider audience. I thought it was pretty good, all things considered, but it was hard to judge it without having the “rest of the story” released in theaters. A few days ago, I finally got to see the second film in the series, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and I can safely say I liked it more than the previous outing.
The story of The Hobbit centers on the, er, hobbit named Bilbo (Martin Freeman), and how he joins a band of dwarves as they attempt to reclaim their ancestral mountain kingdom from a dragon named Smaug. The first film set up their meeting and initial travels, and its story suffers because of it: you feel like you’re just getting started in the story by the time the credits roll. There’s much more going on in this movie to hold the viewer’s interest. There are fewer obvious “comic relief” points cluttering up events. You aren’t being introduced to Bilbo for an hour on end. In short, the pacing feels much better in this film. However, as all of the introductions are now out of the way, the story shifts focus from Bilbo himself to the party and threat at large, adding some additional diversity to the tale.
I’m no Tolkien geek, but Peter Jackson definitely took some liberties with the plot this time around (he always does…but these feel a bit more egregious). Elves live longer than humans, and as this movie is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson took the opportunity to bring Legolas (Orlando Bloom) from the previous trilogy forward in time to play a badass in this new iteration. As the original trilogy came out 12 years ago, it’s pretty obvious he’s aged, but it’s still cool to see the character back on-screen. Jackson even created a new main character in Tauriel (Evangeline Lily) and I think it was a wise addition. The original movies had Sam Gamgees (Sean Astin) as an emotional character to help the audience know when they should feel sad, happy, scared, and so on. In the first Hobbit movie, I can’t say I felt much of an emotional connection with anyone. Tauriel adds some much needed empathy to the story and brings out some more emotion in the other characters. That, and Evangeline Lily made for a very awesome elf.
Basically, any action scene with the elves was awesome. Totally over-the-top and kinda stupid. But stupid awesome.
The last bit of “heavy changes” I’ll mention is the addition of the Necromancer, a character that’s only referred to in the book and never seen. Part-way through the book, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) leaves the party and deals with the threat of the Necromancer, then inexplicably, he returns later in the book after having battled him. We aren’t even explicitly told in the book that the Necromancer is really Sauron, the main villain from The Lord of the Rings, though Jackson makes it more clear here in the movie. I was hoping when they said that they’re making three movies out of a single book, they’d explain where Gandalf went for half the book. I’m happy they included it here.
The main dwarf character, Thorin (Richard Armitage), was improved over the previous movie. Perhaps it was because he was doing something rather than just sitting and brooding, but I felt like he was more fleshed out and interesting than in the first film. Benedict Cumberbatch also did a wonderful job voicing the entirely CGI character of Smaug. His voice was heavily obscured, but you could tell it was him in his phrasing and tempo. There’s only so much “life” you can bring to a giant CGI character and I thought he did a pretty good job.
The special effects were still great, as always, but while I saw a lot of New Zealand in the first movie, I felt like I saw a lot more green screen in this one. The locales just weren’t as expansive as in the first movie, or even the original trilogy. You didn’t need to see characters running across fields or climbing in the mountains. In this movie, they are literally going inside a mountain, so that can be done on sound stages and using heavy CGI. And it was pretty obvious. It still looked good, but not perfect.
In total, I enjoyed this one more than the previous one. If they can keep this up, the third movie will be even better. It’s a pity we have to wait until late-2014 to see it.
I listen to a lot of podcasts. A lot of podcasts. I’m subscribed to over 20 different ones currently and am far, far behind on listening to many of them. Though I tend to listen to NPR through this “time-shifted” mechanism, it’s also how I keep up on video games. Incidentally, long before the concept of a “podcast” entered our collective consciousness, those involved in the tech industry saw these recordings as a great way to engage with their communities in a way that writing articles simply didn’t: put all of your authors in a room to talk about stuff that happened in that week, so if people want to listen to your content instead of read it, then they can. As gamers tend to be technologically oriented, it makes sense that podcasts centered on video games sprung up like weeds long before any others did.
When I was first jumping back into video games, circa 2004-2005, Drunken Gamers Radio was one of the first ones I gravitated toward. It was great listening to three best friends up in Minneapolis talking about games in a very “real” sense. They weren’t people in the industry: they just had a hobby and wanted to record the stuff they talked about. And it was hilarious. Over the years as the three grew older, had families, and had less time to devote to gaming, the show branched out talking about cooking, brewing, movies, music, and more. But it was always fun just listening to three friends talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. You felt as if you had known them for years. That you went to high school together and were just hanging out on their back patio. They’ve been recording these podcasts for over 7 years now.
Another favorite is the Giant Bombcast, hosted by Giant Bomb.com. This one is more of a “traditional video game podcast” in that 5 video game journalists talk about what they played that week, recent news items, and answer e-mails from fans. Their cast of characters changed from time to time, but the core group has stayed the same for over 380 episodes. Again, similarly to DGR, listening to them for weeks (and years) on end makes it seem like you know them. They aren’t just “putting on a show” for people to listen to, or playing a role for the microphone: this is them talking about their favorite hobbies. The listener feels like they could be friends with any member of the cast.
2013 brought profound loss to both institutions. In July, about a week after his wedding, Giant Bomb’s Ryan Davis died. Though the cause of death was never officially explained to the fans, it is thought he lost his long-term battle with sleep apnea. He was 34. Then, in last October, Aaron Hilden from DGR died after complications from diabetes. He was also in his mid-30s. Both of them died suddenly and it was a great shock to both communities.
In the intervening months, Giant Bomb bounced back. Though Ryan was very much the “soul” of that podcast, the other members held strong and moved forward. It took them a few weeks to find their footing, and it still isn’t the same as it used to be, but the podcast lives and is still great. DGR, on the other hand, just recently posted its most recent (and likely final) podcast. This was a trio that began in college. It wasn’t a work relationship: these guys were best friends. The podcast always worked best when firing on all three cylinders, and the loss of one is crippling. This is further complicated by the fact that Hilden ran the show, including audio recording, production and editing. The other two can only do so much to replicate what Hilden did for them.
Hearing their most recent podcast has reminded me of my feelings after hearing the news. Sure, both of these guys were “just podcasters” for a hobby that many don’t partake in (though many do…). But you can’t help but share in their loss. I could compare it to when Cory Monteith from “Glee” died suddenly earlier this year and how millions took his loss, but I view it differently. Monteith played a character on television and that character is all I knew of him. That is to say, it’s easier to mourn “Finn Hudson” than it is Cory Monteith. I’m personally just too separated from the real person.
But Ryan Davis and Aaron Hilden? That was them. They were real people. And I “knew” their friends and colleagues. I read the outpouring of e-mails, posts and tweets after they passed and it was clear just how much they affected the lives of those around them. I may as well have been at the funeral of someone I actually knew.
These are two gentlemen I will (and already do) miss. I never met them and likely never would have. But they touched a lot of lives in a way that I don’t think either of them fully appreciated.
As Christmas fell in the middle of the week this year, our schedules were thrown into something of a tizzy. Christmas in Columbia with my family was the weekend before, we still traveled to Louisiana, MO to spend Christmas Eve with Brooke’s grandparents, we returned to St. Louis for Christmas morning so the kids could open presents under their own tree, and then we went to Hannibal for yet another Christmas celebration this weekend. That’s all with a second trip to Columbia for Meg and I between St. Louis and Hannibal destinations so I could see a few friends of mine from high school (good times had by all, by the way).
Needless to say, while the countless presents have been welcomed by our eldest, I’m sure the constant travel and disrupted sleep schedule has strained her. Still, in some ways, it helps us by having easy things to keep her occupied for days when she’d otherwise be making me play “sleepover” with her, or “hide and seek” (wherein she lays on the floor and considers this to be “hiding”…). It also helped all that traveling by having a new car to drive in…
Regardless, we had a pretty great trip. We received far too many presents, but that just goes to show how generous our two families are. Meg really enjoyed opening presents four times in a week, so getting to spread these things out over a longer period of time than usual was nice for her. Christmas just kept on coming!
Though I knew this phase of my life was coming, it’s starting to become even more evident that Christmas is becoming less and less “for me,” at least with regards to the “magic of Christmas.” I’m not talking about the religious aspect of the holiday, but more the shift from childhood to adulthood, where Christmas was such a big deal for a large portion of my early life. It still is, but now, it’s more of a big deal for my kids than it is for me. I still love Christmas, don’t get me wrong, but it’s beginning to take on a new meaning: where it’s now my job to make Christmas magical for my kids rather than make it enjoyable for myself. I hope that doesn’t sound “bah humbug”-ish, and maybe it’s just something I need to try and work on for next year, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.
Still, watching Meg open her presents (and Calvin in the coming years…he was kinda useless at opening things this year…) was enough “magic” for me. It wasn’t the same, watching someone else open presents as opposed to me opening presents, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be as meaningful. It certainly was this year.
Everyone here could beat me up. Even the old woman
Thanks to a set wonderful grandparents, Brooke and I took the opportunity to offload the kids for an afternoon so we could go see a movie. We’ve both read the three books in the Hunger Games trilogy (Brooke’s read the first one more than once…), but we didn’t see the first movie in theaters. Of the three books, the second one, Catching Fire, was my favorite because, while it still included “The Games” like the first did, and the associated action set pieces, it also brought the larger conflict of the world into the story with more political dealings. All three books really put their focus on the character of Katniss Everdeen at the expense of showing the reader the rest of what’s going on everywhere else in the world (i.e. they’ll refer to events but won’t show them to you; it’s all second-hand). The second book, and especially the third, start to open that up quite a bit more, yielding a bit more interesting storytelling, in my opinion.
We both thought the first movie did a good job of balancing the content from the source material with the special effects needed to make your money back in theaters nowadays. Thankfully the sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, continues in that vein. I haven’t read the book for a few years, but we both agreed that, while there were definitely a few things left out, most of the key story beats were present, and even the ending was nearly identical to the book.
The story this time out centers on Jennifer Lawrence‘s character, Katniss, and how she has dealt with being one of two Victors of the 74th Hunger Games, held each year between the 12 Districts of Panem (in a future-ish version of the United States where the government collapsed, leaving a reorganization of, well, everything…). Because of the way the previous movie/story ended, the President of Panem, Snow (brilliantly played by Donald Sutherland), seeks revenge upon Everdeen for stirring up conflict between the Districts: conflict that could lead to revolution and his own downfall. He and his cronies devise a special 75th Hunger Games that pits the previous winners from each District against each other yet again, thereby setting up a reason for us to return to the Games for a second movie/story.
The movie’s about 2.5 hrs long, so it does feel like it drags a little bit during the first half. Having read the third book, however, I didn’t mind it because what some folks would see as “filler” is really “foundation” for the third story (and the next twomovies…which, as is the trendnowadays, are both drawn from the final book, split in half…). In that vein, there have been a few reviews out there that appear to criticize the movie for being a bit slower than the first one. Again, I feel, this stems from those that haven’t read the books and haven’t seen events in their full context. When we saw the movie, the woman in front of us saw the ending and was genuinely surprised that, apparently, “there’s going to be another one.”
To us, having read the books, we thought it was pretty good. The action was fun, the effects were still as good or better than other major motion pictures pull off, the acting is as good as one would expect (especially from an Academy Award winner…), and it’s still cool to watch a pretty good read play out on the big screen without dramatic changes. It’s pretty important that you see the first movie before this one (well duh…), but if you’ve got the time to read the books, I think you’d get more out of it.
We’d been discussing a 2010 Subaru Forester for awhile, largely because they hold their value substantially longer than other vehicles, they’re reliable, and they have all-wheel drive standard. However, considering the value of our trade-in (which wasn’t much…), it just wasn’t going to be feasible anytime soon…
“Anytime soon” was accurate. Since getting that car, Brooke in particular hasn’t been all that happy with it. It had a few issues, for sure, and the interior didn’t really instill you with the feeling that it was a “nice” vehicle. Still, it worked. It drove. It rode pretty well for long distances. In retrospect, however, we put at least $3000 in maintenance and repairs into a car that we were still making payments on, so we never really felt secure in its reliability.
That, and it didn’t have a moonroof. My 1993 Nissan Altima that I drove in college had a moonroof. And I loved it. And I missed it.
A few weeks ago, we started looking into whether it was getting time to upgrade. Not necessarily whether it would happen now, but more questioning of when it could happen. After making a few calls, going on a test drive, and looking into things, we ended up taking the plunge: we’re the proud owners of a 2014 Subaru Forester 2.5i. And I couldn’t be happier. 🙂
It’s fun to drive, it’s got all-wheel drive, it has Bluetooth integration, it has a rear-backup camera, it has heated seats (and side mirrors!!), it has a timing chain, it has CVT, it actually moves when you press the accelerator…and most of all…it has a spectacular moonroof. It’s pretty tech-laden, so I’m having to read through the instruction manual on this one to get everything figured out. It’s a nice problem to have, at least for someone like me. Meg likes the moonroof too, but probably likes the cup holder next to her seat better.
And the plan is, she’ll get to drive it some day. When we bought Brooke’s 2006 Scion xA new, the plan was (and is) to “drive it into the ground,” or at least as close as we can. We’ve got about 97,000 mi on it now and had almost zero issues with it. The one issue we did have was with the blower motor resistor, and I was able to fix that myself. We’ll probably end up replacing it eventually, but likely not until we’re done making payments on the Subaru. And the Subaru, we’ll keep as long as we can. Now, for the first time, we’ve got two cars we bought off the lot, getting exactly what we wanted with the intent of keeping them for a long time.
Regardless, we’re excited! It’s fun to drive and now we want to go on a long trip to Colorado or Yellowstone. 🙂
