Our Living Room is Now an Ikea Showroom
Cheri and I took the plunge today and finally replaced our grimy old couch. We got the Ektorp loveseat from Ikea with the cover that matches our other chair (not pictured).
Yesterday we reserved a pick-up truck to rent from Avis to haul the couch from Ikea to our apartment. We did this because it was much cheaper than having the loveseat delivered ($80 versus $300).
We had made the reservation to pick up the truck this morning at 10 am. When we got there we were told that the truck was being brought in from another location and would be there shortly. Shortly translated to 90 minutes. We were easily upset since we wanted to return the truck the same day. When the truck finally arrived I asked for a discount and the Avis guy surprisingly gave me one. He knocked $30 off our rental. Cheri and I were pleased as we drove down to Ikea to pick up our new couch.
While we were down there we saw a coffee table we liked too that was on sale and went ahead and picked it up. As you can see from the picture its been put to good use.
Photobug
Ever since my graduation, I’ve been taking lots of photos with my new Nikon D80. Here are some highlights from our recent camping trip to Heavenly Acres in Greene County, Virginia:
This is a shot of the South River in Greene County, Virginia. We were out there camping and we stumbled across this small river while looking for some good places for pictures. I shot this in manual mode at 90 mm, 1/3 sec SS, f/22, ISO 100. I used my tripod and the time delay setting to avoid shaking the camera while taking the long exposure. I also took this at dusk so that the image didn’t over expose. I made sure to use a small aperture to allow for a large depth of field.
While we were driving around, my father-in-law’s GPS indicated we were near Greene Acres Lake. What we found was this. For this shot, I used manual at 55 mm, 1.3 sec SS, f/18, and ISO 100. Since this was at dusk and I used a long shutter speed, I set the camera on my tripod and used the time delay to avoid any shaking. The small aperture allowed me to get most of the photo in focus.
This picture was taken at Big Meadows in the Shenandoah National Park. For this photo, I used shutter priority mode at 200 mm, 1/200 sec SS, f/29, and ISO 400. In order to get the silhouette of the tree I made sure to meter for the sky. I did this by aiming at the sky (with no tree or ground in view), pressed halfway down on my shutter button to determine the needed settings, then aimed down to get the tree and ground in view. This allowed the camera to get the sky exposed correctly while underexposing the ground to give me that silhouette.
While we were on a trail that paralleled the Rapidan River, I stumbled across an area that had a lot of bumblebees and other bugs flying around. So I crouched down, set my camera to shutter priority with a very high shutter speed (to try to freeze the motion of the flying insects), and set my camera to burst mode (to keep taking pictures as I held the shutter button down). This was one of the few shots that came out. Here I used (like I said) shutter priority, 200 mm, 1/2000 sec SS, f/8, and ISO 400. Since it was a bright day out, I also had my exposure compensation dial set to -2.
You can see the rest of the photos from our camping trip on my flickr page.
Eric the Deer Slayer
I guess I never got around to blogging about my first deer-hitting experience.
A few Mondays ago (March 31 to be exact), I was minding my own business — driving to work, my normal routine. My work hours are from 7 am to 3:30 pm, so it was pretty dark. I work on the Marine Corps Base in Quantico — a veritable venison buffet. I’m usually very careful when driving on base, since there are so many deer around and much of the base roads are not lit very well.
I was only about a mile away from my job when all of a sudden, there was a deer on my friggin’ hood. I was just driving along, rocking out to something on my iPod (P!nk, probably), and then WHAM — a doe went a flyin’. Obviously, I was really scared and freaked and worried. I wasn’t worried about the deer (which I’m pretty sure was dead), I was mainly worried about my car — a 2008 Honda Civic I just purchased in January.
[Sidenote: I was told by no less than THREE people that Virginia law states that I can keep the deer.]
I pulled over to the side of the road and called the police and then my insurance company (Progressive). I was able to get pictures taken by the police (which I don’t have, but I probably should request them for posterity’s sake). Luckily, my insurance company has a concierge service for when you need to make a claim. They were able to come tow my car, take it to a body shop/mechanic, and give me a rental. Since I have rental car coverage on my insurance, I didn’t have to pay for my rental.
I was called within 48 hours with an estimate for the damages. It turned out to be about $4000 worth of damage (the hood, headlights, bumper, panel, radiator, AC condenser, fan, plus a bunch of other little things). There was no damage to the frame of the car, so everything was replaceable. I only had to pay my $500 deductible. I got my car back this past Monday and you can’t even tell that it ever hit a deer.
Hopefully, this will be my last deer hitting experience.
The New Car Smell
Originally uploaded by fallenposters
Today, Cheri and I purchased our very first, brand new vehicle. We bought a 2008 Honda Civic LX Sedan.
Since I’ll be starting a new job down in Quantico a week from Monday, we realized that I would need a car to get down there (we live in Fairfax, and we only had one car — I previously used the Metro to get to work). For the past month or so, we did some researching and decided that the car we wanted was a new Honda Civic.
We decided this because Hondas are reliable, have little maintenance costs, and get great gas mileage (something I’ll need on my hour-long commute). Once we decided what kind of car we wanted, we went through Edmunds.com and e-mailed a number of different dealers throughout the area asking for quotes for the 2008 LX Sedan model. I made the mistake of giving them my phone number and subsequently was hounded by dealers for at least two weeks.
After sorting through all the quotes, I found that Koon’s Honda in Manassas was offering the best price (almost two thousand less than we were budgeting for). So I e-mailed them and asked to set up an appointment to come in today around noon.
Before we decided to come to the dealership, we wanted to go to our credit union first to get pre-approved for a car loan. All the articles I’ve read online have recommended getting pre-approved from a credit union or a bank before going to a dealership. This typically will give you a better APR than the dealer will be able to offer — plus, you’ll already have the money before you go get the car, thus it gives you a maximum you’re willing to spend. Our credit union gave us a great deal, so we were now ready to head to the dealer.
When we arrived, we perused the cars on the lot before asking for the salesman that gave us the quote over the internet. He was a real nice guy (I would think he would need to be). We were shown the cars they had and we took the one I liked for a test drive (a nice dark blue model). The test drive went well (of course) and then we went inside to discuss the cost of the car. Our salesman immediately offered us the car at the quoted price. We were happy with that price, so we agreed and got the paper work started.
After filling out some paperwork and calling my insurance company to get us started with a new policy for the car, we were introduced to a couple of different people at the dealership. The first person was a woman (who’s name escapes me) that sat us down trying to sell us things like an extended warranty, undercoating, Teflon paint sealant, and a bunch of other crap we didn’t want nor need. We politely listened to her sales pitch and declined her immediately. Cheri and I could see on her face that she was pissed (she probably works mainly on commission). After we declined her offers, she said some snarky remark to us and left the table.
At this point, I think we should have left because we didn’t appreciate getting attitude from some over-tanned spinster. But we decided to let it slide and just cooled down before meeting the business manager. He tried to once again sell us an extended warranty and he tried to get us to finance through them instead of through the credit union. Once again we politely declined, but at least he was nice about it and let it go.
Finally, after all the bullcrap, we were able to write the dealer a check for the amount we agreed upon from our quote, and then we were out of there. Overall, the whole experience only took about 2 and a half hours.
We’re extremely happy with the car and look forward to taking it on plenty of trips along with taking my butt to work. The next step I think will be getting a new car for Cheri sometime in the next year. Now that we know how to buy a car, I think we’ll be much more comfortable with the process next time.
