Monday Evening

I'm sitting inside safe and warm while the rain's pouring down outside. Dixie's at her usual spot on her bed sound asleep. Not too much exercise for her today, given that it's been raining all day. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get in our morning walk.

This past Friday, which I took off from work for Veteran's Day, I traded in my car and bought a brand spanking new 2007 Toyota Corolla LE from Watertown Toyota. I'm so happy with my new car. I love it. I now have remote keyless entry, cruise control (which is very cool), electric windows, and a CD player that holds 6 CD's. It's color is indigo pearl something - it looks navy blue with a little sparkle added. And, the best part, I was able to pay cash for it so it is mine with no strings attached.

I was talking to the salesman about the breaking in period and he said that Toyota now runs the engines for 12,000 miles before they're installed in the car so there is no breaking in period. You get in and go. When I left the lot, the car had 51 miles on it. Today I drove down to New Bedford and back for work and it now has close to 200 miles on the odometer. The car I traded in, my '98 Corolla, had 146,735 miles on it - and was running strong. I averaged about 32 mpg. in that car. My new car is supposed to get 32 mpg city and 41 mpg highway.

The mechanic I took my old car to, and will be taking my new one to, told me that he saw no reason why I couldn't have gotten 200,000 miles out of it. I tell ya, Toyota's will run forever.

The only thing I don't like about the new car is the antenna that sits atop the rear of the roof. I think it looks ugly. On the other hand, I'm thinking about afixing something on it so I can find it easier in a parking lot.

I went out today and bought a new digital camera. I had dropped my old Nikon Coolpix one too many times, I guess, and it stopped working. Now I have a 6 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot. Interestingly, it uses AA batteries instead of a ni-cad. The sales guy at Best Buy said that digital cameras are getting slimmer and until you get into the over $200 range most all of them use AA's. I got rechargable batteries and a charger to go with it.

So things are looking up at the moment. The Ravens won on Sunday and went to 7 - 2. The Patriots lost but I don't really care. I was finally able to watch a Ravens game two weeks ago when they beat the Bengals. I tell you, up here in New England you don't get too many Baltimore games. Once the play offs start and the Ravens are kicking butt I may be able to watch a few more games.