New car shopping

I'm not at all a "car guy" -- I just like something that gets me from Point A to Point B with as little hassle as possible.  "Point A" is my home, on Mercer Island, and "Point B" is my office, 13 miles away in Redmond.  I rarely drive on weekends, because I'm with my family in our Honda Odyssey.  For the past ten years, I have driven my faithful Nissan Altima because it did the A to B thing just fine and that's all I needed.

Well, last week after work my car wouldn't start. A quick jump from a friend got me home, but it reminded me that one of these days I will have to admit that it's time to find another car.  But which one?

Obviously the most important thing to me is the gadgets.  More than anything else (horsepower, appearance, speed), I need the car to have lots of toys. "Everything but rocket launchers", as one guy tells me.

Since I'm officially a member of Friends of the FJ, one of my first stops is to Terrygold.com and an informative post about how to put a computer in your car. Then of course there's Rob Chambers, who's been running Windows in his car for longer than anybody else I know.

Since I expect that this car, like my previous one, will be mine for a long time I'm not terribly concerned about price. Sure, I want a good deal, but I'm more interested in getting a good car.  I'm not buying an old clunker, or a shiny new Yaris just to save a few bucks.  I'm old enough, I have a job, and it's time for me to drive something that fits me.

My old friend from MSTV, Michael Cuneo, was exactly like me as far as cars go, hanging on to his Geo Metro for years because he just wanted something reliable and cheap. But two years ago he bought himself a nice BMW 3-series and, boy, was he proud. He even started taking the long way home from work because it was so fun to drive.

So now that I'm done with Vista, I'm going to splurge. I'm going to study up and test drive until I get the car I want.