1:55 p.m. - 2004-05-23
just your average week, really

A week full of out-of-the ordinary situations adds up to another average week around these parts. The highlights:

Laklak arrived on Saturday [see the Cast page for info on her] to begin her summer in the Bay Area working for SimCompany. We called our old friend Joshy, who joined us all day Sunday for video games, dinner at Bucca di Beppo [natch] and drinking. I'm not entirely sure why, but while drunk we signed Joshy up for Orkut. Then we spent hours just reminiscing and playing more video games.

M3 arrived today [since he was offered the internship so close to E3 it took them an extra week to get him down here.] Joshy has been called, and we're probably going to repeat the entire process tonight [but replace Bucca di Beppo with turkey burgers on the grill Max gave us. Thanks Max!]

It really is pretty wacky that we're all ending up in the same place for another summer. I lived with Laklak and Hunter lived with M3 during our junior summer. The conditions were pretty bad (we lived dirt-poor on the 5th floor of a shitty dorm without air conditioning) but we made the best of it and had a good time. Now we've got cars, a big giant TV, and multiple rooms! My god! And the stream of people coming into the Bay Area has not subsided. Ira arrives in 2 weeks, along with one or two other grad school alums.

Hunter graduated on Sunday from grad school. It would have been my graduation too, if I had been able to get the money back in June to continue to attend school. Sigh. But I'm happy now. It was a terribly unceremonious graduation, because he didn't even go back to Pittsburgh for it. He just woke up on Monday morning with a brand new Master's degree in his name. I guess they'll send him his degree, or something.

SimParentCompany brought the director of visual effects for the LOTR trilogy to speak to employees on Thursday. It was pretty cool - lots of pre-vis footage and test shots and animatics. At one point, parts of the Battle of Pellenor Fields scenes were taking 2 days to render...PER FRAME. Aieeeee.

On Monday I got a call from Peter, my friend from my Disney summer. I had emailed him a few weeks ago and received no response. He finally called me just as he was leaving Disney Casting in Orlando. Yep... he's working for Disney World now. At least for the summer. He's with their New Technology Group, and I know he's going to have the time of his life. It was good to talk with him - I really do wish I could get the time to go out to Orlando but I don't think that's going to happen before he leaves, what with us going final in mid-August and all. He also said he missed me, and complimented me on my new Orkut picture (one of the shots from my headshot session in April) - he said "this one really does you justice." Peter's a really sweet guy, and that little comment made my day. He's going to do amazing things at Disney this summer. Time for him to enjoy the magical Cast ID and all of the privileges it brings! I'm very happy for him.

So. Yeah, um.... I bought my first car.

Hunter and I have very different schedules quite often, and the addition of Laklak and M3 to the mix, who will not have cars this summer, makes things even more complicated [since we want to be there for them when they need to go places, within reason.] I've been flirting with the idea for a while, but I was nervous. Cars are expensive, and it's a very grownup thing to do that comes with a lot of responsibility. Aside from buying a house, it's one of the last big steps to complete independence and adulthood, and I was holding back.

After Lak arrived, I realized that the whole one-car thing wasn't working out, and I began looking online for used cars. But I wasn't finding any particularly good deals, and frankly, none of the used cars I was seeing excited me. I was holding out in my heart for a hybrid. I've always hated how wasteful cars seem [LA is really immensely depressing for that reason] and I wanted my first car to play nice with the environment. Especially since it's a second car for the household and we're already polluting enough as it is.

(Oh, and the $2.50/gallon prices for gas out here certainly didn't help either.)

But hybrids aren't on the used market yet, and the Toyota Prius (my initial choice) is on a six-month waiting list - and selling above sticker price! A little investigation turned up that a local dealership had a handful of Honda Civic Hybrids on the lot. (They're really the only other hybrid car on the market to date.)

I requested a quote, and they gave me a quote below sticker within minutes (I love the Internet.) On something of a whim, I decided to schedule an appointment for a test drive for Thursday.

Hunter and Lak came with me to the dealership. I was nervous and didn't really know what to expect, having never done this before. I found the salesperson who had given me the quote - she told me the color I wanted had already been sold, but they had 2 silver ones left. The next ones weren't coming in until late June. I ended up liking the silver color better anyway [classier], so we went ahead with a test drive.

Well, the test drive went well, and I liked the car. So we sat down, and I talked with the salesperson. She asked if I was a college grad, and I said yes - two years ago. [Has it been that long?] As it turns out, Honda has a New Grads program that lets people with no credit histories get an auto loan without a cosigner - but only up to two years after graduation. The fact that it was almost two years to the day since I graduated seemed a bit of serendipity, and quite possibly a sign.

At this point, I decided to apply for the loan, assuming I would get denied. The combination of the below-sticker price, lack of waiting period, hybrid-ness and their financing deal was just too good to pass up. If I got rejected, I would still buy a car, but then at least I'd shut up about wanting a hybrid since I couldn't afford it. I was SURE they'd come back and say "What are you thinking? You can't afford a car! Go away!"

But as it turns out, I was approved! I put down a $5000 down payment [I've saved a lot in this past year]... and after about 5,000 signatures, they handed me two sets of keys and walked me to my new car. It had just arrived on the lot not one day prior.

I was a little bit in shock as I took the wheel of this thing - "wait, this is MY car? They're letting me take this off the lot?" Hunter and Lak cheered when I drove past them in it. I had bought a new car. I called my parents to tell them the good news, and they were of course excited. (This particular model is one of the safest cars on the market so they approved of the choice ;) )

The next morning, I awoke with a start about 30 minutes before my alarm went off in a fit of buyer's remorse-induced panic. "Wait, I did WHAT? I bought a new car?!?!" I shook Hunter awake and asked him if I had done a silly thing, to which he replied "no, of course not" and told me to go back to sleep.

Morning panic aside, I am very happy with my car. It runs well, it's cute [although admittedly not the most "fun" car in the world] and I'm really happy to have an environmentally kind car. And the independence it's giving me is great. I took Lak up to our old haunting grounds in the East Bay for some shopping today, and I didn't have to orchestrate the use of Hunter's Jetta to do it.

I guess this means I'm a grown-up now, eh?

It's funny how far things have come since last year (I know, I say that all the time.) A year ago, I couldn't get more college loans for the life of me. Now, I have a car. Stupid credit system.

So...How does the car work? Well, the car has both a gasoline engine and an electrical engine. The car uses gas to maintain speed. The electrical system kicks in when you're starting the car, accelerating or in other conditions. When you brake, there are special systems installed on the axles that reclaim some of the momentum as energy to charge the battery, which is how the electrical system gets its power. Also, the car shuts down at stop lights to save energy. It's pretty cool... it's totally silent. It starts up again when you let your foot off the brake or hit the accelerator. The instrument panel has an extra dial with "charging" and "assist" meters - so you can see when the battery is getting power and when you're using gas. Someone online remarked that this gave driving a distinct "video game" feel as you're trying to maximize your gas mileage, and I'd have to agree. I'm having fun. I'm actually - gasp! - looking forward to driving.

In other news, the acquisition of said hybrid car probably places me squarely in the Yuppie column.

Graduations, cars, Disney, and college friends: another average week in the Hunt and Athena household. :)

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