Day In The Life of Baz

A few days ago I was driving down to go to the store. It was early afternoon. Since summer is fast approaching, it has been hot down here for some time now, but that day it was a beautiful 69 degrees outside. I got in the car, rolled down the windows and enjoyed the window blow in my hair face. It was a great day.

I was sitting at a red light in a little bit of traffic and I noticed something that shocked me a little bit. I could see condensation dropping from the car to the left of me. Yep, all the windows were rolled up and, no doubt, the A/C was on. Now, to recap, we’re not on the highway doing 60 mph so we don’t need the windows up to reduce drag. We’re on a suburban street with a speed limit of 40 mph and we’re sitting at a light. And it’s bloody 69 degrees out. I peered into the window and noticed that an elderly woman was driving, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt: maybe she has some sort of problem, maybe she can’t stand the sun.

After a long trip and a wonderful weekend in Wichita Falls, I got back to Plano and gas was still $2.79 at my favorite RaceTrac gas station. I could not believe my luck. I purposefully did not fill up in Wichita Falls because it was like $2.89 up there. When I came back down, I was wondering whether or not I had made a mistake. I expected to be slapped in the face on Monday with gas at $3.10 or something, but I wasn’t. I went through Monday almost empty and finally filled up today.

My luck seems to have held out so far, but with the summer quickly approaching, I’m not looking forward to shelling out $3.00+ per gallon. I suppose it cannot be avoided. I do have the slight comfort of using my gas card, that gives me an introductory (first 3 months) rate of 6% cash back on gas purchases. So at $3.00, it would be the equivalent of paying $2.82. 18 cents, not a big deal right? Wrong, it’s a very big deal to me. I’m sure if gas was 18 cents cheaper right now it would be a big deal to you.

Since I’ve moved into my new apartment for my new job, I’ve been relying on Lava’s car. That was the best idea we could come up with at the time. She loaned me the car for a few months until I could get on my feet. How long that’s supposed to take, who knows? She’s in school right now and doesn’t really need a car right now. She is living in the same apartment complex as many of her friends, all of whom have cars; so she can get to the store if she needs to. There is also a shuttle that takes students to school so she’s covered all around. It is, at best, a bit of an inconvenience for her because she has to rely on people to get stuff done. And, of course, she can’t go to her favorite place in the world (Walmart) and walk aimlessly through the isles while looking for nothing in particular. But this time has come to an end. She going to be taking a class where she will need to get to different places around to different places and she needs her car.

I’ve gotten quite attached to her car actually, I mean I did pick it out last year when she was in desperate need of one. I even got the car payment in my automatic bill pay on my credit card. But all good things come to an end sometime. So, I needed to find a car and relatively quickly. Step number one was to go online. I had a budget in mind, so I decided to work with that. The problem is I didn’t really see anything very appealing in the budget. There were tons of Kias, a few Chevy Malibus, Nissan Sentras, a million Chevy Cavaliers, Hyundai Elantras, of course Accents, and one or two Mitsubishi Lancers.

First off, I have a predjusdice when it comes to American cars. They just don’t last as long, bottom line. This has been debated again and again, but out of all the cars that I’ve seen exceeding 100,000 miles, most of them are Japanese cars. And the few American cars I’ve seen in this category aren’t in good condition. Some may argue that it all depends on how you take care of the car, etc, etc. Some may argue that American cars have come a long way since then and that right now they are on par and may even exceed the quality of Japanese cars. I don’t really have time for arguing and I just have a preference.

Honda and Toyota

Based on this preference, I would have really wanted a Honda. A nice lil’ Honda Civic. Great on gas, very reliable, but also costs an arm and a leg. Although I would have loved a Honda, I’m not one of those Honda By Any Means guys. Who would pick up a ten year old Honda, because it’s a Honda. After Honda, Toyota would of course be the next one on my list, but this comes down the the same thing, they just cost too damn much.

Popularity: 10%

First of all we need to pick a car wash. There are drive throughs with brushes, there are drive throughs without brushes, and there are the self service car washes. I’ve tried all three and I’ll have to go with the last one. When I was in the drive through with the brushes, it sounded so violent when I was in there. It seems that even the soft touch car washes are hard on the car. The brushless wash or laser was as they called it was interesting. First of all, it was ridiculously expensive. Also, when I got done my windows and mirrors were still dirty.

This leaves me with the self service hand washes. I love these, except for the foaming brush, but I’ll touch on that later.

1. BYOS - Bring Your Own Supplies

Don’t rely on engine degreaser and tire cleaner from the hose. First of all, they shoot mass quantities of it out from a hose, how effective can it be? You’re much better off grabbing some supplies over the counter at your local Auto Zone or my personal favorite, Walmart.

I just spent bought about 3 and 1/2 gallons of gas today. Now why the hell would I do that you ask. That’s just under a 1/4 tank of gas for me, so what’s my point? It’s almost Easter and a lot of people are going to be traveling on Friday since it’s a long weekend, including me. Given the current trend in gas prices, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the price is going to spike on Wednesday or Thursday. The demand is about to be high for gas, so that stations, like they always do, are going to raise prices so that they can cash in for the holiday. So, it’s in your best interest to fill up a couple days before a big holiday.

This strategy works brilliantly for holidays and also in general. If you notice that gas is steadily increasing, catch it before it continues to rise. It is highly unlikely that prices are going to drop, so holding out and running on that last couple 2 gallons on gas waiting for the price to drop, it’s going to help you in the least bit.