Okay, no, I didn't. I placed an order for a car- there isn't any hard money down on it, but I gave the paperwork/information for the VA Auto grant (which gives $18,900) and the Semper Fi Fund grant (another $5,000) and told them the options and things that I want on this car. And they're going to talk to people to figure things out on Monday, and then the 'build' order will be in the system, they'll call me to confirm that it's being built, and in about 6 weeks, I will have a car!
What is it, you ask?
Well!
It's a 2013 Ford...
Focus....
ST...
With the top trim package, which has full-leather Recaro seats, and interior ambient lighting, and it will have a moonroof, and 18" wheels on summer performance tires, and a single hexagonal central rear exhaust tip...
And it's going to be a special color:
TANGERINE SCREAM.
No, that is NOT 'orange'. It's yellow.
I'm pretty damn excited (just in case you couldn't tell!)See, my favorite part about this car is actually the interior. It's just very well-made. I mean, no, it's not a Porsche with all-leather-covered surfaces, and it's not a Lamborghini, with a quilted-Alacantra headliner. But it's good quality, it's not made of cheap scratchy plastic, and it's packed with technology. The steering wheel has full controls for the music *and* for the Bluetooth that will connect to your phone, and the Navigation system, which is all run through the touch-screen panel that's set into the center control stack. (above the radio and A/C controls)
Oh, A/C- it has dual climate control in the front.
Did I mention the Recaro seats? Yeah- the things grip you and don't let you slide around much. Or, really, at ALL. They're nice.
The rear bench seat is also by Recaro- obviously it's not form-fitting like the front seats, but it's still nice and it's good leather.
FUCK. YEAH. BITCHES. it's pretty tight.
Mine will also have HID headlights, with LED daytime running lights.
It uses a keyless start, which means that if you have the key in your pocket it will start- but only if the key is actually within the car. And you can open the doors if you just pull on them while you have the key- you don't have to actually unlock them.
So that's very cool. Two months, and I'll have my awesome nice new car! I'm going to tint the windows- as dark as they can all go in Maryland, so that they're all the same color- and, depending on the cost, I'm planning to have the front doors modded with 'lambo-hinges' (the ones that swing the doors open vertically!)
Now, there's actually a very good reason for that last one! See, when I'm parked next to someone else's car, and I open my door to get out, it's difficult to get my left leg out because it isn't as flexible as my right, and with the door only partially opened, the angle between the edge of the door frame and the door itself is very tight near the front- where my foot has to go on the ground. Having the vertical hinges will mean that the door is totally out of the way of my foot. (seriously, I'm going to see if I can get any extra money to get that done- it's an adaptive modification!)
Anyways, that's enough of that.
And... well, I don't really have anything else to say beyond that.
Except that today, I was intellectually 'served'. Yeah. By an Asian kid.
Yup.
One of my friend's friends gave her a riddle to solve, and she got it in about 20 minutes. I looked at it for about 2, and couldn't make any sense out of the thing.
I'm telling myself that because they're Asian, maybe they're understanding this thing differently than I am, or that she made typos when writing it to me, or.... something like that.
But really, I'm just pretty sure that I've been outsmarted by two Asian teenagers.
Which makes me very ashamed. Really, very embarrassed. (I can admit this on this blog, see, because I'm pretty sure that no one is really reading this, so it's all good, and now I can feel better because I admitted it- but not more embarrassed because now everyone knows my inadequacies)
See, I'm fairly certain that my intellectual properties have been somewhat diminished since my enlistment in the Marine Corps. See, in the Corps, you aren't exactly encouraged to philosophize. You don't really have time to read- when I got off in Afghanistan, we went back to the hooch and laid down- most of us would pull out laptops and watch movies and shit, but the lights went off so that guys who wanted to could sleep. So it wasn't easy to do any reading, and after 3 months of having no real books in Boot Camp, and another month in MCT, and then Comm School where days were 'school-school-school-school relax eat sleep school-school-school PT eat sleep school-...' it wasn't easy to do. So I- I used to read an awful lot,m really, and I wasn't big on movies. Now, I'm much bigger on movies, and I don't really read very much. I'm trying to change that and read more, but it's still SO much EASIER to lie down and pull out the laptop and a movie and half-pass-out while the movie's playing in the background, than it is to sit up with a book and read for a few hours....
And now, I think I'm actually seeing the results of this. Hey, maybe the riddle as it was told to me was a translation, and didn't translate well; maybe there was a typo. Whatever.
Or, maybe I'm really just slipping a bit.
I'll think the latter, because it motivates me to do more work.
That's all.
Out.
