Boat is out of the water

Saturday I bought Rob’s 1993 Land Cruiser and depleted his stock of LandCruisers down to 2. Fortunately the Bank Of Rob has not discontinued their liar loan sub prime products and I was able to use creative financing to get the deal done. Thanks Rob!

Anyone want to buy a beat up about to fall apart Neon that is currently lost in Wedgewood? :)

Saturday night we supported local hockey by watching the T-Birds win 6-4 and then supported the arts and Shunpike by drinking at LoFi:

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Sunday with lots of help from Ming I took my boat of the water:

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We had fun figuring out how to get the tow hitch installed, breaking and entering into a boat launch and getting lost in Bothell/Kirkland.

Anyone want to buy a 1998 MasterCraft Maristar?

A note on SUV ownership: I worry about owning a gas guzzling SUV and plan to assuage my guilt by first of all not driving it to work. Fortunately I live close enough that I can bike to work in five minutes, walk in twenty minutes or catch a bus that stops a block away. Secondly, I plan to buy some carbon offsets for the few miles I will put on the vehicle driving to the ski hill.

Morale event at the Ferrari dealership

I live beside a Ferrari and Maserati dealership; this is the view out my window:

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So when Jeff mentioned that he had a voucher for free Omaha steaks if he test drove a Maserati we decided to have a small morale event. This week the two of us took an hour off work and took one of their new Quattroporte Automatic’s for a ride (this dealer gets 35 a year.) It was very Entourage with Jeff driving and me riding shotgun. Sadly the pre-defined route was through a school zone so I don’t think we ever got above second. However we did find out some trivia:

  • The waiting list for a Ferrari here is 3-4 years
  • You can’t test drive any of their Ferrari’s. But you can trade it in if you don’t like it
  • There is an underground storage facility but it is very top secret. Apparently it houses A LOT of Ferraris for rich people whose garages are full
  • Ferrari’s don’t really depreciate
  • But you can get into an older one for $90k
  • Jeff says all their prices are inflated but that makes sense in case they get a lotto winner walking in
  • They’re considering opening a Bellevue location
  • Most of their inventory is on Craigslist

How much longer until that IPO? Apparently with a 3-4 year waiting list we should reserve ours now. Turns out you don’t need to pay a deposit until four months before it ships.

The funny thing is that we took the bus back to the office. Ah, to dream.

Links 11-27-06

Doormat

Nice.

Available at DormGear.

Alarm clock

One of these days I’ll get a new alarm clock… Perhaps this one, ON-OFF:


Road bike

Friday night I bought a used 56″ Specialized Allez Elite Triple (model year unknown) via Craigslist. It’s got an aluminum frame, carbon fork & seatpost and Shimano 105 components. I’m looking forward to ripping around Seattle on it this summer!


Specialized Allez Elite Triple road bike


Now I just need to pick up some SPD pedals for it and I’m set (I’m baffled that there are two SPD systems, one for mountain bikes and one for road bikes. So in the interest of minimizing the number of shoes I have I’m just going to go with SPD for both my bikes, instead of SPD for my MTB and SPD-SL for my roadbike).

Indoor grilling

Jenn-Air: Jenn-Air® 30″ Gas Downdraft Cooktop


Do you have a favorite indoor grill?


Update: I’ve learned that these indoor grills have larger than normal venting requirements potentially making it difficult to put in a renovated space or in a new development that was designed to support them.

Minimalist bike storage

Cycloc, minimalist bike storage.

Designer alarm clocks

I’ve been looking to replace my ugly white fifteen year old Sony alarm clock with something a bit more modern (complete with glow in the dark stars that my sister put on when she borrowed it). My family did some investigation and turned up a Jacob Jensen designed alarm clock. It appears to be a bit hard to find to purchase, but certainly looks nice: