Josh and Erin in the Twin Cities

Ok, I don't know why, and it is not entirely rational, but for some reason I am dying to buy a car. And not just any car, I want to buy a nice car. A sports car. A car that has very little practicality to it.

What is it about living in the US that makes me want to own a car when I have so clearly demonstrated over the last month that I do not need one? Does it have anything to do with living in the US? Or is it strictly because I am a gearhead and want to have something to tinker on? It's weird, but I look at cars when I am on the bus on the way home and think of how it would be to own that car, or when I see one in our retail lot I do the same. I know the rational, responsible thing would be to wait until we have more saved and pay cash and not have a loan, but for some reason, I am jonesing for a car. As I wrote in my last blog post, E is fully, completely sick of hearing about car x and y and how cool they are or how we could swing it.

Either way, whatever car we end up getting prior to the start of the '09 auto-x season will be easier to drive fast than the TL, and not just because the car is lighter, but because my ass is lighter! I have been holding steady at 250 for a few weeks now, but today I was able to use a new notch in my belt without my pants feeling tight! I guess that I am putting on a little muscle for every bit of fat that I am working off. Starting last week Erin is also working out with me, and we are both really sore right now from yesterday's back workout, but I feel so much better now than I did before. I have stopped any and all drinking of alcohol or soda in an effort to maximise my fat burn throughout the day, and so far it has helped a LOT. I was able to do (almost) four pull-ups on Sunday morning, and as of a couple of weeks ago I couldn't even hang from the bar because my shoulder hurt so much. I guess working out is helping that to heal.

One weird side effect is that I am cold. All the time. I used to complain about how E was cold and she should get a blanket last winter when our thermostat was set at 69. Our thermostat is currently set at 73 and we have both been complaining about being cold for the last couple of weeks. I know that having extra chub on your body helps to keep you warm, but I have never really experienced it like this before, this has been a dramatic change that has been noticeable to me and to E. Maybe I'll get to start wearing sweaters again and not worrying about soaking through them by the end of the day?

What else has been going on? Oh, I signed up to twitter and have been putting info up there as often as I can think of it, but honestly I am reluctant to put more of the mundane stuff out there since it is just so mundane. I guess this helps to keep me from really putting anything out there at all, even though the idea is to put the mundane out there since it is not blog-worthy and people sometimes like hearing about the more boring parts of life, maybe this is why everyone talks about the weather? Speaking of which, we didn't break the 0 mark today, our first day completely negative. It was so cold that the snow was noisy as all get out. It was like grinding styrofoam together.

We are currently planning a progressive dinner for people in our building for New Year's Eve this year since no one is really digging going out and partying. I told E and some friends that I would do the DD thing if someone would volunteer their car, but with so much public transportation around, we really don't need to bring a car, we just need cab fare.

Other than that, we are just gearing up for our Hawaii trip in Feb, our x-mas trip next week, and that's about it. Lucky for us that a few of our neighbors have decided to start saving like E and I have been trying to do and are not wanting to go out every night. It has been nice that others are not trying to drag us to bars each and every weekend/weeknight.

Something I was just thinking about is how when we tell people that we don't have a car, how much support we get. We met some new neighbors the other day and within minutes we were talking about cars and when I was asked what kind I had and my response was that I didn't have one, they immediately offered to allow us to use theirs if we needed it. I was actually admonished this morning because we walked to the grocery store and didn't call and borrow someone's car. Odd. But, I have to say, the overwhelming repsonse has been very positive and supportive of our effort to see how long we can go without a car. We have the scooter, but when the air temp is -8, you couldn't catch me dead on that thing outside our garage. Well, on second thought, maybe you would catch me dead from frostbite or hypothermia or something.

I guess with that I will sign off, all of my random thoughts have been displayed. And KK, I'm with you man, jut got to talk the little woman into it... :)