Greta vs. Heidi

Rob's parents got a new puppy for Christmas--Greta. Here she is getting all upset that their stuffed dog Heidi is in the house too. She got very territorial until she found out she could tromp and drag it around.

Christmas break!

Okay....This was the real Christmas tree. Technically I guess it isn't ours. This huge tree is in Rob's parents house. This is where we spent Christmas. It was a really pretty tree. We had a great Christmas! Rob's Dad, Lehr, got a new puppy for Christmas and we instantly fell in love with her. Her name is Greta and she is so playful. Apparently she has gone into the room we were staying in a couple of times now and cried because she misses us already. She is so funny. She found the Christmas ribbons and had dragged one clear across the room before we finally found her in her mischief. Then she started playing tug o'war with Rob when he tried to take it away.

Blog, meet Cal. Cal, meet Blog

After 3 years and 7 months it is finally time we bid a fond farewell to our beloved Jaguar S-Type (may it rest in pieces). While driving to Charlotte to enjoy Christmas with my parents, Lisa and I noticed that unfortunate and most unwelcome of all lights...the check engine light. After a full diagnostic was run on the Jag we discovered that there were over $3500 in repairs that needed to be made in order for the car to be trustworthy to drive the 450 mile trip home, in addition to another $3500 in repairs that would need to come later. We love you, Jag, but you aren't worth that much. 

So now it's time for everyone to say hello to our new car, Cal. Cal is a red 2008 Dodge Caliber with slightly more than 16k miles. Cal seemed to be a pretty good deal for a new (used) car and brought a lot of bells and whistles with him, including: tiptronic shifting, speakers that fold out from the 5th door, a cooled beverage storage area in the glovebox, a 115v power outlet, and a 6 disc in-dash cd changer. 

Although we were sad to leave Jag behind in South Carolina, we can finally move on and welcome Cal into the family and focus all of our worries on Lisa's Saturn. Who knows. Maybe Cal will be getting a new little sister sometime soon (not too soon though...we hope).

Christmas!

This year we are spending Christmas with Rob's parents in Charlotte, NC. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of our tree yet this year, but this is what our tree would look like if we had... and if we had a house... and if we had a fireplace... and if we had..... anyway, you get the point!

We wish all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I told you, Never trust a monkey!

Most of us know that feeling we get when we take our car into the shop to get some work done on it. You never know if what the guy is telling you is true or if he even did what he's charging you for. Grease monkey's are a fickle breed, and are hard to pin down. Finding an honest one is about as easy as finding an honest politician. So you can imagine the gut wrenching feeling I got when the heat and ac in our Jag started acting up on us. Not only is it getting colder, which sucks even more than usual if your car has no heat, but Jags are not known for their economy pricing. The hazards of driving a luxury vehicle. (By the way, my wallet is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight.)

So we set out to find out what was going on and to get an estimate on repairs. Since Ford used to own Jaguar (they recently sold to some company based out of India, I think) I figured that the Ford dealer down the road would be a good place to start, and wouldn't be quite so expensive as the Jag dealer downtown. We took the car in on Saturday morning because I leave before the sun wakes up, and Lisa, though she leaves an hour later, is still gone for work too early to take the car in on a weekday. So Saturday the dude at Ford tells us he won't be able to check it out until Monday. I should add that when I told him what was going on he didn't seem to catch on too quick. I said to the guy, "When I set it for cold air it won't blow cold air, and when I set it for hot air it won't blow hot air." In his grease monkey brilliance, his only reply was "Well what's it doing if it's not blowing cold air or hot air." At this point I didn't really know how to dumb it down any more. "If it's cold outside it will blow cold air. If its hot outside it will blow hot air." What else can we, who are automotively unlearned, do. They've got us by the underneethy bits.

Monday rolled around and Ford charged me $185 to tell me that the heating control valve needed to be replaced before they could begin to figure out what was wrong. And to do that would cost $995. I figured I could get a better deal somewhere else. Since I am a Vanderbilt employee, I get awesome discounts, like $6 movie tickets for $10 theaters. So I called around and found a place that charged $20 less for labor than Ford and would offer me 15% off because I work at Vandy. Cool. Today I drive to their address and to my shagrin the sign reads"Pedro's Auto's" or something like that, I just remember Pedro's. I ask Pedro if this also happens to be "Auto Experts". He'd never heard of them, and he'd been there 3 1/2 years. Scary. So, I went back to work and called Auto Experts. I discuss the fact that the people at his address have never heard of him and then proceed to discuss what exactly is wrong with the car. After telling him everything, the "Auto Expert" says something about the control valve being on the dashboard. Again I say, SCARY! This self-proclaimed auto expert is nothing of the kind!

Finally fed up with scheisters and idiots I set up an appointment at the Jag dealer. I went over there, got right in, told the guy the same exact thing I told Mr. Auto Expert, and suprise-he didn't even mention the dashboard. So I left my car with them. He asks if I need the shuttle to take me back to work. Of course. Uh oh, the shuttle guy's on break. So he takes me to their rental office at the dealership and gives me a free rental car...a Lincoln MKX (look it up, its very nice and quite the smooth ride). He calls me around 4 to tell me that the heating is fine, including the control valve that needed to be replaced. After work I go back, grudgingly return the MKX and see about the Jag. The bad news is that the evaporator is out ($2K), hence the strong scent of freeon in the car. The good news is the heat still works, and that this is something that doesn't even need to be fixed until it's so hot in the car that I can't stand it. They bring the car back and to top things off it has been washed and detailed. The moral of the story? Only trust a grease monkey if he works at a dealership that sells $100,000 cars.

(They had several Audi R8's there. One retailed for over $130,000. By the way, this is the car that Tony Stark drives in Iron Man.)