Continuation from my last post.

Here's the car.

And finally a video from the race on Sunday. (I'm testing putting a video on this blog to see how it works)

Weekend full of cars

On Saturday, Rob and I went to the car dealership and traded in our trailblazer for a brand new 2008 Chevy HHR. It is cherry red, and fully loaded. It has automatic everything, automatic starter, leather seats, sunroof, seat warmers (which I love), etc etc. Very nice. Rob did a great job haggling the price and we ended up getting it for what we wanted. I'll put a picture of it up here when I have a chance to actually take a picture.

On Sunday, Rob and I went to the Nascar Race which was at the California Speedway. We got free tickets from a guy at Rob's work. It was raining as we drove there and raining when we got there. Somehow we managed to get an awesome parking spot not far from the entrance without paying. Don't ask me how. The rain stopped just before the race was scheduled to begin but then they had to dry the track. It took almost 3 hours to do. Finally, after some more delays, the race began. There was one crash with a caution due to water on the track. 21 laps in, there was another big crash (the car flipped over and another one burst into flames) due to water on the track. They red flagged the race for over an hour. It was now getting later in the day and the sun was setting. We were wet and cold and the threat of rain still loomed very close. We decided to call it a day and go home. It was a good thing we left when we did. They only managed to race another 60 laps or so (which included cautions) before it began to rain and they red flagged the race for another 3 hours before finally deciding to postpone it to Monday. Bummer. Jeff Gordon had an awesome car too. But it was still enjoyable and we hope to get to the fall race this year. Here's a couple pictures.

Before the race when there was a brief moment of sun.

The first group of cars go by on the pace lap as the second group rounds to turn 4.

Lottery

The California lottery is up to 270,000,000. That's pretty nice. I probably won't bother buying a ticket though.

neat

A neat thing about where I work is that we are located in a rather richy area and our club is somewhat hidden away so we get a lot of showbiz people. Sometimes I'll think someone looks familiar or I recognize a name so I check it out on IMDB and sure enough they're an actor/actress, director, etc. Just yesterday I found out one of our patients is a big record producer. Funny.

Heart Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Needlepoint

I just finished my ladybug needlepoint. I'm still a beginner. What do ya think?

I see the goal but how do I get there?

Not much going on around here. Same old regular stuff. Tax time is coming so we're getting all of our stuff ready for our accountant. It makes us think even more about our future. It is hard to figure out what to do. Our ultimate goal is to someday have a house and start a family. But the question is... how do we get there? Do we pay off all our college loans first? Continue to save for a down payment on a house? Do we dive into the housing market when home prices are at their low? Do we let that pass by and know that that would mean many more years of renting instead of owning and living in an apartment? I'm 26 and wouldn't mind thinking about starting a family by age 30 but how can we think about that without a house?... And how can we get a house without a down payment?... And how can we save for the down payment when we have to pay down other student loans? Together, we work hard and make a very decent income. This income would be more that sufficent if we still lived in Buffalo. We'd already be in a nice place of our own. Unfortunately we are trying to start our lives in one of the highest cost of living places in the country. (with the exception being NYC) I can't find a house anywhere in a decent safe-ish area that is close be being below the 300,000's. And even a little 300,000.00 house would mean a 60,000 down payment to meet the standard 20%. I guess its just a dream to imagine sitting outside on a lawn with a child running around playing. That's all I eventually want. Why so many obstacles? Why does it cost so darn much to live out here? Oh well.