ace’s blog

Well alrighty then, Pete Meri and Aaron have purchased yet another new vehicle. This one was just as necessary as the last one (mine) b/c of the damage to Meri’s old car. We think we got a good deal on our brand new 2005 Jeep Liberty Renegade 3.7L 6 cyl SUV. We ended up paying $21,400 and that’s rolling in about $2,000 from the old car and Meri’s old Explorer. We are glad to be rid of the damaged old car and into a brand new one. I let Meri use my truck Thursday and Friday (July 28th and 29th) and it already had a funky odor! I think I localized it and brought the disgusting parts of the funk into the apartment for a thorough washing! I febreeze’d the hell out of that truck and it did nothing till I took out the passenger side rear floor mat. I don’t know what got on that but it f*** reeks!

I just updated Aaron’s website. I updated the software behind it, not any actual pictures. There is now a slideshow for all the pictures, it’s kinda cool.

We took Aaron to the Memphis Zoo on Saturday, July 30th. We all really liked it a lot better than the Jacksonville Zoo. We were there for 2 hours and still didn’t get to see everything. In the Memphis Zoo’s jaguar exhibits, you can actually see the jaguars! I was amazed at that! There are so many more animals but damn, that place was expensive. If we hadn’t been members of the Jax Zoo, we would have had to pay full admission and that would have been $13 per adult! We got 1/2 priced admission. Oh, and the Memphis Zoo charges non-members $3 parking! They are definitely more expensive than the Jax Zoo but it is much better. I’m sure we’ll be getting an annual membership there.

Well I’m into my first week here at Terminix and I am very pleased with how things work here. I don’t think I could have picked a better company to move into. I’m very thankful for the opportunity I have here.

House news: We bought the house that we both really liked. It is move in ready and the best part is that we won’t have to do anything to the house immediately. We can move in and just live there and not have to worry about putting up a fence or painting walls or anything like that. All we have to worry about is where to put the furniture. Actually, we will have to paint a room, Aaron’s room but that’s not bad, his room will be fun.

I took down my resume on my homepage because I’d like to stay in Memphis for a while. I think this place will grow on us all.

We had our car fixed that was in the flood. During one of the inspections of the car, this damage was noticed! Apparently, someone who owned/drove the car before Meri and I bought it got into an accident and covered it up by replacing only the bumper and the hood but never fixed any of the real damage! The car dealership where we bought the car used never noticed the damage in their inspection of the vehicle when it was brought to their lot over a year ago. We are in contact with the GM of Subaru of Jacksonville in hopes of finding some sort of fix for this situation. Right now, nobody feels safe in the car because of the bent frame and the car is being used by me as a way to and from work only. The truck is now our main transportation, for the time being. FUN STUFF!!!

On Sunday (7.17.05), I had to get out and look at the house Meri and I have been drooling over for what seemed like forever now. That house lived up to what hype we fed ourselves. That house was absolutely gorgeous! Only bad thing was the yard. Exposed roots in the front yard and a very tiny back yard. The interior of the house was beautiful! It definitely wow-ed us. Price is good, it is $219,900.

Monday, 7.18.05, we looked at about 4 or 5 houses. It should have been more but our realtor got kept getting us lost! We didn’t have a great day of looking until the very last house. It is the only contendor to the first house. Cons of that house are as follows: very open living room/dining room, the previous owners did the hardwood floors (NOT laminate flooring) themselves and left gaps in a lot of places, and finally, the house is 20k more than we wanted to spend! It is $239,000

Now since we don’t feel too bad about spending $240k on a house, we are going back through the printouts that the realtor gave us and picking out some of the rejected homes because they were “too expensive”. We found 11 more that we want to see. Originally, we had 13 so now we are going to be looking at about 24 homes in this area. $240k-$245k is going to be our new max; we can’t go above that though. We are slated to look at 5 more homes today. We need a house that we can both agree on and both really like. I hope we find one, otherwise one of us is going to have to settle.

We’re mostly settled into our shitty little apt. I just have to keep telling myself “it’s only for three months max!”. We’ll be house hunting very quickly!

I got a new truck! Check it out in my previous post. It’s a “Raceway” Blue 2005 Toyota Tacoma V6 SR5 with the TRD package. According to the Toyota dealer, the color is “very rare” and I won’t see many of them around. I got the fake hood scoop action going, some 17inch alloys and the JBL stereo system. Because of the great deal I got on my previous truck, I made about $4,700 off of the insurance and we ended up putting $5,000 down on the truck. So for my brand new truck, Meri and I are only out about $300! Now that is what I call a sweet deal!

The movers are here today, tomorrow and friday. I called and pushed back my start date to the 25th but still have to go in monday or tuesday to fill out all of the new-hire paperwork! JOY!! Looks like I get a semi-vacation for a week, albeit a very hectic vacation.

The house is sold and the move is heating up. Only about 8 days left and we are out of Florida and into Tennessee. I hope the job works out for a long while and we all like it in the Memphis area. We are busy house hunting but in the meantime, we will be living in a townhome about 5 minutes from my job. It’s all very exciting…

Well, after owning my second Toyota Tacoma in my lifetime (as of August 1st, I will be 26) for about 4 months, I’ve destroyed number 2. In about 40 seconds, I caused over $17,000 worth of damage to my beautiful truck. But enough about my truck, I must say that I was very scared for my son. He was asleep in his car seat just snoozing away, waiting for his daddy to take him home and what does daddy do but hit a couple of concrete barriers in the pouring ass rain! He woke up screaming after the first impact and I immediately turned to see that he was alright and I didn’t even see the second impact. We were alright, both got away with a few bruises but that was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. If anything would have happened to Aaron, I don’t know what I would have done with myself.

Meri, Aaron and I all went to the Progressive Claim Center here in Jacksonville to get the rest of the my stuff out of the truck and we saw the damage from the second impact. I hadn’t seen it yet because of how the truck was resting on the concrete barrier. After seeing that second impact, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that God was looking out for my son and myself on that day. It is difficult to understand how someone could walk away from that accident with only a few bruises. I hit the first concrete barrier going about 50 MPH. Sure I hit the brakes before I hit but wow. I must have gained a lot of momentum after the first impact because the damage from the second impact made the damage from the first look like a fender bender! It is scarry to think that I could have killed myself and my son because I was driving too fast for the conditions on that day.

The accident happened on Saturday, July 2, 2005 at 4PM. I was in the shower this morning (July 7, 2005) and noticed that my knot on my right forearm had turned into the largest bruise I think I’ve ever had!

The speed limit is 65 MPH on I-295 and I was going 50 MPH. I guess that was way too fast for the rainy conditions that day. I thank God that I was the only vehicle involved in that accident that day. I’m sure I would be getting sued if any other vehicles had been involved. What a terrible phone call for Meri to get on her last day at work!

So now on top of moving to Tennessee on July 16th, I’ve got to buy a new truck! Normally I would be happy about buying a new vehicle but dammit, we just bought that one and we got such an awesome deal on it! Turns out the deal we got was better than we thought! Since progressive it going to declare the trucka total loss, they are going to give us a check for $21,450 for the truck after taking away the $500 deductible. Of that $21,450, $17,600 will go to the bank, and the rest (approximately $3,800) will go to the bank of Pete and Meri. Aaron will get a generous savings bond out of the deal, probably another $1,000 before we’re done spending money. That boy will be set for college…only 17 more years to go!