good morning all, going to be a lovely day here up into the low eighties. Might just go do some more field mowing. I remembered to take my little camera yesterday so I got some nice shots of the deer playing in the field.
Had a delightful dinner at my stepbrother's yesterday with guests from Egypt. Mom was a highly educated pediatrician who was now a translator for the UN, her two lovely girls who were there, dressed beautifully, always smiling, remarkably polite (sounds like a normal US teen...??) who went to the UN school on the upper east side of NYC. And they were in the US for one more month until they could go home to their father near Alexandria. A separated family that clearly had two girls who were going to propel themselves at their Dad when they got off the plane. Even if one of them had her bachelors and masters in EE from Fairliegh Dickinson Univ. in NJ.
Have to clean up the little VW Golf today, leaving it at the Toyota dealership tomorrow while I take home an Avalon to try out, make sure it fits in the garage, as my garage is not long enough for the suburban, for example. Needed a more comfortable car than the Golf, though I love the diesel performance. It's not an expensive car, I won't get a lot of money on a trade, so I'm wondering if I should just keep it. Wondering if future snowbirding might call for it. but since I rarely get on planes, and will likely drive where I'm going, I'm having a hard time justifying the expense of a truck and two cars for one guy. As would most folk I think. Unless the third car was a pure toy, and nothing wrong with that.
The Toyota Avalon is boring but big and very comfortable and amazingly, gets to sixty in 6.1 with a fairly small six cylinder engine.
And it handles decently after they reworked it last year. Reminds me of a Buick Lucerne I had, with the V8 and GM's electronic suspension. The Avalon is a slightly smaller version, gets fifty percent better gas mileage, and accelerates faster. Technology at work.
And lastly speaking of technology, I was delighted to be able to get the model without most of the electronic nannies, no buzzers on my butt or ding dongs when it thinks I'm driving incorrectly. With all the weaving that goes on around here still due to bad roads and potholes, those nannies would overheat, and surely overheat me.
But the backup camera with guidance lines works fine, and that's all the stuff I wanted.
ok, back to regular programming.
