The Blag Switch

Man, today was awesome.  It started with a long, relaxing early drive to the Tri-Cities (that is, once I got the van started) in my long-faithful van, Rosinante.  Alas, that was to be my last time driving Rosinante.  He’s a good steed, but getting old (175,000 miles) and he’s starting to fail.  He’s been getting hard to start, he doesn’t shift like he used to, and many of his engine parts are making increasingly concerning noises.  So today, I officially put Rosinante out to stud (read: he’s getting a tune up from my two older brothers, Bruce and Darrell, and then he’s being consigned to a life as a strictly around-town cargo van for Bruce, who often needs to haul around a lot of tools.)

In his place I went and acquired a brand new (2009) Subaru Forrester:

He’s a lot of fun to drive, and after a long drive through the hills this evening, I’ve decided to call him Montag.

(Side note: yes, I name my cars.  I come from a long line of mechanically inclined, blue-collar men, all of whom find it utterly bizarre to name them.  For some reason, I do it compulsively. Go figure.)

After signing all the paperwork and crossing the ‘i’s and dotting the ‘t’s, I brought Montag home, gave my parents a spin around the neighborhood, then took off to my good friend Matt’s bachelor party.  Matt’s recently back from Iraq and, in the many years since he and I graduated high school and the few years since we graduated college, our friends have mostly dispersed themselves to the far corners of the country.  As such, the bachelor party was pretty laid back, consisting of me, Matt, and our friends Mike and Charlie, who’d made it down from Bellingham for the occasion.  So after steak, a couple of beers, and a few hours of comraderie, Matt went off to other engagements and the party continued without him.

So a long drive, a new car, and a celebration in honor of my oldest friend.  Days like this are truly both wonderful and rare.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 12:22 am and is filed under Realtime Autobiography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.