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Vacation is (almost) over

Posted on 10.1.2009, 23:53 by alcaeus
Posted in Ayumi, Car, Vacation, Work
Comments: 0

Wow...I guess I forgot completely to put something on here. There's a lot to tell, but I'll try to make it short.

Of course, I started my job and I'm absolutely loving it. The team is great, the atmosphere is relaxed and I can actually do what I like doing: developing web applications. In our case I work on a video community application, developing the core product as well as customizing it for our customers. I won't say much more about my work as I'm a bit weird about my identities (you could say I'm schizophrenic) but then there's not a whole lot to say at the moment, except that I'm quite busy at work. But that's not the only news.

I also got myself a new car. For one, it's one of those rewards you get yourself when you've actually got money (ok, I don't have all the money yet, but then again I like knowing what I'm working for). On the other hand I needed a new one. The old Renault Clio my girlfriend and I had was slowly dying, requiring more and more repairs. So, before we throw in a lot of money into a car that's already 13 years old we decided to go shopping. We were looking for a 5-door car which was small enough for 2, but also big enough to handle our large amounts of shopping for the bar as well as big enough to eventually handle kids at some point in time. Also, it should have a bit more horsepower than our current car (it has only 54 hp) since I don't like going slow up mountains
After evaluating pretty much all car makers we got it narrowed down to a few models: the BMW 1 series, the Opel Astra, the Peugeot 207, the Peugeot 308 and the Suzuki SX-4. The Suzuki flew out first after we inspected the trunk (it was way too small), and the Astra followed pretty soon since loading stuff into the trunk wouldn't be easy (it's a bit too narrow to be practical). So, we were down to the BMW and the Peugeots. The Beamer is nice, but at a base price of 22k € it is rather expensive, especially considering that there are almost no extras (like air conditioning etc.). The Peugeots are nice, but then they are "regular" cars. So, we decided against the BMW and were left with two cars. So, we test drove the 207, which rather surprised us. It's nice to drive, and has ample room. We were leaning towards that one, until the saleswoman at Peugeot recommended we also drive the 308. So we did, and that was it. The feeling was just...wow. It has lots of room, more than enough power to satisfy guys (ok, 120 hp is not that much, but then I also don't want insurance payments higher than my salary) and it drives as smooth as one can wish for. Also, it was a used one with 20000 kilometers on its tires, which knocks the price down by quite a bit (25% in our case), but also not enough to cause problems. So, 20 signatures and a long week of waiting later we had our new car and took it right for a test drive to Cologne.

We were picking up my girlfriends best friend and her boss offered to pay for gas, so we decided to see what's in the car. It's a good feeling to beat the ETA your navigation system calculates by 10 minutes, but it's an even better feeling to beat the initial ETA even though you spend 30 minutes doing fuel and cigarette breaks. Flying over the Autobahn doing 170 km/h constantly is awesome, especially when the car rides as smooth as a train. After that "test" drive we knew we wouldn't give that car up at all, and we were convinced that buying it (instead of leasing it) was the right choice.

So, that's what's new in that department. Of course, I also have been working on Ayumi, but I'll talk about that on a different occasion. Now I'm going to enjoy my last day of vacation before going back to the office on Monday. I have my work cut out for me in the next weeks, but I'll try to write more frequently

Greetz
alcaeus