Car search Christmas holiday

A situation arose rather suddenly over this Christmas holiday where someone in our family needed a car on rather short notice. So Natasha and I scrambled a bit and then started searching for a vehicle. We ended up deciding the best thing was for us to buy a smaller car that gets better gas mileage than my large 4WD pickup. I would then give the family member my pickup to use while I drive the new car to work. While gas prices are low now, there's certainly no guarantee that they'll stay that way, esp. with Obama as President. I drive about 52-53 miles per day for my current commute. It works out to about 20,000 miles a year.

Anyway, rather than looking at new cars, we searched in 2-3 year old used cars with low mileage. This really is the better way to go financially because the much lower relative cost of the low-mileage used car versus the new car.


We decided on a 2006 Nissan Altima from Carmax with about 24,000 miles. It was only about $17,300, including a transfer fee from the Carmax location in Georgia where it was located. We drove a similar Altima at another Carmax location and really liked it -- nice and zippy. This one has a v6 3.5L engine with over 250 hp and light-colored leather seats. Should be here next week!

Now THIS is good tequila!

One of the most famous scenes from the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee is where Mick Dundee (played by Paul Hogan) is confronted in New York by a 3 would-be robbers. One robber with a switchblade demands Mick's wallet, but Mick pulls out his huge bowie-style knife and says, "That's not a knife ... THIS is a knife!" and the robbers flee in terror.

I had my own experience with tequila lately. My previous post talked about how good the Cuervo Platino was. Well, that's a switchblade compared to the Dundee knife of a tequila I just tasted recently, a wonderful Christmas gift from my mom. It's the Don Julio 1942 Anejo tequila, a special reserve aged tequila. While the regular Don Julio anejo is itself a wonderful tequila, this 1942 kicks it up a notch even further in terms of smoothness, complexity, length of finish, and, of course, cost! It comes in a gorgeous bottle that evokes an agave leaf. See below or link here for more info.


After our rather busy Christmas day activities at home, and after going over to Stephen and Tami's house for Christmas dinner, we got back home and put the kids to bed. We were fairly tired after a long day and sat down to watch TV and have a snifter of our new (old) tequila. We were watching Discovery Channel's Mythbusters (link here), and were somewhat dismayed to see that one of the topics for that show was testing the myth that "you can't polish a turd." They were actually attempting to polish real animal dung. This is not the topic to be watching when you're trying to savor your anejo Christmas present!

By the way, they determined that, in fact, a shine CAN actually be put on a ball of feces. Who knew?

Cuervo Actually Makes Great Tequila

Jose Cuervo as a general brand is not really known to be a connoisseur's tequila. It's more known as a medium used to get college coeds drunk in Cancun so they'll take off their clothes and be featured in the next "Girls Gone Wild" video.

But Michael at my local Twin Liquors had a special running on this Cuervo Platino Reserva de la Familia. It's normally $53 but they had a special of buy two bottles for $70. This might be the best silver tequila I've ever had, and it makes one heck of a margarita / mex-martini (when blended with Cointreau and fresh lime juice, of course). It's certainly as good and perhaps better than Patron, Tezon, and Gran Centenario Plata (my other silver top tequilas). It also comes in a cool blue box.

How to Bond with Your Daughter

I took Lauren out to run a few errands a couple of weeks ago. It's sometimes nice to get Daniel and Lauren apart from each other so they're not fighting. They often seem easier to take care of with just one parent on one kid than when we're all together.


Of course, taking them to a fun playground and giving them Amy's Ice Cream doesn't hurt, either.

Daniel visits The Domain

I took Daniel with me one afternoon on a recent day off from work to look at nice watches at Ben Bridge Jewelers in The Domain shopping center in North Austin. Daniel agreed with me that the Omega Speedmaster moon watch was the way to go.

If one were to do a GQ style labeling of his fashion, it would be as follows:
-- Texas Longhorns cotton t-shirt, Target, $5.
-- Mister "The King" toy car, Target, $10.
-- Omega Speedmaster Chronograph, $4000.

Map of my "pretend" run

Here's a link to the run Daniel thought was a "pretend" workout.

Just pretending

I wanted to get some exercise Saturday afternoon, so I went for a run around my neighborhood ... maybe 4.5-5 miles or so. My son Daniel (age 5) was taking a nap when I left. After my run and shower, I went to the living room and was resting in a rocking chair. Daniel had gotten up from his nap and wanted to talk to me, and he wondered why I was so tired. I told him it was because I had just worked out.

He asked, "Did you go to the gym to exercise?" I said, "No, I just went for a run around our neighborhood." He replied, "So you were just pretending to exercise?"