In the coming months this how you're much more likely to find me, rather than hanging out in the Washington bureau of NBC News.  No, I haven't been reassigned.  I have resigned.

I am scared, I am nervous and a huge part of me feels like a fool for casting my net into uncharted waters.

And for all the fear and trepidation, I have to say, I feel at peace with my decision.  I can no longer hide behind the excuse that "I'm just a coward," for not moving ahead with my dreams and ambitions.  Change is coming; hell change is here.

 

A few nights ago we were invaded by horny toads, not to be mistaken with "horned toads." No, this isn't a joke.

And not just any toads, oh no, these are toads with cool scientific names:  Bufo Americanus.  That's "American toad" to you and me and grade-school science books.

Over night it seems our serene fish pond turned into a toad orgy; again, I'm not kidding.And the sounds these toads make!  Good grief!  Click here to listen to the toads that I recorded just this afternoon. 

And this goes on and on and on, throughout the night.  So, not wanting to be driven crazy by what I assumed as a single toad in my pond, I went out, flashlight in hand and promptly nabbed the offender in nothing flat.  And just as I was congratulating myself, the sound was back and this time I noticed there was a kind of "call and answer" rhythm to the sounds. 

Sure enough, over the course of just a half hour I pulled 15 toads out of that pond... I obviously missed a dozen or so more! 

Here's what assorted official "we really study toads for a living" web sites have to say about the American Toad:

The male's advertisement call is a long, dreamlike, musical trill lasting from several seconds to 30 seconds or more (average duration around 10-15 seconds). Each male in a chorus sings at a slightly different pitch, with males alternating and overlapping their calls in a pleasing manner.

American toads are mainly nocturnal, and are most active when the weather is warm and humid. They are solitary, congregating only at breeding ponds in the early summer and late spring. During the day American toads hide under rocks or logs or dig into dead leaves and soil. In regions with a cold winter, American toads dig deeper to hibernate. When digging they back in, pushing out dirt with their back legs.

No, you're not seeing double, this is actually another Ford Escape Hybrid sitting in my drive way. There is one big difference between this picture and the previous one: this Escape is all mine.

Yes, that's right, I liked the car so much I bought two of them! Ford began offering a 60 month, 0 percent financing deal just two days after I bought the first one and I decided to see if I could get that deal for my first Escape. As it turns out, Ford was able to rework the loan papers and give me both cars at the Zero percent financing for 60 months deal.

This is not what I had in mind when I first walked into the dealership a week ago. I was going to pay cash for the cars, one for my wife and one for myself. I was through with making car payments and liked it that way. But here's how the thinking went: I'm getting these cars with no interest paid; that means I can stash the money I would have used to pay for these cars in another kind of financial vehicle and make it work for me earning interest. Meanwhile, I'll have enough money in the bank to buy them outright should I find myself in a situation where I won't be able to pay for them monthly.

Yes,  I know, "they're back," the Castpost postings.  Seems the Castpost servers were "overwhelmed" and just shut down for a few days.  Again, it's a free service and one that is in beta testing at that.  Guess you gotta live with those bumps at this stage.

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In the end, the car buying process wasn't all that painful.  And considering I hadn't bought a new car in 16 years, I thought episode was surprisingly straight forward.

You see, I didn't even haggle.  I walked in, asked to test drive a specific car; even asked for it by its VIN  I knew the asking price before leaving my house. 

I was armed with some good advance knowledge, gleaned from the Edmunds web site, which I researched on the advice of a trusted car dealership insider, who just happens to be my kid sister.  She sells cars on the west coast and she gave me the whole "buying a car" drill, a kind of script to expect at the dealership.  She told me what kind of deal I could realistically expect to make and how to get it.  The only piece of advice from her I didn't take was to buy a car in the last week of the month, when dealerships are desperate to make their quotas. 

Edmunds provides a great way to find the True Market Value (TMV) of a new car, that is what others around the country are paying for the same car, equipped the same as you're considering, etc. 

In my case, the dealer was having a "dealer's invoice" sale.  And sure enough, the invoice at the dealer was the same as I'd gotten online from Edmunds and was, in fact, a few hundred dollars below TMV.  No other dealer around would touch that offer so I jumped at it. 

And so when I'd actually bought the car (that's it in the above picture) I pulled the finance manager aside, as I might do a government source hanging out at the margin of some press conference, and asked him:  "OK, now that you have my money, now that the game is over, tell me honestly, without blowing smoke up my ass, how much money did you guys actually make on this deal?"

He smiled, pulled me back to his office and showed me the "deal screen" on his computer; all the incentives, dealer holdbacks, etc., are factored in and the profit for the dealer shown on a separate line.  He swung the monitor my way and jammed a slightly greasy finger toward a bottom line figure:  $487.00

Fair enough.

The Ford Escape Hybrid gets about 31 miles per gallon around town, 36 on the highway.  Will the car hold up?  "What good ever came out of Ford?" my best friend has already chided me when I mentioned I was considering the Escape.  I suppose that remains to be seen.  I have a seven year, 75,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.  If anything on the car breaks, it's covered under the warranty, so I'm not too worried.  Best of all, the Hybrid is replacing our Dodge Caravan Sport, a beast of a vehicle that has been nothing by a money pig since we bought it (used). 

That leaves finding a replacement for my trusty '94 Mazda pickup with 187,500 miles on it.  I've had this truck since the oddometer said 1,704... I'm in no hurry.

Update:  Well, I wasn't in any hurry but apparently my wife was.  She called me on Friday to say, "Honey, I sold your truck!"  Ok, I lied... she never said "Honey."   Sold it for $1,000.  Even with the transmission slipping I think the guy that bought it got a great deal. 

Several people are coming to look at the van tomorrow.  Now I'm thinking maybe we'll become a two Ford Hybrid family...

 

Whose's wife is pestering him to buy a new car. 

For months now my wife has been poking, prodding, chiding and cajoling him to buy a new car, only have to me, time and time and time again, rebuff her, ah, suggestions.

And it's not really a "can we afford this" type of thing; we have enough money to buy the car cash; in fact, we're talking about replacing both our cars and buying new ones, both for cash because if I can avoid it I want to stay as debt free as possible.

After we sold the old house we swiftly did away with all of our debt except for the mortgage; it's a tremendously gratifying feeling to be essentially debt free and have a enough cash stashed away for any emergency.

So why am I still driving a 16 year old Mazda pickup with 185,000 miles and a transmission that is slipping through the first two gears?  Answer:  Because it still runs and 'gets me there.' 

This is so odd because a half century ago, when I was a young lad of 25,  I would have been ALL OVER buying a new car, and loving every minute of my new ride.  Now going to a car dealership is like going to the dentist for me.  Except, the pain from the dentist provides a quick payoff; the pain of dealing with a car salesman seems to last a lifetime.

I came 'this close' to buying a new car this afternoon; took a two hour test drive, blah, blah, woof, woof... and then I walked away from the deal. 

And on the way home, the ride in my ol' truck felt particularly good, like an old worn-in pair of Levi's 501s.   Priceless.

I visted my son, Jeremy, last year in Nicaragua, where he and his wife are serving as missionaries.  They started a church down in San Juan del Sur and after a couple of years, the guy that was pastor of the church, whose family Jeremy and his wife had followed to SJDS, bailed on the whole idea because his own marriage was breaking up.  Jeremy was given the evangelical equivalent of a battlefield promotion, appointed pastor with a "be warm and filled and keep your Johnson in your pants," and now finds himself leading the church... at the ripe age of 26.This is a small clip I took of him leading the youth Bible study last year.  At the time he had no idea that within six months he'd be all on his own...


Update... well, it doesn't seem like that castpost service is very reliable or very fast so I'm dumping it... in the meantime, if you want to download this clip, click here.

This was a job I did late last year. 

And here to, is the download link for this video clip. 

Merry Christmas everyone.

I hope each one of you had a wonderful holiday, religious or not. The New Year is staring at us from the other end of the tunnel; that bright light doesn't mean danger, it means hope... I'll see you all on other side of the side year.

May each of you find grace in unexpected places.