Wednesday, April 13, 2005

The Eagle Comes Home to Roost

The Eagle has come home.
The Eagle has come home.  I'm thinking of naming it Skwok, after King Jor's parrot.

I suppose you realize that I don't want to talk about anything but the car tonight.

There was a weird snafu with the Vehicle Identification Number: my paperwork had two very different VINs, and Allstate's computer system, when I called in the policy change, didn't consider either one valid for an Eagle Vision TSi.  One of them did in fact match the car itself, though, so Allstate will have to force it in or otherwise solve the glitch.  Fortunately, the wrong number, presumably copied from someone else's paperwork, was only on minor documents for use by the Saturn dealership itself.

Other than that, all I had to do was pay for the car by check and credit card, and let them make a copy of the MAVARIN plate.  Turns out the plate can't be put on the car until the stickers arrive in the mail.  That's all right.  I can wait.

This is so cool! Direction and cabin temperature!
This is silly, but I love it.  The car is facing East, and the temperature (outside? inside? near the roof of the car?  I dunno!) is 75 degrees F at 11 PM.  The thermostat for the A/C is also digital, and currently set at 73 degrees F.

 As I drove it home, I realized that I'll have to learn where things are on the dashboard (the headlights, for instance, were initially confusing), and get used to accelerating smoothly with this particular transmission and engine. The owner's manual is rather thick, and needs to be.  One priority will be to program the radio for NPR, KXCI and the classical station (for starters), and get rid of any really obnoxious presets.


It's so big!
It's so big!

John came outside almost the moment I  pulled into the driveway.  I gave him his key and fob (with the lock, unlock and trunk buttons), and told him to drive us to dinner. Not having participated much in the Eagle's purchase, John was surprised and rather impressed with how big it was (it's classed as a full-size car).  In fact, he was impressed with it overall, although I had to prompt him to say so.  He wants me to try to park it away from other cars and drivers.  So I'll be looking into the possibility of parking behind the office instead of in front of it.

We found a cargo net in the trunk.  John strung it up.
We found a cargo net in the huge trunk.  John strung it up for use with grocery bags.


Later, I went back out to buy gas at Hanson's ($33.40 at $2.26.9 per gallon--yuck), which involved some fumbling to find the gas cap (passenger side) and the gas cap release (it doesn't have one).  I got Diet Cherry Pepsi at Safeway, came home, and took some more silly pictures of the Eagle. I'm already looking forward to showing the car to Eleanor, Mal and Dave tomorrow.

Enough.  Tomorrow night I promise to write about something else.  The bad news is that the something else will probably be income taxes.

The Mavarin plate will have to wait.
The MAVARIN plate will have to wait.  John says we'll need to cover the leather seats to protect them from the Arizona summer heat.

Karen

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am really digging the overhead display! Compass! Cool!!! Nice to know I still get giddy over a new car. LOL  How is the sound system? Oh! And I had the coolest car seat covers in my Contour (leather bucket seats)...I got them from Hilo Hatties in Hawaii (they have a website). They were a traditional aloha shirt fabric with hibiscus. Very pretty. :-) Dang! They don't have them on the site anymore. But these look like the same ones: http://www.beachtrading.com/haseco.html  I had the ones that they call "teal green" but mine were more uh...oceany looking? more green than blue. LOL

Anonymous said...

I love the feelings associated with new car hoopla!  Now I have new car envy!

Congrats on the pretty car-it'll be even prettier when you get your license plate on it!

Jeff

Anonymous said...

Yea!  The "MAVARIN" plate is ready!
V