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Houses, cars and computers

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We signed the lease for our new apartment! Here's a picture of the front of the place. We have the top floor.

Also, we bought a new, old car today. We decided to go with an "island beater" instead of buying a newer car. The new place is just around the corner from the IfA and the island is too small for racking up too many miles each year. All we need is a ride to the beach.

We found a beautiful, nearly mint-condition '93 Honda Accord 10th Anniversary Edition with 122K miles (similar to the stock photo below, but white with a blue interior). We took it to Cheng's AC Service and Auto Repair and it passed a general inspection. The transmission fluid was a bit low, driver's side power window and door lock needed to be repaired. The seller, Ali, was kind enough to deduct the repair costs from his asking price. We figure, heck, the car cost us only $2600. If it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one! (heh heh, not really)

In research-related news, owen (the computer) was resuscitated and is recovering well in the Campbell Hall ICU. Ryan heroically booted owen using an external hard drive and patched the OS using some spare 10base-T cable, an old AOL demo CD and a little duct tape.

Don't tell owen, but I purchased his replacement. I went with the 20" with 2 Gigs of RAM, the fattie 500 Gig hard drive and the upgraded 2.33 GHz CoreDuo processor. I was this close to splurging on a 3.0 GHz PowerMac workstation, but this is my first time with a research budget and I didn't like the idea of spending 33% of it during my first week at work. After all, there are conferences to attend and beers to drink with old friends. Austin anyone?

Comments

Bonzer said…
I'm so glad you guys have a sweet sweet ride. What are you going to name it?
August 4, 2007 at 4:26 PM
Karin said…
Great news, all around! The house looks huge in that picture! You'll have to give us a little photo tour or something when you move in.
August 5, 2007 at 12:42 AM
JohnJohn said…
Heck yeah we're gonna name it, just like all our other cars: The Mazdaradi, Patti, The Silver Bullet and Inari. We just have to come up with the appropriate name for a white , teen-aged Honda. Maybe Anna since it's a 10th ANNAversary edition.
August 5, 2007 at 6:57 PM
kel said…
Or maybe Lashonda.
August 6, 2007 at 11:56 PM
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