Yesterday I dropped by the Ford dealership in West Liberty and bought a replacement for the Buick LeSabre that the deer destroyed. It’s official now, I’m a Ford Truck Man! Between the F-150 pickup and our new used 2000 Ford Windstar, we have converted to a Ford household.

In some respects I will miss the LeSabre. It had a comfortable ride and lasted nine years. It did go through a transmission service and other costly repairs (replacing the struts alone costs about $900), and then there were the alternators that I went through every two years it seemed. But the LeSabre had a comfortable ride on the interstate and it did get up to around 110 MPH on a couple of occasions. Alas, it had close to 180,000 miles and was showing its age, mostly in the interior.

Katryn insisted on a minivan this time around, because she wants to fit an entire basketball team in the car, and because we are tall people; and if we ever have that third child, (nope, I’m not planning on it yet!) or that family dog she keeps talking about, we will need plenty of room. I tried looking for a used minivan and found the quest quite daunting; the dealerships have plenty of small cars and SUV type vehicles, but I can’t afford a Tahoe and if you look at the Explorer and Trailblazer, they are actually smaller in length than the F-150 pickup. Even though I’m not totally sold on Ford, I wanted to try a non-GM car this time around and found the Windstar to be a good fit for what Katryn wanted. It has moderate leg room for six foot tall people and when I test drove it, it handled a little bit better than the F-150. Last time I drove a Blazer, it pretty much drove like a pickup truck, so I was expecting the minivan to be equally slow, but it actually is a bit smoother and acceleration is decent too. The combination of price and the good condition the minivan was in, made for a good deal and so I ended up buying it on the spot.

Overall it was a good deal. I ended up paying pretty much KellyBlueBook value for it, but I did not really care too much cause the minivan had only 72,000 miles on it and the car dealer was nice and not pushy unlike other Ford dealers I’ve dealt with. I would recommend buying from them again. During the summer I had their service mechanic tune-up the F-150 and he was pretty nice too. I much rather drive the 15 minutes to West Liberty, Iowa and feel comfortable, than take it to the big Ford dealer in town any day.

I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker, to be honest I’ve much more preferred Coke Cola. My girlfriend reminded me of the 3 liter bottles I use to down regularly while in college, but now that I’m a certified diabetic, I find myself drinking only Diet Coke and other horrible diet varieties of soft drinks. Since I started working earlier, I’ve found myself drinking 16 ounce coffee cups almost daily and even on the weekends when I sleep in, I find myself drinking coffee instead of getting breakfast. At first I did not notice, it just kind of happened with the change in work schedules, but come Thursdays and Fridays, I find myself exhausted and almost relish the energy (or should I say hyper attitude) that comes with morning coffee. For some reason, even though Diet Coke and Diet Mountain Dew have caffeine as well, it just doesn’t register the same with me.

Overall I find the taste of coffee to be bitter. It is not exactly a delicious drink. Though I would have to say that the Panera coffee is very flavorful and quite pleasant compared to the usual gas station coffee. I’ve mostly grown somewhat fond of French Roast with Hazelnut creamer. Since I’ve grown to become a coffee drinker, I’ve started to try a few other beverages as well, most notably beer. My preferred beer is ale. I find ale to be smoother, with less after taste. Luckily Iowa City offers plenty of choices when it comes to beer. There are even some nice local brews that are pretty good. Over the Holidays, I decided to try red wine a bit more, but cheap wine can give you headaches, and it sure gave me a terrible headache that lasted pretty much the whole day. No more wine for me.

I tend to watch a lot of NBA games and read the the daily NBA rumors at InsideHoops, which covers the daily soap opera that is the NBA and one thing that is pretty apparent about the NBA is that the entire league is a family and acceptance into the family brings with it certain responsibilities. In essence, being part of the NBA is a privilege, and the league tends to treat it that way. If you start learning more about the game of basketball and you get to learn the coaches, the players, the managers, the organizations and such, you get the idea that the NBA is really a club. And if you want to belong to this club for any length of time, you have to build relationships, because relationships play a crucial part in your success. Perhaps this is not immediately obvious to some of the younger players in the league, but it is something the coaches can attest to. Outside the world of the NBA, you can also see the value of relationships. It is rare to meet a successful person who does not credit their success to the relationships they have maintained throughout their careers.

We often think, that success demands being a self-absorbed genius, but this is actually only true when you are at the very top in your field. In general, most people are not in the top three positions in their field, so unless you are Michael Jordan, you are more often than not, judged on how likeable you are. Amazingly enough, the very same problem that parents deal with their toddlers, is the very same problem we face as adults. Toddlers and kids in general have to develop social skills that allow them to play nice with others. We often think of this as part of growing up, but I often see the same problem in adults. Many adults simply do not know how to play nice with others and have problems socializing and in effect they are not very likeable, hence not very good to be around. This limits their success immensely, unless they just happen to be actual genuises. Not being likeable is a problem which adults can also pass on to their kids, because as parents they do not know how to help their child with the very same problem they face.

But what does being likeable mean? Does it mean you walk around being nice to everyone? Being likeable is the result of work. You must work at building and maintaining relationships. This requires being genuine in caring for other people’s feelings. This cannot be taught, it must be learned. To go back to my NBA example, if as a player all you cared about was winning and not the well being of your teammates and coach, most likely the NBA will have very little to offer you after you retire. Your reputation and friendship is what makes you valueable to an organization, and life is no different.

Well, if 2006 wasn’t a bad enough year for me already! Seems fate had one last card to play and it came Saturday, (December 16), when on my way back from Mankato on Highway 14, a huge buck jumps out of the center highway divider and slams head first into the driver’s side of my Buick LeSabre. Needless to say, the deer wrecked the entire side of the car. I can’t even open the driver’s side door now. Luckily, it hit the side of the car and not the front or else it could have slammed right through the windshield.

All I saw was some fur in front of the side mirror and the next thing I knew there were pieces of my car flying out. I didn’t slow down at all until about five minutes later, so as not to crash into anyone else. I eventually pulled over to the side of the road and finished tearing some of the dangling pieces of plastic from the front tire well. Then we drove to the nearest town and duck-taped the turn signal light. Katryn called the local police and they came and looked at the car and I had to get an accident report. I then had to drive about 280 miles home to Iowa from Minnesota.

From what the insurance company told us so far, the car is pretty much totaled, since the repairs cost more than the value of the car. I keep going over the accident, but I can’t think of anyway I could have avoided the deer. It was totally dark already by 5 PM, and since it blindsided me by jumping from the center divider which was pretty much a wide ditch, it was very hard for me to see.