By Any Other Name

It's official, with a little help from my parents. The Grand Cherokee shall be known from this day hence, as Oakley (With the runner up being Sexy Beast which shall still be used from time to time.) So let it be written, so let it be done.

Do Not Pass Go

If I ever get in trouble with the Sheriff of Nashville, I'm all set.

Progress

Now fast forward to 2014. My new JGC has a straight V8 that makes 360 horses, goes 0-60 in 6.6 seconds, requires regular gas, and weighs 4,700 lbs. At more than a thousand pounds heavier, with a bigger engine, and using gas with less octane so far it gets 3 MPG better efficiency then the Infiniti. That's while hauling itself to 60 in only .7 of a second slower than my little coupe. Now still, that's not tremendous gas mileage, but considering the difference from 9 years ago you wonder how far we could be if the car companies had taken efficiency more seriously sooner.

Great 8

Being a "car guy" I of course had to get the big V8, there's just no replacing the throaty rumble and acceleration you get from it when compared to test drives in the V6. It would be even better with a Corsa cat-back system, hint hint, but I digress. One thing that interests me the most is the progress of automotive science. You see my 2005 Infiniti had a turbo 6 that made 280 horsepower, went 0-60 in 5.5 to 5.9 seconds depending on your source (I never timed it myself), required premium gas, and weighed 3,416 lbs. It averaged 18.8 MPG over it's lifetime.

Room To Spare

There was some concern whether the big SUV would fit in my low hanging garage at work. I was fairly confident since I had seen a Ford Explorer, a Land Rover, and another JGC parked there but still. No problemo.

Bill G.

See Bill C. below.

Bill C.

Wired magazine recently ran an interesting article with Bill Clinton and Bill Gates talking together, including a really great picture of each of them. As a fan of both men, I just wanted to preserve those pictures on my blog. I wish the flash hadn't faded them out a little, this doesn't do how detailed and vibrant the images in the magazine were justice. Oh well.

Reflections On Parking

The new car fits in the garage, but there isn't a whole lot of room for error so we went and got this reflector. When it lines up with the door lock, it's time to stop.

Grand Home

Safely snug in our garage, right next to Macy the CRV. The Jeep has no name or gender yet, I have to get to know it first. And yes, I know I'm weird.

Grand Inside

Brown and tan interior.

Grand Rear

From the back.

Grand Side

From the side.

So Grand

Well it took all day, and there were some definite bumps in the process, but we stuck to our guns, worked with a great sales guy (after basically telling the first we weren't going to work with him anymore and almost walking out, long story) and here it is. Our new Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland. I will miss Sookie, but this thing is a beast, I love it already.

Wheel Dealing

So I have been thinking about a new car and getting something now so that when we potentially move in 5-7 years it is paid off by then. My starting place for this search was that I wanted something with AWD and four doors. After doing a lot, and I mean a lot of research (months) and several test drives of various vehicles, I have decided I want a Jeep Grand Cherokee. (I have to admit, this decision was also influenced by Casie and John and their Wrangler.)  So here we are at the local Dodge/Ram/Jeep dealer, Bob Frensley, seeing what we can do. Interesting (to me) is that when we moved to Nashville, we got our first car here. A PT Cruiser at the time. And so it comes full circle, our final car in Nashville comes from there as well. (Famous last words though, Mari really likes the Cherokee, in a few years the CRV might turn into one. And for those not familiar with the brand a Cherokee and Grand Cherokee are two different vehicles.)

G35 Side

Here is Sookie, what I named her, from the side. My favorite memories of her are from when I worked at the Nashville Scene, since once a week I would have a very late press night. Coming home with no cars on the road...well let's just say it was fun without being too incriminating. However, more and more lately I have been noticing how impractical she is. I can't take people anywhere. I can't take her grocery shopping or to Lowes. It's not easy to get in and out of. During this last winter the rear wheel drive coupe was useless. It also requires premium gas. Also hopefully in 5-7 years we'll be moving to the Northwest, with mountains, rain, and snow. I have zero regrets, I got to have my sports car phase and it was awesome. But now maybe I'm getting old. Why am I saying all this? Well on Saturday we just might find out....

G35

This is my 2005 Infiniti G35 2 door coupe. It has a V6 turbo putting out 280 horsepower and a 0-60 of just under 6 seconds. I bought this car on March 10th, 2009 and it has been the best car I could have hoped for. All my dreams of a fast, powerful sports car were answered, and I have loved it. She looks just as good today as back then too.

Not So Far

Haven't done a space post in a while, so here we have a recently released picture of the first ever space walk done on June 7th, 1983 from the Challenger shuttle. On the one hand this is awesome and must have been amazing for the astronauts. Then I think of this. Between 1961 and 1983 we went from first going into to space, to going to the moon, to building these advanced reusable shuttles, to walking in space. Now what about between 1983 and 2014? It took us 22 years to accomplish all that, now 31 years have passed and nothing (with a small nod to the Mars programs.) We don't even have a space shuttle anymore, and this very shuttle was used up until 2011. That's a damn shame if you ask me.

Starting Hall

Mari and I went to Sheriff Hall's campaign kick off party. We can't vote in Nashville, but we can still lend a little moral support.

Groundwork

Haven't had much interesting to take a picture of lately, so here's an update on the new Sounds ballpark they are building outside where I work.

Scroll Back

So something has finally come along and unseated MWO (although I will still be popping in from time to time to keep up with my brigade.) Enter The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). Initially I wasn't going to play this but Mari talked me into it, which wasn't hard because I like games we can play together and she didn't like MWO. It takes place in the same world as Skyrim, which you may recall I played the hell out of, only hundreds of years in the past.

It's also fun because grouping up is kind of the point of a MMOG* and in this case we know a lot of people interested in ESO. A friend of Mari's from work plays it (Leilani) and we've been grouping with her. We're hoping her husband (Jason) starts to play soon too, and I've got another friend (Micky) interested. Mari's brother (Aaron) plays it too, so I think if we could get everyone together in one party that'd be a lot of fun. We even got ourselves a Teamspeak server so everyone can talk while we play.

*That's Massively Multiplayer Online Game for the uninitiated.

White Is The New Black

After some weather delays the door is done. We were going to paint it black, but decided we liked the white. Also the iron railing on the stairs is now black, and I think it looks pretty sharp with the new color combo.For bonus points, find the puppy.

The Hard Easy Way

I updated on my journey to learn the guitar here. I have stuck to it and practiced almost every day since then. I will say I have zero natural aptitude for playing. Everything is hard and everything is slow, but I am stubborn despite more than once wanting to smash my borrowed guitar rock star style on the ground when my clumsy fingers keep missing notes over and over. Today I finally mastered my first song, I can actually play an entire song on the guitar. After puttering around and not getting anywhere for so long, having come this far in only a couple of months is amazing to me. Yes, you must still put in the work, no it is not easy, but I can't recommend Rocksmith enough. Oh and definitely get the 2014 version. The 2010 is good, but they really added a lot of valuable lesson content in '14.

WOTM

Yep. It's April and those are wolves all right.