It's been a busy and productive weekend. I spent most of my Friday being somewhat lazy. But I did clean up my apartment and do some laundry. I finally took down my christmas tree and packed it away. That corner of my apartment feels so bare now. *shrug* Soon enough, my entire apartment is going to look pretty bare I suppose. I went to look at another apartment complex and decided I didn't want to live there, so on Saturday, Emily and I went to put a deposit down at Regent's Park. We were hoping for a mid-rise place (they have higher ceilings), but none were available, so we got basically the same floorplan in a garden-style.
Earlier in the day, we played our final flag football game against Notre Dame. It was a game we certainly could have won. I think Colorado would have decimated us in the next round, but whatever. The officials were terrible, but we should have been able to overcome that. At least it was reasonably warm and the rain held off. It was a fun season and I'm already looking forward to next season, when hopefully our offense will gel a little better. It's just like GT's varsity team! Stellar defense with spotty offense!
After getting cleaned up and dopping off our apartment stuff, my parents had us over for brunch. All of Bobby's family was in attendance, along with Grandma, and Laura and Greg. So we had quite a crowd, but it was a lot of fun and the food was great. My dad made his awesome crab cakes and my mom made 3 quiches (bacon, spinach, and mushroom). After completely stuffing ourselves, it turned out there was dessert as well - grandma's cremepuffs and my favorite cake. Top that all off with fresh coffee, hand-delivered from Columbia less than 2 weeks ago. Mmmm...
Saturday night we spent about an hour sitting on the floor of the bookstore going through wedding planning materials trying to decide what to buy. We ended up with a couple books and a couple magazines, and even though I'm still completely overwhelmed (as I expected I would be), I feel a lot better about the whole process now that we have some reference materials and have read through some things. I think there's a lot of little things that would be easy to overlook, so having all these checklists and anecdotes of people's prior experiences should help us out a lot.
I went car shopping on Sunday. Neither the Toyota dealer or the Mazda dealer had the exact car I wanted, but I test drove both of the high-end models just to get a feel for the car. The Matrix is very roomy, but not big-looking on the outside, and it's a very smooth ride, but the automatic tranny just felt slushy. Maybe that's just personal bias towards a manual. But they're getting a manual in stock today, so I'm going to drop by and give that one a spin. It does feel like it might be a touch underpowered considering how much stuff you could potentially load in there, but again, being in better control of how the power gets to the wheels might make me feel a little better about that. Otherwise the car is perfect, and it's a Toyota, so it'll last forever. I really dig the completely flat cargo area and the plastic floor with adjustable tiedowns too, it just seems very practical. The Mazda3 5-door felt a little cramped for me, and even with the moon roof shade open, I felt like my head was dangerously close to the roof. There's not as much cargo area, and the rear seats fold on an angle. There's more room back there than it intially appears however. And I have to say, in terms of driving responsiveness, the Mazda beat the Toyota into the ground. The manual tranny is very slick and the higher torque kicks in at much lower RPMs, so the car really hauls. Merging onto 66, the car hit 60 in 3rd without even breaking a sweat. And on the windy backroads, the suspension and handling felt absolutely great. Unfortunately, I think this car could get me into a lot of trouble. For the particular trims I'm interested in, both cars are about the same cost, and there wasn't anything that really jumped out at me about either one. Maybe after I see what Toyota's stickshift feels like it will be easier to make a decision. I will say, however, that (especially) after driving the Mazda3 (I didn't notice it as much after the Matrix), my car feels like driving a soggy sponge. Emily's never understood why my cars don't have names. I dunno; that's just never really been by thing. But we decided last night to call my car Spongecar Squarewheels. To make a more direct analogy: Mazda3 - scalpel, Matrix - good steak knife, '96 Contour - rusty butter knife.
Earlier in the day, we played our final flag football game against Notre Dame. It was a game we certainly could have won. I think Colorado would have decimated us in the next round, but whatever. The officials were terrible, but we should have been able to overcome that. At least it was reasonably warm and the rain held off. It was a fun season and I'm already looking forward to next season, when hopefully our offense will gel a little better. It's just like GT's varsity team! Stellar defense with spotty offense!
After getting cleaned up and dopping off our apartment stuff, my parents had us over for brunch. All of Bobby's family was in attendance, along with Grandma, and Laura and Greg. So we had quite a crowd, but it was a lot of fun and the food was great. My dad made his awesome crab cakes and my mom made 3 quiches (bacon, spinach, and mushroom). After completely stuffing ourselves, it turned out there was dessert as well - grandma's cremepuffs and my favorite cake. Top that all off with fresh coffee, hand-delivered from Columbia less than 2 weeks ago. Mmmm...
Saturday night we spent about an hour sitting on the floor of the bookstore going through wedding planning materials trying to decide what to buy. We ended up with a couple books and a couple magazines, and even though I'm still completely overwhelmed (as I expected I would be), I feel a lot better about the whole process now that we have some reference materials and have read through some things. I think there's a lot of little things that would be easy to overlook, so having all these checklists and anecdotes of people's prior experiences should help us out a lot.
I went car shopping on Sunday. Neither the Toyota dealer or the Mazda dealer had the exact car I wanted, but I test drove both of the high-end models just to get a feel for the car. The Matrix is very roomy, but not big-looking on the outside, and it's a very smooth ride, but the automatic tranny just felt slushy. Maybe that's just personal bias towards a manual. But they're getting a manual in stock today, so I'm going to drop by and give that one a spin. It does feel like it might be a touch underpowered considering how much stuff you could potentially load in there, but again, being in better control of how the power gets to the wheels might make me feel a little better about that. Otherwise the car is perfect, and it's a Toyota, so it'll last forever. I really dig the completely flat cargo area and the plastic floor with adjustable tiedowns too, it just seems very practical. The Mazda3 5-door felt a little cramped for me, and even with the moon roof shade open, I felt like my head was dangerously close to the roof. There's not as much cargo area, and the rear seats fold on an angle. There's more room back there than it intially appears however. And I have to say, in terms of driving responsiveness, the Mazda beat the Toyota into the ground. The manual tranny is very slick and the higher torque kicks in at much lower RPMs, so the car really hauls. Merging onto 66, the car hit 60 in 3rd without even breaking a sweat. And on the windy backroads, the suspension and handling felt absolutely great. Unfortunately, I think this car could get me into a lot of trouble. For the particular trims I'm interested in, both cars are about the same cost, and there wasn't anything that really jumped out at me about either one. Maybe after I see what Toyota's stickshift feels like it will be easier to make a decision. I will say, however, that (especially) after driving the Mazda3 (I didn't notice it as much after the Matrix), my car feels like driving a soggy sponge. Emily's never understood why my cars don't have names. I dunno; that's just never really been by thing. But we decided last night to call my car Spongecar Squarewheels. To make a more direct analogy: Mazda3 - scalpel, Matrix - good steak knife, '96 Contour - rusty butter knife.
