sold?

Here are nine reasons why I'll miss my Toyota pickup after I sell it (taken from wikipedia)

The Toyota Hilux has gained a reputation for exceptional sturdiness and reliability, even during sustained heavy use, and is often referred to as "The Indestructible Car". This was further reinforced when on the BBC motoring show Top Gear, a 1985 Toyota Hilux with 190,000 miles on the clock was subjected to extraordinary abuse.
This consisted of:
1. driving it down the steps behind Bristol Cathedral
2. scraping buildings in Bristol
3. crashing it into a tree
4. tying it up to a jetty to be washed out to sea by the incoming tide
5. driving it through a garden shed
6. dropping a caravan onto it
7. hitting it with a wrecking ball
8. setting the cabin & bed area on fire
9. and placing it on top of a 240-foot block of flats that was subsequently destroyed by a controlled demolition

Although it was now suffering from severe structural damage, the truck was still running after being repaired without spare parts and only with typical tools and equipment that would be found in a car's toolbox, such as spanners, motor oil, and a monkey wrench.















The ad came out in autotrader on thursday online and in the book, i also posted a listing on craigslist. I had it highballed at 7,750. After a bunch of calls from people with bad accents and skeptic attitudes about it, I got a call from a nice woman named Estelle who lives up above San Francisco. She insisted on buying it flat out sight unseen, and we settled on an even 7,000. I insisted on sending her more pictures of it and that her releatives who she mentioned live in La Habra could stop by and take a look at it. Two aunts, three uncles, her grandfather and her brother came over today (all really nice people) and I feel a lot better that they came to look at it. She sent me her flight confirmation for the morning and that was enough for me to promise I'd hold it for her until tomorrow afternoon. So I'm happy. The person I'm selling it to is polite, the price is where both of us want it and I think there's a good sense of confidence between both parties, the way buying and selling a car should be. I'll definitely let you guys know tomorrow if the deal has gone through.


I had it repainted, I degreased the engine and tightened a squeaky fan belt. It was kind of sad cleaning it out all week but it's always interesting cleaning a car as cluttered as mine and getting to discover old treasures. I found mapquest directions to old shows i've played stuffed under the seats, old movie ticket stubs, and when the sun hit it at an angle while I was cleaning it, I even found little hearts drawn on the passenger side window by a certain ex-girlfriend's finger from a long time ago.

Sigh...

YES!

i saw The Dark Knight tonight with some of my coworkers. It was a really good movie, very long though. Dad said you guys went to see it. Did you like it? As I'm sure you guys already saw, it's no wonder I had a hard time paying attention to the movie after seeing a trailer like this...





utterly STOKED.

update

First off, I'd like to congratulate Heidi and Daniel on their new home. I'm so stoked for you guys to have a nice house for yourself and free from landlords. I cant wait to see it. Post pictures whenever things settle down.

Where to start, where to start. Brad, Junior, Brad's chiropractor Scott and I went surfing last weekend off of trail 3 in San Onofre. It's south of the SONG power plant and the surf beach we usually go to. Since the trails are so steep and long, there's usually less people there and we happened to be some of the only ones out and the waves were sweet. It was so much fun and I caught a bunch of really awesome waves. It was a total burn having to leave and go to work. Brad's wife, Melissa, took some pictures of us from the shore.



















































































From top to bottom:
-me surfing a right and making a frontside cutback down the face of the wave
-me riding a left in with a nice hollow line
-brad is wearing the hat. he's a good surfer
-scott is wearing the boardshorts. he prefers shortboards instead longboards
-junior is about to start entering into competitions. his body weight helps him catch more waves than all of us. people compliment him all the time on what a great surfer he is
-so you can imagine how much brad and i enjoy pictures of junior wiping out really hard. hahaha


On July fourth, Brad and I drove to down to cliffs at Palo Verdes to catch fish and stuff off of the reef because the tide was really low from the new moon. It's like a sheer 100 foot cliff to climb carrying 5 gallon buckets and my legs were killing me the entire next day or so but I caught some neat stuff. A few conch slugs, some fish, a few anenames, a brittle starfish and a ton of hermit crabs. The large black fish is the only damsel that lived, and sadly, Marvy the little red crab I've had since I bought the tank in january passed away last week and was then quickly consumed by the brittle starfish. It's interesting. I'll post pictures soon.

I've been giving it a lot of thought over the last few months or so and after discussing it with dad a lot, I've decided its finally time to sell my truck. It's been a good truck and I think it's the toughest looking truck I've ever seen (it's the company car for the Taliban hahaha) but it's time for better gas mileage, an automatic and definitely some AC.


























So I'm going to try and have the paint rebuffed and clean everything out and then it's going up on autotrader in the next few weeks. Afterwards, it's down to the LAPD credit union I go to see what it's going to take to get me a loan, and then it's off to shop for my new/used car. The one I've decided on? Drum roll please...



























A 2004-2007 Scion xB. I'm surprised at myself to say the least. When Scion first began marketing, I (along with many other people I imagine) had a hard time getting used to the idea of "crossover suv's". For a while I even labeled the xB's as "the new Stanzas". But they've finally grown on me. My coworker has one and she loves it. My good friend CJ has one and he loves his. Jessie from Tiefighter had two and he loved both of his. I really like the way the larger 2008 models look but they have a larger 2.4 liter as opposed to the first gen's 1.5. It doesn't make sense to spend an extra six grand on aesthetics when I'm buying the car almost completely to increase my gas mileage. I think Suze Orman would go for the older model that gets 26/31 mpg.


So that's that. Wish me luck with selling the Toyota, I'm pretty confident I can get enough from it to put down a substantial chunk of change for a down payment.





p.s. I saw Wall-E. I liked it. It was no toy story or finding nemo, but it was cute. B+