So... this site has died, right? I have not done anything but a small update to a gallery in months. What the hell.
Well, Real Life came up. For one, I had a pile of work happen all at once. Note I did not say Real Life was a bad thing. That certainly took up a great deal of my time. The other issue was my lovely car.
My Subaru Outback of 19 years started to fail. It had been having issues for years, but I always fixed them right up. The way I saw it was that as long as I only spent about $1000 a year on it, I am still ahead of the game. But I had a short list of thing I did not want to fix. One of those was the catalytic converter. And, well..it broke. More rusted though. I knew it had problem for a few years, but it still worked and the car was old enough that it didn't actually need one.
But the rust got worse of course, and the problems escalated. Eventually even my mechanic was telling me to get a new car. And the long search began.
I knew what I wanted in a car. Essentially another Outback. I love the All Wheel Drive and I especially wanted a rugged car that can carry gear off-road, even if it was not a dedicated trailblazing vehicle.
Of course I still had to deal with my old car. I really loved that car. It took me all over eastern United States. I slept in it multiple times, drove through many storms and traveled New England at every hour of the day and night. And had relationship that would not have occurred if not for this car. But to go it does need. I tried selling it, even had a few buyers. But while driving it to air up the tiers, the converter finally failed completely and the exhaust pipe dropped. sigh. So I will be donating it to charity in the hopes of someone else gaining a benefit from this old car.
But Outbacks are REALLY expensive. And another thing that was important to me was a manual transmission. If you have to ask why, well..then. The rest of you know exactly why. But Subaru stopped making manuals for the Outback in 2014. You see, I have always gotten used cars. I enjoy working on them, and I hated the rigamarole involved with new cars and of course the drastic drop in value when you buy one.
I started to look into other company's and car options. After about a few months of research, I settled on a few options. The problem was the availability of used cars that met my needs and had a manual transmission was, well, slim. Even the used Outbacks, well worn and with rust, were going for $22$-23000! Sheesh. Nice thing is they don't really drop in price.
Looking at the math, I realized that there are new cars cheaper then a used Outback. And that led me back to my list of cars, now revised with the option of something new. And one new car just had a redesign to make it closer to my needs AND be cheaper then some of the used cars I was looking at.
My new Subaru Crosstrek. In essence a remake of the old Subaru Outback Sport, it's big failing was how small it was. But the 2018 increased in size just enough that I can fit all my gear in it. I just wont be sleeping in it anytime soon.
Mini-review: The car has a lot of pep. More than I thought it would since all the professional reviews say it is under-powered. No problems pulling into traffic for me. Corners beautifully and glides over rough terrain like a...Subaru. Sound system is really good too, though the lack of a CD Player kinda pissed me off. Been converting a lot of my stuff onto a USB stick.
It ain't perfect. but most of the quibbles are overshadowed by the fun parts. My only true beef is that the BAFFLING decision to not have a temp gauge. Instead there is a blue light that lets me know that the engine is cold, that turns red when the engine is over heating. What's the point of that! And worse, where a temp gauge would be there is instead an "Eco Gauge". A needle that tells me if I am currently more or less fuel efficient than the last time I hit the trip meter. FFFFFffffffffffffuuuu.............!
Ok, that aside I love the new car. It's only a week old but I have been having a blast driving it around. Not that I have much of a chance to have a clear road to drive on with the traffic around here.
But now back to the site. I have a new car, and that is good. I also do not have a bunch of jobs right now, and that is bad. But it does mean that i can finish the article I had begun over a month ago. Then I can get back to the galleries. I still have Chicago to put up, and there are some interesting shots in there.
Oh, and one other brand new thing. I finally got Disqus to work. As you can see by looking down below. First time using it so feel free to leave a comment. Nasty stuff and spam will be deleted so lets hope for some freindly discussions.
Until next time.
Jeremy Clegg