Introducing, Car!

This may surprise you, but I'm not the greatest when it comes to following through on things. I know, if you've been following this blog at all over the past year, you're probably thinking "But Ryan, what are you talking about? You're the most reliable blogger I've ever seen, what with the way you constantly follow through on the things you say you're going to blog about! Remember how many Adventures in Alcohol posts you did after you started that? And lest we forget Buzz vs. The News and Buzz vs. The Internet! Why, of the three of those things, you got a full two posts!

Anyway, among the things I said I'd do and never did was a series of posts about my hunt for a car. I think I made it two posts deep in that one (one was an actual post about it, and the other was a post saying that it had snowed out and I couldn't go test driving). Well, the car hunt has since finished, so rather than waste your time with descriptions of the cars I didn't buy, here's the one I bought:

It's a 2011 Kia Sportage, and I've named it Alexander the Great (although I'm wavering on that name; it felt like an Alexander for the first week or so, but I'm not so sure of late). It doesn't have the power of the V6 in the car I used to drive (Stormin' Norman, a 2000 Toyota Solara), but for a 4-cylinder it's got a good amount of pickup. It's extremely comfortable, and a big selling point for Kia (aside from the fact that it was something like $2000 cheaper than anything else in its class) is the fact that the base models come with all the toys that you'd need to pay extra for in anything else. Mine isn't quite the base model (I got the LX AWD), but it's certainly not the top model, and yet it still comes with Bluetooth connectivity (and I can play music over Bluetooth as well, which is nice), USB port (so I can just put all my music on a flash drive and leave that connected to the car), heated seats, steering wheel audio controls, a 3-month subscription to Sirius satellite radio that I never use, and a backup sensor. It's got way more room than my last car, and overall, I'm really enjoying it.

So there you have it: my new car.

Stay tuned.

Car Hunt: Part 1

My search for a new vehicle has been going on for about a month now, and until last weekend had consisted entirely of online research. Having never bought a car before, I found myself unexpectedly intimidated by the prospect. After all, it's not difficult to end up with a car that you didn't really want, or that you can't afford. There are a lot of options out there, so I wasn't sure where to start. Thankfully, I had friends and family who had significant experience in buying cars, and they were able to point me in the right direction.

Car Hunt: Snow Pause

Welp. I was supposed to be test driving cars today, but apparently Mother Nature had other ideas. That bitch. It's been snowing like crazy here all day, and when I did try to go out this morning I was sliding all over the roads. Before you ask, no, I don't have winter tires. I'm getting a new car in a month; I'm not about to pour another $1000 into my current car.

I'll probably write up reviews of the cars that I test drive as I get to them, but right now it looks like I won't be doing any test driving until January 29th, so stay tuned.