The Blog of Kwan

June 2009 LR3 on Lookout Mountain Road

June 2009 LR3 on Lookout Mountain Road
Originally uploaded by aperturismo.

A panoramic shot of near the top of Lookout Mountain Road. I drove down the hill, had a snack, then tried to ride up the hill. Got up like a third of the way, 1 mile 400 ft. climb and headed back down. I think the entire way up would be like 5 miles, 1300 ft climb.

iPhone video displayed on portable DVD player

Here's the completed solution to the pain we experienced when swapping DVDs on our road trip.

We were successfully able to get video from my iPhone displayed on our portable DVD player that was strapped in between the front seats.

I bought the Apple Composite A/V Cable, 1 audio to stereo mini-jack converter for the audio and a audio to mono mini-jack converter for the video. These were able to plug directly into the mini-jack inputs on our portable DVD player. My car also has an axillary input on for the stereo, so we were able to both pump audio into the DVD player as well as into the car sound system using the headphone jack on the iPhone.

The advantage: Play video after video without having to unbuckle, turn around, bend over backwards and swap out DVDs. Not having to carry transport DVDs.

The challenge: I was able to have 8 feature length movies on my 16GB iPhone. But with 3 kids, it wasn't necessarily enough variety to meet the requests of all 3 kids.

The downside: Alex wasn't able to play with the maps on the iPhone without interrupting the video, but the car has navigation.

We had to gas up yesterday

Alex and I were able to have a date night last night. Yes, while that is big news...we ended up having to fill up the hybrid for the first time. We bought the car on July 21. So we were able to go like 3 weeks, about 400 miles, averaging around 37 mpg. Not bad for pretty much all city driving, but not overwhelmingly stellar performance. Filled up 10 gallons of regular unleaded = less than $30.

They say that after the break-in period the mileage performance improves. We'll see.

We had a good time on our date. We went to a restaurant in the next neighborhood, Park HIll, called Tables. It was pretty good. We're excited to have some nearby restaurants that are low-key and nice.

Bye & Hy!

So, I finally did the deal. I bought a Civic Hybrid and traded in my R32.

I've had a deposit on this car for about a month while waiting for it to arrive in Boulder. The dealers aren't negotiating on the prices of the hybrids, so I was concerned mainly with getting a good deal for my trade-in.

I knew going in that the car wasn't going to be as fun to drive as my VW, but that it was a smart financial decision. After arriving in Boulder and test driving the car, I realized that buying this car was not an emotional decision, rather, it was an emotional decision to separate from my zippy R32. In the end, the dealer gave me a decent deal. I was able to trade my car with a good amount of equity to go towards the new car. With the federal and state tax credits as well as the gas savings, overall we're going to save a good bit each month.

I'm looking to sell or trade my car

After trading our station wagon for the van, we're thinking that I could also use a more practical car. I'm looking to sell or trade my 2004 VW R32. It's been a great, fun car. But:
1) I drive 5 miles each way to work each day on residential streets
2) I have 3 kids and don't have time to drive it otherwise
3) I'm looking to do my part for the environment and my checkbook by buying a diesel or hybrid

If you're not familiar, the R32 is a special edition VW Golf built for 'racing'. It's got a 240hp 6-cylinder engine, AWD, beefed up 'racing' suspension, racing seats, leather, power everthing, moon roof, subwoofer. There were less than 5,000 R32s made for the US market.

I bought it in October of 2004 and the car has 10,500 miles on it. It's always parked in a garage while at work or at home. NADA average retail on this car is $29,925, average trade-in is $26,800. Here's a review of the R32: Carlist.com review

So, if you know anyone interested, please let me know! More pics here.

Driving to Galveston, Day 3. We arrived!

Continuing our trend, we left an hour, maybe two, behind schedule from the Drennans. I'm thinking we were keeping D'Ann from running errands with our mosying around in the morning. But it was ok. We were able to avoid some traffic in Houston with the help of mom over the phone and re-routing on-the-fly, and were able to make it to the beach house just after everyone else.

Driving to Galveston, Day 2. A stop at the Drennan Ranch

I'm backfilling now that we're in Little Rock on our way back from Galveston....we weren't near/didn't take the time to find an internet connection all week!

We left Amarillo about an hour behind schedule, but we were fine with that.
The kids did great the whole way and we made our way to the Drennan's south of Ft. Worth around 4 p.m.

D'Ann and John had designed, built and moved into their dream home about a year ago. They did an amazing job. It's a beautiful home sitting on 50 acres of land with access to a lake and a driveway that doubles as a landing strip for John's plane. We had a great time catching up with them and getting to spend some time with them and their kids Thomas and Katherine. We like how D'Ann and John always make us feel welcome and at-ease, they've got this way that is genuine, matter-of-fact, and practical.

We also watched John take off on Friday morning to fly down to San Antonio to work. Pretty cool.

Pics from our time at the Drennan's start here in the June 2006 album.

On the road, Driving to Galveston, Day 1

We left on our trip to Galveston yesterday and made it down to Amarillo. This is our first ever long road trip as a family. Our motto on ths trip: Take it easy, it's a vacation. We're going to try and relax, not worry about meeting some schedule or rush the kids too much. We're not going to stress out about a little puke in the van (although we did yell at Kobe to put his book down and watch the DVD...we were afraid he might get dizzy and puke) or having to stop too many times.

I've gotta say that the van is pretty sweet. You can't beat the DVD player in the back for the kids and although we sort of doubt our decision not to get the navigation system, the laptop setup with Microsoft Streets and Trips with GPS locater is working pretty well (we can even export these maps for handy images for blog postings). Alex enjoys (a bit too much) being able to navigate during the trip. In fact, she was so entranced watching the GPS trail, that on the first big  turn we had to make, she simply watched us go off course and wondered why the blue line was diverging from the green planned route! However, 1) I've known navigation systems to do the same thing 2) the in car navigation system isn't as nice to look at. Points!

We arrived in Amarillo a bit late, around 7:30 or so. But we still managed to let the kids swim at the hotel pool and order in some dinner.

Pics of the drive start here in the June 2006 album.

Goodbye R

So, we bought the van....

So we took the plunge and bought a van yesterday. Of course, we didn't have any intention of actually buying yesterday, but the deal was good enough not to pass up.

We went yesterday specifically to test out a navigation system and see if it was something we wanted or not, to get an appraisal on the V70R as a trade-in, and to pick a color. We weren't in a hurry if we couldn't get a good price or if the trade-in value for the Volvo was too low.

Just in case, we had done all our research, gotten a bid from another dealer that was $300 over invoice, and washed the car.

Well, of course, this dealership wanted to make a deal and was willing to meet the other bid. Not having any Volvo dealerships associated with them, they didn't know what to make of our V70R. After a few calls, they were told not to be afraid of taking our R and giving us the full trade-in value. After a little haggling, I felt like we were getting a good deal and we bought the van.

Of course, looking back, I've been mulling over in my mind that we could have gotten more money here or there...but I'm trying not to think about it and am trying to be at peace with a good deal.

We pick up the van this evening.