On October 19th, my Ruby was taken from me. She was taken from me by an old man who was unfamiliar with the “right of way” rule of driving. He was also apparently unfamiliar with the “Don’t Pull Out in Front of Someone” rule, but that’s a common sense rule that is not required to pass a driving exam, so I’ll forgive that one…

Anyway, it’s been almost eight weeks since my car has been in the shop, and I was supposed to get it yesterday. But the auto-body shop was slow-going with a few things so it looks like I’ll be getting it back sometime in the middle of next week.

It’s sad really. I barely even remember what my car feels like to drive. It will have been in the auto shop for about the same amount of time that I owned it between driving off the lot and getting hit. Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right…

Today, I got a big envelope in the mail for my new Jeep with some details and a few coupons for Jeep accessories. On the front, it says, "Congratulations on your new Freedom Machine". They must not realize I’m married. No amount of machinary can make me free now… =P

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had my new car and I’m starting to break it in nicely. It’s already been up to Ames for the ISU/Illinois State game, complete with ISU hitch cover; and it’s about 200 miles shy of the 1,000 mile break-in.

I’m still blogging, even though I haven’t really made this public yet. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll have time to post a link on my main web site to link to my blog and then we’ll be on a roll.

Today I get her. I’m so excited, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it through work.

No, I’m not replacing my wife. It hasn’t even been thirty days yet! I am talking about my ALL NEW 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee! Can you guess why I call her "Ruby"? Because she’s Inferno Red. No seriously, that’s the color. Inferno Red. Not just Red. Inferno Red.

I just hope I don’t find any issues with it that the dealer will have to fix. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait longer to pick it up.

I just set up a new blog through WordPress and it was extremely easy. With the exception of a slight error in setting up my database, the installation scripts did 98% of the work and I was up and running in 20 minutes.

I had been going through Blogger but found it a little lacking in features. It also didn’t work too well incorporating onto my main page, but maybe that was my fault as well.

For now, the blog will remain somewhat separated from the rest of my site until I’m comfortable merging them together. This is the first I’ve really touched my site in about a year so hopefully this momentum won’t die before I complete it.