The weekend was a little better on the kill count front. Friday I managed not to kill it at all. Saturday, however, I killed the car twice -- once because I slowed down too much for the gear I was in and once on a hill. Sunday was much better and I didn't kill it at all. However, today I killed it twice again. Once on the ramp going up to the parking garage and once when I was in reverse trying to parallel park. However, I do see it as progress, but we might need to graph this when I've finally stopped killing it on a regular basis. However, it is becoming much more fun to drive and less stressful when I kill it because my response time is faster. All in all, I'd say we're making progress. I did take pictures of the car and I hope to post those soon, I just haven't had time to upload all of them.

Sorry to everyone who's left comments in the last few months. They'd been marked as spam by my spam filter so I missed them when I was looking for comments to approve. If you left comments (starting in October and forward), hopefully they've been published now and I'll take a look at how the comments are set up on the blog. I'm going to try to adjust a few things so that doesn't happen again. You'll still have to enter the captcha to be able to comment (otherwise I get a TON of spam comments), but they should show up in the pending approval list rather than she "spam comments" list so I'll be able to approve them faster. Thanks for the comments and hopefully I can get the kinks worked out. However, I do believe I'm making progress.

The morons were definitely alive and well yesterday and they were causing plenty of accidents. I heard on the radio that the police had stopped responding to accidents because there were so many of them so if you were in an accident and your car was movable, you should move it out of the way of traffic, exchange insurance information and file your accident report with the police department later. Apparently there were over 100 accidents in Lincoln as well. I know when I was driving home from the dealership, I had one guy behind me who decided that he was going to drive about a foot away from my bumper. I was less than pleased. Sometimes when I stop at a light, I will inch forward to see if the person behind me is going to do the same thing and of course, he did this every time I inched up a little. I could see him in my rear view mirror and he was yelling at me to go faster because obviously having a car length in front of me was too much room and I wasn't tailgating the person in front of me to his liking. Regardless, he definitely adds to the moron count. I feel lucky he didn't hit me because he was making me pretty nervous. I'm assuming he was driving like the rest of the many people who caused the accidents. To that I have to say "Come on, people!" Seriously, we live in Nebraska and it snows pretty much all winter. I do not understand why people get this idea that when it snows they should drive like crazy people because it's "extra fun" to slide around and there's no possibility that they're going to be one of the hundred accidents of the day. It was almost like it was the first snow of the season. There are always lots of accidents after the first snow, but I'm pretty sure the accidents yesterday outnumbered the accidents earlier this season. John even saw a guy come flying over a hill and couldn't get stopped before sliding through most of the intersection. Note to all people with large cars: having four wheel drive helps you go, it does not help you stop! Anyway, moron count += 100.

First things first, I didn't kill the car today. Given the snow I was very proud of that, but I do have to admit that it was in for the "scotch guard" treatment to prevent stains, so I didn't drive it to and from work, just to and from the dealership. However, there were many more stops and starts than my commute to work.

Finally, pictures of the new car. My first car still holds a special place in my heart, given that it's the first car ever. I bought a brand new 2007 Honda Civic. The color, according to Honda is "Atomic Blue." I'm not sure if I'd describe it as "atomic" but hey, it's still a pretty cool color in my opinion.

I really like the fact that the speedometer is directly under the windshield which is in your peripheral vision when you're driving. The bad part is that if a cop is driving next to you, they can probably see how fast your car tells you it's going.

As mentioned before, I did get a stick shift. Pretty sweet, huh? Also, the parking break is different than any other parking break I've seen. It's a lot of fun to drive now that I don't have to worry so much about killing the car. I'd recommend that you learn to drive one if you can't. You never know when it will come in handy.

The radio in the car is pretty awesome. It has an auxiliary jack so you can plug your iPod or mp3 player into the radio and listen to your playlists. It also supports mp3 CD's. I'll probably never listen to the radio again!

Even the cup holders are pretty cool. Yes, I think the cup holders are cool. They have the little "grabby" nubs so your cup won't fall over if it's smaller than the hole. Ha!

In general, I love the car because it seems like it was designed by people who actually drive cars and pay attention to the things that bug you the most. They even put extra tint on the wind shield right above the rear-view mirror which is the one spot the sun always gets through because it's the one spot the visors don't block. On top of that, they realized that the radio isn't always great, so they make your media accessible in your car. They also offer satellite radio, but I didn't get that option. I didn't see a need for it. I also like that the center console is very large so you can toss your sunglasses in it along with all your CD's and still have room for your phone. It's a fun car to drive and the best part is that it's rated 30 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on the highway.

For my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my grandma who are all headed to Hawaii tomorrow, I give to you the Hawaii chair. This is by far the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

And of course, we have to see what they're like if you try to use them in "real life." I don't think I'll be investing in one given the fact that it looks like it just beat the crap out of the woman in this video.

So, I spent the weekend studying for my LOMA exam which is why I sort of dropped off the face of the earth. For those of you who don't know what LOMA is, the acronym stands for "Life Office Management Association" and it's a life insurance organization. Let me tell you, that material was exciting (please read with sarcasm).

Anyway, the exciting event resulting from the break is that I found some new Cheetos: all natural White Cheddar. They're extra yummy for those of you who like Cheetos. John bought a bag at the store so we could try them.

If you can get over the fact that they look like the biodegradable packing peanuts, I'm sure you'd enjoy them too.

The top image is the Cheetos, the bottom image is a picture I found of the biodegradable packing peanuts.

My Dad bought me a few car-warming presents to celebrate my first new car and they came in the mail this week. I now have license plate frames and a valet key chain.

I picked out a simple license plate frame. But the really sad, or I should say nerdy, part is that I picked the frames I did because they reminded me of Mario Kart. Ha!

The key chain is really cool. It's two interlocking pieces. I had the back piece engraved with "de mamour soiez sure" which matches the inside of the ring I wear everyday. My dad bought me the ring in New York and the saying is French, meaning "of my love be sure." I've always thought it was really cool, so I put it on they key chain. It came in a pretty little box. Normally, I don't like pink, but I actually liked this.

Sometimes when I'm out at a restaurant, I'll order things because the name entertains me. Well, last night was one of those nights. John and I went out to Kona Grill for dinner. It had been a long week so we had two expensive dinners out this weekend. We had originally hoped that we'd hit Kona's reverse happy hour which includes half price pizzas and sushi. However, we were informed that we were actually an hour early and the reverse happy hour was limited to customers sitting in the bar rather than the dining area. Oh well. We still had a nice time. But, back to the menu. The last time I was there, I noticed a drink called the Woo Woo and last night I was feeling especially adventurous, so I ordered one. It had peach schnapps, cranberry juice, sprite and something else in it. It was very girly, but highly enjoyable. John and I also decided to try a sushi roll with something called yamagobo in it. Sadly, we weren't a fan of the sushi. The yamagobo (which I learned today is the root of a burdock plant which is in the thistle family) was rather crunchy. It didn't mesh well with the generally softer consistency of the rest of the sushi roll. We don't plan on ordering that again. However, it was fun to try something new.

I've been neglecting the blog lately. Not because there hasn't been stuff going on, but more because nothing has happened that's been very exciting. Work was generally more busy because I had the primary pager last week which meant that there are daily things you must take care of to support the production environments. Other than that, I was craving more sushi so John and I went out last weekend so Sakura Bana. The volcano rolls were very good as well as the Philadelphia rolls. However, we weren't a fan of their Hawaiian rolls. Oh well. At least we tried a couple new things. Other than that, I've been studying more insurance stuff. I have another test scheduled for Monday. Hopefully things will go better with this test than the last one, but I have little hope in the corporate learning department. I'm still waiting on a study CD they were supposed to provide me. So, nothing exciting to report. Maybe something will come up...but hopefully nothing bad.