Flying and buying...

I had a real life dream last night. The kind you can't differentiate from fact or fiction until you wake up. The best part was when I woke up I could remember it. That rarely happens.

I dreamt that I missed my flight to return from San Fransisco with Jamie the next day. We were in a large commercial plane, something went wrong and it started going down. All I remember thinking was, "I sure hope this isn't going to hurt too much and will be over quick".

At this point, I normally wake up before the "crash" or "death" of some sort. Not this time. I decided to ride it out and see what happens. We crashed, I died and went into the after-life. It was weird because nothing around me changed.

We crashed in an area that looked like the landscape of St. George, very "Cowboy and Indian" landscape. I was walking around, I knew I was dead and I asked myself, "do you have any regrets? Any unfinished business?" I thought about it hard and my answer was "Nope".

Then the dream got hazy from there. I remember Native American Indian's running around and me putting my hand on a plastic part of the plane that was so hot it was goopy and I had a tough time getting it off. Weird dream. Although it is Friday the 13th.

Thirteen is my lucky number and it looks like we got lucky today, we found Alice a new car. We've been looking on and off for a couple of months and we knew we had to get one before Alyssa starts school at the end of the month. For a graduation present, we gave Alice's old car to Alyssa. Hence the need to find Alice a new car.

We had no intention of buying a car today. Over breakfast I pulled up www.wheels.ca and started looking for used Hondas. Alice had narrowed her ideal car to a Silver Honda Civic or Accord Coupe. We had also spoken to one dealer that said the best car for her would be a 2003 Honda Accord Coupe, that they are awesome cars, albeit hard to come by.

Alice had actually test drove a 2003 Honda Accord Coupe a month or two ago. A guy down our street was selling one. It was in great shape, but he wanted too much money for it. The guy later told me he really didn't want to sell it, it was for his college aged kids use and they wanted him to sell it so they could buy them a new car He was just humouring them and told them if someone bought it for $11,000 he'd get them a new car. Other than the light blue color, Alice loved the car.

Low and behold, within seconds of starting a search, I find a Silver 2003 Honda Accord Coupe, loaded. I show Alice, she approves, I call the owner, he gives me info about the car. He was asking $10,500, I was looking to pay $9,000. We come to an agreement that he'll take $9500 if I like the car. He lives downtown and the car is at his parents home about a half hour away from where we live.

Later in the day, Alice and I went to look at the car. The minute Alice saw it, she knew it was the car for her. It was immediate love at first sight. The guy's father was VERY nice east Indian man. He showed us the car report, the mechanical bills, he showed us any issues he knew of with the car and let us test drive it. It was apparent that the car was well taken care of.

I told the father that the son and I had agreed on a price over the phone. I could tell he wished his son hadn't went as low as he did. The father wanted $500 - $600 more, but maintained his son's integrity and accepted the offer providing we did the deal today.

Now this is where the drama begins. Just by chance, before I left the house to look at this car, I was reading the Ministry of Transportation website and it says that any person selling a car must purchase a Used Vehicle Package from the Ministry which has the history and all information including any liens on the car.

They didn't have the Used Vehicle Package and were unaware that they needed it. In Ontario, nothing is put on hold, this is a province of "get it done now" types. Before I knew it, we were in his car, Alice in the front seat, me in the back seat and we were driving to the local Ministry office for him to buy the Used Vehicle Package.

I had no intention of buying a car today and was not prepared. As we drove to the office, I got on the phone to my insurance broker and said I need insurance. This was at 3:30 pm on a Friday afternoon and everything closes by 5 pm.

Normally, it wouldn't be a problem, but we hit one snag, they wanted $3700 per year to insure that car? What?! That's insane!!! I couldn't believe it, the cars only worth $9500. The broker I normally deal with was on holiday's and I was dealing with a replacement, I figured she was new and didn't know what she was doing. Wrong!

It turns out because Alyssa and Alice had minor accidents in the last year, and Alyssa was now going to be a primary driver on one of the cars, the high rate she quoted was correct. As we drove to the Ministry it was comedy. This poor father is listening to me "sternly, yet delicately" rip into my insurance broker.

Never in a million years did I think the insurance would be that much. I figured it would be about $1100 per year. At a certain point, I told the Broker I was speaking to that I want to speak to Bob, the owner's son and my cousin Jason's cousin. In a weird way there's a semi-family relation there. Bob confirmed that his sales person was not making a mistake.

The worst part is the deal was it happening so fast, I had no time to catch my breath and think clearly. Yet at the same time, I KNEW this was the car. I wanted to close the deal. We had been looking at a LOT of cars and this was the diamond we were looking for. I didn't want to lose it.

We ended up driving to the Ministry and then to the Bank for a bank draft and then back to his house to sit as his kitchen table to complete the paper work. The ENTIRE time, I'm on the phone with my insurance broker and asking them to price out different options. The father offered me a beer and I said, "thanks, but no thanks, I need a clear head to deal with this insurance stuff".

We ended up putting a deal together. Although I hadn't yet finalized the insurance so I left the car with him. When Jamie came over last night and I told him about the deal, he said, "what are you nuts, giving him money and not taking the car with you?" Doh. Good point.

Even though I had bill of sale and all the Ministries paper work signed and I knew I was dealing with an honest guy, I did start to get a little paranoid. After all, this is Ontario, the land of people who aren't afraid to rip others off.

While Jamie and Barb were here, I showed them a picture of Alice's new car and then Jamie trumped me with a picture of his new $200,000 Porsche that he just bought off the Internet. It was an interesting conversation, I said, "Hey Jamie, look, look at this deal I just got. A 2003 Honda Accord Coupe, WITH sunroof for only $9500, what do you think?". Jamie replies, "Not bad, where's your laptop, see this Porsche, just saved $26,000 buying it from the U.S." Talk about a bizzaro-land conversation you don't hear everyday.

As always we had a great time with the Grants and they left when the street light's came on. For the rest of the night Alice, Reid and I hung around the bar and talked until 4 am. I was going to do a 3.8 Km swim tomorrow, but didn't think I'd be in any shape to wake up for it. The good news is I didn't pig out on any junk food, which is normally a given when the Kegerator is pouring.

Rest Day - No Training

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