Ramblings by Chase

I can’t believe that it has almost been a month since my last big blowout of an entry. Mocha, my new kitten, turned 10 weeks old today. She is getting big, at least compared to how large she was only a month ago. Her energy level jumped significantly about two weeks ago, which just means that my hands, feet, legs, well any appendages, aren’t safe right now. Saying she is aggressive would be an understatement, but she is learning how to ‘play fight’ which helps.

Last time I wrote here I talked briefly about an application called NetworkManager. I finally got it installed and working properly on my laptop about a week ago. In all fairness, I didn’t really work too hard on it for a few weeks, so the apparent difficulty is overblown. Most of my problems came as a result of me already having applications, namely ifplugd, already running that were trying to handle my wired connection. Once I removed it from the default runlevel, things went pretty smooth. I thought I was having trouble with connecting to my wireless AP, but it turned out the be the APs problem (it needed to be reset). The NM guys are currently working on wpa_supplicant functionality, which should enable LEAP for me, but there is currently no support in NM for LEAP/EAP stuff. There is also support in place for Cisco VPN connections (via vpnc), but it is currently broken due to a ton of work being done in HEAD.

Now, the important announcement. Yes, I could have listed it higher, but I had to have some catch to get you to read the stuff above this, didn’t I? Some of you know by now that I am purchasing a new car. I know I’ve said that in the past, but now it is official. I am buying a 2006 Ford Fusion (V6 SE).

It has been a bit of an ordeal finding a Fusion in the U.S. that matched my specifications. I wanted:

• Exterior Color: Dark Blue Pearl Clearcoat
• Interior Color: Charcoal Black
• Cloth Interior
• Option: Anti-Lock Braking System

That’s all I wanted, one option and what seemed to me a fairly normal color selection. When we (the dealer and I) sat down on Friday to try and locate one for me, what we found absolutely astounded me: the nearest vehicle that matched was in Illinois, and it had the optional Sport Package ($395) on it as well. Apparently there are no Fusions without the Sport Package available. The dealer put in a call to that dealership to see if they still had the vehicle and were willing to trade for it. He didn’t expect a call back on Friday, so it basically boiled down to waiting until Monday.

Late Monday morning I called to check in and see what the status was on that vehicle. “No word yet, but I’ve left 4 messages.” A few hours later I got a call from him telling me that the one in Illinois was unavailable. So, plan B was a vehicle in Mississippi that had a black exterior, which I was willing to settle for (it does look slick). It turns out that it is unavailable as well, so it became time to rethink our approach to this. The nearest vehicle that matched my specs anywhere near close was far enough away that it would have cost over $1,000 (or so I’m told) to get it here.

So, there was a Fusion in Houston that had leather interior, which, I figured, if I’m going to spend money I might as well get an upgrade out of it. The shipping would have been less obviously, but the upgrade would have pretty much made it all a wash. The dealer here called the dealer in Houston and found out that the Fusion there was a demo and had been driven by the General Manager of that location for about 8,000 miles. That one is out of the picture …

Then, we realized that the reason we were having so much trouble finding matches was … the ABS option. When we removed the ABS as a requirement, several dozen Fusions showed up in a 300 mile radius. This left me with 3 or 4 that had the right color scheme, etc. So, it turns out that another Ford dealer in Houston (Mac Haik Ford) is due to receive a Fusion that matches pretty well on the 26th. It is set-up as follows:

• Exterior Color: Dark Blue Pearl Clearcoat
• Interior Color: Charcoal Black
• Cloth Interior
• Option: Sports Package
• Option: Safety and Security Package

The bad news is that I will not be able to take delivery of it until after Jan 1. Oh well, if that’s the worst, I’ll take it.