Eartha made the list!

Here's an advertisement for my newest toy.  I absolutely love Eartha. She's a 2011 Honda CR-Z EX  and takes me back to the late 80's & early 90's when I owned both a CRX and later a CRX-SI.  In fact, yesterday, I might have flashed back to 20+ years ago and blared Vanilla Ice and Janet Jackson all the way home from work.  Frightening, yes, but it sure made me smile (and probably several other commuters watching me rap in rush hour traffic!) The new CR-Z went on sale in the USA on August 24th but Eartha moved into our garage early on August 20th!  Connections Baby!

Despite all the hullabaloo about the CR-Z being impractical, not green enough, not fast enough, and essentially not a CRX, it is possibly one of the most fun vehicles I've owned.  It is exciting to see Cars.com included it, along with several other past wheels, on the Top 10 Fun to Drive cars.  Here's some other lists with cars from my past...

Cars.Com - Top 10 Fun to Drive Cars
Mazda Miata
Honda CR-Z
Mini Cooper
Mazda CX-9 (we had a CX-7, but it's close)

Car Talk - The Ultimate Gay & Lesbian Cars
Saab 900
Mazda Miata
Jeep Wrangler
VW Beetle


Fenuxe - Top 7: Gayest Cars
Mini Cooper
Mazda Miata
VW Beetle
Subaru Wagon (Yes, I was a lesbian in college with my canary yellow wagon)

Gaywheels.com - Ten Most Researched Rides
VW Beetle
Mercedes C-Class

Summary; the gay and sporty cars end up in our garage!  In fact, many of these have been here more than once (Even the Subaru Wagon; Timmy & I both had one in the early 90s.)  I should put together a car family tree...we've owned over 30 cars between the two of us.  Hard to believe since we're only 26!  I wonder if I should tell my Sister about this?

She has a name!

Ms Bernadette passed her first test at the DMV with flying colors!

My New Money Pit

We now have a beater to haul the Chimney Fall Peeps to the river for camping and to the beach for fun. It's gonna be a great summer!

Beach Ball 2008

Thankfully the rain stopped!

I'll be green next time

I really wanted a Smart car or a Honda Fit. I really do care about the environment, but the gays, we do have shallow needs and standards. I found myself a deal at the Mercedes Benz dealership and am bringing Ms. Louise home with me! She is lovely.

Ready to Roll

Are you shocked? We have 4/7 travelers ready to roll at 8:40. Amazing what you can accomplish when going to bed by 3 A.M. Here's a pic of our pimped out ride. It is ready to take us to buy Amish Cheeses and Balognas. Very fun!

Ms. Carriage

Yup - the name is disturbing, but it won out over Vanorexia and a few others I probably shouldn't post out here on the interweb. Seven of us leave at 5 AM for Costa Rica in the AM. My sister and our new roomie are housesitting while we are gone.

Our agenda includes renting a 12 passenger van (I'm the designated driver) and driving from San Jose to Manuel Antonio through the rain forest. We're calling her Ms. Carriage and pray she'll get us through. Actually we just pray she is remotely modern. The pics of the vehicles on Central American car rental websites may not accurately depict our transportation. At this point we believe she is a Kia Pregio, or similar.

We've packed all the bug spray and sunscreen as required and will update as possible along the way. I'll probably end up backdating my journal entries as time behind a computer is not really on the agenda for our trip! In fact, not much is on the agenda besides sun, beach, cocktails, and a few zip-line and rappelling excursions. Fun times!

Happy Holidays

Wow - Haven't posted in five months! I am getting ready to stop smoking again and this was quite therapeutic to write on here (to nobody) about it the last time. I figured it would be a great idea to start it back up! I've gotten serious about the tattoo, which coincidentally appears to be the last thing I blogged about. I would like to quit smoking on January 2, to coincide with the DC smoking ban. I am fairly decided that a tattoo would be a great way to commemorate this event and would give me something concrete to focus on. I settled on an artist through a recommendation from my military friend. I met with his guy, Tony, at Jinxproof in Georgetown. He seems really cool and understands what I want. It will be much in the style of my favorite tattoo artist, Stevie Moon, but Tony definitely has his own take on things. I need to schedule a two hour freehand drawing session on half of my back and then he'll make a template to mirror image it. The whole process will take several weeks and numerous visits of 2-4 hours to fill it in. I realize this is quite an ambitious undertaking, but again - will give me something to focus on and is definitely better than smoking! The tattoo could save my life! Of course the BF still says I should go for laser hair removal first. I barely have much to shave - I think I'll bypass the hair removal.

So here's a catch up since the last post.

1. Still Smoking (obviously as mentioned above)
2. Got a stress fracture in the hip - despite my doctor's specific demand to not even travel, I went to VA Beach over Labor Day weekend and collapsed in horrific pain after walking (yes walking) the first mile.
3. The 'surprise' was fantastic, but I ended up traveling for several weeks in a row before the vacation so I ended up revealing the secret about a month in advance. We had an amazing time in Greece. Made many new friends from all over the world! While I didn't live blog from Europe, I did go back and convert my written journal to vacation posts on here.
4. The promotion...nice story there...my boss left and it was never processed. The new director thought it was put in place so I missed it in the fall promo-equity cycle too. Rumor has it I'm actually being recommended for it with the next cycle in a few months - I'm over it.
5. Work is great - growing substantially and getting more responsibility. This means regular trips to NC which I am not looking forward to.
6. Christmas was amazing - spent time in OH & PA with friends and family. Five locations, four nights, fun times!
7. Mom is doing well...still seems depressed since her stroke.
8. Planning the next vacation in March! Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica, here we come!
9. Got a new car. The damn mini-hoo haa was in the shop 10 times in 11 months. Went with a little CUV - much better for the road trips and grocery getting. Still take the train to work though!

Funny how I can summarize five months in 9 short lines.