On Tuesday I drove to Muncie to get some blood work done for my physician … so that I can eat something after more than half a day of fasting. I got a call from my physician’s office the next day, reporting that my lipid panel (measures of blood fat) are better than the last test.
Then I got a haircut at the campus barber shop in the Student Center. I found that the Tally eatery is now visible (though still under construction) and looks impressive. But the Student Center itself is not finished, and won’t be until next year.
Then I visited the Science Library in the lower level of the Cooper Science building to use its workstation and printer. I printed out the work I have done so far on the Janovac section of my Web site. I also printed details on the Honda Fit, which I wanted as a replacement for my Ford Aspire.
The details on the Fit I wanted because my last task for the day was to visit the main office of my bank to discuss what a car loan would be like if I decided to buy a Fit. It is a valid to visit the bank’s main office, which otherwise I almost never do. It is nice to see that after more than five years some of the staff still recognize me, even if I no longer remember some of their names.
It was the bank president himself that let the chief consumer loan officer know I wanted to see him. The president is a good fellow, and one of the few executives who is knowledgeable about computers. The loan office himself gave me details on a possible loan, with which I made the decision to go ahead with the purchase.
After getting pre-approval, I drove to Victory Honda on the northwest side of Muncie, test-drove a Fit, and went through the process of trading in my Aspire for a 2009 Fit Sport. Then I went back to the bank to get the loan check. Then I delivered the check, signed a lot of papers, and got the keys to the Fit.
Actually it took longer than I thought it would. It was not because of the process itself: I knew what I wanted, and I knew who I wanted to finance the loan; these cut the time the process took. It took longer overall because of a couple of problems beyond anyone’s control: A bad check-writing program at the bank, and a new mechanic at the dealer who parked the prepped Fit and told nobody where it was.
As for the Aspire, well, it was officially written that the odometer did not reflect the actual mileage — which is true because the odometer was part of a replacement instrument panel. In fact, the Aspire had 200,000 miles on it; and apart from the failed transmission earlier this year, it served me very well. I did not really want to part with the Aspire; and I would still keep it if parts were still readily available for it. But parts for the Aspire stopped being made years ago; and any parts now come from cannibalized Aspires in junk yards. It was time for me and the Aspire to part ways. The current worth was such that I could only get $200 for a trade-in.
I showed off the car to the folks (driving Madre around in it), my sister the editor (letting her drive around in it), and my sister the teacher (who merely looked it over).
Tuesday night was an uneventful Friends of the Library meeting. Wednesday night was the library board meeting, which was more interesting because it starts the process of formulating a budget for next year. Basically, we come up with a budget, publish it in the local papers a couple of times, submit it to the State agency for local-government finance and to various local councils. If it survives these, the budget is approved. Despite this, our money troubles are never over, because the money comes in fits and starts, depending on when (and it’s a shifting ‘when’) tax monies are allotted.
And it will not get any better, because any attempt at ‘reform’ by the governor and his shills (MySmartGov? C’mon!) will be resisted even by his own party, which probably does not believe in that book of fairy tales written by Randall Shepard, Joe Kernan and Andrew Lang, the latter being brought back from the dead to help write it.
I have largely given up on getting Thyme to my house against her will. I have a lot of things to do this week, including a visit to Purdue, that trying to corral the cat is interfering with. I will let my sister the teacher work on that.