Learn About Steaks: T-Bone!

Is anyone interested in learning about different types of steak with us?

I was thinking it might be fun to share some of our adventures as J and I learn about different types of steak. The thing is, J and I tend to buy ground beef, or cubed steak (plus one time I bought chili ground beef, and once or twice I've bought roasts). So we're not fancy at all when it comes to nice steak. Not yet.

So far we've tried ground beef (which we added to our pasta sauce), a chuck roast, and just now I cooked some T-Bone steaks.

Each time we try something new, I learn how to cook it properly. As we eat, we discuss what part of the cow the meat comes from.* (Most delicious anatomy class ever!)

Today we learned about T-Bone steaks. J guessed that they came from a vertebrae...and he was right! The curve in the bone at the middle of the top of the T is the round part of the vertebrae.

T-Bone steaks are especially fancy because the meat on the different sides of the T are both desirable ones. The larger side of meat comes from the "short loin" and the smaller side comes from the "tenderloin**." Both the short loin and the tenderloin are on the sides of cows, just after the ribs.

When you cook T-Bone steaks, you're supposed to cook them dry, so your main options are to grilling and broiling. You don't have to worry about tenderizing these; they're already tender.

I decided to follow a recipe on the Food Network website. It was way easier than I thought it would be. You heat a little bit of oil in a pan. Salt and pepper your steaks. Put the steaks in your pan, and brown each side (it takes about 4 minutes for each side). Then, move them into a preheated 450 degree oven.*** Cook them until a thermometer reads 120 degrees. (They say 6-8 minutes for a medium-rare steak. I cooked mine for about 10-12 minutes for pretty well-done steaks.) Then take them out and let them cool 10 minutes and cut them off of the bone. (I omitted this step, and J and I each cut our own steaks off of the bones, because it wouldn't have felt like T-Bone steaks if I had pre-cut them. And it would have made them look much smaller.)

Results: I ate mine with steak sauce (after trying it without)**** and asparagus. J ate his plain (and without asparagus). We both thought it was very tasty.

Your homework:
1. Point to where your T-Bone steaks would be, if people had short loins and tenderloins. (Optional: point to a T-Bone on a real cow, or on any other willing and available model.)
2. Try cooking a T-Bone steak!



* Sometimes I use Chalcy to demonstrate. Is that awful, or what? She's big enough. Don't worry. We won't eat our dog.
** Filet mignon comes from the tenderloin, actually. Mmmm.
*** Yes, I used my toaster oven again. :)
**** Not because it tasted bad without it; I just love my A1.

We got our meat back!

This Thursday I drove down to Spanish Fork to pick up our meat!

We ended up with 150 pounds of veal! I paid and waited while they brought the meat out to load up. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, since I know where the meat came from, and all.

It was just fine! As we loaded the meat into my coolers, I felt awesome! I felt like Nephi bringing back food for everyone after his bow broke, or something. I was so proud that my efforts over the past year will be feeding our little family. (And our friends.)

I stopped by Jessica's house on my way home. She and I have a joke that I took the calf to go live with a new family, on a farm.* So of course we joked that I was driving home from visiting the calf. It was fun to see Jess.

When I got home, we put the meat in our big freezer. Today I actually counted it out. This is what we ended up with:

Ground beef patties - 20 packages, 5 patties per package
Ground beef chub things - 7 of them
Short ribs - 4 packages
Rib steak - 9 packages
Sirloin steak - 5 packages
Tenderloin - 1 package
T-Bone steaks - 10 packages
Round steak - 1 package
Tip roast - 2 of them
Top round steak - 3 packages
Chuck roast - 5 of them
Cubed steak - 3 of them
Rump roast - 4 of them
Stew meat - 3 packages
Pot roast - 1 of them
Soup bones - 5 packages

I think the steaks have 2 per package. And I forget how many pounds I had our roasts cut to. Maybe 4-5 pounds? Now we just need to decide who all we are sharing with, and then start learning how to cook our different cuts of beef! It should be really good, since it was raised on our little pasture, with no steroids or hormones or anything. We did supplement with some grain.

We're pretty convinced now that we will be getting another calf for 2011. We may try a Holstein this time. We'll see.



* Oh, gosh. The kids who live on the other side of our pasture (little kids, like a 3 year old and a 5 year old) always stand on their side of the fence and they're friends with our animals. They liked the calves all right, but they really like our goats. They feed the goats, and call out to them, and the goats come visit. Anyway, as we were loading up Chuck to take him off to the meat place, the kids were over at their side of the fence watching. I don't remember if they asked what we were doing, or if J just volunteered the info, but J started to tell them, "We're taking him to go get meat!" and my jaw dropped. "NO!" I told J, in a sharp whisper. "DON'T!" "Why not?" "J. You are a bad person. You don't tell little kids like that!" "Ohhhh. Well? What do I say now? I'm in the middle of talking to them!" "Nothing. You can cut off a sentence and little kids don't realize it. They think what you said just didn't make sense, but that happens when adults talk to them anyway." "Okay." So he just kind of smiled at them. Their mom told us later that it was kind of funny because the kids told her we were taking the cow to go get meat. But like, they didn't realize the cow was the meat. They thought we were just taking him with us and bringing back meat. So it was all okay, because even though J practically told them we were eating their friend, it was still totally over their heads. Crisis averted.

Other Things We Have Been Up To

New Mexico
Last weekend, J and I went to New Mexico for J's grandpa's 95th* birthday! We drove down to Farmington on Friday afternoon and drove back up Sunday afternoon.

It was such a nice trip! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which was pretty new, and very pleasant. We had breakfast Saturday morning with J's parents and some of his other relatives. Lots of fun. It turns out, one of J's cousins that he doesn't know very well actually has goats. He's into a lot of the same things as J is, and J just had no idea until his aunt was telling us about it.

We went out to J's grandpa's orchard for the birthday celebration. We talked with him for a little while, and he told us some neat stories.

J's dad grew up on the farm, and he took us for a tour on Sunday morning. It was neat to see a lot of the things I had heard about when I interviewed J's dad for my class last year.

One of J's uncles is a private pilot. He offered to take us up in his airplane to see the orchard from above. It was fun! He gave us a demonstration of weightlessness--he had us each put something out in the palm of our hand, and he went up and then dropped down, and our stuff floated above our hands. It was pretty intense. He also let me fly the plane a little.

We went to dinner at Tequila's, which is J's dad's favorite Mexican restaurant, because they have amazing salsa.


Those were some of the highlights.


Calves
[Warning: you may not want to read this.]
We made an appointment for the calves, with Circle V (in Spanish Fork), which is where some of our neighbors process their meat. We were supposed to take them down to Circle V last Tuesday, except that J didn't want to drive his dad's truck after our experience with the new truck on Monday. So we rescheduled for Saturday morning.

Friday evening I went outside and everyone was crying, and I thought I could hear Stew mooing from back behind the chicken area. Sometimes the calves get into the chicken area and a couple times they've gone back behind the barns from inside the chicken area. There's kind of a corridor between our barn and the wall in the back of our yard. When the calves get back there, they can't figure out how to get out and they moo.

Stew was kind of echoing, though, which was weird. When I went back to lead him out, I found him back in that area, but instead of being in the corridor, he had fallen into one of our irrigation wells. We have two wells, and we use them to switch the direction water flows when we're irrigating; they're square-shaped cement holes that are about 3 1/2 feet wide, 3 1/2 feet long, and about that deep, too. Anyway, Stew fell front-first. His front legs were at the bottom of the well, his neck was towards the bottom but bent up, and his back legs were sticking up out of the top. Poor guy. He was mooing and mooing. He was pretty scared, and he had feces all over, because animals do that when they're scared.

I tried to shift Stew a little to help him get up, but he didn't budge. He mooed some more. I scratched his neck and rubbed his head for a few minutes, and told him everything was okay. (It wasn't.)

J got home about then, and I had him come back behind the barns to see if we could pull Stew out by his back legs. We couldn't. He didn't even budge. Well, maybe he budged, but that was it.

What next? We decided we would need some men to help us get him out. We went to our neighbor's house to see if he would help us. He said he was in the middle of planning his wife's funeral** but if we would give him some time to finish up, he would be right over. He could bring his mare and we could put straps around the calf and have her pull him out, maybe.

We went back home, and Stew wasn't mooing anymore. He wasn't moving anymore, either. Poor guy. The weight of his own body broke his neck. What a terrible feeling--he was such a nice guy! What an awful way to die. Plus, after raising him for 10 months, and bottle feeding him 3x/day for two months, and spending lots of money on food, we were not going to get any meat from him. It was all a waste.

Our neighbor came over and he was all suited up for the task, and he brought some ropes and stuff, and we let him know that Stew didn't make it. (What a great neighbor though, eh?) We let him go back home to be with his wife.

We called a large animal vet to see about having him removed. After all, people have horses die and they have to do something with them, so there must be people who can do that sort of thing. When J explained where the calf was, the guy wanted J to get a bunch of guys out to our house to help him pull the calf out. (Uh, the reason we were hiring you is so that we don't have to ask our friends and family to do it.) So J wasn't sure the guy knew how to get the job done, and it was going to cost $150 (ouch). The guy was going to come the next morning.

J called some of his family to see if he could get help, but they couldn't or didn't answer or something. He called our home teacher, and got voicemail. He called the next day; he couldn't come. J called one of our neighbors (who used to be our home teacher), and he agreed to help! He came across the street within five minutes or something. He had a "come along" which is a tool that you attach to something, so that you can lift heavy things, or move them. He hadn't used it yet, but he thought it might be good for this task.

It was.

They hooked it to a tree over the well and eventually got Stew out. There was no way even 4 or 5 guys could have done it. Stew weighed about 400 lbs, but he was also caught on something.

They pulled him out to our truck; I put a tarp in the bottom of the truck. They used some wood to make a ramp and used the come along again to get him up into the truck.

What a friend, though. We really felt like we needed help, and it was such an awful task, but our neighbor just stepped right in, and he didn't complain once. It was such a relief to have the help; it really meant a lot to us.

Saturday morning J and me drove Stew to the dump. And then we drove him to the county dump, because it is the only one that accepts dead animals, we found out. The inspector there was super helpful.

Then we went back home because we were supposed to have Chuck down to Circle-V. J got the trailer attached to the truck, no problem, but Chuck didn't want to get inside. (Even with food to lure him in.) J put some grain bags down, to make a little ramp up. Chuck was still not interested. He's big enough that you can't push him or pull him.

I had the idea that he would probably step into the trailer to suck on his bottle. I went and grabbed one of the (empty) calf bottles out of the garage. It worked.*** J and I got out of the trailer and closed it up. We drove down to Circle V.

They don't actually slaughter on Saturdays or Sundays, so we put Chuck in a pen behind the building. We glued a little label onto his rump so that they would know who he was, and we poured some grain for him to eat, and then we left him there. It made me kind of sad. I liked our calves.

I feel less bad about eating our own meat when animals die and go to waste. It just seems like life is so fragile, and either our animals can die and rot and become dirt or they can nourish us, and sustain our life, and they can be a gift to other people, and nourish them, too. It's almost a beautiful thing, looking at it that way, that they can go to so much good, instead of just decomposing. When the dog kills chickens, or Stew dies, it seems like their lives were just wasted.

Anyway, enough about all that.

We're thinking we will probably get another calf this winter, since we will only be getting 1/2 the meat we were planning on.


My Little White Bird
Do you see the little white bird in the first picture of the calves? She is my Silkie chick. After Chalcy killed her buddy (the rooster), she didn't have a flock anymore. So last week she started hanging out with the calves. She would cuddle with them when they were laying down (they were warm!), and follow them around when they walked around the pasture. It was pretty cute. Also, isn't that sad? She lost her rooster buddy, and then she lost her flock of calves, too. Now she kind of hangs out with the goats. A lot of times she comes over to me when I go outside. I like her.


Volunteering
I was asked not to say much about this**** but after orientation, hours of interviews, and a pretty thorough background check (they actually called 5 people), I am now volunteering with an organization! When my background check came through, they called me and let me know that they had a couple matches for me in the program. I picked one, things were approved, and we have been moving forward. I'm really excited about this. (Is that vague enough? It seems like it is going to be a pretty big part of my life for at least the next year, and probably longer, so I wanted to at least mention it.)


Chalcy
Our dog is doing well. Lately she loves to chew on things. Usually she does not chew on things she is not supposed to, but she really tears her toys apart.***** I think for her, pulling stuffing apart is kind of like popping bubble wrap is for people.

Chalcy is also a teenage puppy, and she is testing all of her boundaries. Sometimes she runs around our house and climbs over our bed. NO. Or she bugs the trash. NO. Or she steals napkins and rips them up. NO. (I'm such a fun-hater.)

Chalcy LOVES her bell. We put a bell on the doorknob so Chalcy would let us know when she needed to go out. For a long time she wouldn't touch it, because I accidentally got her toes when I "rewarded" her for ringing the bell (by opening the door). Now she rings the bell and takes a step back. And waits. And rings it again. I let her out, and half the time she just wants to play. We leave her outside sometimes, because otherwise we're in and out, in and out. When it was snowing it was even worse, because the snow was SO FUN, but it was COLD. So she would ring the bell to go out, she would play, and then I would bring her in because it was too cold for her to stay out. She would warm up for, oh, 2-3 minutes, and ring the bell again.

Chalcy thinks I'm around just to be friends with her. All day she follows me around and tries to stuff toys into my hands.

Chalcy stayed with Heather and Josh while J and I were in New Mexico, and we really appreciated them letting her visit for the weekend.******

Our next trip is going to be to California, and we're bringing Chalcy with us so my family can meet her, and so she can try traveling with us. It should be fun.

Chalcy is BIG. She can't stand up all the way in her crate anymore. I think we're going to try to get her a dog bed and see if we can transition (and get her huge kennel out of our living room!), but I don't know if she will be obedient enough for that to work yet. I guess we'll see.



Okay, I'm about as caught up with blogging as I need to be for now, so I'm going to cross "Blog about Subaru" off of my list, and get back to doing other things.


* He is old.
** How's that for bad timing? She has cancer, and it's terminal. She just has one of her lungs now, and she's not doing too well. It's really too bad. They're a very, very nice family.
*** How sad is that? All he wanted was a bottle. He had nice memories.
**** On Facebook, which probably also means on blogs.
***** Remember "Sid" from Toy Story? It's like that. Fox only has one eye and one ear left, and I stitched up his face. Chalcy pulled Lobster's eyes off (because they poked up), and that pulled his head open. Giraffe's ears and horns and tail were all gone the first day, its hooves were gone the next day, and by now Giraffe has stubs for legs and only part of its head. Squeaky Bear doesn't squeak anymore because Chalcy bit his head off.
****** Seriously, thanks so much, guys.

Car shopping wraps up.

I knew it wasn't fair to keep wanting a Subaru Baja because there are almost none of them listed for sale, and almost none of them listed for sale in Las Vegas, and the same even for southern California.

Plus, Bajas were kind of more than we wanted to spend, unless we got a 2003 one that wasn't turbo, with tons of miles. And then how good of an idea was that, really?

So we started looking at trucks again.

J wanted me to test drive a Ford Ranger, since that was one of the types of truck we were considering before the whole Baja thing.

Last Monday there was a KSL ad for a Ford Ranger that was a pretty good price. It was up in Bountiful, but J wanted us to go up during his lunch break to test drive it, so it wouldn't sell before we had a chance to see it. (A couple of the other serious contenders sold before we could get to them.)

He called, and the lady told him someone was coming from Logan with cash, but she said she would call back if the Logan person didn't buy the truck.

She did call back (the guy just didn't show up), so we drove up to Bountiful in pouring rain to go test drive the truck. It was immaculate. They had it detailed every year, the lady told us. J and I both test drove the truck, and it was fine. The tires made a bunch of noise, but the lady's husband warned us that they would, so it wasn't any surprise.

I liked the truck all right. It was similar to a Tacoma, because it was kind of a narrow truck, so it didn't feel like I was driving Noah's Ark. It was nice because it had four wheel drive and a V6 engine, so the truck was capable of doing the truck things we wanted it to, but it was also comfortable to drive. Really, it was a pretty good compromise for J and me, because it was a TRUCK (instead of a vehicle shaped like a truck that has about the same power as a car...what's the point of that?), but it was pretty inexpensive, and it had 4WD like I wanted, and it was not so huge that I hated it.

We decided we were ready to take it to a mechanic and then, as long as everything was fine, we would buy it.

The lady didn't want us to take the truck down to our mechanic, because Bountiful is not super close to South Salt Lake, and she didn't want her insurance to be responsible for such a long drive. Fair enough. We took the truck to her mechanic (Evans Automotive?) instead, in North Salt Lake.

CJ (at the auto shop) had the truck lifted on one of their lift things, and had one of the mechanics start checking it out. We talked to him for a little while about trucks, and towing, and just a bunch of different things. It was pretty interesting. Then he took us out to the shop to see some things-- the front brakes really needed to be replaced. The back ones still had some life. The tires were worn really weird.

We went back inside for a bit, and they lifted the truck higher so that we could walk beneath it. It was in pretty good shape, he said. There was some rust, but it was better than average, for its age. The owners maintained it very well, because the... fuel filter? had been replaced. And when people don't replace fuel filters, you may end up with a problem with some pump that could end up needing to be replaced or causing problems, or something. But this truck was fine that way.

So we knew we would need all new tires, and new front brakes. Plus we were going to put a tow package on it, because it just had a tow hitch on the bumper (and those are pretty much the same as not having a tow hitch because they can carry almost nothing). CJ said in Salt Lake vehicles usually go for 10-15% below Blue Book values. He recommended asking the lady to cover the cost of brakes and tires, and he told us it was safe to buy the truck, but that it's usually a good idea to go home and think about it first. Mmkay, thanks.

I ran a CarFax* on my phone, and it came out great.

J called the lady back and negotiated with her, since the tires were worse than we realized, and they hadn't mentioned the brakes to us at all. She took a few hundred dollars off, and that was a compromise that we were fine with.

We all met at our bank to set up a car loan, and things went fine. We had already submitted paperwork** when we thought we were buying the Subaru, so things were ready to go.

After we officially bought the truck and the lady signed the title over, we went to follow her back up the hill to her house, to remove the truck's plates, to pick up our little red car, and to get her "Truck" file, with all of the maintenance records.

We drove out of the parking lot, turned the corner, J began to accelerate after the turn, AND!

WE LOST CONTROL OF THE TRUCK!

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

The truck swerved into the oncoming traffic lane. J corrected*** and it skidded towards the curb on the right side. J corrected again and the truck slipped back towards the oncoming lane. He corrected again and it went towards the right curb again. J corrected one more time, and the truck began spinning forward down the street.

There was just no way to avoid an accident. (RIGHT right after we bought it!) The truck kept not gripping the road at all. We just never got any traction at all. J was not pressing on the brake or the gas, because he thought that was the right thing to do. It was just what I was afraid of, and just the reason I didn't want a 2WD truck. But I didn't think it would be a problem with this truck.)

The street had a 30mph speed limit, so the cars coming toward us could see that we had lost control of the truck. They stopped in their lane, 6 cars all lined up.

The truck spun across the road and finally landed in the oncoming lane, right where all of the cars were lined up. When the truck stopped, we were facing our lane (at like, 5 o'clock position from where we started).

J and I didn't really feel the truck hit anything, but J opened his door to survey the damage. The we had stopped spinning 3 inches from the line of cars. It really was a miracle--we didn't even hit mailboxes or parked cars, or anything. J closed his door, and got us back into our lane that we belonged in. We pulled over as soon as we could, because we were both so shaken from the experience.

The lady we bought the truck from came back, and parked in front of us. She had been a little ways ahead, but in her rear-view mirror she saw us spinning in the middle of the road. She said nothing like that had ever happened to them while they had it. ["This. Truck. Needs. New. Tires," I told her, super irritated and shaken. Because when you just buy a truck and then it spins out and you wonder what you've gotten yourself into, you feel irritated and shaken, and it's ok if you let the person who just sold you the truck know you feel that way. "I was actually going to wait until next spring to replace them," she said.]

We put 4 wheel drive on (it had been in 2WD, because you're not supposed to need 4WD for just rain...) and followed the lady home very, very slowly.

Our warm-fuzzies for the truck were gone, and neither of us wanted to drive it all the way home from Bountiful. I agreed to drive it, because it was supposed to be my truck, and I worried that if I didn't drive it, I would be afraid to drive it in the future.

I took State Street home, instead of the freeway. I drove slowly, and accelerated slowly, and I don't think I ever went faster than 35 or 40mph. I kept it in 4WD the whole time.

We had already planned to replace the tires and brakes ASAP, but those tasks became even more urgent. Neither of us were going to drive it again until the work had been done. Also, in the maintenance records, the top record (from September of this year) had a highlighted note about checking the brakes and alignment. Heyy.

So I price-shopped and compared different things, and ended up taking the truck to Big O Tires, since I think like 7 people have independently recommended them to me, and their prices were reasonable. We got all new tires, new front brakes and rotors, and had the alignment corrected--it was wayyyy off. (The wheels were pointed outward, so...no wonder we had problems.) Plus, the truck had 10 ply tires, and it was actually supposed to have 4 ply tires. That means that the tires were wider than they were supposed to be, and that means that the truck was less stable because the weight of the truck was distributed over more square inches of tire than it was supposed to be.

Anyway, after that I had an emissions test, registered it, had a tow package installed (by U-Haul****), and I insured it. Now it's just great. It feels completely different to drive. J and I both feel safe driving it.

This past Saturday we used my truck to tow the DOOOOMSBUGGY. No problems. It towed like a champ.

One final thing: want to see something funny? Look at the second picture on this post. My truck is the one in the back. The one in the front is our neighbor's truck. We have the same truck. They look almost identical. Except if you look closely, the neighbor's taillights look black. And our neighbor has a black plastic thing across the very front. But they're the same truck, both white, both with an access cab, both 4x4s, etc. Pretty funny.***** (Also, if you look closely at the picture, Paley is in the driveway and her eyes look creepy.)


* A real one this time.
** Banks want a ton of paperwork from us--full leases for all of our rentals, etc.
*** Over-corrected.
**** Poor guys! We were talking to them about whatever that thing is that you put a ball on, and then you stick it into the tow thing with a pin...? We wanted to take our tow ball off of the bumper and put it on the new metal thing, because the ball we already had was a 2" ball, and that was what we wanted anyway. They volunteered to go out and take our ball off of the bumper, while we were inside paying. Except, the ball was rusted. And they really couldn't get it off, even with their spray stuff and their tools. They decided to take the tow package off, so they could access the bottom of the ball better. So they actually installed our tow package twice. Thanks! (It was nice, though, because we never would have been able to get the thing off by ourselves, without impact tools.)
***** J sent him a funny text about how we like his truck, but please don't park in front of our garage, ok? Or something like that. It was kind of funny, except our neighbor never replied to the text, so then it just became awkward. I'm sure they must have noticed our truck by now, so maybe he was just confused when he got the text.

The Subaru Baja from Auto Maxima

I worried about this happening--I write cliffhanger blog posts! Since I never finished my story about our floor, I knew I really needed to wrap this car story up. Did we buy the Subaru Baja? Did our mechanics find anything? I'll finish the story in THIS post, ok?

[If you forgot what was happening, this story is continued from part one, part two, and part three.]

So remember, I had decided to keep quiet about my suspicions that Auto Maxima was doing some shady things. If there was really a problem, our mechanics would reveal it, anyway.

Not long after that, J texted me:

J: Turns out the subaru has been in a very minor accident, Gustavo just disclosed. Hmmmm. We'll see what the mechanic says about it (Wed Oct 27 12:11pm)

I replied:

E: I've been very curious. I think many of their reviews are fake. I think some are real. I think the mechanic will be able to let us know more. Can I call you? (12:14pm)

So I called J, and I explained why I was pretty convinced that some of the reviews were fake. J agreed that it was pretty likely. We decided that we would tell Action Auto Repair to especially watch for accident-related damage, because we suspected Milla and Gustavo were not being straight with us. J said Gustavo was delaying taking the Subaru in--he was supposed to take it at 10 or something that morning, but he was just now getting to it. He said Gustavo mentioned the accident pretending that he had already mentioned it before. (Uh...we would have remembered that.) It was just a minor accident, though, he said. The airbags were not deployed, or anything like that. Nothing serious. Gustavo was also going to e-mail J a copy of the CarFax report. J said he would forward it to me as soon as he got it. Great.

J texted me: Bill warns that subarus are unusually vulnerable to undetectable engine damage when hit from the front. (12:32pm)

He also forwarded the CarFax to my e-mail...

Except that it wasn't a CarFax report; it was actually a report that eBay does for all cars listed on the auto portion of their site. Still, it had useful information. The report indicated that the Subaru had never been in any accidents...BUT it was not driven between February and May of this year. And not driven much since May, either.

So the Subaru was listed on eBay Motors. The seller had 302 transactions and 100% positive feedback. Hmm. That's a lot. So maybe they were not as deceitful as they appeared? If they had sold 302 cars and everyone on eBay gave them positive feedback.

I pulled up the listing on eBay so that I could check out the feedback. Only about thirty of the transactions were from this year. AND, all of the feedback was from buying things, not selling. Last year they sold a lot--but still no cars. They sold face cream, and make up, lingerie, and just some really random things. I wondered whether they listed vehicles on eBay just to be able to give out copies of the vehicle report, since maybe the eBay one is less revealing than real CarFax? Not everyone has cars checked out by a mechanic before they purchase, so it would be a good plan for fooling a lot of people.

It was weird though...why would Gustavo tell us that it had been in a small accident if the vehicle report was clean? Didn't that indicate the report was not accurate? Also, I noticed the Subaru had actually been in Texas up until now. Hmm. And it was in an auction. What causes vehicles to be in an auction but not reported for something or another?

J and I e-mailed back and forth.

J's e-mail: I just checked out usedcars.com to see prices of Bajas around the nation. It's easy to see that the deal we have brokered is a very good price relatively speaking. So, there is a discount there for something undesirable like damage. How much that's worth to us or how bad the damage might be will hopefully become clearer to us today. (1:42pm)

My e-mail: Yeah, I'd say it's probably 50/50--it may still be worth it. What does the warranty do, if we were to insist upon the warranty based on new information? Do they replace/repair/refund/or what? Any idea?... This is great fun! If it turns out to still be worth getting, I will name the car Carmen, maybe, like Carmen Sandiego, since we're so interested in where she's been and what she's done. Ha! And I will like her all the more, because she's been on adventures. (1:51pm)

Soon after, J called because he was on his way to the shop. The mechanic told us what we had been waiting to hear:

The Subaru was in a major accident--it wasn't a small hit at all.
- The unibody frame was bent. This would mean that we would wear tires faster. Subarus require special tires, so we would have to buy a $600-$700 set of tires every 10,000 miles. (Ouch.) Plus, it would all just get worse, from being driven.
- The radiator was hit, and it was cracked. A new one would be $300 new.
- The right wheel axel shaft (?) was torn and leaking. It would cost $200-$300 to fix that.
- One of the lights was broken. It would be another $200-$300.
- The rear wheels fell off before. The body was scraped up from it. (Uhhh, that's a lot different from what Gustavo told Jeff originally. When they were first making the deal, Gustavo said the worst thing about the car was a missing hubcap. Hmmm.)

J told the guys at the shop that he was getting it for $4000 under Blue Book. They told him "this is why you brought the car in" and told him definitely, definitely don't buy it. Even way below Blue Book.

J and I agreed that we would not be buying my perfect, favorite Subaru Baja, which I loved so much.

J called Gustavo back. I didn't hear the call, but here is the part of the conversation that I remember from what J told me about it:

J: The mechanic advised me that this vehicle was in a major accident. The unibody is bent.
G: Take it to another mechanic. They each have their own opinion.
J: I am comfortable with their assessment.
G: It's not that big of a problem. It can be fixed.
J: They advised me not to purchase it at any price.

That night, J left a review on Google. He wrote:A couple days later, Milla posted another review:

It's kind of a funny review, because there are hints of the truth, but basically the review is totally false.
- The actual deal was not for $9000...it was for $11,700, with them also including some detail work on our car that we are about to sell.
- J didn't leave a bad review because he couldn't have the car for $9000... like... why would we pay $85 to take it to our mechanic if we hadn't even agreed on a price? (Also, he almost didn't want to leave a bad review at all, because it could be bad for their business. But we decided it was better to leave a review for future people thinking of buying a car from them. But he kept his review all just factual information. They may be very good at detailing cars, we decided...)
- Scott said "there is no frame damage even idiot can see it"? Hmmm. Is Scott a real person? Does Scott work for them? Frame damage isn't exactly something subjective. And Action definitely wouldn't tell us there was frame damage just for fun. Milla and Gustavo do collision repair...but they wanted one more opinion? Why would they want one more opinion? The car probably came to them crunched up to begin with. They know exactly what happened to the car.
- Why would we make up stuff about the wheels? What is our incentive for that?
- Also, they never did provide a CarFax.

They listed the Subaru on KSL as a Featured Ad, and then after a little while the ad went down. I suspect they've probably sold it. Too bad for whoever bought it.

The car shopping continues...at Auto Maxima! (part 2)

[Continued from car shopping and Auto Maxima (part 1).]

So it turned out, J didn't actually expect to pay $9,000 (plus the trade in). He thought they would make a counteroffer. They just didn't know how to do business quite right. They could have at least countered $100, if they weren't going to lower it at all, because that keeps things moving. J loves haggling. He thinks it is great fun. I do not.

On Tuesday, J wanted me to scan a bunch of documents, because we are refinancing our Yaris, since rates have gone down. I really hoped he had gone back and I was scanning documents for the Baja, but I had been pretty frustrated with him, because he was immediately ready to go back to looking at that one Tacoma (which was probably smoky) and the Isuzu. So I figured we were done with the Baja.

EXCEPT! J really did know that the Subaru was a great deal, and he wanted to make me happy, and he knew that it would meet our needs really well, so he actually DID go back. He was going to keep it all a surprise, and one of these days I would go outside after he left for work and he would have taken the Yaris to work, and instead of the Elantra being there, my new, perfect Subaru would be waiting for me.* Even though I had been a pain Monday evening after we test-drove the Subaru.

The thing was, it was going to take a few days for it all to wrap up, and he felt like it would be deceptive to keep it a secret for so long.*

"The loan docs are for the Baja," he told me.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Really?" I was so excited.*

He told me he had gone back and talked to Gustavo, and he had offered $11,000 without the trade in. Basically, Gustavo had asked if we would maybe want any detail work done on the Baja, in the future. He offered to include that. Instead, J negotiated to have him fix the dents on the Elantra, and detail the Elantra, since we're about to sell it. And then it would be worth more money to us. So the negotiated price was $11,700--for the Baja and a bunch of work on the Elantra.

"WAY TO GO!" I told J.* What a great solution! They get the money they want to pay their taxes with, or do whatever they want, and we get a bunch of stuff that has value to us.

"I told him the Elantra has to be done before we close, because that's our leverage. If we close and it's not done, they may not do it."

"Right."

"But he wants to close by Friday, because, you know, the end of the month. So I'm kind of putting him under some pressure, but he thinks he will be able to do it. I'm going to give him a deposit of $500 so he doesn't worry about doing the work on the Elantra and then us not buying the Baja, or something."*

J pulled up the reviews on Google for Auto Maxima. "They have great reviews! There are 29 and they're all 5 stars, except one. But I don't know, because someone came later and even defended them after the one negative comment. I bet they're good for the work, even after we close. We can probably trust them."

J had scheduled to have Gustavo take the Baja to our mechanic** the next morning. I helped him scan loan docs, and as long as there were no major surprises at the mechanic, things would all be in place and they would sign a contract! Tuesday evening, J and I were both very excited. Also, we looked forward to being done with our car shopping project. And J looked forward to being done driving the Elantra.

The next morning, I started looking at the Auto Maxima reviews online and I became a little concerned. As I read through the reviews, I noticed that most of the reviews read similarly. Little grammar mistakes appeared frequently, and they seemed to be written by someone who spoke English as a second language. (Although Milla and Gustavo speak English very well, I am pretty sure both of them speak English as a second language.) There were other similarities, too:
- In many of the reviews, the reviewer does not capitalize the first letters of sentences.
- The reviews focus on the same things, like price, and like buffing headlights, and how dirty (or filthy, or stinky) their car was.
- Verb tenses are not correct in many of the reviews, like, they use present-tense where they should use past tense.
- Several of the reviews mention Milla and Gustavo by name. All in a row.
- Many of the reviewers use "dol" as an abbreviation for dollars.

I looked for other used car places in the area, and most of the other places had 1-2 reviews. Some had 7. Low Book Sales (which does a TON of advertising) has 79 reviews. So...how, exactly, did a tiny dealer nobody's heard of get 29 reviews? Most other places had 3 stars. Some other places had 2 1/2 stars. There were a couple 3 1/2 - 4 star places. So...earning 5 stars from 28 people would seem to be pretty challenging, wouldn't it?

I began clicking on the names of the users who had submitted reviews. Most had only reviewed Auto Maxima.

Hm.

Uh oh.

The one bad review was beginning to seem much more relevant.


I noticed that Auto Maxima is a sponsored page on Google. So they must think online presence is important. Also, their website is intense. There are 19 different sections on their website. They specialize in detailing cars, actually. On their website they have before/after pictures, they have a forum (with four sections: auto detailing questions, car buying tips, car selling tips, and auto body work. In all, there are 27 total posts.), a blog, reviews, their location, a link to their Google profile, a link to Facebook, etc.

Okay, they are on Twitter and Facebook. On Facebook they have 17 friends. Two of the friends are Milla (she has 2 profiles for some reason), and one of the friends is Milla's daughter. So. It's just a little weird that they go so overboard for a tiny place that sells 4 cars. But, obviously they think online presence is important. And of course if you think online presence is important, you're going to want to have good reviews. It is important to have good reviews.

I remembered that Gustavo had said the windshield was replaced. Hm. Okay. It could have been hit by a rock, or something, and that's what we had just assumed. But they are an auto body place. I began to develop the idea that maybe Gustavo and Milla were fixing cars up and then selling them as though they had never been fixed.

Could this be possible?

I hoped not. I loved the Baja. I was so excited that the Baja was going to be mine.

But it's true that you get what you pay for. Was the low price an indication that they weren't being straight with us?

I decided not to tell J that I thought the reviews were made up. The car could be fine, anyway, and I didn't want us to not buy a perfect car just because the reviews were fake. After the inspection by our mechanic, we would know more.

[To Be Continued]


*What a guy!
** Have I mentioned our mechanic before? We take our cars to Action Auto Repair on 3900 S. We started going there because Jiffy Lube told me I had like, 20 rock chips to repair. I took the Elantra to Action Auto Repair because they had a sign up with their rock chip price on it, and it was like $10 instead of the $25/chip that Jiffy Lube wanted. The guy climbed up on the front of my car to look very closely, and feel the windshield. "Welllll," he said. "You do have a lot of rock chips..." he kept looking, "but they've all been filled." So he didn't charge me anything for his time, and I left with a great feeling of not-having-been-ripped-off. We've been back a few times, and they're not the cheapest place out there, but their rates are very reasonable, and they're very good, and they're honest. We like them.

The car shopping continues...at Auto Maxima!

I was looking through the KSL ads and I found a Subaru Baja that was within our price range. SWEET! J has a co-worker that recently bought a Subaru Baja and he pointed one out to me when we were driving to the gym recently. Pretty much they're a truck that's a car, that's a truck.

Subaru only made Bajas from 2003-2006, and I'm not sure why, because they're pretty much amazing. They're a car, with a shortened truck bed on back. And then you can put the tailgate down, and there's a new tailgate that you swing over to extend it all into a small truck bed. And there's a spot where you can open the space between the passenger seats in back and the truck bed, in case you wanted to put longer things that don't fit the mini truck bed.

There are two types of Bajas--the regular, and the turbo. The turbo Bajas have more horsepower than most of the trucks we were looking at. And I don't know what else is different, I guess.

So we found this 2005 Subaru Baja turbo online that was listed for $11,900. AMAZING! And it had an automatic transmission, and of course all Subarus have AWD. Plus, this particular vehicle had a leather interior, 6 CD player*, a moon-roof, and I forget what else. Clean title, and 68? thousand miles on it. On Kelly Blue Book it seemed to be worth about $15,000.

We decided to go check it out on Monday, during J's lunch hour.

When we got to the dealership, Auto Maxima, we were surprised that they seemed to only have four cars for sale. It was a little place that also did detailing and repairs. We walked into the office, and it was kind of weird. There was a big open waiting room, with a couple red couches facing each other, and a table with enough magazines to keep someone reading for a year.

Nobody was there.

One wall had a window on it, like they have at medical offices, and we could see that nobody was in the office on the other side. We crept down the hall, past the restrooms, and into a mostly empty break-room. I felt like we were intruders back by their microwave and stuff. J knocked on the Employees Only door, and nobody answered, so he opened it. A guy came to meet us.

"They no in office?" he asked.

"No, nobody's out here."

"Ohhhhhhh, they just leave." He walked with us out to the front, and then out the front door. "You call them." He went back inside.

J called the phone number on the sign, and they were at the bank. They said they would be back in 5 minutes. The worker came back out to us, and gave us their business card. J told the guy they were coming back, and he said ok, and he went back to work.

J and I decided to go take a look at the car some more. It looked perfect.

A lady pulled up in a black Subaru SUV. It was Milla. "You need the keys?" she asked.

"We were hoping to test drive your Subaru Baja," J explained.

She had us follow her inside, back past the break room, and around into the office. She set her purse down, fumbled with some things, and set her tea on the desk. She chattered about something. "Where are you from," I asked her, because she had a pretty accent.

"Russia," she said.

"Ah. Cool."

"We saw the tag on the Subaru said $13,500," J began, "But we found this car on KSL and it was listed there for $11,900..."

"Yes, it's just that we have to sell it as soon as possible because sales tax is due," Milla** disclosed. She fumbled with some more things, and found the key to the Subaru, and set it out on her desk. As she reached for something else, she spilled her tea all over her keyboard and desk. She turned her keyboard over, and tried to get the tea out of it, and I went down the hall to grab paper towels. J and I helped her clean up the spilled tea.

I think Milla made a copy of J's driver license, and she had him sign something saying that our insurance would be responsible for any damage if we were in an accident. (Does it even do that? We weren't sure.) "Your insurance usually covers it," Milla explained. "It's just that our insurance requires us to have people sign these, otherwise they won't cover the cars."

As Milla was filling out the form, J asked, "And we saw that the Subaru is covered by a warranty..."

"Yes, it's this one." She handed J a brochure that listed several different levels of insurance, and she pointed to the top one, out of like 7.

"So it's only these things?" J began reading drive train parts, and Milla was surprised.

"Well, yes. That's all you need, isn't it? Because if you have a problem with something else, you were in an accident, and your insurance covers that."

"Huh, I guess so."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Ohhh, 20 minutes?" (It was 12:20pm)

"I'll put 1:15 as the return time," she said.

We chuckled. "It won't be that long," I assured her.

She went outside, and unlocked the car, and handed me the key. We got in, and headed out, and I loved it.

"This car is perfect," I told J.

It really was perfect. It hugged the road so closely, and it had so much power! There were no churning sounds or ticking sounds, or anything. It maneuvered very well. "But what about that sound?" J listened. "There's air coming in somewhere." He was right. There was a faint whistle.

Eh, who cares. "Wouldn't that bother you?" "Nahhh." ... "Well, we should at least see how much it would cost to have it fixed." "Why?" "It would bother me if I were driving it." "Well, if you have music on, you wouldn't even hear it." "There's some truth to that."

I drove around for a little bit, and took it on the freeway. The Baja was a champ. "This is the perfect car for me, J." I loved the Baja! "Think about it. It has AWD like I want, and it can do all of the truck things, too. It would be perfect for bringing boxes from CA when we go, or moving a dishwasher, or picking up things from HD. Plus it has enough power to pull the trailer..."

We traded places, and J began driving. He SPED and STOPPED. "This does have a lot of power." Test driving cars with J is enough to make you car sick. He drove around, and got on the freeway too. "So is this it? Would you want this?"

"Definitely."

"Ok. We'll see what they're willing to do about the price."

"Ughhh, it's already low, though."

We realized it was past 12:50 (!) and took the car back. When we went back inside, Gustavo** was also there.

"So?"

"We really enjoyed driving it," J handed the key back to Milla. "It does whistle on the front passenger side..."

"Ah. It's the windshield. We had it replaced. Don't worry! It's still under warranty. They will fix it," Gustavo told us.

"Okay."

The rest of the conversation was kind of awkward. J offered $9000, plus the Elantra as a trade in. (Oh, yeah, we had talked to Milla about that before we test drove, and she said they do take trade-ins.)

"I don't know what to say," Milla responded. "This is a very good car, already at a very low price."

Milla and Gustavo paused.

Gustavo asked how much we thought the Elantra was worth, and after J strategically*** avoided the question, I told them we were planning to sell it on KSL for $1200. It has a few dents in it. Gustavo said he would give us $1,000 for it.

"So that's a difference of $1,900," (Between the asking price of $11,900 and J's offer of $9,000 plus the Elantra.) Gustavo concluded. "Did you expect us to make up the difference?" He seemed almost disgusted.

"Well," J explained, "We were really looking at 2WD pick up trucks. So this car has some extra things like leather that we just don't care all that much about, and aren't really worth all that much to us."

"This will be much easier to re-sell than a 2WD truck," Milla said. "You may not care, but you will be unable to sell a 2WD truck in Utah. You'll have to take it out of state."

"We're looking for one, though," J said, "So some people buy them."

"This is a very good vehicle. Some Subarus with smaller engine cannot make it up a hill, but this one can!"

"Yes, it is very powerful."

"It is already very low price," Milla said.

"So your final offer is $10,900 plus the trade in," J asked.

"Yes," Gustavo said.

"All right. Well, thanks," J said. And we left.

And I was very frustrated, because I hate test-driving trucks. And I'm tired of J wanting to get a 2WD truck when everyone keeps telling us it's a bad idea. I was so sad.

We found the perfect car--a girl truck! And J wanted it to be cheaper than was even fair...

[To Be Continued]


*Although, really, do people still use CDs?
** Names NOT changed, to protect the innocent [future buyers].
*** Awkwardly

The car shopping begins!

Last weekend J and I started test-driving cars. It's about time for us to replace our 1999 Elantra* so we've been car shopping online very casually for a few weeks now.

We were thinking we wanted/needed a truck, because**:
- It would be very useful for property management things, like moving large appliances.
- It would be very useful for trips to home improvement stores, because my little car doesn't fit much. HD sometimes tells me, uh, maybe it would be best if I just come back for the rest of whatever I've bought.
- It would be very useful for pulling our DOOOOMBUGGY when we take it to go buy hay each year, and when we use it to transport animals.

Last Saturday we went to test-drive four different truck models, so that I can see how I like different kinds. J wants me to have a preference. He picked the Yaris, he says, so I can pick my truck. I just need to pick something that is within our budget, not too old, and something that meets our needs (like, I can't totally ditch the truck idea and get something sporty**). But I could get an SUV if I wanted.

First we went to test drive a Toyota Tacoma. It was a lot dirtier than it had seemed in the pictures online. There were thug-ish vinyl decals on the outside. The windshield was cracked (but the guy said he would get it fixed for a real buyer)...and when I drove it, I LIKED it! It was not nearly as truck-like as I expected it to be. BUT... it really wasn't going to work for us, because it smelled like smoke. I am super sensitive to cigarette smoke, and within a few blocks of our little test drive, I was feeling sick. It was ok, though, because it taught me that I like Tacomas. When we brought the truck back, I did a terrible job of parallel parking, because I couldn't tell how wide I was. As we were leaving, the guy offered to clean out the truck and see if he could get the smoke smell out, but I said it probably wasn't going to work out. Sorry.

Then we drove out to Brad's Cars*** to test drive a Nissan Frontier. It was even cleaner than it had seemed in the pictures online. It looked brand new. The dash was SO classy. I liked it! And then, when I test drove it, I felt like I was driving Noah's Ark. The truck felt huge, and I hated it, and it made me feel as if I was being a really risky driver because I was afraid that I would sideswipe, like, everyone. When we brought that truck back, I didn't even bother trying to park in a particular place, because I would have crunched other cars that they had for sale, for sure. Also, that truck made a churning-thumping noise as I drove it, so that wasn't really confidence-inspiring either. We decided Frontiers were out, since I hate them.

Our third stop was down in American Fork, to test drive a Chevy Colorado. The outside of the Colorado looked nice! The inside had seen better days. The weird thing was, we're only looking at trucks that are '04 and newer, but the dash in this thing looked like it was from 1980. It really did. And then we started driving it, it was ok. It was boxy, but not as bad as the Frontier. Nothing to get excited about, but it would work, I guess. And then we realized the back had no seats. It did have one car seat anchor thing, but no actual seats. That salesguy said it was because it had been a work truck. Ah, ok. Well, we're limiting our search to extended cab stuff, so the Colorado was out.

Then we drove home.

In the evening, J found a Tacoma online that he wanted to check out in Salt Lake (because it was cheap and low miles) but the guy couldn't meet us that night, so we didn't go. Instead, we went to the Toyota dealership that J bought our Yaris at, just to see what they had.

The sales-guys laughed at us for wanting to spend what we've decided we want to spend. Then the sales-guys laughed at us for looking at 2 wheel drive trucks in Utah. They didn't really have anything that met our criteria. Our sales guy tried to talk us into buying a Tacoma that was 4WD, with a shell, which had just been a trade-in from the night before. He was telling us he could do that for $15,000, and he would give us $1500 for the Elantra as a trade-in. Hm. Well, that was more than we wanted to spend... What about for $14,500, he asked. We decided to test-drive it.

Visibility through the truck's shell was minimal. The brake light stayed on, even though I'm sure the parking brake was off. The engine made a weird noise. I pulled it into the next row of parking stalls, and that ended my test drive. We went back inside to find our guy, and he came back out and tried to drive it. He tore through the parking lot, turned around and came back. He told us the brake light clicked on and off for him. He said the tires were having some problems, so it was a bumpy ride. And then he told us it hadn't been through their shop yet, so they didn't know how much that was going to cost, and what if if were a little over $15,000 but we kept it close to $15,000 and he wasn't sure if he could, but would we be interested? Eh. Not really. Thanks, though.

So, our next options were the Tacoma that J had found, or an Isuzu that was cheap (but 3 hours away, in Idaho), or another Tacoma that was a little spendy, but looked nice, and was up in Bountiful.

And then, something amazing happened. I found A PERFECT CAR.

[To be continued!]

* Which J actually bought new.
** We keep borrowing J's dad's truck for things.
*** NO CREDIT CHECKS!!!!! WE CAN FINANCE ANYONE!!!!! (uh oh)

Our new DOOOOOOM BUGGY (aka. Horse trailer)

On Friday, J and I went on another fun date. We went to go buy a horse trailer. The main reason we need one now is because we need to be able to transport our calves. We brought them home in the back of J's dad's truck, and that just isn't going to work for them anymore. We also need a trailer because we will probably use it a few times per season to buy many bales of hay, or a lot of grain.

We decided to get an old trailer because new trailers are very, very expensive. Old trailers hold their value very well. J found this one on KSL. It is a 1984 horse trailer. The tires are pretty new. Some of the lights weren't working, so J offered $100 less than the price the guy had listed it for, and the guy accepted the offer. We hooked it up* and drove off. Later, the problem with some of the lights corrected itself. Great.

We had intended to park it in our garage, since there's space. Horse trailers are heavy enough, though, that you can't move them after you park them. So it would have been tricky to maneuver. For now, it is parked in our backyard** but we plan to move it either to the side of the house or to the driveway.

J keeps telling the calves that it's what they will take "to get to Heaven." I tell him that's sad, and he shouldn't say it. They don't understand, though, so they're pretty interested in it.

I keep wanting to call it our Dooooooomsbuggy (in a creepy voice) because to me it looks an awful lot like the little buggies that you sit in for the Haunted Mansion, at Disneyland.*** I want to repaint it. J says we don't have time. (Yeah, we actually don't.) Maybe someday.

I also keep thinking we should really get a horse or two. J says to save my personal money. He also says we don't have time for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.) He also says we don't have money for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.)**** When we have more money and time I can have a horse. That will probably be in a while, though.



* It was pretty funny, actually. The trailer was in the middle of a field and when the man was showing J how to hook the trailer up, the horses that were in the field became curious about what was going on. They came over to check things out and started nibbling on our clothes, etc. I forgot how much I love horses.
** Which had a ton of space and was still tricky to maneuver. J just needs more practice.
*** It turns out those are actually called "Doom buggies." Eh. Whatever.
**** J also says horses are too big. They make him uncomfortable. I tell him it's kind of like business: some business people are afraid to hire people that are smarter than them, or bigger than them, or better at things than they are. This is a mistake. Good business people hire people who are better than them whenever they can because they help you make your business stronger. Or, it's like the Lion King--"But what if he's on our side." I told J: "A horse could plow our crops much faster than you can." But, we don't actually have any crops, so it doesn't really matter.

Dog Lake, part 2 (sort of)

This isn't actually about Dog Lake, but it is from that hike. This is something fun.

About a year ago (October 17th, the photo thing says), J and I went hiking and we had our picture taken together. I probably posted it on my blog somewhere before, but this is the picture:


This year we took a new picture together, on the same hike, in the same month, in front of the same sign.

It's kind of like those drawings where the pictures look alike but you have to find a certain number of things that are different between the two pictures. For instance, in the first picture we're broken up; in the second picture we're married. In the first picture, we have no dog to enjoy hiking; in the second picture we have Chalcy.

I kind of think we should go back every October and take another picture there. Then, someday it will be kind of neat to flip through our pictures and watch ourselves age and things change. We'll see.

(Isn't that cool?)

Dog Lake, part 1

A couple weeks ago J and I decided to go for a hike, and we decided to bring Chalcy along.*

We ended up doing one of the hikes we used to do back before we were married. I think it's called the Big Water? trail. Anyhow, it leads to Dog Lake**, and I'd heard Dog Lake is a lot of fun. So we went.

Chalcy was off-leash for the hike, and I was a little worried about that, because it was our first time taking her anywhere off-leash (except for the dog park). She didn't fall down the mountain, though, or race off after some other dog, or anything. She just had a lot of fun hiking right next to us. So it all worked out well.

We saw tons and tons of dogs on the trail. Pretty much all of the dogs were friendly. Some people could tell Chalcy is still a puppy, and she got a lot of attention from them. ("OH, LOOK at your BIG PAWS! You've got a lot of growing to do!!") We saw another Dane on the trail, too. It was fun; we stopped to chat with her owner for a couple minutes. People who own Danes seem to always love them so much. So that was kind of neat. Sometimes I forget how big Chalcy will be.***

When we got to Dog Lake, it was nice. It's this little lake where dogs run all over the beach and play in the water, etc. Chalcy was afraid to go in the water, so J and I started tossing a stick for her, just barely in the water. She would fetch it, and we would throw it for her again, slightly farther out in the water. The game worked pretty well until one time I threw the stick about 4 feet farther into the water, and she RAN out to get it, and suddenly STOPPED in the water, a couple feet before reaching the stick. The water had gotten deeper, and her belly was getting wet now. She left the stick right where it was and returned to the shore. We laughed pretty hard, and so did the people around us. Funny dog! Chalcy is getting better at socializing with other dogs. She tends to be a little shy, but then she warms up and starts playing too. She's definitely not a barker or aggressive at all. She's always very friendly with the people around us. Just sometimes when there are a lot of dogs, it's kind of intimidating.

We're thinking we may take her to California with us for Thanksgiving. She would have more fun with us than hanging out at home without us. We'll see.

* We found out that the Cottonwood canyons do NOT allow dogs. But Millcreek Canyon does.
** Eventually. After like 4 miles of hiking.
*** It just seems like other dogs are getting smaller. Like, I thought Labs were pretty big dogs, but now they look really small. On a similar note, as of a week or so ago, I can't pick Chalcy up anymore. She's too heavy for me. Not sure how much she weighs.

P.S. The last photo of Chalcy investigating the water is not blurry because dogs splashed the camera, it is blurry because it is like a dream come true for dogs. It's a dreamy-effect that just automatically happens when you take pictures there. :)

As of today...

All of our properties are rented!

Last Saturday was our busy, busy day where we had four people all fighting to apply first. In slow-motion.

On Monday everyone passed background and credit checks.

Monday evening I signed the first rental agreement, and Tuesday evening I signed the second one. This week I hustled to finish everything. Both wanted to pick up keys last night, so we did that, and they started moving in. Yesterday was chaotic! I hired a cleaning lady AND a handyman to help. I found out that the dishwasher I was hooking up was actually broken* and J arranged for a lady to deliver one. So I installed TWO dishwashers yesterday. I'm getting better at that. Last night J and I were there re-installing the dishwasher, re-gluing linoleum, and drying out carpet until 10pm. Each unit has a couple more things to do, but nothing too urgent.

In order to rent the fourplex we posted (and re-posted) ads on KSL, Craigslist, Rental.com, and "Over 20 other sites!" (through Rental.com). We also put a FOR RENT sign in the yard.

• Our first applicant was someone who had noticed people moving and asked my other renters for my phone number.
  
• Throughout the vacancies, I had many calls and showings that resulted from KSL and the sign out front. People who called about the KSL ads were almost always calling about the unit I put fake wood floor in. Even though the ad had pictures that represented the apartment well, the people almost always ended up deciding they preferred carpet. (I think this was because the unit with carpet was closer to being done.)
• Of the two accepted applications, one was from people who drove the neighborhood looking for a place, and the other was from KSL.
• Rental.com has neat tracking stuff to tell me how many leads have been generated. They assigned me a toll-free number that interested parties could call. They claim one person called. If someone did, it did not result in anything.
• I also received two e-mails about the Rental.com ad. Neither were serious. The first was from someone with an obscene name, who also listed an obscene e-mail address. I don't know if they were real or not, but I didn't call him back to find out.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of Craigslist.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of the "Over 20 other sites!".
• Lowering the deposit seemed to make a big difference in the quality of the people that were interested. So did lowering the price.
  

Today is a lot less stressful. Things are feeling better. They will feel even better when I get our house clean!



*I found this out by, you know, flooding the whole kitchen.

Congratulations, Chalcy!

This Monday, Chalcy graduated from Puppy Preschool!*


Our original class had Mos-B (?) (a big...retriever?), Mini (a little black fluffy puppy), Zulu (a Rhodesian Ridgeback show-puppy) and Breezy (a tiny yellow lab that looked like the Cottonelle? puppy). Plus Chalcy.

Mos-B only came the first week because his person (an older lady) had a hip problem and she wasn't going to be able to bring him anymore.

Mini just stopped coming, I think. She came consistently for the first month, and made up a couple classes, but we haven't seen her in a while.

Zulu stopped coming about when Mini did. Zulu's sister was in intermediate, and they stopped taking her, too.

Breezy missed a couple weeks towards the beginning, but she made them up, and Breezy has been at all of the classes since then.

Chalcy's graduating class included: Cougar (a bitey dog that we had never met before that class, so maybe he was making up his last class) and Breezy! Breezy is MUCH bigger than she was at the beginning, but she wag-wag-wags!!! her tail all the time and gets SO EXCITED!!! about everything. Breezy will do ANYTHING for a treat. If she can figure out what you want her to do.


Anyway, for her last class we practiced combining commands (Drop it- Leave it), "Return to heel"***, we learned how to do "Puppy-Push-ups" (sit! down! sit!) and we talked about what a great value Intermediate class is and when Intermediate class is starting. We also talked about how the Intermediate class fills up quickly and how it's even more fun than Puppy Preschool because it's building on what they already know. And then everyone got to have their picture taken--the dogs wore caps and so did their people because we're BOTH graduating. And then Robyn (the new trainer) filled out our graduation certificates. (And reminded us that we can sign up for Intermediate if we want.)

We may do Intermediate sometime, but we're ready for a break from classes for now. Life needs to settle down before we'll have time for more classes.

*Her certificate says Beginner level, because the trainer grabbed the wrong certificates. But they are equivalent classes.**
** But really, they're not, because Beginner is for dogs 5 months or older. We did NOT let our dog get out of hand and then finally try SOMETHING, ANYTHING to fix her. We were Responsible Dog Owners, so our certificate should say that it was the puppy class. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
*** I typed "Return to hell" first. Not sure what THAT trick would be.