Magnum, K.K.

Vehicle ownership. Two words that seem to be a necessity, and yet can strike fear in to one's wallet.

There have been a few good laments within these pages about our vehicle woes. The day we broke my mazda pickup in half (literally) on the car hoist to fix a simple broken clutch cable. Honestly, got my money out of this vehicle since it was well over 300,000 kms! We sold that car for parts that fateful day.

Then came the Blazer... busting a head sized hole in the side of the engine on route to our holidays almost a year ago to this date, and then the radiator, tires, alternator, window falling off its track, funky speedo noise, unknown stalls, and various other knocks and pings, failing aircare not once or twice but almost a handfull of times before we coaxed the beast through last December...

This is just our last two vehicles, not mentioning Ken's pretty beretta that lost its get up and go, and my rabbit that I drove to the end of its life... in this year of reinventing ourselves, we decided that perhaps it was time to make the leap for a newer and more reliable vehicle. We have been doing the research, and I would admit, I started out more "positional" than Ken, he was willing to look at just about anything, and I was baulking about looking at minivans. Just had a bit of an issue with that. Well, I finally moved away from that position to admit that a minivan may not be a bad thing, when both people like to play hockey (and one is a goalie) and you have a child on the way that will eventually come with a bunch of stuff too.

One morning a few weeks ago, after my doc's appointment, I was set to go and grab a few brochures from a local car dealership. Well, the salesman said the right thing about the blazer, offering a decent trade in value and the bartering started out fast and furious to the point where I was being offered a weekend test run of a magnum. Well, with my heart pounding in my ears, I knew this was not a decision I was making solo, and yet you have to strike when the iron is hot.

Without a brochure I headed home, lighting up the phone lines to Ken. A few words later, and I was cleaning out the Blazer to see if indeed, we could make a deal work. Many, many hours later, we are the proud owners of a 2oo5 magnum and it rocks. We have the peace of mind of a warranty, low kms, and a sleek looking machine that is safe, decent mileage, and hell, I think it looks damn cool. Another payment is always scary, but to have a reliable car at this stage of the game is huge!

2006 has been the year of the reinvention - marriage, kids, car... what could possibly be next for us?