Joe and Jamie’s Blog

Begin rant.

I had to do some work in White Plains yesterday, which is about an hour or more away from home. As usual, something happened over and over again on the drive back that always ticks me off something fierce. Why can’t people get out of the left hand lane on a highway/thruway/interstate/any multiple lane road?!?!?!?!

Now I understand that not everyone likes to pass that number posted on the speed limit sign, but do they have to prevent me from going past that number? Not to mention they create miles of traffic during rush hour.  Oh and I love the ones that do ten to fifteen miles UNDER the speed limit and refuse to move out of the left hand lane, those are the best and probably Darwin award winners.

I just don’t get it. Why must people just sit there with a mile long line of traffic behind them because they don’t want to get out of the way. Are they just that naive to their surrounding? There is a perfectly good lane on the right where people won’t force you to get out of the way, because that’s what it is meant for. These people just really tick me off sometimes, just like people who don’t turn on their headlights when its raining or storming out.

Why can’t New York be more like New Jersey and make it illegal to drive in the left hand lane except for when passing a vehicle? That is an excellent law. Hats off to NJ for making a great law.

End rant.

While doing the bills tonight, I realized I just made the 30th payment on the car, completing the first payment booklet. I can’t believe it’s been two and a half years already. Seems like we just got the car in the summer. Well since this is our first car together I guess this is some sort of milestone, apparently important enough for me to blog about it.

Car payment coupon

2006 Acura RSX

With all the excitement of storms, Christmas, and fooling around with this blog I almost forgot to mention the car accident. Nothing major, so don’t fret.

Jamie was rear ended (again) in the Acura. Maybe that small car just has a sign on the back bumper that says hit me or something. I don’t have a post of the first time this happened, it was before this blog started. The first time Jamie was sitting at a light and someone on their cell phone didn’t notice traffic was stopped and ran right into her. This time it was unfortunate for both Jamie and the other car. Some idiot in the center lane of a three lane road crossed over the left lane into a parking lot without signaling, cutting off Jamie to the point where she had to slam on the brakes and come to a full stop and barely avoided him/her. Sadly the lady behind Jamie didn’t have as great of breaks/reaction time and hit Jamie. To me it was no one but that idiots fault, but he/she kept on driving and wasn’t found. Now the car is in the shop awaiting to be fixed again.

As you can see the damage isn’t that bad, but what sucks is that it bent the exhaust forward, so that has to be replaced as well. All you see in the picture is the muffler tip being bent, but it really jammed the whole exhaust pipe forward. Oh well, guess we’re getting our money’s worth out of the insurance.

Bumper and exchaust damage

More bumper damage

Jamie’s car needed new tires two weeks ago to pass inspection. You can read more on that in the previous post. I decided to get four of Firestone’s Firehawk GT’s. This is an all-season tire with a 460 treadwear, so we’ll get about 50-60,000 miles out of it, which is about 3 years for us on that car. Its rating is A for both traction and temperature. For the northeast I don’t recommend anything less than A/A.

The tire looks really good on her car. Since its an RSX and a bit sporty, the tire fits in well. The tire has the look and feel of a sports tire because its a bit wider and sleeker, but has the dependability of an all-season tire and less rapid treadwear of a sports tire (like mine). It also is pretty decently priced, only about $100 a tire.

You can check out more at the manufacturer’s website here.
The Firehawk GT’s asymmetrical design provides optimal balance and evacuation of water. It’s advanced technology called Veri-Pitch Noise Reduction helps reduce road noise. It has a high-silica compound and wider tread profile for improved cornering coefficient for superb handling.