The weather really turned on us.  It is much colder today.  We had temperatures around eighty two days ago and sixty yesterday and today we are around forty degrees!  Ugh.

I got to work and ended up having a crazy morning.  I worked as quickly as I could trying to get everything that I could possibly get done completed before we needed to leave to deal with the car.  It was all that I could do just to keep up.  What a busy morning.

Our insurance company called to walk me through the insurance changes today because of the new car.  Because of the changes to our insurance (changing our commuting parameters, switching from a sport convertible to the SUV, etc.) our insurance is dropping a bit.  I love my insurance company (BMW/Liberty Mutual.)  They really treat us great.  Our prices are amazing and the service is wonderful.  They are very friendly and easy to deal with for everything.  We are saving around $30/month because of the changes.  Every little bit helps.

I didn’t get a chance to even attempt a shower until a quarter after noon – just barely before we were supposed to be running out of the door.  What a busy day.

We got on the road just in time.  It was raining by the time that we left and very cold.  By the time that we got to Harriman, New York we were getting hail!  Talk about a change in the weather.

The process at OC BMW took a bit longer than we had expected but they were able to switch our plates and take care of some stuff for us that they had originally thought that they would not be able to do so it ended up working out well.

Our financing did not go as well as we had planned.  We ended up owing more money on the 330 than we had thought that we owed which made things difficult.  So we had to do some fancy financing tricks to make the X3 a reality today.  It worked out okay, though.  We had to put more money down than we had planned but nothing crazy and we had to do some maneuvering with the dealership between the price and finance rate (we ended up taking a cut on the price while paying more in interest) but in the end I think that it worked out well and may actually be advantageous to us in the long run if we manage the finances on the car well for the next two years.  At the end of the day I was pretty happy with how the financial turned out.  Since we are doing our car financing through BMW Financial we also qualified for BMW Visa cards which will give us credits towards our next BMW purchase so we are totally going to take advantage of that!

Speaking of financials, while we were waiting at the car dealer I saw the news that Oracle had agreed to purchased Sun Microsystems.  Overall I am not completely sure how to take the news but I think, most likely, that it is pretty good news.  Far better than IBM buying Sun.  Oracle and Sun seem to be more in tune with one another and it doesn’t eliminate one of the big server players.  Having only three seemed like a bad idea.  I can live with four.  But Sun plays an important role in market diversification.  The only concerns now are the long term plans that Oracle may have for some of Sun’s software intellectual property like MySQL, Java and Solaris.  It will be important to watch that space to see what Oracle decides to do in the years to come.

After completing everything with the car we were really starving so we drove down to Cosimo’s and got lunch.  Their gorgonzola cheese melted over waffle fries is one of the best things ever.  We just love it.

The drive home was our first long drive with the new X3.  It did pretty well.  I can see that it will be pretty comfortable for long family trips.  We are kicking around the idea of going to Annapolis and/or Bar Harbor pretty soon and we would need the X3 for a trip of a length like that.

Highlights of the new X3 include much lower car payments (almost $200 less per month!), heated seats front and back, tons of storage space, built-in navigation system, Bluetooth integration so that we can just talk to the car and it communicates through our mobile phones, front to rear moonroof so the entire sky is visible, etc.  So far we are pretty happy with the purchase.  Something had to be done and this really seemed to be the economical, utilitarian solution that met our needs and saved us money while remaining safe and convenient.  Dominica has wanted an X3 for a while so she is definitely thrilled.

Once we got back home it was back to work for me.  Way too much work that needs catching up.  Today turned out to be a pretty rough day to be physically out of the office for most of the day.  But dealing with the car was not something that should wait and now it is all set.  All we have to do yet is to have the insurance photos taken and that can be down right downtown so it is no big deal at all.  Will probably have Dominica run out and do that tomorrow.

I worked for the office until quite late and then it was time to get down to some writing that I have been getting behind on and desperately need to get caught up.  Liesl fell asleep really early, around six thirty, and because we had such a big and unhealthy lunch I skipped dinner completely.  So my entire evening was dedicated to getting work done as much as possible.

I got my first article for the day completed around a quarter after ten this evening.  You can check out my article on Microblogging for Business on SMBITJournal.

It really rained today.  Hours of pouring rain.  We got some pretty good thunder in there as well.  I had been hoping to be able to take a nice, long walk tonight since I didn’t get to take one earlier today but the rain really put a damper on that idea.  The rain was far too heavy to allow for walking outside.

I ended up working late.  Very late.  It was four thirty by the time that I finally managed to get off to bed.  It was good that I stayed up, though, because I was able to get a lot of work done and I feel that it was very valuable.  Tomorrow is going to be a rough day.

Our cupboards were seriously bare today so Dominica and Liesl ran out to go grocery shopping leaving Oreo and I alone at home.

Our case of wine from Lakeshore on Cayuga Lake arrived today.  We had been worried about it as it originally arrived on Monday and we had left a note that we would be availble to receive it today.  We are quite excited to have good wine again.

I kept working on CD and DVD conversions today.  My desktop has been very busy working on CD conversions and Dominica’s laptop has been working around the clock getting movies converted.  We have finally figured out how to handle foreign films with subtitles so we no longer have to worry about what to do with those.

Strangely, I learned today, Owego, New York has been named the coolest small town in America.  Katie and John will be proud as they both call Owego their home town.  How did Owego get named this?  I have no idea.  It would never have occurred to me to think of Owego as a cool town.  Owego has always seemed such an uncool place – especially considering its neighbouring areas.

Our plans this evening include heading over to Harriman, New York to do some car shopping.  We left at five thirty and it takes less than half an hour to get over there.

On the drive over we were talking about our car buying options.  Dominica really wants to get a small SUV so that we have some cargo capacity.  We have been kicking around the idea of getting a Mazda CX7 in addition to whatever BMW we decide to get and trading in the PR5 for it.  It occurred to me that we should consider a BMW SUV, potentially, rather than a Mazda SUV because it does not necessarily make sense to get rid of the PR5 yet – especially when we own two sets of tires for it and just paid to have so much done to it to get it up to snuff this week.

We decided that it would make sense for us to test drive the X3 in addition to driving the 528i.  We really didn’t know anything about the BMW SUV options (or SAV as they call them) so we were going in rather blind.

We sat in a few cars in the show room at Orange County BMW.  Then we test drove a 2007, black with tan interior, fully loaded BMW X3.  The X3 is an all wheel drive, 3.0 (same engine as our 330) which rides mostly like a car.  You don’t sit up that high and the fuel efficiency is actually better than the convertible’s.  Dominica really liked the X3.  It didn’t hurt that it was fully loaded with all of the bells and whistles including in-dash navigation system and front to back moonroof.

We took Liesl with us on the test drive (Oreo stayed in Peekskill – his first time alone since Liesl was born and since he has gone blind.)  She fit comfortably in the back of the X3 with a ton of available “trunk” space for hauling whatever we need.

Our next trip out was in the 528i.  I preferred the 528i as it was more comfortable in the front when I was driving and, obviously, was much more attractice, cooler and handled better than the X3 and would be available in rear wheel drive for serious drivers rather than all wheel drive for soccer moms.  On the passenger side things were pretty tight for me with Liesl in the back seat.  The trunk is very ample but not nearly as big as the X3.  The cost is much higher for the 5 series, the fuel efficiency is a smidgen less and Dominica does not like it as much.

So the final verdict, after much consideration, is that we will get a BMW X3.  Orange County BMW made us a good offer on our 330Cic – not for as much as we owe but for more than we thought that we could get.  We looked into several options including leasing new and buying used (we know enough not to buy new) and finally decided that what we really wanted was the X3 that we drove.  I didn’t really want it in black but Dominica really liked the black and its an SUV so I really only barely care.  It’s ugly and ridiculous looking no matter how you paint it so might as well get whatever Dominica wants as long as it isn’t white – we saw a white one and it was bad.

So we put down $1,000 on the X3 to hold it until we have time to really make a decision.  I could tell that Dominica really wanted to buy it on the spot but obviously we aren’t about to do that.  But putting a hold on it meant that we could take as long as we want to decide on it.  That seemed like the conservative step to take.  I am happy with getting the X3 over the 528i because of the overall cost savings, additional space and the removal of the need to them get Dominica another car that is an SUV.

Now we can save money by keeping the PR5 for at very least another year if not more and when we do replace it we can do so with a car rather than a truckish thing.  Even with rolling the money that we still owe on the 330 into the payments on the new car we will be decreasing our monthly payments by over $100 and maybe by as much as $150.  A lot of that cost savings comes from the fact that the new interest rate is 4% lower than the old one – if all goes well.  So that makes the purchase a lot more worth it.  And because the X3 has the built in navigation system we can put the Garmin that we have into the Mazda and always have one no matter who is driving what vehicle – even when we are both driving at the same time.

After our test driving was over, it was around eight thirty, we drove down the street to Cosimo’s Pizza and Bar (or something like that) and got dinner.  Liesl did really well all evening barely getting upset at all and only when she was starving.  It was really good that we were able to take her test driving with us because we would not have had a good feel for the cars had we not and it would have taken forever if Dominica and I had to drive each car separately.

We ate dinner and then drove back to Peekskill.  The decision to buy the car is all but made at this point.  Dominica is really excited to be getting the X3 and, while I am far from thrilled about the X3 in general, I am pretty realistic that driving the 330 is not possible and that if we kept it it would just cost us a fortune and never get to be driven.  The X3 is very practical for us at this point and is going to help with the month to month finances.  The sooner we switch from the 330 to the X3 the sooner we start to save as well since our interest rate will almost be cut in half and our monthly payments will be lower (and all of that based on no money down – so we might be able to improve it slight by putting some down yet too.)

Our plan is to decide on the car for sure tomorrow and call them on Saturday since I know that I will be really busy tomorrow.