In another sign of the current sucky economy, crime rates are starting to go up. I experienced this first hand last night when a loud constant knocking at our front door at 1.30am turned out to be a policeman telling me my truck had been broken into. Grrr.

That's right, my Smart Car is here!! I got call this morning about 9:45 from Jessica at the dealership telling me it was here. She asked if I was going to get it today and I told her I can be there in about an hour. I had to wait till 2pm because they had people scheduled to come in already. 

My car is in California!! It is waiting to get put on a truck, that will be 24-48 hours then it is on it's way here. I might have it next week!!! (Today is Sat 8/16 by the way) 

So here it is Saturday morning after the first week of school and I slept like 13 hours last night. That's what happens when you have two margaritas at before 6:30 pm and then NiQuil before bed. It's about 11:00 am and my phone rings. I don't know the number and think it is either another political recording call or someone else I don't want to talk to but I answer anyway, and it is my Smart Car Rep. YEAH!! 

Several people here have questioned why Sally is selling her Ford Mustang and getting a SmartCar. It's a fair question. Get rid of an American icon of speed & power for a European shoebox? Crazy right? Well check out the link below for a short YouTube clip from Britain's infamous "Top Gear" show, were they race one of the latest Ford Mustangs against a real Mustang.... yep, 300 horse power against 1 horse power :-)

Ross and I went to IKEA today to get another curtain rod piece. We were just a freeway exit away from Smart Car so we decided to check them out. I wanted to see the new set up and ask if they had any idea when my car might be here. Well, they had an idea and it is June or July, that is a few months later than I thought it would be.

Yesterday, Super Tuesday, was not the best day for me. My car was frozen when I went out to go to work...see previous blog. The day was a little hectic at work and trying to vote was a pain in the neck. 

I couldn't believe it this morning. I went out to my car, popped the trunk and there were frozen bits on the trunk. In fact the windsheild and drivers window were frozen too! Who knew I would ever wake up and have to defrost my car in Phoenix. Needless to say I was not happy about it. I had to pour all my water from my Nalgene bottle on my windsheld and window, and I had to crank my heat too.

When I got to work I was not the only one. Cathy Frogge, the teacher across the hall, had to scrape her car this morning. She said she thought it was going to snow last night because of the rain storm we had yesterday.

When I got to school, about 7:20am, I checked the weather and it was a freezing 35 degrees out. What is up with that? Global warming is screwing with my mild winters. At least it is supposed to be in the 70's on Saturday. And it better not get any colder again this year. I moved here for a reason--the warm weather. Okay, I moved here to teach too but....

Friday was a quiet morning. I'm currently still programming from home and all my current customers were ticking along nicely, no-body had any work that needed doing so I decided to sneak out for a long lunch and watch a movie at my local cinema. I'd already seen the good movies like "Cloverfield", so I decided to watch "Untraceable" largely because a) it has Diane Lane in it and b) it was set in our old home town Portland, Oregon!

So I leave the house about 11.30 for the 11.45 showing. My gas gauge was on empty and I didn't really have any time to hit the gas station. How bad can it be I thought, the cinema is 10 blocks away (although Phoenix blocks are much, much bigger then Portland blocks). So I get to the cinema, park up and go watch the movie. I spend the next 90 mins alternating between "Ah Portland, it's so pretty" and "Has there been 1 scene in this movie where it hasn't been raining?!?". Unfortunately despite an interesting premise the movie quickly collapsed into cliche and all-round lame-ness - for shame Hollywood, for shame! They did at least seem to get their locations right, and used lot's of local Portland terms, so I'm assuming it was at least written by someone familiar with the city?

So 1.30pm, I'm back in the truck and about to head for home. I pull out of the parking lot and onto the little mall exit road, where my car promptly dies. Shit! I sit there for a couple of minutes with my hazards blinking away, trying to start the car again while other idiot drivers pull up right behind me, somehow not noticing that my truck is blinking more than the UFO's in "Close Encounters"! Luckily for me, across the street the Chase bank has a security guy in the parking lot and he walks over and offers to help push the car into their parking lot, which we do.

So I chat to Larry the security guy for a few minutes. I'm pretty sure I'm out of gas so I just need to walk to the nearest gas station and get some. Larry offers me the use of a gas can, but isn't allowed to leave his post to drive me. So I set of walking to the nearest gas station which is about 5 blocks away... but being Phoenix with their giant blocks, this is like a 30 minute round trip in the mid-day sun so it's hot and I'm getting thirsty. I finally make it back, pour the gas into the tank, try & start the car - nothing. Still dead. Bugger. It's now getting on for 2.30pm so I call AAA, tell them I'm out of gas and they tell me they'll have a couple of gallons right out to me. About 3.30pm someone finally shows up, we put the 2 gallons in the tank, try and start the truck and it still wont go. So my AAA guy calls for a tow-truck, hands me a bottle of water (the only sustenance I've had all day so far) and leaves. I chat to Larry some more. Larry hasn't eaten for 3 weeks. He saw the children in Africa starving on TV and asked how can he go back for seconds or thirds all the time when they have nothing? So he's on a fast. It's been 3 weeks. I figure his hearts in the right place, even if this is a somewhat extreme reaction. Maybe eating half your normal food, and donating the rest to oxfam would be a healthier solution?

About 5pm AAA call to check the address - the first guy had given them the wrong address and now that tow-truck had gone to another job and they had to find someone else to send to me. Larry goes home, it gets dark. Chase employees are leaving and probably wondering why I'm sat in their parking lot. About 6pm Sally shows up with some drink and snacks - bless her, perfect timing as I was starving by this time. And about 6.30pm the new tow-truck shows up and finally tows me the 10 blocks to the nearest Ford dealer... which is closed. Chatting to the young tow-truck guy I discover that he briefly lived in Utah. We went to Moab, UT recently and it was beautiful so I wondered why he left Utah to move to Phoenix? "The only thing to do there is go to Walmart!" he replies. I laugh uncontrollably for the next 5 minutes straight :-)

So we abandon the car on Ford's lot, throw the key in an envelope and are done with it, 5 hours of my life wasted. Then it's off to the nearest Chili's for food and drink, and lots of swearing to sell the car and buy a moped!

Saturday lunchtime I get a call from Ford telling me that my truck is fixed and the culprit was... faulty inertia switch! Long-time readers of the blog might remember that on our journey from Portland to Phoenix my truck died in the middle of nowhere, CA? Same issue. Let's hope this new inertia switch works better then the last one. At least I still ended up being under factory warranty, so the repair work was all free - yay. Finally I have a truck I can use again, and it only took 5 hours of my life wasted.

While wondering what to do with our Sunday this morning, I picked up a recent "Phoenix" magazine which happened to be it's annual "Best Of..." edition. Flicking through it looking for something fun I stumbled on Joe's Farm Grill and we decided to go check it out.

It's way the hell out SE of us in Gilbert, about 30 miles away so I let the iPhone guide us there... any excuse to play with my favorite new toy ;-) It actually turned out really well though, Google Maps suggested a totally different route then I would have taken so we ended up exploring the 202 freeway which we had never been on before. It's a major shortcut to get to a bunch of places we go to semi-regularly like Papago Park and Tempe Town Lake, as well as a much quicker route east then my usual Freeways 10 & 60 combo.

So we finished our food and decided to take a quick walk around the gardens, taking some of the pics you see here. We eventually found the restrooms and head inside. They were the coolest restrooms I've been in in ages! Firstly very cool, all white, almost Philippe Starck-esque design. Then I noticed above the urinal was a flat screen TV showing Stingray, one of many of 60's British puppeteer extraudinaire Gerry Anderson's classic marionation series, Thunderbirds being the most famous. Note for Americans unfamiliar with Gerry, "Team America World Police" was inspired by and made fun of these shows. There was also holes in the walls of the bathroom that had GIJoe and Barbie dolls in them, covered in perspex. Trippy and bizarre, we liked it!

We head back towards the coffee shop where we'd parked and notice another building opposite it which we check out. First of all there is an open space where they have a farmers market, then next to it I notice what looks like an old Italian motor-racing sign. Upon closer inspection, it says "Motorino Centrale. Italian scooters". Holy crap, it's a tiny store selling Vespas and Lambrettas by appointment only. Unfortunately it was closed, although as I hadn't made an appointment I guess that was no surprise. Looking back across the parking lot to the coffee shop, we notice that right outside the door is a parking area designated for scooters only :-)

So maybe you think "This is America, there's no money in little Italian scooters here"? Well parked outside the Motorino Centrale in a reserved spot was an Aston Martin Vanquish convertible, which start at about $250k for one with no steering wheel or tires. Ciao...