I hate car shopping.

As many of you (all three of my readers) probably know, I’ve been in the market for a new/used truck. I’ve been doing a lot of research and have settled on a very specific model. So this past Sunday I went to test drive one. They had the short bed version in stock, but not the long bed. I figured the ride wouldn’t be a whole lot different, so I took it out for a spin. I was rather pleased. It has a stiff ride, which is to be expected as it is a truck, but at highway speeds of 65mph or more, it was a quiet, smooth ride. The dealership would have to order one for me if I wanted it in the green they have (Gail thinks red is too flashy, I detest silver, so green is a nice compromise). The Cash for Clunkers rebates kick in on the 24th, which means I’ll have to purchase a brand new truck if I want to take advantage of the rebates. I’ll have to seriously massage some numbers to see if I can get it in the price range I want. And that’s the part I hate. I like test driving, I like searching tons of car sites, reading Auto Trader, and walking car lots. I hate the negotiation part. That’s part of why Carmax appeals to me – no hassle pricing. If the Carmax dealer by me sold new Toyotas instead of Mitsubishis, it’d make life much easier.

Aside from that, we had a busy weekend. Gail and I took the kids to see the new Harry Potter movie, which we all thought was excellent. Looking forward to seeing last movie. I think the movies themselves have just gotten better as they go along, which makes sense; the kids are better actors, they’re growing up and filling out their roles.

After the movie, Gail asked if I wanted to go to the Apple store, as it was in the same mall as the theater. I said “I can’t go in, I’ll have to buy something. I can only go in there so often and come out empty handed!” She said “So...let’s go.”

I took that as permission.

We went, and man was that place crowded. Gail remarked that you couldn’t tell there was a recession going on judging by the crowd in there. She was right. Wall-to-wall people. Gail found the iPhones and started playing, and then watched a guy who was giving a class on the iPhone. She has been wanting one almost as much as I have. I leaned over and said “If you go and ask if they have the 3Gs in stock, I’ll buy you one.” I don’t think I’d finished expelling breath from that sentence before she was gone from my side. Five minutes later, Sarah came up and said, “Mom’s looking for you.” Gail was at one of the laptops, and was half-way through the process of upgrading to the iPhone. She looked at me quizzically, to see if I really meant it. She’d filled out all but the last four digits of my social security code on the upgrade form. I punched those in, and hit next.

We got in line, and about 20 mins later we were walking out of the store with her new iPhone. She was very happy, and for those that are wondering why I didn’t buy the iPhone for myself, as much as I’ve been talking about it lately, well – her smiles are always worth it. And her phone was starting to go into the crapper anyway. I’ll get one soon, and it’ll be easier to justify it now as well. See, aside from the cheese-factor of making my wife happy, there was also a bit of psychology behind it; Gail played with her phone all weekend, loving how easy it was, how she was able to navigate to the app store and download stuff (great example of that in a moment), and just the general overall coolness of it. When I start complaining how my phone sucks, or I’m jealous, she won’t hesitate to drag me over to the Apple store and get one. Hopefully.

Sunday Gail and I got up to go walking along the W&OD Trail. We had walked all of about 30 yards down the trail when Gail said “oh, we should get my phone! It has a pedometer application!” We had left it in the car as she had no pockets and I didn’t want to be stuck carrying it. So we turned around and got her phone out of the car. When she said the phone had a pedometer application, I thought she meant already installed. Nope – but she knew the App Store had one, and even thought to look for a free one (which she found). And that’s part of the beauty of the iPhone, and Apple products in general; ease of use. Gail’s by no means a super computer user, but she had figured out how to get the iPhone to hook to the App Store and search for a application and download it. It took all of about 30 seconds, and then we were on our way, her phone sitting in my pocket counting our steps. Pretty damn cool. And I was surprised by the lightness, it didn’t feel heavy in my pocket at all.

Finished up the weekend by wiping Gail’s laptop and re-installing Vista. One way or another it managed to get a bunch of trojans and virii on it. Frustrating when the programs I tried (Spy Doctor, Norton, McAffee) couldn’t get rid of it. I figured it was due, so I told Gail the previous week to back up what she wanted, and last night I started the wiping process. I started by muttering how I wouldn’t have had to do this with an iMac (referring to my idiotic purchase of the Sony Vaio instead of an iMac) and Gail said, “Want to go to the Apple Store?”