There she is, our new 2009 GMC Acadia. A few people have been asking about what it looks like, partially because the Acadia is only in its third year, so I thought I’d post a pictures of it. We did a huge amount of research before selecting this vehicle, so at some point I’ll do a write-up about that process. Our short list consisted of the Subaru Tribeca, the Mazda CX-9, and the GMC Acadia. We purchased it from Northland Pontiac Buick GMC, and our salesperson – who was excellent to deal with – was Dave Sommerfeld. It was a near-perfect buying experience, one that I’ll write about later. The Acadia was our final selection from the three vehicles, and here she is…

Ruby red – isn’t she pretty?

Keiko had to come check out the new car – she’ll be travelling in it of course…

I never saw myself owning a GMC vehicle, or an SUV for that matter, but here we are…

We’ll be keeping the Mazda Protege 5 – and selling the Mini Cooper – but I thought it was funny to see how much bigger the Acadia is than the Protege…and the Protege is our “big” car compared to the Mini Cooper.

We took the mid-level package and did almost every upgrade. This car had every option we wanted on it except for the 110 volt power – the car with that feature was in Saskatchewan, and the dealer there refused to send it our way unless our dealer here would send them a truck…and with the GMC truck factory not churning out any new trucks until August, that wasn’t going to happen. So we ended up getting one from Edmonton that lacked the 110 volt power, but had a trailer tow package (which we didn’t care about very much, but the next owner might).

We got the all-wheel drive version. Dig the quad-exhaust…I think that looks cool!

She’s a big beast! I call her the Land Tank. We’re breaking form and not getting a vanity plate.

The inside is furnished nicely. Not quite as high-end as the twin model from Buick, but who wants wood paneling anyway? Not us. Definitely a technologically advanced vehicle – and pairing the audio system to my smartphone over Bluetooth was shocking easy to do. Yes, something involving Bluetooth that was easy. Who knew such a thing was possible!

That’s my Zune 120 connected to the auxillary audio input – the only Zune big enough to hold our entire music collection at once. I’m glad it has that input, but I’m very disappointed with GMC for putting it in such a stupid place – having it inside the console, and having the cigarette lighter inside the console to provide power, or better yet a USB port, is the right way to do it. As it stands now, I’m looking for a Zune cigarette power adaptor that will charge the Zune and hold it aloft…I’ve seen one for the iPod like that, but I have to find one for the Zune.

Here’s the thing about me: I’m really not a “handyman” fix-it type of guy. I am with technology, and most types of electronics, but when it comes to yard work or home maintenance, I really don’t enjoy it, nor am I very experienced at it. So that’s my excuse for the incredibly poor shape the back deck on our house was in as of a few months ago. We’ve been in this house for seven years, and good old Bay West Homes decided that painting our wood was better than staining it – so guess what paint does over time? Yeah, it peels and looks ugly.

If I would have known better, I would have insisted asked that they stain the wood instead. Last year I bought some paint and a brush to attempt to tackle the problem, but I did it too late in the season so I had to wait until this year to start. After the snow thawed this year, the wood on the deck looked 200% worse than it did the previous year – this seemed to be the tipping point for peeling. Wittness the horror…

I was going to sand and paint it, but my father in law recommended a process whereby someone (usually a siding company) wraps the wood in aluminum. It took a few phone calls, and a few poor explanations of what I wanted, before I learned that the process was called “cladding”. I found a Calgary-based company called Edge Xteriors who did the process, and they were fairly affordable compared to the quote I received from another company. Check out how good my deck looked after the cladding process:

I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner! If you’ve got a peeling paint problem, and want a maintenance-free way of fixing the issue, cladding is your answer. (more…)

So is it totally crazy of Ashley and I to hold onto the Mini Cooper until the spring of 2009, when we can purchase a 2010 Chevy Camaro? This car looks so completely bad-ass, and since I never achieved my dream of buying a Mustang at age 25 (it just didn’t quite work out), this car looks like it might fit the bill of a “fun car”. It’s so bizarre for me to be seriously considering a car that I’ve never driven, but daaaaamn does it look hot!

Hats off to the people at the local Canadian Blood Services in Calgary – Ashley and I went down there this past Saturday to be first-time blood donors, and it was a really great experience. Donating blood is something I’ve “wanted” to do for years. I put wanted in quotes because it seems for most people, and I’m sadly often in this group, they’ll “want” to do things but always find excuses to not do it. Every year I get old I try to push myself to higher levels of integrity – where when I say I’m going to do something, I do it.

This time around I had a one-two punch to the jaw: last week my friend Crystal (she’s the one I’ve been taking a lot of pictures for lately) went into the hospital with an extremely low hemoglobin count. She needed an immediate blood transfusion – it saved her life. That was punch number one. A day later, I received an email from Canadian Blood Services (using an email address I used for a one-time online contest) saying that they were in desperate need of blood donors – they had only a three-day supply of blood available. Punch number two. Some days I’m a bit slow, but I’m not that dense, so I told Ashley we should really get down there and donate blood.

We went in on Saturday at noon, and it was a great experience – yes, even though we got poked in the arm with a needle. The process was fairly quick – the worst part was the paperwork…well, that and the finger-pick to test my blood for iron levels. That little clicker thing hurt more than the horse-needle they put in my arm! After answering the questions about where I’ve been in the past three years, and the ones that might make some people blush (“Have you ever been paid money or drugs for sex?”) and them checking my arms for needle tracks, it was off to the comfy chairs. Ashley and I brought paperback books because we thought the drawing blood process took 30 minutes – it didn’t. The very skilled nurse put the needle in my arm with almost no pain, and my heart slammed out 0.5 litres (1 pint) of the red juicy stuff in 6 minutes 8 seconds. Ashley took a bit over 8 minutes – apparently women are typically slower. Maybe men were made to bleed faster because we’re the ones usually starting the wars.

After the donation I spent a few minutes sipping Apple juice and eating cookies, then we left. We’ve already booked our appointment for October – you can only donate every 56 days – and we both felt great about having donated blood. My only regret? That it took me this long to get around to doing it. If you can donate blood, you should - they need it. Besides, what else are you going to do with it?

Wow. In the span of 20 minutes, my 72″ Toshiba DLP TV was delivered, two new Dell 24″ LCD monitors arrived, and my repaired/replaced (not sure which yet) Shuttle SD11G5 was also returned. My geek head is spinning – I’m not sure which one to set up first.