A few words after a few beers

I just finished watching The Thirteenth Warrior and noticed for the first time that it's basically a retelling of Grendel and Beowulf. How did I never catch this before? I was inspired to watch The Thirteenth Warrior again by a viking saga that I finished reading about a month ago called The Whale Road. I'm a big fan of viking sagas and have read several. I need to do a post in the future strictly about them.

My (and Anke's) Mercedes is paid for. Now all I've got to do is pick it up. It makes me a little bit nervous paying for a car then having to wait 1 1/2 weeks before picking it up. I've still got a week before I get it. I should land in San Jose around 9:30 am CA time. I'm hoping that my hotel will let me check in early. I'll then take the bus from San Jose to Fremont CA. It's like going from Omaha to Bellevue or Des Moines to Altoona. Basically the same city. I'll pick up the car, pay CA sales tax on it. I've then got an appointment with the San Jose Mercedes dealership on Tuesday to have all of the fluids changed. Oil, transmission fluid, new fluid in the differential. It'll probally be an expensive service, but it'll be much cheeper than a new transmission down the road. The Mercedes automatic 5 speed transmission in these cars tend to grenade if they aren't properly maintaned. And I'm afraid that putting a new transmission in this car may be a bit trickier than swapping a new one into the Cutlass.

Anke was telling me this evening how she never thought that she'd own a Mercedes-Benz. She always pictured them as cars driven by important buisness men. She thought that she could maybe see us in a BMW at some point, but not a Mercedes. The problem with BMW is that they hold thier value too well. The M3 is a highly sought after car. Even old ones. So a comperable M3 to my C36 would be at least half again as much more than what I paid for mine. This despite the fact that when both were new in 1997, the C36 was about $15,000 more than an M3. It's really the same way I ended up with a Cutlass. I started out looking for a Chevelle and realized that they are really expensive. A Cutlass in equivalent shape was about half the price. And I've come around to the opinion that I think Cutlasses look better than Chevelles now.

I'm sure the boys will be up early, so I should get to bed soon.