by Matt | Aug 26, 2003 | Imported Entry
I’ve gotten a few more things out of the way in terms of wedding planning. The rehearsal dinner is booked but with a yet to be determined menu. We chose this nice little Italian place called Cecallas. Just about everything on the menu is tasty. I also got the final measurements for my tux taken care of last night. I’ll be playing the part of Rick from Casablanca in case anyone is curious. That style is called White Shawl Classic and that’s what I’ve booked. My groomsman will be in the Black Shawl equivalent. Same thing, only black.
And, just a little clarity for Chris, who has frighteningly forgotten when the date of the wedding is, it’s the 1st of November. Rehearsal dinner is the night before, the 31st. The rehearsal itself is before the dinner. Bachelor parties AFTER the rehearsal dinner would probably be ill-advised. Which means everyone might want to think about coming in a day early, if schedules permit of course. The only person with an excuse to show up late is Jason since his film will be premiered at a film festival that week. He’ll be flying in on the 31st.
So, the only thing left to confirm is the DJ (which we’ll be doing this week) and getting the invitations back from the printers (should be Monday-ish). That’s it. We’re done. I’ve also got to think up a wedding present for Lauren. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s going to get me digital turntables. Then all I’ll need a new sound card to enjoy them on and a pair of those nifty head-phones Chris has.
Let’s see, what else. I got car insurrance of my own yesterday. State Farm. My premium sucks and will continue to suck until I’m married. Then it only sorta sucks. I also picked up the new CPU Mag, PCGamer and PDN.
Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be working right now. I’m not. I’m typing this. Paul and Carrie are away for a few days leaving the studio to me. I’m decided it needs a good re-organizing and cleaning. So that’s what I’m doing. It’s a huge studio so it might take a while, so… I should probably get back to work. At least I have digitallyimported.com to keep me company today.
Later.
by Matt | Aug 23, 2003 | Imported Entry
It seems redundant to mention that for every thing good that happens to you, something of equal or lesser annoyance (or bad luck) will also happen. For example, should you purchase a new car, it will inneviatbly get a cracked windshield from some ass-hat on the highway with a pickup truck full of loose rocks. Yeah. Continuity baby, nothing changes.
On lighter notes, a few random things happened this week that were vaguely interesting. I’ve already mentioned my tux decision (haven’t I?) this week and Monday I’m going to have it fitted. Monday I’m also going to State Farm to get my insurrance paperwork straitened out. It’s going to cost over $1000 to insure my car for 6 months. Lauren’s car, by comparison, costs her $400. I’d also like to mention that I haven’t been in an accident (my fault or otherwise) since that moron crossed the center line and killed my old mazda 3 years ago (enough time for it to come off my insurrance record says the State Farm rep). By comparison, Lauren’s been rear-ended 3 times in 6 months. Yeah… insurrance makes sense. Oh well. No sense in complaining about it today. Especially since my rate drops to somewhere between $750 and $850 once I’m married. So, I’m only paying the higher rate for a month, no biggie.
Also this week was Paul’s (the boss) birthday. His wife bought him and XBox with my help and we got him Halo and Knights of the Old Republic. I also got him a copy of Battlefield 1942 which he is now completely addicted to, in no small way thanks to me. We played Xbox on our digital projector in the studio yesterday. Playing Halo that large on the wall kicked ass. We’re planning on doing it more today.
I’ve also been eating fairly well. Lauren’s taken me out to a ton of really interesting resturants in the area. We’ve also made a few home cooked favorites over the past few weeks. I don’t think I’ve eaten this well in years. Hmm… it’s probably time to start jogging again though.
I’d also like to extend my deepest and warmest thanks to Dunkin Donuts who had the forsight to open a few stores in this very area. It’s making the transition all the easier.
Lastly, I got my order from ThinkGeek.com that contained my “I’m blogging this.” and anti-RIAA t-shirts yesterday. I was pleased. I also put a huge music order into Amazon that I should get some time next week. I’ve been dying for some different music since I’ve been stuck here with only the 6 CDs I brought with me. I ordered the new Green Day CD, the two Deep Dish after club mixes, an old Paul Van Dyk mix CD (X-mix), an older DropKick Murphys cd and a few other things I can’t remember. It should be enough to get me through to whenever I get my stuff back from NH. Which, by the way, I have absolutely no idea how to do. My parents are flying down and so are most of my relatives. As far as I know Chris and Chip are undecided in their travel arrangements and I don’t really have a vacation in the near future that I can use to drive up there and back.
That’s about it. Everyone start getting messure for tuxes and I’ll send you the link and/or phone number to call in your sizes to. That’s something we all need to take care of fairly soon I would suspect.
Alrighty. Back to work for me. Later.
by Matt | Aug 13, 2003 | Imported Entry
Damn. I’ve been so busy the past few days that I haven’t had time to post anything more about the car, or anything for that matter. Let’s see, where to start…
It’s a Mazda Protege 5, which for those of you who couldn’t figure it out on you’re own, is the 5 door version of the Protege. Believe it or not my mom actually asked me that, so I figured I’d state the obvious. It’s officially “laser blue” and has the optional “sport package” that includes the allow rims, fog lights, body trim, etc. It’s got a 6 disc in-dash cd changer, 100w sub-woofer in the back, sun/moon roof and “premium” cloth interior, whatever that is. I already love it. It’s my baby.
It’s costing me $200 a month, $50 cheaper than the matrix would have. The only thing I miss is the 120v jack in the dash. Other than that I’d say it’s a better car all around. It’s actually much sportier and more fun to drive. Plus it’s a 5 speed, so it really zooms when need be.
Other than that it’s been 99% work. Every day it’s something new and different. Today we had 2 engagment portraits, tomorrow we’re doing charity work for a catholic school downtown. Things are going pretty well and I’m learning “the buisness” as break-neck speed. I’m not sure all of it is absorbing but there’s not much I can do to slow the pace down at the moment. In a week and a half my boss is going on a mini-vacation so I’ll have time to catch up on office work and re-organize the studio so that I know where everything is. The last assistant they had organized by “crap pile” method so it’s taking me a little while to sort through things. I might not have a clean bedroom in my personal life, but professionally I like to keep everything nice and neat. It makes life so much easier when you’re looking for a sync-cord and can find it on the cord shelf rather than looking through random drawers until you find one.
Personal wise, wedding plans are pushing forward and everything is fine on all fronts. Lauren’s brother leaves for college tomorrow so I won’t have to sleep on the futon any more. Yippee! That’s about it. Besides not having anything in the way of clothes, music, electronics or personal items from NH, life is pretty good. I’m still living out of a suitcase but it’s given me a new perspective on how much I actually need to survive. My conclusion is: practically nothing. Just a pair of sneakers, a clean t-shirt or two and a camera and I’m good to go. Of course life just wouldn’t be completely without Lauren, so we can’t forget her.
Speaking of which, she’s making salsa downstairs, I think I’m going to go have some. Later.
by Matt | Aug 12, 2003 | Imported Entry
Ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to introduce the newest edition to the family.
Nuff said. I’ll update more later. Gotta run.
by Matt | Aug 9, 2003 | Imported Entry
Good morning true believers. When we last left Matt he was about to test drive a new Mazda Protégé. That test drive went very well and the dealership I was at bent over backwards to try and make me a deal. I’m ironing out the final details on Monday but as it stands now I’ll be walking away with a ’03 Protégé 5 for $2500 below dealer invoice. Sticker is $18,5 and invoice is $16,9. I’m getting it for $14,400 ($13 something before TT&L). Things are looking up.
We’ve put a deposit on an apartment (but I think I’ve already said that), my folks are floating me the down payment for the car, I’m both consolidating my loans and shopping for car insurance at the moment and lastly I’m shooting a wedding tonight. Joy!
The job is going well. There’s a high stress/work level but it’s what I really like to do. It’s exciting. I get to run around and take pictures all day. I’m going to get a new Dell to retouch on and we’re getting a new epson 4400 (roll feed super printer) and some seriously kick ass Ilford paper to do some printing in house on.
Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. I really want my damn computer. I can only get on this one once a week or so. I really want our own apartment so I can just set everything up and not have to a) sleep on a futon and b) not rely on others for food, shelter and transportation. Other than that I don’t really have any complaints. Everything else is working out really well.
I’ll let everyone know what’s going on with the car. I’ll probably even post a few pictures. Later.
by Matt | Aug 4, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, there’s been a whole lot of progress on just about every front. Lauren and I found an apartment that we like. It’s a swanky 1 bedroom/1 study with a huge living room and equally large master bath. The two bedroom was more expensive but the study in the one bedroom is nearly as large, so it’s a sneaky way of getting two bedrooms if we need’em. The washing machine, dryer, microwave and etc are all included. There’s door front trash pick-up and covered parking. It’s nice. We put down a $250 deposit so that they’ll hold it for us until Sept 30th so we have until then to decide if it’s really the place for us.
I also took some time today and started my school loan consolidation process with LendingTree/CFS. I applied and now I’m at the point where I need to gather up the information and details about my current loans and they’ll contact me by phone later this week. That was the option I chose since I don’t have my loan paperwork with me and that’ll give me a day or two to collect it and/or get it mailed to me.
Tonight we’re also going car shopping. I think we’ll try Toyota and Mazda tonight and Ford and Subaru later this week. Top contenders for cars this time around are pretty much the same as last time. Obviously a new Matrix would but my top choice but a Corolla S is also a consideration. I’d also like to test drive a Mazda Protégé 5 and the “Speed” edition of the regular Protégé. At Ford I plan on checking out the f150s and of course I’ve got to test drive a Subaru WRX at some point. I did a little fact checking and now I know all the dealer invoice prices as well as the average percentage “hold back” that the dealers use for leverage. For example, a Matrix XRS has a MSRP of $18,750 but an invoice price of only $16,960. There’s also a 2% hold back that they use to negotiate and there’s a $1000 rebate in effect. All that junk means that the car cost the dealer approximately $16,500 minus $1000 instant rebate. So, if I can get a Matrix for anything around $16,900 the dealer will have made at least $1200 profit and I’ve gotten a car for below dealer invoice (and obviously well below sticker price). I’ll never pay the sticker price. I know that they add $2000 to the invoice almost instantly and that they CAN go as low as invoice and still turn a profit. Any dealer not willing to work with me on a deal AND still turn a profit isn’t one I’m going to buy a car from. Perhaps I’m being unrealistic about it but I don’t feel like playing good cop/bad cop and I don’t feel like beating around the bush. I know how much the car is worth to the dealer and I want it for an acceptable margin above that. I don’t expect anyone to give me a car without making a profit, that’s unreasonable, but I’m not going to get taken for an extra $4000 when I don’t need to.
Anyway, things are starting to come together. Hopefully the next time I post I’ll have some exciting car news for you. Wish me luck. And a big thanks to everyone for their continued support. It’s very appreciated.
Matt out.
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