Grandpa Rosie's Recipes #2: Sausage Soup

This recipe is pretty much all prep. The cooking is just to dump everything into a pot, and the pot does all the work for the following 90 minutes.

With the last recipe, I also made some homemade white bread. I didn't make anything new this time because I had a couple of leftover corn toasty muffins from a meal I made the previous week. Can anybody tell me what a corn toasty is? It was for a Rachel Ray recipe, and I couldn't tell what the difference was between these and cornbread. IS it different?

My cocktail with this recipe was a Wild Irish Rose, which I made with Jameson Black Barrel. This might be the smoothest whiskey I've ever had while still being very flavorful. I've had some smooth Canadian whiskeys, but those were not at all very flavorful. This is a bottle that could do some trouble on me. Using it with this drink however was just a waste of good booze. With the inclusion of the lemon juice and grenadine, you really loose any of the whiskey taste; those other two flavors fully take over.

As mentioned, this was a VERY simple recipe. Slice/chop/cut what needs to be sliced/chopped/cut, and combine it all. The recipe says to cook slowly for about "1 to 1 1/2 hours." I brought it to a boil then brought it down to medium heat and covered for 90 minutes.

This was SO good. The smoked sausage I bought had the slightest bit of a kick to it, and it really worked when combined with the other flavors. The recipe only made about half as much as the mushroom/sauerkraut recipe, so it's not quite enough to feed an army. There was enough for me to have for dinner and two lunches, and I gave some to my sister (check out her Instagram hashtag #treasuretrunkdiner) and parents, just about a serving each.

Rosie's Recipes #1: Mushroom Sauerkraut Soup

 Okay, so here's something new.

When I was in college a little more than two decades ago, my grandfather wrote and published a cookbook. In the years that have followed, I have only made two recipes from the book, and they were both made while I was in college. One turned out pretty well, the other...not so much. I ended up throwing away a soup pot because of it.

I don't remember ever cooking, or even wanting to cook, while I was growing up. I started in college when I got my own apartment and my first cookbook, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. since then, I've really enjoyed it. Before Covid, every Sunday would be Cocktail & Cooking day. I'd fix a cocktail from a bartender's guide I've had since college, and my sister would come over and I'd fix a meal from a Rachel Ray cookbook.

Now I'm riffing on my Cocktail & Cooking. Once a week on a day when my kids are at their mom's, I'll be fixing a recipe from my grandpa's cookbook. I'm going to record it, and I'm going to do a write-up here, and we'll see what happens. Generally, I'll get right to the recipe and cooking. I hate all of the cooking blogs with all the random and needless "chatter" beforehand (which is exactly what I've done here). But this should be it for that. From now on, the only thing I'll be talking about in these will be the food.

So...here we go!

First up are the ingredients. The only thing I adjusted is the amount of onions. I'm not a huge fan, and I really think a little goes a long way, so I cut the quantity down from four onions to two. Since no type of onion was specified, I used what I had on hand and what WAS specified for a recipe I'll make later in the week: one yellow onion and one red onion.

With the mushrooms, I used a store-bought package of pre-sliced white button mushrooms. I already had these in the fridge from a meal from the previous week that I never made.

One problem I tend to constantly run into is not reading all of the instructions ahead of time. Had I done that this time, I would have cubed the spareribs before putting them in the put and covering them with water. Sigh.

When I first got the cookbook, my dad said it would be interesting to see how these recipes turned out since Grandpa never really measured anything out. He also probably didn't do much copy editing for this book, because there are two ingredients listed that are never mentioned past the ingredient list: the sugar and the vinegar. I ended up combining it with the gravy that was being made with the skillet drippings, flour, and water. 

I enjoy having an adult beverage when I cook. I bought a bartender's guide while in college...or maybe it was when I was in my first post-college apartment before I got married...that I use to make random mixed drinks. It has forced me to try different drinks with different, and sometimes weird, liqueurs. The drink this time around was called a One Ireland. It was basically minty whiskey ice cream float. It wasn't great.

I made some white bread while the soup was constantly simmering. The recipe I used was from the aforementioned BH&G cook book. My timing was a little off in the preparation of the two things, but luckily this was just soup, and it just simmered for about an hour or so extra while the bread was in the oven.

Final thoughts? The bread was delicious, and I can't remember the last time I had warm, fresh-baked bread. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the soup. There was a sweetness I wasn't expecting, despite dumping in half-a-cup of sugar. I'd say that, if you actually want to taste some celery or mushrooms, toss some more in. I was basically tasting nothing but sauerkraut and super-tender spareribs. That's not a complaint at all, but it really seemed like the celery and mushrooms were unnecessary (and would really require a change in the name of the soup).

Here's a video I made. It's not good. I've learned some things, though. Mainly...nobody wants to see me talking about cooking. I'll play around with it for next time. We'll see what ends up working.

My Collections, Part 7: Starman (David Knight)

Before James Robinson came along and rebooted and revitalized the Starman name, David Knight, oldest son of Golden Age Starman Ted Knight, appeared in exactly two comic books, both during Will Payton's series.

David was a dick in Payton's series, and he was kind of a dick at the beginning of Robinson's. To be fair, though, his little brother Jack didn't make things easy for him (do little brothers ever?). I kind of don't want to mention anything else about David for fear of spoiling the series, but c'mon, it's almost 25 years old. If you don't know that David gets murdered in the very first issue (which is actually the Zero Issue...don't get confused about it), then...crap, I guess I went and ruined it.

Like every Starman whom Robinson brought into the series, David grew as a person and a hero, and by the end of the series his death was even more poignant and important.

Yeah, David gets killed. Robinson did a great job of making us care about him right before killing him off at the end of the first issue. He had to do it, though, because we had to get Jack to take up the mantle and cosmic rod.





Have List

Blackest Night #6 (regular, variant, and sketch)
Starman Vol. 1 (1988 series) #26-27
Starman Vol. 2 (1994 series) #0, 3, 5, 7, 19, 36-37, 49, 64, 66, 75-77, 79, 81, Annual 2
Starman Secret Files #1
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #1 (Zero Hour UPC, Direct UPC)

Want List

Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns TPB, HC

Imgur album of David's appearances that I have.

So I'm going through another one of those instances when I want to get the blog back up and running. As you might have noticed, I've already started, and I've got a schedule set up.

• Mondays = movies
• Tuesdays = music
• Wednesdays = personal or miscellaneous
• Thursdays = comics
• Fridays = TV

Today is Tuesday, so that means it's music day (even though I DID just post yesterday's movie post).

And now today is Wednesday, and I'm already behind. These music posts are going to be tough, because I don't listen to a lot of new music. I do have some thoughts on what I want to do eventually, though. I plan on doing a post on cover songs, which ones are better than originals, which ones are pretty much the same, and which ones are laughably awful. I'd also like to do a post on what albums I consider to be perfect, meaning that I can play the whole thing from start to finish without wanting to skip a track.

Hey? Guess what? It's Thursday.

I need to be less busy. So, no music this week, and no personal post. Maybe I'll be able to get to the next Starman post today?

Sigh.

When It's Too Good To Be True...

...it probably is.

It's been almost a year since I signed up for MoviePass. At the time, for only $9.95/month I was able to see one movie, ANY movie, every day of the month. There were no limits to how many times you could see a particular title. If it was playing in a theater and you hadn't seen a movie that day, then you could see whatever was playing.

Not much of 2018 had gone by before MoviePass made its first alteration on its plan: you can only use the service to a movie once. Now, for the regular viewer that's not really an issue. But with MoviePass I was able to see Thor: Ragnarok four times. I planned on seeing pretty much every comic book movie, especially Avengers: Infinity War, multiple times.

If you haven't read any of the MANY articles published about MoviePass's money problems starting around mid-July, well, I can't rehash everything here. I can only tell you what was happening from my point of view.

MoviePass wasn't letting anyone see any movies. They were hemorrhaging money to nobody's shock or surprise. I was seeing maybe eight movies on a good month, four on a normal one. At the theater I was going to, admission was around $12.50. So let's say on a good month I would have spent $100 at the theater. With MoviePass I was only spending $9.95, making each movie roughly $1.25. That's insane. And there were TONS of people taking full advantage of the service and seeing one movie every single day. That's $.33 per movie.

So nobody could see any movies, and that lasted for a couple of weeks. MoviePass had to borrow a little bit of money ($5 million if I recall correctly), and during that time there were rumblings of the whole system just crashing down. I wasn't initially pissed off because I knew deep down that something like this had to happen. There was just no way for this service to make money, and frankly I was surprised that it lasted as long as it did.

Rather than admitting defeat, the powers that be decided to retool the program instead of scrapping it altogether. When I quit the service (without being able to see a single movie the entire month of August), I think the plan was limited to three movies each month, no repeats, and some movies blacked out, for the same price of $9.95 per month. Is that a good deal? Sure. That's still less than the price of one ticket, even if I couldn't ultimately see EVERYTHING I wanted to see. But really, it's not what I was promised, and with school in full swing and not fully knowing which weekends I will or won't have my kids, this was really the perfect time for me to quit. Had it not been for the really crappy issues the service had in July and August, not to mention the absolutely non-existent customer service, I would consider signing back up once marching band and football season ends, but those were two very shady months.

I went back through my Facebook feed to find a couple of posts where I complained about the service.

"Last Friday I checked the app to see what my options were, and I saw two late showings for Mission Impossible (among a couple other offerings). I was stoked. When I checked again after getting home from work, EVERYTHING was gone. I checked on line and saw that it wasn't just me, but some people had some luck using it when they purchased their tickets early in the morning. So Saturday I checked, and EVERYTHING was available, all movies, all showtimes. I jumped in my car, went to the theater to get a matinee ticket for MI: Fallout, and by the time I pulled up the app in the parking lot (I literally live about 300 yards from the theater), Slenderman and one other movie were available.

I've re-cancelled my subscription (after having the original cancellation canceled by the new opt-in that I never opted in to), and my last day to use it will be the 25th of this month. I've got plans this weekend, but we'll see if it's functioning on the 24th and 25th, otherwise I gave them $10 for nothing this month."

For a little bit of clarity, in August, MoviePass was re-upping all current subscribers to the new 3-movie $9.95 plan. I cancelled my subscription in early-to-mid August after being absolutely fed up.

"Just got an email from the jackasses at MoviePass. They were thanking me for the opt in to their new plan. Uh...huh? I cancelled my subscription more than a week ago. What's that dumbasses at MoviePass? The opt-in (which I most definitely did NOT do) cancels the cancellation? It's like they went full-on shady villain during this past month, what with the blackouts a few weeks ago, then this past weekend with no movies at all being available, and now uncancelling subscribers' cancellations. SHAAAAAAAAADY."

Last I heard, I had at least one friend who still subscribed. For her, even with the restrictions it's still a good deal. More power to her. Like I said, I just don't have the time for it right now and I just don't trust them. Despite the deal, I won't give any amount of money to a place that has abused and taken advantage of my trust. I'm thankful of the movies I got to see which I would not have been able to afford before, but it was just too good to be true.

What I'm Watching in the 2018/2019 TV Season (with a LOT of asterisks)

It took me forever to make this season's list. While I believe we're in a golden age of TV, it horribly difficult to plan how I'm going to watch these shows. I don't have cable, so I don't have a DVR that I can just set and and watch. I've got to keep up with everything I want to watch by adding them to their various network app watchlists, hope they don't mysteriously disappear (I'm looking at you, Hulu), and keep track with what episodes I have or haven't seen because sometimes I can't watch them right away.

So this is going to be a weird list. I'll start it off with the standard season list, go into the weird releases, then hit the random streaming stuff I want to get to. Because of the aforementioned breakdown of the conventional TV season, some of these programs have already started, or have just ended. Some won't start until sometime in 2019. Whatever. Enjoy!

Standard 2018-2019 TV Season (Thank you Wikipedia)

ABC
The Kids Are Alright
Splitting Up Together (review from the first season = meh)
The Rookie (I loves me some Nathan Fillion, so I'm really looking forward to this one)
Modern Family
Single Parents (Best quote from the trailer: "We're single parents. We don't volunteer. We just try and survive until a time in the day when it's appropriate to open wine." Amen, sister friend.
A Million Little Things (I am totally watching this because of James Roday)
Whiskey Cavalier
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The CW
Legends of Tomorrow
Arrow
Flash
Black Lightning
Supernatural
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Sueprgirl
iZombie

Fox
9-1-1
The Gifted
Bob's Burgers
Family Guy
The Passage
The Orville
Gotham
Cosmos

NBC
Manifest
This is Us
Superstore
The Good Place
I Feel Bad
Midnight, Texas
Abby's
The Blacklist
Good Girls
A.P. Bio
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Timeless

Cable Networks

AMC
Walking Dead
Fear the Walking Dead
Preacher
NOS4A2

Disney XD
Star vs. the Forces of Evil

IFC
Brockmire

TBS
Detour
Guest Book

TNT
Alienist

USA
The Sinner

Syfy
Nightflyers
Happy!
Krypton
Wynonna Earp

FX
What We Do in the Shadows
Legion
Mayans MC
American Horror Story
Atlanta
Better Things
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
You're the Worst
Archer

Freeform
Cloak and Dagger
Alone Together

Cartoon Network
Rick and Morty

AT&T Audience
Mr. Mercedes

Premium Cable Networks

Showtime
Billions
Homeland
I'm Dying Up Here
Shameless
SMILF
Kidding
City on a Hill
Black Monday

HBO
The Deuce
Ballers
Last Week Tonight
Barry
Crashing
Camping
Watchmen
Divorce
True Detective
Silicon Valley
New Pope
Game of Thrones
Big LIttle Lies
Veep

Starz
American Gods
Counterpart

Cinemax
C.B. Strike (yeah, this isn't new, but I just learned it's an adaption of J.K. Rowling's Corman Strike novels)
Outcast

Streaming

Hulu
Castle Rock
Future Man
Runaways
I Love You America
Into the Dark

Netflix
Atypical
Iron Fist
Punisher
Jessica Jones
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmit
Easy
Santa Clarita Diet
Glow
Friends from College
Lucifer
Designated Survivor
Stranger Things
The OA
Ozark
Haunting of Hill House
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Narcos: Mexico
Daredevil
Bojack Horseman
Castlevania
Big Mouth
Umbrella Academy
Black Mirror
Arrested Development

DC Universe
Doom Patrol
Swamp Thing
Stargirl

Amazon Prime
Jack Ryan
Man in the High Castle
Sneaky Pete
Homecoming
Marvelous Mrs. Mazel
Good Omens
Too Old to Die Young
Carnival Row

So, if you were brave enough to make it through this list, you'll notice that there are shows listed that have already come and gone. I included late summer/early fall shows. This whole thing was pretty nerve wracking for me. I had to take a nap after finishing it. Not really, naps make me cranky. 

My Collections, Part 6: Starman (Will Payton)

I don't think there's any better time to get back on the horse with my Starman collection than with the entry for Will Payton.

But first, a disclaimer of sorts. Two things have kept me from updating this Starman collection retrospective of mine. First, I dropped my external hard drive a while back, and it contained ALL of my digital pictures, including my comic cover pics and original artwork pics. I'm almost done retaking all of the cover pics, but I haven't done the artwork yet. Second, I've started selling off my "NEVER SELL OFF" comic collection, which consists solely of Joe Hill comics and Starman appearances. Because of that, I may have sold some of the comics I had when I began this little endeavor. I definitely haven't bought anything new. So we'll see how this ends up looking. I'll post pics of covers I have, and I'll still include my "Have List," but my "Want List" is now out of date, and I'll be totally scrapping it until I'm in a place to start rebuilding my collection. Right now I'm thinking it'll be five years or so? Who knows.

via GIPHY

So, my first exposure to the Will Payton Starman was through the Superman storyline, "Krisis of
the Krimson Kryptonite." First off, I get why they misspelled Krisis and Krimson, but there is NO WAY that spelling would fly today. Other than that, though, it's a good, quick story that ran through all three Superman titles of the time and quickly crossed over into Payton's 1988 Starman series. the gist of the storyline was that Lex Luthor used a piece of red kryptonite (supplied by Mr. Mxyzptlx) to make himself as strong as Superman, but the twist was instead of making Lex super human, it took away all of Superman's powers. Since Superman gets his powers from our sun charging his cells (or some scientific gobbledygook like that), Starman was brought in first to give Supes a super-charged dose of solar radiation (which should have killed him, right?) and then impersonating him (Will could alter his appearance somehow...I never actually read his entire series) until he could figure out a different solution when that failed. Honestly, Starman didn't really make an impression on me. The only time I actually bought an issue of his comic, it was a crossover from a bigger storyline (War of the Gods...it was War of the Gods).

Will ended up dying during Eclipso: The Darkness Within. Let's assume he died doing something heroic, saving the world and whatnot from Eclipso, because I can't remember what happened for the life of me. Yes, I could Google it, but I think we'd all rather be surprised, right? Will was probably only slightly less forgettable than Mikaal, who only appeared in one issue. Maybe the most important thing that happened in Will's series was the introduction of David Knight (last name sounds familiar, right?) and the rebranding of the Golden Age's Starman's nemesis The Mist into Nimbus. Yeah, that didn't stick.

If there were any die-hard Will Payton (testify in the comments if you're reading this!), I wonder what they thought about Will's return from the dead in Robinson's Starman series. Were they happy that he was back but upset because it was retconned that Will actually died in his first issue and was actually just Prince Gavyn with Will's essence? I'd probably be pissed.

In the New 52 post-Rebirth DC universe, there was no Starman...until this month's (Sept. 2018) issue of Justice League. Payton shows up, with Jack Knight's cosmic rod! Are we finally seeing the rebirth of the Starman dynasty? One can only hope.

Have List

Action Comics Vol. 1 (1938 series) #622, 644-645, 659, 675, Annual 3
Adventures of Superman #472, 482, Annual 4
Armageddon 2001 #1-2, 1 (2nd Print), 1 (3rd Print)
Blasters Special #1
Doom Patrol Vol. 2 (1987 series) #17
Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2
Firestorm the Nuclear Man #80-81
Green Lantern Vol. 3 (1990 series) Annual 1
Invasion #2-3
JLA in Crisis Secret Files #1
Justice League America #42, Annual 6
Justice League International Vol. 1 (1987 series) #24
Justice League Quarterly #5
New Titans Annual 7
Quasar #14
Starman Vol. 1 (1988 series) #1-45
Starman Vol. 2 (1994 series) #3, 36, 48, 58-60, 67, 71-73, 76
Starman Secret Files #1
Superman Vol. 2 (1987 series) #27, 50, 65-66, Annual 4
Superman: The Man of Steel #10, Annual 1
War of the Gods #1-4
Who's Who Update '88 #3
Wonder Woman Vol. 2 (1987 series) #61

Want List

Cover Run: The DC Comics Art of Adam Hughes

Justice League Vol. 4 (2018 series) #7

Who's Who in the DC Universe #2

Aaaaaand once again I forgot to post the pic album. Here you go.

Starman (Will Payton)

Bumper Thumper Sounds SOOOO Much Cooler Than Fender Bender

Late last month, I was involved in a bit of a fender bender. Parker called it a bumper thumper, because it tore up the front end pretty badly, although it was still driveable. Well, State Farm, based on the repair estimate from Abra Auto Body Repair of America (Gallatin) and their scientifically derived estimate of what the car was worth, decided that the car was totaled. So I was going to have to buy a freaking car. I was not happy.

Here are pictures of the damage.

This 2009 Toyota Camry was fifth and nicest car I've ever owned. It has 117,000 miles on it, and I was planning on putting another 100k+ on it, easily. And I had only had for a little more than 2 years.

I'm not a car guy. I don't know a lot about cars, not how to fix them or how they work or the differences in various makes and models. I know what I think looks nice and what doesn't, what's comfortable to me and what isn't, and what I want from a car and what I don't. So buying a car has really only ever been about functionality for me, and anything extra has been just that.

The first car I ever owned was a 1986 Volvo DL. It had A/C, a tape player, weird automatic looks (there wasn't a switch on the door...you just pushed down really hard on the driver's side lock and all the others would lock), and manual crank windows. My parents bought it new in '86, and I got it in '94 when I started driving. It was EXPENSIVE to maintain, but I loved it. I drove it my from 10th-12th grade, in Jasper, IN and Hendersonville, TN (that can of SPAM, man). It went to Cookeville, TN with me to college, where the A/C eventually crapped out on me. I drove it to my first job out of college, commuting from Cookeville to Nashville, until it just gave up.

This is the only picture I have readily available of the car. That's me on the right and my friend John. We were on our way to a week-long camp in Terre Haute, and we're standing behind the Volvo. Sorry to put this out there, John, but I DID already put it on Facebook. :D

So I needed a new car, and lo-and-behold my cousin was getting rid of hers. So I upgraded from the Volvo to a 1995 Acura Integra sedan. The A/C worked. It had an in-dash CD player. It had a sun roof. I LOVED this car. I bought it in...April? May?...of 2001 and drove it until it needed a repair, maybe the A/C in 2008 that was going to cost more than the car was worth by this point.

Here's a stock image of the car. This is not a picture of my car, but I think it's close. I might have a picture tucked away at home, possibly with all of my wedding pictures. Angie and I drove away from the reception in it after taking off the plastic wrap it had been wrapped in.

Edit on 9/20/18 at 8:27 a.m.: Found a pic of my car!

Between buying the Acrua and it's replacement, Angie and I bought a Toyota Corolla to replace whatever the hell she was driving. I think it was a 2002, no frills, and it was okay. Not terrific, but okay. It was small, but at the time I think Angie might not have even been pregnant with Parker yet. So we had no need for a full-size sedan yet. We bought it from the Beaman used lot in Nashville, and really the whole ordeal of buying it was a nightmare. We test drove a LOT of cars at a lot of different dealerships, and working out financing was ridiculous. I always joked that buying our first (only) house was easier, but it really WAS easier. This car stayed around until Angie left, and it left with her. I got to keep the next car.

Apparently I never have a reason to take pictures of my cars unless they get into wrecks. Here's the best pic I have of the Corolla. I was driving down a hill on Royal Parkway in Nashville when my car decided it wanted to hydroplane a little and run into a truck coming up the hill. Insurance didn't mind fixing this one.

So I ended up selling the Acura to a guy on Craigslist for cash, and then I bought my parents' 2001 Toyota Camry. I don't remember at what point in the year we bought it, but it was in 2008, so Bobby had already been born, or we were patiently waiting for him. Either way, we knew we needed the room that we wouldn't have from the Acura or the Corolla. This car was everything I needed it to be, and it's what stayed with me after the divorce. I had the kids the majority of the time, so I needed the bigger car. Everything that people say about the dependability of Toyotas is absolutely true, and I think I had 250k+ miles on it when the transmission finally crapped out in 2016.

Again, no good pics of the Camry. These two are the best you'll get. And as a bonus, in the 2nd pic is the car I'll buy next...the one next to mine, not the Mustang.

I ended up selling the car to the mechanic and buying my parents' 2009 Camry. I liked my previous Camry, and I liked this one. It was nice having something a smidge newer, and I want to say that it was a smidge bigger on the inside than the 2001. As with the other Camry, my parents took good care of this one, so I was planning on this one lasting me quite a while. Apparently quite a while was only two years and change, and now we're back to the present. So yeah, I had my little bumper thumper, and while the car was in the shop I was driving a Dodge Caravan from Enterprise. I liked it, the kids loved it, so I thought I'd look at some mini-vans. The only thing I saw in my price range was a 2006 Toyota Sienna at Ron Hibbard Toyota in Gallatin. I looked at it but wasn't thrilled. The salesman gave me some other options, but they were out of my price range. I looked at a couple of private sales, a BMW SUV that was woefully misrepresented and a Cadillac CTS that was decent but had some shaking issues, but for a few days I kept thinking about this Toyota Avalon the salesman at Hibbard had mentioned. I looked at it online, and yes, it was out of my price range, but it looked perfect. Sure, it wasn't mini-van big, but it was bigger than the Camry, and my kids weren't getting any smaller. The mileage was good, the pedigree was good, my parents had an Avalon that they liked, and I really did like Toyotas.

I went back to Hibbard on Monday, drove it, fell in love with it, and bought it. I was able to work out a great deal, and I ended up not having to finance it, which was a big thing for me. So I've got a new (to me) car now! I love it, the kids love it, and barring any more bumper thumpers, this car will hopefully see all the kids through high school.

After the ordeal of buying the Corolla, I was DREADING buying a car from a dealership, but really this whole process, from the wreck itself to driving the car off the lot yesterday, was easy and quick. I used the State Farm app to file my claim, the final check was processed pretty quickly, and I didn't have much paperwork to sign. I even got the new car on my insurance when I went to pick up the check, and my premium only went up $.30/year. That's 30 cents, not dollars. My dealings with Abra were fine. I've got to trust that their estimate was fair, but really, I was able to upgrade my car, so who cares? Everyone I talked with there was really nice. Enterprise was smooth with the rental, and they upgraded me to the mini-van after I pointed out the ant infestation in the extended cab pick-up I was supposed to have. And finally, the two guys I dealt with at Hibbard, Erik and Steve, were great. They offered alternatives to the Sienna when they could see I wasn't thrilled with it, but I never felt pressured. Plus, they really worked on getting me a price we were both happy with.

I forgot to mention what it is I ended up with. I'm now driving a 2006 Toyota Avalon Limited. It's three years older than the Camry that was "totaled," but it has almost 30,000 fewer miles. The interior feels HUGE, and the ride is so smooth. It's only ever had one owner and was bought, serviced, and traded back in to Hibbard. Like I said, I was very happy with it. If I remember, I'll take a picture of it tonight and post it.