Tomicles' Blog » Car Stuff

Cross Country Trip 2009

tomicles — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:34:15 +0000

I am writing this as I sit waiting for my delayed flight to Boston from San Francisco. My younger sister decided to move from Boston to Portland and I am helping her move her car across the country. I’ve brought some toys to keep me connected and report my position along the way. Tomorrow there will be more photos of my setup as I get it installed in her car. My tracking site is located at the following URL: http://whereami.tomicles.com/ and if everything goes as planned it will update my position every 10 seconds or so while on the trip.

fender bender

tomicles — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:30:50 +0000

So yesterday I was coming home from working at Broadcom, and I got rear-ended on the freeway in stop and go traffic. The guy in front of me stopped real quick, then i barely stopped in time, but the guy behind me was not so lucky. He hit me at a decent speed, both his airbags blew, and he totallys mashed up the front of his car. My car on the other hand, will need a new bumper, but that is about it. Unfortunately the bumper wraps around to the wheel wells so basically the whole rear end needs to be fixed/replaced. Ill add some pics when I take them. Right now I’m trying to figure out what vehicle I will be driving while my car is being fixed, and then I’m going to lunch with Jenn. I have lots more to talk about but am waiting on a few things to happen before I mention them here.

car accident on 17 at lark today

tomicles — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 01:24:57 +0000

I was driving back from Fry’s with Brian today, and just as we came across the Highway 85 bridge going south on 17, we saw this nasty accident going the other way. I don’t think anyone was hurt because there were no ambulances there, and lots of people were out of their cars already. There were about half a dozen cars involved with this pileup, but only one was flipped over.

Auto Insurance

tomicles — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 04:22:52 +0000

So yesterday i went and saved myself almost $50 a month on my car insurance. I did something im usually morbidly against… I listened to a radio ad and i went to AIS. They found me a much better rate with a lower deductable. The whole process took almost 2 hours it seemed but thats partly because i couldnt find the place.. It was located over on technoology drive right next to san jose airport where highway 237 dumps off. On the way out of their office though… I dropped my phone real bad in the pooring rain and its battery came off. It now has a little scratch on the lower left side of the screen which is much more annoying than the dent in the upper right. The plastic around the screen is also scratched up pretty good but other than that it seems to be working fine.

New APR

Tomicles — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 22:13:28 +0000

so yesterday, just about the time I was packing up to go home, I recieved a phone call from the Bob Lewis Volkswagen dealer. They said they were able to find me a lower APR for my new car, and I just needed to come resign the paperwork. So after work I drove down to the dealer, and they changed my APR from 11.9% to 7.89% which in terms of dollars, lowered my monthly payment $13 a month and saved me about a thousand dollars in interest payments. Good Game Bob Lewis.

Ill have more pictures of my new car up soon as I get a free afternoon to take them.

New Car

Tomicles — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 21:29:25 +0000

so i finally bought myself a car. It took me a while to figure out what kind of car I wanted to get, and I originally decided on the Mazda3 Hatchback as you can see from one of my previous posts, but I’ve finally decided that I cant afford that car at this time. Instead I used one of my connections to get a deal from the Bob Lewis Volkswagen dealer on stevens creek. I bought a 2003 Jetta Wagon GL, with 30110 miles on it. The car has the remainder of the factory warranty, plus an additional two years and 25,000 miles as a certified used car. This puts me out to about 75,000 with warranty coverage. In addition to finding a car that will fit my needs, I ended up paying almost $4,000 below bluebook for it, knowing Bob Lewis sure did help me out a bit. The car isnt in perfect condition, but it looks very nice.

Below are the dealers pictures that were on their site before I purchased the car. The gallery link will have more pictures of it when I get around to it.

Zoom Zoom

tomicles — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 04:38:21 +0000

Well as i mentioned briefly before, I finally got a real full time job. The company I now work for is called the GDR Group, which stands for the initials of the three partners that started the company. More info about the company can be found at our website, but basically GDR Group is a total solution provider. Companies need many things to get started and to keep them running. Internet access, structured wiring, telephone deployment, web development, outlook network services via exchange, file and print sharing, firewalls, VPN’s, and the list could go on. The idea behind GDR Group is to have all of these services setup and maintained through one party. No longer will the customer have to call several diffrent providers and staff full time employees to provide these services withing their company. GDR Group sends out techs, uses its telco contacts to improve data and voice service deployment, and contracts out good voice and data cable companies to setup and maintain your business so you dont have to. Ok enough talking about what my company does, as for what I do, Ive been meeting the clients in the San Jose and greater bay area, and learning how each client is setup. The typical place has a t1 for data, another for voice, a sonicwall firewall, several vpn connections, several 2000 or 2003 servers providing basic day to day tasks that small to medium sized businesses need. my job is to drive to these companies, wherever they are, and perform routine maintinence tasks on their servers, install patches on their desktops, and troubleshoot and fix any computer, internet, or phone problems they might have. We are the people they call whenver they have any kind of comptuter issue, and we have decent response time.

With all that said, and almost a couple weeks now under my belt working there, im starting to feel more confident, and ive visited clients by myself now. Im also looking into getting a new-ish car to use for work, since ill be driving a lot. I think im gonna get a 2004 mazda 3 hatchback. 160hp 5 speed manual with 17″ rims and lots of extras for the price, and its a lot of fun to drive. The problem is finding a good used one for the right price. Since its still such a new car, there arent too many used ones out there, and the ones that are there are selling for close to the cost of a new one. zoom zoom.