Los Altos, California

Neither rain nor sleet nor anything else will stop me from killing my Mazda dead, dead, dead when I get back from MacWorld. I blame Canada.

Snowy, icy conditions this morning made for a treacherous drive to Eugene to meet Dave so that we could jointly venture down to MacWorld SF 2004. Not so treacherous, however, that our Mazda 626 couldn’t add more danger and unwanted excitement to the mix. We’ve confined Six to Willamette Vally-only excursions since it crapped out repeatedly on our Montana trip over the summer. Despite thousands of dollars in repairs since then, no matter. The Mazda died repeatedly about half an hour out of Salem. I won’t bore you with the full, harrowing tale except to say that if I could afford to turn the car into a one inch cube I would gladly do so but only if I’m the one who gets to pull the lever. As it stands we’ll confine it to Salem-area only driving and maybe see how much it costs to fix. If it can continue to get Erin to and from school that may be sufficient, but presently, I’m not liking the idea of anyone driving that car over 20 MPH without the hazards blinking. Who knows what we’ll end up doing with it. I’ll deal with it upon my return (after I retrieve it from the Subway Sandwich parklot where I left it, tongue hanging out).

As for the rest of the journey, Dave came up in his all-wheel-drive Impreza and we made Los Altos by 9:30 PM. A fun and impressive trip despite the lousy start. I’ll have a MacWorld report sometime in the next few days.