ask Shaffer -- if you dare.

The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here. 1984 Honda Accord LX Hatchback In a way, this is the car that started it all. Back in 1984, my dad bought this car and it in turn, spurred me on to buy my first new car. But it was now 1995 and he was looking to get rid of the car and I was fortunately looking for a cheap, dependable car. We were able to get out of the lease on the Contour and I was driving about 8 miles to my job downtown. The Accord was perfect fit. By now, it was not the car that it used to be. It was a little rusty and rattlely, but it was still tight and very reliable. It was an automatic and, since we had the Landcruiser, we now had only automatic...

The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here. 1989 Toyota Landcruiser With the Windstar out of our hair, we set out to buy another Landcruiser. It was just that simple. We still had the Acura (we went through a lot of cars during this little window of time). I was hoping that we could just trade the dumb thing in, but no such luck and we ended up selling it. We saw an ad for the an '89 with very low miles. I was practically sold even without seeing it. We drove out to the dealership and saw it...it was perfect. It only had 39K miles, an amazing amount for a 6+ year old vehicle. It was in great shape, about the only knock was that it had been smoked in, but we c...

The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here. 1995 Ford Contour Kristie and I had a problem...actually a couple of them. For years, my commute had been about 5 miles so it didn't matter really what I drove. So the old truck worked great. But then I got laid off and found a job that had a 40 mile commute...one way! We also had a mini-van that we neither wanted, nor needed, but we were leasing it and were terribly upside down. So we decided to solve both problems: we'd "trade" the minivan for another Ford vehicle, move the lease sideways and work on getting Kristie a car she wanted and I'd drive the Ford to work. Ford had just introduced their ...

The other day I was goofing around on Wikipedia, and for some reason I bumped into the entry for the Ford Pinto, a completely little econo-car from the 70's. Perhaps more significant was that it was one of my very first cars. So I decided to make a list of all the cars that I/Kristie & I have owned. I started looking for pictures, and that's how we got here. 1994 Ford Windstar I'm not ashamed to admit that I've always been intrigued with the mini-van. It seemed like the perfect combination of practicality and comfort that really appealed to that uber-practical side of me. But the biggest appeal of them were (and still are really) the seating capacity. We had owned our Landcruiser for about a year when a friend and co-worker approached Kristie and I with a proposal: would we (Kristie really) be interested in watching his two daughters during the day? His wife was ready to return to work and they were looking for daycare. They'd pay of course. Kristie and I were a...