Is it time?

So I'm fairly sure I'll be moving out of this home soon.  Soon being within the next year or so.

Before I go into the whys, whens, wheres, and such I should probably give a quick history.  I think I've talked a bit about this before (I mean you know I lived in Chicago right?), but I'm not sure I ever laid it all out straight.

I was born in this house.  Well...okay, not born in this house, but when I was born this is the house that Mom and Dad brought me 'home' to.  Mom and Dad had bought it just before my older brother was born in 1972.  I stayed here through all of my childhood and into young adulthood.  I spent two years at the local community college and never really gave much thought to moving out during those two years.  For a solid year (not just the school year), I moved away for the first time to college.

That was up at Ferris State University in Big Rapids Michigan.  If you've never heard of it, don't even worry... it's the smallest of Michigan's 15 State Universities.  I was there for three semesters starting with the summer semester in the dorm.  Yup, dorm life.  Thankfully I had a room all to myself, but there was a shared bathroom with the guys next door.  The next semester I stayed in the dorm but started to hate it.  Thankfully I had a friend at the school (yeah... just one friend), and she had an apartment with two room mates.   One of her room mates moved out and it put them into a bind.  I came to the rescue and moved in with them.

After Ginger...

Since around June of this year, I've had one thought going through my head over and over and over again.  What's my new car going to be?

I know what you're probably thinking;  Yes at this point I've only had Ginger (my 2015 Ford Fusion Hybrid Titanium) for 21 months.  Not even 2 years.   But when I purchased Fiona (my 2012 Ford Fusion Titanium)  I wasn't sure I could afford a brand new car.  I bought her used.  When I purchased Ginger I could afford brand new, but because of the miles it would be a purchase made over 5 years.  And the miles did pile up quick.  In the 9 months that I drove an hour to and from work five days a week I put 20,000 miles on her.  In the 1 year since taking this new local job I've only put an additional 5,000 miles on.

Put those together... and I can now lease a car.  If my car's trade in value is at or lower than what I owe on it, I could drive off the lot in a 2 year newer version of my car and end up paying hundreds of dollars less for three years.  And at the end of those three years I'd be free to pick out a new one and have similar payments for another three years.

Now as a far younger man, I hated the idea of a lease.  I looked at it as never owning your car.  The bank or the car company owned it.  You couldn't modify it in any significant way.  You would do nothing but sweat for every single mile driven knowing that you were limited on how many miles you could have.  You'd have to do all the maintenance and be able to prove it was done.

Hate Trumped Love

I'll just start out by saying that I voted for Clinton.  To say I'm disappointed in the election results is to not really understand my state of being right now.  You see, I didn't really want Hillary Clinton as president.  Sure, she's a fine stand in for a fairly conservative democrat, but she's far to moderate/conservative for my tastes.  I didn't think that Bernie would have done well in a general election, but maybe he would have done just fine.  Maybe this was the year that the liberal call for social and economic justice would have found that broader audience.

Or maybe President Trump was inevitable.

You see, I voted for Clinton not to elevate her to the Presidency but to keep Trump out of it.  I'm not going to go through the list of  disgusting and/or bigoted and/or stupid things he's said.  Instead I want to try to lay out how I think of him as a man.  Because deep down, that's who won.  Not the person they voted for, not the candidate, not the nominee.... the man.

In my view, Donald J Trump... er.... President Elect Donald J Trump wants to 'Win'.  Now you and I can't decide what winning is to this man.  But at his core, he wants to win.  He has the 'best'.... his things are 'huge'.... he's the 'smartest'... over and over and over.  He compares himself to others and declares that he's better.  They're terrible, terrible, people.  He's a good guy.   They lie, he tells the truth.  They cheat, he strives to be true and honest.  They commit crimes, he is the pillar of legality. On and on and on.  There is no comparison that he can't make because he doesn't seem to pull anything from factual objective evidence.