My brother-in-law moved in with me and my wife temporarily several months ago. He is here as a college student learning English, which in turn helps my wife make the large adjustment from leaving her family, culture, country, and even language behind.

Shortly after he got here I helped him buy a car. To make things simple I put it in my name. I bought it on September 18th, so I was still in the military which gave us a tax break and paid cash for it. It’s nothing special, just something to get him around for the next 6 months to a year. It’s a 1999 Chevy Cavalier. We paid $2,000 cash for it so it was a simple quick purchase. (Well, sorta. He bought a Kia then took it back and got the Cavalier the next day).

We bought it from College Street Auto Sales, which I mention their name cause they should all burn in hell.

Today I woke up to a flat tire. I thought it was weird but no big deal, knowing I drove it last night and it was fine that it obviously must have a small leak in it which is a cheap fix. So I snapped a pic, took the tire off, threw it in the minivan and headed off to wal-mart to have it fixed.

I had to take pictures of the minivan where the kids through a rock at it and I thought since I was outside taking pictures I might as well take one of my car seeing I have yet to.

This is a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt LS. Its nothing special, the only options I got it with were the spoiler and an automatic transmission. (5 speed would be great for a car that kids don’t ride in, this allows me to use my free hand to stop the crying.) I had the windows tinted with a chrome fade. The bottom, or chrome part is 5%, and fades up to a 30% black. I wanted the chrome to fade down into black but they wanted more money to do that as its harder to line up. Which actually is probably better as at night its kind of hard to see out of with the 30% at top.

No electric windows, no electric locks, no remote, but I do have a spot to plug in my iPod. I drove it off the lot with 41 miles on it, it had been on the lot for 4 days before I took it home. This is the first car that I have ever bought that was brand new, so that makes it extra special in my book. I know its nothing fancy, but I am looking into changing all that with things like a body kit, ground effects lighting, rims, and some other things. I just have to wait for my finances to straighten themselves out. Then again, I may be in Korea before that happens.

You know its time to move when the police know you by name. Not because your a trouble maker or you have neighbors that call them for every little thing…, but because there is a group of 14-15 year old kids that walk around vandalizing cars.

I had the neighbor lady knock on my door tonight and ask I walked out I see a cop car across the street. Seeing it was the same lady that visited me the last time the police were here I knew what had happened. I instantly thought it was my car again and went to check it out and she started to tell me that it was only the guy across from me and another down the street. This time it was spray paint. The couple across the street have a white mustang, and they sprayed two long black stripes down the side of the car. I probably lucked out cause my car is black.

The cop that showed up was the exact same cop that I called to my house less than a week ago. He seemed rather annoyed but not as much as the owner of the car. Luckily he noticed it soon enough, cause he was able to wash off most of the paint. The thing that gets me is this all happened around 9pm. It was barely getting dark, and these kids are walking around painting cars.

When I was a kid I never walked around and spray painted anyones car, not enough imagination. But when I did go around and do stuff that I might get in trouble for I didn’t do it on a busy street when it was still early in the evening. I am an old country boy, from a small town with one stop light. Everyone in my high school lived on a farm, was working on a farm, or had worked at some point in their life on a farm. So maybe I just can’t relate to these kids, but where is the fun in painting lines on a car? The only adrenalin rush is from getting caught, which at that age you can just about get away with murder, so there is no real danger in getting caught.

I guess I should be relieved that it wasn’t my car. But I have moved the paintball gun to a new location by the front door. I should probably look into getting some pepper spray too. If any kid touches my car I will become homicidal, until I find them. Its my first brand new car, drove it off the lot with 40 miles on it. I want it to stay looking new.

I got my radar detector today. Spent like two hours installing the thing. Partly cause I had to run to the auto store to pick up a part. They wanted me to splice into a pre-existing cable and install it that way. No alternative to wiring it directly into the fuse box. So I have to buy a part that allowed me to do that. I bought a device that plugs into where a fuse would go and has a wire coming out of it. I just spliced into that wire. The hardest part was grounding the thing. I only found one place where I could ground and its on the very bottom of the dash behind the steering wheel. I installed the speaker it came with as well under the main console which doesn’t degrade the sound at all, which I thought it would at least a little. It just sounds like the car is talking to you. Which it does, a voice message comes over the speaker and tells you which band it has detected. Drove around a little bit with it on (First radar device too) and passed two cop cars and nothing happened. I was getting pissed. Then said fuck it and drove by the police station, the thing went ape-shit for the longest time, couldn’t figure out why…, signal just got stronger and stronger, then I get passed by a cop that was in my blind spot. Followed him for a while and the STi stayed constant. I have a mute button mounted right behind the steering wheel too so no reaching across the dash.

Now I will perform the final test tomorrow driving around on post. However I am not sure how well it will work if I out run the MP’s before the radar reaches me, again. I guess I will keep it below 100 on post for now. Speeding tickets go right to my 1SG on post.