The original Prius' tires spun their last at 36,668 miles. The tires slid on wet pavement as I was turning at this intersection. We can't have that with winter approaching. The tires were rated for 30,000, but two were replaced very early because of road hazards.

I bought BF Goodrich Pro Touring or something from Sam's Club. The originals were low rolling resistance tires. This improves fuel economy slightly, but they're twice as expensive and have half the tread life (30k miles) of most tires. In other words, 4 times the cost and twice as much environmental impact for an additional 3 mpg is simply not worth it.

The receipt said "Have Your Lug Nuts Retorqued After The First 50 Miles." After some research, I find out ALL aluminum wheel lug nuts are supposed to be retorqued whenever the lug nuts are removed. This means I should have been retorquing after every tire rotation!

The lug nuts were never retorqued on the Saturn, and the Prius' were never retorqued until today. I probably had better odds for winning the lottery than losing a wheel while driving. Seriously, how many people with alloy wheels retorque their lug nuts? In 7 years of driving cars with alloy wheels and faithful 5,000-7,500 mile tire rotations, I had never heard of retorquing until that faithful day at Sam's.

But now I knew, and I had to do something about it, because knowledge is power, and that power would make the lug nuts fly off the wheels at 75mph on the interstate. I just knew it would! Clenching the steering wheel, knuckles white with straining, my fellow motorists would be irrascible as I idled down the street at 10mph so I could maintain control of the vehicle and not scratch up the underbody too much in case a wheel came off.

What seemed an easy task became complicated when I read about applying too much torque and stripping the studs off the wheel. I know, millions have tightened their lugs using nothing more than an impact wrench. But I had never done this before, and again, the knowledge that it could happen would make it so. I didn't know what 76 ft-lbs of torque felt like, so I could just as easily have applied 50 ft-lbs or 100 ft-lbs without knowing the difference. One meant losing a wheel at 75mph on the interstate, the other mean stripping the lugs.

So I went to AutoZone and bought a torque wrench. Now I knew what 76 ft-lbs of torque felt like. I loosened the lugs to retorque them, some loosened easily while others required at least twice as much force, enough to make the Prius lunge forward on the driveway. The loose ones weren't loose because they needed retorquing; no, they were properly torqued. It was the tight ones that needed loosening. Those pneumatic drills in tire shops are notoriously inaccurate.

Today I drive on the streets at the speed limit, confident the wheels are securely fastened to the car. Until, that is, I realized I wasn't supposed to loosen the lug nuts before retorquing them. For the next 50 miles, images of the Prius spinning out of control at 75mph on the interstate will haunt me. I'll have to carry the torque wrench in the trunk, just in case I'm miles from home when the odometer says it's been 50 miles. Maybe then I'll get it right.

Cool concept: Flash Mobs. I learned about them after two recent events in New York and London.

By coincidence, I'm planning to use a modified version of this tactic in response to the numerous botched service maintenance visits I've had with the Prius at Oxmoor Toyota's less than capable service department. It's been 10 days since the fiasco that pushed me over the edge, long enough to cool off and come down to earth. I still firmly believe Steve Smith couldn't manage a service team to save his life - independent of my opinion, his incompetence speaks for itself. Steve Smith is also such a common name, hard to single out - my apologies to the innocent Steve Smiths out there. Such a pity his name isn't more identifiable so he couldn't hide in the relative anonymity of its commonness... Horace Finkelsteinmen or Humphrey Cababblesworth III. But I digress.

My meeting the next day with the service department manager revealed the corporate culture of Toyota's customer service division. I met with the manager of the service department the next day, and got the sense my complaints were going to be ignored, or at best, nullified by their 95+% customer satisfaction (if you don't return the mail-in service satisfaction survey, you are considered a "satisfied" customer; oddly enough, I wasn't given a form for my recent visit), the increasing popularity of Toyota positioned to overtake another auto manufacturer this year in terms of autos sold, and because Oxmoor trumps the two other Toyota dealerships in the Louisville area for Prius service because their Prius-certified techs excel in experience and workforce size.

I walked out of there feeling my concerns had been invalidated and, needless to say, it didn't do much for my frustration level. I'm not good at coming up with quick comebacks and arguments - I need time to reflect on a situation - but the experience was so bad it was immediately obvious Toyota Customer Service doesn't care about the individual. Toyota may say otherwise, but perception is reality, and my perception of Toyota Service is they play a volume game.

This problem isn't limited to just my dealership. Doubtless there are good Toyota dealerships, but the bad ones are widespread, not isolated - both are equally dispersed in the dealer network. Many times has the admonition been posted on Prius Internet chat groups, "It's worth the effort to find a dealer with a good service department." Two years ago when I was thinking about ordering a Prius, such warnings troubled me because a word-of-mouth survey amongst friends and co-workers revealed none of the Toyota dealerships around Louisville are exactly renowned for their service departments. I had been driving a Saturn for 4 years and knew Consumer Reports ranked Saturn dealerships #1 in the industry (81%) and Toyota near the bottom of the pack (62%) (see link for details).

Reflecting on these, it suddenly it hit me: Toyota does not manage the customer relationship. "Customer Satisfaction Rating" is a worthless metric, because every dealership service shop naturally has a 95+% satisfaction rating from the customers they haven't pissed off who have yet to take their business elsewhere. Relationship - this is the difference. Focusing on Relationship Management is why Saturn and Lexus (a divison of Toyota) surpass their peers.

Toyota plans to incorporate its Hybrid Synergy Drive into its mainstream vehicles, which has already begun in its Lexus division. Until hybrid technology becomes a commodity, trailblazing consumers must rely on dealers until their trusted personal mechanics gain the expertise, and if dealers play their cards right, this is an opportunity to win back customers lost to independent shops. Gasoline-Electric hybrid vehicles are leading the way to the next generation of clean, fuel-efficient automobiles, and I applaud that, but if Toyota and other manufacturers want their investments in hybrid technology to succeed, dealerships must improve customer service to bridge the gap between their level of customer service and that of a friendly, trusted mechanic.

That is the essence of my Prius Manifesto. First I'll write my own letter to the Prius U.S./North American Product Manager, VP of Customer Retention, CEO, and the Board of Directors. Next, I'll take it to the Prius Internet chat groups and ask them to do the same, focusing on the Prius Product Manager and VP of Customer Retention, and provide a sample letter. The great thing about Prius owners is we're left-wing liberals, believers in social and environmental activism, which gives me great hope for making such a grass roots campaign work. Hear us, Toyota! Prius owners demand relationship management! We demand you provide the service quality of Lexus and Saturn, lest we buy our next hybrid vehicle from a manufacturer who will! (Saturn is releasing a hybrid in late 2005!)

I'm in the Service Department of Oxmoor Toyota (hereafter Oxmoron Toyota), and I am livid like you wouldn't believe. Previously when I've brought the Prius in for service visits, which have consisted of two oil changes and two tire repairs, I've never waited less than 1 hour and 15 minutes. Every time.

Tonight I had a 6:30pm appointment for an oil change, tire rotation, and A/C filter replacement. At 8:45, I'm thinking they're way slower than usual, so I ask when the car will be ready. After a 10 minute wait, a tech comes out and explains it's going to be another 45 minutes. WTF?!?! My car had been sitting in the garage for 2 hours and 15 minutes with no one working on it, visible to all, and the one Prius tech in the shop lets it sit there because he thinks someone else is working on it. Hello, dipshyts, have none of you noticed the car sitting in the service bay for the past two hours???

After returning to the waiting room, where I am now sitting incredulous using the complimentary Internet connection to write this post, I recalled the memory of this and my other four service visits, all but one were negative:

• When I brought the Prius in for the first oil change, they had lost my appointment, and had to work me in - that visit was just under two hours.
  
• When the Prius had its first flat tire, I setup an appointment, only to be told when I arrived that there were no Prius-certified techs on duty - I signed a waiver so another tech could replace the tire, because I couldn't very well drive the car around with a flat tire for a day, could I?
  
• The second tire service, a simple tire patch, took 90 minutes.
  
• And now, this... over 3 hours to get an oil change, tire rotation, and A/C filter replacement. *UPDATE*: I checked the A/C filter when I got home - surprise, surprise! - it's still dirty! I called Steve Smith, the service manager on duty when this and all my other service snafu's occurred, for an explanation. Steve said the filters were out of stock and had already been ordered. The filter would be available "tomorrow or Friday." After asking why I wasn't told the filter hadn't been changed, he said "I didn't find out until after you had left." Well... why didn't the absent-minded tech who worked on my car tell me this? Oh wait... I just answered my own question, didn't I? Now does he really expect me to believe they can order a filter at 9:30pm and have it in the next day? Give me a break!!! In their hurry to change my oil, they forgot to replace the filter. Anyone could see through that cover-up. I said I looked forward to meeting his manager tomorrow and hung up.

In conclusion:

• Oxmoor / Oxmoron Toyota's "Service" Department is an oxymoron; to put it another way, it SUCKS!
  
• Steve Smith has repeatedly shown he couldn't manage his service team to save his life!
  
• Oxmoor / Oxmoron Toyota is never servicing my car again as long as Steve Smith works there.
  
• Link This: Oxmoron Toyota can kiss my dirty-air-filter-dusted ass!

Dudes, seriously. While leaving work this evening, I ran over a screw in the parking lot and punctured the back left tire. This is the second time this has happened to the Prius... both times in the parking lot at work, no less. It was probably the same effing screw! It fell out the first time, but this tire managed to hold onto the little bastard.

It's an unusual tire, both in size and make: a low rolling resistance 14" tire... Bridgestone Potenza RE92, P175/65R14. Fortunately, the Toyota dealership has a few in stock and can fit me in at 9:00pm tonight.

Two tires in 16,000 miles!!! At this rate the Prius will never know a worn-out tire.

I went on vacation in the southwest U.S. for ten days and noticed three changes upon my return to Louisville:

First, spring has sprung. The scent of blooming flowers is everywhere, and even walnut trees, which seem to be the arboreal late budders, have ventured leaves. It was a pleasant surprise after being in the desert for a while. The cacti in southern Arizona are beginning to bloom, but their rare splashes of splendid color don't compare to a field of wildflowers or a grove of trees covered in fragrant blooms.

Second, the walkways at work were repaved with a fresh layer of asphalt during my absence. Normally this wouldn't be worthy of a notable mention, but the place has been around for a while and the walkways were already sporting several generations of pavement. Being somewhat afraid of heights, when I walk into work from the parking lot from now on, I stay as close as possible to the median for fear of slipping off the edge and plummeting to my death in the grass far below. Just great, I thought. As if thoughts of losing my job weren't enough to haunt me, now there are the Sidewalk Gorges to contend with at least twice a day.

Speaking of, these are rough days for I/T workers. Like the manufacturing jobs of the 70s and 80s, the jobs are heading overseas, clustering in regions where labor is talent yet cheap. While project leaders and those in more business-centric I/T roles only see the ruddy glow of the fire over the horizon, it's enough to make one consider the alternatives.

Third, amongst all the pile of mail waiting in my mailbox, Toyota had sent a mailing announcing the redesigned 2004 Prius. Technically this is the second Prius redesign, the first being to convert the Japanese version into one more suitable for American drivers in the 2001 model year. Reading the pamphlet generated some mixed feelings:

On the one hand, the new, improved Prius signals Toyota's commitment to producing more eco-friendly vehicles, that consumer demand for hybrid technology has won it the critical "here to stay" status in the marketplace. Hybrid vehicle owners, unite! We did it! On the other hand, after going to the website and finding the new shape most pleasing, along with improved emissions and fuel economy, I want one! However, with only 16,000 miles on my "old school" Prius, I don't foresee a new one in the near future.

But come on, what did I expect after brazenly investing in the first generation of hybrid vehicles? If the technology doesn't continuously improve, it will wilt and die. And putting aside the interests of the small minority of environmentalists that includes likes of myself, the only way to convince the mass public to embrace hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles is to make them cheaper to own. For some reason, people will pay insane sums of money for a powerful engine or stylish trimlines, but the only way to make them pay for an eco-friendly car is to make it pay for itself. I just don't get the skewed value perceptions of Americans. It's all me, me, me! It may make the world a better place, but if doesn't make me, me, me look good, it's crap! How did we ever become so self-obsessed?

The owner of a 2003 Mustang Cobra Convertible was shocked to read about the joyride the technician took in her car when she brought it in for service, who had the chutzpah to post about it in great detail on a Mustang enthusiast forum, and even made fun of her vanity plate. Next, thicken the plot with a healthy measure of drama:

• A general manager who promptly fired the technician, but wouldn't compensate the owner with so much as a free oil change.

• A flood of support from message forums representing owners of every make of vehicle.

• Countless phone calls and emails to the Ford dealership in question.

• Inquiries from local media wanting to cover the story.

• The car owner thanking everyone for their support before going silent, saying she can no longer discuss the matter on advice of her attorney.

It's like Days of Our Lives for webheads.

It's times like these I'm especially glad to own a Prius and not a muscle car. The hybrid offers several advantages to an owner wary of auto mechanics. With a six month / 7,500 mile service interval, generous warranties, and three years' free service, the Prius is amazingly reliable and well designed, so you won't see much of the service department. When you do bring it in for service, there will probably be one technician in the shop qualified to do the work - no one else will be allowed to touch it. The 70-hp engine, 44-hp electric motor, and top speed of 101 mph make the adrenaline rush a Prius offers a 20 year-old joyride-seeking technician steeping in testosterone pale vis-a-vis a Celica GT-S, Toyota's most powerful car. Come to think of it, Toyota isn't exactly what most people associate with "sports car," and that can be a good thing.

A search for "Prius" on Daypop turns up few webloggers writing about them. Most of the Prius' Internet-based activity is on discussion groups, and except for John's, weblogs don't mention them, and although technically a weblog, he doesn't promote it as such. There's a sense of duty to promote the Prius name. I love the car - it's awesome technology, truly pure genius, as the ads say, and I'm reminded at every red light when the engine goes silent.

How Prius has changed me:

Before Prius:
The slow driver ahead of me who insisted on driving a few miles per hour under the 35 mph speed limit would frustrate me into a frenzy because the automatic transmission in my previous car shifted up to or down from the highest gear around 33 or 34 mph, and it drove me bonkers as the tranmission kept shifting every 15 seconds.

Now:
Continuously Variable Transmission is a wonderful thing, and the Prius gives smooth performance driving at any speed or accelerating from 0 to whatever. Should I find myself behind the occasional slow driver, the Prius placates me by shutting off the engine as it becomes an electric vehicle. Now the only problem is, sometimes I'm that detestably slow driver, because when the orange arrows on the multi-display are only flowing from the battery to the electric motor to the wheel, it makes me happy, and my expression is: ^_^

Before Prius:
Long stoplights and traffic congestion were torturous. Imagine sitting at the light with the engine idling for 2 minutes, driving at 20-25 mph for one minute, then stopping at the next light for another 2 minutes, and repeating the process all over again. It put wear and tear on the idling engine as it approached overheating and wasted so much gas. I can't stand being wasteful. Recycling isn't very popular in Louisville (or anywhere in Kentucky, for that matter), and trash recycling isn't offered in my condo complex. I avoid disposable containers at the grocery store whenever possible, but what to do with all those plastic grocery bags? I take my lunch to work in them, then bring them home to carry the cat poop and urine cakes from the litter box to the dumpster. I think the Native Americans had the right idea by treating game animals as sacred, killing only what they needed, and using every part of the animal's body.

Now:
AFter the Prius' engine warms up and the batteries are charged, the engine turns off as I decelerate and stop at a red light. When the light turns green and the horde of traffic creeps to the next red light, the engine stays off. No haste, no waste.

Unless I'm running late, I drive slower than I used to. Oh, yeah, that's right - I'm always late. But there are times when I simply don't give a damn when and where I'm supposed to be. When you know you'll always be late, you can either get all worked up and stressed out for the sake of being less late by 5 minutes (but late nonetheless), or you can admit the shortcoming, learn to love yourself despite your imperfections, and relax. Life's a lot easier that way, and it'll help you accept the vices of others.

The Prius and I have been 3,300 miles and 86 days together. Today isn't a milestone - I just felt like writing about my hybrid car because it's cool, and then after a few paragraphs, I'm going to rant... just so you know. During the 11 months spent pondering whether or not I should get a Prius and the next 5 months waiting for it to arrive, I often wondered if my decision was practical, because the Saturn only had 105K miles and ran fine - how badly did I need a new car?

A lot of people buy a new car every 5 years, but if they waited 10 years between new cars, they could retire 10 years earlier. I still ponder this point a year and a half after first hearing about the Prius. I don't regret the purchase, though - I'm glad I did. I believe in the technology strongly enough to put my money where my mouth is and take a stand in support of it.

On the surface, the Prius is just another car, and on that level, it must seem daft of me to go on about it like a blathering fool. If I had acted this way after buying a new Mustang, I'd know I was whacked in the head.

On a deeper level, the Prius symbolizes much more. Doing right by the environment. Purity. Conscience. The future. It's about taking the first giant leap toward clean energy and technology. It's about being environmentally aware and acting on it instead of giving lip service. It's about being one of the trailblazers. It's sitting at an intersection, feeling the engine shutdown, and knowing your car is sipping natural resources while everyone else's around you guzzles them.

American capitalism has a powerful influence on technology, but capitalism reacts slowly to changes when a direct impact on the bottom line isn't readily apparent, dubbing them "fads" and "blips." I believe this as a logical, well-substantiated approach - recognizing the importance of financial sensibility is part of what has made capitalism what it is today. That's why, perhaps more than anything else Prius symbolizes to me, it sends a message to environmental laggards in the American automobile industry like Ford Motor Company, who think only 10% of vehicles will be hybrids in 10 years, telling them their lack of foresight and inability to see beyond today's bottom line will be their undoing a second time, as it was in the 1970s and 1980s when high fuel prices and demand for reliability lured the American car buyer to Japanese models. Congress missed a huge opportunity, and made an error in judgment by rejecting the CAFE increase to protect American jobs - it will probably have the opposite effect and let American automakers maintain a "penny wise, pound foolish" approach to innovation, while foreign competitors move further ahead.

In defense of American automakers, they are finally beginning to listen, but whereas the Japanese first developed hybrid technology for sedans and subcompacts, the American automobile manufacturers are bringing it to the SUV market. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, SUVs represent everything that's wrong with our country - gluttony, wastefulness, social status through material exuberance, ignorance, hypocrisy, lack of and no interest in gaining awareness. They truly are Silly Urban Vehicles, and the reason they're safer on the road is because their sheer mass makes them a threat to everything else on the road except pickups and other SUVs. On the other hand, American automakers and their marketing tactics are not entirely to blame for the SUV phenomenon - a lot of Americans truly do love them - and maybe families who haul around three or more kids and their soccer equipment on a frequent basis really do need one, but certainly not the single commuter. So, until Americans become conscious of the negative impact their SUVs have and abandon their silly obsession, making SUVs with hybrid powertrains is perhaps the first best thing American automakers can do.

How easy it is for us to dwell on the negative in our lives, but that's where wit and wry humor - the best things in life - are to be found hiding.

I'm 26 years old and have lived in Kentucky all my life. Many of you may think I'm culturally "less fortunate" as a result, and if this is the case for you, please make your checks payable to the "Bryan Travis Cultural Amelioration Fund." A few of us may have family trees woefully bare of branches, but we'll gladly accept your generous contributions if you think we're somehow disadvantaged. It's for a good cause - with your help, we could purchase Uncle Billy Bob's first pair of shoes this Christmas. But this post is not about Kentucky and the Great Appalachian Nightmare, so before I get too carried away, I digress.

Kentucky is not exactly the heart of Tornado Alley, but even so, we get more than the American average. When I think of what goes with tornadoes, the first things that come to mind are trailer parks and hail. Hail and tornadoes go together like America and apple pie, or however that saying goes; quick - someone call George Bush! He'll know how it goes! He's the self-professed expert on Americans and their needs and wants.

Despite the summer thunderstorms and twisters that come our way, in 26 years I've never seen larger than pea-size hail. In Kentucky you hear about inch or golf ball-size hail on the radio falling in some obscure place from time to time or see home videos of it when TLC airs Nature's Fury, but it's never something you see in person. It's such a freak occurrence.

Today is February 24, and right now, it's 30 degrees F outside. It's winter, folks, let there be no doubt about it. You can imagine my surprise last Wednesday afternoon at work when one-inch hail began pounding the roof. This sort of thing is not supposed to happen on February 20. The wind picked up and inside the office, all we could hear was roaring and pounding above our heads. This is so uncool, I thought to myself, less than two months, and the Prius is screwed!

It lasted less than 2 minutes and ended more abruptly than it had begun, as hailstorms often do, and everyone walked out into the winter wonderland as the mass exodus to the parking began. Normally, I would call it an "eerie winter wonderland" when describing the scene after a hailstorm since they usually occur in late spring or summer, but as this is February, it's a stretch to call ice on the ground "eerie," except that it was a layer of rapidly melting ice pellets one-half to one inch across.

DWebb and I walked out together to check on our vehicles - his PT Cruiser is only a few months older than my Prius. With the hail and water droplets on our cars, neither of us could find anything wrong. Relieved, we went back inside.

When I got home Wednesday night after the water had evaporated, I reexamined the Prius using the garage light's reflection on the body panels to look for dents. Sure enough, the smooth curves of the reflection distorted and bubbled in numerous spots as I slowly moved my head along the Prius' contours. Note to self: remind DWebb to double-check his PT Cruiser.

I'd like to pause for a moment as I was examining the Prius' body panels so I may inject a touch of irony to the plot. Auto insurance for a Toyota Prius is very expensive, on the order of $1,650 per year for full coverage with good driver status. That's something to consider if you're thinking of buying one and joining the ranks of the Priusceti. I had the foresight to check ahead of time, and it's a cost I'm willing to accept; try to do the environment a favor, and this is what you get in return as part of the package, although the premium should drop as more Prii get on the road and, unfortunately, generate some real world crash data. Your mileage may vary by insurance company, no pun intended. The global conglomerate I work for owns a few insurance companies, so I probably didn't shop around for car insurance as much as I should have since my employer compounds several employee-related discounts.

Where's that irony? Oh yeah - well, with insurance as expensive as it is for the Prius, I had to do a bit of cost-benefit analysis. The difference between a $250 and a $1,000 deductible over 5 years was greater than $1,000. Understandably, I thought full coverage with a $1,000 deductible was a prudent decision since I can liquidate that much at any given time, and a safe driver can reasonably expect to be in an auto accident less than once every 5 years.

Inside the garage, as my eyes followed the reflection of the light over the contours of the Prius, I became acutely aware of why I have no interest of ever going to Las Vegas. I had made an educated gamble about car insurance using statistics and lost. I was about 67% confident something like this wouldn't happen for at least 5 years, long enough for me to produce the $1,000 deductible from insurance premium savings instead of having to pay it out of pocket - even the insurance agent could appreciate my logic. Yet against all probability, it had happened in less than 2 months: an act of God, a true freak of nature - a one-inch hailstorm in February. In north-central Kentucky something like this is undoubtedly a once in a lifetime occurrence. Too bad it had to be in the infancy of the Prius' lifetime and at the point in my lifetime when I had just bought my first new car.

What can you do? I suppose some people would be sick over it and others would curse the universe, their dumb luck or whatever constructs they form in their minds to visualize the intangible and make it tangible so they can channel their undirected frustration. For me, this is one of those times when Buddhist beliefs and putting things in perspective are more helpful than usual, and that's putting it lightly, my friends. Buddhism acknowledges feelings of strife are part of human nature, but the vast majority of it is unnecessary.

How true! I am blessed with health, family and friends. All my material needs have been met, as have most of my emotional needs; in fact, I honestly think I've made good progress down the path of self-actualization for someone who's only 26. That's not to say I'm happy as a lark all the time, or even that I'm comfortably satisfied only a fraction of the time, but as far as it goes when it comes to knowing what it's about, or at least how to get to a point someday where figuring it out will be somewhat possible, I think I'm doing okay. Point is, I'm at a place today where it's evident a few dents on the roof and hood of my new car don't matter, and there are a lot of potential problems I don't have that really would merit concern.

In a nutshell, despite this freak of nature, I'm luckier and better off than I'll probably ever know, and chances are (beware my previous statistics experience) if you have the luxury of browsing web sites reading weblogs, so are you. Remember that. Everyone who reads this is basically free (although Ali and I have opposing views on free will, free choice and the difference between the two, if there is any) to take any risks (I should also note Ali's statistics skills are better than mine) they desire and attempt to become or do whatever they wish with the rest of their lives.

My kingdom for a horse! "Life sucks" is a relative term. If you're fat, warm and happy, life sucks when you get a hangnail. If you're famished, cold and destitute like two billion people in the world are at this moment, life sucks if you can't find your next meal, and you'd give anything to only have a hangnail to worry about.

So, to hell with one-inch hailstones - I'm lucky to have a car to get inside of when an unexpected storm blows in. And to hell with the deductible, too. I have big hopes and dreams for my Prius: I actually entertain the notion that the 2001-2002 Honda Insight and Toyota Prius will be collector's items someday when we're driving fuel cell vehicles. Hey, it's not that outlandish - the Prius and Insight are the first steps in a new direction and their numbers are extremely limited - so I'm hanging onto my Prius, and I'll pay the deductible. I'll recover it someday.

It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm feeling philosophical, or maybe it's more like contemplative. Whatever it is, it's no way to be when what you really want to feel is the soothing pleasure of sleep.

I was driving home from a friend's house when a sudden urge to take a long drive came over me. A Barenaked Ladies CD was playing, and maybe it put me in the mood to keep singing along. It painted quite a picture, driving my hybrid car at 12:45am on the curviest road I could find, playing loud music while I blared along in unison, face bathed in the green and orange glow of the touchscreen display.

During the summers in high school, I'd spend entire days riding my 12 speed bike on the rural roads where I grew up. My favorite trips were finding scenic spots on cooler days when I could pack a lunch and notebook to write poetry. It was an overwhelming sense of serenity and solitude.

Those were the days, and the feeling from driving in the Prius tonight with only the electric motor running was a close match. As I got home and pulled into the garage, the temptation to put the transmission in reverse and drive through the night was immense. I could have driven around the world if the oceans weren't in the way.

What's the point of all this? None that I am aware of, except for a growing sense of 21st century weekend warrior wanderlust. Oh, springtime, where are you? I want to grab my camera, hop in the car, find a scenic locale to rejuvenate the soul and make a vain attempt to capture its beauty and breathtaking splendor with a camera.

This is the most aimless crap I've written in a looong time. No marijuana was smoked in the writing of this post, honest. Sometimes, no matter how contemplative you feel, mental clarity isn't an option. I'm going to bed.

Despite lowering my overall auto insurance premium via a complex system of discounts, the more I thought about it, my 1992 Saturn SL-2 was going to be a weighty expense. True, it only has 105,000 miles and could easily go another 50,000 miles before it becomes a hopeless money pit, but I only drive 10,000-12,000 miles a year, and putting half those miles on the Saturn when all of the Prius' maintenance is covered for 36 months/36,000 miles, not to mention its warranty, well... do you see how that translates into additional expense by virtue of the Prius' unutilized benefit? To put it another way, consider the cost per mile of driving sans the vehicles' purchase price; that is, only fuel, maintenance and wear-n-tear. The Prius saves on maintenance for 36,000 miles and uses half the gas the Saturn does, but putting half my driving on the Saturn means only 18,000 miles of free maintenance for the Prius.

Well, whatever - this could be an endless rant into the mindless void, and who gives a rip, anyway, except for me? [*crickets chirp*] Exactly. To succinctly state my mounting concerns, maybe holding onto the Saturn wasn't such a great idea.

My mom calls on Tuesday or so with my dad conferenced in, and asks if I'm sure I want to keep the Saturn, because the clutch went out on my brother's car, and a $600 repair on a 15 year-old Buick Somerset might be ill-advised. It might seem an easy decision from the way this post is written, but at the time, I still wasn't convinced the added cost of maintaining the Saturn outweighed the convenience of having a spare car.

I really love my Saturn, and my brother is hard on cars - not only because he likes to speed and quickly accelerate, but also because of his propensity for flipping them over. Yeah, he's managed to pull off that feat a couple times, once with a used car he was test driving. My mom was buying it from her boss to replace one of her cars, which was totaled by a hit and run driver in a pickup truck who ran her into the support of a concrete bridge (not surprisingly, the bridge was demolished and rebuilt last summer, a couple months after the accident), and you can imagine how much she slept the night after he flipped her boss' car, wondering how she was going to break the news to him at work the next morning. My mom is such a worrywart, anyway, and God love her, the stressful ordeal of totaling two cars in a week must have nearly killed her.

So now you have a sense for the risk I was preparing to inflict on my beloved Saturn, a car which I might repurchase when my brother eventually graduates from college, gets a newer car and moves to where-the-hell-ever his fiancée goes to law school, if she does. Despite my sentimentality, I had to remember it was an inanimate object. When it ignites its cylinders for the last time, whenever that may be, it will endure no pain. It is not sentient. Breathe deeply, and... let... it... go.

What's the difference between fiancé and fiancée? A man is a fiancé; a woman is a fiancée. I didn't realize there was a difference until I checked the spelling. Golly G. Willikers! Writing this weblog can be so educational! Hrmpf.

I agreed to sell the Saturn to my parents for a price between trade-in and retail value, a little lower than the midpoint. I did it right then and there on my mobile phone, pacing in the hallway at work, on a 28 minute phone call, 10 minutes of which were spent discussing a virus my dad thought was on his computer. The more I heard, the more it sounded like a hoax. Sure enough. So, in terms of what I bought and sold it for, the Saturn cost $5,000 to drive for 50,000 relatively trouble-free miles. That's about right.

They picked up the Saturn today, five days after the phone call. Now, I kid you not, my mom called on every one of those five days to ask if I was really, truly and absolutely sure this was what I wanted to do. Having arrived at my decision with the human equivalent of fuzzy logic and a desire to (literally) "help a brother out," she wasn't doing much for my sense of conviction. I know she's trying not to pressure me into selling, but dude, there comes a point where one attains sufficient certainty. See what I mean? She's risk averse, a complete worrywart, and her variety of it is contagious.

I talk to my cars. No, really, I do - it fosters a sense of trust and respect between car and driver. When I came home Friday after driving the Saturn, I took off my shoes in the foyer, deactivated the alarm system and poked my head in the garage, chuckling as I told the Prius, "Now it's just us, my friend."

Remember a long time ago when I ordered a Toyota Prius after lengthy deliberation? (And - for the record - my opinion of Dubya hasn't changed since August. His response to the September 11 terrorist attacks has been a matter of course; meanwhile, domestic issues were swept under the carpet, where they remain. Maybe I'm too hard on the president of my country during a time of national crisis when I really should be standing behind him. Maybe it's because I am so not conservative and refuse to see beyond the differences in our philosophies. Maybe I'm still bitter because this president was elected by nine people. Who knows? Not me, not right now. Who cares? Me, neither.)

A Toyota Corporate representative ("Eli") called on December 5 to tell me my Prius had arrived in Portland, Oregon and would be shipped to Louisville within three to four weeks. Eli's courtesy call got my hopes up, because when I called Toyota customer service in mid-October, they said production of my car hadn't begun, and that I could expect to receive it in mid to late January, 2002.

The Prius is a SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle), and currently boasts lower emissions than any other gasoline-powered or hybrid vehicles; this doesn't include electric cars, which are ZEVs (Zero Emission Vehicle). Aside from the acute awareness when driving that the Prius is sipping non-renewable natural resources while other vehicles around it are gulping them, the Prius' SULEV rating earns owners a $2000 federal income tax deduction.

To claim the deduction on my 2001 taxes, the sale had to be completed in 2001, and I was confident this would be the case until I called Toyota in October and heard aforementioned bad news. Completing the sale in January 2002 would have meant waiting until April 2003 to claim the deduction, and this was scenario I had resigned myself to. Thus, hearing Eli's cheery message on my answering machine in early December renewed my hopes and the one-time belief fairy tales really do come true. No, wait... that was Rachel. Well, however you slice it or dice it, 4Q 2001 has been very good to me.

It's high time I just got to the friggin' point - no wonder this weblog never has more than 20 readers a day...

The dealership called December 26 at 2:00pm: "When you would like to come in and pick up your new Prius?"

December 27 at 5:30pm and 4 miles on the odometer: Done.

I believe the technical metaphor for my emotional state is "Geek.Heaven™". The Prius does get a lot of looks on the road, but so far the lookers have all been 20-35 year old men. I've only had it for 30 hours, but early indications are it's more of a Guy Geek Magnet than a Granola Grrl Magnet. If I were gay, I'd probably say this was a fringe benefit of owning a Prius. However, I'm not gay and chances are 85-90% of the men lookers aren't, either. I'm also taken, thus making all the non-wooed Granola Grrls a non-issue. In time I'll come to see owning a Prius as an unequivocal affirmation of my status as an Uber Geek. And with that, well... gee, most of my mission in life appears to have been fulfilled for the time being.

• How Hybrid Cars Work: The Toyota Prius
  from HowStuffWorks

I ordered a Toyota Prius last weekend. Order yours early - only 12,000 for the 2002 model year in the U.S. market and delivery takes 3-4 months!

So I'm patiently waiting and perusing websites...

• Auto accident. Only 202 miles - what bad luck and *ouch*, how does one survive such carnage?
  
• John from Minnesota gives the "what it's like to own a Prius for a year" perspective.
  
• Leigh Brasington (he) has a large collection of Prius links. Don't overlook his Buddhist and meditation resources.
  
• Review
  
• Prius Envy, mainly links to Yahoo groups - some of the posts are quite informative.
  
• Sierra Club approved!
  
• Another Review
  
• Another pundit, another review. Note the mileage ratings were switched. I've seen Prius mileages misstated as 52 highway / 45 city quite a bit, usually in older reviews. This is one is different, though, because the author also reported reversed mileages on his test drive. Now, that makes you wonder how well he did his research, like if he even drove a Prius at all. Maybe his editor switched the numbers, but one would think maybe it's not a typo if a set of numbers were reversed several times in an article and run it by the author first. I dunno. I just know something about this article stinks, and I'm righteously indignant!

It's official. After six months of deliberation, I've decided to buy a Toyota Prius. One of the questions I asked Toyota's Customer Assistance Center was how to pronounce it. "PREE-us" I should have known - the word is Latin, and I took it in high school, so I knew the correct way to say it. Then why have I been calling it "PRY-us"?

It's the least I can do to counteract the environmentally unfriendly George "Dubya." Hmmm... next I need to figure out something to counteract his religious zealotry. Any suggestions? No, I will not join the Church of Satan or whatever it is.