Upgrading

Along with our transition to a dual income status comes an increase in travel and 'sub optimal' travel times, since flexi-time seems to work for only software engineers. Travel distance has effectively doubled and takes place during peak traffic hours, when I share the road with some of the most interesting drivers in the country. I would like to state here that I'm sure the mandatory religious stickers on the windscreens of their vehicles guarantee all bus and trishaw drivers entry to heaven - I just wish they'd get there faster and not try to take me along for the ride!

The efficiency of the carburettor engine in traffic, extra bootspace that we don't need since the pram was given away and the effect a cable clutch has on calf muscles in two hours of traffic, together justify upgrading to a smaller, lighter car, which is what this post is about - essentially a farewell to the Subi that served us well for the last 3 years, but suddenly is not the right fit anymore!

I've now bought the replacement tail-light and dropped the car off at the garage to get the bumpers and a scratch on the side repainted. The rear end was a victim of an over-extended pickup buffer - completely my fault, but those things make it damn difficult to judge the minimum gap when reversing! Both Sharm and I seem to take turns scraping bits of paint off the front bumper and the scratch on the side is the result of a risky overtaking manoeuvre on a Habarana trip. All of these were UI fixes that I had kept putting because they were obviously not as important as the stuff that keeps the car running reliably, safely and fast ;-) but I guess when it comes to getting a good price, looks count for a lot more than they should!

Assuming people do line up to buy what I still be believe to be a great car, albeit for a few usage patterns only, the next step is finding my upgrade. This is where I'm hoping technology I'm working with on a daily basis will help me find the new 'love of my life'.

There are quite a few web sites that list 'used cars for sale' and if I had the patience and spare time I would visit these regularly and see what's on offer. Fortunately, though I don't have either, I do have a bunch of new features on our Mashup Server, like the screen scraper tools, e-mail support and the ability to send instant messages! The plan is to write a Mashup that will scrape up the offers on a bunch of used car sites and pick out the ones that fit my requirement and budget. I could have this scheduled to run daily and send me a digest e-mail, have it put out an Atom/RSS feed that I can subscribe to or even get it to send me a yahoo chat message when an interesting new car is added to a listing.

Unfortunately, given that quite a few people still believe a newspaper advert is the only way to sell a car, I might have no choice but to waste a few Sunday mornings poring over the classifieds as well. Of course, if I had a scanner, an OCR package that understood newspaper columns......naaah.

I'll blog about progress as and when there is some. I wonder if a facebook album along the lines of 'My last days with the Legacy' would upset the wife and kids?