December 2021 – Patrick's Journal

My parents finally got a car, as I alluded to in the last post. To make a long, rambling story a bit shorter, a month or so ago my dad mentioned he found some extra money and he was interested in a larger down payment on whatever car he decided to buy. For a little while, we were thinking of leasing, but I think it starts to make less sense as your down payment increases. Plus shopping for a lease is a lot harder than shopping for what is essentially a cash deal. So I took another look at cars that might fit our criteria and I stumbled on the Mazda 6.

I, like a lot of people evidently, kind of forgot the 6 existed. Mazda has sold about 30,000 a year for the last five years or so. During the same time, they sold about five times as many CX-5s. Mazda considers the 6 their flagship though, and it shows. A few weeks ago my mom and I went to a local Mazda dealer to drive a new 2021 Mazda 6 Carbon Edition.

The Carbon Edition includes the same equipment as the Grand Touring Reserve trim, but adds exclusive colors for the body, wheels, and interior. The GTR trim is ridiculously well equipped; it’s probably easier to link to the brochure than list everything here. The exterior is very attractive, and the interior is even better.

We drove it and really liked it. The engine is a turbocharged 2.5-liter four cylinder, and while it isn’t super fast, it’s quick and very responsive. The transmission is probably the best automatic I’ve ever driven. It keeps the lock-up clutch engaged almost all the time, it doesn’t hunt for gears, it doesn’t downshift unless you prod the accelerator, but when you do it downshifts directly, with no hesitation. The new one we drove stickered at around $32,000, which was a bit much, but I think a good value if you have to have a new car. The one word I would use to describe this car is “refined.” Totally unlike older Mazdas. I set out looking for a used one within a reasonable distance from home.

I found a few from dealers in northern New Jersey and one from a dealer in Maine. We eventually got the one in Maine because it was the best overall combination of price and miles it seemed, plus it was white. And a really nice metallic white at that, called Snowflake White Pearl Mica. The interior was black, which is a good-enough color, but way better than the white that was also offered.

We got a 2018, but this 2021 model looks identical

I drove it home from Maine, a trip of about four and a half hours. It’s a great car to drive. Very comfortable, plenty of passing power, adaptive cruise control, a heads up display, and auto-dimming mirrors; it makes for a great highway car. At the same time, the tight and eager steering and suspension make it fun to drive on curvy roads, too. I really can’t say enough good things about it. A few items aren’t my favorite, but they’re the typical Japanese car things and aren’t really worth talking about.

It’s finally done, for now at least, and my mom is very happy with the new car (especially the heated steering wheel). I think this car will end up being a good choice, with a great combinati0n of style, speed, comfort and reliability that probably couldn’t be matched with the Genesis and Lincoln models we were previously interested in.

In my last post, I mentioned it was almost time for my final (for now at least) semester of college to start. Now it’s almost over. I graduate in about a week and a half, and hopefully I’ll be moving on to a big-boy job without much delay. Between then and now not much worth sharing has happened, but two events in the last week or so are worthy of a post. The first is related to my parents’ car shopping, and I’ll post about that once a conclusion is reached, but the second is 90% finished and it’s right here in my house.

A week or two ago, my wife decided that we should host new year’s eve at our house. This gathering will include friends and family, a few of which will be staying overnight. We do have a guest room, but up until now it was kind of a catchall junk room with a bed, a dresser and an old TV just sitting in there. Functional I suppose, but not a place you’d want to spend too much time. Last week we rearranged the furniture into a much, much nicer layout. I’ve taken to calling it “the hotel room.”

The current guest bedroom layout (feat. my tractor sheets from when I was little).

Previously, the bed was in the far corner and the dresser was against the left wall. The TV was sitting on the floor in front of the dresser and the TV stand was not in the room. The current set up of a rather empty room featuring a bed and a large TV make it feel like a hotel to me. The ladder is for our cat Martha to sit on so she can survey the neighborhood wildlife. It’s so much more functional, and I’ve used the room to relax in the afternoon a few times. All it needs now is a nightstand next to the bed to keep phones and the remotes.

I used a Raspberry Pi 4 with LibreELEC to get Kodi on the TV, so it has access to all the cable TV channels and Jellyfin content that you can get on the other TVs. An older Roku stick is also connected to the TV for the streaming services. Unfortunately there isn’t a smooth solution to get things like Netflix in the Kodi interface, so the Roku will have to do. Which is fine, it just adds a seam to the user experience. I’m waiting on a FLIRC receiver to make one remote work with both the TV and Kodi. The Roku is RF only, so it will have to have a separate remote.

To improve guest hospitality even further, I 3D printed a QR code for my guest wi-fi network. It came out pretty nicely for my first multi-color print I think.

With this, all you need to do to access the guest network is point your phone’s camera at the code and click the button that shows up. No entering passwords or browsing for the right SSID. I added a couple magnets and standoffs to the back so I can stick it on the fridge.

With all this activity I’m really excited to have some overnight guests. It almost feels like a bed and breakfast or something.

Month: December 2021

Finally, a Car

Some Neat Goings On