Ed Icionsub

Although I had to miss the SXSW festival and conference in Austin this year, I had the chance to go to Houston for a short business trip. It was on the condition that I drive my own car, to deliver a special laser machine to one of the owners in Houston, and then I drove over to Austin to catch a show. It was a whirlwind trip, but a ton of fun.

Before I could leave I had to get an oil change for my Tahoe and when I found out from my boss that I could put that expense on my expense report, I decided to go ahead and get a tune up, too. The only reason they are being so generous to me is that they really need to get this laser delivered right away, and they cannot ship it on an airplane without a lot of trouble and extra expense for crating and insuring it. So paying me to drive it and covering my vehicle expenses are still a bargain for them.

Last time I was in Houston was right after Hurricane Katrina had wiped out New Orleans. I had car trouble while I was in Houston – helping the same business owner, as a matter of fact. I was staying in a nice hotel out near the Woodlands and needed to find a Houston auto repair shop without the benefit of a yellow pages or the internet. Thankfully, the desk clerk at the hotel was able to give me good directions and I got it taken care of.

My Tahoe has been giving me trouble, so I thought I’d put an ad on the internet and see if I could find anyone to buy it, “as is.” I was hoping to get enough cash from selling it to have a nice down payment on a newer car. But after running an ad for the past 3 weeks, I only had a couple of calls and haven’t had anyone seriously interested.

So now I’ve decided to spend a little money on fixing it up and I’ll just keep the Tahoe for another year or two. One of the first things I want to do is upgrade the car’s sound system. The speakers and receiver are just factory issued, and I’d like to get something nicer.

Shopping online for the right audio gear to trick my ride, I am going to count on ShopWiki to have both a buyers guide and the most stores to check for the brand names and best prices. I’ll start with new car speakers and then look at the different receivers to see what kind of budget I’ll need. I’m pretty sure that shopping online first will make me a more educated consumer and I’ll probably save a lot of money over going to a local shop and just selecting my new audio gear from what they have on the shelves.

We took the grandson to a free Easter egg hunt this afternoon at the Buchanan House landmark.

There were a couple of hundred kids there, and the hunt organizers had broken them down into three age ranges to make the hunt more fair. Our grandson is 7, so he was in the second grouping. He had so much fun running through the side yard looking for the eggs.

Well folks, for the first time ever, the University of Tennessee has a basketball team that has made it to the Elite 8 round of March Madness.

It is very exciting to see these young men come together as a team and have a strong leadership in the senior teammates. I hope they go all the way to the finals.

A lot of people in Tennessee will be watching CBS to cheer on our team.