As you can tell by the date, in European standard, this picture was taken the day after I bought my Miata in 1998...My previous car, my Plymouth Neon, had a short but brave life, but her sacrifice not only saved me the expense of keeping a car insured and stored in the States while I was in the UK in 1997, but the insurance settlement provided the majority of the down payment for a car I've always wanted...the Mazda Miata!

I first heard they were redesigning the Miata/MX-5 when I was in the UK from one of Marcus' car magazines. After I got settled in working at Netcom again when I got back and figured out that I could pay off my parents for my mom's 1994 Honda Civic fairly quickly & have no debt, I started some serious research, starting with the World Wide Web...(why not? After all, I did work for an ISP at the time, right?) This is the color I really wanted, but I knew that colors on the web don't always look the same in real life...This color here actually looks like my old Neon...

Of course I had to let my brother try driving it (he just barely fit!), but I wasn't letting my new car out of my sight...You can zoom in closer if you click on the image...

The first weekend I was back in the Bay Area, I went driving, of course! My first route, since I didn't know the area well yet, was to take Highway 17 over the mountains to Santa Cruz, then Highway 1 up the coast almost to Half Moon Bay, then across back to 280 South to get back to San Jose...It was a beautiful day, and I got sunburnt, since I forgot my great idea of keeping a little bottle of sunscreen in the car, and I stayed out driving much longer than I thought I would...That really is the Pacific Ocean there in the background...

When I got back to San Jose, this is how I notified my friends via e-mail...

Britta's expensive new toy... :)

I had been hoping that since I have the Honda Civic I bought off my mom & no debt to speak of, that I could afford a car payment for a second car...basically a very large, expensive toy...I've always wanted a convertible, especially the Miata, and since they've been redesigned to be even better cars now, I'm currently living in California (but for who knows how long? That's why I bought it, so I can sell it whenever necessary...) AND I'm not married or with children yet, I figured now was the time to get one...I did all my research on numbers, finances, etc, and it looked like a doable situation...Some of you probably got some of the specs from the MazdaUSA.com website in an earlier e-mail, which shows when I was doing my research...

As of Friday, April 10th, I knew all the options I wanted & what I should be able to pay for them, but I hadn't seen the "midnight blue mica" in person, so I wasn't sure if I wanted that or black. Also, I had yet to get pre-qualified for my loan, but I figured since I never had any problems with my Neon loan & I was going with the same credit union, I didn't see how they would decline me...

Friday morning bright & early I went to the bank...Not only did they approve me, but they did while I was waiting, so only about 35 minutes after I got there, I was leaving with $25,000 pre-qualified for a car loan! So, since I couldn't get a chiropractor appt in the morning, I decided to go to the Roseville Automall to see if they had any blue Miatas so I could see what color it really was. Since I wanted an automatic transmission with the Popular Equipment Package, air conditioning, the optional hardtop, floor mats and the cassette deck (it comes standard with CD), I didn't think I had any chance of them having what I wanted on the lot, so I was expecting to order it & have to wait awhile...Well, what is my luck but that not only is the blue a very nice color, but the first automatic the Automall received yet (since the new model was released on March 12th) was on Thursday evening & happened to be blue with the Popular Equipment package, A/C & floormats! It was still in the shrink-wrap when I got there, so I had to wait until they got it road-ready for me to test drive. We ended up negotiating in the cassette deck & hardtop to be installed later (well, the hardtop is just coming later, not installed, since I won't need that until winter), and I left that afternoon (after a LONG day at the dealership, mostly waiting for them to clean up the car!) with a brand-new Miata! :)

So, now you see why I wanted to send pictures with this e-mail...My mom used about a half roll of film on pictures of me driving with my various passengers this weekend...Since we had 17 people total for Easter dinner, the pre-dinner entertainment was rides around the block in Britta's new convertible! :)

My fairly quick purchase inspired my supervisor Louis Lin to go out and get his own new car two days later...then our manager Ralph Pearson suggested we take his digital camera & go take pictures of our new cars...so we drove them out to the large parking lot behind Town and Country on Winchester...I like the sparkle on the back of my car here...(This parking lot no longer exists because is now covered by Santana Row!)

Can you tell I like posing with my car? This is another view with the hardtop on...

Here's yet another view, this time with my parents' front yard in the background...I've worked hard getting pictures where you can tell the car is dark blue instead of black...

When I finally got my license plates, I had to take the same picture as I took with my Neon...I must have used up all my license-plate karma on my Neon, since for those plates, I not only got an inside joke about my alma mater, the University of California at Davis, but I also got the same 3-digit sequence as my assigned parking space at my apartment garage (3KOW365)...but there's nothing at all unique or interesting about the Miata plates...but it's still a convertible...!

One last pose of me and my car...I hoped you enjoyed the pictures almost as much as I'm enjoying my cool car!