So we signed the papers and rolled away with the Subaru today . . . It's pretty neat, but I think the real story, here, actually, is our car salesman. I told EB that he reminds me of Ashton Kucher, in some weird way; he's right there on the surface and likely to blurt out with anything. (For instance, yesterday I was telling him how nice the new car looks, and he said, "Oh, yeah! It smells good, too!" - and he proceeded to sniff the paint.) He had a book on his desktop called Surfing the Great Lakes, and today he was reading The Tipping Point . . .

Today after we'd decided for sure to buy the car, and after Emil had gone back to work, I was chatting with him for a little while as we waited for the manager to sign off on the sales agreement. We got to talking about bikes. Turns out that he is an avid bicyclist, too, and is considering buying a Bianchi like mine, of all things.

Discussing bikes prompted him to remember that he was supposed to give me a pound of coffee - he roasts his own, and sells it for $8 a pound. He happened to think of it because apparently he delivers coffee to people on his bike . . .

So the label on the coffee had a URL. And it turns out that he's also an artist:

http://www.roosart.com/john.html

What a renaissance guy! How did he get to the midwest, when it's clear he should live in California??