Online Car Shopping: Where do I begin to do car research?

August 25, 2017 by Sara Woznicki in Social Media, Young Professionalism, Tweets and Mascara, Sara's Column, Life In Your 20's, Work, life lessons, Leisure

Last weekend I saw some high school friends that I hadn’t seen since probably mid-college. We were chatting about our lives: trips we’ve been on, career moves we’ve made and accomplishments we’ve had. One of my friends got a new car last year, and I blushed, admitting that I still have the same, old Ford Taurus.

Part of me is hoping that this car lasts forever (mainly because buying a car is expensive), but also because I seriously have no idea what to do when it comes to car shopping. When you buy a house, you’ve got a loan officer, realtor, Redfin, Zillow and a gaggle of excited friends to help you dissect every inch of a house and decide whether you want it or not.

Cazey, Cars, and Chaos

June 15, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Humor, Life In Your 20's, life lessons

My last summer of college, I had a friend come visit me at home in Virginia Beach. Once they arrived, we didn’t stay at the house long before I told my parents we were going to the beach. I backed down my driveway only for my friend to cry out, “Stop!”

I had backed out of the driveway and dragged my side view mirror down the side of my mom’s year-old van. A white streak adorned its gold body.

Me: “Oh no.”

I had to decide right then if I should continue going backward or go forward. Either way, my mirror remained in contact with the van.

Struck Again By a Car: A Day in the Life of a Hit-and-Run Survivor

June 08, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Humor, Life In Your 20's, life lessons

When I was hit by a car the first time, I thought it was a fluke that would never happen again in this life. I mean, how often does someone get hit by a car and survive? And also joke about it and write a blog post...

And then yesterday happened. I was hit by a car AGAIN. I'm not making this sh*t up.

This is the second time this year (and in my life!*) that I've been run down while crossing a street. Also, it was again an old person behind the wheel. And we think millennials are the death of us??

*This being my second car hit is debatable. Technically, my college roommate ran me down outside a Wells Fargo bank at 9 pm on a Wednesday in October 2012. But she just let her foot off the gas. These last two incidents involved people trying to go places and I was just in their way, so help me God.

What It Feels Like To Be Hit By a Car

May 04, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Humor, Life In Your 20's, life lessons

Yesterday I was traversing between VCU’s two campuses, Snapchatting and texting and mulling why I’m getting a PhD when I really just want to travel (this was five days after returning from Denmark). I walk this route on a daily basis (or when it’s not above 80 degrees Fahrenheit), so I have it down flat. I always take East Main Street, and I typically cross to the right side of the road because there used to be construction outside the Jefferson, but as of yesterday the construction’s gone, so I can stay on the sidewalk on the left side of the road.

About a block from the Jefferson, there is an intersection with stop signs. Not stop signs for East Main, but for the side street whose name I don’t know, but I need to check tomorrow, because as the title of this post hints, I got hit by a car and I’m told I should report this to the police.

I pause at this intersection on this sunny day because there is a car stopped at the stop sign. A Cadillac to be exact. The Cadillac is stopped, I repeat.

I Am Not A Car Person

August 26, 2015 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Humor, Life In Your 20's, life lessons

My current car can be described as "formerly white." From that, you should deduce that I give not a crap when it comes to my vehicle other than it gets me from point A to point B and you don't reset my radio stations. You could say, I don't have a tire to spare (okay, I'll stop).

My parents recently told me I'll need to get a new car soon. I laughed. I hate driving, and I plan to always live in a city where I can use my own two legs and/or public transit, so someone's flying a bit too high in Colorado if they think I'm buying a new car.

E-Zhard's More Like It: A Consumer Review

January 22, 2015 by Sara Woznicki in Leisure, Life In Your 20's, life lessons, Sara's Column, Tweets and Mascara, Uncategorized

I live in Richmond, but am originally from Connecticut, so going home is always a pain in the ass. One action I took to try to ease the pain is getting an E-ZPass. I'm assuming everyone knows what that is, but just to be sure, it's a little white transponder that you put on your windshield and then debits money out of your account when you're driving so you don't have to deal with change and people at toll booths.

Sounds awesome and easy, right! Just like the name! But it's not!

You register the little transponder to your car and then load enough money to get you home onto it beforehand, so it should be smooth sailing. But of course it's not. When I got home to Connecticut, I got an email saying my account is in the negative.

That means I spent over $65 in tolls, one way. What the hell?

How Much Should Convenience Cost?

December 07, 2014 by Sara Woznicki in Leisure, Life In Your 20's, life lessons, Sara's Column, Tweets and Mascara

Recently, I found myself sitting in my car, in dire need of an oil change. I had yelped oil change stations, and there were only a few options that were open on a Sunday. The comments say Jiffy Lube is ridiculously expensive, but when I called Firestone and they said it'd take several hours, and Jiffy said fifteen minutes, I was sold. Upon arrival, they directed my car into the station, courteously escorted me inside, pointed me in the direction of free tea and went right to work on my car. The lady then tried to up sell me on everything from a new air filter (fine, go ahead and make my engine breath again) to a new transmission (uhm hells no).

When it was all said and done, I was there for maybe twenty minutes and paid over sixty dollars ($40 ish for the oil and $20 ish for an air filter).

Calamity Jane Here...Again

October 25, 2014 by Sara Woznicki in life lessons, Sara's Column, Social Media, Tweets and Mascara, Work, Young Professionalism

So this past week I went to a conference up in DC. It was a whole day of digital breakout sessions, covering everything from content marketing to search engine optimization to UX design to analytics. Needless to say, I was stoked. The only part I wasn't excited for was waking up at 5 AM to leave myself PLENTY of time to get there. I mean, I was leaving myself 3 full hours to make a 1 hour 45 minute trip. Should be good, right?

NOPE.

My logic was almost there. I was going to turn on Waze the moment I left the house, but what's the point? It's 5:30 in the morning and I know how to get myself pointed in the right direction to Washington without something barking at me so early in the morning. So, I'll just save it for later.

UGH. TYPING THIS STILL MAKES ME MAD.

I hit traffic within about twenty minutes of leaving my house. And not just traffic, but deadlock. I didn't move. And then I didn't move some more. And then I turned on my GPS, only to see that I wasn't going to be moving for awhile longer. A slow death.

I saw the sun rise in that gridlock. I listened to my mixtape cd one full time in that gridlock (side note: I wish making people mixed tapes were still a thing, because I need more music in my car). I almost cried in that gridlock. But I held myself together.

Finally trickled out of the gridlock. They actually had us get off the highway because all three lanes were shut. And then there were no directions on where to go from there. Naturally, my GPS wasn't working, so I wanted to cry cried again. And then wanted to cried again when I went the wrong way.

But thankfully, I went in the opposite direction that I was supposed to, so I added on 20 more minutes onto my adventure, and finally hit the open road. Success?

Once I made it there, I couldn't get over how upset I was from all the traffic. Horrendous start to the day. But at least the trip back home would be better right?

HA.

It would get dark as soon as I leave, right? Check.

And rain a bit? Nope.

Rain a whole lot? That's more like it.

Fog? The cake needs icing, doesn't it? Yup.

Glorious day for travel all around. Claps. -_-

Riding Dirty

October 21, 2014 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Humor, Leisure, life lessons, Tweets and Mascara

It is no secret in my circle of friends that I hate driving. I use my car purely for escaping the city and, during the summer, when the heat threatens to spoil any milk I might carry home from the grocery store.

I walk everywhere. In fact, I meet attractive females in cycling class who tell me they see me “always walking on [insert my street name]” as if I’m some side(walk) show freak. Last fall my car got towed during street cleaning because I forgot I had it parked there. Last winter it snowed twice in the course of ten days, and I fully expected my car to die because I didn’t drive it in between.

Lunch Break Confusion

October 13, 2013 by Sara Woznicki in Life In Your 20's, life lessons, Sara's Column, Tweets and Mascara, Work, Young Professionalism

Lunch used to be my time to get away from everything in the office and relax. It was my 45 minutes of sunshine. These two past weeks have turned that time into a time of confusion and struggles. Last week it was the stalker, as accounted in Why Can't you just Stick to Stalking Me Online, and this week it was autumn picking on me. I always take my lunch sitting outside at the picnic tables. However, it's rained and been cold every day this week, which poses a real problem for my routine.

On Monday, I was still wary that my stalker would be around, so my roommate brought her family to come eat lunch with me. By Tuesday, she was back working, so I needed to grow up and take lunch alone again. However, it was raining, so I decided just to eat in the office. I was surrounded by my work, so it wasn't relaxing in the least and I ended up working for the entirety of it. I went stir crazy by the end of the day, so I knew on Wednesday I'd need a new plan.

Since it was cold and raining, I knew sitting outside wasn't an option, so I left my office and ate in my car. I knew I needed to get out of the office, but I already had brought lunch, so i didn't have an excuse to go sit in a restaurant. So in my car in the parking garage I sat. It was weird, so I didn't want to do that again.

Thursday I decided to go pick up my birth control so I'd have a reason to leave for lunch. That excursion lasted all of 5 minutes, so I decided that maybe sitting in my car in a new location wouldn't be as bad. It wasn't AS bad, but still weird.

So here came Friday, where I ended up sitting in my car in yet another different parking lot. I don't want any businesses to think I'm creepy, so I'm trying to vary it up and park far away from the door. As I sit here, I wonder; what do people do for lunch breaks when they can't sit outside? My roommate goes to buy lunch everyday so she can sit inside, but I just don't see that fitting into my budget. There no lounge in my building. And staying at my desk for nine hours without reprieve makes me crazy. I miss in college when there were plenty of buildings you could sit in and wait around in without it being weird.

The only factor making me feel a little bit better about my car lunches is that there's a guy a few parking spots away also enjoying his car lunch. Here's to confusing lunchtimes!