It's not a hiatus, it's a lull.

Well, I'm back. I realize that I haven't written anything here in... oh, well, a 'coon's age," perhaps a geriatric 'coon's age. I am not going to promise that I will try to be more prolific, more faithful, more diligent at this. I will write when I will write, and leave it at that. Didja ever hear the old line about, "When I feel the urge to work, I lie down until it goes away." Well, when it comes to blogging, I've been lying down quite a bit lately.

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Okay, I realize that this topic has probably been overdone by way too many stand-up comedians, but I think I'm just a tad fed up with the "model years" of cars being offset from the date they actually hit the showrooms.

In April 2003, we bought a brand-spankin' new 2004 Toyota Sienna van. We got ours when people who had been on the waiting lists to buy them were still waiting. (It was a matter of timing and luck, when my wife happened to call a dealer who had taken delivery of the vehicle, but the person who had ordered it backed out of the deal.)

But let's face it. That "2004" vehicle, which was available in the early second quarter of 2003, was probably assembled in early 2003, based on prototypes made in 2002, based on design work done in 2001. It's already three-year-old technology when you drive it off the lot! No wonder cars can't seem to hold their value!

Still, we love our van. On road trips, it's a great step up from my wife's 1999 (1997?) Camry. And it was cool to be driving one of the few on the road, at the time we bought it. About a week into our ownership, though, we pulled into a parking lot in San Diego (about 500 miles from here) and parked next to our van's twin. The polish was already wearing off.

Now, of course, you can't stroll through a Wal-Mart parking lot without seeing three or four vans just like ours, down to the color and options (running boards, moon roof, DVD player, tinted windows, just to name a few). The incidence grows ever higher the closer you get to the location of gymnastics lessons, dance classes, little league parks, and other such kid-saturated locations. There's practically one in every garage -- right next to the potof chicken.