Seriously Sirius..where's the classical music?

While traveling, especially on long trips, I like to listen to classical music. Previous to this month, I had two choices (not enough): a station that would play the entire piece (which might mean 2 hours of a Richard Strauss yucky thing) or a station that just played one movement (Classical Pops). Classical Pops disappeared yet somehow a Billy Joel station appeared. They must have 10 stations of hip hop..who pays for Sirius? We have a life time subscription (the lifetime of our microcar). I have complained to the programming director who said I can find the missing station online (not useful in a car). @#$#! So this my public rant.

What I should have done for my hours of driving is locate all my Italian CDs (now that would be a problem) and feed them into the CD carousel and relearn Italian for our upcoming trip. Our other car is quite quiet and has a powerful engine (not made any more) that would have easily handled those steep grades that the microcar balked going up (the very same grades I biked through last year on the GAP). But this car is quite the gas guzzler and more difficult to park though I rarely parallel parked. (Soulmate give me a Temporary Resident placard for the large area in front of his house)

This farmstand is near 2 of the houses we looked at yesterday. We went there because it has animals for Maya. She was excited to go there but would not go anywhere near them. Pretty horses that ate from our hands. We did buy some especially tasty corn.

Pretty Maya: she is becoming harder to photograph as she shuns the camera. Had to bribe her with the promise of French fries

 Out into the country yesterday we drove to investigate 4 potential back-up candidates. Two were in the same place but one was so over-priced and butt ugly, it is crossed off the list. The other is a thing of beauty tucked into the woods. You'd never know it is so close to Ann Arbor. It is 4.5 running miles from our current house but some how it is listed as belonging in an inferior school district (must look at map) That may be a moot point as our school board recently voted to annex theirs but if the public gets a say, I don't think that will happen. It would be closer to Shanna and Josh's but one must go a third of a mile on a very bumpy unpaved road to get there. Also, it has an extremely long (paved) driveway. The house is not visible from the street, way, way, way back there. How much light will penetrate those woods? (5 acres!!!) And the listing says that our mineral rights are not included. What does that mean? (and everything is a moot point: it's under contract as we found out while we were trying to schedule a home visit)

Candidate number 3 is about 12 miles away but one needs to go more than a mile on a dirt road that at least was graded nicely (and well travelled, bicyclists were on it). It is in a paved sub with huge lots. It's a neo-Victorian complete with faux shingles, a cupola tower, big porches, extensive porches. Probably way too big and expensive. The property tax listed is through the roof, which must be in error.

Candidate 4 is 20 miles away, affordable, on a paved road and stunningly beautiful complete with an indoor sauna, hot tub, everything super deluxe, perched on a hill. We will go there Sunday for an open house. How busy is that road? I've biked on it in the past. And it is so far from everyone (though not so far from my friend's farm in the same town). Taxes not listed. They market it as "Neo-Italian" complete with some Italian like fountain in front.

So there are other houses out there if we are willing to be in the middle of no where. Things to think about.