Billy Kulpa

I’m getting antsy for my car to arrive at the dealership. It’s like waiting to hear back from an employer after a job interview. Argh.

Happy news for the neurotic, however – I Googled my Sonic’s VIN and found pictures!

Check out my ride.

I’ve decided not to donate my tax return to my old car, after all.

After considering the price of fixing my 2001 Chrysler 300M — more than $2,000 for various transmission and catalytic converter problems — it became apparent that the car wasn’t worth it. It survived nearly 145,000 miles. I decided to move on.

What’s amazing is how easy the car was to sell once I made the decision. On Jan. 24, I put an ad on Craiglist (an ad that Craigslist flagged for deletion for no good reason at all) for $750. On Jan. 25, it sold.

In the week since my 300 tried to kill me, I’ve called a lot of friends for advice. Everyone has a different take. Buy used because the depreciation of a new car is so bad. Buy new so you don’t have to worry about anything going wrong for a few years. Only lease so you’re not owning the bad years of a car.

I haven’t financially committed yet, but after considering my options (and most importantly, the opinion of the future Mrs. Kulpa), I came across a brand new car that I’ve kind of fallen in love with: A 2012 Chevy Sonic LTZ.

It’s cool looking, gas efficient, and most importantly, I qualify for the 2.9% financing over 60 months. All I’m waiting on now is for my local dealership to get the specific car I picked shipped from another dealership.

I’m going to be experimenting with responsive design on this site a bit this afternoon. This is a bit of a personal project, but also has practical applications for my day job.

Things will be wonky for a bit as I experiment. Please accept my apology.

My name is Billy.

I’m a well-intentioned, slightly-neurotic graphic designer from Rockford, Ill. I used to think I lived in the worst city in America (see: this). Then I traveled around a bit and realized, hey, the bar is low pretty much everywhere.

I have a lot of opinions about a lot of different things. I’m no blowhard, though. I just used to be a journalist.

Much of my identity is tied to not being a redneck. More on this later.

I wrote a slightly smarmy bio on an about me page if you’d like to learn a little bit more about me without actually learning anything.

Things around here likely will change a lot in the first few days (weeks?). Do not be alarmed.

And thank you for stopping by.