In the past few days, we’ve spent way more time shoveling snow than is reasonable. We have a relatively long driveway, and it’s a major pain to shovel it. We have a snowblower, but it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. And last time I was in the garage half of the engine appeared to be removed.

While I think it’s more of a pipe dream than anything, my dad and I have been kicking around the idea of picking up an old junker of a truck. It should run and pass inspection (or be reasonably easy and cheap to fix), but some rust and crappiness is okay. Something like this. And then we’d throw a plow on the front. It’d be useful for our weekly runs to the dump, and, of course, for plowing. (Plus, there’s a lot of “cleanup” we’d like to do–there’s probably about two feet of snow on the side of the road that could be pushed back, and the town did a terrible job plowing the entrance to our street. And there are huge snowbanks, something we’d love to push down a bit.

It turns out that plows are expensive, and good, running trucks are also way more than I thought. From having seen junkers on the side of the road in the past, I was fairly convinced we could do this for under $500. It’s now looking like $2,000 is a better price range.

Or we could just get a just-broken-in Lincoln (Presidential Series!!) for a mere $500. (Step one: remove garbage from floor. Step two: try to clean up the leather a bit. Step three: resell.) Actually, I’d love to try to take my ‘radio arbitrage’ skills and apply them to autos, except that having an extra radio is well and good, but having four broken-down cars in my parents’ driveway might not be as well received. And, you know, the fact that they’re a lot more expensive and thus a lot more risky.