XML and SQL: Developing Web Applications

Knowing When to Let Go

When I was commuting back and forth to Baltimore from Washington D.C., having a car was absolutely essential. Every morning I drove an hour up, and every evening I drove an hour back. One morning in the middle of highway traffic on the way to Baltimore, my otherwise wonderful used Saab 900 completely died. Without warning, the engine quit on me. I was barely able to veer across three lanes of traffic into the breakdown lane before the car sputtered to a stop. The Saab, which had been great for moving me around, simply wasn't up to the rigors of a daily drive, of more than 100 miles. The long and short of it is that I got the Saab fixed, but because I wanted to make sure a breakdown didn't happen to me again, I bought a ...