Searching the 'net. And searching, and searching, and searching......

(My shameless Autismspot plug)



For the past three days we’ve been looking for a new car.

I realize as a man, this is my territory. This is my calling.

I should be able to walk in to a dealership and negotiate every possible bling/option for mere pennies on the dollar. And I should leave the dealership, snickering at the poor salesman’s misguided attempt to beguile me, as I confidently roll out of the parking lot knowing I received the best deal in the history of the car buying process.

However that’s not the case.

I loathe the car buying process.

I’ve combed over 150 Honda Odysseys, and visited over 3 dozen Dallas/Ft Worth dealerships via the World Wide Web in the past 72 hours.

I know the exact Kelly Blue Book trade value for my wife’s car.

I’ve dissected every possible combination of options, specs, sunroof vs moonroof, cloth vs leather, old vs new, and red vs blue.

Throw in some depression and grief and this reminds me of one thing, the days that spun my head around after Mason's diagnosis of Autism.

When Mason was diagnosed 3 years ago, for days the collective hineys of my wife and I were parked in one place, right in front of our laptops. We both read everything we could on Autism from the hopeful, to the absolutely dreadful. Like questioning the best deal on a car, we questioned what treatments we should start. And, based on Mason’s personality, which ones we shouldn’t. And if internet access was charged based on the number of websites visited, we would’ve incurred massive debt. I was overwhelmed by the amount of information that was out there, but it was very difficult to maximize it because the content was spread all over the web.

I was frustrated, and I hated it.

It’s that very same feeling of frustration that we hope to alleviate here at Autismspot.

As Kent has so eloquently shared in his blog yesterday, we’re truly passionate about what we’re doing. We're always thinking of new ideas, revamping the old ideas, and trading emails well into the late night and early morning hours. We want others to avoid going through the frustration that thousands of us have, searching tirelessly for information, treatment options, techniques, and most importantly HOPE!

See a topic, or a treatment option we’ve not covered?

Let us know.

Have something to share?

Let us know.

You see, we’ve been on the frustrated end. We want to change things in our community for the better, and most importantly we want you to be a large part of it.

We look forward to hearing from you.

- Joey