Life's too short to drive boring cars
I love cars.
I know that's a pretty normal thing for a 21st Century American male. If you were going to make a stereotype list of things guys my age are enthusiastic about, cars would be in the Top 10 - maybe Top 5, below his family but above pizza. I'm that guy (although pizza is probably right behind cars on my list and both are ahead of football.)
I've been a car guy about as long as I've been upright. My parents tell a story about my first complete sentence. We were on a trip to Oregon in 1966 when I was about two years old. I'd been looking out the back window of my Dad's 1955 Cadillac all day (this is before car seats and seat belts, so there was nothing keeping me from standing) when I suddenly piped up with "Daddy - I see a car!" Like many boys, I had an extensive collection of Hot Wheels that I played with whenever I couldn't play with my friends - and sometimes when I could. When I was 15, my parents got me a year's subscription to Car & Driver magazine for Christmas. Getting my permit and then my driver's license were two of the biggest days of my life. I still remember the feeling of joy when I left the Conyers, GA Department of Driver Services office after passing my driver's test, driving my dad's 1975 Sunstorm Yellow Pontiac Ventura, driving (legally) on my own for the first time. Any instance I could drive - to school, to the store, on family outing, to take my friends out - I was the first to volunteer for duty behind-the-wheel. It didn't take long for my parents to feel like I was getting a little too full of myself and take away the set of keys they'd given me to their cars.
Not surprisingly, when I needed to look for college job, I ended up with a driving job. At the time, I was a 19-year old engineering student at San Diego State University and I needed a job that would work with my school schedule. So I'm browsing through the classified ads in the newspaper (remember those?) and I see an ad that says "Will work around college student schedule. Free training." The ad is to be a school bus driver for San Diego Unified School District. Shoot - you'll work around my school schedule, train me to do the job and I get to drive? Where do I sign up?!!?
Little did I know that I'd be making a life choice. A year went by and my parents divorced and my mom moved to another city, telling me and my brother "You aren't coming with me" (we didn't want to anyway) and pretty soon I had to make a choice - go to school or eat. I wanted to finish school, but eating took precedence - after all, I could always go back to school, right. (Little did I know...) Besides, I wasn't really into engineering anyway - I understand physics and math (more on that in a minute), but I'll always be a 'B' student and computers...well, I know how to use one, but not how to program. So I started driving full-time. And then I got into charter buses and next thing you know, 30 years have gone by and I'm still working in the charter bus world as a safety and training manager and expert witness in bus safety and sometimes driver - and still no degree. I have completed an AA in Business Management - I just have to apply for graduation. No sour grapes. The point here is driving became the central activity of my life. And still today - I'm generally the first to volunteer to drive, even when I'm with a bunch of drivers.
A moment ago, I mentioned physics and math. I've always enjoyed knowing how things work, mathematical properties and statistics. When I was kid, I'd grab the sports section and spend 20 minutes poring over the baseball box scores. Sometimes, I'd even type them up on a sheet of paper. I'd also design my own racetracks on the floor of my room and race my Hot Wheels around the track, giving each in turn as close to an equal push as i could and keeping track of the lap and finishing results on a sheet of paper. Later, when I got my subscription to Car & Driver, I'd pore over the test results and compare how various cars did against competitors. And, of course, when I got my first car, I kept fairly detailed records, showing when I added fuel, what kind of gas mileage I got, when maintenance was performed. And I'm still attracted to spreadsheets, graphs, mathematical equations and relationships. And I still like to know how things work - particularly vehicles.
I've written down a list of goals (a bucket list, if you like) and, as you might expect, cars take a couple of spots. I want to race - not professionally, just an amateur thing. I like working on cars and would like to learn how to weld well enough to be proficient at doing my own restoration work and some modifications. I enjoy traveling, the journey as much as the being there, the chance to go new places and to explore, to wonder what's over that hill and then go find out. And I enjoy writing, though I don't do it enough - I'd like to write a book someday, but if this blog is as far as I get, at least I'll have this as a creative outlet.
For those who've never seen my ID, the "Traveler" portion of it should be obvious. The "1701" part is about one of my favorite interests. A little Google search should explain. Put the two together and you get what drives me. (See what I did there?)
So that's a little about me. The next entry will explain the ideas behind this blog.
Traveler
I know that's a pretty normal thing for a 21st Century American male. If you were going to make a stereotype list of things guys my age are enthusiastic about, cars would be in the Top 10 - maybe Top 5, below his family but above pizza. I'm that guy (although pizza is probably right behind cars on my list and both are ahead of football.)
I've been a car guy about as long as I've been upright. My parents tell a story about my first complete sentence. We were on a trip to Oregon in 1966 when I was about two years old. I'd been looking out the back window of my Dad's 1955 Cadillac all day (this is before car seats and seat belts, so there was nothing keeping me from standing) when I suddenly piped up with "Daddy - I see a car!" Like many boys, I had an extensive collection of Hot Wheels that I played with whenever I couldn't play with my friends - and sometimes when I could. When I was 15, my parents got me a year's subscription to Car & Driver magazine for Christmas. Getting my permit and then my driver's license were two of the biggest days of my life. I still remember the feeling of joy when I left the Conyers, GA Department of Driver Services office after passing my driver's test, driving my dad's 1975 Sunstorm Yellow Pontiac Ventura, driving (legally) on my own for the first time. Any instance I could drive - to school, to the store, on family outing, to take my friends out - I was the first to volunteer for duty behind-the-wheel. It didn't take long for my parents to feel like I was getting a little too full of myself and take away the set of keys they'd given me to their cars.
Not surprisingly, when I needed to look for college job, I ended up with a driving job. At the time, I was a 19-year old engineering student at San Diego State University and I needed a job that would work with my school schedule. So I'm browsing through the classified ads in the newspaper (remember those?) and I see an ad that says "Will work around college student schedule. Free training." The ad is to be a school bus driver for San Diego Unified School District. Shoot - you'll work around my school schedule, train me to do the job and I get to drive? Where do I sign up?!!?
Little did I know that I'd be making a life choice. A year went by and my parents divorced and my mom moved to another city, telling me and my brother "You aren't coming with me" (we didn't want to anyway) and pretty soon I had to make a choice - go to school or eat. I wanted to finish school, but eating took precedence - after all, I could always go back to school, right. (Little did I know...) Besides, I wasn't really into engineering anyway - I understand physics and math (more on that in a minute), but I'll always be a 'B' student and computers...well, I know how to use one, but not how to program. So I started driving full-time. And then I got into charter buses and next thing you know, 30 years have gone by and I'm still working in the charter bus world as a safety and training manager and expert witness in bus safety and sometimes driver - and still no degree. I have completed an AA in Business Management - I just have to apply for graduation. No sour grapes. The point here is driving became the central activity of my life. And still today - I'm generally the first to volunteer to drive, even when I'm with a bunch of drivers.
A moment ago, I mentioned physics and math. I've always enjoyed knowing how things work, mathematical properties and statistics. When I was kid, I'd grab the sports section and spend 20 minutes poring over the baseball box scores. Sometimes, I'd even type them up on a sheet of paper. I'd also design my own racetracks on the floor of my room and race my Hot Wheels around the track, giving each in turn as close to an equal push as i could and keeping track of the lap and finishing results on a sheet of paper. Later, when I got my subscription to Car & Driver, I'd pore over the test results and compare how various cars did against competitors. And, of course, when I got my first car, I kept fairly detailed records, showing when I added fuel, what kind of gas mileage I got, when maintenance was performed. And I'm still attracted to spreadsheets, graphs, mathematical equations and relationships. And I still like to know how things work - particularly vehicles.
I've written down a list of goals (a bucket list, if you like) and, as you might expect, cars take a couple of spots. I want to race - not professionally, just an amateur thing. I like working on cars and would like to learn how to weld well enough to be proficient at doing my own restoration work and some modifications. I enjoy traveling, the journey as much as the being there, the chance to go new places and to explore, to wonder what's over that hill and then go find out. And I enjoy writing, though I don't do it enough - I'd like to write a book someday, but if this blog is as far as I get, at least I'll have this as a creative outlet.
For those who've never seen my ID, the "Traveler" portion of it should be obvious. The "1701" part is about one of my favorite interests. A little Google search should explain. Put the two together and you get what drives me. (See what I did there?)
So that's a little about me. The next entry will explain the ideas behind this blog.
Traveler
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