I was having a hard time coming up insano adventures to share and I started to wonder why. I realized I spend a lot of time and energy to keep unpredictable and uncontrollable events from happening. That could mean that my planning skills are competent and admirable or that I’m boring. In my work role I have started to become one of the more senior (in terms of chronology, not experience) people in my group. I get to interact with people 4 or 5 years my junior, and when we do the ‘how was your weekend’ chat, my conversations are devoid of many of the antics that the younger guys pepper theirs with. Some of this is because I have no desire to relive these amusing but embarrassing episodes anymore. I was there, I did that. I have stories, but no one wants to hear the old guy bragging about something that happened 5 years ago unless it was truly amazing or involved minor jail time. I see the Friday faces and know how it feels to wish there was a ‘skip’ button to jump ahead to the scenes that start Friday night instead of watching the first 8 hours crawl by in slow motion like a never ending C-Span loop. Those were good times, but ultimately not great times. Somewhere along the line, I learned that to have a truly great time, something that produces lasting memories and motivates you to get more, you have to plan or at least build up towards the great moments so that they can be a good as expected or better. At this point, with all that buildup, you’re probably expecting the all-balls, no quit best story ever and I am going to completely let you down. So there.
I did, however, keep up with plans that will hopefully bring about some of these wonderful-type stories. First, we’re going to be hosting a dozen or so people at Bandmeltun next weekend for Fathers’ Day and there needs to be some food prepared. I’m hoping to take things to another level with combined pork rib/ chicken smoke. I’ve been devouring technique and tips on how to do this and the only thing I have learned is that no one agrees. This makes me feel good, since I can pretty much do anything and find someone who agrees. Alternatively, I will find 90% of the interweb disagreeing with me. Cooking pork ribs is more or less the whole purpose of the offset smoker. You can do steaks and basic chickens on a hibachi, as I have proven with the BBQ Pro ($12.99 at Kmart). But to do a full rack of ribs, you need space and wood smoke. If I manage to pull this off, maybe I can convince M that a whole pig is a good idea. To go along with the food, M and I have been scouting appropriate side dishes and things are looking good. It (hopefully) won’t be as intricate and overwhelming as the Thanksgiving throwdown, but it should be pretty good. Our deck is another issue. We don’t really have seating or tables for 12, and despite my assurances that picnic tables are the answer, we do need something a little classier and larger. Ikea offered a potential solution, so on Saturday night we headed out for a 1.5 hour drive (one way) to that Swedish answer store and got smacked around pretty hard. The table we wanted was out of stock and the alternatives were weak at best. We did try calling ahead and checking online, but technology was not as helpful as it had promised. So we turned around empty handed. We have some ideas for the cookout but it won’t be perfect.
We saw Sex and The City this weekend. I know it’s all manly and tough to put down that show but I don’t see why. It used to be on after the Sopranos on Sunday nights and it was always good for some adult-themed entertainment, so I know there are more than a few straight men out there who have seen multiple episodes. I pretty much voided the validity of a board game that purported to pit Men vs Women with my knowledge of the show. The point of the game is for women to answer questions about fixing cars and sports and men answer questions about girl stuff and I ran the table with SATC questions. The best part of going to see the movie? Afterwards I was the only guy in the bathroom. That has never happened before. There can be mitigating factors to the chick-flick, and having the run of the men’s room is one of them. The movie itself was as expected. I suppose if you knew the 6 years of backstory, you got more out of it, but for the most part it was entertaining and the AC in the theater was better than 96 degrees humidity outside.
Post-SATC we did some shopping for Father’s day and I saw something that I really haven’t understood yet. Outside Old Navy, there was a mid-80s Corvette blatantly parked in the fire lane. Not idling, not with someone inside, not even with a baby seat or handicapped placard. This baby was parked out front, VIP style. M and I looked at it and each other, shrugged and wandered inside. Clearly there was a big baller inside to have such a prestigious automobile and premium parking reserved just for them. I was going to have some fun figuring out who belonged to that whip, but the answer was too obvious to be any fun. Sitting on the front display table, not leaning or standing by, but sitting on the display, was a 5’-6”, mid-40s guy with a tank-top and blue-blockers, arms crossed and a shoulder tattoo that said, in 2-inch letters ‘F*** Fear’. Wow. I mean, this was too perfect. This guy was clearly some sort of special forces ninja or pirate because he has no fear of fear. In fact he taunts fear. He doesn’t even have fear of the fire department or a parking ticket because he is too tough, as we can tell from his bare arms and killer ink. Or maybe the blue-blockers make him invisible to fear, Jerry Maguire-style? This guy was so perfectly married to his style of car, I am having a hard time figuring out if he drives the car because that is his style, or he rocks that style because that’s the car he owns.
So here we go with my off the cuff analysis of people and the cars they ride around in.
I cannot start this without turning the lens on myself first and I do this willingly. I drive a Subaru wagon. I used to drive a Saab. These are both well documented separately here. Apparently I am part of a certain demographic. I drove a Mitsubishi Galant before that and a Gold 1984 Lincoln Mark VII Coupe before that. I drove the Lincoln because it was the car I was allowed to use as a recent grad and I more or less stole it when I moved out. I needed an inspection sticker and they wouldn’t inspect it due to massive body rust, so I bought a ’96 Galant. It was anonymous and cheap. Then it started to make noise, so I decided that I made enough money to drive a ‘nice’ car. I was raised in a house of crappy cars and I wanted to have a nice car. Or maybe I wanted to meet women. So I figured out how much I could afford and ended up with a sportier Saab model. It had turbo, leather, 6 speed manual transmission and the coolest cupholder in the world. I had it for 5 months and met M. Mission accomplished. The Saab isn’t too expensive that it’s a status symbol like a Mercedes, but it’s more expensive than a Camry, so it’s somewhere in a middle ground. It doesn’t have a lot of street cred for racing or appear in rap videos. But it does show up a lot at country clubs and Whole Foods parking lots. It’s quirky and a little unusual. Then again, so am I. The Subaru is also quirky and unusual. It costs a little more than a similarly equipped vehicle and doesn’t have a lot of snob appeal. It feels right driving it around and it’s a good vehicle for the area and where I am in life. I am well aware there is an established alternative market out there for Subarus. I happen to agree with the politics of that crowd more than the Hummer bunch and I’m cool with that.
BMW – I don’t think the BMW/Porcupine joke is all that inaccurate. While there are a lot of nice people driving these around, there is a healthy ego behind all of them. No meek personalities need apply. Sometimes the car is paid for at the expense of something else (food, rent, 401k plan).
Jeep Wrangler – You’re an all American. You have a golden retriever. You have a lot of Bruce Springsteen in your I-pod and you wear Ray-Bans. You aren’t practical and are somewhat impulsive. Or you watched a lot of MacGuyver and haven’t gotten Richard Dean Anderson out of your system.
Miata – for some reason, I see a lot of men driving these. They are either upper middle-aged and think they are Magnum PI (it’s small, red and sporty, so what if it’s not a Ferrari 308 GTSi) or they are suspect. If you drive one of these you think you’re a lot cooler than you are.
Camry/Accord or Corolla/Civic – Your car is transportation. In this area you pride yourself on economy and prudent decision making over flash and curb appeal. Driving is a means to an end, not the end itself.
These are the high level breeds of cars/ owners. I may add to these as time passes. If you disagree with anything here, let me know and I will address your concerns.
Which brings me to what M affectionately refers to “80’s reject cars”. I have long harbored a desire to buy a late 70s to mid-80s American Sedan and pump it full of aftermarket gear. I think this would be a fun and productive activity to have and there is even some potential investment value here. Although given the current oil situation, a 750hp automobile that gets 4mpg may not really be worth anything to anyone. But even at scrap it would still be worth more than Enron or Kozmo stock. I have a few candidates for this: 84 Monte Carlo, 87 Buick Grand National, and anything from the 70s. Unfortunately, when I have introduced this idea to friends and family, the response has ranged from skepticism to outright ridicule. Not only do I not ‘work on cars’, but I don’t have those tools and I lack a garage. I constantly joke about these when I see them on the road and point them out, testing the waters to see how M reacts, which is usually with remarks like “I hope you have fun driving it alone” or “I guess you won’t be golfing anymore”. One car we saw actually got a decent response – it was more along the lines of 30s Ford Roadster with the big rear tires and heavy chrome. When I asked why this was an acceptable alternative, the reply was that it looked kind of cool and was better than “those 80s reject cars” I favored. I guess the images of mullets, Whitesnake albums, acid wash jeans and wispy mustaches are too much for M to bear. Plus, have you seen my hair? No mullets anytime soon, but I can definitley rock that mustache…
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