Febrewary

My buddy Mike had a great brainstorm a few years ago. He calls it Febrewary. The premise is all of his beer drinking buddies meet at his house in February. Each person brings a couple six packs of their favorite craft beer. If you bring 12 beers and drink 4 you take 8 home. Everyone gets to try new beers and do math after drinking.

The problem with this is when it falls on the calendar. If my memory serves me correctly the weather for most of these events has been crappy. Take today for instance. There is somewhere between a helluva lot and way too much snow on the ground and I think it is Mike’s fault.

In Pennsylvania most people know what you are referring to when you say farm show weather. PA has been hosting the largest indoor agricultural exhibition for a long time and the weather is notoriously bad, which you can expect in these parts in January.

It seems that since about the time Mike started his little soiree the weather for farm show week has been pretty decent and the weather in February has been pretty nasty so I think we should stop complaining about farm show weather and start complaining about Febrewary weather.

Snow

I have a lot of fond memories involving snow. When I was young I figured out pretty early that my parents were older than most people my age.  Even so whenever it snowed my parents went sledding with me.

There was a Nor’easter 4 days after I got my drivers license. I did what any sensible 16 year old with a new drivers license, a 1965 MG Midget and 20 inches of snow on the ground would do. I went for a ride. I also discovered I had a pretty strong ability to control a car in conditions that were far from ideal.  That came in handy later on when I was driving in the Sports Car Club of America’s national ProRally series.

When I was 25 I seriously injured my back and was told I would probably never walk without a mechanical aid. I struggled off and on but was able to put the cane away seven years later.

The winter after I hurt my back the starter wife and her sister went skiing as part of an introductory program at a nearby ski area. I stayed home since my back was really bothering me. They came home and explained that I had to go skiing since it involved going fast and sliding around. The following day we got 18 inches of snow and I went skiing. I probably looked a little strange walking to and from the lodge with a cane but I didn’t need it to ski. I was a natural and by the end of that winter I was a part-time ski instructor.

From that point on I skied whenever I could. Vacations revolved around motorsports when it wasn’t cold enough to ski and skiing when it was cold enough.

Thirteen years ago the doctors decided I needed a disc removed from my neck. After that I gave up two things, golf and skiing. Now snow means pain and exercise. The pain comes from the changes in the weather and the exercise comes from shoveling, which I think can wait a few more hours.

M’ladies Birthdays

As far as family traditions are concerned we don’t have a lot. We get together at the appropriate times on the calendar if we can. If we can’t, it’s okay. When we get together there is always game playing, good natured kidding and a lot of laughter.

Several years ago we started a tradition that has remained a yearly constant. Mom and daughter’s birthdays are three days apart and fall during Philadelphia restaurant week. Each year we pick a new restaurant, in which none of us has eaten and get together for food that we don’t normally eat on a regular basis.

Another family tradition is we all go to museums and galleries. Not necessarily as a group but we all do it. Today my wife and I went to the Philadelphia Center for Architecture followed by the Fabric Workshop and Museum. I was looking forward to the architecture part and being the good husband by going to the textile museum. The original plan involved racing cars so in my mind this was somewhat of a step back but it is her birthday.

The architecture museum was not a disappointment but the current display is geared towards kids who are 10 years old. I’ve often been accused of being childish but I think in a different way. The highlight of the architecture museum was the gift shop. I usually will visit the gift shop at any museum I visit but rarely buy anything with the exception of T shirts. I bought an item today that I thought was a good value and novel to boot. I haven’t tried it since we just got home and I am writing but if it works I’ll be sure to let you know. If you are in Philly, at the very least check out the gift shop as they have a lot of nifty stuff. While you’re there you might was well do the museum since it’s free.

The fabric museum is two doors away and I promise I won’t spoil it but we wound up staying for several hours. This was the first time I was exposed to the notion that fabric and gunpowder are a good mix. I highly suggest that if the idea of combining art and explosives appeals to you, get to Philly soon. A major part of the exhibit is degrading as I write this and won’t be there for long. The museum costs a whopping three dollars to enter for an adult and was definitely worth it.

After the museum we headed to Bistro St Tropez to meet the kids. We don’t eat French a lot. We tend to go for big flavors. I cook southwest, Cajun, Italian and Chinese. I use a lot of heat in a lot of my cooking, do a lot of grilling and smoking and rarely do anything with sauces unless it is a prelude to throwing meat on a fire.

Tonight’s meal was a tribute to subtlety. The food from soup to dessert was simple in construction but complex in flavor and nuance. Or as we say at home, “damn good.”  It was so good that I ate half my dessert. I don’t have a sweet tooth but after dinner I had to try dessert and for something sweet it was pretty good. I decided to stop half way though since my body doesn’t handle sugar very well since it gets very little exposure to it.

Restaurant week is something that anyone within a couple hours drive of Philly should investigate. There are hundreds of eateries that participate, many offering special menus and reduced prices.

One of the other traditions our family has is one of wordplay. If there are words involved and there is a game that can be made from it we have probably done it. The wife and I have a tendency to make new words. They must have a definition that seems appropriate to the sound of the word for spousal approval.

On our way to Philly we passed a lot of Amish buggies, many of which were courting buggies. We both remarked at the fact that it seemed odd to see courting buggies in January. We then saw a courting buggy carrying two young men, probably 16 or 17 years of age huddled very close together trying to stay warm in the cool air and rain. That was when I got the bonus points of the day for my new word, Gaymish.

The Cars That had a Real impact On Me

Last week we got rid of our latest Subaru and made the plunge back into Saab territory and it feels like home. While telling my sister about purchasing our 2001 Saab 9-3 SE, she wondered if I could list all of the vehicles I have owned. I know I can’t do motorcycles. There have been too many and too many half breeds and half owned bikes. I will say the motorcycle highlights have been my first Yamaha dirt bike which was my escape and release from adolescence, my last three Triumphs and the pleasure of being able to care for two mint, antique Hondas for a couple years.

On the automotive side I am going to limit this to personal vehicles. I could do a highlight of cars I have been associated with during 20 years in the car business but I am supposed to be writing the great American novel and I think this might detract from those efforts. I might slip one or two in but I am focusing on cars I have owned.

According to my father I could drive before I could walk and he wasn’t lying. I was a late bloomer on the walking and talking fronts but Dad bought me some strange battery powered go kart thing which was basically a thick piece of sheet metal with four wheels, a seat, steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedal and forward and reverse.  After crawling in I could drive it for about a week and then Dad would have to drive the whole contraption about 12 miles to where he bought it so they could recharge the battery. This was the early 1960’s and by what I’m seeing coming to market we may be revisiting those good old days soon although we won’t have to crawl in. That was a personal issue.

Shortly after learning to drive the go kart I decided to tackle the real deal. I was a little over 2 years of age. Dad and I had just returned from errands he was running and the family was taking a day trip. Dad pulled into the driveway, placed the car in park and went into the house to get the rest of the family while leaving Junior (that would be me) sitting in a car seat in the middle of the front seat. My car seat had a steering wheel and a shifter and a horn but Dad’s Pontiac did too so I went for it and my very first childhood memory is looking at the line of cars waiting for someone to move the Pontiac out of the middle of the street after I hit reverse. I also remember Mom being rather loud but this is about cars, not family feuds I caused.

The easiest place to start with my cars is at the beginning, so that means a 1965 MG midget. Most of the guys who grew up in our semi rural area were into muscle cars and I dreamed of driving Formula 1. One day while riding my dirt bike on a road in a very rural area I passed a farm lane that had a 1965 MG Midget for sale at the end of the lane.

I think they were asking $800 for it. I paid $500 cash. I was 15 and I figured I was in trouble. So I did the most logical thing a teenage boy who was now in the legal possession of a British sports car with no driver’s license could do. I drove it home and parked it in our four car garage.

About three or four days later while eating breakfast my father asked if I knew anything about the MG that had mysteriously showed up in his garage. I told him that I had been meaning to tell him about it and that it was mine. He asked if I had given consideration to insurance costs if I ever got my license and told me he didn’t want to know how it had gotten there. I said I had checked into insurance and had the money. He then told me that he noticed that the rockers were a little rusty and the carpets and seats needed work and maybe if things worked out we could start working on it that night. It was probably the happiest day of my 15 years. Probably the biggest thing that car taught me was to have a little more faith in the old man.

Next on the hit parade was a 1974 MGB GT. My middle sister bought it new. I’m the baby. She had a really nice Opel Manta that she also got new but she wanted something stick shift and the Opel was an automatic. I don’t really remember how we wound up at the MG dealership but she bought it and the following day Dad drove it home. I was in the passenger seat and giddy. He then said he would take her out to learn how to drive stick and she said no.

Some folks think we are stubborn, some think we’re stupid but everyone in our family has it. I think it is more of an independence thing. Whatever it is she decided to get a briefing from Dad on driving with three pedals and take me along. She knew I had been riding motorcycles since I was seven and could drive a stick car, which kind of made her 14 year old brother the backup driver.

She did pretty well and only stalled a couple times until she hit her first real hill at a stop sign. She wanted to do it but then a car came up behind her and I think she got a little scared so I went into coach mode. I told her to engage the parking brake, give it some gas, release the clutch and the parking brake at the same time and she did. Only she interpreted some gas as a lot of gas. I bought that car from her 3 years later and despite all my best efforts I could never duplicate the amount of wheel spin she generated in that little underpowered piece of British wonderfulness.

That MG was the first car that made me cry, made me throw things and made me wonder how I could afford the next breakdown. During college I hatched a plan to store it for a long time and sell it for a fortune in my old age. What I wound up doing was selling it back to my sister as an act of revenge for her being able to get more tire smoke out of it than I. I know that I couldn’t get the wheel spin because it was getting old and tired and had nothing to do with me.

My mother had worked at the first Alfa Romeo dealership in the United States. Dad always wanted one. A couple years after Mom died Dad needed a new car. It would be his personal transportation and also used to lead funeral processions as he owned a funeral home. Dad had a slightly different take on “professional cars” and had a maroon hearse and station wagon. The perfect complement to that had to be the new to the US market Alfa Romeo Alfetta sedan in Maroon.

I had something to do with the decision making process. I think it went something like, “get the Alfa, get the Alfa, get the Alfa” for days on end. He did and that was the car in which I took my driver’s license test the day after my 16th birthday. I passed although the State Trooper had reservations about giving me a license the day after I got my permit. I guess he was in a good humor plus he knew the area I was from and knew that there were kids who drove before they were legal so I got my license and then Dad refused to let me drive home. I wore him out on that the way I did about getting the car. I drove home.

To Dad the Alfa was a long overdue adult toy. That car was his baby and it behaved about as badly. To me it was a toy, usually just out of reach. I didn’t own it but it was a car in my car formative years so I have included it here.

There were four small towns in the school district I attended. I was in band. At Halloween two of those towns had parades and the marching band did its thing. After the parade a friend and I had conspired to do a little partying at our home as I knew Dad was going to be gone for the night. It was the seventies when partying basically meant smoking a little weed and drinking a couple beers, which wasn’t that hard to get even in the middle of nowhere at 18.

Shortly after we thought Dad had left and the partying had commenced my buddy and I had a rude awakening when Dad simultaneously knocked on my bedroom door while opening it. He informed us that he was going to be gone for the evening. We knew that, which was why we were partying, or at least trying to. He told us he was taking the Cadillac and where we could reach him if needed. Then he inquired about that unusual smell. I explained that my buddy had started smoking cigars. Dad then explained that if we decided to go anywhere we could take the MG, the Volvo, the Ford wagon but not the Alfa. He loved that car. I’m pretty sure he also knew that wasn’t cigar smoke.

For some strange reason Dad and I decided to buy a 1974 Mercedes 240D together. I think it was because it was cheap. In retrospect I think it was because we were idiots. If you want to buy a car that requires you to pull a lever really hard and hold it for a minute while watching a little red light begin to glow on your dashboard, don’t do it. If you have ever watched some survival program where people are trying to light a fire using a rock and a Brillo pad, that is what it is like starting a Mercedes diesel from that vintage. If and when you got it started it was about as fast as crawling on your hands and knees blowing that same Brillo pad down the road. Avoid the temptation.

I was still in my teens but in college and getting semi responsible in some regards. Okay, I was thinking about other ways of acquiring cars and being responsible seemed like a good excuse. When you are in your late teens, doing a weekend commute lasting a couple hours, in any weather, in either an MG, an Alfa Romeo or an impossibly difficult to start Mercedes, you start to think about reliability and the ability to get anywhere.

Given those parameters the obvious choice is a Jeep. So I bought one. A 1963 Jeep Cherokee with a dual overhead cam V-6. The engine was designed by Buick in the dark ages. Jeep used that engine for one year. It had decent torque, made a lot of horsepower for the displacement and in my care lasted a week. There were no parts available for this engine so I had bought a boat anchor for the Queen Mary.

Shortly after that I bought a 1965 Jeep Cherokee with an overhead valve inline 6 that lasted a little longer. Probably the most remarkable thing I remember about it was it wasn’t real rusty. One night another buddy and I attempted to install a CB radio. George didn’t want to drill holes so I did the actual installation and George did the wiring. We decided to see who got done first and it was a virtual tie. We fired up the Jeep turned on the CB and the windshield wipers came on.

This was about the time I decided to store the MG BGT, which meant I needed a daily driver. Fortunately, a person nearby decided to sell the first car I would name and have a tough time getting rid of. Sven was a 1972 Volvo 164E. I bought it with 112,000 miles for $1200. Dad talked me into this one and I thought I was nuts. I sold the second Jeep about the same time and the MG went back to my sister.

I was 20, had sold the MG instead of storing it and bought a Swedish sedan with a six cylinder engine, a four speed with electric overdrive, bad paint and iffy leather seats. 120 miles later I had forgotten the MG. I had a car capable of maintaining 110 mph all day long, predictable handling where you could hang the tail out whenever you wanted, comfort that allowed you to drive it until you wanted to sleep in it while getting the same fuel economy numbers I got in the MG. It had the coolest speedometer ever made. It was about 20 inches wide and as you sped up a red bar went from left to right. It was almost like having someone in the car constantly edging you on to go faster. It did hurt a little in the chick magnet factor but I was in college and it didn’t break down.

Actually, it did kind of break down when it got really cold. The fuel pump froze. To fix it you had to crawl under the car and hit the fuel pump with a hammer. I sold the car years later with 386,000 miles on it for $850 to a 16 year old kid. When he bought it he told me that he had always dreamed of owning a Volvo. When I was his age I dreamed of Porsches and Jaguars. There was something wrong with that kid. Or maybe there was something wrong with me.

After graduating college I decided to find something more appropriate to my station in life than a clapped out Volvo and maybe a little more reliable. Reliability was an excuse for getting a newer car. The only thing I ever did to the Volvo was maintenance and whacking the fuel pump but it was the best excuse I could manage and I wanted a car.

What I wanted was a Porsche 911 for the price of an MGB. Upon the quick realization that wasn’t happening I did a fairly serious search for a BMW 2002.  What I got was a Saab 900 GLi. The Saab took part in time, speed, distance rallies, autocrosses and could go just about any place the Jeeps would. It was extremely reliable, semi quick, relatively fast (I got out of a 110 in a 55) which is another story, could carry a love seat in the back and was butt ugly. The actual design of the car wasn’t so bad but it was in a color I think Saab called “calf shit”. When it did break it was always a 10 cent part or a loose wire that took three days and $1200 to fix. This was the early eighties.

A little more than a year after getting the Saab I got a funeral home. I’m still not sure how Dad convinced me that I should buy it. I was making really good money working freelance for half a dozen funeral homes. I think the big house and the chance to buy more cars was the kicker.

I started out with a 1969 Caddy S&S hearse. A week later I found a 1979 Ford Station wagon. It had been used to haul school kids and was school bus yellow. That was when I hatched the plan to draw attention to the new funeral director in town. There was a funeral home in West Chester and one in Pittsburgh that had white cars so the new guy in Millersville was going with white. Everyone else had black or silver cars. My father who used to lead funerals in a maroon Alfa Romeo said I was nuts. I said to the guy at the body shop, “paint ‘em white”. Shortly after that he got to paint a 1973 Cadillac limousine white.

I didn’t like leading funeral processions with the flower car (the Ford wagon) so a short time later I bought a white1974 Cadillac Eldorado. I was able a short time later to replace that with a 1984 Oldsmobile Toronado in white. As a general rule I don’t like American cars. I hated the way the Olds drove but it was pretty in a really gaudy way. I figured if the funeral home failed I would keep the Olds and pimp with it.

About a year after buying the funeral home the starter wife and I took up residence together. She had been driving the Volvo since moving into the area. It was time to spring for the first new car and what more logical thing to buy a new spouse than a new Honda? In 1984 Motor Trend magazine named the Honda CRX its car of the year. We bought one and it almost converted me into an American car buyer. It should have been the color of the Ford wagon when I got it since it was such a lemon.

In buying the CRX I figured we would have a reliable little commuter for her that I could put a cage in and go rallying on the weekends. What we got was a sporty looking car that you had to run the defroster year round to be able to see, that revved to 5,000 rpm’s most times you pressed the clutch to shift. When we finally got a rep from Honda to look at it he went for a ride with me. On my shift from second to third it revved to 5 grand and he said it was my driving.

I stopped and pulled my Sports Car Club of America competition license and my commercial driver’s license from my wallet and showed them to him and explained I was capable of shifting a car. To take the point home I gave him a little driving demonstration on our way back to the dealership.

After several more failed attempts by Honda to fix it I decided I didn’t want to have a stroke over a car so we traded it on a slightly used Audi 5000 S in white, which could be used for personal or work. A couple weeks later “60 Minutes” aired its piece about unintended acceleration in the Audi. That meant I now had a car that I was going to have to use like the Volvo or take a beating in depreciation so we sold the Volvo and kept the Audi.

Selling the Volvo and getting rid of the Honda meant we didn’t really have anything fun to drive, which is a no-no. That’s when I found a car that will cause most serious rally drivers of my age to get a slightly dazed look on their face. A 1971 Datsun 510, 2 door. It was solid, with a couple minor dents, an okay interior that was going to get ripped out but useable and cheap so I bought it.

The car went to Delaware to a Datsun performance shop that did wondrous things to the engine to the tune of a few grand and I now had an old Datsun that was supposedly putting out about 260 hp at the crankshaft. Everything else checked out okay to drive so I drove it home and was a little disappointed. Then I hit a dirt road and let loose. The reason I had been disappointed was I hadn’t taken it into the higher parts of the power band, breaking the engine in. I was told after 50 miles or so I should be good to go.

I hit the dirt at about the 49 mile mark and 5,500 rpm at about the 50 mile mark and all hell broke loose. The car had a power band from 5,500 to about 7,200 rpm. It was like driving a motorcross bike except it was a car. I couldn’t wait to get the cage in and do everything else needed to race it.

I ran a performance TSD rally that weekend in the 510 and I’m guessing I got more penalty points than any other competitor. In TSD rallying you and your co-driver are trying to maintain an average speed. You are penalized for how many seconds or minutes you are early or late at blind checkpoints along the route. I just drove it as fast as I could and we had a hoot. We were also very early at all of the checkpoints.

Four days later I needed to run some errands. All of the business cars were in use and the Audi was with my wife so I decided to take the Datsun. Eight miles later I had an Oldsmobile station wagon stopped about 3 inches from the back of my seat. I was never able to find a replacement shell so it eventually was sold for the engine and some parts. Despite being the car I owned for the shortest time it has become the stuff of legend. Just ask my buddy Rob.

Without the Datsun I needed another car outlet so I found a 1981 Fiat X/19. Putting out a whopping 75 horsepower they weren’t particularly fast but they made up in the excitement department with excellent handling and the adrenaline thrill of wondering if you were going to reach your destination. I managed to take a “fastest time of day” in the Fiat at an autocross.

In autocrossing an artificial road race course is laid out in a large parking lot using pylons and you get three or four attempts to put in the fastest time. Cars are divided into several categories based on their performance capabilities. The X/19 was in one of the slowest classes. The day I won was on a slippery parking lot on a tight course in a heavy rain. I beat Porches, Corvettes, a Lotus and a few people who were in all wheel drive cars who should be ashamed of themselves. The X/19 literally went away slowly rotting to the point of not being safe to drive but it was fun while it lasted.

While I was playing with Fiats I was gradually updating and improving the funeral fleet. The cars were nothing noteworthy, just add 7 more if you are keeping score at home.

What I really wanted was a pure rally car to run in the SCCA National ProRally series. I think I found it in the back of Sports Car magazine in the classified section. It was a fully prepared Production GT class, 1984 Dodge Colt Turbo. Phone calls were made, letters and pictures were sent and shortly thereafter I was on a plane to Dallas pick up the Colt.

The colt was manufactured by Mitsubishi. In stock form it produced 140 hp and was front wheel drive. In the production class the only modifications in addition to the safety items allowed, were exhaust, brakes, wheels, tires and cranking up the turbo boost.

When I picked up the car it had just completed a rally high in the Rockies in Colorado. Stock boost pressure was 8 lbs. It was set at 19 lbs to deal with the thin air. Instead of stock street tires it was shod with BF Goodrich mud and snow tires and I was now about to embark across a good portion of the US in a semi street legal, rarely seen, little car, with stuff written all over it.

What I quickly learned was it was noisy, a really good noisy. People across America will look at any car that looks like it has a purpose and usually give you a thumbs up even if it is some import they have never seen with funny tires and a bunch of extra lights across the front bumper. At that time most performance rallying was done at night. The biggest lesson I learned on that trip was with 19 pounds of boost and those tires was that at 60 mph in 4th gear you could plant your right foot count 1001, 1002 and then break the front wheels loose. I drove relatively cautiously and made it to Millersville in two days.

I didn’t have the time or financial resources to run the entire national rally series but the Colt, three co-drivers and I put in some pretty impressive drives and probably enough stories for a short book.

In my first outing in the Colt together with Rick Davis as my co-driver, we headed to Chillicothe Ohio for a two day outing with virtually no sorting of the car. The Colt was in the second slowest performance class, out of five. Teams are seeded much like a tennis tournament based on experience, past finishes and potential to finish. It was a huge field and we were seeded 77th. In a two day rally they reseed based on how you do the first day or in this case night. We were reseeded 18th. We passed a bunch of cars on dirt roads we had never been on before and I learned how easy it was to spin the Colt. I also learned how capable a co-driver Rick was despite his continually urging me to slow down since he had to finish the event to get his national competition license. We managed to finish 5th in class, beaten by four cars with all wheel drive and more power.

All of the other drives in the Colt were pretty much the same. We were always the first two wheel drive in class except once. We finished as high as third in class with Hugo Van Geem co-driving. I was always faster at night. At the Colt’s final event I was flying. Rick Davis, who was then driving a BMW 2002 came up to me at a break after seeing my times during the day and asked if I was in night time mode already. On the 5th special stage I put in 5th fastest time overall. The only cars faster than me were all wheel drive, full time rally teams with a lot of factory support and hundreds of horsepower more than the Colt. I beat a bunch of cars that had similar deals.

And then the brakes went away. At the time the brakes went away we were still going very, very fast, on a dirt road somewhere in the woods outside of Wellsboro PA around midnight. We stopped after one big roll up an embankment about 15 feet above the road. I had glass in my eye and my co-driver was fine. The Colt was round. It was probably the most memorable car I have owned. Not necessarily because of the car but because of what we did in it.

The Colt was also white and I needed something to tow it with so bought another Jeep. This time it was a white 1973 Grand Wagoneer. The Jeep was capable of towing the Colt and served well on skiing trips when the heat worked but as spares for the Colt increased I needed something bigger for all the gear. I got a 1986 Chevy Suburban diesel LS 4×4. It was the first big American thing with wheels I owned that I really liked. It would haul anything you threw at it, could go most any place you wanted to go and got 20 mpg in the process.

Shortly before the Colt got round the Audi started getting more expensive to maintain so the starter wife got a 1990 Subaru all wheel drive XT-6. It was one of the quirkiest, strangest looking cars on the planet but it was what she wanted and we got a heck of a deal on it. I can think of very few cars I have driven that were more comfortable for doing a long distance, high speed trip. It was at about this time that the starter wife gained that official status, the funeral home was sold and my cars got considerably cheaper due to much needed financial restructuring.

I kept the Suburban and she got the XT-6. My primary transportation at this point was usually a motorcycle and I finally got rid of the Suburban. I had entered the exciting world of car sales, full time and had demos.

After bouncing around from dealership to dealership I found one that seemed like a good match. Unfortunately, they didn’t have demos and I couldn’t always ride to work so I bought a car traded in by a little old lady. I got a 1983 Subaru GL wagon. It was yellow, had Pep Boys turn signals in the rear window that made it look even more like a school bus. It had 110,000 miles on it. I paid $300 for it. I don’t think she ever drove it over 50 mph because that is how fast it went, flat out. I just hammered the crap out of it and it eventually would do 80. I used to race one of my coworkers home at night on a bunch of twisty back roads. He would let me go first and he never got around me even though he was in an Acura GSX-R.  It was crazier than running a Dodge Colt Turbo down dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.

By this time I was a manager at the Toyota dealership and I didn’t think the Subaru was quite fitting my position so I leased a Toyota Tacoma 4×4 extracab pickup. A short time later I met the keeper wife and I’m glad I didn’t have to do the first date in what was by then a 250,000 mile Subaru station wagon/school bus.

When the lease on the truck was due to be renewed I was running a Saab store and had a sometime demo gig but had bought a 1988 Ford E-150 to ease the getting antiques and hauling motorcycle situations. Lorraine was leasing an all wheel drive Toyota Rav4 she had gotten from me when we first met. So we had the Rav4, the van and some bikes.

When her lease came due we got a slightly used 97 Saab 900S. I knew she was hooked when she came home from an auction with the Saab full of antiques and was excited about the fact that she didn’t need the van.

After we finished the biggest part of the conversion of our warehouse to living space we got rid of the van but had obtained one of the very first Subaru WRX station wagons in the states. I was driving whatever was on my lot that looked like fun or needed to be driven.

We then got another WRX wagon, followed by an Impreza Sport wagon. The lease was coming due and we just couldn’t see justifying the payments for another new car based on how little the last two Subarus were driven so we went looking for a nice beater, which is how we came back into the Saab fold. We have a 1994 Ford E 150 Chateau we can use to help move kids, haul antiques or tow the camper, the Saab we just got, a 2004 Triumph Thruxton and a lot more room in the garage.

So Big Sister, I could have named them all but didn’t. There are other cars I’ve owned that did what most people expect from a vehicle. They got me from point A to point B.  I decided to name the ones that made an impact on me in one way or another. These are the cars that impacted me the way the 1965 Corvair Corsa turbo, which you did own for two weeks, should have made an impact on you but didn’t. Thanks for the little automotive trip down memory lane.

Psychological Niche Marketing

There are times when I really can’t believe how entertaining television is. I don’t watch a lot of it but it does make me want to write a lot. My wife and I watch Jeopardy virtually every night. Beyond that it is mostly the occasional cooking show, history and educational shows that sound interesting, the arts and when all else fails the paranormal. I have experienced too many things in my life that I cannot explain to denounce the paranormal and last night’s episode proved that beyond the shadow figure of a doubt.

It seems there is a couple living in some semi rural armpit of the world whose house is haunted. I know this isn’t starting off in the vein of, “it was a dark and stormy night” but please bear with me. They have shadow figures, voices, noises, a steamer trunk that was full of guns being moved by spirits that is now bolted to the floor and according to the lady of the house genitals lying on top of her. She said it on national TV and I am not going to say anything more about it. At least I don’t think so.

The investigators seem a little suspicious about the whole scenario. They bring in a blindfolded psychic and she and the investigators all pretty much agree that someone is not telling all. My wife and I figured it out about 4 minutes before they did and we are waiting for the big confrontation. Then they went to a commercial.

When they came back the lead investigator and the guy my wife and I decided was lying were sitting out in his back yard in Armpitville having a chat. Just about then the guilty party, or as they say on TV, the person presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law says, “I didn’t sell my soul to the devil, we made a deal”. His deal was he would get 20 years of women and money in exchange for providing 20 people to the devil. He was asked if he got it and he said, without hesitation, “yes”.

They showed this man’s house and his wife. In deference to good taste and humanity I will leave her out of the equation. I do however think this ex-devil worshipper needs some negotiation lessons. They showed his house inside and out. It was a frame one, maybe two bedroom house with one bath, a dirt basement, 20 year old paint, a fifteen year old Ford pickup in the driveway and a three wheeler in the back yard that I’m guessing doesn’t run. Then again maybe the mowing around the three wheeler until the grass is eighteen inches high might be some sort of Satanic ritual. I need to do a little research or he is hiding something.

I said that I can’t believe how entertaining TV is and I misspoke. I meant enlightening.  At this point in the show they brought in another expert.
Had I known earlier in my life that I could have become a psychologist specializing in dealing with former devil worshippers I would have never felt the turmoil of wondering if I was choosing the right career path in life or not. I would have never been concerned for the future of my family from a financial standpoint. I would have been able to avail myself of hundreds or thousands of former satanic worshippers with really mediocre negotiating skills to get me things I might need like a fifteen year old pickup truck and a really crappy house.

Most importantly I would know that I would have a never ending clientele to whom I could raise my fees every day, knowing full well that if I lost one client there would be a hundred more former tormented devil worshippers knocking on my door. Just look at all the devil worshippers you know and you’ll get my point.

My biggest concerns would be what would my website look like, would I really need a Yellow Pages add, how would my receptionist answer the phone and would my clients enter through the door or a portal? Certainly these are not terribly difficult questions. Now that is niche marketing.

Trans Am Lunacy

In 1969 Pontiac began offering the Trans Am as a performance model based on it’s Firebird, which was produced on the Chevrolet Camaro platform. Basically Pontiac ripped off the Camaro and then ripped off the Sports Car Club Of America by using the name of it’s road racing series for big American Cars, the Trans Am. When SCCA threatened to sue Pontiac they agreed to pay SCCA $5 per car sold.

I just witnessed another Pontiac Trans Am ripoff. Some middle aged guy paid $30,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction for a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am. It doesn’t qualify in its fullest sense as a ripoff since the guy registered to bid and raised his hand and signed the paperwork but it is a 1979 Trans Am.

For those of you reading this who aren’t car people I will explain. For those of you who are car people you may just want to jump to the last paragraph for the witty ending.

By 1979 the muscle car era was drawing to a close. The 1979 Trans Am was more of a caricature of a muscle car or American sports car than the real deal. Most reviews of it when it first came out focused on the “screaming chicken” decal on the hood. When an automotive reviewer starts by lambasting a “performance” car by ridiculing the silly graphics on the hood there probably isn’t a lot to talk about in the performance department.

Depending on whether you got the 400 cubic inch or the 403 cubic inch engine you either got 185 or 220 SAE net horsepower.  Both of these engines were Oldsmobile engines which kind of plays nicely with the whole ripoff theme I started in the first paragraph. What you got performance wise was 0 to 60 in about 7 seconds, poor handling and braking on par with the handling. My wife’s Subaru wagon will beat it in every performance category while getting twice the fuel mileage. This is not about performance. It is about value for the dollar.

What did this guy get for his 30 large? He got a really nicely preserved, iconic end of an era, American piece of iron. There are probably hundreds of collectible cars that you can buy for thirty grand that will appreciate more, give more driving pleasure and garner more appreciation and envy from people who don’t own it than this car.

So the major question is why did he do it? Why did he spend $30,000 on a car that just doesn’t cut it and I think I have figured it out. My guess is he got a new prescription for his erectile dysfunction and hopes to reenact getting laid for the first time in the back of the Trans Am he drove in high school. I’m betting he hurts his back.

120 People Rule the World. Yep, That’s Right 120.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. I just pray it is mightier than Jesse Ventura.

Recently the former governor of Minnesota, professional wrestler and general rabble rouser has found a new forum on that most esteemed TV network, TRUTV. On his program he professes to debunk and bring to light conspiracy theories. Tonight I learned about the Bilderberg Group. Well not really. I think the first time I read about them was in the early nineteen eighties but tonight Jesse showed me how truly dangerous they are and more importantly what a total idiot he is. By espousing his ideas to mainstream America he is probably more dangerous than the people he is supposedly exposing.

I am not going to go off on a long rant about Jesse because I can sum it up in a couple paragraphs. According to Jesse and his buds there are 120 people who are ruling the world. Jesse and a couple of his conspiracy theorists claim that they are going to depopulate the world from approximately 7 billion to 500 million people via contaminated food and poisonous inoculations. Think swine flu vaccine gone bad with some funky apples thrown in.

There is only one slightly huge problem with his theory and I am guessing that at least one of the most powerful 120 people on the planet might have thought of. If you are going to kill almost 7 billion people and leave 500 million there is going to be a big mess to clean up. If they don’t they will also probably be dead within about two months. It’s a disease thing.

What I would like to see Jesse do is a couple things. I would like to see him engage his brain and think about what he is spewing all over the airwaves and more importantly I would like to see him cut that thing off the back of his head.

It is pretty obvious to the rest of the world that if you are 60+, have no hair on the top of your head, yet wear a pony tail you either belong on people of Wal-mart, a wrestling program or need to get someone to cut off the offending chunk of hair. Jesse, buy some scissors, remove the offending tail  and have someone look at what you are airing before it goes to air. You are scaring the stupid, annoying the normal folk and amusing the hell out of the smart people. Please, either dumb it down, which I know will be tough or make it scarier so we can get more laughs at your expense but most importantly cut that thing off the back of your head.

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in Case You Didn’t Know Conservatives and Liberals Brains Are Different

I don’t want to spoil the rest of this for you but I think I may have just read the most stupid study I have ever seen. According to the authors of this study people who are politically liberal and those who are politically conservative have brains that work differently. I think this is probably a given. I also think that we probably didn’t need a study to tell us that. I think what we need is a study to determine who is paying the people who did this study and why.

The methodology used to determine the difference between conservatives and liberals is the most brilliant method ever devised to determine the difference between the two factions. You would think that they would take self proclaimed liberals and conservatives, separate them, make them read inflammatory liberal and conservative rhetoric and then hook them up to an electroencephalograph and see what happens.

What they decided to do instead was take college students and make them tap a key on a keyboard in response to seeing the letter M or W. I’m not making this up. I wish I had because it would probably be the beginning of some great fiction but according to the researchers there is a link between the numbers of knee jerk reactions you have to the letter M as opposed to the letter W, which makes you a liberal or conservative.

The study is partially based on the declared political leanings of the participants.  According to the study, liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W. I actually remember college and thought I was pretty damn liberal then. I wasn’t. I’m guessing that the vast majority of the subjects have no real idea of their political leanings and at that age is it always good to play the defiant liberal role.

Frank Sulloway of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study, said results “provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity.”

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times more likely than conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts and were 2.2 times more likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.
Based on the results, Sulloway said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

My suggestion to Sulloway and the people who actually did this study are twofold. Possibly the reason the conservatives in the study didn’t recognize the W was they were bored. They were probably thinking about ways to increase their stock portfolios.  The liberals may also have been bored but wanted to do the right thing so they paid attention.

As I write this I am listening to Indian and African reggae in a warehouse my wife and I converted into living space. Once I get done with this I intend to work on a piece of fiction that has me a little stymied.  On Monday I will be working with a couple non profit organizations to help them improve their fund raising activities yet when I vote I tend to vote on the conservative side as my work background is entrepreneurial. Do you really think you can tell whether I am a liberal or conservative by my reactions to looking at W’s and M’s on a computer screen? And for all of you die hard liberals just remember we probably paid for this with our tax dollars.

Why Cats Taste Like Chicken

There is a car that parks not too far from my house that has a bumper sticker which reads, “I love cats, they taste like chicken”. I’ve been wondering about it for several years now.

A few days ago a friend sent me a link to a column in a San Francisco newspaper complaining about hunters killing animals to eat and suggesting that they just go get the meat “made” at the grocery store and now I am really starting to wonder. I’m wondering how someone could be so ignorant to think that grocery stores produce meat without aid of animals and how a newspaper would publish something like that.

What has me wondering the most is my allergies. I have severe respiratory allergies and some interesting food allergies to boot. A lot of people complain about how bad their allergies are. Mine are so bad that the last time I had one of those tests where they poke you with little painful needles in your arm to see what you are allergic to the doctor was worried about me going into shock. In under 10 minutes my entire arm was swollen to about 3 times it’s normal size and I couldn’t breathe. I kind of looked like a skinny, pink, one armed Popeye who was wheezing a lot. Normally they would just give you a Sudafed and send you on your way but I’m allergic to that too so it was a little more complicated but I survived.

I am allergic to every known respiratory allergen except dogs and cockroaches. I’m thankful for the dog part.  I don’t really have much of an opinion about the cockroach aspect. The thing I am most allergic to are cats, which brings me back to the whole tasting like chicken thing.

I know there are a lot of people who say they hate cats. I think if anyone is entitled to that claim it is I. The son and daughter currently share a house with each other and three cats. I don’t know whether it is the big black, furry one, the little Siamese one the daughter fawns over or the third one they claim to have that you never see but after my last 6 minute visit I have declared that I will not enter the house again. Maybe it is the combination of the three but from that brief visit I spent the next day and a half unable to breathe properly and able to use only one eye. Mostly I just laid in bed and poured eye drops in my eye, felt feverish and wasted tissues at an alarming rate.

Last night I had a business meeting at the home of an associate. I didn’t know he had cats until about two seconds after I walked in the door. I won’t go into more details of how I feel but suffice it to say this little rant will probably be the most productive thing I manage for a day or so.

Despite how they make me feel I can’t honestly say I hate cats. I can’t imagine why thousand of years ago people would want to domesticate them but they did. My suggestion to all of you cat owners as to how to be more responsible cat owners for your cat allergic friends is dedicate a room to them. Build an addition on the back of your house to house your cats. Put a big window in it so they can plaster their little adorable kitty faces against the glass and pretend to catch birds and squirrels. Put an aquarium in the room and maybe set up some type of laser light show to entertain them. Get them one of those automatic feeders and an automatic litter box. The most important part of this new addition is the double entry vacuum sealed door system. You have seen them on TV where they are doing a documentary about someone who has some strange life threatening respiratory disease and can’t be exposed to real air. Once you have that you can have “quality kitty time” without spreading kitty allergens throughout the rest of your abode. Then you can invite your kitty allergic friends in and know there will be no suffering on their part.

For me I don’t think I will ever know if cats taste like chicken but I highly doubt they do. They are just too lithe and muscular to my way of thinking that they would taste like chicken but it did get you to read this far. For me, I’ll have the pork, thanks.

Buying Beer

I am what you call a beer snob. I’m not a snob in the fashion of someone who talks about beer the way you talk about wine but I know beer, the different styles, tastes and qualities of beer and I am disappointed. My wife and I are sampling a Guinness Extra Stout and it is just not what we had hoped for.

When talking about beer you typically talk about nose, the aroma, mouth feel, just what you would think and the taste. Guinness Stout has a great aroma, tastes of chocolate, coffee and cream, has a delightful feel in the mouth and is not at all heavy. For those of you reading this that are afraid to try a stout don’t be. They are typically the lowest in alcohol content of all beers and are not heavy tasting. This explains why I can still type. They are usually the most complex in taste and texture. Guinness Extra Stout is not.

Since we had to travel to another state to purchase this beer and I am drinking it in PA I think I am now a criminal. PA has some really strange laws related to alcohol. If you are reading this and are not from PA let me give you a little information about buying booze here. To buy a case of beer you need to go to a beer distributor. If you want hard liquor or wine you go to a wine and spirits shop, what the locals call a State store. If you want to buy a six pack you go to a bar, restaurant or some specialty outlets. When you buy six packs you can only take out two at a time but you can carry out as many as you like as long as you do it 2 six packs at a time. It is tiring when buying in bulk. Until a couple years ago this was the only way to buy beer in PA on a Sunday. If you want to buy a bottle of beer in PA you are pretty much screwed, which is why I am now a criminal. I went to Delaware to buy some individual bottles of beer to sample. PA lawmakers have way too much time on their hands.

A few nights ago we went to an establishment in Delaware that sells a lot of craft beer and bought some bottles to sample. Before the Guinness we sampled a Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout. If you have read anything else I have written you may have read about sculpting with beer thanks to the fine folks at Great Divide. I was somewhat apprehensive pouring the Yeti fearing that it might too have the consistency of modeling clay resembling beer. It isn’t even close. It has virtually no body for a stout but at least tastes better than the Guinness Extra Stout currently in my glass. I think the upshot of this tasting is twofold. The next time I involve myself in a criminal enterprise that is alcohol related I will do more research on my potential purchases and after making my well thought out choices for consumption, I am taking the van.