I have been looking for a car of late. It has come to my attention that the jalopy that I currently use to haul my kids and their various friends and others to and from our daily routine is simply not properly up to the task. It falls short in various ways. Lets us count them.
First of all, it isn't us. At all. It just isn't a good fit. We have dual recycling cans because we make a conscious effort to use things that we can recycle. We installed florescent lights all over the house to save energy. We have a glass recycling program. We have started changing the yard in order to conserve water. My wife's car is a hybrid.
...and I drive a giant gas guzzling SUV.
It just doesn't fit.
How did I end up with such a car you ask? Well a few years ago I had a little car accident. I discovered that a bad place to drive a car is in any given intersection right before someone in an SUV runs the light going the other way while speeding. If you haven't tried this yet, I recommend crossing it off of your "things to do" list. It doesn't end as well as you might hope. So, shortly after said accident, I was sitting in a wheel chair buzzed out of my mind on morphine while my wife called her father, who happens to be a car dealer. The little of their conversation that got through the drugs and into my head went something like this: "Is it big? Did it get a five star crash rating? Is it made out of all steel? Does it weigh over 7 tons? If you are driving it and get into a head on with a semi will you be the only thing to walk away? Ok, I will take it!"
To be honest, considering the place she was in at the time and her reasons for choosing what she did, I am lucky I didn't end up driving an M1 tank.
So a couple of months latter, when I got out of the wheel chair, I got into a Ford Gigantosaurous POS (TM) and headed out to pick up the kids. That is another important fact in the story come to think of it. Fully 75% of the time I am driving, I am driving kids. The accident happened in the other 25%. I think we can all see how my wife might have over reacted.
So now, the recycling, semi-vegitarian, conservationist minded stay at home dad gets about 3 feet to gallon when he heads out around town. It does not make me happy.
That is just the first reason.
It is also a pain in the butt. Literally.
When I had said car accident, it crushed my hip. Stepping up into the American made Gigantosaurous makes me sore. Plus, I hate sitting that high. And, while I appreciate the "safe inside a tank" aspect of the vehicle, the "I got run over by a tank like this" aspect is less than appealing. These are the little things that bother me.
But there are issues in choosing a new car as well. I live in Utah. Our license plate says "Greatest Snow on Earth." Said snow is hard to drive in. My location in Utah is on a long slope in the foothills. For those of you blessed with spending all of your driving time in places both flat and dry, going up a long, steep hill, while said hill is covered in snow, which is in turn on top of a layer of ice, in turn atop still more snow, is not fun driving. It is instead rather like the old spyhunter video game where the car spits oil out of the back and all the pursuing video game villains spin out wildly and crash into nearby buildings. In short, All Wheel Drive is not so much a convenience as it is something you need if you don't hibernate through the winter.
I also need room. I am a dad. Really a dad. As I said, 75% of my driving is with kids. I take them to piano, gymnastics, school, flute, birthday parties, the library, the store, play dates, and the occasional international peace delegation. I am the primary chauffeur (as well as chef, laundry service, tutor, and snow removal company) and thus must be able to accommodate at least 2-5 children, their backpacks, musical instruments, lunch boxes, pets, iPods, packages, science fair projects, and enough clothing and supplies to make the trip. I am not kidding. If you don't have kids, you simply don't appreciate that just going 45 minutes north to grandmas sometimes takes more planning than Lewis and Clarks journey.
These then are the requirements: my potential car must get up a snowy hill in a Utah winter, must hold my kids and the necessary supplies, and must get gas milage. Not gas footage, not gas yardage, milage. I don't think that 30 MPG is that unreasonable. I am not asking for a flying car. I am not asking for a Star Trek transporter. I want a car that is barely a few minor advances over the kind of car my own parents could have owned when I was born. We got the Apollo rockets back from the moon on one tank, I should be able to get to Sarah's birthday party for less than $65 in gas and without melting Greenland. Is that too much to ask?
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Preface: The Insanity Begins
Many years ago I had a revelation that, had I been more aware of the world at the time, might well have caused a nervous break down. I realized that the world is seriously messed up. I was getting a tooth pick for some reason, at a restaurant I believe, and I noticed that it came in its own plastic wrapping, and had instructions. Forget the individual wrapping for now. Those were simpler times, when wasting petroleum to make clear wrappers for a splinter of wood was a demonstration of our technological innovation. A time before we had noticed the city sized piles of refuse and the smog from the toothpick wrapper factories. A time of innocence.
Lets us look instead at the instructions. Printed in white lettering on the clear plastic. Printed so small as to almost warrant the use of a magnifying glass simply to decipher them. "Grasp near middle. Moisten in mouth. Use to dislodge particles from between teeth." The image of the tiny package is burned into my mind.
Someone, somewhere in the world, honestly felt the average member of the tooth pick using public would not be capable of grasping the intricacies of the technology that is a sliver of wood, and thus came to the conclusion that they must impart the wisdom of "the method" of toothpick use to us, the plebeians.
The unbelievable waste of time, energy, effort, and man power boggles the mind. But at that time I thought that the real sin, the real error in their ways was just how much this nameless company devalued the intellectual capacity of the average person. To actually think that we, the typical humans of this planet, need instruction for such a task! Unbelievable!
I now know that if anything, they gave us too much credit.
This blog is a journal, a record. A personal accounting of the mind bogglingly stupid things that happen every day, from my own perspective. Harlan Ellison once wrote a passage I only vaguely recall, about giving an accounting of life. Of saying, in effect, "this is where I am today, and this is what the world looks like from where I stand." I only vaguely recall it, yet the spirit of that passage has always stuck with me. There is something of inestimable value in the observations of someone who is truly laying out the land, as it were. Like a fine map maker, drawing the curves of the rivers, the directions of the paths, the edges of the mountains. Given the notes of a skilled observer, those who have never been can find their way in a strange land, and those who already know the land can find new and interesting things in the different perspective thus afforded. I am a cartographer of sorts. A cartographer of life. I observe the lay of the land, and record as best I am able in words and tales. It is something I have always done. Something I am driven to do. Philosophers, comedians, tale tellers and writers of all stripes have always done this. It is not a skill, or a talent, but an outlet. For those who observe life must vent that purified essence of the spirit of life from time to time. They must have an outlet, if only to avoid madness...
This blog is therefore my vent. My pressure relief. The valve that allows me to say "this is where I am today, and this is the way the world looks from here, and these are the unbelievably stupid things I see you all doing. In the name of Ba'al what are you all thinking? I swear by all that is holy when I see you people act like this it could drive a man to drink...."
Lets us look instead at the instructions. Printed in white lettering on the clear plastic. Printed so small as to almost warrant the use of a magnifying glass simply to decipher them. "Grasp near middle. Moisten in mouth. Use to dislodge particles from between teeth." The image of the tiny package is burned into my mind.
Someone, somewhere in the world, honestly felt the average member of the tooth pick using public would not be capable of grasping the intricacies of the technology that is a sliver of wood, and thus came to the conclusion that they must impart the wisdom of "the method" of toothpick use to us, the plebeians.
The unbelievable waste of time, energy, effort, and man power boggles the mind. But at that time I thought that the real sin, the real error in their ways was just how much this nameless company devalued the intellectual capacity of the average person. To actually think that we, the typical humans of this planet, need instruction for such a task! Unbelievable!
I now know that if anything, they gave us too much credit.
This blog is a journal, a record. A personal accounting of the mind bogglingly stupid things that happen every day, from my own perspective. Harlan Ellison once wrote a passage I only vaguely recall, about giving an accounting of life. Of saying, in effect, "this is where I am today, and this is what the world looks like from where I stand." I only vaguely recall it, yet the spirit of that passage has always stuck with me. There is something of inestimable value in the observations of someone who is truly laying out the land, as it were. Like a fine map maker, drawing the curves of the rivers, the directions of the paths, the edges of the mountains. Given the notes of a skilled observer, those who have never been can find their way in a strange land, and those who already know the land can find new and interesting things in the different perspective thus afforded. I am a cartographer of sorts. A cartographer of life. I observe the lay of the land, and record as best I am able in words and tales. It is something I have always done. Something I am driven to do. Philosophers, comedians, tale tellers and writers of all stripes have always done this. It is not a skill, or a talent, but an outlet. For those who observe life must vent that purified essence of the spirit of life from time to time. They must have an outlet, if only to avoid madness...
This blog is therefore my vent. My pressure relief. The valve that allows me to say "this is where I am today, and this is the way the world looks from here, and these are the unbelievably stupid things I see you all doing. In the name of Ba'al what are you all thinking? I swear by all that is holy when I see you people act like this it could drive a man to drink...."
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