Thursday, July 8, 2010

How to start a Blog...hmmm, let's go with...My first car

So I am going to start a blog.  You know, the idea of writing on a regular basis for people that I don't know and may never know kind of appeals to me.  I do have some interesting things to say and share...I think, and I happen to be directly involved in an industry that will provide a never ending supply of topics.  The automotive industry, love it or hate it and taking into account all of it's many faults, we all buy cars.  Even if some of us can't buy one right now for whatever reason, we will all still eventually buy one...let's see, how many cars have I purchased over my lifetime?  I am sitting here trying to remember through each one, it's difficult though, I am taking today off from work and my body is telling me that I should still be sleeping, let's see...

Ford Fiesta Festival in 2003, re-uploaded beca...Image via Wikipedia



1st was the 1978 Ford Fiesta, mine was white, my parents basically gave me this car, it wasn't pretty and during it's time under my stewardship it became even less pretty.  I remember that it had bad rear shocks so driving down the road was a bit of an experience, at night the headlights would bounce up and down so my friends could tell that it was me coming even at night.  The brakes were in questionable condition and I had to pump them to stop, I'm wondering now why my parents ever let me drive this car.  The ignition switch had broken long before so it started with a screwdriver and the gear shift lever had broken right at the base so there was a little 1 inch stub that poked out from the floor of the car.  Naturally, we put a ratchet extension on that stub and away I went.  I rear ended a big truck in downtown Boise one time when I couldn't pump fast enough and the beautification process started.





After we pushed the radiator out of the engine and pushed the hood back down I attached a well worn, heavily played with He-Man action figure with duck tape as a hood ornament.  He was loose at the waist so when the car turned...He-Man did too, we had many hours of fun driving around town watching He-Man and letting him guide our way.  Man, was I ever pathetic.  Ok, a little story...we used to get quite a bit of snow here in the Treasure Valley and the fine folks at Boise State University would shovel driving paths through the parking lot in front of the BSU Broncos stadium so what you ended up with was a grid of streets with huge blocks of snowy goodness, we would muster all of the awesome raw power that my Fiesta could produce down the shoveled off road and then veer into the snowy square and hit the emergency brake, release the emergency brake and floor it!  Now that was fun, sometimes you could get a really good spin and skid out onto the next "road" and squeal the tires up to speed for the next round.  Ha, that was a blast.  I had a little more to say about my first car than I thought I would and I think I have found how I am going to start my blog.  Check back soon, I will dig into the seriously unused portion of my brain that houses the memories of my second ride and retrieve a 1971 Volkswagen Bus, this one sparked a love affair with VW that I still have a soft spot for.

GT


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