Trying to Make the Driving World a Little Less Annoying

Month: February 2014

Coast to Coast on I-75

My last update: February 21, 2014 @ 7:50 pm.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
The Video

SAULT STE MARIE, MI — Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, was the first person to take a road trip. Without telling her husband (or the authorities), she took a Patent Motorwagen and drove with her children Eugen and Richard (fifteen and thirteen years old respectively) 66 miles, from Mannheim to Pforzheim. She left at dawn on August 5, 1888 and arrived at her mother’s home at dusk. They returned the next day.

The Manual Transmission Rant

Listen to a child (or adult) playing with a toy car. Chances are the child will not only make vrooming engine noises, but also shifting noises, with the engine rpms rising and falling rhythmically. That’s because even a child knows that for optimal acceleration, you should shift when the next higher gear produces more torque than the current gear you’re in. It’s innate in all of us.

Grodor, Eater of Tires

So there I was, driving my family home in my wife’s car. We were just a couple of miles from our house when suddenly this demon-spawned monster sprang from the bowels of Hell itself and devoured the tires from our car, gorging itself on vulcanized rubber, its maw stuffed with steel-belted sinews and its razor-sharp teeth shredding our sidewalls.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén