I’ve written about the paradoxical nature of the autobahn before. Although I complain about it sometimes, it’s actually pretty good to drive on. It’s just that the fantasy Americans have about it falls somewhat short. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what we have.
Category: Road Trips and Events Page 3 of 4
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever. In the internet (which replaced “Life” in the 1990s), everyone has an opinion, and these opinions rarely agree. If I were to make a Top Eleven Most Beautiful Car list, each car on the list will have its detractors. Ultimately, a Top List of Something only matters for the person that made it.
In honor of National Donut Day in America (the first Friday in June), I bring you random Stig/Ken Block/General Hooning videos from around the world. So sit down, grab a bagel, and enjoy!
I didn’t get a golden ticket this year. I don’t get to hang out with the Veruca Salts and Augustus Gloops of this world. I don’t even get platform shoes, a green wig and sing questionable songs. Instead, I went to the NAIAS at Cobo Hall with the unwashed masses. I may need to shower.
Road trips make me un-cranky. My favorite trips tend to head west from Detroit, since these avoid Ohio. They seem to have some vague justification, like family gatherings, races, and so on, but these are just McGuffins, simply to point the car in a rough direction.
I took a recent road trip for work to our proving grounds in Michigan’s upper peninsula, the UP. Although I’ve lived in Michigan for most of my life, this is only the second time I’ve been to the UP. The other time was to take my wife to Mackinac Island, which to many people around here doesn’t really count as going to the UP.
“Did gerade Linie ist gottlos.”
–Hundertwasser
A friend of mine is on a foreign assignment to Romania for a couple of years. The city where he’s located, Timisoara, is nice enough, with a university and a technical industry, and was the first mainland European city to be lit by electric street lamps in 1884.
A friend of ours was supposed to fly from Germany to see us last month. Unfortunately, she timed her flight with Eyjafjallajokull’s eruptions (I wonder how many letters Icelanderians (Icelandicians?*) get to start with in Scrabble). After her flight and her rescheduled flight were both cancelled, she set her flight date a few weeks later just to be safe. So, of course, the volcano erupted again shortly before her latest flight. We’re all hoping that flights between Europe and North America won’t be cancelled this time.
Sometimes I have too much time on my hands. This can be easily achieved by neglecting things like eating, sleeping and family. Generally this means I’m obsessing over something trivial. Such was the case last year when I virtually re-lived a vacation I took 15 years ago, thanks to Google.
There are some perks working in the auto industry. As a lowly, peon engineer I don’t get too many. However, once in a while, I get a golden ticket— an industry preview ticket for the auto show.