The New Car Blog.

Wow.  

11 days since my last post.  That seems very unprofessional.  The reason is (insert lame excuses: here).

Well, I have news that I know every one of you will be super excited to hear about (cough cough).  We have a new car.  And by "new", I mean used.  But only just.

It's a 2013 Subaru Legacy.  And it's absolutely fantastic.  

All wheel drive.  Excellent fuel economy.  Tons of room.  Super comfy.  And it rides and handles crazy good on two-lane country roads at extra-legal speeds.  Or, you know, so I was told and did NOT actually do myself this past weekend on the way to an outdoor wedding.

Also, because it's such a late model vehicle, it has all the fun toys.  Things like hands free bluetooth, iPod hook up, and other stuff that largely don't matter.

I enjoy driving this car quite a bit.

And let me tell you about the great deal we got.  

Actually, lets not talk about that.  I'm still having nightmares about all the money this great deal is going to cost us.

But that aside, it's really fantastic.

We have a tendency to drive cars until they explode from old age.  Our other car we've owned since 2006.  Almost nine years.  It's a Saturn Vue and has 205,000 miles.  It's so wore out I don't think I could pay anyone to take it from us.

No, I'm not going to pay anyone to take it.  

We had a Honda Accord up until two years ago.  We drove that for 16 years.

So, ya.  We wear cars out and make sure we get our money out of them.

Which, perhaps is one reason this car seems so amazing.

Our Saturn is wore out.  It rattles and squeaks and is covered in scratches and cracks and it eats wheel bearings for breakfast and and and...

It's been a good car, but it's close to done.

The Subaru is close to new.  Only 18,000 miles.  It still has that new car smell, although, I think dealerships have a spray for that now.

But I wonder, would I think my "new" Subaru would be as awesome if the car I was comparing it to wasn't so... not awesome?  What if I was comparing our Subie to some other car of equal vintage and class?  How would it compare?  Would it seem as great?  Would it be amazing still?  Or would it fail by comparison?

Sometimes when something get's old anything new seems like a revelation and you just can't wait to get away from the old thing to something better.

No, I'm not talking about cars anymore.

Relationships are funny that way.  They can become old and run down.  Stale and broken.  You can get so caught up in the routine that we don't even notice how run down it is getting.  It's easy to get so used to it that you forget to take care of all the little maintenance details.  And then, before you realize it, it just doesn't run anymore.

It's a shame, really.  Because, with the proper maintenance, they will go the distance.

Love is funny that way.

Lesson 21 - Knowing

Have you ever met that person who seemed to know everything?  And by “seemed to know everything” I mean, they acted like a know-it-all?  And you wanted to harm them regularly and endlessly?

Perhaps you see them coming and you roll your eyes as you groan quietly because you know what is coming.  They will engage you in a conversation, and no matter what you say, they will claim to know more, or claim that you are incorrect, or both, and proceed to dazzle you with information that not only is suspect, but in many cases you are 100% certain is actually incorrect.

Ya.  You know exactly who I’m talking about.  You probably immediately had someone come to mind the moment you began reading that description.

It is entirely possible that this describes me as a younger person.  Or now.  Probably both.  But much more so when I was young.

You can’t prove otherwise.  Umm…

I remember one time when I was pretty young, I think 8 or 9, I was over at my grandparents house while my parents were away doing something that didn’t involve me.  And I, as all children, made sure I had all my prized possessions with me to ensure my time there was not full of the boring.

One item in particular that I had with me was a car magazine.  I didn’t read a ton of books at that point, but I read car magazines in the same manner as an alcoholic consumes, well, you know.  They were my favorite things.  Cars, and anything that talked about cars.

The issue I had was Car and Driver’s “Complete Automotive Lineup” edition.  What that means is, it contained in it all the cars offered by all the car companies relevant to America, with brief outlines of what they were and a statistics portion detailing all the goodies you want to know.

As far as I was concerned it was, in fact, the greatest thing ever printed on paper.  Or anything else for that matter.  I wasn’t restricted to just learning about a couple cars at a time, I could learn about all the cars being sold that year.  

It was glorious.

I read that magazine non-stop.  I poored through it.  Breathed it in.  I memorized every page.  Every car, every contour, every specification.  I could tell you everything about every car in that magazine.

As I sat at grandma’s table reading through the magazine, again, grandpa came home from work and saw me flipping through it.  He came over and looked at one particular page containing a Cadillac Eldorado and said, “Wow, those Coupe Deville’s sure are nice.”

I said, “No grandpa, that is an Eldorado.”

He said, “No, I’m pretty sure that’s a Coupe Deville.”

I said, “It’s an Eldorado.  I know it is.”

He said, “I’m sorry, I’m quite positive that it is a Coupe Deville.”

Believe it or not, this went on till we were both angry and he finally just walked away.

But I didn’t care.  I knew I was correct.  I knew everything in this magazine.  To prove it to myself I looked back at the magazine and scanned down to the car and read it’s name.

Cadillac Coupe Deville.

I was confused.  How could it be a Coupe Deville?  I had memorized everything here.  I knew what a Coupe Deville looked like and what an Eldorado looked like.  How could I have gotten this wrong?  

Of course, it had never occurred to me during that entire argument to look at the actual name of the vehicle.  I was so self assured of my knowledge it had never crossed my mind to double check.

I thought I knew.

While I am sure none of you have ever taken it that far, I’m sure you have experienced that moment of befuddlement when you realized something you were so sure of wasn’t what you thought at all.  It happens to everyone eventually.  Over time we begin to realize that we really don’t know all that much at all.  As we mature, we accept that it’s best to double and triple check our facts before we stick our heads too far into the noose.

When it comes to the fact in life, and often even of life, we know that there isn’t too much that we can truly know for certain.  At least, not in the details.

But I want to share something that I believe you can know without even a hint of doubt.  It is illustrated quite well in the lesson of the seed.

However, to tell that story, I have to tell you a different one first.

How many of you have ever heard of “physics”?  Yes, yes.  I’m kidding.  Of course you all know what that is.

There is a pretty knew theory in physics called The Amplituhedron Theory.  I’m not going to bore you with all the details.  You can look it up and read all about it.  It is changing the way physicists look at the universe in a number of fundamental ways.  One of those ways is how we view time and space.

If you are a physics geek I both applaud you and then ask your patience with me and forgiveness as I proceed to butcher the idea here.

Up until now, physics has maintained that time and space are fundamental components of reality.  However, with the discovery of a new geometric math model for doing calculations, they are beginning to believe that time and space are NOT fundamental components of reality.  They are not the CAUSE of anything.  They are more akin to an EFFECT.  They are dependent upon other factors.  And depending upon those factors, may not be what we think they are.

This is a big deal.  Time isn’t what we think it is.

The calculations are so good, they have been able to simplify their math from multiple pages full of equations down to a single sentence.

And they work.  More importantly, they work better.

This is huge in the world of physics.

What does this have to do with the seed?  Let me try to pull this together for you.

Have you ever taken a small seed, let’s say an apple seed, and really thought about what it is?  Inside that seed contains everything needed to grow an entire tree full of seed containing apples.  The entire blueprint for that tree is inside that seed.  All you need is water and dirt.  The tree is just waiting to come out.  All of it’s energy and potential is all there inside that tiny seed.

For those of you who are Bible readers, you have probably read the verse about “having the faith of a mustard seed, and you could make the mountains jump into the ocean.”  If you haven’t read the Bible, there is a verse that says this.  Now, you don’t have to believe in the Bible to get the point I’m working toward.  But if you do, maybe this will be fun.  Or you will disagree.  In which case, I’m sure I’m right always about everything and shut up.  (I think we covered my know-it-all tendencies earlier.  Please forgive me.)

Normally this verse gets interpreted with the idea that all you need is faith the size of the a mustard seed (or apple seed?) and you could do crazy impossible things.  But I would like to suggest that is not what Jesus meant.  If you are a Greek scholar, you will note that there is nothing in the original text that implies size.  Neither does the English.  We just assume so because we assume we understand the greater context.

Let’s go back to time.  Even though physics is just now beginning to suggest that time isn’t what we think it is, the ancient spiritual disciplines have been saying that for millennia.  That time isn’t what we think it is.  That time is an illusion and that the reality is something else.  Now, we can argue if they are really meaning the same thing.  It isn’t my point.

The entire life of that tree is written inside that seed.  It “knows” what it is.  The Greek word for “faith” also implies “knowing”.  That seed “knows” what it is.  From a certain temporal, or perhaps extra-temporal, perspective (one could argue that Jesus speaking as God would have this perspective, should you believe in Jesus),one would know that the seed does NOT know that it is going to become a tree.

The seed “knows” that it already is the tree.

There is no “doubt” in that seed.  The period of growth is irrelevant.  The seed IS the tree.  And, if you prescribe to the idea that all time is actually one moment, then it become literally true.  But I’m not pushing that one way or the other.  It’s again, not the point.

Whether you believe in a creator and design or whether you believe in reactive evolution, humans are so much more than we see ourselves as.  You are so much more than you see yourself as.  You can be so much more.  The potential of what a human is capable of is profound and mind boggling.  The things that science is learning every day about the capability and potential of the human being is breathtaking in it’s wondrousness.

But the truth isn’t in knowing what you could become.  That is not the lesson of the seed.

     We need to know that we already are.

Lesson 5 - Sports Cars are Fast

Right.

So, listen.  At this point you are probably catching on to the fact that I like to state the obvious.

Captain Obvious.  That’s me.

Ha.  Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was so aptly named?  Like, Commander Klepto.  Professor Halitosis.  Captain Vulnerable to Peanuts.

At the very least, comic books would be different.  But it sure would be useful in dating.  Captain Hammered McDrunken, or Princess Cottage Cheese Bum.

Ok, so, it’s probably better not to do that with our names.  We would make too many assumptions too quickly.  Because, really, nothing is ever how it appears to be at face value anyway.

It’s funny.  As people, we think we know all about something just by its name.  But there can be so many variations on an object or concept.  Let’s talk about cars.

Why?  Mostly because I like cars and, darn it, this is my book.

=)  (There is that emoticon again.  Persistent little bugger…)

You know how people say a person knows too little to be useful and just enough to be dangerous?  Did you know that saying was coined because of me?  Ok, so, that’s probably a lie.  Ok, I’m sure it’s a lie.  But that doesn’t make it apply any less.  Here is what I mean.

I grew up on muscle cars.  My dad was, and still is, really into old school hotrods and old cars in general.  Therefore, so was I.  I love them.  I wanted to own one.  (still do…)  I grew up in the garage with my dad turning the wrench on one project or another, dreaming about the day when I would get to be the guy behind the wheel of a car way to powerful for me to be driving.

The possibilities of trouble that lay before me were endless.

And then finally, the day came.  I got my driver’s license.  Oh the joy!  Oh the bliss!  Oh the horror!

Yes, horror.  If you were my parents, it was most definitely horror.  I mean, think about it.  Handing the keys to any car, especially a powerful one, to me, the kid who had dreamed about driving something fast and awesome all his life… it was sort of like taking a shiny new grenade, pulling the pin, and handing it to a toddler.

Well, the first car that I was allowed to drive on a regular basis as “my own”, was a 1978 Dodge Aspen ex-police car.  It had the whole squad car package.  Beefed up suspension, 360 cubic inch v8 with more power than I needed.  (admittedly, by today’s standards, it wasn’t that much power.  But still…)

I thought I was invincible.  I thought I knew everything about cars and driving.  And in my defense, I was quite knowledgeable for someone my age.  I knew all the facts and figures and how to work on them, and I wasn’t even a half bad driver.  Pretty good, even.  

The problem wasn’t my driving skill, however.

I used to go out on to barren roads and empty parking lots just to “test out” the car and “get used to its handling” and “do stupid crap.”  

I suppose we didn’t need to use code on that last one.

Well, there was this one road that I drove all the time.  It was a frontage road to the main highway that went past where I grew up.  It had a 55mph speed limit, but it had a tight curve near the end of it that was rated at 25mph.  But as every teenager knows, speed limits are merely suggestions (cough cough), and are meant to be ignored (please don’t take me to jail nice mister police man.)

I had practiced enough that I could toss that old squad car into fish tail turns and four wheel drifts.  I had learned how it handled and was pretty confident.  So, to test that out, I figured I could straighten that curve Dukes of Hazard style and live to brag about it.

Long story short, I hit that curve going close to 70mph.  And you know what happened? 

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing, except total and complete awesomeness.

I drifted that bad boy all the way through the curve like some sort of road racing demon of, um… road racing.

I didn’t crash, I didn’t get a ticket… it wasn’t even close.  In my mind, I had proven to myself that I was in fact the superior driver and that my superior understanding of cars and driving had won the day.

Fast forward a few months.

My mom had a fun little car.  It was a 1989 Dodge Shadow ES Turbo.  It really was a pretty fun little car.  Five speed, 150hp, and it handled like a go-kart.  Well, at least it did compared to that old heavy squad car I was driving.  It was lighter, peppier, and just more fun to drive.

One day while dropping off a friend at his home after school, I was going down that same road.  I decided I was going to show him how amazing my mom’s car was and, more importantly, how amazing my driving skills were.

We hit 120mph on the highway, got off, hit the frontage road, and where nearing triple digit speeds again.  However, I had the good sense to slow down for that curve.  I figured it like this.  That squad car made the curve at 70, and this car handled better.  Therefore, if I wanted, I should be able to take the curve faster.  However, I decided to slow it down to 55mph instead.  It was still crazy fast for that curve, but slower than before.  It should be a cake walk.

I threw that car into the curve and the next thing I knew was that we were upside down in a ditch hanging from our seat belts.  The car slid off the road (can we say I blew a tire?  For my ego?  Please?), hit the dirt embankment, and basically flipped corner to corner in some part barrel-roll, part end over end style of flipping.  Honestly, I’ll probably never know for sure what it looked like.  All I know is that car no longer exists.  It didn’t have a straight piece left on it.  Every window was broken.  Except for one, which my friend kicked out getting out of the car.  (that’s another story…)  Fortunately, though, we were fine.

Now, besides the fact that I’m stupid, what went wrong?  Was my analysis wrong?  Well, the Dodge Shadow was indeed the better handling car.  So if you are doing straight-forward logic, it should have worked.

What I didn’t account for was the fact that the Shadow was a front wheel drive car, and the Aspen a rear wheel drive car.  Anyone who knows anything about cars, knows that a front wheel drive car handles very differently than a rear wheel drive car.  That is where the flaw in my logic was.  I didn’t anticipate that fact.  I did not even know that fact.  For all my knowledge and “experience”, it had never occurred to me that it would matter.  It didn’t occur to me that which tires were providing the motion and struggling for traction would matter.  It never occurred to me that having the same tires steering AND driving the car, would cause grip to be different.  It never occurred to me that the car wouldn’t want to tail slide just like my other car.

Any truly experienced driver would know this.  I however, was not a truly experienced driver.  I just thought I was.

Unfortunately, reality and truth were sort of scaled and relative.

My facts were correct, but it didn’t occur to me that they were only correct within a certain context.  Fast for one car was even faster for another in certain situations.  Not that the speed was different, but the limits were.  The techniques for handling the limits were different.

As I’ve gotten older and driven other cars and faster cars, I’ve come to learn that fast and slow are relative to the vehicle.  If you are driving a Corvette, fast is pretty fast before it becomes too fast for the cars ability.  But if you are driving a boat like Buick slow can still be pretty fast when it comes to the cars ability.

It’s all about the context.

So is our world view.

Remember that from last chapter?  Our view is based on “facts.”  But the facts are sometimes relative.  They can be contextual.  A thing can be true, but not always true.

In America, giving someone the “thumbs up” gesture means “good job” or something similar.  But in some countries, the “thumbs up” is a very offensive gesture that definitely does not mean “good job.”

In one context it’s good, in another it’s very bad.

What facts do we use to shape our view of things?  What truths make up our perception of reality?  And, more importantly, how many of those truths are actually true?  And even more importantly, would we ever be willing to admit that any of those truths aren’t so true?

Without that flexibility, our world view will always be stunted, and therefore incomplete.  The only way to have that flexibility is through personal honesty.  The recognition that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m full of poo.

That recognition is super important.  It’s that recognition that teaches me that my car accident had nothing to do with the Shadow handling different than the Aspen.  It wasn’t that the car was incapable.  It was that I was incapable.  A professional driver would have been just fine.  I was the problem.  I was the one who didn’t know better, but more importantly I was the one who would never admit that he didn’t know better.

If I had, I would have been able to alter my view and therefore my actions.  I would have been able to recognize the fallacy in my mind before it was too late.

I would have understood that fast cars can feel slow, and that sometimes slow is still way too fast.