Character My faith My family and friends My wife My crazy quest for FITNESS! The new year - going fast already

Cars My car Driving around PA Driving in NJ Driving in general: my thoughts My quest for a Subaru fix Smoke tires, not cigarettes!

Computers My career goals My computers My (disturbingly) large computer game library Programming for fun - the GBA Other consoles

Cars

The Story of the Heavy Right Foot

Right around my 5th birthday, I got bitten by the car bug. At first, it wasn't much... I liked the little die-cast cars I had at home, drew my little car-drawings, and liked the whole idea of cars in general.

Then it got worse.

More and more of my brain time went into cars as I grew up. It's a wonder I didn't really go into a car career, like an auto mechanic or car designer. My curiosity for computers began to step more and more into the forefront and every other hobby faded back away. But cars stuck through it with me.

Passing Fads

If I had the money to have bought every single car I ever wanted to get, my garage would be lined with some of the most interesting, weird, powerful, and unexpected pieces of history offered up. Here are some of the many that have wanted me to buy them throughout my years:

Click here for information on the car I currently drive (do you dare to find out?).

When Two Lanes Are Better Than Four

I never imagined I'd find the beautiful angel called my wife in Pennsylvania. I also never imagined I'd be driving the various two-lane twisties there, where I live now on a daily basis. I used to drive on highways so much that I didn't really like two-lane highways at all, but the more time I spend here, the more I enjoy carving up the back roads. Click here for more background on my migration to the curves of the Keystone State (now The State of Independence).

When in Jersey, Hit the Highway

I learned how to drive in New York City. Once I got the essentials down in the Big Apple, New Jersey was one big road rally.

I can't really say it's a huge racetrack, but if you want a great drive with scenery and elevation changes, try this for a loop (literally):

• Route 4 West to Route 208 North
• Route 208 North to I-287 South (hint: if you drive into New York, you're going the wrong way)
• I-287 South to I-80 East
• I-80 East to Garden State Parkway North
• Garden State Parkway North to Route 4 East
• Route 4 East to Route 4 West (yes, you read right - Route 4 East to U-turn: sharp right up to Route 17 North, then immediate right back down to Route 4 West)
• ...repeat as necessary

These and other driving misdirections can be discovered by clicking here.

See Ramon. See Ramon Drive.

Driving is a great priviledge to take advantage of in America. Where else can you drive in the mountains, cities, forests, and by the shores, and only be separated at times by a few hours for each category? Click here for more observations on the driver and the road.

And Then There Was One...

I used to be an equal-opportunity car nut. Then a single car company came along and changed everything. They crept up on me at first - making weird cars that operated with relatively unheard-of technology. (Need a hint? The first real sports car they produced on American shores had a weird window presentation, and it was not until this car went out of production that appreciation for it really took off.) I had seen them around all my life, but nothing really ionized my thinking about them until Sony came out with an incredibly popular dynasty called...

...Gran Turismo. I saw a picture of a Subaru Legacy GT-B E-Tune station wagon keeping up with a Mazda RX-7 and an Acura NSX, and instantly wondered: what in the world is a station wagon doing racing against two sports cars? The rest is history - I dove into finding out more information about Subaru, and started discovering just how amazing the cars they make are. Subaru didn't start out with the intention of becoming a distinguished performance car company, but nowadays you really have to be looking the other way to not notice the performance wars Subaru is waging against real interesting competitors such as Mitsubishi, and later on this year, more upscale prey (uh, competitors, sorry :) like Audi.

Click here for a glimpse into the life of a (currently) broke individual seeking to eventually get his fill of Subaru vehicle.

Are You Gonna Smoke Those Tires, or Should I?

Cigarette smoking is one of America's most addictive legal activities. Countless billions of dollars flow through an industry in which people die on a yearly, monthly, perhaps even daily basis, directly related to product. Whereas smoking tires on an automobile is a largely recreational activity that by itself produces not much more than smoke, attention, and bald tires, cigarette smoking is a largely recreational activity that produces incredibly hazardous smoke, degenerative lung conditions, and which has the ability to negatively affect entire groups of people breathing in secondhand smoke. For all the people that argue that showing off in public with a tireburning display is a improper activity, I urge them to focus more of their energy into informing people of the inherent risks involved in lighting up a smoke, not smoking a set of Falken tires.

Click here for more information.