donger need food.

Stripped

On my drive home from work on the 101 Northbound, I marvel at the huge hunks of four-wheeled technological wizardry all around me. People must find me a strange occurrence...a thirty-something Asian careening down the highway in a bona-fide death trap. Armed with a 17 year old air bag, bald and crackly-dry tires, blown shocks, loose steering rod ends and a hollow 2.5 inch thick door, they must wonder what psychopath dare blow by them at eighty-something in the number one lane.


All around me, folks are tootling around in cars twice as heavy and ten times as complex as mine. In-dash navigation systems. MP3 players. DVD players. Active restraints. 10 airbags. Active steering. Active suspension. Active braking. 50 cubic feet of cargo space. Full time four wheel drive with active torque-biasing differentials. Seven speed automatic transmissions. Rear facing cameras. Sonar-equipped bumpers. Cruise control with automatic distance control. Headlights that turn when you turn. Integrated bluetooth handsfree devices...

All crap, I tell you.
Useless features invented by genius marketing weenies to keep costs low and profits high, all the while maintaining the bigger, better, more advanced mantra.

No, I want basic. The stuff that matters: Good motor, good brakes, good suspension. Comfort be damned. I want to feel it shake, I want to feel the road rushing below me, feel that motor winding itself out straining to haul me faster. But most of all, I want to feel that fear. The fear that you just don't get in an airbag-laden-ABS-equipped-dead-silent-luxo-barge until you've nudged the 100mph mark: "Holy crap, I'm going way too fast".


Well, thinking about it now I suspect it's just me subconsciously seeking solace from all the clutter I've accumulated. For years, I blew my disposable income (and more) on stupid stuff. Stuff that I just don't have the time for anymore. And just imagine what it would be like with a wife & kids in the picture? Heck, I was just going through my mp3s the other night. Two hundred fifty freakin' gigabytes. It would take years of listening 16 hours/day to be able to listen to it all. And that doesn't even include the 400 or so CDs sitting in the CaseLogic binders. And then there's all those random files that I've packratted away in various forms: old resumes, old school papers, old archived usenet discussions from college... And that's just two hard drives.

I haven't even touched on the useless car parts I've accumulated over the years and all the other random stuff...a box of laserdiscs, golf clubs, game systems, old magazines...it just goes on and on.


Yeah, it's definitely time to slow down, purge and focus. Strip my life to the bare essentials:

A strong motor.
A good suspension.
A winding road.
A beautiful traveling companion.

And try not to blow past all the wonderful things happening in my life haulin' ass in the number one lane while talking on the cell phone.

posted by VirtualErn @ 12:22 AM

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]