I guess that he was “Click” to his brother’s “Clack”.
I never knew who was who….until he passed away yesterday and I looked him up.
Tom and Ray did the “Car Talk” show on Public Radio.
I guess that it’s possible that some people in our country haven’t heard the show…so a short description might help explain what I think these guys did.
They talked about cars.
People would call them….and they talked about cars.
The whole show.
That’s it.
I make it sound good, don’t I?
I’m lying when I say “that’s it”. I’m lying.
This show was so much more than two guys talking about cars.
Listen to some episodes here…on the guys’ website …to get a feeling for what they did every week.
It was a lot more than I can describe easily….there was more than just cars being discussed each week.
There are a lot of legacies that people can leave behind.
Positive and negative, there are a number of ways to “leave your mark” on the world.
Listen to some of these shows.
Well done, Mr. Magliozzi !
You made a lot of people happy.
Read Tom’s bio here….. I think it’s worth knowing something about this man.
I guess that I don’t know what “hungry” really is.
What a blessing.
We ate at the Asian buffet yesterday…and it was good.
It’s usually pretty good….depending on what time of day we get there. End times at the buffet can be kind of “sketchy”….but if you get there early enough, it’s pretty consistently good.
I had a light breakfast at home earlier in the day….coffee, juice….and a fresh mushrooms, green peppers, and onions omelet that I made.
I wasn’t really hungry after breakfast.
I told myself that I was very hungry by the time we got to the buffet.
I ate like I usually do when we got there and had our seats assigned and got our coats off and got settled a bit.
Egg rolls and hot mustard, tofu….mixed vegetables, garlic string beans….lo mein….sesame bean balls….tried the egg fu yung again….bad egg fu yung….had the guy at the bar cook some beef with onions, peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms….had another egg roll….went up for some dessert….had some more lo mein and rice….thought about having some soup….looked at the fruit and the salad bar….decided to skip all that deep fried chicken stuff this time….ate part of an undercooked baked drumstick…..looked at the sushi….skipped the sushi….went back and got a couple of those steamed dumpling things….and I think….at that point….I stopped eating.
Of course, all this is interspersed with trips to the bathroom or the buffet with our 5-year-old.
I may have skipped some details. It all usually goes down in a fork-whirring blur….so I forget things in the sequence of gluttony.
I am not very “mindful” when I know that I can have as much as I want to eat.
And…if you think about it…. that is kind of crazy.
To not be really hungry…but to convince myself that I must be pretty hungry before going to the “all you can eat” buffet….is pretty nuts.
I don’t really remember any element of that meal with great clarity.
I can’t remember it.
And ….why should I?
There’s more where that came from….I can fill my plate time and time again with whatever I choose to semi-consciously consume.
I am my only limit….my own “belly stretching limitation”….I only stop when good sense prevails and I decide that I am “comfortable” instead of painfully overfull.
What a trip!
Parents used to say, “Eat all your food! There’s children in China who are going hungry….you need to eat all your food….”.
Now, we go to a restaurant where the Asian people feed us all until we’re ready to pop….and no one mentions the hungry Chinese children.
I guess that it’s bad form to do that at an all you can eat buffet.
I guess it’s funny how prosperity changes how carefully I pay attention to things.
We have so much….and I’m not paying very close attention to much of it
I better start paying attention….right after the next trip to the bar for another egg roll….or maybe a sesame bean ball….or….
Oh, what the heck?!
The world is my oyster. I consume without awareness. I do what I want. Why should I pay attention to any of it?!
I slept in….got up early….looked at the clock…remembered that it was really early…and started to write in the morning quiet that I enjoy if I get up early enough and am… quiet.
Then, Nate got up (on time…but artificially early) and it wasn’t quite as quiet.
This “giving us an hour” doesn’t work for me.
I need “real-time”.
It snowed yesterday.
When we woke up, there was about 5″ of new snow on the ground.
Nate and I went out early and built a snowman….but by the time the afternoon had rolled around, the snowman was dead….melted on the grass.
It was a short-lived snow.
I went over to the new property and took some pictures while it was cold and the snow was still on the ground.
It was quiet at the new property….peaceful.
Nobody was out in the snow….too early….too snowy….and that was pretty nice.
I’ve taken runs in the snow where I didn’t see another person the whole time I was out.
That’s kind of unusual….usually, I can’t help but see someone while I’m out and about.
I guess that it’s hard to be out in the cold and snow….especially when it’s a short-lived and unexpected snowfall.
Why do the “hard” if the hard part is going to be gone soon?
Why do it at all if you can wait it out and see it go away?
When I think about it, though, the times when I’ve been surrounded by really profound “quiet” is when I had a chance to do something kind of “hard”.
If I can get off the trail….just a little bit farther than the bulk of the tourists….I can be somewhere pretty quiet.
If I can get up early enough…..
If I go out in the snow….
Oh….now that I think about it, the times that it’s been really quiet were the times when I was alone.
Maybe quiet is overrated
I like “alone”…but I love my family.
I’d trade away the quiet if it meant that I could be with them.
It was pretty peaceful, standing in a field, snow falling on me while I waited to turn back towards home.
I can work with “peaceful” every now and then, too.
We buy a piece of land….with some buildings on it. The property has been vacant for a long time. The buildings are decrepit….the land is overgrown….the pond is full of vegetation.
The land is what it is…it can stay that way for a while. My involvement won’t change much.
I’m not getting over to work on the land like I think I should. It’s gnawing away at my spirit….it’s making me feel bad….making me feel lazy. I want to be an element of change. I want something wonderful “right away”.
“Wonderful right away” isn’t reality. It takes a lot of hard work to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear….I need to chip away at this monolith a little bit at a time.
Dirt sits.
This thing is what it is.
I shouldn’t be troubled by not doing what no one’s done for whatever amount of time they weren’t doing it.
Inactivity on the land is eating me up…no matter what I say to pacify myself.
I shouldn’t be troubled.
I like the sound of those words.
I guess I am troubled sometimes, though.
Not “troubled”….like certifiably troubled or anything like that….just a little bothered by the things I know I should do….but for some reason….laziness, fear, latent stupidity….don’t.
The trouble with land is that it’s a huge totem to procrastination.
It’s a marker.
I can’t get around it even if I’m walking over it.
Maybe that’s why I like burn piles….bonfires…big piles of crap going up in flames.
That’s a pretty dramatic display of some kind of forward momentum.
It’s a hot reminder that I’m accomplished something.
But when it’s gone….when the pile’s burned down to ashes….the memory of accomplishment goes up in smoke, too….and I have to start building the pile again.
Maybe I’m a pyromaniac?
That can’t be good.
That’s another thing….or this is another thing….what I’m thinking right now is “another thing” :
What was I thinking? Dang……
Oh…no….that wasn’t it….it was just seconds ago….ummmmmmm….
OH!! Now I remember….I was thinking that it sure is easy to get a plan together….a cohesive and vibrant plan….a mission statement.
That’s easy.
It’s easy….and it gives you comfort and the illusion of competence to be able to say, “Why, yes…after we tear this section down, we’ll begin by building the “Tower of Babel” over in the lower 3 (we don’t have enough land to say ‘the lower 40’),,,,and then over here, we’re going to put up the ‘Hall of Smoke and Mirrors’….then, when we’re finished with those two projects, we’re going to build a landing pad for the spaceship….and really kick this project into high gear.”
Maybe I just need to get back over to the property with a shovel and a box of matches?
Don’t get too caught up in this video waiting for the scene to change.
I have a feeling it’s this same scene for the entire 10 hours.
“White Noise” isn’t the reason I road trip….and “hell” would be never going anywhere.
Maybe it’s “kind of unkind” to put a video like this on a blog.
I looked up “road trip” on YouTube and was amazed at the number of “gopro” videos there were.
Everybody’s documenting everything.
Bunch of weirdos.
Of course, one of the greatest roadtrips of MY life is fully documented on a set of audio cassettes called the “Road Dawg Tapes”….so I’m a huge hypocrite if I complain about anyone else’s efforts to immortalize themselves on YouTube.
It’s kind of funny….and fun, too.
I’m going to post some of those “gopro videos” in the next couple of days.
It’s a lot more interesting than a 10 hour white noise video.
When I called her this Saturday to make sure that we didn’t need anything in town before I got home, Jenny told me that the minivan was messed up.
When she used the turn signal, all the gauges went dead.
Without any dash lights or speedometer, she couldn’t drive the car.
This is always kind of a panicky feeling for me when there’s something wrong with the Dodge.
It makes things pretty awkward for Jenny and the kids.
So I thought about what I was going to have to do to fix the car the rest of the drive home from work.
When I got home, I checked it out….and found that I could kill the dash lights, too.
It was easy to mess it up.
I could replicate the problem.
Now, here is the interesting part….
I “rant” sometimes about the internet….the “brave new world” and the way all this technology seems to separate us from each other….and how maybe being sort of a “luddite” might not be so bad….but….
the first thing I did was “google” the problem….and….sure enough, after about 20 minutes of searching, I found that it wasn’t uncommon….and that someone had posted a solution.
I couldn’t have done that 30 years ago….or even 20 years ago.
I couldn’t have “googled” anything all those years ago.
What am I complaining about? It’s COOL when my computer tells me what button to push to fix a problem.
THAT IS WAY COOL!!! YOU GO, COMPUTER!! WAY TO HELP ME OUT OF A JAM!!
Here’s what I found….just in case the dash lights on your 2001 Grand Caravan Sport ever get wacky….
1. Get in van, close the door.
2. Hold down the trip set button for at least 30 seconds, even after you see 5of and 2 other numbers, i.e. 01, 02, 03, 04 or 05. Then let go and do nothing else.
3. As shown in Chengny’s post, you will see about a 40 second series of tests, gauges going up and down and dash lights, warning lights etc flashing.
4. When that stops, turn off key.
5. Unplug the negative battery cable for at least 5 minutes
6. Reconnect the neg. battery cable
7. start the engine for a few seconds and turn off.
8. push the emergency flashers button and leave it on for a couple minutes
9. slowly the outside flashers got brighter and started to work as well as each turn signal
The computer had to reset I guess, everything is now working again!
How could I have known that?
Anyway, the car is back. The new “old/junk yard/salvage yard” starter is working well….and the dash lights do what we expect them to do.
Anytime I can press a button and fix the problem, I get kind of happy.
