We are here to pay tribute to a friend that is gone, but not forgotten. Red Rover and I spent many years together and this past Friday passed on into the hands of another that hopefully will cherish and care for her as I did.
Red and I came to know each other in North Carolina. I was living with my then girlfriend and we were driving a white Nissan SE V4 4x4 pick-up and a blue Pontiac Sun Bird convertible. Liz, always being one for the style and trimmings of the "Haute Couture" thought that these vehicles were not up to the standards which we should be living. That is actually how we cam across the Beamer in the paper, went and looked at it and drove it off the lot the next day. Well, since it was a stick was a bit uppity that I got to drive it most often (she was not a big one for driving a manual, but that's another story in and of itself) so she decided that we needed something else to compliment this.
Since the BMW was leather with only a little room in the boot and I was an aspiring musician, she decided that we needed something along the lines of an SUV. Her very first suggestion was that we get a Land Rover. I on the other hand, being more frugally minded and having a much better notion of what our budget could handle, suggested that we look around the area to see what there was to offer. We spent roughly 2 weeks not finding anything that we liked. Toyotas, Nissans, Fords, Chevys... nothing piqued our interest.
Then one day we happened to be on the Mitsubishi lot in Hickory when out of the corner of my eye I saw a thing of beauty and potential sitting in the back lot. "Is that a Land Rover I see back there?" "Yes, but we just got it in today and it hasn't even been cleaned yet." "Can we take it for a ride?" And it was all downhill from there...
Red was not immidiately thrown under the hammer and saw to become her present incarnation (HA! inCARnation... Im so funny.) No, someone wanted to make sure that both cars were shiny and clean eac week so that the other preppies in the area could point us out. (If you haven't met me you likely can get the image that I am not a big one for washing one car, let alone 2 and DEFINITELY not on a weekly basis!)
No, Red's first encounter with carnage (HA! Again!) came when Dad decided to visit the same day that the GF and I were heading down to see her mother in GA. I was working in the repro shop and while I had tried to get off early so we could split town, that didn't happen. Just as I was getting out of work I get a call: "Hey, your dad just showed up at the door with his wife and camper." Oh great. "Chat with them real quick I'll be there soon." Yeah, bad idea. Can you start to see where this is going? If not, imagine a man on his 3rd wife and my GF who just didn't seem to like a person if they couldn't do anything for her together.
Long story short, get home breaking only 4 or 5 traffic laws, defuse WWIII, apologize that we weren't going to be in town to spend time with Dad and we jump in the BMW and get ready to leave. Dad starts to pull the camper out of the drive which happens to be in front of Red. All I see next is him mutely screaming and cursing in the front seat....... He had backed into the Rover. Hence the beauty mark she had by her left eye from then on.
After a nasty breakup with the NY city socialite, Red and I decided to move to AZ where we could bum room and board off of Mom for a while. It took a while to get our bearings down here but then one night as I was working in a bar the infamous Druncan Scottsman walks in and proceeds to loudly announce:
"Hey! Who's Rover is that outside?"
Mine."
"Ever take it off-road?"
"Not yet."
Thus is the true start of a very expensive love affair. We will need to have more remembrances like this in the future... So long old friend, you will be missed.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Musings on "The American Dream..."
So let's get started with some real Blogage here...
As a budding social psychologist, one of the things that has come to interest me is the concept of the American Dream. So much to the point that I am looking to really get into the research and potentially write a book about it. I hope that you guinea pigs will help out with some insight and random paths for me to wander down...
At current the thesis for this study will be a comparison between the American dream and it's application to humanity at present with that of a litteral "dream" and how we as individuals are affected by them upon waking. I'm starting work on a potential outline and need to start doing my research. Hopefully I'll be able to really work on it down in Baires and that the "non-american" surroundings will help me get an outside perspective on things. But right now it's all a lot of gibberish floating around in my melon.
The whole idea stems out of my thought that the American dream is flawed. I feel that in the beginning it began as a beautiful concept: freedom, opportunity, equality. But, like most great ideas (Communism, television, children...) it has become either corrupted, outdated, or both. This used to be a country that people looked to come to in order to raise themselves to a higher level of some sort whether it be spiritually, mentally, or economically. But it seems now that people have taken this as license to raise themselves by stepping on the backs of others instead of being lifted up by others. Wall Street greed, the American "superiority complex", and our seeming cultural view that "bigger is better" is promoting the individual over the group. Even the way that we are beginning to remove ourselves from those people around us is encouraging this: we each have our personal space to live (fenced in back yards so no one can see us or get in our -ish,) our personal modes of travel (isn't it something like a 1:1 ratio of cars to people in this country now?), even our own personal communication, music, and computing devices. We as Americans are becoming independence junkies. Nice idea but for application: big fat 0 in my book...
So how does this equate to the "dream" model? Well... it starts out as something good, but once we wake up and start our day off the dream becomes more and more vague and we can't quite remember the details so we start making it up as we go along and suddenly it is totally diferent than the original. The question then becomes: as "responsible" human beings, how should we respond the lessons put forward by our dreams and stick to the true meaning of what we as humans are here to accomplish?
But I'll leave those thoughts for next time...
Keep on dreaming,
~jumpn2nsanity~
As a budding social psychologist, one of the things that has come to interest me is the concept of the American Dream. So much to the point that I am looking to really get into the research and potentially write a book about it. I hope that you guinea pigs will help out with some insight and random paths for me to wander down...
At current the thesis for this study will be a comparison between the American dream and it's application to humanity at present with that of a litteral "dream" and how we as individuals are affected by them upon waking. I'm starting work on a potential outline and need to start doing my research. Hopefully I'll be able to really work on it down in Baires and that the "non-american" surroundings will help me get an outside perspective on things. But right now it's all a lot of gibberish floating around in my melon.
The whole idea stems out of my thought that the American dream is flawed. I feel that in the beginning it began as a beautiful concept: freedom, opportunity, equality. But, like most great ideas (Communism, television, children...) it has become either corrupted, outdated, or both. This used to be a country that people looked to come to in order to raise themselves to a higher level of some sort whether it be spiritually, mentally, or economically. But it seems now that people have taken this as license to raise themselves by stepping on the backs of others instead of being lifted up by others. Wall Street greed, the American "superiority complex", and our seeming cultural view that "bigger is better" is promoting the individual over the group. Even the way that we are beginning to remove ourselves from those people around us is encouraging this: we each have our personal space to live (fenced in back yards so no one can see us or get in our -ish,) our personal modes of travel (isn't it something like a 1:1 ratio of cars to people in this country now?), even our own personal communication, music, and computing devices. We as Americans are becoming independence junkies. Nice idea but for application: big fat 0 in my book...
So how does this equate to the "dream" model? Well... it starts out as something good, but once we wake up and start our day off the dream becomes more and more vague and we can't quite remember the details so we start making it up as we go along and suddenly it is totally diferent than the original. The question then becomes: as "responsible" human beings, how should we respond the lessons put forward by our dreams and stick to the true meaning of what we as humans are here to accomplish?
But I'll leave those thoughts for next time...
Keep on dreaming,
~jumpn2nsanity~
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
"Been a long time, been a long time, been a long..."
Ok, so it has been many a year since I have done any kind of writing. Those of you that are partaking of this "re-visited" adventure with me are going to have to suck it up and deal with my mediocrity until I get back in the swing of things. Those of you that know me should already be aware that there will be good things to come... :-)
I guess I should start out by stating my intentions for this literary exercise... It's just that: exercise. Well, that and communication and a way to get some mental release from the insanity known as the inside of my skull. Many of you know by now (and those of you that don't but are reading this will shortly know) that I am once again picking up and moving... It actually seems to happen more often than not. Hawaii -> Virginia -> Germany -> Kansas -> North Carolina -> Arizona and now Argentina. Buenos Aires to be exact. Throughout all of my travels one of the true regrets that I have is not having kept up with the people I have met along the way and I have neglected to keep in as good of contact with others as I should. So this is my lazy way of reaching out to everyone and keeping you all in the know with what is going on with me.
Secondly, since many people are not fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit where I am going this is your chance to live vicariously through me, to enjoy the great things that I hope to do, and not have to suffer through any of the nastiness that I will most likely also endure. My gift to you, enjoy. It also gives me a way to chronicle some of these things for when I finally do go off the deep end and need to remember just who's body I am occupying at the time.
Nextly, I hope to start on a couple of projects while I am down there and I hope to use this as a testing ground for many of them. Foremost of which are a couple of books... For the Helena's out there, one with words. For the Missy's out there, one with pictures. :-) I am a huge proponent of criticism both encouraging and critical... only stipulation is: keep it truthful. So bring it on.
And finally of course you are going to have to deal with the typical ranting, raving, and general contemplations that come with the Blog medium. Love it? Hate it? Deal with it. I don't have proof that you are reading this or that you even exist. So :-p
See you around...
~jumpn2nsanity~
I guess I should start out by stating my intentions for this literary exercise... It's just that: exercise. Well, that and communication and a way to get some mental release from the insanity known as the inside of my skull. Many of you know by now (and those of you that don't but are reading this will shortly know) that I am once again picking up and moving... It actually seems to happen more often than not. Hawaii -> Virginia -> Germany -> Kansas -> North Carolina -> Arizona and now Argentina. Buenos Aires to be exact. Throughout all of my travels one of the true regrets that I have is not having kept up with the people I have met along the way and I have neglected to keep in as good of contact with others as I should. So this is my lazy way of reaching out to everyone and keeping you all in the know with what is going on with me.
Secondly, since many people are not fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit where I am going this is your chance to live vicariously through me, to enjoy the great things that I hope to do, and not have to suffer through any of the nastiness that I will most likely also endure. My gift to you, enjoy. It also gives me a way to chronicle some of these things for when I finally do go off the deep end and need to remember just who's body I am occupying at the time.
Nextly, I hope to start on a couple of projects while I am down there and I hope to use this as a testing ground for many of them. Foremost of which are a couple of books... For the Helena's out there, one with words. For the Missy's out there, one with pictures. :-) I am a huge proponent of criticism both encouraging and critical... only stipulation is: keep it truthful. So bring it on.
And finally of course you are going to have to deal with the typical ranting, raving, and general contemplations that come with the Blog medium. Love it? Hate it? Deal with it. I don't have proof that you are reading this or that you even exist. So :-p
See you around...
~jumpn2nsanity~
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