LizzieMaine
Bartender
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Not really. Usually it's boiled or steamed.
I know I'm getting old, or maybe just crotchety, when a car I've wanted all my life has been too cantankerous to drive when I have driven them lately.
I know I'm getting old, or maybe just crotchety, when a car I've wanted all my life has been too cantankerous to drive when I have driven them lately. This, of course, is contrary to most people who long for things from yesteryear and are happy to get them.
At this point I am at a crossroads. Maybe I'll try one or two more before I finally really decide to give it up.
Then they should call them "fuel saver spare tire" and "fuel saver jack", shouldn't they?It has to do with weight and fuel economy.
I know I'm getting old, or maybe just crotchety, when a car I've wanted all my life has been too cantankerous to drive when I have driven them lately. This, of course, is contrary to most people who long for things from yesteryear and are happy to get them.
At this point I am at a crossroads. Maybe I'll try one or two more before I finally really decide to give it up.
No point being old if you can't be crotchety.I know I'm getting old, or maybe just crotchety, when a car I've wanted all my life has been too cantankerous to drive when I have driven them lately. This, of course, is contrary to most people who long for things from yesteryear and are happy to get them.
I just found out last week, my friend had sold his 1930s Fleet Biplane that he offered to sell me a while back. I told him, this is one of the sadist days of my life, and one of the happiest days of my life!The right hand drive, pre-war Packard was the must have. It caused so much bad language that it had to go.
How old were your children when you ate them?I've eaten army rations older than my children.
No point being old if you can't be crotchety.
Old cantankerous cars and profanities go hand in hand.
The right hand drive, pre-war Packard was the must have. It caused so much bad language that it had to go.
Tell you what, try and find a non synchro gearbox car, spend an hour driving and double declutching it, you'll appreciate anything after that.
I agree with all of that, GHT, but I don't know what to do.
I've wanted an old Beetle my whole life. I learned to drive a stick shift on my Dad's '71. Well, almost learned to drive it. I don't know whether it was my nervousness, or the bottom hinged pedals that never enables me to master that car.
When I bought my own first car shortly after that, a manual trans '71 Corolla, I drove it flawlessly in very short order, like on the first drive. It was just more cooperative. Or that my Dad wasn't with me.
So now I've looked at, and driven, two Beetles, a '66 and a '57. Both have more good points than bad. But I can't get over the feeling that I won't want to drive a Beetle after I've bought it. But I still want one.
What to do, what to do . . .
A '69 Beetle was my first car, and I drove it to death -- which wasn't hard given VW's unfortunate utter lack of resistance to road salt. The floor pan was more fiberglass patch than metal, and when I finally had to let it go, it broke in half when they hauled it onto the junkyard truck. But I never had any trouble actually driving it, and still prefer that to the experience I've had driving more modern cars -- it was simple, basic, and I found it very easy to maneuver. The only scare I ever had in it was the time a loose soda bottle on the floor rolled under the pedals while I was coming up on a stoplight. I swerved onto a side road and stalled it out, and then I threw the bottle out the window.
Driving a Beetle is fine as long as you never forget that it's 1930s technology, and adjust your driving habits to compensate for that. I find that driving the Plodge isn't a whole lot different from driving the VW, except everything is bigger.
I've eaten army rations older than my children.
Looking back, C-rations were not all that bad. I liked the date nut roll, coffee-and I traded the Chesterfield cigarettes.
My favourite IMP (Individual Meal Pack) as we call ours is the salmon filet. A wee bit salty, but in the field that's fine. The tarragon chicken is pretty good too.
Growing up, our next door neighbors were German and owned a Volkswagen Beetle (I know, a cliche) that I half learned to drive on (and half on my family's car). What I loved about the VW was this that Lizzie said:
I never had any trouble actually driving it, and still prefer that to the experience I've had driving more modern cars -- it was simple, basic, and I found it very easy to maneuver.
The thing that I love about a lot of the GE technology is that a reasonably smart person can put a reasonable amount of time and effort into learning about it and have a pretty good working knowledge of it. Also, its simplicity and, in many cases, being over-built to last, resulted in less breakdown and easier repair.
The digital world does many wonderful things, but it removes intuitiveness and tactility from technology. I first experienced this when my 1980 Pontiac was idling crazy and I couldn't steady it doing the things I knew about carburetor adjustments and took it in to the shop where they hooked it up to the "dynamometer" (or something close to that) - basically a digital analyzer. It was no longer a man (or woman), a few tools, a working knowledge of the mechanics and a good ear and feel - now it was a black box generating a readout.
I have a modest working knowledge of software and hardware and do more things than the average person to keep our digital stuff running, but it's not the same - it's always inside out where I'm solving what I can tactically, never getting the "full" system like I did and can with analog technology.
But even in the analog world, I like simple. Sure, I understand that a electric car window is basically a mechanical window with a small motor powered by electricity (and I know there are a few variations on the theme: hydraulic, vacuum), but that's already too fussy versus a handle (or crank) attached to, basically, a jack system. Nice, clean, simple, intuitive. I like that as I turn the handle I "feel" the window moving; it's not the same when I push a button and the window slides up.
A '69 Beetle was my first car, and I drove it to death -- which wasn't hard given VW's unfortunate utter lack of resistance to road salt. The floor pan was more fiberglass patch than metal, and when I finally had to let it go, it broke in half when they hauled it onto the junkyard truck. But I never had any trouble actually driving it, and still prefer that to the experience I've had driving more modern cars -- it was simple, basic, and I found it very easy to maneuver. The only scare I ever had in it was the time a loose soda bottle on the floor rolled under the pedals while I was coming up on a stoplight. I swerved onto a side road and stalled it out, and then I threw the bottle out the window.
Driving a Beetle is fine as long as you never forget that it's 1930s technology, and adjust your driving habits to compensate for that. I find that driving the Plodge isn't a whole lot different from driving the VW, except everything is bigger.