Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A little about myself

I'm a certified "gearhead". For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with cars, trains, planes, rockets, and pretty much anything else that goes ridiculously fast. It's not that I'm lazy (I am) it's just the thrill of going so much faster than is humanly possible.

I was born in Blacksburg, Virginia but only lived there for a few months. My family relocated to Salisbury, Maryland after my father changed jobs. We lived there for several years and when I was 5, we moved to Norrisville, a super small town, due north of Baltimore about two miles south of the MD/PA border. It was there that I "grew up". It was an awesome place to grow up, a little rural for most peoples standards, but we loved it. I have yet to meet anyone who comes close to the friends that I grew up with in Norrisville. Really solid people up there...

My parents thought there was something wrong with me when I was a child. Now, I cannot judge the validity of their early assessment, but my grandmother assured them that a young boy obsessed with the turning wheels of toys was perfectly normal. I think she's a smart woman. I can remember lusting after all sorts of cars from an early age on. It's funny to look back now and think about those cars I "loved". At the time, I guess I didn't know that a Geo Metro wasn't "cool". But a cool teacher at my elementary school drove one, so it was super cool to me.

As I got older and started reading books and investing massive sums in auto magazines, I gathered a pretty big wealth of (what some may consider worthless) data and specifications about all sorts of cars. The engine displacement of almost any modern supercar. The cylinder spacing of the Porsche 911 flat six engine. WHY the engine spacing is what it is in the Porsche flat six. We are talking suck the wind out of parties sort of information here. But, should I find myself in the company of one or more gearheads, rest assured, arbitrary numbers will be slung left and right. I don't know the exact number of car magazines I have accumulated over the years. My parents could give a more reasonable number since they are all sitting in their house in MD right now. I subscribed to Automobile, Road and Track, Car and Driver, and Motortrend for about 9 years. 4 issues a month, 12 months in a year, 9 years. 432 issues, give or take 5 or 6. I'd say that any one magazine had about 50 pages of worthwhile reading, once you discount the advertisements. So there are about 21,600+ pages of automotive goodness sitting in my parents house right now. I've read all of them...but it didn't make me a genius. :)

I played a lot of sports in high school. I was never great in any single sport, but I could hold my own in all of them. I think the one true talent that I may or may not have is competitive auto racing. Not like country backroads stuff or drag racing, but true, circuit racing. The sort of stuff where your parents have to throw you into a shifter kart when you are 8 and then push you really hard until you are a proffessional racing driver at 18. I wouldn't have traded my childhood for all the F1 Championships in the world, but I think I could have done well in a fast car and a drivers suit....

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