kate: bahahaahha, we should do this one:
We praise thee, O God of our fathers,
We praise thy name for ever and ever.
Let the heavens and all thy creation praise thee for ever.
Thou madest Adam, and Eve his wife to be his helper and support;
And those two were the parents of the human race.
This was thy word: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;
Let us make him a helper like him.’
I now take this my beloved to wife,
Not out of lust but in true marriage.
Grant that she and I may find mercy and grow old together.
jkrew: *LUSTS AND DROPS PANTS
kate: I will be your helper!
these are the prayers they recommend http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearABC/SpecServ/Marriage.html#Epistle1
but we don't have to do this if we don't want to
I have to admit I kind of like 1 corinthians 13:1-13
jkrew: ok, here's the thing. I can't think of a single person coming to the wedding who would read any of that and not start laughing
kate: adult kim would |:
your mom would
jkrew: yeah right. Mom would be the first one laughing!
OOH COLOSSIANS STOMP!!!
kate: ug why do I bother
jkrew: COLOSSIANS SMASH!
Oh crap, I didn't shake and now I have some epistle on my shorts. Damnit.
kate: you're a heathen
did I spell that right?
jkrew: Have you eaten at the Psalm yet? great food, horrible atmosphere.
We praise thee, O God of our fathers,
We praise thy name for ever and ever.
Let the heavens and all thy creation praise thee for ever.
Thou madest Adam, and Eve his wife to be his helper and support;
And those two were the parents of the human race.
This was thy word: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;
Let us make him a helper like him.’
I now take this my beloved to wife,
Not out of lust but in true marriage.
Grant that she and I may find mercy and grow old together.
jkrew: *LUSTS AND DROPS PANTS
kate: I will be your helper!
these are the prayers they recommend http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearABC/SpecServ/Marriage.html#Epistle1
but we don't have to do this if we don't want to
I have to admit I kind of like 1 corinthians 13:1-13
jkrew: ok, here's the thing. I can't think of a single person coming to the wedding who would read any of that and not start laughing
kate: adult kim would |:
your mom would
jkrew: yeah right. Mom would be the first one laughing!
OOH COLOSSIANS STOMP!!!
kate: ug why do I bother
jkrew: COLOSSIANS SMASH!
Oh crap, I didn't shake and now I have some epistle on my shorts. Damnit.
kate: you're a heathen
did I spell that right?
jkrew: Have you eaten at the Psalm yet? great food, horrible atmosphere.
I just had this weird flashback of walking along the canal locks of Georgetown with my Grandma when I was maybe 11 or 12 in the summertime eating icecream. It was really bizarre and I have no idea what spawned me to think about it but then I kept reminiscing about the weekends I used to spend with her and due to the damn gloomy weather, it's made me somewhat somber today.
I remember being in my pre-teens when my mom would drop me off at the metro in MD to ride on into DC and get off at the Tenleytown stop (all by myself!) and ride the escalator that seemed like it was a mile high to daylight. Then I'd sit down at the curb of what used to be the Hechingers (which is now a crappy-ass Best Buy no less) to strap on my Rollerblades and continue my 10 or so block journey to grammas apt. building in front of the Cathedral; the understated yet regal Chancery.
Rolling past AU and checking out all of the girls (ew, cooties) playing field hockey, going past the five and dime store (which was called G.C. Murphy's in real life but Gramma insisted it was just the "five and dime") and finally passing the Zebra Room and a block later I was in front of the Chancery. I'd sit on the first step, de-strap and walk on up to the security door and ring the buzzer. Gramma was usually working the desk and switchboard. Yes, it was a real-deal oldschool switchboard. The single RCA-jack cable into the board with a bazillion lil' holes kind of deal. Oldschool.
She'd give me the mail to bring up to her apt and unload and then come back down so we could get the weekends groceries together and hopefully let me go to Sullivans to pick up a toy for the weekend. Sullivans is still there thank god and is sadly the only remaining landmark of my DC childhood still on Wisconsin Ave. Sure, Giant is still there but now it's bigger and brighter and the isles are wider than a single shopping cart. Murphys is gone and still empty too. But Sullivans is still there thank god. Sullivans is an oldschool toystore slash art supply place which hasn't sold out to bigger chains yet. It's maybe two master bedrooms big and filled with intelligent toys instead of the crap you see in most stores today.
I'd usually pick up a model or Lego set and we'd go the counter to check out. Gramma would pull out a $20 from her tiny change purse (she always, ALWAYS had cash which I thought was awesome) and we were on our way. I didn't really think of it until later in life but seeing how she wasn't really on a disposible source of income, I wonder just how much cash she dropped on me during those weekends and how that affected her weekly routines after I had gone...
Moving on from the toy store, we walked over to Giant and picked up the usual. The tiny 6 oz. frozen Minute Maid concentrate cylinders of tangerine juice (if any of you readers can find these still, I'll pay it's weight in gold to you to ship one to me), some coke for my brown cows (coke and vanilla ice cream duh) and some chicken nuggets for dinner. I'd try to grab the bags from her but she always insisted on carrying them. And she would always ask for paper bags inside plastic bags. I never knew why but I miss those paper bags nowadays. I remember looking at her frail arms. Almost see through at times. Bony at parts and strong in others. She walked faster than me through her entire life and was the one always telling me to keep up when I couldn't walk anymore and needed a break.
We'd walk on over to the Zebra Room (which was turned into the "Zebra Lounge" years later which is now a vacant building for christ's sake) to grab a bite to eat. I'd usually order the four-slice personal pepperoni pizza and she would order the club sandwich. The Zebra Room was this tiny hole in the wall pizza joint with white and black tile floors. The booths were black vinyl and most all of the staff were college AU gals. The jukebox always played awesome new-wave/post punk music which I attribute my love for said genre to this day. Again, grammy would drop some cash down after we were done eating and we were on our way back to the pad.
It would be close to 7ish by now so while I started on my toy project, she would draw a bath for me. Once everything was ready I had to go wash up and just relax in the awesome bathtub of hers. It wasn't so much as a grand tub of any sort mind you. It was just one of those old tubs from any average apartment building built in the 30's. All black and white tile. Oldschool metal fixtures et al. I remember laying all the way down and looking up underwater at the bubbles on the surface and trying to see how long I could hold my breath. It was the best bathtub in the entire universe and was the only bathtub I ever took a bath in. I think it's the last one I used to this day.
After the bath I'd come out in my PJ's and sit at the kitchen table with Gramma. She'd be playing solitaire and I'd continue creating some sort of toy. We'd watch Jeopardy on her 13" color tv which still had the channel knob that went up to 13. ABC wouldn't come in too great "because of the damn Russian embassy and their damn satellite's screwing up the reception." I had no idea what she was talking about at the time but to this day I still have some odd deep-seeded disdain towards the Russian embassy when I drive past it.
Around 9 we'd retire to the bedroom. Gramma had two twins. Mine was nearest the window. She'd usually get a shopping bag full of the weekly enquirer rags from another tenant which she liked to read and laugh at while I continued to be entertained by the TV in the corner. Usually most of the time I'd sit up in bed under the blankets with my knees up creating some sort of blanket mountain of sorts. The creases and folds made an awesome downhill race track which I sent all of my fearless Matchbox cars down. I remember doing this for damn near an hour some nights making new tracks with the folds and seeing which ones were faster to the bottom.
When it was time to go to bed, she usually kept the windows open which created my most favorite memory of my stays with her. The city traffic that passed were like ocean waves to me. The ambulances and fire trucks passing by. The whhhrr's of the city buses airbrakes stopping at the stop in front of the apt. building. All of the angry drivers honking. Bliss.
I miss going there. She used to tell me that I would stop coming over when I got older. After getting a drivers license or discovering girls or realizing that staying with grandma wasn't cool anymore. I never believed her until it really was the truth. When hanging out with friends was more important than club sandwiches. One time when I was 16 I think I asked to come over and the excitement in her voice was all I needed to tell me it was a good idea to call. Just knowing that there was this strong old woman who was as pleased as punch just to have me over for company made me happy. I did go visit but this time I drove. We went through all of the usual routines and it was as good if not better than when I was younger.
This time I got to carry the grocery bags home though.
I remember being in my pre-teens when my mom would drop me off at the metro in MD to ride on into DC and get off at the Tenleytown stop (all by myself!) and ride the escalator that seemed like it was a mile high to daylight. Then I'd sit down at the curb of what used to be the Hechingers (which is now a crappy-ass Best Buy no less) to strap on my Rollerblades and continue my 10 or so block journey to grammas apt. building in front of the Cathedral; the understated yet regal Chancery.
Rolling past AU and checking out all of the girls (ew, cooties) playing field hockey, going past the five and dime store (which was called G.C. Murphy's in real life but Gramma insisted it was just the "five and dime") and finally passing the Zebra Room and a block later I was in front of the Chancery. I'd sit on the first step, de-strap and walk on up to the security door and ring the buzzer. Gramma was usually working the desk and switchboard. Yes, it was a real-deal oldschool switchboard. The single RCA-jack cable into the board with a bazillion lil' holes kind of deal. Oldschool.
She'd give me the mail to bring up to her apt and unload and then come back down so we could get the weekends groceries together and hopefully let me go to Sullivans to pick up a toy for the weekend. Sullivans is still there thank god and is sadly the only remaining landmark of my DC childhood still on Wisconsin Ave. Sure, Giant is still there but now it's bigger and brighter and the isles are wider than a single shopping cart. Murphys is gone and still empty too. But Sullivans is still there thank god. Sullivans is an oldschool toystore slash art supply place which hasn't sold out to bigger chains yet. It's maybe two master bedrooms big and filled with intelligent toys instead of the crap you see in most stores today.
I'd usually pick up a model or Lego set and we'd go the counter to check out. Gramma would pull out a $20 from her tiny change purse (she always, ALWAYS had cash which I thought was awesome) and we were on our way. I didn't really think of it until later in life but seeing how she wasn't really on a disposible source of income, I wonder just how much cash she dropped on me during those weekends and how that affected her weekly routines after I had gone...
Moving on from the toy store, we walked over to Giant and picked up the usual. The tiny 6 oz. frozen Minute Maid concentrate cylinders of tangerine juice (if any of you readers can find these still, I'll pay it's weight in gold to you to ship one to me), some coke for my brown cows (coke and vanilla ice cream duh) and some chicken nuggets for dinner. I'd try to grab the bags from her but she always insisted on carrying them. And she would always ask for paper bags inside plastic bags. I never knew why but I miss those paper bags nowadays. I remember looking at her frail arms. Almost see through at times. Bony at parts and strong in others. She walked faster than me through her entire life and was the one always telling me to keep up when I couldn't walk anymore and needed a break.
We'd walk on over to the Zebra Room (which was turned into the "Zebra Lounge" years later which is now a vacant building for christ's sake) to grab a bite to eat. I'd usually order the four-slice personal pepperoni pizza and she would order the club sandwich. The Zebra Room was this tiny hole in the wall pizza joint with white and black tile floors. The booths were black vinyl and most all of the staff were college AU gals. The jukebox always played awesome new-wave/post punk music which I attribute my love for said genre to this day. Again, grammy would drop some cash down after we were done eating and we were on our way back to the pad.
It would be close to 7ish by now so while I started on my toy project, she would draw a bath for me. Once everything was ready I had to go wash up and just relax in the awesome bathtub of hers. It wasn't so much as a grand tub of any sort mind you. It was just one of those old tubs from any average apartment building built in the 30's. All black and white tile. Oldschool metal fixtures et al. I remember laying all the way down and looking up underwater at the bubbles on the surface and trying to see how long I could hold my breath. It was the best bathtub in the entire universe and was the only bathtub I ever took a bath in. I think it's the last one I used to this day.
After the bath I'd come out in my PJ's and sit at the kitchen table with Gramma. She'd be playing solitaire and I'd continue creating some sort of toy. We'd watch Jeopardy on her 13" color tv which still had the channel knob that went up to 13. ABC wouldn't come in too great "because of the damn Russian embassy and their damn satellite's screwing up the reception." I had no idea what she was talking about at the time but to this day I still have some odd deep-seeded disdain towards the Russian embassy when I drive past it.
Around 9 we'd retire to the bedroom. Gramma had two twins. Mine was nearest the window. She'd usually get a shopping bag full of the weekly enquirer rags from another tenant which she liked to read and laugh at while I continued to be entertained by the TV in the corner. Usually most of the time I'd sit up in bed under the blankets with my knees up creating some sort of blanket mountain of sorts. The creases and folds made an awesome downhill race track which I sent all of my fearless Matchbox cars down. I remember doing this for damn near an hour some nights making new tracks with the folds and seeing which ones were faster to the bottom.
When it was time to go to bed, she usually kept the windows open which created my most favorite memory of my stays with her. The city traffic that passed were like ocean waves to me. The ambulances and fire trucks passing by. The whhhrr's of the city buses airbrakes stopping at the stop in front of the apt. building. All of the angry drivers honking. Bliss.
I miss going there. She used to tell me that I would stop coming over when I got older. After getting a drivers license or discovering girls or realizing that staying with grandma wasn't cool anymore. I never believed her until it really was the truth. When hanging out with friends was more important than club sandwiches. One time when I was 16 I think I asked to come over and the excitement in her voice was all I needed to tell me it was a good idea to call. Just knowing that there was this strong old woman who was as pleased as punch just to have me over for company made me happy. I did go visit but this time I drove. We went through all of the usual routines and it was as good if not better than when I was younger.
This time I got to carry the grocery bags home though.
Awww, my first IM wrong number.
jonstuck@mac.com: Hi Dennis
jkrew: ? This is Jason
jonstuck@mac.com: JOn
How are things in NJ?
jkrew: I'm not dennis.
jonstuck@mac.com: You show to me as Dennis.
Who is this?
SOrry
jkrew: no problem
jonstuck@mac.com: My address book must have crossed your info.
Who is this??
jkrew: this is Jason
jonstuck@mac.com: Jason?
I am so confused.....
Sorry
jonstuck@mac.com: Hi Dennis
jkrew: ? This is Jason
jonstuck@mac.com: JOn
How are things in NJ?
jkrew: I'm not dennis.
jonstuck@mac.com: You show to me as Dennis.
Who is this?
SOrry
jkrew: no problem
jonstuck@mac.com: My address book must have crossed your info.
Who is this??
jkrew: this is Jason
jonstuck@mac.com: Jason?
I am so confused.....
Sorry
This further cements my idea that living in Back to the Future (Part 1) times would be AWESOME.
Found in the Radcliffe Archives
Dear Eleanor,
Golly but you looked pretty in that newspaper picture of you at tea. You're a freshman, aren't you? I am too and would very much like to know a girl of your type of girl and maybe we could go around together while we are in Cambridge in the pursuit of knowledge.
I don't mean we should be serious like…just plutonic friends. Even if I wanted to give you all my time I couldn't do so as I am very busy practicing football and of course and in considerable demand among my classmates who are always wanting to meet me and talk with me about my exploits on the athletic field. But I realize plaudits of the crowd are just tinsel in the more serious business of life and would like to know someone who would not like me for my fame alone and would be willing to talk with me about the more Cultural aspects of life such as culture and etc.
Couldn't we meet soon? Perhaps we could go to the movies and I would be willing to pay for your ticket just so we could get acquainted. And afterwards, we could have a coke or an ice creams soda. If you felt we should have a chaperone on such a venture you could bring Miss Comstock with you and I will pay for her ticket and soada too.
I think you would find me quite a presentable companion to take you to the big dance at Radcliffe which my classmates tell me you have every year. I was president of my class at High school and am famed throughout the Middle West for my activities on the gridiron and cindertrack. I like clean outdoor sports and am considered handsome by many of the fair sex. I respect the traditions of American womanhood and am sure I would never give you cause to regret our meeting since I do not drink.
Please see if you can't agree to meet me. You could telephone me at Kirkland, and after we have met I will reimburse you for the call… I hope you answer will be 'yes'!!!"
Found in the Radcliffe Archives
Dear Eleanor,
Golly but you looked pretty in that newspaper picture of you at tea. You're a freshman, aren't you? I am too and would very much like to know a girl of your type of girl and maybe we could go around together while we are in Cambridge in the pursuit of knowledge.
I don't mean we should be serious like…just plutonic friends. Even if I wanted to give you all my time I couldn't do so as I am very busy practicing football and of course and in considerable demand among my classmates who are always wanting to meet me and talk with me about my exploits on the athletic field. But I realize plaudits of the crowd are just tinsel in the more serious business of life and would like to know someone who would not like me for my fame alone and would be willing to talk with me about the more Cultural aspects of life such as culture and etc.
Couldn't we meet soon? Perhaps we could go to the movies and I would be willing to pay for your ticket just so we could get acquainted. And afterwards, we could have a coke or an ice creams soda. If you felt we should have a chaperone on such a venture you could bring Miss Comstock with you and I will pay for her ticket and soada too.
I think you would find me quite a presentable companion to take you to the big dance at Radcliffe which my classmates tell me you have every year. I was president of my class at High school and am famed throughout the Middle West for my activities on the gridiron and cindertrack. I like clean outdoor sports and am considered handsome by many of the fair sex. I respect the traditions of American womanhood and am sure I would never give you cause to regret our meeting since I do not drink.
Please see if you can't agree to meet me. You could telephone me at Kirkland, and after we have met I will reimburse you for the call… I hope you answer will be 'yes'!!!"
A new picture book about plastic surgery aims to explain why mom is getting a flatter tummy and a 'prettier' nose.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/132240
*** editors note: if you want pics, go here.***
written on the train going home April 13th, 2008
We started up Roxy at around 9 in the morning to start our trip two hours east of Tampa to Sanford, Florida. It was really quite overcast this morning so the lack of AC wasn't a problem at all for us. I was really nervous starting the trip because I have been so used to basically being fucked by this damn MK3 curse of mine.
It all started back in '98. (Bear with me if you have heard this before but I think it suits the current story well.) I had just traded in my Jeep for a bare bones MK3 at a VW dealership all the way in VA as I was still living at home with mom in MD. I remember getting the bug at an exact moment while I was a student at U of Maryland in my second year there. A buddy of mine across the hall had a subscription to Autoweek and there was an article in it that was about the modern hotroder; namely the current generation of kids, the "import tuners" as they were so aptly named. The article was no more than 3 spreads long and in it there was a photo of a kid who was leaning on the hood of his bright yellow '93 honda civic Si hatch. By todays comparison it was probably really tame. No B16a swap. No turbo (turbo on a VTEC was only a dream back then). No nitrous. It was just a dumped Civic Si but the idea was there and thus giving me the bug that hasn't dissipated even to this day.
There was just something about it. Something dangerous. Something new and exciting and it was something that my Jeep just couldn't give me. So for the next year or so I started planning and lamenting almost to an obsessive level. I looked for Si's almost every day and let me tell you, they were as hard to find then as they are today. A year passed, I had since dropped out of Maryland and enrolled into community college for a year in hopes to go to art school the next fall. I still had my jeep and had done as much to it as possible. Shackle lift, 33's, freaking loud-ass stereo (and neon... don't laugh, it was cool back then I swear.)
That summer after comm. college, my mom and I packed up the Jeep and drove 800 miles down south to Savannah. Of course the Jeep didn't have AC so that was one awesome trip in the peak of heat stroke-time down south. The jeep survived a year at art school but after that I was done. I really had my fill of driving big cars. I wanted that hatch something fierce. So as soon as I got home from winter break, mom and I drove out to the Springfield VW dealer and I had my eyes set on a 95 Golf GL hatch. It wasn't A+ but it was perfect for me. I knew what a VR6 was at the time but because of a nervous mom and an undervalued trade in, I was stuck with the 2 liters of fury.
I drove "Dara" (yes, this was the original deal here) down south to be aptly accepted by the VW club down there quite nicely. I was on a students budget so I was pretty much stuck with her bone stock until summer came around and more money came in from lifeguarding. As soon as I had some cash saved up (and trust me, I worked my ass off that summer doing 60 hour weeks and grabbing as much overtime as I could), I was finding myself installing a nice 2" cupkit in the pool parking lot with my dad. It was a great bonding experiment because up until that time, my dad and I were part-time friends at best but it was way awesome looking back at it now. Two guys installing a near full suspension kit on an incline, in a pool parking lot, without proper strut tower bolt tools... using a Haynes manual (ok, we didn't know Robert Bentley back then either haha).
It was all over from there. I rounded out the package with tinted OEM tails, tinted blinkers and a nice eurosport exhaust with DTM tips (told you I was old school). After that I got some plaid GTI seats and a set of wheels. Hockenheims. 16 inches of beauty as 17's were also unheard of back in '99. I was on my way to being totally out of control in my moms eyes. This meant I was doing something right at the time.
A few months later I met a guy named Poppy at the Savanna VW dealer. He was a tech and supposedly knew his shit and also had a spare Passat VR6 laying in his backyard collecting dust. I had big dreams back then so I traded him my entire Jeep stereo for the engine swap and install. And then the curse happened. I took a perfectly fine 2.0 and ruined the entire thing. Poppy had no idea what he was doing and a "simple install" turned into me not having a car to drive for 3 months. 3 months in your last semester of school was a long time so one day, Stoner Dave and I rolled out to his house and pretty much threatened to beat him to a pulp if he didn't swap the 2.0 back. Poppy obliged and put the engine back in without installing the exhaust, coolant lines, AC. Pretty much just threw the engine in and kicked us off his property.
I limped home that summer and after the second day home, mom and I drove out to the VW dealer in town together. The cat was clogged by now and choking on it's last breath of life. Every time we came to a stop, the exhaust fumes nearly killed us both. I passed a dubber on the way to the dealer and told him if he followed me to the dealer, he could have my Hocks if he put his stock ones on; dead fair trade. As luck (and sadness) would have it, Dara died as soon as we got on the dealer lot. Like, dead as a doornail, never gonna start again dead. She survived just long enough to get me home from school safely.
I had officially killed my first VW.
I walked in, found my first dealer and said I wanted a brand new 2000 silver VR6. There was no silver so I took black. I didn't even test drive the car, just bought the first one he had coming off the boat and we were on our way. I remember driving off the lot and smiling my ass off at how hard it pulled. I was officially moving on up in the VW world.
Dara #2 was born.
That brings me to where I am today. Sitting on a train with Kate sitting next to me reading her nerd book and Roxy (hopefully) resting comfortably 10 or so cars behind us. I hope she is making friends. It's a little known fact that there is a group of people on the east coast called Snow Birds. They are the old timers of the upper east coast who take the auto train down to Florida in the winter to hide from the cold. Come summer time, they take their Buick Regals back up the east coast to enjoy the milder temperatures. Currently I am surrounded by said old people. Kate and I are the youngest people on this entire train by at least 4 decades. Everyone is cranky and I was nearly trampled at the coffee station about 30 minutes ago.
So, back to the car. A few months ago I paid a fellow dubber a couple hundred bucks to tie Roxy to the back of his trailer and drive her down to Florida. Namely to a place called 1552. Brad Beardow rebuilt her quickly dying heart, slapped a turbo on 'er and when she was done, we flew down to pick her up. My mom has a place down there so I turned it into a nice weekend jaunt with Kate. Flew down on Friday morning, hung out with momma for a fw hours and then made the trip out to Sarasota to pick Roxy up. Easy peasy.
I was nearly peeing myself when I got to the shop. I walked through the door and saw Roxy sitting there calmly behind a half naked MK2. I gleamed. We greeted Brad and then after a few minutes I was looking at her engine bay and admiring the shiny new pipes and what not that made her go fast. Brad pulled her out front and as soon as he turned the key, the 3" exhaust was music to my ears after driving a bone stock 318 for the past 6 weeks. The most ironic thing of the day was the drive home. One would think that given the keys to a car you hadn't driven for damn near 8 weeks which just so happened to have a fairly new and exponentially faster engine under the hood, you can imagine the thoughts running through my head right? Yeah, well keep in mind I drove over with my mom... In a Toyota Corolla rental car... Who had just realized you had no seat belts, airbags or any other safety feature in your car because it was "not needed".
We drove the 50 mile trip back home never going above 65 mph. It was quite possibly the most painful ride of my life. I don't think I hit boost the entire time. So after having dinner, Kate and I took her out again after the sun went down and thats when I really got to appreciate her. I'm new to turbos so the sound of the diverter valve was beautiful to me. The pull of the engine and the nearly gutted car was just pure fun. Plain and simple. And to think, I haven't really even opened her up yet due to not having a working tach. I don't think I have even hit full boost and the smile has yet to fade off my face.
We got to the train station at around noon today (after stopping off at Krystal which was FUCKING AWESOME I might add. Thanks Kate.) I knew there was a height requirement for the autotrain of 4" and as soon as we pulled up to the check in lady who just so happened to have a bar tester that was 4" in length, I nearly crapped myself as I saw her puzzled expression when she got back up from looking at the front of the car. Kate repeatedly saying "oh shit oh shit oh shit" wasn't helping me become any calmer either. I got out and said "I had a feeling this would be an issue... it's sort of lowered." I looked under the car and noticed that the intercooler was maybe 2.5" off the ground. The check in lady called over a guy who looked to be the brains of the operation and after him inspecting the pipe, he said he would try his best to load the car. "We'll just have to go slow with her" he said. I was set at ease as we made it through this check point and he drove her off to the side of the facility.
Twenty minutes later I saw him climb in (which was a site in itself seeing a 60 y/o man hop into a severely modded VW) and drove her in through the bottom of the train and scraping the exhaust in doing so. I could live with that.
She was safe. I was relived.
So here I am. Somewhere on the east coast going northbound. The sun is still fairly bright out, Kate's still knee deep in her nerd fantasy book and my ass is falling asleep. Every bounce we go over I am wondering if Roxy is safe. I really hope she doesn't come out looking like she just went 12 rounds with a boxing champ. We have dinner at seven and National Treasure 2 is showing at 9 so my night is fairly set. We get in at 9:30 tomorrow and they said it takes close to two hours to get every single car out so this entry could take a dark turn once it's finally published on the blog.
I'm still waiting for the MK3 curse of mine to rear it's ugly head. I mean, she made it the whole weekend without blowing up. She made it through racing it up and down US 19 this weekend and she made it through the 2 hour drive through Orlando, past the seven Lancer Evo's who were going to show and fairly intent on showing me just how fast they were and finally through the inspection to get on the train. Surely something is going to remind me of the curse right?
I guess we'll see soon enough. *crosses fingers
written on the train going home April 13th, 2008
We started up Roxy at around 9 in the morning to start our trip two hours east of Tampa to Sanford, Florida. It was really quite overcast this morning so the lack of AC wasn't a problem at all for us. I was really nervous starting the trip because I have been so used to basically being fucked by this damn MK3 curse of mine.
It all started back in '98. (Bear with me if you have heard this before but I think it suits the current story well.) I had just traded in my Jeep for a bare bones MK3 at a VW dealership all the way in VA as I was still living at home with mom in MD. I remember getting the bug at an exact moment while I was a student at U of Maryland in my second year there. A buddy of mine across the hall had a subscription to Autoweek and there was an article in it that was about the modern hotroder; namely the current generation of kids, the "import tuners" as they were so aptly named. The article was no more than 3 spreads long and in it there was a photo of a kid who was leaning on the hood of his bright yellow '93 honda civic Si hatch. By todays comparison it was probably really tame. No B16a swap. No turbo (turbo on a VTEC was only a dream back then). No nitrous. It was just a dumped Civic Si but the idea was there and thus giving me the bug that hasn't dissipated even to this day.
There was just something about it. Something dangerous. Something new and exciting and it was something that my Jeep just couldn't give me. So for the next year or so I started planning and lamenting almost to an obsessive level. I looked for Si's almost every day and let me tell you, they were as hard to find then as they are today. A year passed, I had since dropped out of Maryland and enrolled into community college for a year in hopes to go to art school the next fall. I still had my jeep and had done as much to it as possible. Shackle lift, 33's, freaking loud-ass stereo (and neon... don't laugh, it was cool back then I swear.)
That summer after comm. college, my mom and I packed up the Jeep and drove 800 miles down south to Savannah. Of course the Jeep didn't have AC so that was one awesome trip in the peak of heat stroke-time down south. The jeep survived a year at art school but after that I was done. I really had my fill of driving big cars. I wanted that hatch something fierce. So as soon as I got home from winter break, mom and I drove out to the Springfield VW dealer and I had my eyes set on a 95 Golf GL hatch. It wasn't A+ but it was perfect for me. I knew what a VR6 was at the time but because of a nervous mom and an undervalued trade in, I was stuck with the 2 liters of fury.
I drove "Dara" (yes, this was the original deal here) down south to be aptly accepted by the VW club down there quite nicely. I was on a students budget so I was pretty much stuck with her bone stock until summer came around and more money came in from lifeguarding. As soon as I had some cash saved up (and trust me, I worked my ass off that summer doing 60 hour weeks and grabbing as much overtime as I could), I was finding myself installing a nice 2" cupkit in the pool parking lot with my dad. It was a great bonding experiment because up until that time, my dad and I were part-time friends at best but it was way awesome looking back at it now. Two guys installing a near full suspension kit on an incline, in a pool parking lot, without proper strut tower bolt tools... using a Haynes manual (ok, we didn't know Robert Bentley back then either haha).
It was all over from there. I rounded out the package with tinted OEM tails, tinted blinkers and a nice eurosport exhaust with DTM tips (told you I was old school). After that I got some plaid GTI seats and a set of wheels. Hockenheims. 16 inches of beauty as 17's were also unheard of back in '99. I was on my way to being totally out of control in my moms eyes. This meant I was doing something right at the time.
A few months later I met a guy named Poppy at the Savanna VW dealer. He was a tech and supposedly knew his shit and also had a spare Passat VR6 laying in his backyard collecting dust. I had big dreams back then so I traded him my entire Jeep stereo for the engine swap and install. And then the curse happened. I took a perfectly fine 2.0 and ruined the entire thing. Poppy had no idea what he was doing and a "simple install" turned into me not having a car to drive for 3 months. 3 months in your last semester of school was a long time so one day, Stoner Dave and I rolled out to his house and pretty much threatened to beat him to a pulp if he didn't swap the 2.0 back. Poppy obliged and put the engine back in without installing the exhaust, coolant lines, AC. Pretty much just threw the engine in and kicked us off his property.
I limped home that summer and after the second day home, mom and I drove out to the VW dealer in town together. The cat was clogged by now and choking on it's last breath of life. Every time we came to a stop, the exhaust fumes nearly killed us both. I passed a dubber on the way to the dealer and told him if he followed me to the dealer, he could have my Hocks if he put his stock ones on; dead fair trade. As luck (and sadness) would have it, Dara died as soon as we got on the dealer lot. Like, dead as a doornail, never gonna start again dead. She survived just long enough to get me home from school safely.
I had officially killed my first VW.
I walked in, found my first dealer and said I wanted a brand new 2000 silver VR6. There was no silver so I took black. I didn't even test drive the car, just bought the first one he had coming off the boat and we were on our way. I remember driving off the lot and smiling my ass off at how hard it pulled. I was officially moving on up in the VW world.
Dara #2 was born.
That brings me to where I am today. Sitting on a train with Kate sitting next to me reading her nerd book and Roxy (hopefully) resting comfortably 10 or so cars behind us. I hope she is making friends. It's a little known fact that there is a group of people on the east coast called Snow Birds. They are the old timers of the upper east coast who take the auto train down to Florida in the winter to hide from the cold. Come summer time, they take their Buick Regals back up the east coast to enjoy the milder temperatures. Currently I am surrounded by said old people. Kate and I are the youngest people on this entire train by at least 4 decades. Everyone is cranky and I was nearly trampled at the coffee station about 30 minutes ago.
So, back to the car. A few months ago I paid a fellow dubber a couple hundred bucks to tie Roxy to the back of his trailer and drive her down to Florida. Namely to a place called 1552. Brad Beardow rebuilt her quickly dying heart, slapped a turbo on 'er and when she was done, we flew down to pick her up. My mom has a place down there so I turned it into a nice weekend jaunt with Kate. Flew down on Friday morning, hung out with momma for a fw hours and then made the trip out to Sarasota to pick Roxy up. Easy peasy.
I was nearly peeing myself when I got to the shop. I walked through the door and saw Roxy sitting there calmly behind a half naked MK2. I gleamed. We greeted Brad and then after a few minutes I was looking at her engine bay and admiring the shiny new pipes and what not that made her go fast. Brad pulled her out front and as soon as he turned the key, the 3" exhaust was music to my ears after driving a bone stock 318 for the past 6 weeks. The most ironic thing of the day was the drive home. One would think that given the keys to a car you hadn't driven for damn near 8 weeks which just so happened to have a fairly new and exponentially faster engine under the hood, you can imagine the thoughts running through my head right? Yeah, well keep in mind I drove over with my mom... In a Toyota Corolla rental car... Who had just realized you had no seat belts, airbags or any other safety feature in your car because it was "not needed".
We drove the 50 mile trip back home never going above 65 mph. It was quite possibly the most painful ride of my life. I don't think I hit boost the entire time. So after having dinner, Kate and I took her out again after the sun went down and thats when I really got to appreciate her. I'm new to turbos so the sound of the diverter valve was beautiful to me. The pull of the engine and the nearly gutted car was just pure fun. Plain and simple. And to think, I haven't really even opened her up yet due to not having a working tach. I don't think I have even hit full boost and the smile has yet to fade off my face.
We got to the train station at around noon today (after stopping off at Krystal which was FUCKING AWESOME I might add. Thanks Kate.) I knew there was a height requirement for the autotrain of 4" and as soon as we pulled up to the check in lady who just so happened to have a bar tester that was 4" in length, I nearly crapped myself as I saw her puzzled expression when she got back up from looking at the front of the car. Kate repeatedly saying "oh shit oh shit oh shit" wasn't helping me become any calmer either. I got out and said "I had a feeling this would be an issue... it's sort of lowered." I looked under the car and noticed that the intercooler was maybe 2.5" off the ground. The check in lady called over a guy who looked to be the brains of the operation and after him inspecting the pipe, he said he would try his best to load the car. "We'll just have to go slow with her" he said. I was set at ease as we made it through this check point and he drove her off to the side of the facility.
Twenty minutes later I saw him climb in (which was a site in itself seeing a 60 y/o man hop into a severely modded VW) and drove her in through the bottom of the train and scraping the exhaust in doing so. I could live with that.
She was safe. I was relived.
So here I am. Somewhere on the east coast going northbound. The sun is still fairly bright out, Kate's still knee deep in her nerd fantasy book and my ass is falling asleep. Every bounce we go over I am wondering if Roxy is safe. I really hope she doesn't come out looking like she just went 12 rounds with a boxing champ. We have dinner at seven and National Treasure 2 is showing at 9 so my night is fairly set. We get in at 9:30 tomorrow and they said it takes close to two hours to get every single car out so this entry could take a dark turn once it's finally published on the blog.
I'm still waiting for the MK3 curse of mine to rear it's ugly head. I mean, she made it the whole weekend without blowing up. She made it through racing it up and down US 19 this weekend and she made it through the 2 hour drive through Orlando, past the seven Lancer Evo's who were going to show and fairly intent on showing me just how fast they were and finally through the inspection to get on the train. Surely something is going to remind me of the curse right?
I guess we'll see soon enough. *crosses fingers
So while peeing today I looked down and noticed that my gut was less substantial than it was 6 months ago which is awesome but it's, of course, still there. Then I thought about being 15 and bugging the ever-loving shit out of my pops to buy me a set of Rollerblades. I was pretty much the first person in the state to get a pair as they were still really obscure hockey training equipment only being sold in one store in MD at the time. So after a few months I finally broke the old man down and I was the happy owner of a first gen pair of Rollerblades.
I used to skate at least 10 miles a day, everyday for damn near 3 years. Honestly, 2-3 hours a day. I built a launch ramp after the first month. I received a sweet double compound fracture because of them and was launching off the ramp a week after I got out of the hospital. I think I went through at least a dozen pairs of them not because I was wasteful, I simply just wore through them all.
Due to said exercise, that time of my life would mark the pinnacle of my good health. I was in the best shape I would ever be in. I was a cross country runner, soccer player, lacrosse player et al. Skating 20 miles after school wasn't an issue to me. But then I got my license and it all went down hill from there. I started smoking, I learned that skating wasn't as cool as driving and slowly but surely I traded in my skates for cars. My good health stayed with me for some time though just because I was blessed with a high metabolism and I didn't really drink until the end of my college career. I graduated and kept on drinking, quit with the exercise and the belly started to show it's ugly face.
So fast forward 6-7 years... I would say that the night before Kate was supposed to move in, I was in the worst shape of my entire life. It was pretty bad. I was depressed and eating and drinking my way to death. I wasn't obese but I wasn't close to being in shape either.
But now I'm somewhat happy. I'm getting into shape and always have to remind myself that I didn't get out-of-shape over night so I surely wouldn't get in-shape overnight either. It's just frustrating looking at myself in the mirror and actually caring for once. I'm mad that I let myself get this way because it's not who I am nor who I should be.
Plus I'm about to get married so I will have this hot soccermom wife to keep impressing so she won't leave my fat ass for the gardener.
I used to skate at least 10 miles a day, everyday for damn near 3 years. Honestly, 2-3 hours a day. I built a launch ramp after the first month. I received a sweet double compound fracture because of them and was launching off the ramp a week after I got out of the hospital. I think I went through at least a dozen pairs of them not because I was wasteful, I simply just wore through them all.
Due to said exercise, that time of my life would mark the pinnacle of my good health. I was in the best shape I would ever be in. I was a cross country runner, soccer player, lacrosse player et al. Skating 20 miles after school wasn't an issue to me. But then I got my license and it all went down hill from there. I started smoking, I learned that skating wasn't as cool as driving and slowly but surely I traded in my skates for cars. My good health stayed with me for some time though just because I was blessed with a high metabolism and I didn't really drink until the end of my college career. I graduated and kept on drinking, quit with the exercise and the belly started to show it's ugly face.
So fast forward 6-7 years... I would say that the night before Kate was supposed to move in, I was in the worst shape of my entire life. It was pretty bad. I was depressed and eating and drinking my way to death. I wasn't obese but I wasn't close to being in shape either.
But now I'm somewhat happy. I'm getting into shape and always have to remind myself that I didn't get out-of-shape over night so I surely wouldn't get in-shape overnight either. It's just frustrating looking at myself in the mirror and actually caring for once. I'm mad that I let myself get this way because it's not who I am nor who I should be.
Plus I'm about to get married so I will have this hot soccermom wife to keep impressing so she won't leave my fat ass for the gardener.
To the asshole who stole my debit card number
0 Comments Published by JKREW on Tuesday, April 08, 2008 at 2:25 PM.
Thanks a fuckload ass. Now I have like, 192 different autopay things to update.
Fucking fuckers.
Fucking fuckers.
How to ruin a perfectly good thing
1 Comments Published by JKREW on Monday, April 07, 2008 at 1:25 PM.
Poor spyder =(
Yes please...
So I hated this gal back in the day but fuck all if she isn't awesomely kickass now... Crazy sells, people!
