Ten Years Ago

A few days ago, I was doing some car stuff in my garage, and the thought crossed my mind "Why don't I do the maintenance tasks I used to do"? Part of the reason was our move, five years ago, to our Southern Utah home, and a smaller, two car garage. I just didn't have the room.  So, I left some of my tools, and maintenance equipment, at our Northern Utah home that I sold to my son.
For the last five years, I got used to taking my cars to someone else for routine maintenance tasks, that I used to do myself. Eight months ago, we moved into our new home, and I now have a very nice three car garage. It has plenty of room. If I wanted to, I could resume doing the kind of maintenance that I used to do. Ten years ago, I was still doing all my oil changes, tire rotations, and making some occasional performance modifications, to all of our vehicles. That's in addition to the normal detail cleaning that I still do to our cars. Detail cleaning, and tire treatment, is the one thing I never stopped doing, even when I had the smaller garage.
Maybe my age is partly to blame, but I don't want to go back to doing oil changes and tire rotations. I guess ten years ago, I had a little more energy.
For more of my story, check out my book at; Grab Some Gears

My garage ten years ago.  A lot of car maintenance was performed here.

End of Summer

We’ve reached that time of the year, summer is almost over, and fall will be here before we know it. It’s like I wrote about in my last post, time goes by faster all the time.
It seems that that there’s always so many things that I planned to get done, that somehow didn’t get accomplished in the time I had hoped for. I’m thinking that I’m not the only one in this situation, we all seem to have the same problem.
Ok, one season is almost over, and the next one is about to begin, time to put together a plan for what I want to accomplish before winter gets here. Best of luck to all of us.

Summer lasts a long time here in Southern Utah. 

Time Goes So Fast

For as long as we can remember, the older people in our life have been telling us that time goes by faster the older we get. It was just something people would say, until I woke up one day and found that somehow I got old myself.
In recent years, I have noticed that the old saying is true. At least from our perspective, time does seems to go by faster as we get older. We get thinking about something that happened in our past, then we realize it wasn’t just a few years ago, it was 20 or 30 years ago. We shake our head and exclaim, where did all that time go?

It’s hard to believe, I’ve been with this beautiful lady for 50 years.

The Road is Calling

Over the last few years, I have spent a lot of time on the road, attending to various matters in our families lives. I was making almost weekly trips between Northern and Southern Utah, from the time we bought our southern house until we moved down here as our primary home. I got to know that portion of I-15 by heart.
 About the the time that happened, family issues had us making the 930 mile road trip to Washington State on a pretty regular basis. Over the next four years, I got to know those roads, through those four states ( Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington ), like the back of my hand. And, I made that trip more times than I can remember, in every kind of weather you can imagine.
All that driving was no problem, I have always loved to drive. It didn't take long before I had a picture in my mind, of every hill and valley, and each country side vista, of the entire trip.  It's always been that way with me, for every road I have traveled more than a couple of times, since I was a teenager.
Now that various situations in our lives have kept us home more over the last couple years, I miss the road. Every once in awhile, something will remind me, and I see those pictures in my mind, of a portion of a road I haven't traveled in awhile. It's like the road is calling me. I'm looking forward to the day that I will get back out there again.

A portion of highway 59,  here in Southern Utah,  that I have traveled many times.

We Would Never Have Believed

If somebody from the future would have visited us 30 or 40 years ago, and tried to explain the technology we use today, we would never have believed it.  We may not even have understood what they were talking about, even when they tried to explain it.
I sometimes wonder, if I could talk to my Dad, or Grandfather, who were car guys to some degree, and have been gone for many years, could I even explain our cars of today. And, the cars are only a small part of it. We live with technology, playing a big part of every aspect of our lives today.
Knowing what we live with today, think of what might be 10 or 20 years into the future. Now I can't even believe myself, the stuff we still have coming will amaze us, no doubt.
Anyone interested can check out my book by following this link; Grab Some Gears

Me at age 16, checking out my Mom's new 66 Mustang.

Followers

Last week I went over 5000 on the number of followers on my Twitter page. That's not a big deal for a lot of people, especially famous people. But, for an average car guy from down the block, it seems like quite a few.
That got me wondering who all these people are, and why are they following me? I guess it's for the same reason I follow the people I do, they must have some of the same interests, and enjoy seeing the photos I post. That's the reason I follow the people I do. I don't really know much about most of these people, but, the few that I am more acquainted with, I feel we could be friends in "real life".
Over the years I have been posting on social media, I have been making an effort to improve the quality of the media I post. That's what I enjoy about the pictures I see that others have put out there, and I try to constantly improve the quality of the photos I post on my page.
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am a "car guy", so that's mostly what I post. Very seldom you will see other subject matter appearing on my pages, but, I will try to keep any of that high photographic quality as well.

(Random photo from unknown Twitter source).

Time Machine

Does anyone know how many books and movies have been produced that have included the subject of time travel?  There have been many, and the "Back to the Future" stories are some of the most popular in recent years.
The idea of a time machine has been around for hundreds of years, but especially in the 20th. century. We all may wonder what we would go back and change, or travel to the future to see, if we had such a machine. In the books and movies, something usually goes wrong in those adventures, and if we could actually time travel in real life, I'm sure we would mess things up somehow.
The closest thing I have to a time machine is my modern muscle car. In this world of millions of mass produced transportation appliances clogging our streets, my car at least reminds me of times gone by. Driving it makes me remember why I fell in love with muscle cars over 50 years ago. And, if only for a few moments at a time, I'm a teenager again.
Anyone who wants to know where my story began, follow this link and check out my book; Grab Some Gears

My time machine,  just making the leap,  into the future.