Random Thought 11 A Blog Within A Blog

Well world, I have no idea if people actually keep track of this thing, or if the 250 pageviews I've had are from people finding this blog on StumbleUpon, but in case you didn't know, I've been on a mission for the past three months.

Now I'm not talking a goal oriented "I'm going on a mission to lose ten pounds" mission, but an actual church mission. given my lengthy medical history, I was given the option to instead of serve a two year mission like most guys in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go on, but a three month mission. Short-term, trial mission, whatever you call it, I don't think there was a defined term, but basically, I served for 12 weeks in the Idaho Twin Falls Mission. The purpose was to test if I would really be able to hold for 24 months of walking around, knocking on doors and teaching people about Jesus. So, I was sent off to a foriegn land, two and a half hours down the Interstate and was told to teach the gospel.

Normally, a new missionary goes to what's called the MTC or Missionary Training Center for about two weeks, or six weeks if you're learning a language. There are several around the world and they are facilities to help prepare and obviously train the new missionaries before the go out "in the field" and do the "real" work. Well, I didn't get that opportunity. Literally, the night before I went on my mission, I was watching Netflix in my basement till one in the morning.

So I was thrown into this experience feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. My companion that I would be with for the next six weeks or more asked me on the car ride to our area we taught in what I expected of him, and of the mission.

I had absolutely no answer. I had no idea what teaching was like. I had no idea what the schedule was like. I had no idea what on earth I was doing. And so that first day, we went out there and taught a few people lessons, had dinner, and taught a few more. The next morning, we woke up at 6:30 and did it all over again till we got back to the apartment at 9:00 that night and going to bed at 10:30.

We also had a car. Our apartment was about 8 miles from the center of the town of Jerome, where we did most of our teaching, so we had it good. We drove everywhere, and do to my physical limitations, we were basically given as many miles on the car as needed. Most missionaries are restricted based on the size of their teaching area, if you're lucky enough to have a car in the first place.

But despite the cushy apartment we ended up with (most are pretty mediocre) and the nice little 2011 Toyota Corolla we had, my body still hated me. Despite being able to drive to all of our appointments, to drive to every dinner we had with church members, I just couldn't keep doing it day after day. The mental and emotional stress, combined with the physical stress of everything was just a bit too much. When most missionaries go to sleep exhausted at night, I came home exhausted, with my ankles locked up and my knees inflamed. I would pop 800 milligrams of ibuprofen to curb the pain and try to get some sleep, which came in fits.

I did this for 12 weeks. 90 days. 1260 hours. The only relief was the one day a week we got to prepare for the week, email our families and hang out with other missionaries. But the day was pretty much only from 10:30am to 6:00pm. the rest of the day was normal schedule.

So, here I am. Home. Do I feel ashamed? You bet I do. No matter how many people tell me "You did all you could do." or "Your body just wasn't meant for a full two years." There is still the fact that I wasn't able to do it. Do I let it fester inside of me all the time? No. But when other missionaries come home, and I get to see them, or I get emails from other missionaries, it reminds me of what I could be doing right now, and I do get a little frustrated. But such is life.

The fact of the matter is that many times in this life, we're put in situations that sometimes we don't know the outcome. Many times that outcome is "bad" or not the way we want. But how we come out of that trial is up to us and if we handle it with constant shame of not living up to expectations, we can become toxic to ourselves.

With that tinge of remorse that I feel occationally comes a sense of pride that I actually did it. I put forth that faith not knowing the outcome. The fact is that this is exactly the outcome my Father in Heaven wanted and I know that he's happy with me. I was never meant to serve a full two years. Do I know why? No. But I can tell you that I feel a great deal of accomplishment in getting as far as I did  Because it's purely voluntary. I have friends that went on missions and friends that didn't, and I can tell you that even with only three months under my belt, I feel so much more prepared for life, learning, and just EVERYTHING in general, that I feel good about what I've done.

It doesn't matter how long I served. it doesn't matter that I had to "quit" after barely getting started because the Lord new exactly where he wanted me. It's all just up to me to keep His same attitude about the situation.

The reason this blog post is out, is so any of you "followers" if there are any, can know where I've been for a while, and to let you know that I'll be starting a blog within a blog. My life has a little more than just cars, dirt bikes and snowmobiles in it. For some strange reason, my relatives miss my letters home, and think I should start a "post-mission blog" which isn't going to be all that thrilling, but I'll give it a shot since I love them.

Smell ya later!

Random Thought 10 ROAD TRIP!!!

Oh gosh. This is going to be a long one boys and girls, but over the past week I've had so many thoughts go through my head, and I just wanna get them out there.

So, be warned, your computer might explode from the length of this (although the little box they give you always makes things seem much longer than they actually turn out to be) (you can laugh and make a wiener joke now.) But I just did anyway by saying that.

So, in the month that I haven't posted on my mediocre, hardly viewed blog, I got a road bike. And not some stupid ten speed. It's a REAL road bike.

Okay, it's not quite a "real" one. You're probably envisioning some sleek, blacked out Harley Davidson. Nope. I hate Harley's anyway. But that's for another post. My bike is a 2002 Suzuki Savage 650. A tiny little cruiser that most people view as nothing because it only has one cylinder. A Thumper, as they say. And by they, I mean we. And by we, I mean motorcyclists.

It's usually a girls bike. I'll be the first to admit it. But the fact is, I'm the size of most girls. And I've accepted that. I don't care that I'm riding a "girls bike" because this thing is funner than heck! Anyway. I'll get on with my post.

I just got back this afternoon from a three day up through Idaho and Yellowstone. I live about two hours away if you take the highway, so we've been there often, but this was my first and my parents second time up on bikes. This was also my first "real" ride. I've been out on little half hour jaunts around the area, but nothing like this.

First, what I learned about riding street bikes in general (well, mostly the bad things) (I've been dirt biking since I could touch the ground on a bike)

1- Bison are cool in a car when they're in opposing traffic, but scary as hell when you're on a bike.
2- GoPro's are great when you think you're about to be gored by a bison. Capture your last moments in stunning 1080p.
3- Rain sucks.
3- Same goes for semi's in opposing traffic going 75 with a crosswind.
4- PVC rain pants will melt on your exhaust (anyone have a solution to that?)
5- Put that rain gear on before your actually get to the rain.
6- Bread bags over your socks work great if you don't want soaking feet. Again, put them on before the rain.
7- Pack extra socks You might hit rain and not have your breadbags on yet.
8- Mom's are secretly terrified of street biking (she was looking back on almost every corner for the first two days.) It was especially fun when I passed that 1 ton up the hill.
9- Wasps can somehow still get inside your jacket, and sting you.... multiple times (3 to be exact) before they find their way out the bottom of the leather.

Second, things I learned about my Savage.
1- This thing has plenty of balls to haul my scrawny butt around. My dad named him "Lil' Thumper" cause it's "The Little Thumper That Could" After I passed a 1 ton truck up a mountain pass doing about 80 or so. With a pretty gnarly headwind to boot.
2- If you're a small guy (or girl) like me at 5' 4", 130lbs. The Savage is a GREAT bike. Especially if you've never even touched a manual gear box on a vehicle. The things just lugs WAY down low and I'd have to try to get it to stall on take off if I wanted to. My only problem is I'm still trying to run the thing like my dirt bike, or my brothers Ninja 250 so I'll get the thing pretty rapped up before I shift. I need to learn to just chill.
4- Road bikes are pretty much the most fun you can have in the mountains. Not only can you blast around some windy corners, but your whole viewing angle changes. Instead of the 30 degrees you have looking out the side of the car window, I have 180 degrees (give or take) of awesome. I've been to "Jellystone" so many times in my life, but none of them were like this. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
4- My dad's bike is fast as hell. (2003 Kawisaki Concours) When you line up next to your old man, who's total bike weight with gear and all is about 1300lbs, you're not even touching 500lbs, and you still get your butt handed to you, you know that bike is fast. But that's what you get when you have an engine with more power than a Civic and redlines at 12000 rpm. The crazy thing is that they now have a Concours 14. 400 more cc's to scare the crap out of you.
5- Your hands go numb and your ears start to ring after about an hour of riding at 75 in the wind.
6- 50mph is like the perfect speed on this bike. Enough to see the country go by, be comfy in your rpms, and still have enough umph to get around the slower traffic. Lil' Thumper just purred.

I'm in love with this bike other than the speedo being in the tank. It's a pain to have to look down to check your speed, but for the most part, I was behind dad, so I just gauged my speed off him.

As far as a review of the actual ride:

Day One: Mainly just taking the backroads around S. E. Idaho and finding towns that I didn't even know existed. Which is really cool. I saw a "Pop. 75" sign. Going out on the farmland that's west of the Idaho Falls and Rexburg area with just wide open stretches of awesome. Especially now when the grain harvest.

We stopped off at Big Jud's in Ashton for dinner. (They have a Boise shop that was features on Travel Channel's Man v. Food. Yes. I've had a Big Jud, and yes, I regretted it.) Pretty much every burger on their menu is great. If you're in Boise, Archer or Ashton Idaho, you gotta stop in.

Then we went on up to our cabin in Island Park. It was my first full day of riding, and I was pumped to say the least.

Day Two: This was our "Yellowstone Day" We hand intentions to try and hit the whole Grand Loop, but people think they have to get their telephoto lens set up on their camera and take a snapshot of one little bison a 1/4 mile away from the road. EVERY TIME.

Sorry, local guy rant. But it makes for asinine traffic back ups. When you're in a black leather jacket, on black asphalt, on a black air cooled bike, you have something to complain about.

Oh, and the rain I eluded to earlier. That slowed us up quite a bit. So, we ended up just taking the Lower Loop. But it was still gorgeous.

There were many nice little twisty spots that if you're lucky, you can catch them just right to not be ruined by the family in the Subaru Outback that seems to always be going 5-10 under the limit while looking for an animal.

BIG FOOD TIP

If you're coming in through the west entrance around meal time DO NOT stop to eat in West Yellowstone.

Those $5 foot longs everyone loves. They're $9. Want the Buffalo Chicken (my favorite) $12. Go to one of the little places in Island Park. Ponds Lodge, Macks Inn, and the Henry's Fork "something or other) Grill will get you twice your meal for the price. It's only about a 20 mile distance from their to "West". It's worth it if you're cheap like me and you happen to be in the area.

Day Three: After waking up to what looked like certain rain, I slipped on my trusty bread bags in my newly dried boots and fresh socks and expected the worst. We came out of Island Park on the Mesa Falls Scenic Highway, and I have to say we should have gone up that way. One of the funnest stretches of pavement on the whole ride, and the landscape is gorgeous. If you haven't, you need to stop at the Upper Mesa Falls. You get about 50 yards away from a big old waterfall. Makes for some great pics for your riding scrap book.

We came off the "mountain" and headed for Teton Valley by way of Felt. Yep. That's the town name. Felt, Idaho. I know.

Teton Valley is one of those places that it would be nice to have a little cabin there, or you could live there if you really wanted it. Jackson Hole is only a hop, skip and a jump away and the place is infested by the people that didn't want to pay the asinine home prices in JH, so they settle for the next best thing and ruin The Valley. Sorry, another local rant. That's where my grandparent grew up, and where an aunt/uncle/cousins live, so it's a common discussion.

Wanting to get home in time to take a nice nap, we decided to not go through Jackson and cut through Pine Creek Pass through to Swan Valley (Yeah, it depends on the day, or who I'm talking to if I say creek or crick) Swan Valley has the Rainy Creek Store commonly referred to as "the square ice cream store". They have square scooped ice cream. It's made by a local company called Farr's Ice Cream, here in Idaho Falls. I recommend the Huckleberry. Farr's also has some pretty rockin' candy. The squared-ness of it all is really just a novelty, but it's a good way to cool off, and a spot to gas up at the least.

The 50 miles from Swan Valley back to Idaho Falls were brutal. We had some pretty gnarly crosswinds. My dad wasn't even flinching for most, but I had some pretty heavy counter steer going on to keep me centered in the lane. The Semi's in opposing traffic didn't help either... nor did the howling wind noise.

Anyway. That was my trip. If you have any questions if you have a trip planned, I know my way around the area. Feel free to hit me up. Or don't. Your choice.

Random Thought 9 Mustangs

I'm sorry if I offend any Ford fans out there (Maybe I'm not, actually) but I hate Mustangs.

Yes. I said it. Mustangs suck. And it's not just because I'm a Dodge fanboy. It's because for the most part, they really do suck.

First Generation:
The first generation was the best generation. There's really no argument on that. It sold millions of units, I'll admit to that because it's true. The problem with the first gen Mustang is that EVERYONE loves it. It's that "muscle car" for people that don't know anything about muscle cars, because they don't actually know that the Mustang is not a muscle car.

Pontiac GTO: Muscle car Dodge Charger: Muscle car Ford Mustang: Pony car

The Mustang is MUCH smaller when put next to a real muscle car. It wasn't intended to have an absolutely massive engine from the start, but it ended up that way. In the beginning, it was built to handle and run with the European cars of the day.

Second Generation:
Okay, Lee Iaccoca, the savior of Detroit, came into power at Ford in the early 70's and wanted to make the Mustang more fuel efficient. The US was in a fuel shortage and the Mustang had to adapt.

So it did. And built a fuel efficient muscle car on the Pinto platform. Don't worry, your 2nd gen 'Stang isn't going to blow up. At least I don't think.

My problem with this car it could have really been a good looking car. They almost had the looks down, but the platform of the Pinto, and the quest for MPG strangled the styling and left it looking like a half hearted attempt at a car. It's too curvy. Muscle cars aren't curvy. Yeah, they have some curves, but not like this car.

Third Generation:
This is easily the worst Mustang generation ever. It is absolutely neutered. All Mustang styling is gone. It's a harsh reminder of the hatchback Gremlin ridden days that Ford had come from, and their desire to keep the nameplate alive. But this, this is just a disgrace to the nameplate. Yeah, it had a pretty hot running 5.0 in it and a Cobra model, but it's sooooo ugly. I just can't get past it. The only solace I take is that in the mid 80's they were going to build a redesign off of a Mazda platform and it was going to be Front Wheel Drive, but they didn't and that car became the Ford Probe.

THE PROBE! Did Ford have no knowledge of what happened during alien abductions?

Fourth Generation:
I remember vaguely when this was in production. It came out when I was a year old, and ran till I was eleven. I thought it was not a very good looking car then and I still don't. It's better than the generation previous, but it still looks like it's put some lame Mustang body kit on a normal 90's car

Fifth Generation:
I think this is the best generation and the worst generation of Mustang. They're good looking cars, the retro styling is great, they have great engines, cool retro packages like the Boss 302, and they're dirt cheap.

The problem is that everyone knows that and they are EVERYWHERE. I swear I will see at least three fifth generation Mustangs on any given day, and everyone that owns one things it's the hottest car to grace the pavement since Benz rolled out his first car back in the 1880's. It's crap. 90% of those cars have been poorly taken care of, or have V6's that could be beat by a Honda Accord.

Anyway. Rant off. I gotta write a paper.

Yay Finals week.

Random Thought 8 Brand Specialties

Well, I forgot I had made two drafts of posts, and kinda forgot I did until now, so today is a two for one day.

This is a topic that I get the logistics and focus of it, but I don't really like it. What I mean by specialties is when a auto company has multiple brands with each brand having their own niche. For instance, GM has Chevy has the every day car, Buick as the Premium brand, Cadillac as the Luxury brand, and GMC as the truck division.

One company I haven't gotten is Chrysler. Yes, I don't like how my favorite car company does SOMETHING. They're not perfect. (but they're pretty close)

Pre-2008 Chrysler (the overall company) had three manufacturers. Dodge built cars and trucks, Jeep built super off-roaders, and Chrysler (brand) built luxury. Each had their SRT performance variants of production cars.

In their Post-2008 Fiat owned period, they have Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, and SRT. For some reason, they wanted Ram to focus on building trucks as a whole new brand and SRT as a whole new brand to focus on building screaming performance cars.

I get it. If there's a whole other group working on one sector of the market with their own allotment of funding, their own teams, leader, and their own focus, you can get things done, but with the red tape you would have to go through and rebadging and the confusion of splitting things up, my question is "Why?" Truely, could Ram not be what Ram is today without being seperate? Does it really bring more sales? Ford doesn't do that and they've been the sales leader for years in trucks. Does the Dodge name make trucks any more tough? I don't think so.

SRT being a completely different division is just asinine. No one else does it and so far, there has been no sales difference to speak of. I know they're trying to go for the whole "It's not a Dodge Challenger, It's a SRT Challenger" to get away from the slightly redneck upbringing Dodge has had, but I don't think people care that much. I sure don't.

If I had a car company, it would be one company that built everything. There would be no dealer left out of the car segment, or a a cowboy in rural Texas could buy my performance sports car and not have to drive 100 miles to go to an SRT dealership or anything like that.

It's Goofy. That's about all I can say.

Random Thought 7 Engines

Engines confuse me. Not mechanically speaking. I understand all that garbage. It’s what manufacturers do with their engines that confuses me. For instance, Chrysler has a 3.6 Liter Pentastar V6 that has been a very solid engine that can be found in almost every single vehicle that Chrysler rolls out it’s even in the Ram trucks.

Next year a 3.2 V6 will be put into the Jeep Cherokee and I’m having a really hard time figuring out why. I don’t think the engine will overpower the chassis. They put the 3.6 in everything from midsized cars to minivans. Maybe they just want to change things up. That would be weird considering the engine has only been around for three years, but who am I to judge.

My point of this whole thing is that manufacturers get so caught up in making niche engines, or trying to beat out competitors for five horsepower, even ten. Some manufacturers are caught up in enough to completely redesign or scrap an engine to get there. Yeah, sometimes engines do definitly need to be scrapped or redesigned. Like Ford's 6.0L Powerstroke. Bless it's little head gasket blowing heart. If I built engines, which I don't, it’d go about like this.

Ten engine options.

Three naturally aspirated gas, three turbocharged gas, and four turbodiesels.

I’d stick with the same few displacements, say 1.5L I4, 3.5L V6, and 5.5 V8 for a LONG time. The blocks will stay the same. If I want to redesign a better cylinder head or fuel injection system every four years or so, okay. But most of the internals are going to same. Retooling and retraining takes time and money. Time and money that is usually wasted.

I really wish manufacturers would start cranking out diesel cars as well. They get SUCH good mileage, and they only cost a few thousand more. They more than make up for it in maintenance intervals, longevity, and at the pump.

Anywho... there's my random thought on engines.

Random Thought 6 Camping

You know, I've realized that I hate traditional camping. I'll tell you why.

Traditional camping consists of pitching a meager tent, sleeping on a foam pad the thickness of a blanket, not showering for days, and eating completely burnt hot dogs. It's just not that fun. The only way I survive comfortably in the outdoors is in a motor home with dirt bikes or a boat on a trailer behind us.

Most people would tell me to go on a hike or something, but I hate hiking more than I hate fishing. And I pretty much loathe fishing. You sit there for four hours and get two bite that never yield fish. I can stand to fish for about ten minutes. Until I get bored out of my mind and consider taking one of those nice, sharp looking rocks to my head. Unless the CATCHING is good. Then I can last about an hour. Which will typically fill your limit. I've been my dad's little fishing buddy for years now, but it just doesn't jive with my any more. Hunting I'm totally cool with, but I think that's because I'm out walking around and looking for something. Not just sitting on the bank of a river, or in the bow of a boat getting a massive sunburn. With fishing, you just don't do ANYTHING. So fishing while camping is lame, in my opinion.

Hiking? Everyone loves hiking! NO. Hiking is for hippies that want to get in touch with nature and people that have legs that are better than mine. I can stand to hike for about a mile before I get bored, and then about 3 miles before I want to cut my legs off and crawl back to camp. So hiking is no bueno.

Hiking and fishing are done, what are you going to do now? Play card games? Yeah right.

Don't get me wrong guys, I can stand this kind of camping. I've been to Scout Camps and haven't showered for a week. But it just sucks. If you're not a gear head, camping is worthless. I just got back from a camping trip. I slept in a tent, ate burnt hot dogs and sat around reading a book.

The only good thing about it was being with my family, and getting away from school. It was a great time. But it could have been so much better if we had my grandparents RV, our boat or our dirt bikes.

Camping just isn't as fun without gasoline.

Random Thought 5 Fathers Day

Well, as I lay in my bed this Father's Day night, wondering what I'm going to fall asleep to on Netflix now that I've finished watching Scrubs, I remembered a conversation I had with my family when we were out at my paternal grandparents house about childhood memories. As my dad and uncle relayed stories of the childhood and how blessed they were to have parents that let them have motorcycles and buy dangerously fast cars, and how my grandpa spent the time to teach them how to work on the cars and do it right.

It all brought me back to how blessed I am right in this instant. I'm blogging about this crap because my dad and grandpa (Both grandparents actually) instilled a passion for gearheadedness (some say bullheadedness as well) and how much that has effected my life. If you know me, my WORLD revolves around internal combustion. From the earliest days of rocking out to our Van Halen tape in the old 67 Plymouth Barracuda. Fastback Formula S, (we still have the tape, and the car) to nowadays when we're leaning over the hood of my 28 Ford Model A Sport Coupe. I think I've spent more time in my garage with grease up to my elbows than I have sleeping and my dad has been there every step of the way.

Because of my dad, I can pretty much rebuild a lawnmower blindfolded. Because of my dad, people I hardly know ask for my "professional opinion" on what is wrong with their car/mower/scooter because they know my dad, and they know I've been right beside him in the garage my whole life. It's bit of a blessing and a curse. 

For one, everyone things I am a genius when it comes to fixing cars, but I'm not. My cars don't break because I know how to maintain them properly, so 90% of the time, when I'm in the garage, it's tinkering on a small engine. Lawnmower, dirt bike or snowmobile, because they are much more prone to failure because they usually run at much higher RPM's and require more upkeep because they wear at a faster rate. The reason my dad knows so much about cars is because he had to rebuild half of his when he was a younger man. I was given a perfect running truck that I still haven't touched since I started driving it. I can tell you about the cylinder shut off system in the new Chrysler Hemi's but I can't tell you how to troubleshoot them.

Even still, I can BS my way through most stuff, or at least give a general idea. And I'm pretty thankful for that. About the only time we've ever had to send something in to be fixed is our transmission, and that's because that's just a pain in the butt to work on.

So yeah, I'm thankful for my dad. I'm thankful for my grandpa's too. They gave my parents the knowhow to do a lot of cool stuff. Something as simple as maintaining a dirt bike just comes second nature to me, but some people don't even know how to change their spark plugs.

Random Thought 4 Silent Bliss

Two for one on the posts today kiddo's! I'm bored tonight

Again, if you're in my family, you might as well just go back to Facebook, because you've already heard this a million times.

I wrote a book. 

Me being a guy, you're thinking maybe spy novel, with fast cars, tuxedo's and scantily clad women with exotic names that end up dying in the end. Nope.

Maybe it's an action thriller about a teenage solider that illegally enlisted in the army and is shoved into the heat of battle on the beaches of Normandy? Nope.

Dear gizzards, it's not another zombie piece is it? Not this one. But I'm working on it.

This my friends is Silent Bliss. And it is a romance novel. Straight up "boy-girl fall in love and over come the odds" kind of stuff. And I'm a dude. I know.

Weird right? And what am I doing writing a book when I can't even make a half-cheeked attempt at a blog about nothing?

Honestly, I wonder that myself sometimes. Silent Bliss is my stab at being an author (totally just typed that as "other" for a second. hahaha) and so, it being my first book, with only a high school diploma and semester of college under my belt, I wrote a book. Well, technically it started the summer after Junior year. So I didn't even have that to my name.

My English teacher (Thanks Mr. Owen) got me into writing by forcing us to write a short story. I'm really glad he did, granted that first story was absolute crap. It still is. I've revised it ten times and it's just crap. There's no plot line. It's just me rambling on about this fictitious alternate reality I created for myself to explore what I would do if my family is rich. Just like how I ramble on about crap on this blog.

Turns out the whole rich kid life would be pretty much the same, at least I hoped and portrayed that it would be. Only, I'm a little more reckless and have a lot nicer toys.

So, Junior year, after being frustrated with this original short story that turned into a trilogy of crap, I started to write a spy novel. Sadly, that spy novel has vanished. Probably because it was crap too. That's the curse of being happy with a delete button. Who knows, maybe its on some flash drive buried in my room that I'll find in ten years.

I keep getting off topic. Curse my self-diagnosed ADD. Okay. This spy novel I wrote,  started with these teenagers finding out they were spy's.(Original right? No It's not.) Then somehow the plot line had them going to a motocross race the next day.

Well, this was about the time I found out about Ashley, and so that somehow evolved into this spy hitting it off with a female rider. Then it evolved into it's own plot line as a normal  teen hitting it off with a female rider, that happened to be deaf. Then, knowing that people might jump to conclusions, and not wanting a lawsuit on my hands if the thing ever got published, I changed A LOT of stuff in the book for "right to privacy" laws, copyright infringement, and all that fun stuff.

But the integrity of the story stayed the same.

And that's the story of how a high school English class spawned a novel about a deaf chick.

Random Though 3 Ashley

Right now, I don't even know if anyone is even looking at this blog. It says 17 page views, but that very well could be my contribution alone. Maybe I should hook this up with my Twitter and Facebook or something. I'll figure it out later.

Anywho..... You're probably wondering what the post title is about.

Well, if you know me personally, you probably already know, and you might as well just wait for the next blog post. Seriously though, you might as well just go back to Facebook or whatever you were doing. You know who you are.

A few years back, I started to write as a hobby. That’ll come next blog post.

In my search for a good book about dirt biking, I came across a girl. Her name is Ashley Fiolek and she's got bigger balls than most guys out there. And I say that with all the respect in the world. I really do.

Ashley rides dirt bikes professionally. I know right? Crazy. I didn't even know they had a professional women's racing until I found out about her. I found her autobiography, read it, and was hooked. This girl turned pro at eighteen, has won four Women’s Motocross championships, two X Games gold medals, and was the first women rider to have a full factory sponsorship. This chick rips!

Oh yeah, did I mention she was born profoundly deaf? Yeah. She can't hear her bike.

Almost forgot about that, sorry.

I'll let that soak in for a second.

Times up.

I started to wonder what it would be like to meet her. With her being deaf and all, how would one strike up a conversation, or even ask her for an autograph? Well, I started researching how people become deaf (Ashley's was due to viral complications in her mom’s pregnancy) how people handle being deaf (American Sign Language is harder than it looks) and how every day life is for the deaf community (try just ordering a hamburger without speaking) and as I started learn everything, I realized how insane the feat Ashley has pulled. Not only has she devoted her life to a sport that is pretty shutout for girls, with little pay, little to no TV recognition, and getting on and staying on a factory team is near impossible.

All of this piled on her, and she can't even hear her bike. She’s a 5’ 2” 100 pound chick that’s throwing a bike around that’s more than twice her weight. You thought she had balls before, didn’t you?

Ashley got me back into racing. And by “back into racing” I mean watching racing, not actually racing. I’m not that fit. So I started watching the races on the weekends and made it a goal to go watch her and all the rest of the guys and girls race. It had been nearly a decade since I had been to a race. I needed to go back. Plus I had to meet this chick.

So I asked my dad if we could go to the Thunder Valley Motocross in Denver just after my high school graduation. Sweet present right? Yeah. It was. You think motocross is cool on TV? Trying being literally three feet away from over forty bikes as they come screaming off a downhill jump and before slamming on their brakes and blasting around a corner into another jump. It’s insane. I have smelled race gas, and it is sweet. Burns your eyes though. High octane Go-Juice right there.

It was funny to watch the riders line up at the starting gate. The guys were all business. In the zone, spitting fire out of their noses as they stared down the other guys at the gate. The girls on the other hand were passing around iPods and playfully hitting each other, only to go out and beat each other up on the track. It was a good laugh.

Other than the awesome racing (One) of the best parts was getting to meet Ashley, and the rest of the American Honda Racing team. Up and coming guys like Eli Tomac, Justin Barcia and Will Hahn were at the free shin-dig we were at, so we didn’t have to pay for “pit passes” to go and meet riders at the actual races, which was nice. It let us watch more racing and saved us $15 a pop. Win-Win. I brushed up on some ASL and asked Ashley for an autograph, picture, thanked her and wished her luck. Not going to lie. She seemed impressed. Or maybe that’s my overactive brain trying to make myself look cool. Yeah. It’s probably that.

At the races, there was a couple hour rain delay between half of the motos (individual class races) but the weekend was awesome. James Stewart, one of the fastest (and cockiest) guys went down hard and was out for most of the season, and Ashley went down in her second moto and suffered a fractured tailbone and a moderate concussion. But she came back to win her fourth championship. She’s a beast.

The worst part of the whole weekend was the ten hour drive to and from Denver. Good thing they have a race three hours away from me this year. Utah Nationals, here I come!

Random Thought 2 Car Audio

Okay

I, like most of the rest of the people on this planet, hearing and deaf, can appreciate a good audio system. (The deaf can feel the sound, friends. Take a drive in a car that has a subwoofer in the trunk, or under the seat and you'll understand. They still like music.) The problem with most systems nowadays is that they are complete overkill.

Take for instance, my1996 Dodge Ram. It has six speakers; a pair of 2 inch tweeters in the top of the door, a 5 1/2 inch mid range below it, and a 6x9 low range in the back of the cab. They were the top of the line Infinity Audio package when the truck came out, and they are still pretty great sounding speakers.

Today, the Ram has an optional Alpine 9 speaker audio system. Now, I think this is the limit on speakers. A tweeter and speaker for each door. If you want a subwoofer, go for it, but if you have some good mid-low range speakers, you'll be cherry.

Now here's where it gets really sad. The Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 have the option to get a 19 speaker system. WHAT? I want to know where the crap they're fitting all these speakers? Oh wait, I do.
3 on the dash, 4 in the front doors, 2 in the back doors and 4 on the rear deck lid. I've heard this system is pretty freaking awesome, but I just can't get over the fact that there are that many speakers. If this system is so high quality, I would think you would need less speakers, or they would integrate the speakers into eachother so you'd have a tweeter and mid in the same package.

But what to I know, I'm just a consumer.

Random Thought 1 Trim Levels

Well. This is a blog, and what are blogs good for? Nothing really. Other than ranting about crap. That'll probably end up being what this is all about. Usually car, motorcycle or snowmobile related. Sometimes it'll just be a rant about the stupidity of people. There are a lot of stupid people out there.

So, for my firs random thought, I want to know why car companies have so many trim levels on their cars. Lets take Dodge for instance. I am a hardcore Chrysler fan, so I will relate most everything to them.

Deal with it. (pre-rant)

On the Dodge Charger, their full-size bite-your-head-off sedan, they have basically 12 trim models. TWELVE.

The SE, SXT, SXT Plus, R/T, R/T Plus, R/T Road and Track (which is a redundant name, R/T stood for Road and Track in the 60's and 70's) R/T Max, SRT Super Bee, SRT Core, and SRT. Don't forget the Blacktop and Daytona special editions.

Now, if we look at these trims, they are pretty much in $1,000 to $2,000 increments. If you compair all the models side by side, the differences in them are the finnicky little options. But, if you want to get heated seats in your SE, you're going to have to spend $3,000 more to get there, and that will come with the eight way adjustable seats and the heated mirrors. Plus some other cosmetic junk. Why on earth does it cost that much just to get heated seats? And what if I don't want that stupid eight way adjustable seat? I just want it heated! No. You can't have it.

And another thing, What's the point of having higher trim levels when I can get almost every option available on the Charger on that basic SXT model? Yeah, I can't get the 5.7 Hemi in the SXT, but I think that's what should define trim levels. The engines.

Back in 2009 when Dodge introduced new trim levels to the Challenger, there were three models. The SE, The R/T, and the SRT8. These models were defined by their engines. The SE had a 300 hp V6, the R/T had a 375 hp V8, and the SRT8 had a 425 hp V8. There were hardly any "packages" within these, other than the standard Smokers Group. That's how it should be done.

The only problem with this, was the sunroof wasn't available on the SE, only on the R/T and SRT. You couldn't have a sunroof and a V6. WHY NOT? So they came out with other trims that did. Then on these higher trim levels, they put in other standard features, remote start, premuim cloth seats, yada, yada, yada.

Why don't manufactures just build a car and let people have what they want on it. If I want a top of the line SRT8 with no infotainment system and cloth seats, I should be able to have one. It's not hard to build it. If car companies really wanted to be cool, they would cater to the customer. Give them a car and let them throw on the options. If it takes an hour for them to pick out their stuff, GO FOR IT. I've seen women look at two pairs of shoes for three hours only to buy neither of them.

If a car company wants to differentiate their big engined models, put a badge on the outside.They already do that anyway. I feel that companies, and people as well, want to spout out that they have 2014 Chrysler 300C Ultra-High-Super-Duper-Better-Than-Yours Luxury Edition and then have a badge on the back of the car that says that. All of it. It's pointless and vain.

Half the time, real car people end up customizing their cars how they want them anyway, why can't we do that from the factory?

Anywho . . . Rant Done.