Thanks for all the Fish
A nice weekend, all in all: “Hitchhiker’s Guide” on Friday with Joel, dinner with Morris & Nichole (and a relentless mariachi band) on Saturday, and then Italian with Jess on Sunday. Not bad atall, although even with a film adaptation of Douglas Adams’ masterpiece in my system, my capacity for nerddom was severely limited: Saturday morning’s thunderstorm seems to have cooked my DSL.
After talking with someone who repeatedly thanked me for my patience (I would not have called myself patient, not even when I refused to reboot my computer and felt it necessary to assert my intelligence (a reluctant moment in any tech support phone call)) and sported a suspicious accent, I was informed that someone would be out to check out the problem (not fix it) no later than 4 days from then. After over a year and a half of flawless service from BellSouth, this is truly enough to inspire one to look seriously at a cable modem. (Update: BellSouth made it by today, Monday, and fixed the problem. Without a problem I am now less-inspired.)
On Friday, walking out of the theater, Joel informed me that I’d have to drive home — his eyes were too irritated to drive. “You’ve been saying you want to learn to drive manual,” he said. “Well, now’s your chance.” I was both frightened and excited. After all, I have been wanting to learn to do this. I was disappointed to find he was joking, but that disappointment changed into thankfulness when, in the parking lot of Sandy Springs Elementary School, I found out how freakin’ complicated a manual transmission can be.
I started out well enough - no stalls until after 10 or so tries. Then I started stalling it on every single attempt. (In time I found this was a result of pulling off the clutch too quickly — remember: keep it smooth) It’s a little nerve-wracking to learn on an Audi, though. 6 or 7 years ago he gave me a lesson in his VW Rabbit on a rather steep hill. I think that was more of a joke than a lesson. It ended fairly quickly. You feel better about stalling a Rabbit than an A4.
After 30 minutes of rounding the tiny parking lot, I actually started to get the hang of it, starting each time headed up an incline, gradually trimming down the terrifying drift backwards before the flywheel catches. At last I drove us home all of a quarter mile and parked it in the garage without incident. It wasn’t the smoothest ride, but there were no re-crank-the-car moments. Thanks, Joel.
It was gratifying to get to feel like I was starting to know what I was doing - even fun - but now I wonder if I’d actually want a manual for full time use. There’s something cool about the simple act of pressing in the clutch to shift into whopping second (I did get to third once). Like a racecar driver! Would it continue to be fun? Surely it becomes second nature to a degree. I suppose it depends on the person. Unfortunate that it would be rather expensive to arrive at a “not for me” decision.
Glenn (Mike Seigle) and Maui (Maui) got home last night. He’s been on a road trip the past two weeks; it’s nice to have him back. We laid in our respective sofas and armchairs while watching a bit of Aqua Teen Hunger Force before shutting things down.
Yes, I’m still planning on writing a Las Vegas entry. Maybe a Wyoming entry, too. But I doubt it.
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Way to go on learning stick! Its no easy task, but it will never leave you once you get it.
Maybe someday we can convince you to ditch that granny-shifter of yours and go for a car with a manly three pedals…
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Learning a stick the first time is an interesting experience which I can relate to very much. Glad to hear you got it down pretty well in the end.
My first experience driving a stick was when I bought that used Honda at a government auction and had to drive it home. It was an extremely fast learning curve trying to learn how to drive it and get it through Atlanta and the interstates back to campus, which I laugh at when I think about it now. I remember for my first week driving it I would always peel out screeching the tires whenever there was the slightest incline so that I wouldn’t stall. Half the time the people around me laughed probably thinking I was some rice boy trying to be cool with my Honda hatchback.
Keep up the training and it will become second nature for you for sure. Just remember one thing and you will be fine. Get in the habit early on of slamming that clutch in as soon as something appears to go wrong so that you get it as an instinct. Examples would be when you first start to hear a grindind of gears if you don’t have it in gear properly or at the first stutter before a stall. It pays off during the initial months for sure!
May 2nd, 2005 at 10:04 pm
Jon’s experience mirrors my own, only I tended to make the car “bounce” in a half-stall, which caused my foot to bounce, on the pedal, which caused the bouncing to get worse until the engine would finally die.
Of note, one of the things that seemed to help a lot of people I know to drive a stick was to understand that letting the clutch out causes two fritcion plates to slowly come together and engage the engine to the wheels. Knowing that, they knew to find the “catch point” and judge how slowly/quickly to let the clutch out on a start.