Back to the Future

Here's a memory for you:

I'm cruising to school in my decade-old stickshift, blasting Pearl Jam on the radio with the windows down, wind whipping around me... Sure, the car was a piece of crap, but I could still get that thrill of speed as I moved through the gears, rev'd it up a bit, and enjoyed that special freedom which came with MY OWN CAR.

Of course, I'm actually talking about last Wednesday.

You know, most guys with a mid-life crisis get to sleep with younger women, drive a fast sports car, or start doing all the daring stuff they wanted to do when they were younger but didn't have the resources. Me, I have a mid-life regression. I'm still in school, I'm around high school kids constantly, I'm still married, and now I'm driving a car with so many problems I can remember them all. But I'm enjoying life :)

Although the fantasy burst when I realized I couldn't get the piece of %&*# radio to eject the CD. I swear, the dealer must of sent in a few UPC symbols from a cereal box to get the thing; I didn't technology this bad was still out there. Reliving my youth is cool (and I still like Pearl Jam), but always driving around in a '98 Honda listening to Pearl Jam?

Definitely uncool.


Speaking of cool, since my Honda isn't much to look at, the images in this post are all of cars that... aren't mine. I took them at the Palo Alto Concours D'Elegance in late June. In order of appearance:

1. A DeLorean, the only production car with stainless steel body panels. Apparently the DMC isn't dead though.
2. A 2001 Lamborghini Diablo 6.0 from the last year of the Diablo. Yeah, a $250,000+ car. Really.
3. A 2007 Tesla Roadster Roadster, the first electric supercar. A woman in my lab is doing an internship with them, I'm pretty jealous. For the low, low price of $98,000, you too can pre-order a car that can go toe-to-toe with a Lamborghini Murcielago in acceleration (0-60 in 4 seconds), hit 130+ mph, go 200 miles on a single charge, yet get an equivalent of 135 mpg. I'm not a car guy, but I love what the Tesla stands for: more efficient, yet better performance. I really hope electric/hybrid cars go in this direction.
   
4. No idea what this is, but it looks really cool.