After very little discussion and only a little (OK maybe more than just \"a little\") angst on my part, it has been decided that my beloved \"Moby Grape\", the purple Cavalier convertible is just too far gone for the firstborn to invest any more significant time in. He is a great mechanic and has pulled our collective \"you-know-whats\" out of the ringer more times than I can count, but this time, with the struggle it would be to troubleshoot the coolant leak in the very tight and oddly oriented engine compartment, we all agreed that calling it a day was the right thing to do. The firstborn has found someone who will take the little devil off his hands in exchange for storage space for his dearly beloved project car, \"The Notchback\", so it\'s basically all good....
I am, however, now permanently assigned to another member of the fleet of Timman cars - \"Viktor\", the back from the dead, \"phoenix\" of a car that was resurrected from his previous life as a Honda Accord automatic transmission (which crapped out after a massive amount of abuse, so it was definitely NOT his fault) to rise again a Honda Accord five-speed....and quite a little trouper he is, also. I have been \"learning\" the not so fine points of driving a five-speed in town since my first trip to Indiana last weekend, when, you will recall, I was set loose to grope my way through the gears from our home here in Sylvania to Angola, Indiana (or there abouts). The learning curve seems to have dips and peaks... Friday morning, due to threat of rain, and a big box I had to schlepp, I drove to work...did an exemplary job of getting the mile and a half from my house to the office without stalling from a start, overrevving before shifting gears, or even stalling when shifting into reverse to back into a parking place a good distance away from the building. This morning, I was again successful in getting myself going from in front of the house, and was able to successfully maneuver my way all the way to the \"Timmy\'s\" about two miles away. I declined to undertake the challenge of taking the car through the drive-up, so I parked and walked in...once ready to leave, I backed out of the parking space, only to stall as I was shifting into first. I recovered from that without much struggle and made my way out onto the main road, only to be stopped at the light right before the overpass at Rt 23...and to stall as the light turned green, and have to refire and go with two folks sitting behind me, waiting. I was able to go the rest of the trip to the office without incident, but I am still obviously not totally \"getting\" the whole shifting thing yet.
Further, I have totally avoided travel on any street in town where I might risk being stopped at a stop light that would keep me at an incline....I DO know my limitations, and the possibility of rolling back on someone because I am too unskilled yet to know how NOT to is just something that I know I can avoid so I do...I know as I get more accustomed to everything it will be no big deal, but I would like to get to that point without having any not very funny stories about how I got there....
For now, I am finding this whole process highly amusing and am getting used to the idea. I still am a little rough on the shift sometimes and I still stall, but I have a whole new level of understanding of how Viktor works and respect him even more because of it...
Anyway...that\'s it for now...will keep you posted on the whole \"manual transmission\" thing...should be a hoot! Till later, much love to you....
v
