Confessions of a Drugstore Car Guy

My “Drugstore” Car Guy identity is based on some fundamental flaws in my personality. In the first place, I’ll never be a real Car Guy because, when faced with a mechanical issue, I do not flop on the ground, roll under the car and start fixin’ stuff. I also don’t get demonstrably enthusiastic when encountering automotive awesomeness. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but some in our car community get positively giddy around what they consider cool car stuff!

I was watching and, unfortunately, listening, to car TV recently and I have to say I was embarrassed for the dudes that are picked to be talking heads. Is there some condition of employment that requires these twits to . . . ? They seem compelled to effusive over-reaction; nothing they see or hear can be described as anything less than superlative. I mean, really, it’s just not possible for everything to be the most awesomest!

I’d hate to be thought of as an old poop but I have a hard time in describing anything as the greatest. Hell, I haven’t seen everything yet so how can I pick what’s even in the top 10? Besides, as soon as something gets tagged as the best, all the rest start lining-up to take it down a notch. In almost every category “the Best” get a lot less than 15 minutes! But, that’s just me.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you about the recent Golden Gears show at Harry Grove Stadium. You know; it is all about Community. That’s when people who share a common interest get together to enjoy that while temporarily setting aside whatever differences they might have. I saw a lot of that going on at Home Run car Show and it warmed the cockles of my Loman & Barkley heart.

I also saw our very own Eddie Z show up early with a really big car trailer. I mean, he wasn’t bringing just the Trailer Queen, he had her whole Court! Actually he was toting his latest acquisition and it proved to be quite an attention-getter. In keeping with my previously stated policy of understatement let’s just say it’s pretty neat and definitely unique.

In any case, kudos to the Golden Gears guys and gals; they put on quite a show and everybody seemed to be having a good time. I didn’t even notice anyone laughing at me or getting impatient as I tried to maneuver Paul’s ’55 out of the spot where I’d parked it. The cars, the crowd and the vendors provided a very eclectic mix for everyone’s Car Show pleasure. Thanks Double G!

Telemetry in the 21st Century:

I grew up during the Space Race and remember being amazed at Houston’s ability to monitor goings-on in space. According to the Internet, specifically http://www.thefreedictionary.com/telemetry :

te•lem•e•try (t-lm-tr) n. 1. The science and technology of automatic measurement and transmission of data by wire, radio, or other means from remote sources, as from space vehicles, to receiving stations for recording and analysis. 2. The measurement of data at a remote source and transmission of the data (typically by radio) to a monitoring station. Telemetry is used, for example, to track the movements of wild animals that have been tagged with radio transmitters, and to transmit meteorological data from weather balloons to weather stations.

In those days I never imagined that one day we’d all carry equipment to achieve the same kind of monitorization both in our cars and, even, on our very persons! What with cell phones and GPS, Sync and On Star, digital cable and satellite TV, the Internet and who knows what else, we can keep an eye on others (and have one kept on us) at all times and everyplace. Maybe someone, somewhere was being entertained by my parking lot antics.