May 20, 2003

My name is Keyur...

…and I have a problem.

Declaring an emergency here. I can hold out for a while but I can’t deal with this alone. Don’t let me drive alone anymore. I’m a horrible driver. I do things that I shouldn’t.

Okay enough making fun of Dan. He was serious I am being silly. So yesterday evening at 11:30pm EST I finally pulled into my relative’s place in Atlanta. Started at 8:30a CST, so in 14 hours I covered approximately 950 miles (1529 kms), averaging a decent 68 mph (109 kph).

The driving was easy, except in MS where there were sporadic torrential downpours killing my speed and visibility. The van was fun, although the automatic transmission got raged on atleast a dozen times because of sheer stupidity, but I am thankful for it otherwise I’d be far more tired now. Stupid alignment, I had to keep the steering wheel in a mild left turn position to go straight. Keeping the wheel straight caused me to make hard right turns at highway speed. Thankfully I figured this out on I35 just past Parmer. I hit a high speed of 103 mph (166 kph) on I20 East somewhere along the GA/AL border. That was fun, but I’m sure I shot my mileage and made the engine cry.

Now I’m nestled comfortably at my foi’s (dad’s sister) place in the suburbia of Charlotte. Altogether I drove the van for 1258 miles (2025 kms) in less than two days.

While driving alone I came to realize a few things:

  • think like a truck driver and highway politics make more sense

  • if you’re going to speed, don’t do it alone

  • funnyons are good, but not good for you

  • driving sans pants is awesome, gives AC a whole new meaning

  • driving sans shoes is awesome, gives accelerator control a whole new meaning

  • the whole 1 car length for every 10 mph speed is the real deal, believe it

  • memories are a funny thing, they can lift you over the tallest obstacles in life or they can drag you through the filth of your existence

  • cruise control never means you can let go of the steering wheel

  • imagining you are Michael Knight driving KITT makes any drive that much more interesting

  • vocally requesting “Turbo Boost” or “Super Pursuit Mode” in a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan does absolutely nothing and being in said Caravan, the words “Yo! Devin!” lose all meaning

Quoteses:
“Its funny how your entire life fits in the back of a van.” - Said K.
“Salaam” - Sheelpi K.

Posted by Mr. Keyur at May 20, 2003 12:41 AM | TrackBack
Comments

“driving sans pants is awesome, gives AC a whole new meaning”

Yeah, especially if the AC has a “anti-ball freeze” setting. Dur to space constraints, I’d imagine it would be an international symbol with a frozen scrotum (perhaps with icicles attached) overlayed by a cancel symbol. This just reminds me of one of my George Costanza-like ideas about car cooling systems? that there should be air vents in the floor or door designed to blow up into the armpits. Sounds a little unappealing, but feels oh so good.

Please don’t tell me you were driving pantless to facilitate relieving yourself into portable containers, thereby increasing your average speed. This kinda sounds like something a Keyur would do (or at least seriously consider).

Anyway, this made me laugh, as did some of the others down the list. I’ll miss having you around and if I’m not one of the people you were waxing nostalgic over, then I fully and forcefully revoke that statment you furious turd.

Posted by: Steve at May 21, 2003 05:35 PM

Connected using a piece of crap iMac in the library (which closes at 5 pm). Did a cop stop you and ask why you had no pants on? I can just imagine it …

Posted by: Akash at May 22, 2003 04:45 PM

I should mention that there need to be two corrections to my post above:

“especially if the AC had an anti-ball freeze setting.”

and

for some reason, this CGi converted my dash to a question mark after “car cooling systems”

Posted by: Steve at May 23, 2003 04:26 PM