Thursday, August 06, 2009

Home (but not) Alone

Some folks know this and some folks don't, some they gonna care and some they won't, but I'm remote from Cadence now. That's right, no more soul destroying commuting for me. Maybe I'll even ride my bike now and then again. Way less dinero too, but we're okay with trading that for things like:

Actually seeing my wife and kid - nice to know they didn't leave me

Not ending every day wanting to kill myself or someone else - thankfully I don't own a gun

The opportunity to step up to Trans-Sylvania...and perhaps some other stuff, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more

Not having strangers raise our kid completely - just once or twice a week

Sleep - one week in without the commute and associated morass and I'm already sleeping better than I have in four years

Health - 20+lb gain in two years and all the above...makes a man dead inside and out

So, its a new chapter in life here in Chez Kuhn.

I'm going to miss working with the other coaches on a daily basis. When you're surrounded with people who share your passion and commitment you definitely feed off of it. There are some new guys down there in Philly who are just kickass too and I'm hopeful that I can stay a part of their development as they've a lot to offer once they learn how all this works.

What I won't miss is the commuting. A car that's falling apart - literally - the muffler fell off a while back - is no place to spend 3-4 hours of my day. Speaking of that I'm pretty pissed about the Cars for Clunkers thing.

Fifteen years ago I figured out a car that would be really good on mileage and work for me. I've driven that thing into the ground. Now every time I fill up its "gimme 10 gallons in the tank and two quarts of oil"...seriously, the thing uses/burns/leaks/Idon'teffinknow oil like its going out of style. Hopefully it is. New the car got 33-ish with bikes on the roof - usually between two and five. Now it might get 25/gal with nothing on the roof and a good stiff tailwind. I made that car work for everything too. Need to get three bikes inside and everything I needed to live for three months in Arizona? (Damn it was nice to drive across the country when gas was $.98, good times, good times.) No problem, rip out all the seats and stuff it all inside. Still averaged 29-30 mpg on that trip even loaded down like an SUV.

Now, she's gotta go. Besides the aforementioned environmental/economic impact of this thing its just too small and so we're going mini-van. BUT, because, once upon a time, the car got decent mileage no CfC for me - even though the car is now, without a doubt, a full blown POS clunker and needs to desperately come off the road. I bought a car that got good mileage because I thought it important for the environment - now I'm screwed. That's completely fair and logical. Lets only give to people that are too selfish to do it right the first time - and probably won't learn anything from it other than to do whatever they want since they get paid for poor decisions. Just like the health insurance. And the bailouts. You're completely overweight, don't try to exercise and don't change habits? Don't worry, someone else will take care of all those medical bills, go get your diabetes, heart disease, and wheelchair. You ran your gigantic company into the ground and haven't made any decisions in the past other than how to make a buck today? Don't worry, we'll give you all the money you need so you can keep right on doing what you're doing so very poorly. Lost everyone's money? Screw them, we'll give you their money to pay yourselves off for being shitty at your job. Everyone who has tried to do things right - make healthy choices; exercise; be prudent and make purchases for the long term; base decisions not only on what is right for you but right for the future, save money. Here's a big fuck you. Thanks for doing your part, now go away. But make sure to keep sending in that money. We need it for everyone else.

Whatever. Its not like this changes how I'll do stuff, but its pretty ironic that you try to do your part and the only thanks you get is 'thanks.' Well, you're real fuckin' welcome. You giant douches.

Where was I? Oh yea, staying home with the kid. More on that later - he just woke up and is shaking his cage. Errr, crib. I mean crib. What'd I say?

2 comments:

steevo said...

The real kicker for me (aside from an 11 year old ford wagon not being a "clunker") is that a freaking FJ cruiser is a car you can buy. Like the knock off hummer thing is fuel efficient or something. The burns me up.

brett said...

yo, my verification word is "fockazh"! how fitting. be indignant. buy guns. move to the mountains. grow your own food. wait for the coming shitstorm to engulf the lemmings. ride your bike on the empty roads triumphant.