Skystrideria

Friday, May 12, 2006

Well, yesterday I took the road test. For the record, I wanted to include a lot of parenthetical information here to build a sense of suspense, but I didn't (excluding the last sentence, and this bit of self-evident information). Anyways, I got 98%, the only problem was that I hit the curb while backing around a corner. The one fact that amuses me is that the instant I was licensed to drive in the State of Washington was the instant it became illegal for me to drive in the fifty states and the District of Columbia. I'm uninsured. Still, that barrier will be removed come Monday. Another driver on the road.

Another amusing incident happened while we were there. Dad's van was due for an emissions test. We knew that there was no way it could pass without some adjustments, but Dad wanted us to test it. The thing is, the Catalytic Converter had fallen apart several months before. Pieces of the catalyst were getting stuck in the exhaust pipe, seriously degrading performance, especially when climbing hills. As in, almost zero forward movement at extremely high RPM's. So, Dad and I removed said pieces of catalyst last week. For those of you who don't know, the catalytic converter converts most of the poisons in exhaust gases into more benign materials. Regulators figure that C02, which might fry our grandkids, is better than C0, which would kill us, thereby preventing us from having grandkids. Well, through some fluke, the beater that is our 1980 Toyota minivan with the only corrective device missing, managed to pass the emissions test. It's flabbergasting, especially considering that many cars with converters fail the same test.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Today I made the next step towards getting a drivers license, the first step in about a year. Namely, I took the knowledge test, passed, and made an appointment for a road test. It should be interesting. Much more interesting than this post.