A Tale of Woe

Back in high school, I took 9th grade basic English because it seemed like it would be really easy and I could sleep through it. Funny thing about that class is that I'm good friends with a kid who was in that class and doesn't remember me whatsoever. That pretty much sums up who I was in high school just in case anyone was wondering. Anyways! We had to read Romeo and Juliet in class and I had the fortunate opportunity to read the final words of that story, "For never was there a story of more woe, than that of Juliet and her Romeo". Don't quote me on that because I'm typing that from my 9th grade memory which consisted mostly of "I wonder which one of these girls would let me touch their butt" and many of you already know I'm waaaaaaaay too lazy to open a new tab to look it up.

Here's the thing though, when Shakespeare wrote that line, I bet he didn't realize that someday some kid would try to buy a project car, because there's absolutely no way he would have written that line if he had.

Please bear with me because this is a long post, but my story needs to be told.

For never was there a story of more woe, than that of Cody Timm and his search for a project car-o.

It all begins in Ames, where instead of paying attention to the in class lecture, I decided that my time would be better spent searching Cragislist for a cool project car to work on during the summer. Basically I would type any car brand into the search bar and look in any area that was around a 6 hour drive away. I casually did this throughout the year, trying to find the most interesting cars near the Nebraska/Iowa area. Between searching for cars and playing on a stock market simulator, my level of attention really went down in class, which may or may not have attributed to my complete lack of preparedness when it came to finals week. #College

The first real idea came along when I located a Mazda Miata in Illinois, in what was probably February. It was black with a tan leather interior and it looked to be in really good shape. Now I know what you're probably thinking, "Cody, don't you already have a Miata that barely runs and looks like garbage??". Well Mom, yes I do, but this one is different!

Basically, this Miata had a blown transmission (an auto at that!!!!) but the rest of it seemed in good shape, it even had the bigger engine (130hp!!!!). So I texted the guy and asked about the car, my first question being "Is it rusty?" because there was no way I was heading down that path again. Trust me when I say that the #1 thing that will push a girl away from being attracted to you isn't your looks or your character or the fact that you're a 21 year old college student who still isn't sure what he wants to do with his life and has a car blog, because the #1 thing that will make you unattractive is the fact that you own a slightly rusty 1994 Mazda Miata. Fact.

Anyways, he texted me back saying he didn't think there was any rust on the car, and I began to have hope. I would drop the broken automatic transmission out, pop the manual out of my car in, and I would have the prettiest Miata my crappy college apartment complex parking lot had ever seen. I could even do a V8 swap in my old car, or turn it into an autocross vehicle by sourcing a new transmission.

However, hope doesn't always turn out the way you want it to. I received some photos of the black Miata and the worst was confirmed. Rust, and plenty of it. It was the white Miata all over again. I thanked the man for his time, ran to the nearest corner of my statistics lecture hall and sobbed. I loved that damn car, and I still mourn it to this day.

As you all can plainly tell, even if this story ended right here and now, it was filled with waaaaaaaaay more woe than that crap Shakespeare wrote about. Two lovers unable to be together because of their families? Try a college kid who was lured into thinking a perfect project car wasn't rusty and sobbing in a lecture hall. It doesn't get sadder than that folks, ask anyone in my statistics class.

I moved on from black Miata, and decided that it was time to look to other manufacturers besides Mazda, and that's how I stumbled upon the idea for a Toyota MR2. For those of you who don't know, the MR2 is a little mid engine coupe-thing Toyota made for a bit of time. I'm not really sure when production ended but I know that the first generation car started in the 1980's and there was a second generation car made in the 1990's. Either of these two vehicles would have been sweet, but the 80's one had the upper hand because it had the babe attracting quality that is pop-up headlights.

I looked for these cars for awhile, but nothing ever really materialized as most of the examples of the breed on Craiglist were quite rusty, and as we've already talked about, that wasn't going to happen again. Nothing else really came up until probably May, right around finals week because apparently I needed something else besides Netflix, video games, and food to distract me from finals.

It was a 1992 Porsche 968, the last iteration of Porsche's 4-cylinder sports cars, and my god it was sweet. The 14 people who read this post may or may not know about all of the car brands I talk about, but everybody knows the brand "Porsche". The best thing about owning a Porsche is the fact that you now have the ability to be very pompous when someone pronounces the brand name wrong. Porsche is technically pronounced like "Porshuh" and not "Porsh", and normally I would call anyone who corrects you a pompous jagweed. Feel free to do that to anyone who does do this to you btw. But I would have loved correcting people as a joke. Also, more importantly, I would have blasted that one song about hopping out of the mf Porsche every time I arrived somewhere with my friends.

Every. Single. Time.

Oh, it also has pop-up headlights, meaning that the ladies would have to form an orderly line. As you could probably guess I loved the car and was excited to go look at it. The price was much lower than one would expect, meaning I wouldn't have to sell myself on the corner just to buy gas for it. After finals week was over, I headed home and went to look at the car, and as soon as I saw it, I loved it even more. I was warned on the phone that the transmission was messed up, and that 3rd gear neutralized upon use. I had no idea what this meant so I pretty much disregarded it as general hoo-hah and decided I could fix it later. Also, it was supposed to have been leaking some power steering fluid. I figured I could also fix that, because as that Hyundai learned, I am the worlds greatest mechanic.

The Porsche (italicized for that extra oomph of pompousness) test drive was very interesting in the fact that it was horrible and kind of terrifying. The car shifted into 3rd gear just fine, but then 4th gear happened, but at the same time it sort of didn't happen. See, the car just revved in 4th gear, so 4th gear didn't necessarily exist in this car at this moment in time, or frankly, at any moment in time. Freaking out a bit, we turned into a storage unit business driveway, thinking we would be able to turn around easily. Haha good joke right? The driveway area was tiny, and the rest of the area was gated off, meaning it was time to execute the perfect 13-point turn. This is where the whole "leaking power steering fluid" issue reared its ugly and extremely low on power steering fluid head.

Trying to turn the car in the limited space was about as difficult as trying not to lash out at someone when they correct you on the pronunciation of Porsche. This was mostly due to heavy steering and the complete lack of power steering, hence the whole "hey this car leaks power steering fluid btw" which I ignored because I knew I wouldn't get myself into a situation where I would need to make a perfectly executed 13-point turn, because I'm not a total nerd. Unfortunately I am a total nerd and since there was no power steering fluid in it, the car made this horrific groaning noise every time I turned the wheel, which in a 13-point turn is quite a lot of times. Anyways, a security man from the storage business came out and helped us get turned around and on our way. He also left us with a great piece of advice about the car, "Don't buy it!". I did not buy the Porsche, but I absolutely loved it. Much like the black Miata then, the Porsche was a dream that was dead in the water. Or dead in the power steering fluid, whichever you prefer.

See? I told you. This story has way more woe in it than R+J. This story is an eleven on the scale of woe-ness, and it only gets woe-ier from here.

The next car I chose to pursue was a 1963 Ford Thunderbird, which was also located in my hometown, so we went to look at it the same day we called about the car. The engine was in good shape, having a fresh rebuild, there was no rust, and the car mostly just needed interior work and trim pieces to be reattached. When I say interior work though, I mean A LOT of interior work. I think there was maybe one seat in the car? Maybe two, but the backseats were non-existent. I loved it though, but then came the question about the glass. The car needed both a front and rear windshield, and the man selling it didn't have the originals. The car also needed brand new tires before we could even move it from the spot where it dug into the dirt, plus a ride on a tow truck home.

After finding out that having all of this done would come to the grand total of 2/3 of the asking price I reluctantly decided to pass on the T-bird. It was a sweet car though, made for cruising and I'd really love to own one someday. It didn't have pop-up headlights though so how serious could I be anyways...

And that ladies and gentlemen, is a story of woe that is much woe-ier than that crap Shakespeare dreamed up when he was probably drunk and looking for some wench to get acquainted with. I don't know if that story has won awards or anything but I know for a fact it became a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and some girl, so I fully expect this story to become a big budget film someday. At least a Lifetime movie for sure. Now I just have to think of someone to play me who can get the whole "awkward with girls" thing just right.....

In the end I did end up buying a car, a 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider. That however, is a story for another day. I'll make sure to let you guys know all about the car when I finally get it running and driving. See you in about 5 years then!

Thanks for reading!

2 Yearsish in Review

Alright guys, I know it's been awhile since I've written a post, due mostly to the fact that I've been under fire for my last post from a certain carmaker (lookin' at you Hyundai) and a certain people (lookin' at you Korea) for some claimed "libel" against them. I disagree, but thats beside the point.

Also, hey Craftsman, please never sell that stupid wonky-ass wrench thing again.

Anyways, it's probably been about 2 years since I bought the Miata, and I feel like another yearly review is in order! This one however is going to be a bit different than the last one, since there haven't really been that many catastrophes in the last year. Without further adieu (?), here we go!!!!

THE ONE AFTER SUMMER - This is when the largest catastrophe of the year showed up, and it was honestly all my fault. Hopefully you read my post about how I just forgot that engines need oil and how I more or less ran the Miata at redline without oil in the engine... oops...

I'm also fairly sure there wasn't a lot (if any) coolant in the car, which is also kind of necessary I've heard... Anyways, I was driving the car along one day and all of the sudden the engine temperature gauge moved directly toward the gigantic H, which stands for either "Hot" or what I assume is "Holy god what kind of moron runs a car without coolant/oil you colossal jagweed". The crisis was averted somehow because the needle moved back to the C or in other words "Cody you are so freaking lucky your car didn't just explode", and I pretty much went along with my day.

I threw some oil in the car (no coolant because why on earth would I check that???), drove back to Omaha to store the car for the winter, and went on with my life.

SNOWYTIME -  I came back home for winter break and decided that a temperature of 0º was a good time to bust out the convertible. BUT FIRST, I finally checked the coolant in the car and whaddya know, it was LOW. Like lower than a 1997 slammed stance nation civic in a Taco Bell parking lot. I headed to my former employer (Walgreens - No, we won't process your porn in our photo department) and picked up some coolant, and we were ready to drive!

I basically just drove around with the top down for a few days while wearing probably around 7 layers of clothing. All in all, it was a good time, until the renters across the street from my house put a tow notice on my car, denoting it as "dead storage". I don't see how it could be considered dead storage, seeing as I'm pretty sure the car is louder than an airplane and the entire population within a 2 mile radius can hear it when it starts. The important part is that I don't hold a grudge against them, even though they're total jagweeds....

"WOW IT'S BEEN RAINING A LOT LATELY" - Spring! The perfect time to go back home and pick up the Miata!I did! Nothing interesting happened! Moving on!

IT IS VERY WARM - Imagine, you're driving along the interstate doing about 80-82 and you hear a very interesting noise coming from behind your instrument cluster. You think "Oh, no big deal, that happens all the time" and continue on with your life, dreaming about taking your Miata all the way up to 200k so you can write a blog post about it. Then BAM! The speedo shows you doing zero even though you swear that all of the things around you are still flying by at 80+ mph. And to top it all off, your odometer breaks, so you have no way to prove your car made it to 200k so you can impress all the girls. That my friends, is misery.

But yeah, my speedo broke, and it's still broken, and I have a very vague idea of how fast I'm going, and I probably wont fix it because it's not worth it, and I would like to see what would happen if I got pulled over. I think I'll have a better shot with a "my speedo is broken :(" as opposed to showing the officer some cleavage.

Well, that's all I really have for you guys this time around! Overall, it was a pretty uneventful year for the Miata. No sheared bolts or busted calipers or 5 hour exhaust jobs. She still leaks oil, possibly coolant, screeches like a banshee and generally looks like a car thats done 198k miles, but I still love it as much as the day I bought it.

Thanks again for reading, and here's a special photo to celebrate 2 years!

Throwback to my first day with the Miata

My Moment In the Sun

Ladies and gentlemen, it finally happened. I got a text from a girl.

*waits for gasps to end*

Okay, well to be fair it was from one of my friends who asked me if I could do some work on her car.

*waits for nobody to be surprised*

Really though, this was an important landmark in the history of my friendship with not only her, but anyone I've met here at Iowa State really. See, the thing is, is (is this grammatically correct??) that up to this point, people have just assumed that I'm actually somewhat mechanically adept, and I sort of am, but I've never actually had to prove it to anybody, until now.

This was it, my time to shine. I had to prove I wasn't just all talk. If I failed, my street cred was gone, and around these parts, street cred is everything.

This was my moment in the sun.

Here's how it went.

My friend Marissa asked if I could replace the spark plugs in her car because apparently her car wasn't working right and the spark plugs were to blame, much like my inattention to detail is to blame for buying an exhaust system with a 4 inch tailpipe or in other words its freakin' loud. Anyways, I told her I could do it and she explained that I would receive a payment of cookies after the job was completed. SCORE.

I showed up with the proper tools to remove the plugs, but was woefully unprepared to deal with the 4 bolts connecting the plastic cover to the engine because why would I think to bring a toolbox? I drove back to my apartment and grabbed my toolbox, returned to the stricken Hyundai to attack the plastic with all my mechanical ability. 

Since the Hyundai was built in Asia, it, like every other car built there, uses 10mm bolts because apparently Asia decided that the number 10 was the god-king of all other numbers. Guess who doesn't have a 10mm socket because he lost it working on another asian car? I ended up having to use some janky-ass combination wrench thing to get the bolts loose, but I was successful. 20 minutes in and I've removed some plastic. I was impressing.

Now I bought some spark plug removing tools prior to taking on this WHOPPER of a job, and they seemed like they would work well, that is if you aren't an idiot. I removed the first spark plug without much trouble, screwed the new one in, probably cross-threaded it so hooray for me, and then tried to extract my ratchet from the hole. Theres an innuendo here. Long story short, there was some rubber piece that was making it difficult to remove the tool and it refused to come out of the hole (my god this is getting sexual isn't it?). Eventually I had to remove the plug, pull out the rubber piece and then reseat the plug. It worked and i finally had the first plug in. 45 minutes deep and I've replaced one spark plug and cursed the korean people about a million times. Best mechanic in Ames.

Eventually I had to use janky-ass combo wrench again (thanks dad) to remove the coil packs and replaced the rest of the spark plugs without much issue. I bolted everything back up, put the stupid plastic back on the engine, bolted that up most of the way because the janky-ass combo wrench is bigger than Rick Ross and wont fit anywhere or work at any angle, and stood REAL far back when she went to start the car.

Fortunately the car didn't blow up, Marissa is still alive and apparently the car is still running. 4 spark plugs, an hour and a half, some korean people bashing and a little elbow grease and I had finally earned the reputation I had bragged about.

This was my moment in the sun.

And I shined.

So now you know, if you ever need any help working on your car, you can always just call me. I wont have the right tools, I'll take longer than expected, I'll curse like a sailor, and expect my payment in cookies. But I'll get the job done.

Unless you have a Hyundai. Then you can just forget it.

(A lack of) Oil (but not) Parentheses

Welcome back to my car blog! Today's post concerns our old standby, my (rusty) white, 1994 Miata and my continued attempts to bring it back into showroom form!

And how have I done you ask?!

Bad. Real bad. Imagine the Hindenburg crashing into a fireworks factory located directly across from an old folks home/puppy farm bad. There's just fire and bingo pieces everywhere.

Pictured it yet? Alright, cool, now double that.

Bad right???

Here's the story, and honestly, before we get started here, I want you to know that its nobody's fault but Brooke's. She is at fault. If you see her today, or any day in the future, please just give her a snarly (is this even an adjective??) look for trying to kill my car.

Anyways! As you know, the Miata is like ~2010 BP (honestly not sure when the oil spill was and too lazy to research but just roll with it) and just leaks oil all over the place. It spent the winter in my grandfather's garage and I am truly scared that the oil level on his garage floor is probably higher than the oil level in my car's engine. Swag. This normally isn't a problem, as long as you continue to fill the oil receptacle (I didn't) and don't run the car without any oil in it (I did). Basically, I did everything you shouldn't do and now the Miata is (maybe?) on life support (possibly?).

Oil for cars is like.... ketchup for tasteless and bad French (is this capitalized?) fries. You just need ketchup for those puppies or you're not gonna have a good time. I mean you probably wont anyways, but at least it'll help.

We are currently at the point where I'm praying that there was no damage to the interior of the engine and that I won't have to buy a new engine/new car (which I totally would btw #MazdaMiataordie #notawasteofmoney #rideordie).

Hopefully everything turns out fine with the car, and either way I'll probably let you guys know. Then I'll probably ask you for help because I'll be too distraught and crying in a corner to actually work on the car. Basically the usual when something goes wrong... But anyways!

However, there is a bright side to this whole situation, which is that since all the oil leaked out, and I put new oil in, I basically changed the oil in the car! And I needed to change it too! So good!

The lesson I leave you with today is that you really should try to find the bright side in any bad situation, unless that situation is tasteless french fries. At that point, its best to just call it a day, go to bed, and try again tomorrow.

Oh, and one last thing, it's (possibly?) (maybe?) (dear god hopefully not) leaking coolant too. I love that damn car.

Thanks for reading!

A Tale of Betrayal

Alright ladies and gentlemen, you might as well sit down because this one is a doozy. Not sure if thats a word or even how to spell it, but it is so just deal with it. Anyways, this is the story of how I drove 300 miles across Iowa in the Miata and all of the interesting things that happened to me along the way.

Here we go! I was heading to a small town in Iowa to meet up with a friend and go to some concerts over a weekend during mid July. Thinking a road trip sounded like fun, I told my parents that I was going to take my much more reliable car and that I'd see them in a few days. I woke up early and decided that driving the Miata sounded like much more fun, especially with the added danger that I might break down, because whats life without a little risk of a catastrophic breakdown between two cornfields, miles away from anyone I know who can come help me? See? Glad you guys understand.

Anyways, I left at like 5am because I wanted to get there early, and because I'm an idiot, I put the top down because how cold could it be? It's summer! So, I proceeded down Interstate 80, and I'll be honest, it was freaking cold. Like freezing cold. Like if I could go back in time, I'd smack myself, put the top up, and given myself some coffee because oh god things were gonna get worse. But I can't go back in time, at least not yet that is...

So there I am, freezing to death when I finally decide that it's time for the top to go up, and that I'm gonna wuss out. Out of nowhere, this car comes up beside me and the driver throws his/her (I was tired and couldn't really tell/what's a girl?) fist in the air. Now, being 20 and damn proud of my car, I take this as a sign of "Yeah! Go you!" and I told myself that I couldn't let Mr./Ms. Nissan down, and so I continued to power through Council Bluffs doing my best impression of a popsicle. A few more miles down the road I began to wonder why i couldn't move my fingers very well anymore, so I finally stopped at an exit and put the top up. I gave in, and if you are reading this right now, then I apologize my genderless Nissan driving friend. I failed you.

Now, putting the top up may have saved me from the fabled July frostbite, but it also set me up for disaster. See, I put the top up and immediately felt great about my new ability to move my fingers again and also about how warm it finally was, but the warm cabin of the Miata would come to betray me very soon. Now I don't remember the time when I first began to fall asleep at the wheel, but I can only assume it was around still-way-too-early-to-be-driving-anything-much-less-a-craigslist-car o'clock. So I started nodding off and had a couple of wake up calls when I drove over the rumble strips at the side of the road, but nothing major. This is where the coffee I mentioned earlier makes its comeback. The next time I nodded off, I awoke and found that I was heading straight for a big-ass orange construction cone, and not one of the tiny orange triangle ones, it was one of the tall skinny ones. I thank god everyday that it wasn't one of the huge cylinder ones that are bigger than most children, because someone would have had to pick up pieces of Miata bumper for days at least.

Thanks to my excellent Formula 1 driver racing reflexes, I managed to only run over the base of the cone, but it still freaked me out beyond all reason. I stopped by the side of the road, checked out my tire and noticed that it looked like it still had the same amount of air in it, did some jumping jacks to wake up, and went on with my life. I do not know about the condition of the cone, but I hope it was sent straight to traffic cone hell, where it belongs. Miata - 1    Cone - 0

I made it to Ames! Woo! I reached my halfway point and decided it was time for some breakfast, and there was only one thing that could quench my hunger. Cini-Mini's. I got off of the interstate and the Miata decided it hated me for my traffic cone abuse and started screeching again. I then began to A) curse its name and B) ask why it was doing this to me again. I pulled into the Burger King parking lot, told the car I would deal with it after a nice breakfast, and headed on in. I go up to the counter to order and the lady at the front tells me thAT BURGER KING DOESNT CARRY CINI-MINI'S ANYMORE. She happily offers me some Cinnabon crap, but I'm not interested because she has ruined my morning and possibly even my life. I ordered some hash browns and headed out to the car. I start it up and it screeches, so I open the hood to discover the issue. The engine is shaking a bit more violently than usual, but using my amazing mechanical ability, I decide that its probably still safe to drive and will still get me to my friends house, so I threw deuces to the Burger King manager that still haunts my dreams. Oh, I also put the top down in the BK parking lot because convertible.

The screeching stopped soon after I merge onto the interstate, and I decide to dig into my hash browns. Now, not only did this lady crush my soul with news of the death of a national hero (Cini-Mini), but she also decides that she's gonna make me some extremely mediocre hash browns apparently. Nice touch. Burger King's whole "Have It Your Way" motto is a lie, because my way included Cini-Mini's and tasty hash browns. Kick a man while he's down I guess.

Anyways, things go right for me for awhile and I begin to feel the hope. Maybe, just maybe I'll get there. I notice that my gas tank is almost empty, so I stop in Waterloo, IA for some gas. I exit the interstate and can either turn left where there is a gas station in view, or turn right where there is a sign claiming that there is a gas station just down the road. It's a red light and I don't want to wait, so i turn right, and guess what? There's no gas station. It's all just a sick twisted lie. So there I was, speeding through Waterloo trying to find a gas station because I am on E and the Miata starts screeching again. At this point I accept the fact that I probably don't make it to the end of the road trip when suddenly a green dinosaur appears in the distance. Sinclair. A gas station known for being there when you need it most. Unlike the earlier sign which betrayed me, this sign is no lie and I stop and fill up. I call my friend because she was going to give me faster directions from Waterloo, and she asks where exactly I am in Waterloo. Honestly, I have no clue, and I realize that its a good thing I live in this century where we have phones with GPS, because I got lost trying to find gas. She laughs at me and I use my GPS which gets me back to the interstate.

Things go well for awhile again, until I am told by my GPS to take an exit. Normally this would be fine, but the exit numbers are weird and they don't make sense and I miss my exit. I'm killin' it. I continue to the next exit and then the GPS tells me to take some back roads through small towns. I decide "F*** it, we'll do it live" and follow the GPS' orders. The GPS, like many other things that morning, betrayed me. It takes me to a small town in which the road is down to one lane going both ways because of construction, so I have to sit and wait around for all the other cars to come and go. Normally not much of an issue, but while I'm sitting in line, the Miata decides to start screeching again. At this point I've had enough and I just turn the car off and wonder if anyone in this town is willing to trade for a rusty 90's convertible... I eventually get my turn to go and I get stuck behind a Buick going about 10mph. "Okay, this is fine, I can deal with this"I tell myself. The Buick then drives over the newly laid blacktop and tries to turn onto a street with a huge construction sign saying "ROAD CLOSED". I decide that this moment is too awkward and horrible to watch, so I speed around and the GPS then tells me that I have to drive across the fresh blacktop. Using my newly discovered life motto of "Ride or Die", I speed across the blacktop and make my way through the rest of the town.

Against all odds, I finally made it to my friends house in the Miata. 5ish hours, 300 miles and multiple betrayals later, I did it. But then it hits me.

I still have to make it back home at some point. But I know I'll make it, because the Miata always makes it.

Thanks for reading!

A Year-ish In Review

So it's been a little bit of time since I last wrote for you guys, and I'd like to blame that solely on the fact that it seems I actually have a life outside of this blog, which honestly, who would've thought that? Either way, I am back and there is a very specific reason for that, and that is to celebrate an anniversary, because there are some things you have to take time to remember, like your first car, America's birthday, or that one girl you tried to talk to once but actually ended up just mumbling in front of her because girls are scary.

I'm off topic again, but we are gathered here today to celebrate the 1 year-ish anniversary of my ownership of the Craigslist Miata, which you may or may have not heard about at some point because I apparently never shut up about it. Sorry bout it. Today I am going to review my last year of ownership and all the interesting events that came with it. Oh, fun fact, this one is gonna be a little long so bear with me.

Why don't we start at the beginning? It's like mid-July and after just barely missing out on buying an old British convertible, my friend found the Miata on Craigslist in Missouri, or Kansas, honestly I cant really remember but all I know is that it was like a 3-ish hour drive away from Omaha. I decided to take a trip down there with him and found myself coming back at 1 in the morning with a white convertible and the biggest smile on my face. 

The next day I come outside, get in, and scream through the streets of Omaha at 45mph because thats the speed limit and I never break that (Hello cops), but also because the Miata isn't very fast and has about the same amount of horsepower as my blender. In other words it's a bit slow.

I believe the next issue came about a few days later when I found oil where there most definitely shouldn't be oil and I had a heart attack because I thought the car was done for and my 1 week love affair was already over. Luckily it was nothing major and through the use of a McDonalds straw and a brake bleeder the oil was contained. But there was no way I was getting off that easy, because it kept going until it sheared a bolt that attached the alternator to the car. If you don't know what an alternator is just imagine something extremely important that a car cant really live without. My car tried to rid itself of that. Maybe it hates me or something.

Flash-forward to some month later in the year and I'm working at your friendly neighborhood Family Video until about 12:15am. It had apparently been snowing while I was at work and I'll let in you in on a little secret here readers, a light, rear-wheel drive car is not going to do well in the snow. So I'm driving along and guess what? I figure out that my car is hiding a secret from me. It doesn't have anti-lock brakes. So there I was, sliding through an intersection at 12:20am in a snow covered convertible in probably mid-October. Go me, and go Miata.

S/O to my grandfather for letting me store the Miata in his garage for the winter. Also, S/O to his garage floor for taking the brunt of a small oil leak for a few months. You the real MVP.

During those winter months I decided to tackle the issue of the car's exhaust, so I bought a new one off of Ebay and that was pretty much that for awhile. Winter came and went as did my dreams of a successful car blog. Moving on!

SPRING BREAK 2014 - A toddler gave me a stomach virus that laid me up for 2 days and the exhaust I bought off of Ebay was A) massive and B) did not fit correctly so I had to take it to a muffler shop to have them weld on an extra inch of metal. Thankfully it now fits and looks and sounds ridiculous. Go me. Oh! I almost forgot! My brake caliper had seized up earlier but by spring break you could clearly tell that there was some metal grinding going on back there. So I basically deafened everyone when I was on the throttle and made everyone cringe when I braked. I didn't have enough time to tackle that during break so I decided to wait until summer.

Summer break, that magical time of year when seventh graders go to the pool and you can just feel the puberty-filled tension in the air. I, however, spent about zero time at the pool before I left the country because apparently my life is never easy and I had to replace a brake caliper. After buying/ordering two/three different calipers, my friend Devin (who probably deserves a full name S/O at this point for all his help) and I finally made a franken-caliper out of two of them and it works and to this day I'm still astounded by that fact.

Time for another S/O to the people I spent most of my summer with in Spain! Spain was amazing and so were the people I met, and I urge anyone who has the opportunity to study abroad because you will not regret it. Now, I was unable to drive the Miata most of the summer because I was studying abroad, but as soon as I was home, I busted it out again to tear through the streets of Omaha at an extremely reasonable and legal speed (Hello again Mr. Cop). I have taken a few road trips in the car since I've been home and those are stories for another day, but suffice it to say it was very stressful and did not go as smoothly as I had planned, but the point is that it made it.

Done! Here we are, a year later and probably around 3000ish miles and the little white POS that could is still running. It's had some issues along the way and there have been a few times where I cursed its name and prayed that god would smite it along with the man from Missouri/Kansas that sold it to me. Overall however, it's been one hell of an adventure.

Instead of leaving you guys with a lesson, today I'd like to finish this post by thanking anyone and everyone who has had anything to do with the Miata in the last year. Whether you've helped put it back together, seen it fall apart, ridden in it or even just heard me rant about it for hours on end, I'd like to think that you've all been a part of this adventure with me. So thanks again, and here's to another successful year!

How To Impress And Attract Women

Today, we are going to take a little trip through time, back to when ya boi was a little younger and had about 0 luck talking to those things that look a little different, girls.

Girls are a little different than boys, and it's not really my job to tell you how, so I'll leave that to your parents, or in my case, the public school system. But guys, trust me, someday something will happen and you'll want to impress them, and I have the one thing that will make sure she will fall for you.

I'm talking about stick shifts.

Thats right! The manual car! The transmission that is possibly, maybe, I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me, on it's way out the door is the key to impressing the girl of your dreams.

For those of you who don't know what a stick is, you can:

A. Stop reading and go away.
B. Look up what it is and come back and continue reading.

Alright, serious time. A stick is a car with a transmission that you shift yourself, the car doesn't do it for you. You select the gears and change them all on your own. It's honestly so much fun and driving an automatic is boring compared to a stick. I urge everyone to go learn and keep the manual transmission alive. The only issue is that manual cars are becoming rarer in our world because some people don't like them because I have no idea. They're wrong though, and that's what counts.

Now, it's time for why you need to learn stick. Like I said earlier, it will impress the ladies. I know you're sitting there thinking "How?! How does that work?! Share your glorious knowledge Cody!".

The truth is that I don't know how or why it works, but all I can tell you is that when I started driving a stick, I went from a kid who couldn't talk to girls, to a man who ran into a door after his first kiss. Thats progress ladies and gentlemen.

It's time to round this all up!

All you guys need to do is rip a rad 4-3 downshift while an attractive woman is in the passenger seat.

Then watch the magic happen.

Thanks for reading!