I have been telling myself, “You need to stop neglecting your blog Ben, you need to stop neglecting your blog”. A lot has gone on since my last post. I have started working for the US Census Bureau. I’ve had more than my fair share of car trouble. I got a computer virus, and I had to completely clean slate my computer. Butler almost won the greatest game in college basket ball. It has also come to that part of the semester where my fine procrastinating skills come back to bite me in the butt. I am very, very good at putting things off. For example in two of my classes we have to write a paper about a destination in Indianapolis. Nothing fancy, we just have to explain what services the venue offers, throw in a peppering of history, and explain why they are important places in our city. Cake right? Now these assignments are on the syllabuses we got on the first day of class way back in January, so it’s not like I didn’t know about them. They were both due yesterday. When did Ben choose to do these assignments? For those of you who guessed yesterday, you would be correct. I know many people that can sit down and pump out several pages of well written paper in a matter of minutes. Not me though, it took a grand total of three hours. Now before I go on, I must explain that I’m not a bad writer, or a slow typer, so it may seem odd that it took three hours to write four pages of double spaced hogwash. Well, that’s because of my fine procrastination skills. I sat in front of my computer and messed with the brightness, or adjusted the length of time my computer will sit idly before it turns off, that sort of thing. In my procrastination, I learned something about myself, when I am not motivated, or simply don’t care about an assignment, I wash my hands twice as often as I usually do. You see, I’m so good at procrastinating, that I would rather wash my hands, than do homework. Swell.
As some of you may know, my beloved beater of a car Big Red, has basically come down with strange form of rust cancer. I took it into a mechanic to see what it would cost to get Big Red back to decent running condition. The first words out of the mechanic’s mouth were, “Have you ever thought about buying a new car?” Swell. I love my car. It doesn’t look that good, we got ripped off when we bought it, it has never been in good condition, but I love it. It drives incredible well, and has a very cool story behind it.
I own a Ford Contour SVT. SVT stands for special vehicles team, which is basically who Ford sends cars to make them really fast. For a while, Ford built F150 trucks that received SVT’s tuning services, making them the fastest trucks in the world. Likewise Ford sends a privileged few Mustangs to SVT. Once that happens they are no longer Mustangs, but become Cobras and Shelby GT500s. So in 1998, Ford decided to compete with the remarkable BMW 3 series, which are perhaps the sportiest four door cars in the world. SVT engineered a special 2.5 v6 engine producing 200 horsepower, dropped in a race track tuned suspension, added some snazzy body work, custom wheels and exhaust, resulting in a BMW for the masses. You may be asking yourself, “So why aren’t we all driving around in Contour SVTs then Ben?” Well, I will tell you why. Ford only made around 4,000 of these beasts each year of production which lasted about three and a half years. That means that not only are these cars fast, but they are also very exclusive in car terms. Car guys like exclusivity because that means not every one has one, which make them cool.
I have had so many great experiences in Big Red. While Sarah was in Spain, I used to search for the twistiest roads in Indiana on Google Maps, and then drive them. Man did I find some cool ones. Past corn fields, and covered bridges, through ancient little towns, and forests I flew. I also loved to bring my friends along, so they too could enjoy my car. I always liked have someone with me in case something horrible happened. I never told my friends that, but they understood the danger in what we were doing. Plus I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I also liked showing off my driving skills. So needless to say I was very sad when the mechanic gave Big Red a 500 mile life expectancy. He told me the tires are shot, the ball joints connecting the steering wheel to the steering rack are breaking, the rear sway back (stabilizing the car in turns so it doesn’t flop around or roll over) has completely rusted off, the electrical system is completely shot, when its not in gear it free revs up to 3,000 rpm, it needs a new battery, it needs new shocks, struts, and springs. After those 500 miles, it would probably become too unsafe to drive. Swell.
So now I’m in the market for a new car, which is very difficult because I am picky in the cars that I choose to drive. I have to be able to fit a bicycle in the trunk/folded down rear seats, it has to get good mileage, it has to be fun to drive, it can’t be made by General Motors or Chrysler because they are CRAP, and most importantly it has to have a manual transmission. That may seem like a lot of criteria, but in terms of cars it’s really not. I have found plenty of cars that fit the bill, but have automatic transmissions. In the rest of the world people drive manual transmissions, but not in America. I love manuals. They give you more control of the car, they are more fun to drive, and it’s manly. I have had half a dozen friends who swore by automatics, but have since switched to manuals because of my persuasion. They have all come back and said how much they love it. They enjoy driving now, and it’s manly. So my search for Big Red’s replacement continues.
It ought to be obvious that I love cars, but I love two things more. I love God, and I love Sarah. One year ago Sarah was studying in Spain. It was very hard for me because we couldn’t talk a lot, let alone see each other. Now, Sarah is very beautiful, so not seeing her was rough enough, but not even being able to talk regularly was even worse. For Christmas last year my parents gave me a ticket to Spain to go visit her. We decided I would go during Sarah’s nearly month long spring break. We booked a 12 day cruise that went all over, and we would spend the rest of the time hanging out in Alicante. One year ago yesterday I left Indianapolis. I had a layover in Philadelphia, and then I would arrive in Madrid. From there I was going to take a train from Madrid to Alicante. I was very excited about taking the train, because I like trains. They offer spacious travel, and a unique view of the landscape. I made it to Spain without a hitch. Once I landed I got a cab to the train station and had lunch. I don’t remember when my train’s departure time was, but I made darn sure not to miss it. I double checked that I was at the right platform; I was. I tried to board the train early, and got scolded. All I wanted to do was get on that train and see Sarah.
Finally, the time came to get on the train, and I was off. I had no idea how long the trip would take to get to Alicante, but with the jet lag, time difference, language barrier, and my superb math skills, there was no chance of figuring out when I was to arrive. One hour past. I tried to sleep, but I was too excited to sleep. Two hours past. I had already read all of the reading material I brought. Swell. Three hours past. At that point I was starting to get nervous. What if I was on the wrong train? I knew Alicante was the last stop on the line. What made matters worse was Sarah and I didn’t have any way to communicate with each other should my travel plans back fire. I began to tell myself, “It’s fine Ben, you’ll get there, just relax”. Thirty more minutes past. All I could do was watch the clock slowly grind away. I had to see Sarah. I was getting frantic. Why wasn’t the train going faster? Why were we stopping at every little town? At one stop I even got off to make sure that in some strange twist of fate, I hadn’t missed Alicante. I saw signs that said Elche. I remember three months back when Sarah had told me about a field trip she took to see the palm trees at Elche. “OK”, I reassured myself, “I’m on the right track. I’ll get there”. Another hour passed. Were the heck were we? I began thinking about what I could do to get the train to go faster. What would happen if I stormed the engineers and made them drive faster? Now my palms were sweating, I was jittery, and getting angry I wasn’t there yet. Where were we? I kept looking out the window expecting the mountains and empty country side to change to beaches and blue water. I even began getting angry with the mountains for not being beaches.
Finally I heard a man’s voice on the load speaker, “Something Something Something Alicant. Something Something Final”. I took it to mean Alicante is coming up. It will be our final stop. YES!!! We had to be there. Thirty more minutes went by. Ok man in the loudspeaker, why are you messing with me? The blur out the window slowly became more clear. The train was slowing! I had to be there! Eventually the train did stop, and I was there. I grabbed my suitcase and backpack. When I exited the train I saw nothing but thousands of people in front of me, all with dark black hair. I thought I would never make my way through the throng of people. Once again I became frantic. The people in front of we were walking too slow! I had to get around them. Hastily I weaved my way through the crowd. At one point I almost knocked over a little boy. “Lo Siento!” I looked back and shouted. BAM! I ran into the back of a nun while I was apologizing to the little boy. “Great, not only did I just trample a kid, but a nun too?” I silently asked myself. The crowd began to thin, and in the distance, I saw a head that was not covered in jet black hair. Was it? Could it be? Finally? Yes it was, finally, standing there in front of me was Sarah. We desperately hugged each other for what felt like an hour. My heart was racing. I couldn’t believe we were together, face to face. My eyes welled up with tears of joy. It was so amazing, I worried in the back of my mind that I was still on that train dreaming all of this up. It was that surreal. Finally I could hold her, and see her, and kiss her. Finally we would laugh together. Finally, my misery was over. Finally.
One year ago today, I lived the happiest day of my life. That is the single most happy memory I have. Even today as I write this, I feel the same emotions as I did on that train platform. My eyes well up, my heart races, my hands get a little clammy, and I smile. I just smile.
