Page 8
April 2009
‘Long. Stressful. Tiresome. When is
it going to end? Taking steps from left to
right, 90 bus on the other block. Then a
little time has passed and now McPher-
son orange line all the way. Followed by
bridge pacing, curling, and off out of the
slide. But the journey does not end there,
have to hike a few steps just to get to the
beginning line. When it is. reached the
voyage has just begun. The flag stands
tall to the left the entrance hall bridged
across. You look down and you see
black shoes, kaki pants, white polo
(imprinted with a logo). You park all
your freedom of speech, freedom to ex-
press, and you pull doors open. Before
you can go any further, you are checked.
Next before you can take a breath, you
find yourself speeding to go from one
room to the other.
Wow you are a racer cannot stop.
As soon as the bell rings, your eyes are
running, sometimes stumbling over
words, but you train yourself to forget
about it and run over it, until you have
time, you may then consider coming
back to the crash and recovering your
dignity. Now you hear another bell rings
you are in a foreign land. Do not know
the direction, your are lost. Before you
can untangle the words, you hear one
more bell and you are rushed and
handed maps and different cultures to
wear. Finally you take a lunch break.
You want to stop the clock and freeze
this moment but you realize that life has
got to go on. At this instant, you are
climbing but you have to decipher num-
bers before you take an additional step.
You hear that sound again and you think
‘one more and you are out’, your mind
refuse to think of the repetition of these
events, but that is what is destined, but
more than that your mind refuse to think
of the outcome.
Is today the day when an unex-
pected catastrophe occurs and every-
thing is lost in the aftermath? Is today
the day when the race is over, but no
celebration occurs? Is all this labor go-
ing to have no significance because you
unfortunately made a wrong turn result-
ing in a dead end? Is this route useful or
are you wasting your time? Does it guar-
antee success? Then you look back from
your rear view mirror and say ‘what a
stupid question, nothing is guaranteed.’
But yet again you tell yourself ‘you can
make a prediction of what would be,
from what was so and that is almost like
a guarantee, so it is not a stupid question
after all.’ :
Now anticipation. Heart racing.
Wish you can live it all over again. The
final finish line is visible. You’re losing
your breath. Gasping for air. But you
refuse to surrender. You took your eyes
from the road and consequently you lost
first place. You are sad, disappointed,
and want to stop to unpack your emo-
tions. But you realized that the race is
not over, you still have a shot. So you
continue to sprint, you become con-
scious that two other candidates are seri-
ously competing for the same title you
are after. These last moments are the
defining moments that you have been
waiting for. But is this outcome guaran-
teed? Can you use that same previous
equation to predict your outcome? You
are now second guessing yourself and
your logic. You want to say that ‘you
have already accomplished so much and
this is not going to make any difference,’
but the reality is that it will.
The passion for the race was all you,
but besides that you have wasted all your
years being told what to do. Now you
would be set free not only to race but to
discover life as well. Free like speeding
birds in sun raised mornings. You would
be controlling your qwn destiny. It may
sound scary because the race is all you
know, however rest a sure because the
skills you raced with intersect with the
skills you need for life. Life is all a
travel and you are experiences would
forever be packed in your memories.
Life is a travel; you are physically trav-
eling from one place to the other, you
are mentally traveling to memories, and
you are emotionally driving for what
you want.
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Spring cleaning usually involves
mops, brooms, dusters, and other clean-
ing tools commonly used in cleaning
houses but in this case, spring cleaning
uses tools like wrenches, sockets and
other tools commonly found in the ga-
rage. Over the winter cars have been
taking a beating. Harsh road conditions
are terrible for the exterior of a vehicle.
Cold starts in the morning are hard on
engines. Getting into your car brings the
outside element into the interior of your
car. Now that the winter is over and the
weather is becoming nice outside, you
should service your car. :
The engine is the first thing yo
should be concerned. You should change
your motor oil with high grade motor oil
and oil filter. This change should come
with compliance of manufacture’s speci-
fications found in the owner’s manual of
the vehicle. Changing oil will allow the
car’s engine to perform like it should. It
is important to keep up with il changed
because if oil in an engine goes un-
changed, it will cause problems and pos-
sible engine failure, and new engines are
not cheap and getting them installed is
expensive as well.
The second thing you should be
concern about is the exterior of the vehi-
cle. Driving in the winter, especially on
roads that have been treated for icy con-
dition is very hard on the paint of a car.
After the winter months are over, you
should completely wash and wax the car
with high quality wax or some sort of
finish restorer.
Conserving the paint on a car will
also conserve your bank account. New
paint jobs are not cheap and if you just
get rid of the car with bad paint, the
price will reflect the condition of the
paint. Keeping up with the maintenance
of the exterior of a vehicle will also al-
low someone to keep the car longer.
After paint has been taken off the car, it
will start to rust, creating holes. A hole
in the body of a car means that the car
quiring the body to be patched. Or if bad
enough, the need to buy another car will
also come into being.
Along with maintaining the paint of
the car, other things will possibly need
to be replaced. One item that may need
such treatment is the tires. If the Tires
are badly weather cracked or are show-
the tire, they will need to be replaced.
Another item that you would look to
replace is the windshield wiper blades.
In the winter, windshield wipers freeze,
crack and even slide off the windshield
wiper. When looking into if a wind-
shield wiper blade should be replaced,
you are to look for streaking on the
windshield or loose ends of the blade
hanging off the windshield wiper. If one
is to replace windshield wiper blades, it
i$ a good idea to get spray silicon and
apply it to the new wiper blades. The
application of the silicon will help the
blades performing as they should give
the driver a clear line of site.
The final facet of automotive main-
tained you would want to concern your-
In the winter as the driver and pas-
sengers step into the car, they bring in
with them the outside. When the nice
weather finally gets here, it is a good
idea to completely detail the car’s inte-
rior. This activity includes vacuuming
out the carpet, seats and nocks and pock-
other side to detailing the interior of
means that a cleaner should go on sur-
faces that receive a great deal of abuse
surfaces such as; dashboard, door panels,
kick panels and other surfaces that make
up the interior of your car.’ With the
chemical cleaning in mind, products
such as Armor All Protecting is rumored .
to be bad for plastic components inside
of cars, so, people should probably keep
this in mind when purchasing products
to clean their cars.
This is a good thing because catch-
ing a stain early can be easily removed.
Another advantage to doing this service
to the car will make driving it even more
pleasant. Think about it; the car has not
been cleaned in a couple of months; the
smells, stains, and the stuff just lying in
the car. With cleaning the interior of the
car, all of that goes away. Doing all of
these services to the car will make it
reliable and a pleasant vehicle to drive.
When springtime approaches, think of
warmer temperatures, less clothes to
wear, flowers, schools over, and last, but
certainly not least, think of the car!