Last week, my car
officially hit the 50,000 mile mark. Huzzah!
Okay, so not every one
of those miles was mine – I bought my 2011 Hyundai Elantra Touring back in
November 2014 with a tick under 26,000 already on the odometer. But let’s be
real here: the previous owner put 26,000 miles on the car in 3 years, and I’ve
doubled that in just over a year. I’m taking ownership of all 50,000. I’m
applying to the Government of Hyundai Motor Company to grant me those first
26,000 via eminent domain.
While that paperwork
processes, though, I’m going to take a look back at what exactly I did in the
past 15 months to rack up all those miles, wear out the tread on my tires and
completely filth up what was, at the time of purchase, a relatively clean car.
1. Drive
to Kentucky (and Fredericksburg and Pittsburgh)
What better way
to test out a new (certified pre-owned) set of wheels than to immediately take
it out on a 1,000+ mile jaunt through the South? One week after I bought the
car, Miss Kazblog and I drove down through Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia
to the Bluegrass State to drink all the bourbon visit my mother, who
lives in scenic Bowling Green. Along the way, we stopped in Fredericksburg to
visit our college buddy Wiley, who plays guitar in a pretty cool band called
Melodime. We grabbed some beers, reminisced about the good ‘ol days and watched
the Browns actually win a football game (which I’m convinced is the main reason
I remember that night)
Once we got to
Bowling Green, it was day trip after day trip – a drive out to the Woodford
Reserve distillery, an afternoon at the Corvette museum (complete with cars in a pit!), a day trip to go EAT BOURBON BALLS BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS BOURBON. It
was a grand time.
On our way back,
we swung up to Pittsburgh to visit more old college friends, play the Antiques
Roadshow Drinking Game (more on that later) and revisit the South Side to see
what it looked like during the day instead of at 2 AM in an alcoholic haze.
2. Drive
to my (kind of) new job
My previous
department was “exited” a few days after I bought my car, which could have been
disastrous for someone who just made a major purchase. Fortunately, we were
simply moved to a new area at the building that just happens to sit a mile up
the road from my house. This resulted in much fewer miles driven daily and many
more trips home for lunch/to screw around for 10 minutes before driving back to
work. Some days, I’d even walk if I felt like a complete lunatic.
3. Drive
to class
In January 2015,
I started graduate school, the first time I’d taken an academic course in
nearly four years. I was convinced I’d be the old grump in a class full of
students who’d just gotten out of undergrad eight months prior. As it turned
out, I was the youngest in my massive, diverse class of….er, I mean, my
six-person class where I was the only man. The course, entitled “Communication
Content and Behavior,” gave me a chance to write about the Internet, music
festivals and social media in a way that didn’t feel like complete bullshit,
which was cool.
It was weird being
in school at first, since I was usually driving up right after work in a dress
shirt and slacks; the only chance that Undergrad Kaz had of doing that was if
he was interviewing the POTUS or going to court. But four years away from “the
game” of academia makes you long for some of the aspects of school that you don’t
appreciate when you’ve attended for 16 consecutive years – namely, that
intellectual stimulation is good and crummy Chinese food still tastes great on
a 20-degree night. I’m glad I had the layoff so I could truly appreciate what I
was missing, and I’m glad I’m back again.
No comments:
Post a Comment