Listen to your kids

I think a lot of people think this parenting thing is a one way street: kids, bask in the glory of my awesomeness and do as I say (but may be not as I do.)  Truth is, that's a sure way to miss out on some really good ideas.  Take learning a language, for example.

You, Miss Over-Achiever, are working on your third language.  Third language!  Shit, I have a hard enough time with English.  Seeing you dive into French, I thought, "wow, I should learn another language."  Japanese has fascinated me since we hosted exchange students when I was a kid.  Half an hour on a teach yourself site and I quickly started thinking of a new course.

I had three years of Latin in junior high and two years of Spanish in high school.  I can remember very little of the former and some slang and swear words in the latter.  Swearing is fun, so Spanish it is.  Oh, and it's probably more practical.  If I ever make it to Argentina I'll be able to communicate, which is infinitely more likely than me attending a church service conducted in a dead language.

So, thanks, kiddo.  You've inspired me to abandon my monolinguistic ways.  I don't think I'll be catching up to you, but that's cool.  You can translate Chris and Lolo's Facebook updates for me.

Let me get my umbrella, because I see a shitstorm coming

I really like driving.  I really like riding a motorcycle.  So I thought I would share a few things about both that I really like.  I'll try to fit 'I really like' in as much as possible, too.

Road trips are awesome.  Not the drive to Vegas kind, that's all about getting from A to B, because B is where the alcohol is.  The kind I'm talking about is where you go from place to place and enjoy the stuff on the way.  The trip Tash and I took is my favorite.  Up the coast to San Francisco with a stop in Solvang on the way, then across the state to Lake Tahoe, down to Yosemite, over to Las Vegas, across the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, and then Phoenix.  Tough to top that one.

The other car trip was with my Pops and your uncle to Washington.  It was about 24 hours of almost straight-through driving (violating the 'enjoy stuff along the way' part of a good road trip) and we encountered high winds, rain, and snow, but it was still good to be doing it together.  Your uncle had been stationed in Washington and his stuff (read: motorcycle and a few boxes) were at Pops, so we decided we would get a UHaul trailer to haul it up there, driving in shifts.  Then we could check out Whidbey Island, Seattle, and whatever else.  I'll never forget waking up in the backseat to find out we were parked at a gas station in Oregon because they had worn themselves out trying to drive through Grant's Pass in a snow storm at night.

The best bike trip was to the West Coast Hawk Rally in 2005.  My friend's brother had a bed and breakfast in Point Reyes, north of San Francisco.  I decided to ride up on Friday and back on Sunday.  With the riding we did as a group on Saturday, I put in about 1200 miles that weekend.  Going up the coast Friday, I had a stop for lunch in Santa Barbara, dinner at an In-n-Out somewhere along the 101 south of the Bay Area, rode through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then into the pitch black night where by chance I ran into the rally returning from dinner.  Saturday riding was through some of the best parts of California, but was cut short by a bad crash (not me this time.)  Sunday riding home was brutal, taking the shorter route down I-5 through the blistering heat of the Central Valley.  Had to stop every hundred miles to get off the bike and off my bum.  Probably the worst single ride ever, but still pretty awesome.

And completely different from a car trip.  Plenty of time to be in your own head, feel the temperature drop when you ride through a dip, smell the garlic as you approach Gilroy, have a little fun riding big sweepers after droning on the long straight stretches of highway, all of that stuff.

Where's the shitstorm?  I hope you get to do all those things, including a bike trip.  Not my trips of course, your own with your own destinations and your own places in between.  Those kinds of experiences can't be bought.

If you start thinking you're a great driver

If you start thinking you're a great driver, you'll probably wreck your car in the near future.  Knowing your limits and always working on your skills will help you keep your ego in check.

Your uncle and I both managed to do really well at the basic motorcycle skills course.  We took it at different times, but we both crashed after passing the test.  He crashed right in front of the school, one of the instructors helped him pick up his bike.  I crashed playing Ricky Racer in Reche Canyon and broke my wrist.  I don't know about your uncle, but I was feeling pretty full of myself when I scored the highest on the riding test and the instructors said that they would feel good about riding with me.  Not sure how I got my helmet on after that.

I've had lots of drivers training and driven lots of miles.  I still make a serious effort each time I get in the car to pay attention and concentrate on what I'm doing.  There have been a few accidents in those miles and more than one can be chalked up to not being alert.

Learning to drive is frustrating

It is especially frustrating when your dad is in the passenger seat saying things like, 'you took that turn too fast' and 'you need to turn faster.'  Believe me, I know.

When I learned to drive (yeah, here we go, 'back when I was a kid'), I had to take a semester of driver's ed, six lessons with an instructor, and something like 40 hours driving with a parent.  The experiences were boring, boring, and super frustrating, respectively.  First time out with my dad I was moving the wheel left and right while driving straight, just like Tom Slick.  He said something along the lines of 'what the hell are you doing? Knock that off.'  Then I'm pretty sure in the same outing I blew a red light.  And drove too close to the gutter ('don't drive there, that's where all the crap is.')  Tailgated, too, I'm sure.  All within about 10 minutes.  Thirty-nine hours and fifty minutes to go.

We both survived it and looking back, I think Pops was remarkably patient and showed a fair bit of restraint.  He later taught me to drive a stick shift in his big Ford truck, which turned out to be pretty easy.  At least it was compared to the one attempt with my mom who had freaked out, convinced I was going to burn up the clutch.  Anyway, I hope I'm doing as good a job as my dad did and that you aren't getting too pissed off.

Backing up

Don't think too much about it.  If you want to turn the car back of the car left, turn the wheel left.  If you want it to go right, yep, turn right.  Use the mirrors and practice using just the side mirrors.  And for the love of Pete, go slow.

So you are a licensed driver now.

Prepare for a massive amount of unsolicited advice.

First, a recap of some of the expert tips already dispensed:

• Drive like everyone else is on the phone, texting, doing eye make up, anything but paying attention.
• Watch other drivers in their mirrors, the way they drift within their lanes, and even the rare indicator to figure out where they are about to go.
• Check your mirrors often for cars creeping into your blind spot, motorcyclists, and cops.
• Keep some space around you, then you'll have somewhere to go if things go badly in front of you.

There's a lot more to come, I just have to think about it.  After awhile it becomes second nature so don't get worked up about remembering it all.