On Harrowing Parking

Seeing how beautiful of a day outside it was, I thought it'd be a good idea to drive out to the fire trail and run a little loop. Chuck was filled with gas and we set out with a good level of optimism.

The first sign of danger that we ignored was the large number of people driving around in Berkeley. It's Cal Day today, and many activities are happening around campus. I thought that the fire trail was probably immune to the traffic, since it's a ways off of the main roads. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and the small gravel parking lot was packed with cars. The layout for the parking lot is a 2-tier horseshoe shape. One half of the horseshoe is on the lower level, and it curves around to an upper level. I saw a woman with her dog walking towards a old beaten red Toyota pickup, you know, one of those indestructible ones. So I drove up to the upper half of the horseshoe and asked her if she was coming out. She immediately snaps back that she would if I would let her out. I was on the upper half, but there was more than enough room for her to come out. Figuring that she was simply ageist mixed with a bit of senile, I let the attitude slide and got in my car and drove to the center of the horseshoe. She starts backing up. She's cutting it really close to the outer edge. Then I hear a loud *chunk*, see the truck bob once, and feel my stomach drop.

The poor lady scurries out the find her truck's front right wheel floating in midair. The front axle's resting on the concrete railing. Then there was my car. Chuck, along with about 6 other cars were in the half of the horseshoe that was trapped between her truck and an BMW 5 series. Here's where I started kicking myself for not going to Tilden. I wanted to bite the lady's head off for giving my shit to start with, and sucking at driving. I came out and asked her if she had insurance to call a tow truck, and she answered yes and started calling. She made some other off-hand remark about how I should just take her space. What nerve!

Along comes a young built woman named Chris driving her bumble bee yellow FJ Cruiser (it looks like a lego frog). Suddenly the old woman mellowed out a bit. We brainstormed some plans and the first thing we tried was to have the old woman sit in her car, turn the wheel as far left as possible, while we stood on the opposite side and tried to push the front of the car and hope the floating right wheel would grip back on the road. This failed horribly, but we learned that old beater Toyota trucks are rear wheel drive, contrary to what Chris and I both thought. Since the truck's back wheels were still on the ground, we tried having her back up. This started out very promising, since she moved about 3 or 4 inches, but then her rear wheels lost traction on the dirt and uselessly kicked up dust. What was even worse was the fact that the gap between the back of her truck and the side of the BMW was even narrower than before.

I mentally did some further kicking of myself for not trying to move my car out while there was more space. Chris said she would try and guide me through the gap, so I did at 6 or 7 point turn to point my car at the gap as straight as possible. My starting position was about 3 inches away from the sonata on my right. Chuck's mirrors were folded in, and we started out. From my interior perspective, it looked like I was already scraping against the sonata, but we inched along with Chris's reassurance. There were several minor wiggles to prevent Chuck's butt from hitting the Sonata side, Chuck's front fender from hitting the truck's bumper, and Chuck's other fender from tearing into the BMW's bumper. At the worst point, I looked out my window and saw the truck's bumper about a finger width's gap from my car. In fact, I wouldn't have made it had the car's belt line been a little lower. Instead, the slight outward bulging crease along the side of the doors was high enough so that the bumper cleared *under* the crease line. It took me about 15 or 20 minutes to clear all 3 cars. Chuck was not harmed.

We parted ways shortly after that. A few people stopped by and helped out or offered their small chit chat. Another older woman said the exact same thing happened to her in her minivan. A middle aged man in the subaru helped me clear the cars on one side.

Things I've learned:

• Chuck is one slim and awesome car.
• Older people need to have mandatory driving tests after they hit a certain age.
• Older people need to be reminded that respect goes both ways.
• People who drive FJ Cruisers are cool.

I drove off to Tilden a full hour after I arrived at the fire trail, and did a short run. The time I took could have easily allowed me to run to LBL and back. It's not fair!

On Conquering Hills

After I dropped finished half of the movie "The Queen", I took Chuck out to a quiet deserted hill street. The grade wasn't very steep, but it was steep enough to roll back without holding the brakes. I was trying to learn how to hold the car by the ebrake, and release the ebrake just as the clutch started to engage. It took me awhile, but after several attempts I became more consistent and less jerky. One thing I noticed was that I did better if I separated the steps more clearly. Instead of simultaneously engaging clutch, gassing, and releasing the ebrake, I found it to be much smoother if I engage and gas, and THEN release. That's not to say that I'm spinning the front wheels, but just not doing all three at once made it much better.

When I got comfortable, I took it to a much steeper hill and to my surprise, the ebrake didn't hold the car as well as I thought. I had to really use some forearm strength to get that sucker up high enough to stop the car. To make matters worse, the clutch + gas operation needed tweaking because just the clutch friction alone couldn't hold the car. There needed to be MORE gas and MORE precise clutch control. Of course, I had a few stalls here and more than a few choking sounding starts.

On Many Firsts

First time filling up the xB. Of course, this required going on the freeway for the first time. Not only that, but it's also the first photoshoot for Chuck Norris. Who's Chuck Norris you say? Well, after not so much deliberation, I've decided to name my xB after a man who can do it all :) It's much more original than naming the car a girl or based on it's color. Besides, the sentences and innuendos with the name is just fantastic.

The photoshoot also led to an early disappointment: the paint. This is the most god-awfully cheap paint I've ever seen. To be fair, I haven't seen or previously paid very much attention to paint before, but it's glaringly obvious this is a place where Toyota decided to save cost. There are many dimples and pits in the paint on the hood and front bumper. This makes sense since it's such a bluff surface ready for constant barrage of dirt, rocks, and bugs. After going through the scion life forums, the general consensus is to get some type of clear bra. Think of it as a giant saran wrap covering parts of your car.

Unfortunately, Chuck doesn't like the idea of a BRA (translation: I'm to broke to buy one.)