Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Cheaper than a roller coaster |1:01 AM| Wow, I walked out of Cass's place thinking "I need to go to Europe", among other ideas on how to make life more interesting. Less than 5 minutes later I was surfing on a thin layer of water, doing my damnedest to avoid disaster.
I've been bitching at Portland for a while about a lack of certainty in my life. Some kind of good, pure direction. Few things can focus me like rocketing down the road with only the most tenuous of control over my vehicle.
I was tooling along, doing 10 under the speed limit to be safe*.
Up ahead, at the intersection marked below, the light turned red. This is downhill, bad road conditions, I knew I had a damned good chance of losing control of the vehicle, and that's exactly what happened the moment I applied the brakes.
The car was swerving, wildly. At this point I was trying to bring it under control and stop before the intersection. Then I changed priorities to just staying in the right lane. As I shot forward, still fish tailing, I abandoned those ideas and just concentrated on staying in the center lane and not hitting anything.
I honked twice as I passed under the now very red stoplights.
I noticed there weren't any cars around, and I had plenty of road to work this out. That's when it became fun.
Don't get me wrong, this was scary shit, my car was skidding almost completely out of my control, but I was absolutely certain of my ability to bring it back. Applying the brakes did dick for stabilizing, so I had to turn into the slides, and then swing back around the moment I felt some minor bit of control. My car weighs very little for its size, so all I had to do was make sure the weight of the engine was travelling where I wanted it to go, and I could take care of the fishtailing rear of the car later.
The map below probably doesn't show enough of the direction changes I made, length of my "detour" but I definitely remember the edge of the green area, it's about where I'd stop.
After I stopped, I rolled down the window to pump my fist and cheer loudly. I was half tempted to swing back around and do it again. This grin is going to be plastered to my face the rest of the day.
Cheaper than a roller coaster |1:01 AM| Wow, I walked out of Cass's place thinking "I need to go to Europe", among other ideas on how to make life more interesting. Less than 5 minutes later I was surfing on a thin layer of water, doing my damnedest to avoid disaster.
I've been bitching at Portland for a while about a lack of certainty in my life. Some kind of good, pure direction. Few things can focus me like rocketing down the road with only the most tenuous of control over my vehicle.
I was tooling along, doing 10 under the speed limit to be safe*.
Up ahead, at the intersection marked below, the light turned red. This is downhill, bad road conditions, I knew I had a damned good chance of losing control of the vehicle, and that's exactly what happened the moment I applied the brakes.
The car was swerving, wildly. At this point I was trying to bring it under control and stop before the intersection. Then I changed priorities to just staying in the right lane. As I shot forward, still fish tailing, I abandoned those ideas and just concentrated on staying in the center lane and not hitting anything.
I honked twice as I passed under the now very red stoplights.
I noticed there weren't any cars around, and I had plenty of road to work this out. That's when it became fun.
Don't get me wrong, this was scary shit, my car was skidding almost completely out of my control, but I was absolutely certain of my ability to bring it back. Applying the brakes did dick for stabilizing, so I had to turn into the slides, and then swing back around the moment I felt some minor bit of control. My car weighs very little for its size, so all I had to do was make sure the weight of the engine was travelling where I wanted it to go, and I could take care of the fishtailing rear of the car later.
The map below probably doesn't show enough of the direction changes I made, length of my "detour" but I definitely remember the edge of the green area, it's about where I'd stop.
After I stopped, I rolled down the window to pump my fist and cheer loudly. I was half tempted to swing back around and do it again. This grin is going to be plastered to my face the rest of the day.
View My Stats
-->
