the 2nd horsepower war

2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8

For many years I wished that my dad was just a smidge older and had the foresight to buy a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda 426 Hemi before they became collector's items. And more importantly I had wished that he would've kept it for me to drive. I really love the old school muscle cars, and now that gas is forecasted to make it over $4.50/gallon compared to $3.50 peak a year ago, I feel as if the pinch will quickly cause car manufacturers to shy away from the current horsepower wars as quickly as they did in the early 70's. Now I find myself wishing that I was a smidge older and just a bit richer to boot, because I so want one of these soon to be collectable horsepower beasts! I mean the cars people are coming up with have some amazing stats:

2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8
425HP 420lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $45,000-60,000 ($40,000 MSRP)

2009 Cadillac CTS-V
550HP 550lb-ft Torque, Price ???

2008 Shelby Mustang GT500
500HP 475lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $53,000-70,000 ($42,975 MSRP)

2008 BMW M3
414HP 295lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $65,000-100,00 ($53,800-70,000 MSRP)

2008 Mercedes C63 AMG
457HP 600lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $65,000+ ($54,675 MSRP)

2008 Audi RS8
420HP 317lb-ft Torque, Price (after dealer markup) $72,000+ (66,910 MSRP)

my life in pictures

Yamaha FZ6

I have found a new bike that I want. (If I ever get the money) It really has about everything that I want in a bike right now. And this bike is the Yamaha FZ6. Believe it or not, the thing that won me over hands down with this bike was the center stand. Most bikes don't come with them anymore, and this makes it a lot easier for them to tip if you inadvertently park it on asphalt on a hot day.

Besides the center stand, this bike as a lot of features that won me over from the Suzuki SV650 and Kawasaki Ninja 650.

• Larger 5.1 gallon tank
• Digital speedometer
• Digital fuel gauge
• Digital temperature gauge
• Dual headlights (more visibility)
• 4 cylinders (smoother ride)
• higher seat height (I'm tall)
• comes in blue (the Ninja 650 doesn't come in a color I like for 2008)
• Has less fairing than the Ninja 650

And most importantly, the exhaust sounds super cool :P

The down sides are the following

• under seat exhaust (possibly hot, and less storage)
• battery under fuel tank (harder to get to than most bikes)
• $500 more than the Ninja 650 (although, I'd pay that much more for the smoother 4 cylinders, dual headlights, and digital display!)

Even with those down sides, the bike is still the all around winner. It has very little fairing, so the bike looks like a bike and not some plastic toy on 2 wheels. It's got a lower displacement engine (so that it won't be too powerful for my novice skills). And I really think it'll save me gas money. Of course, the time it would take me to repay $6,999 on gas with 20MPG savings would be astronomical. But still... it's a cool bike :)

Shorts for tall people

Why is it most clothing companies make varying length pants, but they only have one length of shorts in a certain style? I never understood this. I have been avoiding buying shorts for years because each time I go to the store, all I find are shorts that are above my knees or the couple pairs that aren't are some weird plaid or ultra baggy urban. I don't understand why this is not an issue to people because everybody in America is getting taller on average and my height of 6'4" really isn't even that tall anymore, I know plenty of people taller than me. OK, not plenty, but I bet that 1 in 10 guys is taller than me... So does that mean that 15/20% of the population has the same issues I do?

On Monday I went to four stores and looked through every single pair of shorts they had to find 1 out of 2 pairs that were actually longer and didn't look weird in some way. I got my extra 6" of length, but the same pair was $20 less if I didn't get the "elongated" version... That's pretty crappy. I still bought my $60 pair of shorts, because, frankly, I wanted a pair of darn shorts! Thank goodness they had my size, otherwise I'd be writing this blog with a sad ending!

A break from life

Looking back, I didn't realize it at the time, but even as my family and I spent most of our time driving back and forth between relatives and my dad's work engagements. My vacation really was a much needed break from the stress of my everyday life. I wish I had appreciated it more. Because already I've had more stress-inducing events happen to me since arriving home at 2PM yesterday than I can even remember. But just for the sake of this post I will list some examples....

$700 car repair estimate, first mortgage bill came in, signed lease for apartment for another 2.5 months (not by choice), dropped eBay item in parking lot and scratched it, received 587 emails in 3 business days while out, expense department rejected $3500 hotel bill for company mandated trip, company rejected $500 airfare (both for no good reasons) etc...

On my vacation, I temporarily forgot about all these things going on in my life, and at the very least I told myself that I didn't have to do anything about any of it because I was "off the grid." It was great. I ate a lot, slept a lot, and had fun with my family. Life should be more like that. Work and money should not be nearly as prevalent as it became parent over the past couple weeks.

Life is hard. I want to take a break. Where can I file a grievance? I mean there is a lot of exciting stuff going on, like building a house, getting a promotion (supposedly), fixing my motorcycle and the simple fun I have hanging out with my girlfriend. Even with all that, it's hard not to let all this stress bother me. I wish I could just tell the world to stop for a minute so I can catch my breath. My life is going just fine. I just wish I had some sort of personal assistant or more money to throw at everything to make it all go away. No bills would solve so many problems. An assistant would mask a lot of problems, but oh well. I'll just have to keep pushing on. At least Friday is tomorrow.