{"id":908,"date":"2014-06-10T09:57:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T17:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=908"},"modified":"2014-06-10T09:57:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T17:57:29","slug":"may-need-know-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/may-need-know-things\/","title":{"rendered":"You may need to know things&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"TweetButton_button\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-url=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/may-need-know-things\/\" data-text=\"You may need to know things&#038;%238230;\" data-lang=\"en\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,\"script\",\"twitter-wjs\");<\/script><\/div>\n<p><em><strong>&#8230;you don&#8217;t think you need to know.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I will start at the end of this story and work my way to the beginning. \u00a0Why be normal, I always say sometimes. \u00a0I found out that you may need to know things you don&#8217;t think you need to know on my first trip abroad when I rented a car in Ireland. \u00a0The choices were all manuals &#8211; no automatics. \u00a0Oh&#8230;and right hand drive. \u00a0That means the driver sits in the &#8220;passenger&#8221; seat and operates the shift lever with the left hand. \u00a0Alllrriiight&#8230;.and you drive on the left hand side of the road. \u00a0Drive safely now! \u00a0At least the clutch pedal was still on the left. \u00a0Also &#8211; 99% of the roads predate automobiles and so they are exactly the width of 2 cars, minus 18&#8243;. \u00a0It&#8217;s a little better in towns where the deficit is a mere 8&#8243; to 10&#8243;. \u00a0For as many cars as there were without automatic transmissions, there were just as many without driver side rearview mirrors &#8211; just the little wires hanging out where the mirror used to be! \u00a0Probably from encounters with the occasional large BMW sedan or busses. \u00a0But, because I knew how to drive a stick, I said &#8220;I can do this!&#8221; &#8211; and I did. \u00a0The rental car had both mirrors intact when I turned it in.<\/p>\n<p>Driving a stick is not a problem for me &#8211; I learned to drive in a car with a manual transmission and never owned a car with an automatic until I had been driving for along time. \u00a0I am an afficionado of high performance cars and the words &#8220;automatic transmission&#8221; and &#8220;high perfomance car&#8221; do not go together. \u00a0But the older I get, the more I do appreciate an automatic. \u00a0Anyhoo, where I am going with this is &#8211; your preference may be a matter of choice. \u00a0Or not. \u00a0Especially if you are traveling overseas. \u00a0If you are traveling overseas chances are you will be renting a car since the completion of the undersea highway system is still some years off. \u00a0And if you are renting a car, you will likely be&#8230;that&#8217;s right: <em>driving a stick<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I believe this falls under the heading of &#8220;be prepared&#8221;. \u00a0Dirty Harry said: &#8220;A man&#8217;s got to know his limitations&#8221;. \u00a0And if one of his (or her) limitations is &#8220;I can&#8217;t drive that car because it not an automatic&#8221; then that&#8217;s pretty lame. \u00a0I think that&#8217;s called a first world problem. \u00a0What got me started on this? \u00a0When I read two different and seemingly unrelated articles today, one at <a href=\"http:\/\/althouse.blogspot.com\/2014\/06\/why-should-we-succumb-to-what-virginia.html\" target=\"_blank\">Althouse about travel<\/a> and the other at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/2012\/10\/17\/how-to-drive-stick-a-shift\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Art Of Manliness about how to drive a stickshift <\/a>it reminded me of a time when I was traveling and had to drive a stickshift &#8211; <em>the beginning.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh, and Bill Cosby:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oOmayx2JBs8\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet &#8230;you don&#8217;t think you need to know. I will start at the end of this story and work my way to the beginning. \u00a0Why be normal, I always say sometimes. \u00a0I found out that you may need to know things you don&#8217;t think you&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":911,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}