drivetofive

Odometer:  510,553

About two months ago, I transferred within CVS Caremark to a position that required me to work in a different building.  My company’s campus is huge and the new desk is a solid 6-7 minute walk away from the old.  Nevertheless, I had gotten so used to parking in my same location that I still continue to park there.  My conversation with a work colleague at the onsite gym earlier this week went like this:

• Thad:  So, Shane and I noticed that “6 SPD” is still parked over at Mountain View.  What’s up with that?  I know you guys have shaded parking at the Shea building.
• Tyson:  Yeah, I still park there and just walk over.
• Thad:  Are you out of your mind?  WHY?
• Tyson:  A few reasons.  Having the car parked far away keeps me from getting in and going out to lunch every day.  It also gives me a nice walk before and after work.  Besides, there is more shade coverage than the metal canopies at the Shea building.
• Thad:  It’s really just about having the car in the shade all day, isn’t it?
• Tyson (grinning):  You know me.

These people legitimately think I’m off my rocker!  And I love it.  Nobody else is crazy enough to go that far out of their way to have a car sit in the shade.  Today I got out to my car in the garage after work, and this was under the windshield wiper.

I know it’s Thad just having fun with me.  And I won’t be changing my parking habits anytime soon :).  But view the exhibits and I think you’ll agree with my decision.

Where I park:

And here’s the alternative.  Notice – by 4 p.m. the front end of the car isn’t shaded at all!  It may not seem like a huge deal right now, but when it gets to be 120 degrees in Phoenix this summer and you can get burned by door handles, the extra shade goes a long way.

Survey says:  Am I nuts?

Interesting thing about this story is that it’s not the first time I’ve been harassed by coworkers about how I park.

Back in 2003 I was 21 years old and proud to be working my first “real” office job, at SkyWest Airlines in St. George Utah.  The job was perfect except for a lack of decent shaded parking.  I scouted out the neighborhood and found an apartment complex a couple of blocks away with covered parking, so much like I’m doing today, I parked there daily and hiked 5 minutes to get to work.  Well, that lasted a couple of months until I received this notice on my car:

Ha!  These property managers take their parking spots seriously!  I had the last laugh, though.  I’d been using their lot all summer.

When my colleagues at SkyWest got wind of the story, they took it to another level and played a practical joke on me.  I was summoned by phone at my desk one day that I needed to go out to my car on a hot day in June 2003.

Here I am walking out of the office in the red T-shirt.

And here’s what I saw.  They had actually propped up umbrellas to shade my car!

My (then) mere 102,000 mile Legend had 18″ Kaotik Z5 wheels on it at the time.

I was a good sport and even posed for a picture with the pranksters’ handiwork!

Good memories!

My friend Ian who you’ll remember with the 2012 Civic sent me a link via text message yesterday to a blog for the “Half Million Mile Man,” Matt Marion, who’s documented the last 100k of his 500k adventure on a website here.  Matt’s 2001 Volkswagen Jetta took 93 oil changes, 13 sets of spark plugs, and 7 air filters to get to 499,278 miles – the milestone it had reached as of last Friday, April 6th.  He was projected to hit 500k within a couple of days after that, but nothing’s yet been posted to his blog.  Matt decided to donate his Jetta to science, so to speak.  The engineers at VW Group of America will disassemble his car in an effort to identify just what went “right” with this design.

I’ll be anxiously watching Matt’s blog for the unveil and I congratulate him on the accomplishment!

Lastly, I love to share “fanmail” from other folks who are as excited about Acura as I am.  I was recently contacted by blog reader Amanda who’s a proud Georgia State University grad.  Her Vortec Blue 2009 Acura TSX, also known as the PantherMobile, even has its own Facebook page.  Amanda reports that the TSX is currently in Florida supporting Georgia State’s Cheer team as they compete at the NCA Nationals Championship.  Good luck to the team!  Love to see this kind of school spirit – and I must say the TSX makes perfect selection for a mascot vehicle.

Drive on, Amanda!

This entry was posted on April 13, 2012 at 3:49 am and is filed under Legend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.