My pleasure, Prof!

I'm a little late to the party, as usual, but this is a crazy piece of machinery. Here's a couple of pictures I had the good fortune to be able to take at the Reno Air Races a few years back:



Close enough to (just) see the rifling...



Shot from the access cover on the Warthog's underside -- the ghostly white object in the corner is my hand for scale (although I really like fodder's shot of the cannon next to a Beetle, above, for establishing the crazy size of this thing...)

Those are still accurate as of two years ago, at least, and I doubt they've changed since. I particularly liked some of the things in the rule book that make you wonder whether the rules committee was just trying to be very thorough, or whether something happened that actually necessitated that rule. For example, the rule that, paraphrased, stated that to be eligible to compete, a car would have to have four wheels NOT in an inline layout.

Hmm...not to be a grammar Nazi, but either you meant "complementary" or I need to start hanging out at some of the places you do, good sir!

So, which one usually gets the call to fix it (again)?

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Nowadays, I think just about any savvy new-car buyer (myself included on the last go-round) will be walking into a showroom with an exact spec in mind, a price they're aiming to pay (based on similar car sales in that area), and maybe some specific ideas of what they're willing to fudge on in order to make the deal.

All that said, internet research cannot really tell you about what it is to drive, or to live with, any car in question. Reading about how the car drives is one thing. Actually getting in, adjusting the seat, looking around (and checking for blind spots...) smelling the upholstery, hearing the engine, and finding out whether you and the car actually suit each other is something else entirely. Maybe the new information age has made the test drive obsolete for some, but for me, and I'd expect, for most enthusiasts (well, the subset of enthusiasts who still buy new cars...), it's the most valuable piece of research you can do. I cannot and will not buy a car without having actually driven one. If it's all about the driving experience, how can you possibly consider yourself an informed buyer without ever getting behind the wheel?

Sorry for the rant -- I'm maybe a little too passionate about the whole "get to know the car" thing.

Nothing specifically for driving, but I've found that the Skechers I like the style of also work pretty well as driving shoes -- fairly thin soles for good pedal feel. They're also pretty narrow around my feet, which is good because feet the size of mine don't leave a lot of room around them in the average car's footbox for extra shoe material. Driving my car in my running shoes (on the way to a run or the gym) feels really awkward in comparison.

Nothing fancy about mine. "Tiller" became my nickname in high school (nothing to do with sailing -- my first name's Tyler, and for reasons I forget now the pronunciation got changed around into a nickname), and the "188" was originally added because, when I signed up for an instant messaging program, "Tiller" by itself was already taken. The "88" came from a love of the Back to the Future movies, and the general coolness of that number; the extra 1 was just random. I've kept using that handle for lack of creativity (that and I don't generally participate in any forums, so I never felt the need to come up with a more interesting handle -- I lurked for a long time on [redacted], moved over to Hooniverse when it started up, and eventually saw an article that I couldn't resist commenting on).

And no avatar image, because I'm lazy.

I've always thought "przepraszam" was a fun one to watch people try to pronounce.

Agreed that the (modified) Latin alphabet works just fine, but if you're writing something up (say, for a Polish class...) on a word processor without getting fancy with the extra marks, it can be confusing to read later if you've started to forget some of the vocabulary...

I love doing that.

"Finding everything all right? Good, good....hey, one quick question for you -- do you use cable or satellite?"

"Neither, actually."

"...oh. Smart man."

Wasn't sure whether the guy's response was patronizing or not, but I figured I'd take it at face value.