Day: May 9, 2009

Categories
Driving History Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

I’ve owned 4 cars over the past 25 years of driving. My very first car was a beige 1980 Chevy Citation. I bought it in 1984 with my paper route money. I was supposed to have it for at least several years, but as it turns out I only had it for a single year. I had to sell it fast just before I got shipped off to the U.K. to move to my first duty station within the USAF.

I returned back home stateside in November 1987, but it wasn’t until a year and two months later that I bought my second car – and my first brand new car. It was a red 1989 Geo Spectrum. To this day it’s the longest-running car that I’ve ever owned. I put 96,745 miles on that car over the course of eight years. That was eight turbulent years in my life in which I lived in seven different homes in less than three years due to the effects of Hurricane Andrew.

My 3RD car overall was a dark green 1997 Saturn SL1. That was the first of my three Saturns that I’ve owned over the past dozen years. I replaced that first Saturn with a gold 2001 Saturn SC2, and that Saturn was subsequently replaced by my current silver 2003 Saturn Ion Quad Coupe 3. I’ve owned my current Saturn a few months shy of the combined time that I owned my first two Saturns. I thought about buying a new car last year (a Honda), but I ultimately decided to enjoy the fact that my current car is totally paid off. It’s the first time that I’ve owned a car long enough to actually pay it off since that red 1989 Geo Spectrum was paid off in full during the early-1990s.

I can see myself still driving my current car for at least a couple more years. I’m in no rush to replace it with something new (and the new car payments that would go along with that). I’m content with what I have.

And so that’s a little history of all of my cars through the years.

The theme is “Cars”, and so this weekend for your ‘Saturday Night Retro’ review I present to you this 1979 / 1980 pop smash from Gary Numan. The now 51-year-old musician is still very much active. He’s still recording new music and touring all around the world. It’s hard to believe that when this song was an International pop smash the kid was just 21-years-old. Check it out, and feel free to get up and dance like a robot can’t dance no more !   

Categories
Animals Bugs Travel Weather

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – Dallas Zoo

Dallas Zoo

Yesterday me and my brother visited the Dallas Zoo for the first time ever.

Here are my takeaways – ‘Mini Thoughts’ style:

– It’s an old zoo – established way back in 1888 !
– It’s the largest zoo in Texas – covering 95 acres alongside I-35.
– We were there for about 3 hours.
– It was a hot and humid day in Dallas with heat indices in the mid-90s.
– The zoo is expanding !
– A whole new area of ‘Wilds Of Africa’ called ‘The Savanna’ is under construction.
– The penguins were soaking wet – and hot.
– We got up close to a Western Lowland Gorilla.
– Only a strong window separated him from us.
– He just laid against the window as all of us humanoids watched his every move.
– He would look at us sometimes in a curious yet friendly manner.
– He was most interested in scratching his itches.
– He’s just like you and me !
– Much of the ‘Wilds Of Africa’ exhibit is seeable via the monorail alone.
– So we took the monorail around the continent.
– It was a cool 25 minute tour through the wilds from up above.
– The chimps were not out to play.
– They were in seclusion due to the birth of a new member of their family.
– We walked through an entire exhibit on BUGS !
– Bugs are constantly working at creating a new habitat for themselves.
– The’re never satisfied with what they have.
– Bugs – The’re just like you and me.
– We saw ENORMOUS tortoises crawling around.
– The’re the biggest of their species in the entire world.
– They were just taking their time to get from Point A to Point Z.
– The’re OLD !
– MASSIVE ALBINO ALLIGATOR !
– Check out this recent newspaper article on it.
– I don’t think that I’ve ever seen one like this before.
– It’s 9-feet in length, 200 pounds, and totally white.
– It doesn’t appreciate the Sun, and it’s blind.
– As we watched from a boardwalk above it was feeding time.
– But the albino alligator wasn’t very hungry.
– The other standard alligators around him were hungry though.
– A lot of the animals outside were hidden away.
– They were probably too hot.
– I wondered how those African animals cope with the snow in the winter.
– The zoo is open year-round, and it can get totally freezing here in Dallas.
– Only the soaking wet penguins would appreciate that !
– We had a fun time at the zoo.
– We both agreed that it was bigger and nicer than we originally thought.
– We’ll hopefully visit it again in a couple of years.
– Maybe on my next visit to Texas we can visit the Fort Worth Zoo.
– That would be cool, as I so dig hangin’ out with the animals.
– The’re just like you and me !