What did you do today...

[Staggerwing]

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Pic of the conures, its way too big to embed.

Had my first driving lesson today, considering ive NEVER been behind the wheel and I got taken out onto a FRIGGIN HIGHWAY that was terrifying

If you need to shrink down a pic then use (img width=xxx) as the first tag but using [] instead of () of course, where xxx=something like 800 (pixels) or whatever you want. The resulting pic is clickable to expand to full size. Here it is with yours:

[Sir Slash]

That's a real nice brood Hof. But a lot of work I bet. Some Cretan here is bound to make a remark about them going good with stuffing and cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. Just ignore such 'common humor'.  :-"

[Martok]

Good luck with the driving lessons, Hofstadter (and stay safe)! 

[Hofstadter]

I just had my second lesson and I cant stop spazzing. I did really well. Everything felt so much much natural and in tune. I still had trouble figuring out the correct pressure to put on the brake, some more complicated lanes and tight corning. But it was great.

The first half was going through the country side, I did that with no assistance, second half was suburban, went through thr backstreets, needed a little bit of assistance with his hand on the wheel. The suburban part was a bit complicated because of all the lanes and traffic. But i still did decently.

I didnt think i could do that considering im the king of autism.

[Staggerwing]

Speaking as the parent of two boys on the spectrum, if you put your mind to it you can do almost anything.  O0

[MetalDog]

Keep after it, Hofstadter.  As with anything, it gets easier with practice. 

[Ubercat]

I basically had to learn to drive at 39 years old. I learned at 18, and did a little driving, but then ended up in Philadelphia where I lived for just about the next 19 years. I could count on 2 hands the number of times I drove during my Philly years. Mass transit took me everywhere I couldn't walk to.

Then I moved up here to live with my wife and had to buy a car to get around. I do well enough. I've never been at fault for an accident in the last 9 years. I've been rear ended twice by distracted drivers, fortunately at very low speeds. One was a girl that I'm pretty sure was texting and the other was a woman yelling at a back seat kid.

[Gusington]

I learned to drive at 13, so I've been driving 25+ years. And I still get terrified every single day. If you're not terrified at least once during every drive of 10 minutes or more, you're not paying attention. Go get'em, Hofstadter!

[panzerde]

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Pic of the conures, its way too big to embed.

Excuse me, but you appear to have a box of baby dinosaurs there...

[panzerde]

I learned to drive at 13, so I've been driving 25+ years. And I still get terrified every single day. If you're not terrified at least once during every drive of 10 minutes or more, you're not paying attention. Go get'em, Hofstadter!

Same here, been driving 25+ years. I recently bought a new car that is loaded with driving aids, like blind spot detection, automatic collision avoidance, lane departure detections, and particularly adaptive cruise control.


I knew the world was full of bad drivers. What I didn't realize was just how terrible they really are. With all of the driving aids I really am aware of it now! NO ONE maintains anything close to safe following distance, for one. I am very glad I sprung for all of the driver assistance stuff in this car. At 52, I know my reaction time isn't what it used to be. The robot seems to be much better at keeping me out of trouble.


So yeah, keep a sense of paranoia about you Hof. It'll save you.

[panzerde]

Woke up, check mail on my phone and figured out that our largest client had servers and network down. Determined that I couldn't access anything remotely, which is both unusual and a bad sign. The engineer that usually works with them is in a car, headed to Green Bay. The new engineer that started a week ago is not answering his phone, which is understandable since we don't usually have to deal with Saturday morning issues and if we do, we can usually do it remotely.


Put on clothes, jumped in car, and drove across town to the client. As soon as I got close to the building, I could see roofers busy on top of it, and had a good idea of what was up. Sure enough, went in the server room and one entire rack of equipment was without power. Eventually got power restored and everything back online, but it took about three hours all told. Looks like the roofers turned off a circuit breaker without telling anyone, and the UPS batteries ran flat.


Came home, grabbed a bite to eat, and went to get a haircut and shave. Now sitting around trying to drum up the energy to play some PBEM turns and maybe something more substantial. Either that or take a nap.

[MetalDog]

I got my license two months before my 21st birthday.  I always thought cars were hurtling death traps and wanted no part in their operation.  Then, I moved out of a place where I knew enough people to get a ride or take the bus.  So I had to learn.  Been driving 25+ years as well.  In fact, do around 75 to 100 miles a day.  Have for years.

[Staggerwing]

I got my license right after turning 16 so I could drive to school instead of taking the 40 minute bus ride. Only problem with my plan was that I could no longer do my homework while riding in- now I actually had to do it the night before!

Got my motorcycle license in my mid-20's and after that I rode as much as drove. Until kids.

Them were the days...  :-\

[Barthheart]

Got my license a couple of days after on 16th birthday... could not wait to start driving. Been a car guy my whole life. 35 years of driving, 26 of that with my Miata!
I love to just go for drives. Just tooling around with no particular place to go. Top down, music cranked. Heaven. 

I've found the way to survive and keep out of trouble is to assume EVERYONE else on the road is a complete idiot and not paying attention. And mostly they don't disappoint...  :pullhair: I try to pay attention for them as well as myself. 4 small rear enders all from distracted drivers in all those years.

Scariest place for me to drive is northern end of Florida. Everyone doing 70 mph and 2" between cars!  :hide: No wonder they have 100 car pileups....

Use to rally drive as well. Never left the road.. but I did hit a tree stump, once, that was in the middle of the back wood track we were on. Didn't crack the oil pan but there was wood jammed between there and the cross brace for the rest of that car's life.  O0

[Gusington]

What did you drive in the rallies?