Bits and Pieces

Before my first baby was born I became interested in Rally Racing. This is simply driving road legal cars as fast as you can on dirt roads that have been closed for the event. People prepare their cars, they get together, they pay their money, and they race for a lot of fun and a very very little glory. It's quite an accessible sport, provided you have the time to participate, and the money to put a car together. As with most motorsports, it's widely agreed that it's cheaper to buy a car that's already built than build one from scratch.

I decided that I wanted to do this and met a few people involved in the sport. One of them had purchased an older car and taken it apart with the idea of improving a few things before racing. Life got in the way, and he had a completely disassembled car in his garage that he didn't want any more. Did I want to buy it? Do I have more confidence than skills? Of course I want to buy it! Even my wife thought it was a good idea, though I think that she thought that the idea of me being happy was more important than my having a race car. Bless her. 

The car literally came to me in boxes. It was a shell, and stacks and stacks of parts. The engine was torn down almost to it's very last nut and bolt. The rotating assembly had been rebuilt and put in a bag. Basically, that means that I had a block with the pistons and crank in. This was as far as I'd ever even seen an engine taken apart. The pile of parts also contained the shop manuals for the car. Drawings, and instructions and specifications on how to take the car apart and put it back together again. I'd bought the worlds biggest Lego set. It was sweet. 

The car came home not too long after the baby was born. That car was my saving grace. Although I'm pretty satisfied with my job hanging out with my kids all day, it wan't always so easy. Taking care of an infant for the first 8 months or so was mentally tough. The work wasn't hard, but the almost endless sitting was. And I was stuck. Stuck close to home for warming bottles, stuck only doing things around the house that I could do holding a baby, and occasionally having the feeling that many new parents have, stuck here for a minimum of 5 years. Doing this. Taking care of a baby. Oh my god. Don't worry, those thoughts were fleeting and rare and I was still much happier at home than I was behind a desk, I'm just making sure that I'm not sugar coating the whole experience for anyone. My first baby was mentally tough, all the rest have been easier. 

I don't know what other stay at home parents do to reset for the next day. The rally car did it for me for quite a while. My wife would get home and I'd give her a kiss and head to the garage. Turn the radio on and put stuff together. Work was slow, that was ok, this was more about doing the work than finishing the work. I didn't work every night, my wife needed me too and I tried to make sure that I found balance. Sometimes I was better than others. I eventually got the car together. It started. It ran, it drove and passed Texas state inspection. In total, I put about 20 miles on it. 

I never raced the car. Part of it was money. Even though Rally racing isn't expensive as far as motorsports go, it's not cheap. We could have found the money, but it would have been hard. Part of it was time. I needed those evenings to myself. To be myself. To let myself change into a stay at home dad at a rate that I could handle. By the time the car was together I discovered that I needed to be home as much as I once thought I needed to be away. The idea of leaving my family for 5 days to head across the country to race was too much. 

So now I have a dead race car in my driveway. East Texas is hard on cars that just sit. They decompose as you watch. I doubt that the car will ever run again, and that's ok. I'm still reluctant to get rid of it though. Every time I see that car, I think of that time, of my wife supporting me as I grew into the job of being a stay at home dad. Those bits and pieces put me together as much as I did them. 

Books this week - 

The Bridge To Literacy, John Corcoran

A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage

The Bridge to Literacy was, ironically, a pretty tough read. The author was trying to make a point and spend a lot of time hammering it home. Too much for me sometimes. I did learn a lot about the modern state of literacy and how the testing for it has helped lead to and influence No Child Left Behind. I think I understand more where legislators were coming from when they wrote the laws. I picked up this book because I expect I'll be working on literacy in some way when my kids are all in school. 

6 Glasses was just a fun read. It loosely covered the history of beer, wine, distilled spirits, coffee, tea, and Coke. Within the history of each is a bit of the history of the world. It gives you anther lens to view the events of mankind over the last 5000 years. It's a good time.