Daily Archives: June 29, 2008

From Children to Adults

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This will seem very strange to those of you who have children but what an experience this has been having our 18 month old niece over.

Not having kids, we miss out on a lot of things.  On the flip side, having kids I am sure a lot of people miss out what we see.

I’m amazed looking at this all trusting kid, going about her life, trying to grasp the subtleties of moving around, being understood, etc.  It’s hard to imagine we were once like that.  I was looking at adults in the streets today while walking her and couldn’t help but smile.  I was smiling especially at the ones with attitudes or trying to look cool.  I wasn’t mean, I was looking at everything from the perspective of a child and how funny it all looked.  People with tattoos, pierced this and that, pants down do hips, shirts above belly buttons, and here is 18 month old Madison saying hello to everyone regardless of how cool they were.

It’s amazing to look at the whole of humanity, to see how far we come in a lifetime, to see the mistakes we make and to think we came from this place of complete humility, trust and faith.  It just made me smile and take everything from a very relative perspective.

Big Mechanic Shops vs Small Ones

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Where do you go, a big shop because you’ve seen their signs all over town or you trust a smaller mom and pop shop?

It’s no secret I like smaller shops better. For one thing, they know you, not only by name but through the relationship you forged with them through the years.  When it came time to replace the suspensions and the shocks absorbers for my 1974 Alfa Romeo spider, the choice was clear, I went to Omega Motorsports, the place I have been going for over 5 years.  I know Uwe, the owner and trust him.   Since Uwe won’t do alignment, I go to International Motors  here in Long Beach, another small shop with dedicated mechanics lovers.

I could chose to go to a bigger, more well known shop but I have a hard time trusting them.  My last try at big shop resulted in buying disk breaks from the local Subaru shop that cost me $117 each.  I found the same items online for $64.  Lesson learned, there is more rapport and trust with the smaller shops that not only know you well, but also are passionate about the cars we drive.