Interweb Luvin - by Ben Smith

Part 1

The year was just about over. Darrell had finally saved up some money and felt like things were looking up and he was about to get ahead. His dream was to own his own high performance automotive shop. He had built several types of vehicles in the past. It all started with a Toyota 22RE pickup. He started with the basics and found that he had a knack for it. He worked for a mechanic at one point but what a joke that was. All work and no pay made Darrell a dull boy. This year had been different. He threw out that old philosophy of if I just keep showing up. He thought about the old tale of the Greek who cheated death and had to push a rock up a hill, almost get to the top and have it roll back to the bottom. Wonder if that guy ever found a better job. Maybe he eventually figured out leverage or took a play from the Egyptians and moved the terrain under the rock. Working for someone else was Darrell's rock he needed to overcome. The way he was raised is if you were not successful it was your own fault. There was plenty of opportunities for people willing to risk failure.

Failure is just a lesson, another starting point. Darrell had combined all of his skills and resources to making and saving money. He had his little handyman service he started, he worked for a winery, and he ran tractors as well as other machines for farmers. He was about to finish up the farming season and put the tractors away after checking antifreeze. Last thing anyone wants is the liquid freezing in a motor. It will likely just push the soft plug out but it will definitely make a mess. It seemed like before he was just working check to check. It was frustrating not being able to get ahead. When it seemed like things were going well something would break down and eliminate his savings. The only thing he had going for him was he didn't owe anyone anything.

The standard way of living seems to be on credit these days. Boats, campers, cars, and houses all on credit. The house is understandable and maybe the car if you're not mechanically inclined. The house is an investment and a car is usually a bad investment outside of transportation convenience. We love our cars though and we especially love to modify our cars. A combustion motor is a very simple device that a person should have a basic understanding of at least in his opinion. A gas motor and diesel have slightly different methods of working. Most people are more familiar with the gas engine and two and four cycle operations. Gas is highly flammable and is ignited by a spark plug. A mini Tesla coil. A basic diesel motor can have glow plugs to heat and ignite diesel. A diesel motor actually works by compressing the diesel until it ignites. When this happens to a gas motor it is called detonation and can destroy a motor. It happens when a plug doesn't fire at the right time, not at all, or if fuel gets cut off at high RPM it can have disastrous effects. Even though a combustion motor is simple it takes a lot of effort and money to get it to top performance.

A gas motor the principal is how much fuel and air can be ran through a motor. With fuel injection, Super chargers, or turbo chargers a smaller motor is capable of increasing amounts of horse power. A super charger is connected to a belt and forces more air into the motor. A turbo charger works with the exhaust pressure to accomplish the same goal. Now in a certain crowd when people talk about meth they are talking about Nitro methane. Carburetors and fuel injection can work well with nitro methane. Fuel and oxygen combined. Nitrous oxide is also fuel and oxygen pressurized and used in combination with high octane gasoline. Those are the basics of high performance. It is all about the details from there. Anything that can be balanced or help the flow of intake and exhaust. On the bottom end of a motor as it is called is the crankshaft, rods, and pistons contained in the block. In the top end known as the head there are valves that control the intake and exhaust. There are chambers that line up that allow water to cool the block on liquid cooled motors. The gasket that keeps the oil and water chambers separate is called a head gasket. This is something someone owning an older Toyota with a 22R is familiar with. This can cause a common problem on a lot of vehicles. A large cloud of white steam coming out of an exhaust is a pretty good sign of gasket failure. His experience working for a mechanic made him aware of what neglect of vehicle care can do. That type of mechanical work is not what he was interested in. Fixing what is broken is one thing but making a vehicle perform better was a more satisfying endeavor.

Darrell had heard there was some pretty crazy stuff on the Internet and would only use it for ordering parts or looking for that next vehicle. While looking for parts Darrell stumbled across a section for Women seeking men. How about that? He thought a one stop shop. He needed some stress relief. He had been avoiding the bar and drinking to save money. A couple of meaningless dates sounded like a great time. He found an ad with a female around his age who wrote she like camping and outdoor activities. Great, that sounded like a winner. He responded thinking nothing of it. He thought some princess from some crazy country would probably scam him into cashing a check at worst. The next project was going to have a LS1 Corvette motor with forged everything. He wasn't sure if he was going to go with an off road vehicle with a Baja type suspension with a lot of down travel. Or he could find a light car for the drag strip. A 5.0 Mustang or Fox body had the most parts available but the whole putting a Chevy motor in a Ford vehicle just seemed wrong.

Interweb Luvin - by Ben Smith

Part 2

You know what they say about hindsight? If I could go back in time and tell myself something it would be "Stay the hell off the Internet." That's just good advice for anyone Darrell thought.

He thought of himself as the old fashioned type. You know the kind always doing things the old fashioned way. That old get someone pregnant and be forced into marriage rather than by choice. Probably add that "Now what?" type of excitement to the mix. All that planning ahead stuff could just make you rich or boring. The ad he responded to didn't seem to be going anywhere.

A click here and there and it looked like he could write his own. Time to roll himself a fatty and put on the old creative writing music. Maybe later he would be rolling a different kind of fatty he thought jokingly to himself. He wondered if women ever thought like that of men. He thought of it as a joke and probably should have read some of the other ads before diving head first into the abyss. Now here is probably one of those life lessons in what not to write on the Internet, and also just because something is free doesn't mean it's a good idea. He thought the comical approach is best. Last thing he wanted was having to pretend. Some of his friends, those so called players are often pretenders.

Darrell's friends would lie their ass off and somehow pickup women. Some of these end up in the family situation. He wondered if they still kept up the lie or came clean of their deceptions. He popped his knuckles and stretched as if he was about to do a strenuous activity. Maybe some JJ Fad "Supersonic" to set the mood. Here is how the ad read. Not picky but if you happen to be a supermodel that wants to lower their standards and show me off like some sort of Hillbilly man candy the I'm your man. He'll I thought about taking a couple weeks off and doing some super modeling myself. My life can best be described as an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard waiting to happen. Back in the day I may have appeared out of the fog walked up ripped my shirt off and said "My name is Darrell but you can call me tonight" winked and then got on a wild one eyed mountain sheep and rode off into the sunset. If I tried that these days someone would just mace me for good measure.

Not to say I don't do the shirtless break dancing in the mirror and flexing when it's assumed nobody is watching. What am I looking for in a woman besides a lot of alcohol and a willing attitude? Maybe a good time that I won't remember wondering how I got there and the awkward morning conversation. I like long walks on the beach but there is only a small river so I walk back and forth a lot. Well if I haven't seduced you by now as they say before an ATV accident "Hold my beer I'm gonna try something." Turns out I've been wearing space pants this whole time. As a friend with a Southern accent might say "Lucky he hasn't seduced his self. Last time we had to get the garden hose." Well if you're like me and your life consists of one bad decision after another than one more couldn't hurt. You know how it is, cooler than glow in the dark nunchakus. My name ain't Paul but I can do it all. When I get up in the morning I do one of those karate moves on to my feet put my pants on both legs at a time and kool-aid man right through the wall.

Don't know how to dance but a little liquid courage I'll cut the rug in half and embarrass the crap out of myself and you. Dropping more lines than a bank has dimes give Darrell a reply when you have the time. Darrell finished his ad and filled out the other boxes. A couple of clicks and away it went. Darrell had no idea what type of Pandora's Box he was about to open. Anyone who would respond to that one was just as crazy as him. Along would be trouble turning everything to rubble. Darrell laughed and thought maybe someone would have a laugh. Unfortunately he never bothered to look at what the content of other people's ads were. He would discover there was a world of things hidden on the Internet distant from what he was familiar with.