I am not a blogger

I want a car dude! This studying thing is all well and good, but when it comes to the hallmarks of adulthood and independence, nothing really beats a car. Your own space on the road - go wherever you want whenever you want, listening to anything you like. Ah, it's a driving life for me. I've always fancied myself as a bit of a journeyman; a Kerouac for the 21st century. Only with my own ride. Customised, souped-up. Pimped. Whatever - this is all a pipe-dream and pretty much unrealisable without the money or the impetus.

At the moment I suppose I don't really need a car, being as I'm trapped at school most of the time. Still, I'm getting a little antsy for the speed, the thrill of the road. My Dad used to own a classic 1956 Ford thunderbird and boy did that thing turn heads. Siting in the front seat of that thing was the coolest. Sure it was pretty impracticle; and the idea of owning something so prone to breaking down these days would be a nightmare, but it was beautiful and could go like the wind. Or that's how I remember it. He was so proud of that old t-bird. He'd spend entire Sundays laid out on his back under that thing; or with his nose stuck under the hood, just tinkering, polishing. I swear he'd just take it apart just to put it back together again. Sometimes I'd get a little angry with him - he'd promise to do things with me at the weekend, then get swallowed up by his car and put the whole thing off. But when he took me for a spin in that car all was forgiven.

I coulda sworn he and that car became one and the same thing on those long straight roads. I know I know - sounds kinda cheesy, but one day I wouldn't mind that kind of relationship with a car. Guys, you know what I'm talking about. I still remember the day Dad came home late from work one day, and told us all about how some hick had slammed into his side at the lights and written off the t-bird. I don't think he's ever really gotten over it. Sure, he had car insurance, but mom made him get something more practical - a station-wagon that was about as exciting as a yak - and I suppose it was a relief in some ways in that we could all fit in the car much more comfortably - but I intend to get myself something like that old thunderbird as soon as I can. Spend some good weekends down in the garage with it, then take it out to wherever I like. You gotta have a dream. Right?

I am a man of action. Sometimes that action could mean doing nothing, or it could mean changing everything all at once. But usually it is somewhere in between. As I had said a week or so ago, I am not totally satisfied with my systems of sort of floating through this whole college thing. I don’t have total confidence in the idea that it is going to works when I finally decide I want some of those little K words running around pooping everywhere. So I have decided to start my move towards being a responsible person by adding a couple shades of responsibility to my life.

I went out last week to our local pizza shop, everyone knows it because any weekend at two am there is a line two blocks long that doesn’t go away until after four. I wanted to see if they could get me a higher paying job as a delivery driver. I have a buddy who has been doing it for three years now and he makes pretty good money. HE has recently had to make some changes to his system since gas is getting so expensive such as biking the close deliveries and not trying to fly around town when it is really busy. HE told me that he has been able to actually stay on top of his debt because he makes so much in tips. Then he uses his paychecks to finish off his rent and party expenses, his are quite high. When I went in there to see about a job he was in there so I was basically already hired right on the spot. They told me I could start the next night.

When he told me I would be making tons of money for just driving, or riding, around all night I was thinking I would have enough money by the end of the summer to ease some of this pressure I’ve been feeling. The problem with my vision was that I didn’t think about how much of their business comes from students. Families in this area don’t buy pizza from the college pizza shops, they stick to the chains. Now that students have been gone for a month now I am not as surprised that the shop gave me so many hours to start. They weren’t seeing a great employee, they saw a desperate person who would make sure the random deliveries were taken care of all summer before the real business starts in the fall.

My plan now is to just stick out the uncomfortable summer months and then start to really rake it in when the fall rolls around and people get back in to town. I have been hearing that business has been getting better the last couple of years for them so I hope I am riding on that wave when the leaves start to fall again. So here’s to a summer of hot car seats and steaming bags of pizza in the seat next to me. I’m gonnna go for a drive while I bake in the sun, broke and burnt.

Is it just me or is there something interesting in the air this week? I look around and I don’t see people walking around campus with that confused look on their face that follows any attempt at watching primary results this year. It’s almost as if all of us has been bearing this big weight for months and months now we’re trying to figure out what the hell was going on every week and why none of us could get any real answers. I don’t know what everyone else was going through or how much anyone cared but for me it was very interesting. I don’t think I would have known as much about the election process if it had not gone this way but at the same time I don’t know if I really care all that much. What really matters is that it is all over and I am happy with the way it all went down.

On our campus there was a pretty large movement for both sides and I couldn’t get through one single party or even a drink at the bar without hearing about it. Everyone was interested and sort of captivated by the whole thing. It was an electrifying excitement that made me think of the coffee houses of nineteenth century Europe. There the common people would mingle with the aristocrats and talk politics over a luxury drink of coffee. In our case now it is more like jager, just kidding, or in my case a Guinness draft. People who I wouldn’t have even though would watch the news were trying to engage me in discussion about how excited people in Europe are about this election. I would tell them to just look at how excited everyone here is and that is just a small step up from how interested they all are over there.

Now we have a presumptive nominee out there in Barack Obama and it’s time to move on to the next phase of the elections; the fist fight. From here on out every one of us who owns a computer or a television will be bombarded with attack ads and debates, slander and pander, and best of all the baby kissing walks through the dinner in some midwestern dust bowl town. It’s a strange thing, the election process in America. What I had thought was a beauty contest on a national scale has turned out to be a real process of representative democracy. What was in many of our minds a lost cause on the part of anyone who watched the nightly news has really become something that everyone feels like they are a part of. Especially on campuses because I feel that we all take a huge interest in politics now as we have grown up in a highly charged time. I am really excited to see what happens in the next few months because this is really what making history is all about: today.

I'm back to talk travel...you know why?

Soccer. I play it, I watch it, I like it. I'm not so hot at it, but I like it.

Thank you Miss Posh Spice for bringing over your husband and for giving it a diamond-studded stamp of approval. I jest. I don't care for diamonds, but I like the game.

It's Euro 2008 next week right? Keeping in theme with my preference for a lot of things European, I'm thinking that coinciding with the brotherhood tour (that is still in discussion), is this competition, and we wouldn't have to travel too far to get to either Switzerland or Austria and catch one of the games. I don't actually want to catch any old game - not so interested in Croatia etc., but as a faraway Manchester United fan, I really want to see Cristiano Ronaldo up close - he sure isn't going to come over and join Beckham in LA is he, unless it's to stir it up on the Sunset Strip. So, if I could get to see him playing for Portugal...that would be sweet. Very sweet.

For a few weeks in June, I can also catch Fernando Torres and Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas rocking out for Spain. I want to actually be in Spain for that one, and am not too fussed about catching a live match. I want to party in Seville or something, and watch it in some hot dingy Tapas bar, drinking beer and eating too much. Imagine, playing 'football' in the streets of Barcelona, sun on your back, shades on...

...I don't know, it'd just be a cool detour I guess. I'd like to be part of the whole experience, and even though my pals like baseball way more than soccer - none of us get that long hair on men thing - we'd get into the flavour of it all.

I'm already ahead of the game (pun intended), and have done further browsing for tickets and travel insurance, so I don't have to be reminded. AA Travel has been checked by yours truly and I've been looking at interailing routes that'll help us get from the sultry ladies in Rome to the soccer fields of Switzerland.

Watch this space.