The Track, Part III

It’s been about three weeks since I took my little Mia the Kia in to get some much needed life support. Since then 33 cars and drivers have qualified for the Indianapolis 500 mile race. This weekend hundreds of thousands of people will pour into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to drink, eat, bake in the sun, and pack into hot, hard bleacher seats like sardines all for the “love” of Indycar racing. Does that sound like fun?

Since I have made this trip to the Speedway track many times I can’t say that it is exactly the most fun thing to be a part of, but old traditions die hard. I was going to go to the track today to witness the Carburation Day festivities, but even my Dad, the biggest Indycar racing fan I know, is bailing out on this day too. So, this morning I slept in ‘til 8:00, woke up, surfed the net, and finished reading a book. It’s a far better pastime than plopping my butt onto a hot, hard bleacher and getting a sun burn watching a couple cars zip past me over and over again.

Over the years I have come to understand that it is not the cars or even the race itself that makes a person want to go to this place. It’s the people. When you walk in to the 2.5 mile round arena that is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway you are thrust into a community that is larger than what you have experienced before. Several hundred thousand people all gathered in one spot to share the same experience gives you an awesome energy rush.

Once you take a seat on one of those hot, hard bleacher seats you need only look around you at the human eye candy to see just how small or large your existence is. If you look off into the distance and see masses of people rising, falling, and milling about like ants making honey you realize just how small and insignificant the life of an individual can be. However, if you look closer you can see perhaps a driver in the race, a white collar business man with an expensive beer in hand, or the roofer with his shirt off and sweat glistening off his deeply tanned back. The track becomes a place where you can disappear, imagine a different life, or simply celebrate a life through one of the largest communal activities known to man. It’s a place to reflect.

However, today I chose to reflect on life in a different way. I checked Mia out of the hospital yesterday and we are going to have some alone time this afternoon to get reacquainted with ourselves and one another. Ahhhh! Happy travels lie ahead ….

The Track, Part II

I was going to make a larger than usual payment on my credit card this month. It’s a three paycheck month and I didn’t have any other big expenses to deal with. I was so excited. The idea of being able to get even further ahead on my debt payoff schedule makes me, hmm, not happy, but fervently anxious. As it is, my schedule right now is about 8 months ahead of where I originally planned it. Not bad. But, it’s still not fast enough for me.

Why am I doing this at an accelerated pace you ask? I want a house. I want to diversify my investment portfolio and live someplace that doesn’t share walls with the neighbors. I can’t even begin to save for a house until I have paid down some of my debt.

Getting rid of debt and buying a house is like a car race. First, you must qualify for the race. I’m still in the qualifying stage. Like most rookies I am still learning how to deal with setbacks. This month my car has broken down and it is currently getting the attention it needs to survive hopefully another year or two. I need it to survive. Buying a new car is not a good option for someone who has a decent debt load and wants to get into the real estate circuit. So, I’ll get the most mileage that I can from this car.

I have a good track record though. My credit history is good and all I really need is a down payment. Once a chunk of the debt has been paid off I will begin saving for the house with Alejandro. If all goes well, we will be searching for sponsorship that will help us get a good home at the end of 2010 or 2011.

Probably the biggest challenge I am likely to face in the coming years of this race is to think about the long term. I was raised in an environment that thought only of the short term. However, somehow I have learned to dream further and think about how to travel farther. Let’s hope we make it to the finish line.

The Track

I’m on track to get back to travelling, but it’s going to be a long road to get there. For the past two weeks I’ve been carpooling with Alejandro. It’s been a little exhausting. At the end of April I began noticing that my tires were squealing in turns where they shouldn’t squeal. Alejandro thought it might be the alignment seeing as how I have never knowingly had an alignment service performed on my car. Deep down though, I thought it might be something else.

Sure enough, it was something else. I took my little Mia, the Kia Optima, to the doctor and found out that the “subframe” was rusted out and on the verge of splitting in two. It was just a tad dangerous to drive, even though the doctor is not “authorized” to use that word. To be honest, I don’t quite know what a “subframe” is, but I do know that a picture frame is pretty much a square and protects the structure of a picture. So, it’s a pretty good guess that a “subframe” is pretty vital to the well-being of a car.

Seeing as how my little Mia has been through so many accidents since she was born in 2001 I thought it might be time to put her to rest. But, I’m not quite willing to add a car payment to my list of monthly bills. So, we googled the “Kia Optima Subframe” and voila, we have a used part and a doctor who is willing to perform transplant surgery. After shipping the subframe to Indy and acquiring a couple other parts I should have Mia back by the middle of next week I hope.

In the meantime, I must suffer the strain of getting up before dawn to travel with Alejandro to work before going to my job for a long ten hour work day. My body aches from lack of sleep and I’m grumpy because I am working extra hard to get major projects off the ground at the library. Stay tuned for more venting ….