Cancelled

The EV1 get together got cancelled because someone from GM didn't think it was a good idea. It's too bad because I was really looking forward to it.

On a brighter note I took a 9 mile roundtrip bike ride today from my apartment to work and back, so see if I could do it on a regular basis for work. No. First of all, it took 30 minutes and I was booking it. By the time I was at my work I was sweaty, worn out, and felt like not doing anything. Then I had to go BACK home. That was hard. The Detroit area is very flat, but Northville is actually hilly and gives you a good workout. The other reason I don't want to do it everyday is because there is a 1 mile strech of road that has no sidewalk, and people like to drive very fast and I'm scared of getting hit...not really but it could happen. It was neat though to see how far I could go. By the time I got back home I just laid down for 30 minutes and didn't move I was so tired.

Erica called me after I got home and asked if I wanted to go to church with her and Carmela. I have a lot of fun with them. Afterwards we went to Big Boy and ate dinner. They said they're going to look for a girlfriend for me. I bought more grapes tonight too.

Atleast the decision of buying a Saturn Aura or Honda Civic as my next car was made for me today by GM. Honda it is.

Quality Entertainment Here

I just got back from Subaru of Indiana today. We had a meeting with some Subaru engineers yesterday and today there was a large supplier kickoff meeting. The meeting was really interested for the first 30 minutes because some VP of Subaru from Japan gave a speech on the 2009 Legacy and what some of the major changes were, and how it was engineered. The next 2.5 hours were pretty boring.

I got an email from Bill and Mary Kay today. They're back from Europe and invited me over their house Sunday for guess what...an EV1 get together! Some people that were in "Who Killed the Electric Car" are going to be there. I'm really excited. I'll bring my camera and maybe even my DVD to get autographs.

It's not a good idea to turn off your AC while you're gone, when it has been 90+ degrees here the past two days. It was boiling in here when I got back.

EV1

Tonight I went over to Bill and Mary Kay's house in Troy, which is north of Detroit and about 45 minutes from me (just to show you how big the metro Detroit area is). Traffic was really bad. I left work around 5:15 or so and stopped by Meijer (Michigan's grocery store) to buy some flowers for Mary Kay making dinner and got money out of my bank for the weekend. The interstates here are interesting. People going 80, 90...faster is common and potholes/cracks in the roads are everywhere. All of a sudden people slammed on their brakes and traffic slowed, and I see glass all over the road and a random bumper in the middle, and people just drive around it and get back up to 80 mph. Apparantly about 7 cars slid all over the road smashing into each other, but what I liked is that they were smart enough to MOVE into the emergency lane so traffic could keep moving. Normally that kind of wreck would back traffic way up elsewhere. I guess these people are more accustomed to that happening everyday.

Dinner was really nice though. In case you didn't know, Bill was an electrical engineer for the GM EV1 since the beginning, and is retired now. He's a huge fan and share's my interest and perspective on the EV1. We ate pork, green beans, carrots, and some apple stuff with breadcrumbs for dinner and talked about Detroit, then after dinner he showed me all his EV1 paraphanalia like brochures, posters, documents etc. I was there for around 3 hours and didn't see 1/4 of what he had.

Work is still really great, each day is better as I get to know people more. There's an administrative assistant named Jamie who lived in North Carolina for a few years, and moved back here to Michigan. She asked me today if I was going to miss southern food, and I said "no, not really". She said "You know we don't have Sonic or Chick Fil A here, right". I didn't know that, now I will miss it. Apparantly she drives to Indiana to go to Sonic. I won't miss it THAT much.

Everyone at work though has been really helpful and easy to talk to. I think at Bosch people were so uptight all the time looking back on it. At the time I thought that's how office settings were, but now I know it was just Bosch. My group is a fun group, people laugh and make jokes and are down to earth. I like it.

What else...what else can I tell you...? Oh yeah, tomorrow I'm going to Tanger outlets in Brighton (between Detroit and Lansing) because I need some more clothes for work. I went to a huge mall here called 12 Oaks and the stuff was too expensive, so I'm going to go outlet shopping and get the clothes cheaper. I filled up with gas today. $3.27 / gallon and $30 to fill up a little over 3/4 of my tank. I've never had to pay that much before. Atleast I live close to work/shopping/stores.

Well that's all for now. I need to take pictures of my apartment and post them. I tried taking some pictures the other night but my camera is really junky now that I have used mom's 7.2 MP camera.