7/10/05; by Ruth Zaslow

Note: "Jonesco" is the pseudonym for the interviewee's own company, and "Smithco" is the pseudonym for the client company.

A Honda S 2000.

I’d been wanting a roadster for a while. Finally I decided: “There’s no time like the present!” I was looking at a couple of different roadsters, and this one did really well in magazine reviews like Car and Driver.

Two kinds, I guess, no make that three. I do just-for-fun driving. You know, take it out on the weekend and just let it go. Maybe meet up with friends for lunch or something somewhere a drive away.

The second one is work-related. The third is errands and life maintenance, though Neil tends to do more of that.

That’s changed recently. Usually about one week a month, I’m driving out to current and new clients in the area. Another week or even two a month, I’m driving out to the airport to fly out for other clients. But recently, I took on a three-month project at Smithco. It involved more hands-on project management than I usually get into, but it was a chance to leverage some project elements and relationships to a higher level. So, for the last three months, I’ve been commuting out there about four days a week.

I leave at about 7:00 to avoid traffic, and I take the backroads, also to avoid traffic. I also go home at 7:00 to avoid the traffic.

The first thing that I think of is what I’m listening to. On the way in, I listen to NPR. I get my morning news. On the way home, I pop in a CD and listen to music

All kinds. Right now, I’m into ‘70’s classic rock, but not the kind of rock that most people in America know. I’m listening to Be Bop Deluxe: Sunburst Finish. English band, not well known here in the states even in the ‘70’s.

I’ve thought about getting the deck taken out and replacing it with an MP3 player, but it’s just one of those things I haven’t gotten around to. Plus, I started thinking about it seriously when I was commuting to Smithco. Ironically, I wanted it because I was spending more solid chunks of time in the car, but that also meant I had less time to do things like get the deck swapped out!

Neil and I have talked about getting another car. If we did, I would definitely look for MP3 capability. In the end, I think the new car purchase will drive the MP3 change. I do use an MP3 at home. Also an I-Pod.

The MP3 is connected to the stereo and the I-Pod I use when I go running. I’ll use it at the office sometimes too. See, I got the Ipod to replace the MP3 Creative Labs I’d had since 2001. I like the smaller size.

Hmmm, I’ve never thought about that. I guess I do like having multiple dedicated devices. At the same time, I’d have to say, if the Creative Labs went belly-up, I wouldn’t get a new one.

No. I looked into getting an FM broadcast connection for the Ipod, but the connection was lousy. Doesn’t seem like there’s any good way to do that.

Nothing really that I can think of. Oh, wait. The last week of the SmithCo project, I started getting into Audio Books.

This will sound naïve, but I didn’t realize just one person did all the reading. So it was strange to hear a man voicing for women. I was listening to the Da Vinci Code. I finished that book, then the Smithco project ended. But I definitely would have done more if I’d kept up that commute. Nice alternative to music.

Some. With the commute, I know exactly where I’m going. But with the client meetings, occasionally I don’t. So I use a mapping app from my PocketPC—Vindigo. Actually, I mostly use that when I’m traveling in another city. It does directions OK, but I really like the restaurant reviews when I’m out-of-town. But I try not to use the mapping when I’m actually driving. I look at the directions when I get in the car and I’m usually OK. And if I’m really lost, which only happens once in a blue moon, then I’d pull over.

But everything’s changed just recently. I got a new computer, a notebook, light, small, a beauty. I got it just about the time I started the project out at Smithco. I started bringing it with me instead of the PocketPC because it was just too much of a hassle to keep two calendars.

Yeah. I wound up having one for Jonesco and one for Smithco. Synching it all up was becoming a nightmare. But my new notebook is wireless, and I had wireless access when I was at Smithco, of course, so I could have access to everything all the time. I didn’t even think about putting the synchronization software on the notebook.

Not since the end of April. It probably has dead batteries by now.

I use it like I used the Pocket PC. Addresses, sometimes contact information to make a phone call. But I pull over then. I don’t use it when I’m actually driving. My car is a stickshift!

I hardly make any calls in the car. Like I said, the car is a stick. Also, it’s loud, not the easiest for a conversation.

Nope. I turn off the phone when I get in the car and turn it on again when I get out. I check for messages then and return what calls I have to. But I usually try to manage my time so I return all my calls in a block, not one-by-one on the fly.

A ’66 Mustang. It had been my parent’s car and the first one I ever drove. All through high school.

Hmmm . . . I’ve had an El Camino, a Camaro—that was with my former wife and we both drove it. Then a Volare, the “Albino Bat Mobile” as I called it. Have you ever seen Michael Keaton’s Batman? It’s like what he drove. Then I had a Mazda 626, then another Mazda 626, then the Honda S 2000.

The first one was really special. It just seemed to get better with age. The second one was a great car, but not special somehow like the first.

I have a vague memory of our ’55 Chevy wagon. Very vague. I remember the ’63 Old really well. Mainly because my mom got into an accident in it. More than a fender-bender. She was broadsided by another driver. Not really hurt, though. I wasn’t in the car.

You know, there’s the old saying: if you asked a farmer at the start of the last century how to farm better, he’d tell you all about getting more out of your horse. But he’d never describe a truck.

It’s tough to predict out on something like this as far as specific features or technologies. But here’s what I’d like. I’d like a chauffer-driven pilotless car, where I don’t have to think about driving, so I can devote all my time to work, life, whatever I want.

Yeah, it sounds like a contradiction, huh? Taking the driving away from me contrasts with fun to drive. But given the choice, I like getting to a place with someone else worrying about all the logistics. I’d like getting in a car to be like getting in a plane.

It changes. I’ve been having fun with the S 2000, and now I am just starting to want a car that’s something else.

An automatic, good in the snow and lousy weather, front wheel or four-wheel drive, a larger trunk—any trunk, really.

We’ve been talking about getting a new car in the fall. I bought this one just to be able to say “I tried it.” Funny, when I went on the test drive, I thought it was OK, but not, I mean, I was almost disappointed. But I bought it anyway and when I was driving it home, out on the Issaquah highway and letting it go, that’s when I fell in love with it.

I’d say that my choice of cars isn’t determined by anything about the car itself. It’s always determined by other things. In other words, I don’t have to have any one thing in a car. It depends on what’s going on with me and in my life at the time. If I had a long commute now, I might be thinking about changing cars faster—gas prices. So for me, at different points, it’s been important to have different kinds of cars: nice, roomy reliable, like the Mazdas, fun like the S 2000, and maybe more solid, like whatever I get next.

Posted at Jul 11/2005 06:40PM:
David Platt: And linked to Field Interviews.