Vanishing Core Competency

The back is doing better today. I think I dinged a nerve and it was wholly pissed off for a day. Now I'm where I was Friday with a tender 2 week old back injury. I felt good enough to take Daisy and the Missus out for a walk in the semi-crusty snow. Daisy absolutely loves brisk fall and spring weather with crunchy snow. When it's hot she hangs behind us whereas in this weather she likes to blaze the trail ahead of us.

I also took K out for her first official standard transmission driving lesson. She's been doing well with the automatic and is now comfortable with traffic. Now it's time for her to get savvy with the clutch and stick. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer young drivers in the US are choosing to learn how to manage a standard transmission as automatics are becoming so ubiquitous even in the economy cars. When I was growing up, you had to turn in your "guy" card if you couldn't drive a standard, change your own oil, change a tire, change out and adjust your points and distributer, and change your own brake pads. Now there's no shame in not knowing how to drive a stick or even not knowing how many cylinders are under the hood (or bonnet for the UKers). K loves knowing how to do something most others don't know, and she did great today. I'm confident she'll be 100% up to snuff when she's eligible for her license in 13 months. Besides, she and her friend want to visit Ireland upon graduation, and if memory serves, most if not all of the economy cars in Europe are still standards.