Mikey goes...

As you may have known, I got my car a month ago. I named the 87 firebird Mikey. I thought it would be fun to make an album that shows all the places that mikey has gone. Like the more interesting places. I will not include the gas station. That isn't interesting.

...to the mechanic.

...home.

...to his first car show!!!!

... to dance!

... to his first Fastino's show!

... to prom!

...to 66 diner!

...to school.

.....0n a date with Kate

Short story that is based on real events.

AJ

Oh shit! The squeal of our screen door told me I was in big trouble. “Anastacio Joaquin Ortiz!” my mum whispered fiercely over the din of tinking metal and ACDC. I could hear her just fine, but I knew that whether I responded now or in a few seconds, she would still be pissed. So I decided to wait it out. “Anastacio Joaquin Ortiz! It is almost one in the morning! You need to get to bed! You have work tomorrow and you are going to be exhausted! Get out from under there and get to bed!”

My mum, a stocky woman with long, but prematurely salt and pepper hair, knew what it meant to me. She was raised in a family of boys. Not a big deal. But her brothers and father were racers. They lived for the slightly nauseous smell of burnouts, the black stripes in the road, but most importantly, they lived their lives 15 seconds and a quarter mile at a time. She refused to have her brothers touch her car. She fixed and tuned her own car. That was the way she rolled.

That is also how she met my dad. One Saturday my mum and her brothers went down to Eubank to get some racing in before they needed to come home for supper. The passes she made weren’t amazing, but they were getting better. As in, she didn’t stall out before even starting the race. She was waiting on the starting line. “Keep” –inhale labored from adrenaline– “me” –exhale – “safe”       –inhale again – “as I” –exhale—“make this” –inhale—“pass.” –exhale—Swish. Swish. She rubbed her hands together, not because she was cold, but because she was a nervous wreck in between passes.

Vroom. Vroom. The universal signal for “wanna race?” She revved her engine in response. The bandanna moved upward as if time was slowed completely. And it went down faster than a cannon ball shot out of a cannon. The dinky little Chevy Nova and the brand new bumblebee Camaro launched and the pass was over in the blink of an eye. The race master began jumping up and down like a bunny rabbit. “The Nova won! The Nova won.”

At the end of a pass, it is customary for the drivers to shake hands when they return to the starting line. The driver of the Camaro exited the car. He sauntered up to the driver of the Nova just as the driver pulled off a baseball cap and shook out her long brown hair. “Hello Ma’am. Great race. Wait. Ma’am!?” My mum just laughed and offered her hand. The guy, realizing he had lost to a girl, shook her hand numbly. “My name is Jay Ortiz and I was wondering if you would like to go out for a milkshake sometime?” My mum laughed out of confusion. She was a tomboy and was not used to being treated like a girl. But she agreed. Just to be nice.

The milkshake date that night turned into many more over the years and eventually turned into marriage.

My dad loved to race and shortly after they were married, my dad purchased a red 56 Chevy that he named “Rowdy Red.” It was his baby. That baby broke records at many tracks before my dad stumbled on “The Monster.”

“The Monster”, a pile of junk that resembled a 55 Chevy, was not a monster. It was a frame. Between their daily jobs, my mum and my dad toiled away at “The Monster.” The late nights. The records being warped from playing them so many times. The tinking of metal on metal. All of this to finish the car before the 1998 race season.

Maria

                I was an ordinary Joe. Well…actually I was an ordinary Jane. And by ordinary I mean a kid that came out crying like any other normal baby, slightly ugly yet somehow cute at the same time. Apparently I got a lot of attention as did any first born child, but I have a hard time believing that considering my two younger sisters hog my parent’s attention now a days.

                But just because I resembled a normal kid at birth, that doesn’t mean that I was normal. Little girls at age 4 or 5 are stereotypically associated with Barbie dolls, pink and other disgustingly girly things. I shudder at the thought. I had a collection of Hot Wheels cars, screamed if I was forced to wear a dress, and just enjoyed being gross, disgusting, dirty and sweaty. All my friends at school were guys. My mom, for fear of teasing, told me not to tell people that I loved cars.

                So as a good little child would do, I put it into the back of my mind. I still played with my Hot Wheels at home, but never at school. But the teasing began. “Why do you like to play in the mud?” “Are you gay?” “Are you even a girl?” Harmless, but never the less it escalated to physical levels. I got so sad that I cut my arms. But thankfully since I fainted from the sight of blood, I never tried that move again.

                I became the chubby kid. It wasn’t because I was eating a butt-load of food each day. It was because my thyroid stopped functioning correctly. “Fatty.” “Fatso.” “Fatty, fatty. 2 by 4!” The one day I told Liam to shut up, he whirled around and hit me in the head with a 4 inch thick Bible. How very Catholic, right? The administration told me to stop irritating Liam. It was also about then that I stopped eating. I figured that if I was thin, they’d stop teasing me. That was also about the time that I started fainting. My parents didn’t know what was wrong, but I did. And I wasn’t going to tell them. By the time I was a seventh grader, I was 5’4” and about 100 pounds. Not scarily thin, but still bad enough. From all the teasing that I endured in Catholic school, I became the girl who always ducked her head from the lack of self-confidence.

                My Uncle worked on classic cars in his spare time. Whenever we were visiting, Uncle David would always be bending over the engine bay and cursing under his breath. “Where the fuck did I put my glasses? I swear I just had them!” That always sent me into titters of laughter.  I found it amusing because his glasses were always on his head. He didn’t let me actually work on the cars, but he would let me watch and ask questions. The questions had novels for responses. Uncle David was also the one that told me about the joys of manual cars. But that was the only place that my hidden passion could surface.

                I transferred from Catholic school to Albuquerque Academy my 8^th grade year. My first friend at Academy, senior Elizabeth Anderson, told me about Senior Projects. “So it’s like when you do what you like really want to do in life. Like as a job.” Boom! I knew exactly what I wanted to do. A transmission swap (from automatic to standard) on an old car. I was just starting to come out my Catholic School enforced shell with the help of the Beatles.

                There was a girl at my advisor table that looked lonely. One day she came in wearing a Beatles shirt. “Oh my goodness! You like The Beatles too? Who’s your favorite Beatle?” I don’t think Schifani liked me screaming at his advisor table. The girl nods. “George.” I think I near about died on the spot. Someone who’s favorite Beatle was George also!? Maia was my first and best friend at Academy. But no one was to know that I liked cars. I didn’t know anybody except for Maia and I really didn’t want to be teased for liking cars.

AJ

                Summer 2014. “The Monster” has been retired almost 10 years. It is still a beast that can out run any street car today. It was transformed from a pile of junk to the most badass race car I have ever seen. I mean “Rowdy Red is cool”, but it overheats so often that it just sits in our garage for weeks at a time. Sometimes we take “The Monster” out to the car show every Wednesday at Fastino’s, but that is a very rare occasion.

                Summer is summer. Not much to do except work on Saturday. So my summer is boring. We still haven’t found a frame that I can use to restore from scratch to be my daily. And Dad decided that I needed to learn how to parallel park. The horror of it. He took “Rowdy Red” and “The Monster” and put them in the street. He gave me the truck. “Park in between then and don’t hit them.” Dammit Dad! No pressure, eh? I didn’t hit them, but I definitely know that I hate parallel parking.

                It was my birthday yesterday and I’m rewarding myself with some tinkering around on “The Monster”. I am always almost done with something when Mum is all like “AJ let’s get going. We’re taking ‘The Monster’ to Fastino’s today. Hurry UP!” After letting out a long discontented sigh-grumph noise, “Yes Mum. I’m coming.”

                As usual, we get there and the only spots are by Discount. No one is going to see “The Monster” from the normal parking lot.

Maria

                Ugh! 2014 has been rough so far. Well first off, in January, I asked Brandon to Winter Ball. I had had a massive crush on his since the beginning of 8^th grade. He was in my history class, english class, and science class. He was literally just so nice to me. So to ask him to Winter Ball, I made basketball shaped cupcakes with the black vinyl basketball lines spelling “WINTER BALL?”. Well that ended up to be a flop. He said no. On the spot. Then my best friend Peter Le liked me and was being super flirtatious, then told me that he liked Ella. And I punched a wall. Then I developed a huge crush on Chris Mooty. Oh my goodness was he gorgeous! Well he turned me down over text. This all happened within a time span of 6 months. I decided that I needed a break from this shit called “love” and throw all my energy into cars.

                I started telling people that I was into cars. And people laughed at me. But if they can’t accept me for who I am they don’t deserve to take up my attention. I begged my mom and dad to let me go to Fastino’s that Wednesday. But, of course, it would be after church. Fine. At least I will look nice. Very funny. I hate dresses and to be seen in public with a dress is still humiliation for me.

                When I get there, I am in car heaven. Classic cars everywhere. I think I might actually die happy. I see my 8^th grade diving coach, Dawn Smith and her husband Tal as well as Ms. Lydon. Oh man. I really hope that my skirt is long enough and that she won’t dress code me. I start talking to Tal and he told me to stay right here. He wants me to meet someone.

AJ

                Tal Smith has been one of my longtime friends. He’s cool and pretty funny. He also gives good advice. He comes up to me and tells me that he wants me to meet someone. So I follow him.

                In front of me is this girl. She is quite pretty. Oh wow. Look at her legs! I mean, WOW! I hold out my hand. “AJ Ortiz. Nice to meet you.” “Maria Vianco. Same to you.” She shook my hand and you could see the muscles in her arm flex. The insane pressure of the handshake was also quite insane. I normally don’t know how to shake hands with a girl. Because some will be like “here shake my finger with the lightest of tough possible so that you don’t ruin my hand” and others barely make contact, as if they are afraid of touching a guy. But she gave a guy’s handshake. I think I might like to get to know her.

                “So how old are you?” she asked. “16…17?” “Uh no. I turned 14 yesterday.” “Well, happy birthday man.” Tal and her parents started talking as all adults do.

Maria

                “So which one is your car.” And he led me to his car. It was a blue 55 Chevy. I asked him if we could pop the hood. But since it was a front tilt, that wasn’t possible. The wind was killing me! I mean pants would’ve been more suitable, but Dad made me wear a skirt. And yes. My skirt was threatening to flash AJ. But I did what a non-skirt wearing person would’ve done: I bent over with my arms at my side to look at the engine of this car. “So it’s about a 305 engine. V-8, definitely not stock.”

                I look up to see AJ’s mouth open in a nice “O” of surprise.

AJ

                Hell yeah I was surprised. She was wearing a girly skirt for goodness sakes. I mean Jamie is another woman friend who loves cars, but Jamie is not girly at all. Marie? Mary? I mean Maria is a badass. She comes to a car show all girly and knows her cars. Wow. I want to keep in contact with her. “What’s your number?” She just kinda laughs and tells me that she doesn’t have a phone and doesn’t need a phone. Wow. So I get her email instead.

                “The Monster” helped me meet my best friend ever. Yes she is older, but I can tell her a lot. She has counselled me through horrible girlfriend incidents. Her being older gives me current advice from someone who has been through it, but put into my age perspective. She is strong and independent and the type of person that isn’t afraid to do things. I like her. And Tal was right: we do only have eyes for each other. 

What happened to the world?

Why are people so stupid? Literally common courtesy is what I was raised on. If I wear something that isn't mine, even if only for 30 seconds, I will wash it and return it clean and folded. But you wear my clothes for a freaking week plus weekends for the concert, you lie about actually having my things, then when i finally demand my clothes back they are crusty, smelly and gross! Like really??! Is this how you were raised? Why do you have to think you are the best thing that ever happened to dance troupe, when really you are nothing but a slob!? What has happened to the quality of everything?

As many of you know, I have been saving to get my own classic car. I walked into school on the first day of school and the first thing i heard was some kid complaining about the brand freaking new car that his parents BOUGHT him. Telling his buddies that it's horrible and all this other BS. Let me tell you first hand, cheap cars that have an engine and transmission and maybe tires is very rare in New Mexico. I am very discouraged. My dad offered to help with half of a car: insurance, gas, the actual car and repairs. Now you are probably saying, "Get the car, stupid! And stop complaining." The catch on this car is that I would share it with my sister and she wouldn't have to pay a freaking thing. I would also not be able to work on it. I would rather wait to get the car that i want and put my money towards MY car and not a car that would be practically worthless to me.

Everyone thinks I'm crazy for liking cars and even crazier to wait for the car I want. I have been teased and made fun of. I am so sick of this. Where did respect for other people go? I am so sick of being told that I "need to be more lady-like" or even that I need to pursue a career in something more "innovative" than working on cars. I can't tell you how many times I have bawled like a little baby when the people that I thought were friends turned around and laughed at me for liking cars. I do try to hide some of the things that I know so that I don't sound like a "know-it-all." There was one guy i had to work with a couple summers ago. I asked him what was the year and type of his car. He told me a 55 plymouth belvedere. I was like cool. But I looked at that car later and it was not a 55 plymouth belvedere. It was a 55 chevy bel-air. The next day I saw him I told him, "I like your 55 CHEVY BEL-AIR." He gave me the look like how should a girl know this.

Literally my family isn't really for me liking cars. So that is pretty tough in itself.  Then I met AJ and I told him this, and he told me not to believe all the crap that people may say. HE BELIEVED IN ME. That was the best thing that anyone has ever done. No i'm not talking about sending me to good schools to get a great education, but the little thing of, not believing me, but believing IN me. He was the person that gave me a bit of confidence and pride in what I loved. You may have seen the post about him. He is my best (guy) friend. He answers all my questions and wants to help me. My best friends at school have also supported me, give or take the teasing that comes with having best friends. I love them all. What happened to loyal people? Or the best friends that would take your secrets to the grave with them? I am blessed I have these people. All people care about today is being fake and having many followers and all this other shallow crap. People need to be disciplined like they were in my parent's generation. My parents instilled into me genuine kindness to everyone, faith, but most importantly COMMON SENSE. As my friend says, "Common sense: It ain't too common."

This Boy

Haha had to throw a Beatles reference in there. This boy is the most amazing person ever. I might have the worst day ever and out of the blue he sends me this:

Like this is the best greeting ever! Like what did i do to deserve this? We aren't even dating!!!!

Then he's like do you have a home number? I was like sure...ok...

This was how he responded to his b-day present. He literally ranted to me for about a week about a drawing i did...

I really don't know how to describe this. I was in france and send me this....given the 8 hour time difference. 

OMG he's gonna take me cruising!

Me wanting to kidnap him.

 He thought i was mad at him! how could I ever be mad at him. 

This is a long rant about why he is literally the best guy ever.

Greased Lightning!

So for the past dance concert, I had the honor/privilege to choreograph to Greased Lightning.  I was part of the school's Dance troupe. There are 14 people on troupe this year. There are 3 new little 8th graders. They are so cute. Cassandra is my all time favorite. She trusts me to do crazy tricks on her and not drop her. I am sure gonna miss her. The only thing about this concert was that the music was live. It was so cool. The musicians really sped up the music and it was a crowd pleaser. I also made a car. It was 12 feet long and just slightly (like a 1.5 feet) smaller than the real car.

The rehearsals before this concert was a pain. People not practicing tricks so as a result I had to take out the more complicated tricks. I was also part of my own piece and man that was hard...watching, learning my own choreography and actually dancing. But the end result was amazing. This certainly makes dance troupe memorable. 

Here is the Video:

More math in daily life

Every kid in high school: "Why are they making us learn this? I'm not gonna need it in the future. If it took my teacher 4 years to learn this math in college, why do they expect us to learn this in like 50 minutes? Why do we have pop quizzes? When I don't understand the material, then have  a quiz on it, the quiz rings my grade down!!!!!!!!" All this complaining. I do have to admit that I use these phrases more than once a day, especially when I am getting frustrated at not knowing or understanding a specific topic.

Most juniors have no idea of what they want to do in college and therefore will waste money and time. I mean it's ok not to know specifically, but one should have a decent idea. I want to go into automotive engineering and possibly later (if I have the time, money and energy) become a math teacher.

With automotive engineering, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry and possibly trig and calc will be used everyday. Obviously if i wanted to design a faster, safer drag/race car, I will need to measure, plan, and do math all on repeat. Multiple times a day. I will not be needing the specificity of "x" equation or the exact order of the variables in "y" equation, but I will be needing math.

Right now in class, we are learning of parabolas, circles and ellipses. Tires and rims are perfect circles. If they aren't, the tires will wear weird and as a result put additional strain on the engine. The light bulbs for all the headlights, tail lights, brake lights and other lights are similar in shape to that of a "parabaliod." That is the shape that is the result of spinning a parabola in its vertex. It is almost a steep bowl like shape. How would that shape have been used if people didn't test to see which light would work the best in cost and shape?

Math is needed in everyday life. Maybe it's the ratio of 2 prices or even finding how much wear can be put on a pair of tires with "w" amount of miles on it. Yes most of the mat may seem pointless right now, as a high schooler, but it will help you once you get into the real world.

Palindromes

Palindromes are everywhere. Between race car and 5-10-2015, there are numerical and and written palindromes if you choose to look for them.  I think the best example of numerical palindromes are our telephone area codes. Not all states have area codes that read the same forward and backwards. Some are like 483. That is not a palindrome at all. But in New Mexico, as well as Hawaii, all the area codes are Palindromes. Both NM and HI are part of 16 states that have area code palindromes. In NM, the two area codes are 505 and 575. In Hawaii the area code is 808. NM isn't really known for much except for aliens, tacos and possibly needing a passport to visit this State (in the United states of America). But now we can be know for something other than that. We are one of 2 states that have only palindromes for area codes. How cool is that?

The other palindrome i like is the "race car" example. I love cars and especially race cars. These two words are used fairly frequently. But that fact that these two words together make a palindrome makes them even more special.

These hidden Easter eggs in life make life just a bit more interesting. If you know or find an Easter egg, you are an astute and very bright person.