Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Driving home from rehearsal tonight (after various conversations and being shown a really spiffy stove and an iMac with a glorious monitor), feeling terribly tired, I passed a sign I've seen countless times before, giving the mileage to Baltimore and Philadelphia.

"One hundred twenty miles to Philadelphia," I mused, "That means if I didn't get off at my exit in Baltimore, I could be in Philly in two hours. Yeah, that could be cool."

Then a mile or two later, through my sleepy brain wandered the thought, "What the Hell would I do in Philadelphia at two o'clock in the morning?"

The obvious answer to that would be to drive all the way to Boston instead, which would get me there when things were open (though most of my friends would be just starting their workday and not have time to hang out, of course), but I've got stuff I need to do in Baltimore and DC over the next two days, and I was already too tired to consider driving any further than New York. Besides, the gas money is needed for other things. So I came home. And petted Perrine, who was glad to see me.

Driving home, I set the cruise control at 70 MPH and expected lots of people to pass me (which they did, when were other cars around at all). I mostly camped out in the right-middle lane, but at one point I'd moved to the left-middle lane because I had been creeping closer to the car in front of me and I decided it was just as easy to change lanes as to reset the cruise control. A short time later I saw in my rear-view mirror three cars abreast in the two middle lanes and the far left lane, and they all seemed to be travelling at nearly the same speed. Sure enough, before I'd passed the car to my right, the three were upon me and the one in my lane was tailgating. He drew to about a half-second following distance before finally changing lanes to go around me, and he decided to squeeze in between me and the car I was gradually passing, instead of passing me on the left or going all the way 'round on the right like one of the others in that bunch did.

They acted like they were in a huge hurry, and if it had been some more crowded time of day rather than only the five of us as far as the eye could see (at about ten minutes past midnight -- and yes, that's rather light for I-95 at that hour), I might have sped up to clear the car to my right and get out of the way (if the fellow behind me hadn't tailgated me). But these three hotshots danced and weaved and zoomed and acted impatient and got ahead of us the hard way instead of the easy way ...

And then proceeded to ever so gradually pull ahead of us, doing maybe as much as 73 MPH as a pack. For a 3 MPH delta I was tailgated and then cut in front of? A difference of one or two meters per second? (Though they had been going a little faster than that when they were behind me.)

I got the impression it was about maintaining their positions relative to one another, not how much of a hurry they were in to pass us. But that brings me no closer to understanding.

I've been wondering whether my car has a clutch. It's a four-speed automatic transmission (front-wheel drive, so I guess I should call it a transaxle?). Does every four-speed automatic have a clutch, or only some?

The first time I ever drove a four-speed automatic (as opposed to the three-speed automatics I grew up in) I found it quite disconcerting. Perhaps it would have bothered me less if it had been properly adjusted, but it shifted too often and too abruptly, and I was feeling seven distinct states -- six shifts -- when it was in "drive", and that seemed like too many. (Until then, the only cars I'd driven that had clutches also had manual transmissions.) Once it was repaired it was less disconcerting, but if I paid close attention I could still often tell when it switched from clutched to torque-converter. I did grow to apreciate the feeling (and fuel economy) of having the clutch engaged in fourth gear.

The transmission in the Honda is still new to me. So far I haven't caught a clutch engaging or disengaging, but that could be either because it's very smooth about it, or because it doesn't have one.

It also lags a couple of seconds after being shifted from "reverse" to "drive" or vice-versa, significantly longer than I'm used to. I wonder whether that's normal for this particular transmission (or transmission/engine combination), or signifies a problem I'll need to have taken care of before it gets worse.

Suddenly I am reminded of a story my father told me a few times, about a car he owned back when automatic transmissions were a really New And Fancy Thing. He gave a friend a ride, and the friend was amazed at how smooth the transmission was, because he could never feel it shift at all! This transmission must be one of the best, to shift so smoothly that he couldn't feel it! So my father decided not to tell him that it was actually a one-speed transmission. (Must have been one heck of a torque converter, I guess.)

Whoops, another "quick note" about a randomish observation has gotten away from me. A sure sign that I should've gone to bed instead of starting to type.