July 17th, 2007

Not my finest hour: Driving a manual transmission

Sara Ford messed up her leg last month; you can see her on ScooterCam-1 at TechEd 2007. The best part of the name ScooterCam-1 isn’t the ScooterCam; it’s the 1. That just gives it that extra little kitchy space technology feel that turns a good name into a great name. Anyway, she asked around if somebody with a car with an automatic transmission would be willing to swap with her manual transmission car until her leg got better. To me, driving a stick shift is like changing a flat tire: It’s something that everybody should know how to do, but it’s not something that anybody is expected to enjoy doing. I offered my car and (long boring part of story deleted) we met at her place and exchanged keys. I got into her car, backed out of the parking space, and… stalled right in front of her.

Great job there. I really know how to instill confidence.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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