Turning Wheels

     Hello readers!  I'm a student at the great University of Southern Mississippi; a student at the Hattiesburg campus.  As I live on the Gulf Coast, there's a couple hundred miles to drive each week.  So, that gives me a great amount of time to ponder life's "little things."  (Sidenote:  a good friend wrote a trilogy of blogs about the "little things" check it out here http://www.kylemarcellus.com/2011/11/little-things-1.html)
     As I was driving, I began to think about makes people's wheels turn.  Everyone has their thing.  You know,  that action that you can go to at any moment.  That action that lets you drift away to your own personal nirvana.  It's that one moment, or moments, that allow you to regain your thoughts, or have no thoughts at all.  It calms you, and focuses you.  For me, one of these moments is driving.  I love to drive.  Specifically, I look back to the recent years when I had my motorcycle.  There was nothing like throwing on a leather jacket, a helmet, and putting earbuds in my ears.  Put some metal music on Pandora radio, and set out.
     I can recollect, there wasn't much room on a fuel-injected four cylinder engine with wheels.  I could stretch out so far by putting the tops of my feet on the rear passenger footpegs.  An extremely dangerous position, but by far the most comfortable on an hour long ride.  With amazing musical notes being forced into my head from the likes of artist like Rise Against, Breaking Benjamin, or Atreyu, the mood had been set.  The blood was beginning to pump and my heart was racing.  Once hitting the interstate, I would wind up that Lime Green Kawasaki ZX-10R.  It wasn't hard to reach 70 miles an hour in first gear when the bike could easy be spinning at 11k rpms...  Bumping third gear, I could feel the engine spinning like a large gyro beneath me.  I could barely hear the engine and exhaust humming through all the fast guitar solos and intense vocals.  The wind would cross the top of the windshield and blow around me.  At that point, I had enough adrenaline and serotonin pumping through me to fuel a party.  I had hit my nirvana. 
     Nowadays, the ZX-10R is someone else's.  I've missed that fine piece of machinery everyday since I saw it roll away on someone else's trailer.  I've replaced my two-wheeled addiction with a beautiful woman.  What can I say?  Times change. 

How about you all?  What do you do to make your wheels turn? 

On a side, I'll work on some visuals for new blog posts.  I learning to remember to take more pictures.


For now, that's all folks.

MCarver

Ok, Ladies and Gentlemen.  Here we go.  This is my first official blog!  So...

     Welcome to The Southern Soapbox!  I'm a coastie from south Mississippi!  I've been hoping and planning to eventually get this thing going for a while now.  My good buddy Kyle has been blogging for many years now and has inspired me.  Hopefully, I won't disappoint.
     First of all, you may be wondering,"Why The Southern Soapbox?"  Well, Mirriam-Webster Online defines Soapbox as "an improvised platform used by a self-appointed, spontaneous, or informal orator."  Blogger is my platform and I'm the informal orator.  Southern, because we're in the south, the DEEP South.  The, because this is THE Southern Soapbox.  Are you ready people?!
     Second of all, I will offer a firm DISCLAIMER!  This blog is for entertainment and informative purposes only!  I will attempt to give tried and true how-to's, reviews, thoughtless banter, and theories to make you think.  I'm going to be brash and direct.  I'll even venture to predict some blogs will be vulgar and rude.  Of course, that will be less of the time.  I'll do my best to be politically and religiously unbiased.  All in all, I'm shooting for a good read for you all.
     So, the plan is... I'm going to do the best I can to keep up with a daily or every few day post.  I'll get a daily topic week list together and publish.  Nice talking to you all.

As for now, That's all folks.

mc