Motortrend

Here is an excerpt from the latest issue of Motortrend....the writing voice displayed here is exactly why I am so smitten by this magazine. I think it is my favorite magazine, ever - which is a tough call since I am also a huge advocate of Automotive Engineering magazine.

"The automobile gets a bad rep these days. It's expensive. It clogs those long, gray ribbons of asphalt we'd all otherwise be playing shuffleboard on. It uses up the earth's resources and scares away spotted owls. Worse, the Irksomes next door have a bigger one than we do. Naughty car! Bad, bad bad!

The earth would be a lot better off if we just got rid of cars. Right?

Well, for those who despise the automobile, let me just say one word: airlines....nothing makes me appreciate the modern car more than a long flight in a packed aluminum tube seated next to a guy scratching his navel through the hole in the jelly doughnut balanced on his belly....

....Give me a reasonable choice - say, drive the 4.5 hours to Vegas or fly from LAX to McCarran in "under an hour" - and I'll take the car every time. Sure, it's slower, but each mile brings new vistas, sometimes a quaint small town or a forested canyon spilling into forever."

Any magazine can rattle off the stats and review for a car. The numbers behind the torque, the horsepower, the wheelbase, how stiff the suspension ride is, blah blah blah...........but the words you pack in around the numbers, that's what counts for me.

I love being a spunky writer and speaker - I can come up with THE most off-the-wall analogies. (Everyone pause for a second and think of at least one 'Ashleyism' or complete dorky thing I've let fly from my mouth before thinking it over first.) Ho hum.....Motortrend is one of my food sources to do such a thing. :)

I am very watchful of how you say what you say, so I very much get hitched onto the writers at Motortrend and their way with words.

It's official: I'm applying for my subscription to their magazine on their site now!!!

(P.S. I'm so thrilled to finally NOT be living my life out of a suitcase - I am somewhere steady enough now that I *CAN* get a magazine subscription sent to the same mailing address for at least 12 months! Yay!!)

Fun-filled fact: this magazine got me through all of my random trips back and forth from WI to OH during my relocation startup process: the interviews, the apartment-hunting trips, etc. For every flight I've had out of the Columbus airport, I'd buy the latest issue of Motortrend and read it to keep me occupied and feeling 'at home' despite being all over the place and not knowing what to call 'home' anymore. :) Thank you, Motortrend! Please be (regularly) sent to my official new home now!