Introducing, well, me.

I love cars. Crazy about them. I especially like Jeeps, 4x4s, and classic 4x4s and muscle cars, but for some reason I also like station wagons. When I was young I suscribed to 4 Wheeler and Off-Road magazines.

In high school I had a plan that would have provided myself and my family with a more comfortable lifestyle. I would take auto body at the county vocational school, the kind of program where I would have gone to high school in the morning and vocational school in the afternoon. Then after graduation I would go to the county community College taking a double major of automotive technology and business management. The long-term plan would have been my own auto repair/auto body/ pre-owned sales place. Now that I'm 61, I kick myself every day.

I owned a 1979 Chevy Blazer. You know, the REAL Blazers, full-size, squarbody. Not the S-10, or what Chevrolet calls a Blazer today, which is an insult to the real Blazers. Once again, I traded it. Now when I'm not kicking myself about the school plan, I'm kicking myself about that Blazer. I kick myself a lot.

Fast forward several years. I'm now married and making a very bad living as an EMT. With my new wife being a teacher and making considerably more money than myself, I enrolled at Lincoln Technical Institute in Union, New Jersey. Big mistake! The classes were all book work. The first year I qualified for financial aid, two kinds in the form of student loans. 

After the year was up I had to re-apply for year two. Still fuming because my instructor for the advanced electronics class, one of the most important, would bring private work in the shop to make extra money. Meanwhile, me and my classmates just sat around all evening.

Back to the student loans. The second year I was married and I qualified for less student loan money. They told me on a Monday that I had until that Thursday to come up with $3000.00. Well, I couldn't, so they told me good-bye and wished me well. Six months later we had to start paying back the first years student loans. Money was already tight, but now it was even tighter.

A few years later I enrolled at the county vocational school's Automotive Technology adult evening class. Also, the Goodyear company store that I was a loyal customer at for years, offered my a job as a General Service Technition. I thought things were finally happening for me. At my interview I was told about the full company benefits and me being sent to Goodyear schools. I was totally honest about Lincoln Tech being all book work. They said they can't train me to show up everyday, on time (whitch seemed to be a major problem), but they can teach me everything else.

All seemed well the first few weeks. I worked at the shop during the day and went to school three nights a week. The thing was, I had millions of questions. I don't know if they didn't believe me about Lincoln Tech being all book work, or because the manager boasted that I got the highest score on the Goodyear Certification Examination he ever saw as well as me having the best paperwork, but everyone treated me like total crap.

 There is an entire subject about what happened during the three months I worked there. Well, I quit after finding out the service manager lied to me about the benefits. There were no benefits. No insurance, no sick days, no vacation, no paid holidays, no 401(K), nothing but a 20% discount. The most important lesson was that I didn't realize how mean & nasty people can be. My VoTec teacher told me that's the way it was in auto repair.

My VoTec class was wonderful, and I excelled in it. I finally graduated with a certificate in automotive technology. After a lifetime of being royally screwed over by auto shops, and dealing with high-pressure, greedy car salespeople, I finally had enough. I started researching automotive sales including buying books, interviewing sales associates, and listening to the stories of other people's experiances. When I felt that I had enough information, I opened Embury Automotive Consulting. With my new part-time business I would counsil my clients on what car, or cars, that would be best for them, how to navigate the car buying process, and how to take care of their vehicles after the sale. For a small extra fee I would go with them to the dealership, not to fight tooth & nail with the sales people and managers, but to make sure they didn't get scammed. If they had a trade-in, I would sell it for them for 10% of the purchase price, which still was more than the dealerships offered for the trade. Unfortunatly, life happened and I wound up on disability, then in 2005 we moved to Arkansas.

Now, back to the cars. I bought a 1997 Jeep Cherokee Country from a wonderful lady at my church. I loved that thing. I even joked that I wanted to be a Jeep dealer. I brought it to Arkansas with us and ran it until it died, with close to 300,000 miles on it. I sold it to someone in my town, who actually resurected it and sold it. He later told me that the guy who bought it loved it. I told him that I know how that guy feels. Now I own a 2011 Jeep patriot. It's only a 2-wheel drive, but I love it.

In this blog I will discuss car buying, car care, and safe driving. I will answer any questions, if I don't know the answer I'll find out. Check out my other two blogs. Being a first responder, retired due to PTSD, and my Christian messages and God talk. Thank you for reading.