FROM THE EDITOR

Quark and I

  ...about the car...

    It all started so innocently in 1994 with a tiny little picture of a tiny little round car dreamed up by a bunch of engineers and designers at Volkswagen.  They called it the "Concept 1" but nobody was fooled.  A whole new generation was about to experience life as millions had once before: life with a Beetle, a New Beetle to be exact.  It was a step forward and yet a step backward thirty years at the same time.  The New Beetle was the perfect car for me.

    In May 2001 I was ready to buy my first car and the memories of that first glimpse of the New Beetle were as strong as ever.  There was no comparison shopping.  I knew exactly what I wanted and after a frantic week-long search during my first week in Dallas I found exactly what I wanted: Quark.  She's not just a car but a way of life.  It seems strange but it suits me.  She lives for the future but has a deep appreciation of the past.  She's different and different is good.

 

    Buying a New Beetle means buying into a bigger idea, some sort of grand scheme of uncoventionality, of nonconformity.  It's "Far out, man!" as I'm sure many VW owners have exclaimed.  It causes you to put a flower in the bud vase, treat your bug like part of the family and give it a name.  Quarks: the tiny little shiny round particles that make up protons and neutrons in the nucleus of atoms that zip around at high rates of speed.  Quark: a tiny little shiny round particle that zips around at high rates of speed.  A Beetle and high rates of speed?  Yes!  As the specifications show, Quark might just surprise you...

   ...about me...

    So who owns Quark and more importantly, who is responsible for unleashing this webpage on the world?  That would be me, Tyler, the quirky guy who drives the bug named Quark.  What do you mean by quirky you ask?  Well... let's see... I just started a career as a railway civil engineer in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.  Yes, I said railway engineering.  Believe it or not, people still design railways from the ground up.  To protect the innocent I won't say which consulting firm I work for but I'll give you a hint, we do Heavy Duty Railway engineering. 

    I live in Texas but I'm not from this part of the world.  I graduated from the University of Illinois and my hometown is Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  How can a product of the Great White North infused with Illini spirit working as a railway civil engineer in Texas not be quirky?    I enjoy cool old funky stuff.  I guess that kind of goes with the whole retro New Beetle idea.  It's not tacky, it's kitsch and it works for me.  I have no real idea why I decided to move to Texas.  It just seemed like an adventure and I can play outdoor miniature golf at Putt-Putt 365 days a year.  Fancy restaurants don't impress me but I live for ice cream and I swear that the bug automatically pulls into every Sonic (America's Drive-In!) she encounters.  Getting the picture?  I didn't express my individuality and rage against the establishment by trying to be like everybody else.  Instead I embraced my funny geeky quirks and ran with them...it's been quite a trip!

~Tyler :^)  and Quark (o\X/o)