On wanting OUT of America...

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So it's a serious engineering knack of mine, working on sports cars... So much so I'll probably switch to professionally building them instead of tech jobs eventually. The money's better and the clients are happier as a 20 something mechanic as opposed to coder cberg. I am interested in (re)building people the machines of their dreams after all. What sucks is that it cost me my license a whole year ago and I'm still stacking up paperwork to get it back. Yeah, let 'em try to finger my blue wagon as that car full of radar jammers!

What its' taught me is that my respect for modern governance in this country was beyond wasted. Having voted outside the two parties feels like it lowered me. I shouldn't have wasted the errand. Should have burnt some rubber up a canyon and jumped on my bike. It's just one big blissfully ignorant sociopathic cabal of severely deluded pencil pushers in expensive clothes conferring titles on one another like feudal 'noblemen' in [insert preferred historical despotic nonsense here]. None of this is real. Our lives and what we create, THAT'S real. If it reads like a lie & it's not accompanied by a face, it's probably a lie.

Isn't it sad so many arts are still criminalized? Someday I wish I could wake up to graffiti EVERYWHERE.

Being that I'm a passable bike mechanic, there's a chance I could just eke it out in Amsterdam until this settles down. As far as Europe on the [almost] cheap goes, that's about my best idea. Not that I really care what it costs, I want my car to hit das Nurburgring.

/rant
Somebody should visit me so I can teach them to ski. I can't even metro area right now...

It would be much easier if you had family outside of America.

I feel the same about the UK. Whatever you do, don't come here, it's virtually the same as America and becoming more like it every day. Shudder. That's why I've lived in other European countries.
Amsterdam is a good choice. The Dutch are wonderful, open people. How cheap it is, I'm not sure. The countries with the lowest cost of living are in Central and Eastern Europe.

Amsterdam is not particularly cheap, and within Europe, it's more towards the expensive end (I have a brother there).
Eastern European countries are cheaper; Croatia is quite nice, although still a bit war-scarred here and there.

Oh, and you haven't met self-obsessed regulatory bodies, until you've been to the german speaking countries. Most alterations to existing cars are against regulations and deemed not fit for the road. You must get your car checked for fitness every two years. The stuff you saw on 'pimp my ride'? Both before and after pimping would so not get onto a german street.
The german pimp my ride had bicycles. The painted them in famcy colours. It got cancelled pretty quickly.

Joining a US-racing team as a mechanic is probably your fastest way onto 'das Nürburgring" (actually, it's 'der', not 'das', and in this case, 'den', as in this sentence, it's the accusative object. German grammar is a b***h)

Not exactly sure how you got that idea about me. I'm an engine geek, chauvanism is very much beside the point, thanks.

It's not X to tha Z cberg. I think before I wrench. I'm just into building good sport compacts & dailayable sleepers. Only my mountain bike is chrome. I'm talking 0-100kph in the low fours running on open source.

Also it's just that my mom's Germanity that rubbed off on me, spelling's still gonna take some work & I'm a lot better with Norse grammar.

I think it was the talking about building people's dream cars- anyway, I was just using this as an example. Still, I'd consider getting into the business at home first, then think about leaving, if der Nürburgring is your goal.
Just ... Any sort of custom car is a problem for European, particularly German authorities.

Yeah, shilafu is not factoring study environment into cost of living. I wouldn't invest anywhere without good libraries, coffee & hash.

More likely than not I would repatriate mine to Sweden, also it's not like I'd ever remove my catalytics. Engine controls these days are easily re-mappable for efficiency/squeaky cleanness no matter how many mechanicals one upgrades. German tuners simply operate as manufacturers, because they are. I'm perfectly comfortable working to reconcile myself with TUV standards.

The inspections we have here aren't so different, either way I'll hand them the keys to my build minus ~140 wheel HP/100tq

Last edited by cberg on 27 Nov 2015, 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do in Norway although I must admit my next best reason for going there would be their schools...

Been dreaming of learning that place since I knew what it was though.

Yow that was a lot of typos from this old Android phone. Yet another reason I've been winterizing everything else...
(Another edit): bleh, back to programming. At least I'm not 100% cabin fevered.

Sweden's nice of course, though I know now's not really the time to be thinking about this. Developed Europe has a lot of building to do right now. I'm interested in heading somewhere I know I'd be useful...

There's a hot industry in car restoration in Australia right now.
If you're interested...