One of the major criticism’s of the new GTO is that is doesn’t live up to the name of the original GTO. Now, I have never driven an old GTO, but I have driven some newer Mustangs and a Corvette.

After 1 week of driving my new GTO, I can say that every minute is more fun than the previous and can only get better as I get better with the 6-speed. Not to slight the other cars I have driven, but the GTO is much more comfortable than them and is at a minimum, on par performance wise with those cars (but only because those were hopped up ).

The writer of this article managed to capture the true feeling of driving this car…and he is right. “The juice IS worth the squeeze!”

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That’s right! I am the proud owner of a new 2005 Torrid Red Pontiac GTO with the LS2 6.0L V8 (’Vette engine). It has a 6-speed manual transmission, black leather interior and the drive is absolutely AMAZING!

I will get some picture of mine up soon, but here are some pictures from the Pontiac site of a similar GTO.

I missed a half day of work to go pick it up this morning. Well worth missing work for Tonight when I got home I took Tasha out for a 6-speed lesson. She did pretty good for not driving a manual in several years. Hell, I think I have done fairly well for not driving a manual with a steering wheel on the left hand side since before I bought the Grand Am GT.

To keep this from getting very long, I will summarize my trip in bullet form for easy digestion…

Bali

• 2 lanes means 3 lanes of cars and 4 lanes of motorcycles squeezing between the cars in each lane and the cars and the curb
• Some customs officer pocketed USD$50 for taxes on some equipment we had to bring over. No forms filled out, no receipt…
• I hear Bali is fun, but with late flights and early morning flights, I wouldn’t know…maybe if flights to Asia become cheap someday, I can find out!
• I became a millionaire while there just by changing USD$100 for Indonesian Rupiahs…
• Most of my pictures here were taken from inside the cab on the way to the airport…

32 Jawa - My home for 4 weeks

• Sure we had cable, but 1 english channel out of the 4 available, does not make for good channel surfing
• Somehow HBO Signature, Cinemax, Fashion TV and Star Sports are shown on the same channel at random times during the day. Interesting movie on HBO? Don’t bother starting it, because Cinemax or Fashion TV will be on before it is over…
• Key makers in Soroako are not very skilled. After 1 week of 2 people working different shifts and sharing 1 set of keys, we had 2 more sets of keys made. Long story short…after a long day at work with roommate at work, neither of the new sets worked and had to wait in the car listening to THE radio station until my roommate left the plant at 11 pm.
• Same night as above, upon finally getting into the house, housekeeping locked my room door…that door’s key was not in any of the sets we had. It took 3 security officers to break into the room. One with a crowbar, one with a semi-automatic rifle and one to supervise…
• Still, same night…sleeping in a car while waiting on someone can really mess up an “exiting car routine”. I found out after security broke down my door that my keys were locked in my Toyota Kijang! Great way to end an already wonderful night…
• All the clothes I wore while there will be permanently marked with J32 thanks to the daily laundry service. All the clothes except the ones washed by the dyslexic worker who wrote J23 on some of my clothes. This really had us and security confused the night of the key/door fiasco since there is no 23 Jawa, but the shirt I was wearing said otherwise
• I didn’t realize cockroaches came in jumbo!
• I have never lived with so may geckos. Thankfully they were quiet, unlike that stupid Geico gecko!

Well, the commissioning went fairly well and I am headed home now. Sitting in the business class lounge in Jakarta, tired from the 6am flight out of Soroako this morning…

I miss my honey and my doggies dearly and cannot wait to get home and get back to a normal schedule with them. Although my schedule while in Soroako was very regular, it was VERY far from my normal routine.

I will post more when I get home and can sit and think / write clearly about my first experience in Asia.

For now, I will just post one picture due to the slow connection here. This is taken from the golf course in Soroako overlooking the rice paddies into the hills. The pictures really don’t do the scenery any justice…