Video and Story: Russ Johnson

I have never really been a car buff. My several midlife crises have not involved hot cars, hot babes and certainly had nothing to do with buffing up at a gym. But last fall I admit to having a ball at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. SEMA is the acronym for the accurate but unsexy moniker of the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association, representing the makers of everything from chrome wheels to fuzzy dice, the stuff auto buffs use to pimp out their cars. The show, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, is not open to the public: I got in as press, covering in-car gadgetry like global positioning systems and entertainment centers. But the public is free to wander about outside among the pencil thin, low slung racers, vintage Chevys with iridescent paint jobs and even a 1930s-style jalopy purposefully made up to look like an abandoned rust bucket.

The video takes you from the sea at Negombo to Vil Ulyana , a stunning eco-friendly resort on the plain near the rock fortress Sigiria, with its lusty lady cave paintings, the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Polonnaruwa, the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage, the Temple of the Tooth at Kandy, a look at ficus the size of a house, then up into the mountains at Hunas Falls and the tea plantatons of Nuwara Eliya. DOWNLOAD MP4 ITUNES

Our driver pulls the car to the side of the road to let a convoy pass. "A minister," he says, "best to keep our distance."

This is Sri Lanka. A twenty year old civil war has taught its citizens to stay clear of government officials who might be targets of suicide bombs, and has scared travelers away. A real pity as tourists have never been targets.

Not much has changed since I last visited some fourteen year ago: the "lush green dream" I described in a story then or the little towns where a Christian Church, a Mosque and Tamil and Buddhist temples might share a city block. Nor the police barricades along the road except that they now have become so ubiquitous that they carry advertising.

STORY IN MP3 AUDIO

By Russell Johnson

Last month I visited doctors twice: in San Francisco to have a spot of sun damage checked, and in Bangkok for a physical. As Mrs. Kuchenbecker, my sixth grade teacher said, "Let us compare und contrast."

SAN FRANCISCO
I make an appointment, the doctor will see me in about a month. I show up on time, fill out forms and, clutching my Ganesha (the Hindu elephant god associated with overcoming obstacles), am waterboarded by a nurse-enforcer who finally establishes my financial worthiness. I sit down. Another patient in the waiting room stands up, exclaims, "I don't have time for this," and leaves.

After 45 minutes I am ushered into Doctor's room (as in "Doctor will see you," as if his mother had ordained his profession at birth and named him Doctor). There I wait for another half hour, poring over an ancient copy of Forbes.

My father was a do-it-yourselfer, a master carpenter probably better than Jesus as the Son-of-God's carpentry skills were never well documented (but I'm sure the SOG had more important things to do than building bird houses). I didn't take after either one. My woodworking was plagued by bent over nails and my middle school shop teacher, a large ruddy man bursting with blood pressure, said I did rivits like “a girl.”

But the Maker Faire , sort of a Burning Man meets Martha Stewart affair, grabbed what was left of the little boy in my soul, the urge to build a Go Cart or blow up the neighbor's garbage can. This was not a hangout for the tough-as-nails guys who hang out in the tool department of Home Depot. Here the muse was as important as the monkey wrench.

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