It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

This post title has nothing really to do with the content of the post, but as I was sitting here, it roused itself from the depths of my cerebrum and poured itself onto the page (so to speak) through my fingers. I actually had very little to do with it.

I've turned in my Acura TL and collected a BMW X5 in its stead. Many people would love the opportunity to drive around $34,000 and $56,000 cars, respectively. If they are intuitive, comfortable and offer good performance, I would too. Therein lies the rub.

I picked up the X5 on Sunday afternoon at my hotel airport in Memphis, where the trucking company had delivered it only hours before. It was evening, I had to prepare for my first day of training the next morning, and I did not have much time to get really familiar with the car.

Waitwaitwait I hear you saying. Aren't you supposed to be teaching other people about this vehicle? Well.... Yes. If you put it that way. But it is impossible to learn everything about a vehicle in a short period of time, so I start with the stuff that I'm scripted with, and then I expand my knowledge from there. The first significant expansion of knowledge occurred on Monday, after completing my morning class in Memphis.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Jackson, Mississippi. (I actually just found myself spelling it in my head, as if I were a kid. M I S S I S S I P P I). So on Monday afternoon, I made the 200 mile drive from Memphis to Jackson.

Before I got out of the parking lot, I had a problem. I placed my briefcase on the front passenger seat. I always place my briefcase on the front passenger seat. (You never know when you're going to need that crucial piece of information (or that protein bar) wedged firmly into the bottom of your briefcase.) My X5 didn't want my briefcase to be unsafe, so it kept beeping at me to buckle the seatbelt around my briefcase. I gave it some time. BEEP - BEEP - BEEP. I moved my briefcase onto the floor.

I'll be up front - I dislike German cars. Not so much the cars, as the controls. VW, BMW, Mercedes, Audi. You get in, and you have to think like a German. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I think like a person.

We'll start simple. Driving down the freeway listening to the radio. (FM, because Serius doesn't give you three free months to get you hooked like XM does, so I have no satellite radio in the car.) I settle on a station and press and hold the "1" button. No beep. I continue to hold the "1" button. On the center dash display a message pops up and says something along the lines of "What do you think you're doing? Why are you continuing to hold that button down while it is clear that this car will not let you program that radio station on that button?"

Okay, so it didn't really say that, but it may as well have. It did say something along the lines of that function not allowed. So I spent the next 10 minutes driving down the freeway sideswiping cars and trucks for miles as I tried to program my radio station into the "1" button. Eventually I figured it out by finding the secret key held within the I-Drive system. I used to think that I-Drive stood for Intelligent Drive. Now I think that it literally means "I-Drive". The car is driving, and whoever sits in the driver's seat is just along for the ride.

Continuing on my journey, I set the cruise control, which I always use when driving on the freeway. I learned many years ago that you can't get speeding tickets when you let the "cruise" do the driving. In the X5, the cruise control is operated by a stalk on the left side of the steering column, just below the stalk for the turn signals. Operation of the cruise control system is as simple as you might imagine it to be in a German car:

To set the cruise control speed, pull the stalk toward you. Or push it away from you.
To disengage the cruise control, move the stalk up. Or move the stalk down.
To increase your speed, push the stalk away from you. To floor the accelerator, push the stalk further away from you, past the detent.
To reduce your speed, pull the stalk toward you. To apply the brakes, pull the stalk further toward you, past the detent.
Oh, and there's a button on the end of the stalk also. I haven't pressed it for fear that I'll start shooting somebody. I suppose I could read the book, but I was able to figure all that stuff out just by driving the car, and moving the stalk. Except the gun thing.

So I'm cruising along in the fast lane, closing on someone moving slower than me. He feels that he's going an appropriate speed and sees no reason to move into the right lane. (see a previous post on my thoughts) So I figure I'll be nice to him and just slow down and see if he'll pull over. I pull toward me on the stalk to slow down, but I got the wrong stalk and I'm flashing my brights at the guy instead, and I continue to close on him rapidly. I'm pulling past a car in the right hand lane, but there is enough room to move over to the right and move past the rolling road block. So I turn on my blinker and pull into the right hand lane, only I didn't turn on my turn signal. I turned off my cruise control. Now I'm slowing down in front of this car I just pulled in front of. You can perhaps sense my dissatisfaction with the situation?

By the way, the button numbers 1 through 6, that one would expect to program preset radio stations are, in fact, multi-function buttons that not only preset radio stations (once you learn how), but also program other functions. I'm not sure what yet, as I haven't read the book.