Perry shopping for his next ride
When I hired Perry Shoar last spring to help me run CC, it was understood to likely be a temporary gig to give me more time for my other projects during the spring and the summer re-rental season. Well, I didn’t really cut back my CC hours all that much, but it did allow me to have some breathing room when I needed it. And we got a bit ambitious with the content and number of posts per day too. Perry’s particular interest and knowledge of the cars of more recent decades, especially Japanese, has really enhanced our coverage.
But there just isn’t enough ad revenue to support both of us, let alone even one properly. So it’s time for me to move back indoors full time and for Perry to hit the books for his nursing board certification. So I reluctantly bid Perry adieu, and gird my loins for going solo again. Which brings up a related issue about submissions.
No, I’m not putting out an appeal for more, at least not right at the moment, since I’m facing a substantial backlog of submissions. I will get to them as soon as possible, but if you have submitted something but not heard from me yet, send me an e-mail at curbsideclassic@gmail.com (the old submission e-mail is going dormant).
Going forward, we’re going to push much harder to have essentially all/most submissions be done directly at CC. Putting together posts from e-mail texts and images is a bit tedious and time consuming, and creating posts directly in CC is really no more difficult than using a word processor and adding images. Word Press blog software is very commonly used.
If you are a first-time contributor, send me just the text alone to that e-mail address above (and in the Submissions Page), so that I can decide whether it’s suitable or not (the overwhelming percentage are). If it’s approved, then I will give you access to create your post directly in CC. The CC Writer’s Guide, accessible in the top menu bar, has all the details for doing that. You will have to be a registered Subscriber at CC in order for me to upgrade you to Contributor and give you access to the back end.
If you have a one-time submission and you really don’t want to use Word Press, let me know, and I’ll put it together for you. But any recurring Contributors will need to create their posts directly. I just don’t have the time otherwise.
Just a quick question about the photo in the article: Was this taken at the Aubern-Cord-Deusenburg Museum in Auburn, Indiana?
Yes. It was a glorious place.
Godspeed! Godspeed to you both!
For Perry, I would like to raise a toast to wish him well on his exams. For Paul, I would like to raise another toast, for getting back into being the main editor of CC.
So not enough revenue to allow Perry to buy that Auburn, shame, lucky he has another trade to fall back on, he will be missed.
Perry, I want to wish you the best in achieving that Nursing degree; such an honorable profession. And a round of thanks for maintaining the spirit and integrity of CC. Hope to see your by-line on these pages on a regular basis. A job, well done!
I humbly second Mr. Michael Notigan’s well-crafted good wishes for, and gratitude to, Perry.
Godspeed Perry!
Good luck on the exam Perry, my wife the NP says refer! refer! Oh and don’t do your client’s finances, apparently that’s frowned upon.
I submitted contributions by email until I was promoted by force 😉 Word Press becomes less of a PITA the more you use it. Unfortunately I use it infrequently enough that I always make some error when posting.
+1 on the nursing certification. Two of my sisters are nurses and, while they complain about their jobs, I’m sure that neither one would want to do anything else. Good luck.
I’ll add my +1 for your job choice; our daughter’s almost an RN, just needs to do her clinicals. She says it’s a calling for her.
Thank you for always giving us a great read and good luck with your career.
Best wishes, Perry. Your perspective here has broadened my own, and I hope to read a periodic contribution in the future. I was fortunate to be able to meet you on a couple of occasions, and enjoyed both very much. Good luck on the exams!
Farewell, Perry. You did well, and it was a pleasure reading your work.
Thanks Perry, and don’t be a stranger…There are a lot more white cars out there just waiting for you to photograph them! Hopefully we can meet again some day.
Thanks, Perry, for all of the great research, excellent writing, and interesting contributions. Your piece on the Mercedes W201 was magnificent. And best wishes for great success in your new career.
Always enjoyed your articles big guy. Good luck on the certification exam.
Best of luck Perry! I’ve always enjoyed your many articles but maybe the major thing I have to recognize you for is the fact you never made a secret of your sexuality. I knew there had to be other gay car nuts out there! All the best!
Thanks for all your hard work, Perry! Curbside Classic is my favorite automotive website by far, I have learned so much since I started following CC about 2 years ago. Best of luck on your exams!
Perry, thanks bigtime for your efforts. Please please please make sure you keep writing for CC. Please.
Perry, best wishes in your future endeavors. You are the only person I’ve ever met whose entire face lights up at the mention of the word “Honda”.
Incidentally, you may be intrigued to know I have owned a Honda for about nine or ten years. It’s a little one-cylinder affair attached to a Troy-Bilt push mower.
+1, best wishes Perry, and don’t be a stranger, from another person who knows what the “Temple of VTech” is.
Thank you Perry for the great job with the site! I hope you continue to contribute sometimes after you pass the exam. As an RN myself, I can assure you the NCLEX is not too horrible. A smart guy like you should do fine.
Best of luck Perry!
Thank you Perry, your efforts and alternative perspective have added greatly to CC. Good luck with your career and collector cars. Periodic updates required, please.
Best wishes as you continue preparing for your career, Perry. I’ve enjoyed reading your articles.
Thanks for all the articles Perry. It was great to have you (and others) turn our Cohort photos into something more.
I have really enjoyed your articles Perry. I hope you can somehow continue to contribute here when you have time.
Good luck on your certification!
Thank you for all the great reads, Perry! Best of luck!
Thanks for the wit and insights, Perry. Best of luck with that pesky “real” job!
Best wishes Perry 🙂
Thank you, Perry! All the best for your career!
Good luck, Perry, enjoyed your writeups very much. I hope Paul’s bidding you adieu doesn’t mean you won’t be back.
And Paul, best wishes in girding your loins.
Best wishes Perry. I appreciate your younger perspective. It provided insight on why some things have evolved as they have.
Perry I enjoyed your articles on the Honda Civic and Accord very much. I did not always agree with you for example on the Mercedes W201 and Audi 5000. I saw a mid-60s Chrysler the other day and damned if it didn’t remind a bit of a Pagoda as you said one time. If I called you crazy that day I apologize.
On the submissions I’ve only done two, one the old fashioned way by sending Paul the text and pics via e-mail, and one using WordPress. Trust me if you can type an e-mail you can figure out WP. It’s easier than the other way and much less of a hassle for guys like Paul.
Best of luck Perry on your new career.
I add my best wishes and thanks to Perry, who has helped make the site an enjoyable place to visit.
Wish you well Perry, please don’t fall out of touch.
Paul, kudos on such smooth transitions, you make it seamless and the posts are always enjoyable, no matter who writes them!
FWIW, I use WP for my occasional submissions to my employer’s website…ours works best w/Firefox or Chrome. Recent example, if I may. http://cbsloc.al/1BBoP78
The biggest hassle with editing in WordPress (or any other CMS) online is that it can lag, hang, or time out if the server gets busy while you’re working.
My tip for WordPress is to get a text editor that highlights HTML tags (Notepad++ words pretty well and is open source, and therefore free). Do the body text first, copy the HTML into a local file, and then re-copy and re-save the HTML file as you add the images.
That way, you won’t lose much if the server or your connection crap out in media res. Also, you’ll have a local copy, which is very helpful. Once an initial version is created, I actually prefer to edit the code locally, then just go into the post, hit select-all, and paste it in — if you need to make changes, that’s much quicker and if for some reason it doesn’t save, you can just do it again.
I have had a personal WP site for 7 1/2 years, and I post daily. I have almost zero trouble with that, and not at all in the past couple years. Also, WP refactors (refuctors?) all your carefully crafted HTML anyway.
That said, because of an early screwup I made here at CC while writing directly into the WP editor, I write all my CC posts in Word with placeholders for the images. Then I create the post in WP, schedule it (to guard against accidentally hitting Publish on something that’s unfinished), paste the text in, upload the images, place the images, and save.
Well, I write stuff in a word processing document to start with anyway for various reasons — being able to use grammar checking, for one. As for the code, I figured out pretty quickly what HTML WordPress ignores (or interpolates without needing to spell out, like paragraph breaks) and just stopped using it, which is simple enough.
I’m still gunshy from switching from Joomla 1.5, which was a serious PITA for creating or editing posts in innumerable ways. I still think some aspects of WP are clunky, but at least I don’t have to hand-code image tags anymore. (Joomla had an add image wizard, but a late update made it so laggy and resource-intensive as to be functionally unusable for me.)
The latest version of WP seems to eliminate that problem, by saving all the most recent work and changes in the browser. If the connection gets timed out or cut,it offers one the very latest version saved in the browser to replace it when the connection is back.
Frankly, since we got our own server, I almost never have time-outs any more. I write everything directly in WP, and haven’t lost anything in ages. There’s always an automatic backup or browser save to replace it all. I’ve lost any anxiety about that.
WP saves drafts automatically as a matter of course, and the browser save is certainly better about that than Joomla was (the reason I got into the habit of editing offline was that if I took longer than about 20 minutes in a text editing window, Joomla’s admin login cookie would expire and kick me out without saving anything!). On the other hand, I’m too accustomed to dealing with cranky, elderly electronics to trust any purely online system for anything longer than a comment, and having backups of your work is always a Good Thing.
In fairness, you seem to have better server load stability than I — I’m still marginal on the server RAM limits. (I really wish I had the option to pay a little more a month for a slightly higher RAM allotment on the shared box — the next higher option is not only a lot more expensive, but is also no longer a predictable fixed cost, which is financially terrifying.) I end up relying very heavily on aggressive caching, which doesn’t help me when doing back-end stuff.
Good luck, Perry. All the best to you.
Great job, Perry. Don’t let studying eat you alive; take a break once in a while and use a different region of your brain to write up an article for CC.
Being an OT student myself, I’ll be facing my own boards in a little over a year, so I can imagine what you’re about to go through. This whole “adult career changer taking a full grad school load while working a day job” thing can be rough; there is never enough time. (I’m taking a brain-break myself right now from writing my master’s thesis.)
Now go knock it out of the park.
Thanks for all your great write-ups, Perry! Good luck with your chosen career!
Perry: You are an engaging writer and a brilliant Car Guy–and it was great to get to know you in Auburn. I hope our paths cross again soon. Next time I’ll insist you take over the wheel of the Seville! (Few things are more exhilarating than cruising at 40 MPH without even stepping on the gas.)
Best of luck, and thank you for your outstanding work for CC–
John (SeVair)
Well done young man. You’ve left a mark in your short tenure and the flavor will further evolve with your absence. All the best…
Good luck, Perry. We will miss you.
Sorry to see you go so soon Perry, but the demands of one’s “real job” must come first. Your insights have been very much appreciated, especially by old guys like me where memories of 80s cars are very much starting to fade and blur. Funny how I can remember the 60s like it was yesterday.
Let’s hope it’s “au revoir” in the literal sense and not “goodbye!”
Best wishes!
Thank you so much for your insights, Perry! Best of luck on your nursing career!
After reading Perry’s many articles, I was surprised to learn that he was pursuing a career other than writing. His last article was a particularly memorable one. I am certain that his colleagues in the medical profession will also be surprised to learn that he is a very talented writer.
Perry will be missed,
Best of luck in your nursing career, Perry. Enjoyed your articles, especially the 80’s and 90’s European car articles. Thanks for helping keep Paul’s great site up and running.
Best of luck, Perry. If youre as dedicated to your new career as you were here, then youll do great!
I’d be lying if I said this didn’t bum me out 🙁 It already seems weird that there isn’t a “PERRY SHOAR” article near the top of the front page. They’ve always been interesting, entertaining and incredibly balanced. I’m amazed on a daily basis by the ability you (and Paul) have to write so often without losing any of the passion.
Real life stinks, hopefully there’s a winning lottery ticket or unknown near-death distant relative who’s fortune you’re the only heir to. In the meantime, good luck with the job!
Does Perry’s lack of comment suggest the separation wasn’t so amicable?
It was amicable, although perhaps not exactly what he was hoping for in an ideal world. I can’t speak for him, but I think he’s just taking a bit of a break. But Perry will be back, writing CCs. We’re fleshing out the details.
Perry brought a complimentary style and POV, which I don’t want to lose in terms of content here. But in terms of actually running/managing the site, it sometimes got more complicated having two heads than just one.
Figuring out how to run this site most productively and efficiently is a perpetual work in progress, given the very sparse financial resources at our disposal.
Thanks, Perry, for your perspective and your articles–always a pleasure to read. Hopefully we’ll continue to see them in the future, and best of luck with your studies! My wife is an Occupational Therapy grad student currently finishing her field work, and she’s starting to think of her licensing exam, so I’m sure it’s weighing heavily on your mind as well. If your nursing skills are anything like your writing skills, though, you have nothing to worry about! 🙂
Damn – this is what you miss when you go off riding your bicycle for 7 weeks. Who’s going to alert us to DILF’s??
Thanks Perry, and best of luck!