Volunteering at FanExpo 2012

Michael J. Fox's disease is terrible. It is the reason he founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. Volunteering is not terrible. It is the reason I spent Friday evening and all day Saturday at FanExpo.

At this point the news is old. Sure, if I wanted I *could* just hit 88 mph in the Time Machine, go back and write this post before FanExpo, but I can't seem to get my hands on any plutonium. Sure, in 2015 I will be able to walk right in to my corner store and buy it, but for now I'm stuck.

So, back to FanExpo. My friend, owner of this amazing Time Machine, had a wedding to attend, so I volunteered to raise funds with his brother at the exhibit.

People usually go crazy for DeLoreans and there was no exception at this massive nerd-fest. Ok, don't get all angry that I just called it a nerd-fest. It's okay. I'm allowed to say that. I am one of you.

Besides, you know it's true.

Many commented that FanExpo was nothing more than a cash-grab these last 2 years, but said they were happy to see someone doing something for charity. Many were more than happy to hand over $20 to sit in the Time Machine and take photos. Some were happy to donate even more than that. To those people: thank you.

To the Hulk, who tried to rip the front bumper off the car, thank you for your donation. To the Staypuft Marshmallow (wo)man, thank you. To Doctor Who, thank you. To all the girls in their teeny tiny costumes, thank you, thank you, thank you. To those "inebriated" scientists, thank you. To Omni Television for helping spread the word about this car even further, thank you.

To Venessa in her Transformer DeLorean costume, thank you. To Marty McFly, thank you. To anyone not in a costume, thank you. To all the excited people who were happy to give to such a worthy cause and stop and chat for a bit, thank you. And to Christopher Lloyd coming to Canada and drawing even more attention to the Time Machine, thank you.

Even without Christopher Lloyd in the car lines were long and people's patience was tested. The rooms were hot, crowded and smelled of sweaty farts. So if you stuck it out and donated your hard-earned money, I sincerely thank you. Alternately, if you stuck it out and donated stolen money, I also sincerely thank you.

Steam Trains & DeLoreans: BTTF 3!

On Canada Day 2012 I travelled through time. Right back to 1883. It was "the Coolest vehicle of the 1980s meets the coolest vehicle of the 1880s" in Tottenham, north of Toronto.

Our car club, which includes one Time Machine DeLorean, gathered at the South Simcoe Railway and rode the only functioning steam powered train in Ontario: Canadian Pacific engine 136. It is among a very small handful of steam trains still operational in Canada.

The boiler was warmed up the night before, and the engineer began stoking the fire around 6 a.m. Four hours later the DeLoreans began rolling in. We admired the engine, built in 1883, as crowds gathered around our cars beneath clouds of steam and smoke.

A sight to behold, everyone loved the combination of cars and trains. But a battle was brewing as the Time Machine silently faced off against the steam train. It was the power of the future vs. the power of the past, as Mr. Fusion's supreme efficiency taunted the coal-fed locomotive. Black tears rolled down the front of #136 as she pulled away from the station.

All this action really gave me a yearning to watch Back to the Future 3 again.

This hobby really is amazing. The people I've met are so interesting and fun. It's not just car-guys - the steam train is a perfect example of that. The South Simcoe Railway is run by volunteers who are doing essentially the exact same thing I am doing. They are preserving a piece of history, a piece of beautiful technology from the past. And they're doing it because they love it.

DeLorean Time Machine

"Back To The Future" celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and DeLorean hype had never been higher. My friend Ken rode that wave all year. You see, Ken has a Time Machine!

His 95% screen-accurate Back to the Future Time Machine was featured in magazines, newspapers, and a Spike TV commercial "copy" of a 1980s BTTF teaser commercial. It was re-shot scene-for-scene to duplicate the original. View it here. It is impressive. I kid you not.

A couple of weeks ago I was supposed to accompany Ken, and the rest of the gang to a car show. However, my DeLorean was having a spa day at DPI and couldn't make it. So Ken gave me the honour and privilege of taking his Time Machine! A Time Machine that Michael J. Fox sat in. Yes, our butts have touched.

If you think driving a Time Machine is all fun and games, well, you'd be right. But you'd also be wrong. Oh yes. Very, very wrong. Why? Not only do you have to negotiate rabid fans all the while waving and smiling to them, but you have to shift gears, steer, and avoid peeping toms falling out of trees. It's tough!

To make things worse (for driving, not for being awesome, let's get that straight) the car is absolutely FULL of stuff. Hoverboards, Sports almanacs and various sunglasses crowd you. If you dig around, you may even find ol' Einstein hiding in there somewhere. The car is AMAZING. The details are superb. People rushed the car and dozens of kids thought it was the actual movie car.

When I say the car is screen-accurate, what I mean is that it matches the DeLorean used in the Back to the Future films almost exactly. And movie cars weren't exactly made to be driven. They were made to look cool. And "cool" comes at a price. Most notably, the time circuits. Those pesky time circuits and keypad block the heating & cooling controls, and make shifting really annoying. Especially with the ON lever for the time circuits so close. I bumped that lever so many times... I know exactly how Marty accidentally turned them on escaping the Libyans.

But it's all worth it. The car is unbelievable. And when that flux capacitor is fluxing, everything is instantly 200% more awesome. It always draws a huge crowd, and that's what Ken is hoping for. Because the car is for hire. No, I'm not kidding around. If you would like to rent it, visit www.timemachineforhire.com. Proceeds to go Team Fox, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.