Except for replacing my air filters or changing the oil every now and then, if I ever had a problem with my car, I'd just take it into the mechanic and when he came out to explain what was wrong, I nodded politely and pretended like I knew what he was talking about.

But lately I've had the itch to actually learn the basics of how cars work. I don't plan on becoming a full on grease monkey, but I want to have a basic understanding of how everything in my car actually makes it go. At a minimum, this knowledge will allow me to have a clue about what the mechanic is talking about the next time I take my car in. Plus it seems to me that a man ought to be able to grasp the fundamentals of the technology he uses every day. When it comes to this website, I know about how coding and SEO works; it's time for me to examine the more concrete things in my world, like what's under the hood of my car.