Tacoma Volvo does what they do reasonably well. Is it worth doing? I think so - so I checked out what it takes to be a professional Volvo mechanic. First of all, there'a a good deal of training available in our nation's public high school system. I recall an auto shop class even at my heavily sports and drama emphasizing alma mater. The next level of training is Trade School. I remember commercials for these things playing late at night all the time, back in my TV watching heyday. DeVry, Something Polytechnic, Blah blah technical college. There's probably a few different degrees you can get in the field in any given college. After that, you work with what you've got for a while, and you can get your ASE certification, which will help you get a job at jillions of service stations around the country. There are multiple areas you can be certified in, and you need them all to earn "Master" status. That'll pretty much get you a job anywhere, apparently. Another postgraduate thing you can do is take Volvo's "SAFE" program (haha. "Safe."), which will get you a better job at a Dealership and into advanced Volvo-specific courses... somewhere. I can't find info on those. They're out there, though. Perhaps they are given in secret locations around the world, like Quantico, VA...

Once you're holding all those certificates, you can go be a car mechanic at a dealership. Once you're sick of that, you can open your own shop. Or if you're me and you just want to know a whole lot about fixing your car, you go and fix whatever's busted. Am I doing this? Well... I'm reviewing my basic electronics and thinking about getting a crappy Toyota to dick around with to get to know things better. I'll have a garage when I move. Probably. (Garage meaning: the little barn that a car goes in, not a place in which cars are fixed professionally.)

I'd do it, though. Who knows, that kind of knowledge may come in handy if I have a big crisis and have to change fields. It's happened to better men than I.

(Volvo has just released the "9900" series of bus, a level of bus luxury I may never experience in my lifetime. And true to the mysterious nature of the bus industry, pricing on it is completely unavailable to the public. At least, on the web.)

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