It's No Coincidence As To Why He Likes Cars So Much

Name: James (J Dog) Piniella

Age: 21

Hometown: Ridgefield, CT But lives in the Prospect Street Dorms

Major: Economics

"Why did you major in Economics?"

"I just kind of found it, like, interesting. My dad does a lot of commodity training and analysis, so I kind of been around the whole economics field, at least in that regard, for at least as long as I can remember. The way he talked to me about it, I always found it kind of interesting. I’m a big car guy too so he showed me some articles, like these economic articles from the Wall Street Journal about Car Manufacturers like Tesla, Bugatti, you know like High End Manufacturers, and how they conduct their business and stuff. I don’t know, I just found that kind of interesting."

"Ultimately, Why did you pick UConn Stamford?"

"I don’t really know why to be honest. My dad actually did go here, like back to get his Economics Degree, at least in the late 80s, early 90s when he was working for Louis-Dreyfus and funny enough, he was just like ‘try here, it’s close by’ and I was like ‘ok, yeah, I can do that’. It was literally as much thought as I put into it."

"So like, college and the college experience, just wasn’t a big thing for you?"

"No, I just figured if I can graduate in like four or five years, make a decent amount of money afterwards, I’ll be ok. That was honestly as much thought as I put into it. Like, that was it. You got to enjoy the simpler things in life. Personally for me I find the less you can complicate your life, it’ll be a lot easier and have a lot less stress. That’s just kind of how I try to work."

"Will you be done with school next semester?"

"No, actually. Technically this is my last semester as a Junior. A while ago I had this whole thing where I missed a whole semester because I had to get my appendix taken out. So that was pretty funny, actually. I literally tried every backdoor entrance that I can possibly find from UConn. I called up Storrs multiple times, called up here [Stamford] a couple times. Nothing worked; I had to reapply to the school, funny enough, and got placed back on academic probation and they were just like ‘don’t flunk out’ and I was just like ‘copy’. Yeah, so, it was pretty funny actually."

"Well that’s very unfortunate."

"Yeah, it was horribly unfortunate, but it would make a great sitcom episode though. That’s the thing, if you’re going to go the funny route, that’s the way you want to go."

"So you’re obviously into cars, do you drive a cool car?"

"Oh my God, I have a sad story to tell you."

"Yeah, because I feel like our freshman year I’ve heard stories about cars from you."

"Yeah, I was very famous for my speed runs freshman years. I used to have this car, 2006 Chrysler 300C STR8. You know those big Chrysler Sedans you see on the road that kind of looks like a fake Rolls Royce? Anyway, it was basically like one of those and it was the fastest possible version you can get, right? My dad, when he got it a number of years ago, he got it pre-owned, right? So the guy who had it before him, he supercharged the car, so it made like 565 Horsepower, it made a ridiculous amount more power and you can feel it the instant you touch the throttle. Like I used to do a lot of really fast driving before I got a couple of speeding tickets, and I remember I was driving on 684 like going towards White Plains because I used to go from Ridgefield to Taconic to White Plains and then take that to 287 or 95 to get all the way back to Stamford. It was a really long way, but if you drive fast enough, you can do it. And I think, I broke my record Sophomore Year on a certain stretch and it was still accelerating. And the only reason I stopped, because I was like ‘ok, this is way too fast, I gotta relax, this is uncharted waters.’ There was nobody on the road."

"Oh my God James, I would cry if I was in a car with you."

"Eh, don’t worry, I’m ok. You’d be fine. I wouldn’t speed or do anything stupid if there were ever cars around. The only time I would ever gun it, or try, is if I had an open road, and no one was ahead of me. Because if I’m going to put myself in danger, I would want to be the only person around so I would only hurt myself. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone else. I know it sounds like a selfish way to have fun, but I mean, that was my thinking at the time before the speeding tickets happened."

"It sounds like your dad is also fond of cars, is that why you like cars so much, did you get it from him?"

"Actually, no. This is such a weird coincidence, I can’t make this up. So my dad used to have this one friend, his name was Cornell, right, and my dad used to go to the University of Bridgeport and Cornell, he was a massive car guy. Like, always loved cars, he drove like an old Hurst, it was like a mid-80s Oldsmobile, it was modded out, had like the pistol grip-shift or something like that. It was a really cool car. And unfortunately he crashed his car one day; he wrapped his car around a pole and was killed. And, so he was one of my dad’s best friends, so my dad, to honor him, he made his first name my middle name. And I started to have a love for cars all of a sudden and my dad was like ‘what the heck is going on, this is just weird’. The more I got into cars, he told me that story and I’m just like ‘wait, are you serious?’ and he said ‘swear to God’. This can’t be coincidental, this is actually like God, it 100% has something to do with a Higher Power. I don’t know if you believe in God, but like, I do, and that’s all I’m going to chalk it up to. It’s too weird to be a coincidence."

"What’s your dream car?"

"Oh my dream car? I can tell you right off the top of my head. 2016 Dodge Viper ACR the Extreme Arrow Package with a Twin Turbo Kit on it."

"Why?"

"First of all, I’ve always loved the Dodge Viper ever since I was a little kid. It’s always been my favorite car. In every single racing game, I’ve always saw the Viper and was like ‘ok, this is such a cool car’. Its got a long front, very short back, it’s a small car and basically what Dodge did is they decided to fit the biggest engine in existence into the smallest car they had and just figured to put really big tires on it. Good suspension, no drivers aid what-so-ever and they were just like screw it, see what you can do on the track with it. And the new one, it broke so many track records, it’s one of the best performance cars on the face of the planet. If you give it more Horsepower, it already has 640+, which is a lot, especially for a small car that weighs like 33 hundred, 34 hundred pounds, maybe a little less. You put a couple extra hundred Horsepower in that thing, with the amount of force it produces, you’re going to fly by million dollar cars around any track. It’s insane. I set a personal goal to for myself to try to get any kind of Viper before I turn 30. I don’t car if it’s brand spanking new or if I have to fix it up, I just want a Viper. I can rant all day about it."

"What else do you like to do for fun? I know you like to go to the Sports Club Events, but what else does James do?"

"Oh yeah, I love sports. Huge baseball player, I love basketball, I’m trying to get more into soccer, I love football, even some car racing like Nascar Formula One, you know, endurance racing, I’m a really big fan of. If I can play it or at least enjoy it, I’ll love it, I love sports. Another thing I like it do, I’m also huge in music, huge in playing guitar, and all that stuff."

"Were you in a band or is it just for fun?"

"I tried to do a band in High School but everyone was just so disorganized and nobody knew what they wanted to do and I’m just like ‘I can’t do this’ because one of my friend was kind of controlling. He wanted to be like the lead guitarist and I’m not saying I was better than him because that would be a really cocky thing to say, I think I’m pretty good, like a couple of my friends have told me that I probably should’ve been lead, but he was good enough on his own to play it so I was just going to let him rock on his own."

"Attempting the band, was there a specific genre you guys were in?"

"Oh I wanted to do anything in the Rock Spectrum. Anything from Classic Rock to Hard Rock, some Heavy Metal to Alternative Rock. Basically anything in that spectrum, I would game to try to learn and play. I tried to write a couple songs over the years that I’ve played, and I, at least, think they’re pretty good. At least a couple solos here and there in the song, that’s why I play; I like the feel of it and of course showing off a little bit is fun, I’m not going to lie."

"Do you perform anywhere or is it just for yourself and friends?"

"I show my friends literally all the time. I actually brought my stuff over to my apartment and I have my own little corner set up, I have an amp set up, I got my peddles for my peddle board, two guitars on the rack I got, it’s really, really fun. It’s like the one little corner of my room for me to jam out to if I want. Thankfully I haven't gotten any noise complaints, which is definitely a plus. It’s fun, it’s like a passion. When you find something you absolutely love to do, it becomes like an outlet. With music, you can invoke a certain kind of emotion that if you’re not a good wordsmith, you can play piano, play guitar, you can play something and even just listening to certain songs that invoke emotion, they’re powerful and can really make you think about life and what you’re doing."

"What’s some of your goals/dreams that have nothing to do with cars or music? I feel like that would automatically be in your top goals/dreams, so lets think outside of that."

"I never really gave it that much thought to be honest. Like with me, I definitely try to take it one step at a time. Not live in the moment 100%, you have to plan ahead to some extent, but you know, life is happening around us right now. I try to take it all in and enjoy it to the fullest. If I had to say I had a goal, I know this is going to sound really cliche and corny, but honestly, have some money, have a family, couple kids, couple nice cars, a decent house, and yeah that’s it. If I can just be a decent person and a decent dad down the road, I could die happy at 50 knowing I’ve done my job."

"Do you see yourself living in this area when you’re older; what’s your dream destination?"

"For vacation, if I was going to pick on place in the world, it would be Dubai, easy. Oh my God, it is like the biggest money pit I’ve ever seen. They have the nicest cars literally everywhere, I would literally get the camera out on my phone and start taking pictures and videos, maybe make a vlog or something just to showcase everything that’s nice there. And if I had to pick someplace to live, honestly, up here during the summers, I can live up here all year round if it was always like the summer. Honestly, the New England area is one of the most beautiful parts of the world in like the Spring, Summer, Fall seasons, it’s just the Winters are so cold, it’s a big turnoff. That’s one of the reasons why I love Florida. I love like the Tampa, Palm Harbor area specifically because it’s a really nice area, really warm, you can live an active lifestyle, the roads are always really well-paved to drive on."

"Why did you want to do the interview? Why did you reach out to me?"

"That’s an excellent question. I don’t know, I just like doing things. One of the reasons is it’ll give me something to do. I don’t want to sit around in my dorm all day doing nothing, playing Xbox or whatever. And also, I figured why not? I saw your post and figured I might as well help a friend out."

"Last question, it’s a free question, you can say anything you want. Do you want to give advice or do you want people to know something about you? It’s all up to you!"

"First off, shout out to my family. Love you guys, you guys are awesome, except for you CP, I hate you. Just kidding. He’s my younger brother, he’s a senior at Ridgefield High School and is going to graduate next year. If I had to give one piece of advice, this is one thing my dad always taught me. If you don’t make a big deal about something, it never becomes a big deal. There are only a couple of things in life worth making a big deal over and that’s: money, friends and family, and matters of the heart. Everything else, not really that big of a deal. You can just joke away and don’t sweat about everything else. If you sweat about the little things, all it’s going to do is put a bunch of annoying stress in your life that you don’t really need. And lets be honest here, no one wants to be stressed out."