I shared the link to yesterday’s post about The Dean of Baltimore sports, Vince Bagli, with some of my friends and former compatriots in the Baltimore sports community. All of them graciously thanked me for “remembering” them and were very grateful for having known Vince.
Mel Kiper and I had a long conversation yesterday, our chats are almost never short, and for much of the time we talked about Vince Bagli. If you are not of a certain age and/or were not a Baltimore sports fan while Vince was on the air, you just can’t appreciate the impact he had on us.
Of all of the seemingly inordinately large number of deaths of sports figures this year, Vince Bagli’s is the most difficult one to process for me.
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Maybe 101 Octane gas doesn’t add much horsepower by itself, after all. I asked Josh at HPA, the person/company that performed the intake/exhaust mods on my Z06, about using such gas since it’s available in Arizona. He wrote, “Putting it in may pick up a few hp but not much without being more aggressive with tuning.”
Since I don’t want to have the tuning altered (meaning changing the ECM programming, I assume) and void the powertrain warranty that’s valid until next July AND don’t want to HAVE to use the 101 Gas, which is not cheap, I will not use it on a regular basis. As I wrote to Josh, though, I may try one tank just to see if I notice any change.
A recent picture of the Z06 in front of what will (hopefully) be our former house in the not too distant future. If it were possible, we would simply move the house to a vacant lot in our new location. We are not moving because of dissatisfaction with our dwelling, the extensive repairs needed to close on the sale notwithstanding. My wonderful wife and I love this house in which we have lived for ten years. However, and for the nth plus nth time, the only constant in the world is change.
I really believe that saying, by the way. It’s not just a cliché to me. I know people who think they can avoid bad change by trying to avoid all change. Life doesn’t work that way.
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For some reason, and don’t take my mentioning of this as a complaint, a number of today’s Disaffected Musings readers are from the Netherlands. I hope one of those readers sees this and posts a comment as to how they found the blog.
I have never been there although while in Luxembourg we weren’t too far away. From Vianden in the north-central part of the country to Maastricht in the extreme south of The Netherlands is only about a 90-mile drive. Why Vianden? How about this?
The above photo is of Vianden Castle in Vianden, Luxembourg. We visited the castle and the lovely town in which it sits during our trip to Europe in 2014 (!). I know I took many photos at this venue, but that was two iPhones ago and I wasn’t using iCloud storage in those days. I still have these two wonderful photos from Luxembourg, though:
Sorry, readers from The Netherlands. I mean no offense by steering the dialogue to Luxembourg. The top photo is from Place du Marche in Echternach, Luxembourg, which is the country’s oldest town. It grew around the abbey that was founded in 698. No, I didn’t forget the leading “1” in that year.
The bottom picture is from the Grund area of Luxembourg City, the country’s capitol. I loved that trip and if travel becomes feasible again before I grow too old to partake, I would like to return. Maybe this time we’ll travel to The Netherlands as well.
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Disaffected Musings 
That change is a constant is a fact. At the electric utility where I worked many many moons ago, at one time they had company wide training program to try to effect the culture to improve performance. They taught that change is a constant and we needed to change the way we did things to improve performance and thus the company. One of the sayings that was hammered into our heads was this: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. It is a cliche way of saying that you need to change your methods in order to effect the change you want or need. Which is another way of saying you need to think outside the box. Or any one of a dozen more cliches. There is a children’s book titled, “It’s Not a Box”, a wonderful little book about using your imagination to think of the box that housed the gift was just as much fun as the gift. Children can teach us many things with their simple uncomplicated thinking. Just remember that “it’s NOT a box”, it is whatever your imagination can think of to effect the change that is always constant. Don’t let your mind and your way of thinking make you a prisoner of your circumstances. And a change of location will help change your way of thinking “outside the box” that is not a box.
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Amen, Philip. I often reply “What Box?” when people say I think outside the box.
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Sometimes change isn’t good, if it’s change just for the sake of change. If it’s to affect an improvement, that’s different. In our line of work, machinery installation, on some lines the tolerance for level and square (both to a centerline and to each component) is as tight as .006″. Over the years I have designed tools and fixtures to ensure that these standards are met. Last year we had a project with a machine manufacturer based in Spain. The techniques they used to achieve these standards were based on technologies from the 50’s thru the 80’s. When I asked why they did things this way, the factory technician, a young guy of 28, said he was taught that “that was the way they always did it.” Once he saw that the way we did it was more accurate, and quicker, he was quite happy to do things our way. Since then, my partner, who was brought up in a Spanish speaking home, has spoken with the techs there detailing the equipment we use that’s for sale commercially, and drawings of tooling we built so they could duplicate it. Even with that, there are apparently some “old timers” who are not interested in changing.
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Usually–but not always–doing something just for the sake of doing it is not a good idea. I think, though, we have to accept that change is always happening and cannot “stick our heads in the sand” and wish it away.
As always, many thanks for commenting. I am extremely appreciative of your contributions to this blog and the contributions of those like photobyjohnbo, Philip Maynard, markcars2014 and David Banner (not his real name).
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DDMcG, you are correct that “change” just for the sake of change is not good. Change to improve and/or to improve, make more accurate or to simplify is usually incremental and good. Even sometimes wholesale change can be good. But to stick to the old methods just because you don’t like change is bad. The effort should always be to improve to make better, to simplify Working to standards is important and even sometimes the standards can be improved upon and made better, carefully. The independent standards organizations established over the years in the United States has been a credit to the value of working together for the improvement and safety of all.
Two projects I worked on as a professional engineer involved the installation of equipment manufactured in Europe and Japan. We were hired to insure this “foreign” equipment met the building codes of the city where they were being installed. A little challenging, but by inspecting the equipment and insuring they met the Standards of American organizations like NFPA, NEC and other independent standards we were able to recommend changes that made sure they would meet the Building Codes and would be safe to operate. Independence and professionalism are the bedrock of doing things right. Engineers and contractors working together is key.
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