I really have nothing to write today. Do you care that Volvo has announced it will only sell electric cars by 2030 AND that it will only sell cars online? I think an enormous market opportunity will remain for companies offering vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, unless they are banned from doing so by governments. I do think that online vehicle sales will become the dominant paradigm.
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This metropolitan area is one of only three with a Mayo Clinic. I am now a patient of that practice. The reasons for my seeking them out are irrelevant.
I went to the Phoenix “campus” yesterday and have an appointment there today. I have three more appointments before the end of March and one of those is at the Scottsdale venue.
I overheard a conversation where one of the Mayo Clinic employees told someone that the Phoenix venue had more than 1,000 appointments booked yesterday! So, how was the experience?
Given the tremendous number of people with appointments everything seemed to operate efficiently. For example, my appointment was late in the afternoon. Usually by then medical practices are backed up and behind schedule. I was taken back to see the practitioner pretty much at my scheduled time.
Although I had no input into the scheduling, I like that all of my subsequent appointments for this issue had been arranged even before yesterday. The PA I saw was very patient and did not treat me in a condescending manner. (The doctor was on vacation; I will see him later this month.) Based on my symptoms and initial testing, she tried to assure me that something serious was extremely unlikely. I am the child of Holocaust survivors, however, and an Ashkenazi Jew to boot so I can never be certain that anything will turn out well, especially when it comes to my health.
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I have not been a pro basketball fan for decades, but on this day in 1962 my first basketball “idol,” Wilt Chamberlain, scored 100 points in a game. Befitting the NBA’s status at the time as less than a first-rate league, the game between Chamberlain’s Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks was played in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Chamberlain was a poor foul shooter, but in this game he was successful on 28 of 32 free throw attempts.
For the 1961-62 season, Chamberlain averaged over 50 points a game and is still the only player in NBA history to score more than 4,000 points in a single season. The free-throw lane was widened from 12 to 16 feet before the 1964-65 season in large part to make it more difficult for Chamberlain to stay close to the basket.
Of course, Chamberlain died a long time ago (in 1999) at the relatively young age of 63 although he had a long history of heart disease. As Bill James would want me to point out, before Chamberlain became an all-time great NBA player he was a star at the University of Kansas. He left college early to play for the Harlem Globetrotters; at that time, the NBA would not sign players who had not completed their college eligibility.
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The arena in Hershey still stands and is used for various events, even though there is a newer modern arena on the other side of the parking lot. It is a smaller, old style college campus, airplane hanger type of arena. You stand right next to the back end of it as you board the monorail at Hershey Park.
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Thanks, “BB.” My wonderful wife and I used to drive by Hershey Park during our one or two trips per year to the AACA Museum in Hershey. AACA stands for Antique Automobile Club of America.
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I met Wilt in the most unusual way. I was in LA visiting my college sweetheart. We went to see a movie and once we got outside I realized my wallet had fallen out of my pocket. After finding it, I ran out of the theater to catch up with my girlfriend, when I ran into A WALL. The sun was blocked out and when I looked up, it was Wilt Chamberlain!!! As I bounced off of him-I was about a buck seventy five in those days-it seems like he barely missed a beat. No harm, no foul as he went his way and I mine. The only other person who struck me in this way was when I saw Dexter Manley in a hotel hallway in Minneapolis. R.I.P. Wilt, you were a big man when big men mattered.
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Great story, Doc, and thanks for sharing.
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I know several people who are patients of Mayo in the Phoenix area. Arizona as a state is blessed with a wonderful medical support community. Southern Arizona has the University of Arizona Medical School and hospital which has spawned a medical support community which is huge. Many Mexican citizens travel up from Sonora to take advantage of the medical services offered here so the number of people served is in the hundreds of thousands.
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Thanks, Philip. One reason Scottsdale is often rated as the #1 city in which to retire in the US is the access to high quality health care.
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Buying a car online isn’t for me. As “techie” as I am, I want to have the experience of a test drive, getting the feel for how the vehicle tracks down the road. Don’t misunderstand me in that I am not an expert in the driving experience. I only know what I like, and I want to see if it’s there before I plunk down a wad of dough.
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Fully understood, JS. However, as people grow up with the idea of buying “everything” online, purchasing vehicles that way will become quite commonplace, the norm I suspect.
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I have to concur. I am amazed at the number of Carvana license plate frames I see, and for that matter, how many flatbeds from Carvana are delivering vehicles.
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