Rewards Are Necessary

Very few people always (or almost always) do the “right” thing or the “wrong” thing. Most people respond to incentives and to disincentives, although we can’t always predict, in advance, how they are going to respond.

I take my health seriously. I have made major changes to how I live, such as engaging in regular exercise, cutting out sugary drinks, being very med compliant, etc. Compared to when I was 50, I weigh 30-35 pounds less.

Still, I think it’s OK to splurge every now and then. My wonderful wife and I found these on a trip to Walmart about three months ago.

 

 

Concord Grape was my favorite Pop-Tarts flavor when I was young. The last time I saw that flavor in a store was probably in 2006 when we lived in Texas, which we left in 2008. We bought this box and I asked my wonderful wife to hide it from me until after my next round of blood work.

She had the box “waiting” for me on the kitchen island (and had plugged in the toaster) when I returned from the blood draw. I put four in the toaster and ate three of them, sharing one with my wonderful wife. Man, did they taste good!

Knowing I was going to eat these Pop-Tarts after the blood draw helped to incentivize me to exercise and to watch what I ate and drank. I am going to splurge until the end of this month and then I am going back to a more “appropriate” diet.

A tangent…I have known a few people, although admittedly not very many, who live what I call a life of pointless self-denial. They never seem to do anything just for fun or occasionally stray from a “good” diet. In all honesty, and of course I could be wrong, I think part of the motivation for these people is to prove to themselves that they’re better than the rest of us. Once again, I think a life lived on autopilot, lived by rote, is not a life well-lived. The unexamined life is not worth living and the unlived life is not worth examining, either. A life spent only doing that which needs to be done is not much of a life, in my opinion.

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More than one person has expressed to me that they really like the links to posts from Why Evolution Is True. The author of the blog, Jerry Coyne, is a biologist and self-described liberal who, nevertheless, is very critical of the extreme manifestations of liberal “thinking” in the US. Here are two more links without much commentary from me:

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue

Purely by coincidence, the beginning of this post is about indulging one’s food cravings.

Updated reactions, pro and con, to our “merit” paper

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I recently purchased the latest edition of the computer football game about which I have written on more than one occasion. You might even remember that I wrote about some of the playoff games from the last season I played and how much I enjoyed them.

Well, after 20+ years on the market the game still has a lot of bugs, which I–and I suspect many others–just tolerate. I do not replay the most recent season, but create my own teams and league and have a computer-aided draft to fill the rosters.

I wanted my current season to have a Canadian division with the teams all having Canadian Football League (CFL) names, like the Montreal Alouettes. The game’s stadium database does not include the stadium where the Winnipeg Blue Bombers play, but does have a provision for creating new stadiums. However, it takes multiple attempts to add stadiums AS WELL AS shutting the program down and waiting overnight in order for these new stadiums to appear in the database.

Between these quirks and my growing ADD, I am having a next-to-impossible time getting my league started. I keep telling myself that as long as the games begin no later than Memorial Day, then the season will be completed in a timely manner, especially since this season will be one-third shorter than the last one. Of course, I shouldn’t be in a hurry to finish something that is enjoyable, but my OCD/ADD combination is not particularly enjoyable.

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On this day in 1978 the two millionth Chevrolet Camaro rolled off the assembly line. Of course, we know that production of the Camaro is, once again, going to cease in January of 2024. That will leave the Mustang as the only ponycar left and, thankfully, it will remain gasoline-powered, although who knows for how much longer.

Although the modern Camaros, the fifth- and sixth-generation, are better cars than the first generation, something magical exists about those 1967-69 Camaros. In particular, I am enamored of the look of the 1968 model.

 

 

While the stance of this car may be too high for modern enthusiasts, and I admit it’s a little high for me as well, the looks of the ’68 Camaro are just outstanding. The front vent window from the ’67 is gone, but the aggressive haunch of the rear quarter remained. It was less aggressive in 1969 and the fake gills in front of the rear wheels in ’69 detract from the looks, in my opinion.

For the nth time, although General Motors makes quite the display of its commitment to an all-electric future, don’t forget that they recently announced, although somewhat on the QT, an $800 million investment in the next generation of gasoline-powered small-block V8 engines. As I have written before, I think this investment is a de facto acknowledgment that US car buyers are not going all-electric anytime soon and, perhaps, is a way to get the company ready for the conversion that makes sense, a move to synthetic fuels. Why waste BILLIONS of dollars building charging stations and the like when all we have to do is to change the fuel that powers the current engine paradigm? Yes, that solution makes too much sense and fails to satisfy smug, self-righteous and arrogant ideologues in their quest for control and punishment.

 

#RewardsAreNecessary

#ComputerFootball

#ChevroletCamaro

#DeathBeforeEV

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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