Monday Musings

This is the 90th post with the exact title “Monday Musings.” Here we go…

I actually had a good dream last night. I dreamt that my wonderful wife and I were at a gala during which she would receive an award for “business mathematics.” We had a splendid time.

I think, and could be completely wrong–of course, the dream is related to her heroic efforts in getting the house tidied up. In the event we do find a single-level house we want to buy, our house could not have been shown in the state it was in. We are much closer to having the house being ready to show. Besides, it was beyond time to toss out or box up/put away items not in regular use.

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It wasn’t that many years ago I would have watched 9+ hours of football on a Sunday. Contrast that to yesterday when I hardly watched any football at all and didn’t know until just minutes ago which team won the Sunday night game.

I didn’t even watch that much college football on Saturday. Some people I know continue to doubt my detachment from sports. This situation is similar, in (what’s left of) my mind, to why many people have to leave a company in order to advance in their career.

People form first impressions that are often impossible to change. If you are hired as an X, the higher-ups often can’t see you as a Y even though you may be more than capable. If you have been a sports fan for a long time–and, of course, in my case having worked in professional sports for many years–many people are incapable/unwilling to acknowledge your interests have changed, especially if they remain sports fans.

If I write this one more time some of you may scream, but the only constant in the world is change. Sports are really not an important part of my life, anymore. However, that doesn’t mean my interest is zero, witness my recent completion of a 216-game computer football season.

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Despite not posting one day last week, views for the WordPress week ending yesterday reached a level that “makes me happy.” Thanks to all of you for reading.

The number of views and visitors has still not returned to the level for the period from October, 2020 through January, 2022, but they have increased compared to the February, 2022 – July, 2022 period. Again, I have no explanation for any increase or decrease except I am fairly certain the damn virus led to a substantial rise in viewers beginning in April, 2020.

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It seems to be time for a couple of links to Why Evolution Is True. Oh,

I thought I should buy Coyne’s book; I have not begun reading it.

Pew study on what criteria Americans think should matter for college admissions

From the post:

“Although colleges and universities are, left and right, dropping or devaluing high school grades and standardized tests as criteria for admission, the American public still maintains that these two factors (which I’ll consider as indices of “merit”) are the most important considerations, ahead of “community service and involvement” and well ahead of being first in your family to go to college, athletic ability, race or ethnicity, gender, and whether one is a “legacy” (i.e., had a relative attend the applicant’s school)…according to this Pew study in March, all groups see indices of merit as more important than ethnicity…”

Obviously, colleges and universities don’t feel beholden to those parents who are footing the bill for their children to attend institutions of “higher learning.” Parents need to be more active, but American parents seem to leave a lot to be desired in many areas.

Academic freedom meeting at Stanford

The conference description:

Academic freedom, open inquiry, and freedom of speech are under threat as they have not been for decades. Visibly, academics are “canceled,” fired, or subject to lengthy disciplinary proceedings in response to academic writing or public engagement. Less visibly, funding agencies, university bureaucracies, hiring procedures, promotion committees, professional organizations, and journals censor some kinds of research or demand adherence to political causes. Many parts of universities have become politicized or have turned into ideological monocultures, excluding people, ideas, or kinds of work that challenge their orthodoxy. Younger researchers are afraid to speak and write and don’t investigate promising ideas that they fear will endanger their careers.

The two-day Academic Freedom Conference, arranged by the organizing committee, aims to identify ways to restore academic freedom, open inquiry, and freedom of speech and expression on campus and in the larger culture and restore the open debate required for new knowledge to flourish. The conference will focus on the organizational structures leading to censorship and stifling debate and how to repair them.

Is this a breath of fresh air, a sign that “common sense” has not been completely extinguished? I remain skeptical, but I could be wrong. Like every other human being who has ever lived, I don’t have a monopoly on truth, wisdom or good judgment.

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Some random photos to end the post. Thanks for reading.

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Monday Musings

I had a dream that I was watching a pro football game on TV, but all the director and cameraman wanted to show were two players’ wives. Obviously, I don’t really know what they looked like–I don’t think one can visualize a person they’ve never seen–but I did have the impression that they were, indeed, beautiful. However, I became angry that the game wasn’t actually being shown, nor was any of the commentary about anything except these two women. Once again, it is hell to live inside my brain. Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve typed “agaib” when trying to type “again” I could probably afford to buy almost any car.

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Nikola founder Trevor Milton was convicted by a federal jury on one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Nikola was the name of an electric truck and, obviously, was named after Nikola Tesla.

People like Milton, Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff do give capitalism and the stock market a black eye. However, while I won’t say that people want to be deceived, many are guilty of willful blindness when it comes to investing their money. I am not talking about the ludicrous trend of ESG currently running amok, I am simply talking about people who want an outsized return on their investment and who don’t dig too deeply when they think they have a chance to do so.

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This Hagerty piece is about 5 “classics” that are “finally cooling off.” One of these is a car very near and dear to me.

This is a 1966 Pontiac GTO convertible. Of course, my first car was a ’67 Goat, although not a ragtop.

Monday Musings

In what can only be described as an irrelevant idiosyncrasy, I am now calling my current favorite cereal, Corn Flakes, Corn Flah-kess instead of Corn Flayks. This is similar to my calling Staples Stop-less instead of Stay-pulls. Why do I do this? Do you really think I have any idea?

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I can’t resist the siren song of posting links to Why Evolution Is True. Once again, the blog author (Jerry Coyne) identifies himself as a liberal, but resists much (most?) of current liberal thinking, especially those views espoused by what I call the Lunatic Left.

Once again: are “races” social constructs without scientific or biological meaning?

From the post:

“…even the crudely designated races of “white, black, Hispanic, and East Asian” in the U.S. are, as today’s paper shows, biologically distinguishable to the point where if you look at the genes of an unknown person, you have a 99.86% chance of diagnosing their self-identified “race” as one of the four groups above. That is, if you ask a person how they self-identify as one of the four SIRE groups (SIRE: “self identified race/ethnicity”), and then do a fairly extensive genetic analysis of each person, you find that the groups fall into multivariate clusters.

More important, there’s little deviation between one’s SIRE and which genetic cluster they fall into. Over 99% of people in the sample from this paper can be accurately diagnosed as to self-identified race or ethnicity by looking at just 326 regions of the genome.

This in turn means that there are biological differences between different SIREs, so race cannot be simply a ‘social construct.'”

“In the U.S.—and in the world if you look at the Rosenberg study—one’s self-identified race, or race (again, I prefer “ethnicity”) identified by investigators—are not purely social constructs. Ethnicity or race generally say something about one’s ancestry, so that those members of the same self-identified race tend to group together in a multigenic analysis.”

Of course, the Lunatic Left wants us to believe that no biological differences exist between genders, either. Talk about denying science…

Freddie deBoer attacks “Blank Statism” posing questions for those who deny the importance of genetic variation in human behavioral variation

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I signed up for a Virtual Private Network (VPN) this morning. Why? Believe it or not, the primary reason was so I can watch new episodes of Transplant on the CTV website if NBC doesn’t continue to air new episodes. I believe I am currently using a web server in Toronto so the CTV website will let me view content.

I tried to sign up for a MotorTrend+ subscription as well, but was unable to actually get the website to let me do so. I sent an email to MotorTrend “support.” I have a feeling that will be as useful as having a dog explain Special Relativity. (Update: MotorTrend support sent a prompt reply and one of their solutions, using another browser, worked. No, I didn’t use the browser from Guck Foogle.) It just dawned on me that if the MotorTrend website thinks I am in Canada, I might be unable to subscribe.

Speaking of automobiles, it is a virtual certainty that this blog will have less automotive content in its final 6-12 months. As I have written before, I have little to no interest in EVs as I believe they are not the answer and should certainly not be the only propulsion choice for personal transportation. I also have virtually no interest in non-cars, SUVs and pickup trucks, which are now about 80% of the US market for new vehicles. I do NOT have to meekly join the crowd. The crowd thought I was crazy to pursue a career in major league baseball. Who was right? Well, I might be crazy.

I will continue with Threes And Sevens and the Hall of Very Good Cars, but will expend less effort trying to add automotive content to most posts. I know I will lose some readers, but as the blog has lost 30%-35% of its readers since February 1 what does that matter? This above all: to thine own self be true.

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Monday Musings

Another weird dream…our downstairs bathroom has two switches on the wall, one for the light and one for the fan. I dreamt that a third switch was installed that operated a light outside the bathroom (in the living room, to be exact), but whose light projected into it. (Yes, a light is not alive; I didn’t know what pronoun to use other than “whose.”)

However, in the dream this light kept turning itself off, seemingly. I complained to my wonderful wife about this, but she said she didn’t know anything about it. At that point, though, I sensed the presence of another person in the living room, but around the corner and not in my field of vision. Before I could see who it was, I woke up.

The dream had a very unsettling tone. The entire area of the house seemed very dark, foreboding. I think that writing about my dreams in the blog helps me to remember them better.

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From respected physician and author Paul Offit:

“The evidence that we have so far is that protection against severe disease induced by two doses of an mRNA-containing vaccine — all of the data are obviously with Pfizer — is that you’re going to be protected against serious illness, meaning the kind of illness that causes you to go the doctor’s office, the hospital, or the ICU. And that’s what you would expect based on the other variants. The protection against serious illness is mediated by immunological memory cells, T-cells. Even though the virus’s spike-protein level drifts and mutates, the T-cells are conserved. So you’re seeing exactly what you would expect.

I think what’s different with Omicron is that you’re not as well protected against mild illness. So the question is: What does the booster buy you? It buys you better protection against mild illness. But then the question becomes: For how long? Unlike protection against serious illness, which is mediated by memory cells that are long-lived, protection against mild illness is mediated by neutralizing antibodies that are not as long lived.”

Dr. Offit remains skeptical that vaccine boosters against the damn virus are necessary for everyone, even with the new and very contagious variant. Dr. Offit is a real physician and is no kook. When a pathogen erupts that is previously unknown in large numbers in the human population, the path forward is not always clear and good and honest people with real knowledge can disagree. Oh, I recommend this book by Offit, which has nothing to do with the current situation.

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Supposedly, it was on this day in 1954 that Buick agreed to sponsor the production of 78 episodes of the Jackie Gleason Show. I am not sure if these 78 episodes included the “Classic 39” episodes of The Honeymooners. Apparently, Gleason was a big fan of Buick. Here are some pictures:

The bottom two photos show Gleason “helping” to assemble a Buick. As I have written ad infinitum, a 1956 Century was the first car I ever drove and the first family car I remember. I wish I had a picture of the car, but here is a reasonable facsimile:

See the source image

I used to have a greater desire to buy a ’56 Century, but if my wonderful wife and I won many millions in a lottery, one of these might find its way into my collection. So many cars just one life, indeed…

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#DrPaulOffit

#JackieGleason

#Buick

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Monday Musings

Some of you may note today’s Monday Musings post is not numbered. While I have not researched to generate empirical evidence, I believe that numbering these posts costs me blog views. If I had numbered the post title, it would have been number 86.

There is no D-Day Museum in Gettysburg.

Abigail Shrier speaks truth to Princeton.

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Once again wading into the debate about whether or not to modify a “classic” car is this Hemmings article discussing the pros and cons of various possible upgrades. Here is part of the opening:

“…But while many appreciate a stock machine and what it has to offer, there are just as many owners who minimize outings in their classics. Why? The creature comforts aren’t there. You need to stick to back roads because it’s not pleasant on the freeway. You don’t want to wear it out. You don’t trust it more than a few miles from home.

Factory-stock vehicles have that authentic feel, but cars of the past were built to a different set of standards. The world that these cars live in has changed. Technology that once felt space-age has become commonplace, even in cars that are more than a decade old. Such advancements only highlight what’s lacking on a vintage vehicle, particularly to those who experienced some of today’s classics back when they were new.”

My views on this topic are well-known to regular readers. With the possible exception of an extremely rare and historically significant car, I think an automobile owner can do whatever they want to their car, including the installation of a modern and reliable drivetrain, modern suspension and brakes and modern creature comforts. I also do not believe in owning a de facto museum exhibit. A car should be driven, even if it’s just 1,000-2,000 miles a year.

Of course, the idea of modern upgrades led to the whole restomod movement. If I were to purchase the body of this car, why on earth would I want to leave it stock?

See the source image

Via Pinterest this is a picture of a favorite of mine, albeit an idiosyncratic favorite: a 1942 DeSoto. With the hidden headlights and fence-like grille, I think this car has one of the greatest “faces” of any automobile. Still, why would I want to drive a car with an 80-year old engine (that produced all of 115 HP/190 LB-FT of torque when new), brakes, suspension, etc.?

Obviously, a good restomod will not be cheap. I am somewhat reluctant to write this, but I think that some/many who buy an older car and then defend their decision not to modernize the car really can’t afford to have the work done and can’t do it themselves. Steve Strope criticizes modern “rat-rods” with an appearance to match the name. He says the original generation of these cars looked ragged because owners couldn’t afford to make them look nice, not because they were making a design statement. Hey, political correctness is just fascism in disguise. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I am still not close to being in a position to acquire another car, but even if I were to buy a Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk, I would do what I could to modernize the car and to make it more reliable.

As always, I welcome thoughtful comments, both from “The Big Five” commenters and from those of you who have never commented.

#MondayMusings

#InvisibleCarUpgrades

#1942DeSoto

#SteveStrope

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Monday Musings 84

Do you like my numbering of the Monday Musings posts? As the post number increases, the number of views seems to decline. Sometimes, I just can’t think of a more clever post title.

From Why Evolution Is True a post that should make almost everyone’s blood boil: the American Medical Association is going full “~~woke~~.” From Jesse Singal:

“The American Medical Association has just released “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” a strange document that calls for doctors to insert progressive politics into even plain statements of fact.”

The only solution is dissolution.

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Pictures I took yesterday at the weekly car show in Fountain Hills did not turn out as well as I had hoped. I had to take many of them into the sun and did not get a good view of the lake. Nevertheless:

As for the actual cars, I didn’t take that many photos. I really long for an event where I see more cars like this one we saw on Saturday:

This Rambler American at Fountain Hills “spoke” to me:

These three cars appealed to me as well:

Sorry the Buick on the left got chopped. Again, the acute sun angle made photography difficult. Maybe JS or Mark can give me some suggestions.

I was sure I had more to write this morning, but I apparently do not. We’ll see about tomorrow.

#MondayMusings

#F*ckTheWokeMob!

#FountainHillsArizona

#somanycarsjustonelife

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Monday Musings 83

The bottom has fallen out of the box of blog views. Seemingly every day with a post is garnering fewer and fewer views.

Maybe this blog has just run its course after 45 months and more than 1,200 posts. Once again, those who are no longer reading cannot tell me why they stopped. Of course, with many fewer readers maybe I’ll just remove any vestige of muzzle.

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See the source image

Interstate 83 only exists in two states: Maryland and Pennsylvania. Like many such roads, I-83 has become a commuter pathway, or at least it did before the damn virus. Since I don’t live there anymore I don’t really know for sure.

When I lived in northwest Baltimore, where I was born and raised and lived until I was 25, I-83 was my usual route to downtown Baltimore, which is its southern terminus. (Of course since I don’t own a bulletproof vest, I would never go to downtown Baltimore anymore, anyway, even if I still lived in the mid-Atlantic.) In my junior and senior years of high school, I would use I-83 as part of my route home from school so I could use more of the horsepower in my 1967 Pontiac GTO. In Baltimore, I-83 is called the Jones Falls Expressway. Originally, the plan was to have this road connect to an extension of Interstate 95 in south Baltimore, but between community opposition and funding issues, the plan never materialized.

It is a virtual certainty I will never drive on this road again. The number on today’s Monday Musings title led me to think of I-83 and all of the time I spent driving on it.

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How many of you have ever watched a show called Flipping Bangers on Motor Trend? The premise is that two motorheads have given up their regular jobs to attempt to make a living buying and flipping cars at the bottom of the market, which are called bangers in the UK. Supposedly, they give themselves only five workshop days to spruce up the cars, although in one episode they acknowledged they needed the morning of a sixth day in order to finish.

I really like this show, especially when the featured car is something interesting to me, like this:

See the source image

This is a second-generation Toyota MR2, also known as a Mk II. In general, my interest in automobile restoration shows is dependent on the featured car(s). As much as I like looking at Cristy Lee, if All Girls Garage or Garage Squad featured something like a pickup truck, then odds are I wouldn’t watch the episode.

Flipping Bangers is entertaining to me because the two presenters, Gus Gregory and Will Trickett, seem to be quite knowledgeable about cars, seem to be pleasant fellows and the show contains quite a bit of humor, most of which seems genuine. In that way, the show reminds me of another one of my favorites, Salvage Hunters: Classic Cars, which is also shot in the UK with two British hosts.

I assume at least some of you watch automobile-related programming. What do you like?

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#WhereAreTheReaders?

#Interstate83

#FlippingBangers

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Monday Musings 82

I was originally going to call today’s post “30 Z06 Months.” Today is 2 1/2 years since I took delivery of my Z06.

Thirty months is one more than I owned my previous car, a 2009 BMW Z4. Even though I have driven the Z06 more in Arizona than I did in the mid-Atlantic, unbelievably to me I have still not driven it as many miles as the BMW. I drove the Z4 8,500 miles in 29 months; I have put 7,800 miles on the Z06. Pictures of the cars in question:

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I had a dream that was mainly disturbing until the end. Many of the details are lost to me now, but the gist of it was I was frantically preparing to take a trip. I realized I had to stop somewhere to pick up something important (my keys?) before I could depart and did not want to walk burdened by luggage through a huge crowd. Suddenly, I saw Dr. Zal and Dr. Hoss and they were there to help me with my endeavor. The sense of happiness and relief was overwhelming.

The two gentlemen in question are two very good friends whom I’ve known since elementary school. They have earned the moniker “Dr.” since they both have Ph.D. STEM degrees. I guess I’m the slacker since I only have an M.A. in Economics.

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My two “favorite” NFL teams played very similar games yesterday. Both blew double-digit point leads on the road only to rally and win on a field goal on the last play of the game. I could not watch the Ravens game as it was not broadcast in this market. I did not watch the Packers game as my wonderful wife and I needed to do things around the house.

The Ravens win may have been more dramatic as they had to convert on a fourth down and 19 from their own 16-yard line before even getting into a position to attempt a field goal. Oh, the kick that won the game for them was the longest field goal in NFL history, 66 yards, and bounced off the crossbar before settling on the “good” side of it. This is the second time that Ravens’ kicker extraordinaire Justin Tucker has kicked a 60+ yard field goal to win a game for the Ravens in Detroit. He joked after the game that he might have to buy a house there.

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A few days ago I did something unthinkable: I accidentally deleted all of the emails in my Inbox. While I only had about 35 emails in it–I like to file important ones in a few other folders and delete ones I don’t need–some of the deleted emails were important, like acknowledgments of estimated tax payments.

I don’t think anything like that could have happened to me even five years ago and certainly not 10 or 15. The incident is also a stark reminder that I will never be as comfortable or proficient on a small mobile device as I am on a desktop computer.

Once again, I welcome thoughtful comments from you, especially from those who regularly read this blog but have not commented before.

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Monday Musings 81

I was originally going to write about this article from Mac’s Motor City Garage about the Studebaker V-8 engine. If you’re interested, you can read the article.

My writing well is dry this morning, but in my OCD-fueled quest to reach a certain milestone in yearly views by the end of this month, I am compelled to write. I readily admit that is not a good reason.

How about this recent photo?

My wonderful wife really liked this cactus flower. It’s a myth that the desert is just brown. That observation is particularly false after a wet monsoon season, like the one we have experienced this year.

Even in a monsoon sky, our views of the landscape can be breathtaking, and I don’t mean that in a Seinfeld kind of way.

This is the view from the bonus room on the north side of our house on the second floor. It was this room (>300 square feet) and this view that really sold us.

The house needed a lot of work and, in many ways, falls short of what we would want in an “ideal” dwelling, even at our budget. We had just 3-4 days to find a house and had to simply buy the best one available. Oh, it was one year ago today that our offer on this house was accepted.

It’s been an eventful year and, unfortunately, not all of those events have been good ones. I have been reluctant to share details about everything going on here, but–sadly–suspect I will have to share some of the relevant circumstances before too much longer.

Here’s hoping you’ll have a better Monday than I’m having.

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#DesertHouse

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Monday Musings 80

I am still not in the best of moods, so read accordingly.

This post from Why Evolution Is True is about Andrew Sullivan’s (he is a somewhat “famous” author, blogger and political commentator) belief that people are pushing back, hard, against the plague of ~~wokeness~~ to the point where it may be on the wane. The post author is not so sure, but sees some rays of hope.

One of Sullivan’s eight examples is this:

“Both The Atlantic and The New Yorker have just published long essays that push back against woke authoritarianism and cruelty. Since both magazines have long capitulated to rank illiberalism, this is encouraging. And since critical theory is an entirely elite-imposed orthodoxy, it matters when the ranks of the elite crack a little.

Anne Applebaum links the woke phenomenon to previous moral panics and mob persecutions, which is where it belongs.”

I hope Sullivan is right and I know Applebaum is. Still, I think the only solution will be dissolution. I have often thought about in which US spinoff I would like to live. The sad thing is that none of them would probably appeal to me.

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Today’s Pick Of The Day in the Classic Cars Journal is…a 1991 Cadillac Allante. The title of the piece is, “Pick of the Day: The Italian Cadillac.”

I suspect most of you reading know that the Allante was a collaboration between Cadillac and legendary Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina. The bodies and interiors were built in Italy and then flown to Detroit in specially equipped Boeing 747s where the rest of the car was installed. That production chain contributed to the very high price of these cars ($54,700 MSRP when introduced in 1987; a 1987 Corvette convertible was $33,172), which itself contributed to the failure of the car in the marketplace. Yes, I must show a picture:

This configuration, with the auxiliary hardtop in place, is how I think these cars look their best. By the way, this is post #1,201 and the 25th in which the Allante is mentioned. Some of you might think it’s the 250th.

To better days…

#MondayMusings

#~~Wokeness~~IsEvil

#CadillacAllante

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