Veterans Day 2021

I wish to extend a heartfelt thanks to the 19 million veterans in the US. I also want to thank the roughly 1.3 million currently on active duty in the US military. I think their service is grossly underappreciated by too much of the population.

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Today would/should have been Kevin Towers’ 60th birthday. I worked with Kevin for four years while with the San Diego Padres. As I have recounted, I was foisted on him at first as my first title was Assistant Director of Scouting for Professional Players. At the time, Kevin was the Director of Scouting.

Later, we were both promoted: Kevin to General Manager and me to Director of Baseball Operations. In the three full seasons we had those roles, the Padres won two NL West division titles and one National League championship. (I resigned during the season after the NL championship.) Here is a picture I have shown before:

Kevin is the one kneeling in front and I am one of the other three people. He always treated me as a friend and respected colleague and not as an interloper.

I believe Kevin’s widow lives in the Phoenix area. I wish I could find her just to say hello and to tell her how much I appreciated the way Kevin treated me. He died of anaplastic thyroid cancer in January of 2018.

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I wanted to add something about what happened on this day in automotive history. Unfortunately, I have learned that the 365 Days of Motoring website cannot be trusted (not to mention it’s not a secure site). I am seldom able to corroborate their “facts.”

A book I have called This Day In Automotive History has nothing for this day that interests me. Since it is likely that tomorrow will be the “F” car in Cars A To Z, I will report that on November 12, 1908 General Motors (which had been founded just two months earlier) acquired Oldsmobile.

Ransom Eli Olds founded Oldsmobile in 1897, sold the company to Samuel L. Smith in 1899 but stayed on as Vice-President and General Manager until the two men began to butt heads frequently. Olds left his namesake company in 1904 to start REO Motor Car Company.

In the first model year after GM’s acquisition (1909), Oldsmobile finished 7th in sales among American makes. Buick finished second and Cadillac, which GM acquired in 1909, finished 5th. Reo finished 6th. Unlike later when Ford completely dominated the US market with the Model T, it had less than a 10 percent share. I hope the photo below shows an actual 1909 Oldsmobile, but my knowledge of brass era cars is quite limited:

See the source image

In its long history Oldsmobile had quite a record as an innovator with its two most significant being the first make to offer a fully automatic transmission in the Hydra-Matic and, along with Cadillac, the first to offer a modern, overhead-valve and oversquare V-8 engine. I think the fact that these engines had a bore greater than stroke (that’s what oversquare means) is not mentioned enough in automotive histories. That design allows for higher RPM than the old-fashioned engines whose stroke always exceeded their bore.

For the nth time, I will offer lamentation over the demise of makes like Oldsmobile.

#VeteransDay

#KevinTowers

#Oldsmobile

#somanycarsjustonelife

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Remembering…

Based on this guesstimate, about 57 million people have served in the US military. Based on this Wikipedia article, about 1.4 million of them died while serving. Yes, this is Veterans Day and not Memorial Day, but I don’t think one can honor veterans and their service without remembering those who did not survive.

Of course, this day was originally called Armistice Day (and still is in many countries) to commemorate the end of The Great War or World War I as it is now known. An armistice is a truce that ends fighting in a conflict as opposed to a treaty or other more formal agreement that ends all hostilities. On November 11, 1918 an armistice was signed to end the fighting between the Allied forces and Germany.

Image result for remembering veterans day images

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Today would have been Kevin Towers’ 59th birthday. Unfortunately, the former General Manager of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks died in January, 2018.

I have recounted my association with him in several posts, but don’t ever want to forget how, even though I was foisted on him, he always treated me with respect and that we developed a real sense of camaraderie. This is a picture I have shown more than once in Disaffected Musings.

This photo was taken in the visiting clubhouse in Dodger Stadium after the San Diego Padres clinched the National League Western Division title in 1996. Kevin is the one kneeling in front. I am one of the other three people.

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From Corvette Blogger comes the news that the Corvette finished first in its category (Midsize Premium Sporty Car) in terms of 2020 resale value. The “awards” are determined by JD Power’s assessment of how much vehicles decrease in value over the first three years of their lives; the 2017 Corvette emerged with the lowest level of depreciation in the Midsize Premium Sporty Car, beating out runners-up Nissan GT-R and the Porsche 911.

Whether these cars will continue to hold their value as more C8 Corvettes are sold is an unknown. My wonderful wife and I remain very happy with our C7 Vettes.

I guess we need to take some photos of our cars in our new venue, but that is way down on the priority list right now as dozens, maybe hundreds, of boxes remain unopened. I don’t know if moving is really a bigger stressor than divorce or the death of a spouse as some websites claim, but it is certainly very stressful.

I once moved 14 times in a 25-year period, including some cross-country moves, but this move was among the most stress-inducing. My first cross-country move, in 1995 to take a job with the Padres, is the only other one that was as stressful.

#Remembering…

#VeteransDay

#KevinTowers

#C7Corvette

#StressOfMoving

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Monday Musings, 2019 Veterans Day Edition

First, I offer thoughts of gratitude to all of those who have served and are serving in the US armed forces. I also want to note the sacrifice of the nearly 1.4 million who lost their lives in the service of this country.

Please remember that those who are serving today have chosen to do so.

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Second, this would/should have been Kevin Towers’ 58th birthday. It is difficult to believe that he has been dead for almost two years. Towers was the General Manager for most of my tenure with the San Diego Padres. He always treated me as a friend and valued colleague. A picture I have shown before:

This picture was taken in the visitors clubhouse in Dodger Stadium after the Padres clinched the 1996 NL West Division title. Kevin is the one kneeling; I am one of the other three people.

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Speaking of untimely demises, this past weekend I learned that someone with whom I attended graduate school and with whom I remained friends until about ten years ago passed away in the summer of 2018 before his 59th birthday. We didn’t have a falling out, we just drifted apart, which happens probably more often than is good for us.

I think one reason I have lost so much interest in sports is that as I hear the clock ticking I have come to believe that it is the actions of my wonderful wife and me that matter, not those of people I don’t know who happen to be wearing a certain uniform.

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On this day in 1989 Jaguar became a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Ford’s ownership of Jaguar—and Aston Martin and Land Rover—was not long as they sold Aston Martin in 2007 and Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008.

Ford expanded Jaguar’s product line, introducing the S-Type in 1999 and the X-Type in 2001. James May, of Top Gear and The Grand Tour fame, criticized the S-Type, saying he thought the car was designed to appeal more to the American and German markets than the UK, and that the car, “…sums up everything that is wrong with Jaguar.”

In what can only be described as ironic, Jaguar and Land Rover, two ultimate British icons, are now owned by Tata Motors of India.

For me this photo represents the most interesting Jaguar to me during the Ford period:

See the source image

From historics.co.uk a picture of a Jaguar XKR coupe, a 2003 model as it turns out. The “R” in the model name means the engine is supercharged, which pushed the output of the 4.2 liter V-8 to 390 HP/399 LB-FT of torque. The transmission was a 6-speed automatic. By the way, if you’re willing to roll the dice on a model with some mileage (>50,000), these cars can be purchased for less than $15,000.

For me, every two-door Jaguar looks good. Strictly in terms of exterior design I don’t think any two makes have a better history than Jaguar and Aston Martin.

#VeteransDay

#KevinTowers

#LifeIsShort

#2003JaguarXKRCoupe

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

If you like this blog please tell your friends and share the blog URL (https://disaffectedmusings.com). Thanks.

Remembering

I want to express my gratitude to all of those who have served in the US armed forces. Of course today is Veteran’s Day in the US. I believe it’s still called Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in parts of Europe. On this day in 1918, 100 years ago exactly, the Great War—later known as World War I, of course—ended.

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If he had lived today would have been Kevin Towers’ 57th birthday. I worked with Kevin as a member of the San Diego Padres’ Baseball Operations staff. As I wrote in one of my first posts on Disaffected Musings the day after he died in late January of this year, although I was “foisted” upon him at first he always treated me as a friend and with respect. In that earlier post I showed this picture:

That picture was taken in the visitors clubhouse in Los Angeles after the Padres clinched the 1996 NL Western Division title. Kevin is the one kneeling in front and I am one of the other three people. So long ago and yet still fresh in memory.

When baseball’s “golden boy” was named to his first General Manager position he gave an interview to that city’s famous newspaper. In that interview he named Kevin as one of the two people who had most influenced the way he thought about baseball. The other person was yours truly.

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Many thanks to regular readers Charley Walters and Steve Dallas for sending emails to me with words of praise for this blog. As the late, great Saul Bellow once wrote, “We have a word for everything except for what we really think and feel.” Despite the inadequacy of words (kind of an odd thing for a blogger to write, I guess) I want to express my gratitude for their emails and for all regular readers of this blog. Disaffected Musings is very important to me and I am very proud of this blog. Even with the recent surge in readers I still wish many more people were reading.

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Days like today make many of us of “middle age” wax nostalgic about the past. I have written about and posted pictures of this car before, but one more time won’t hurt.

See the source image

From classiccars.com a picture of a 1956 Buick Century with a great view of the front of the car. The first car I ever drove was a 1956 Buick Century that my father purchased in 1961, I believe. About 21,000 of this model were produced in 1956. The weight was about 4,200 pounds. The car seemed heavier; so much so, in fact, that our nickname for the car was “The Tank.” The MSRP of the car when new was about $3,300.

The Century was powered by Buick’s Fireball V-8 of 322 cubic inch displacement that produced 255 HP/341 LB-FT of torque. The transmission was Buick’s famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) Dynaflow automatic. It was called the Dyna-Slush by detractors, but was praised for its smoothness by its supporters.

As I have written before, from time to time I scratch my itch to look for a ’56 Century for sale online. I look through the ads, of which there are usually not many, and have to take a deep breath before the urge to buy one passes. One day, though, the breath might no longer work.

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings