Mark. Your. Calendars.

I enjoy the musical stylings of Al Yankovic as much as the next guy. Which is to say I find them modestly amusing, and I like his persistent bursting of self-important bubbles. But I haven't given Weird Al much thought in decades.

That just changed:

Weird: The Al Yankovic story comes out on The Roku Channel on November 4. If you happen to be in Toronto a week from Friday, you can see it live at the Toronto International Film Festival. Judging by the trailer, and several reviews, Weird does for biopics/hagioraphies of musical personalities what its titular character did for pop music. Which is to say it's gonna be delightfully deranged.

Balancing Act

Well into the third year of a global pandemic, we are stressed and stretched in ways that are obvious and that we’re just beginning to understand. Leave it to those hardy, contented Swedes to provide a potential path forward. 

First, some numbers and observations. The workplace is among the pandemic’s visible effects. Office work all but shut down for an extended time and is just starting to return. Almost 48 million people quit their jobs from March 2020 through 2021 during the so-called “Great Resignation,” and more than eight million quit in the first two months of 2022, according to the jobs and career website Zippia. 

The health-care field is among the hardest hit. As of late last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that starting in Feb. 2020 health care lost almost a half-million workers. The survey research outfit Morning Consult reported that 18 percent of health care workers quit, often citing pandemic burnout, and another 12 percent were laid off. Elsewhere, the accommodation and food service industry lost 892,000 workers, almost 6.9 percent of its total workforce, in 2021. The sectors of leisure and hospitality, retail trade, and professional and business services all lost more than 700,000 workers last year. 

Among reasons cited for quitting, again from Zippia, were low pay and lack of advancement opportunities (both 63 percent), feeling disrespected at work (56 percent), child care issues (48 percent), and lack of schedule flexibility (45 percent). 

Back to the Swedes. A foundational point of Swedish society is a concept called “lagom.” It’s pronounced LAR-gohm. There’s no direct English translation, and it loosely means “just the right amount” or “everything in moderation.” It’s being satisfied with what makes you and your family comfortable, without constantly striving to acquire more. 

Lagom doesn’t preclude hard work, but it preaches balance between the professional and the personal, that you aren’t merely your job, your financial wealth, your possessions. Sixty-hour work weeks and clawing your way to the top of a profession are viewed as neither desirable nor healthy, by individuals or if expected by companies. 

Adopting a similar concept here may be a hard ask, given the American tendency to conflate work and wealth with virtue and achievement, as well as a relentless consumer culture that must be constantly fed. Pandemic upheaval, however, may lead the idea to take root. 

A recent movement among workers called “quiet quitting” has received attention. It’s a misnomer, because it’s not actually quitting, but a kind of employee disengagement. Recognizing that they’re often underpaid and overworked, some workers no longer buy into the grind and instead do only the bare minimum of their job descriptions for the prescribed number of hours. They seek work that’s more fulfilling or accommodating, if not more lucrative, hence the large numbers of people who quit or changed jobs in the wake of the pandemic. Without getting rewarded, either financially or personally, they believe that so-called “hustle culture” has become a myth. 

Sweden is a more social democratic country than the U.S., with robust national health care, strong labor unions, worker protections, and the tax structure to support it. Its citizens don’t seem to mind. In the World Happiness Report of 2021, Sweden ranked seventh (FWIW, five of the top eight happiest countries are Scandinavian). The U.S. was 16th. 

The WHR measures six categories: gross domestic product per capita; social support; healthy life expectancy; freedom to make life choices; generosity of the general population; and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels. In Freedom House’s 2021 report measuring political rights and civil liberties around the world, Sweden, Norway and Finland tied for first with perfect scores of 100. The U.S. scored an 83, just ahead of Trinidad and Tobago, and just behind Croatia, Mongolia and Monaco. 

All that said, I’m not advocating that the U.S. go full Sweden. Meatballs and pickled herring are non-starters for me. IKEA furniture is an instruction manual for self-torture. A surfeit of ABBA in a country where half the population is already obese or pre-diabetic is just asking for trouble. I defer to Zman on the merits of Volvos. Larger point being, as tragic and life-altering as the pandemic was and is, it also provides an opportunity. We should have discussions about health and work and education and income and personal and social responsibility and sustainability. About improving ourselves and our nation. If we treat the pandemic as a one-off and an interruption, and simply try to return to “normal,” then we’ve compounded the tragedy.

Baby Buff

Here's some filler masquerading as a preview for y'all.

One week from today, at 10:00 EST, the University of Colorado hosts Texas Christian University at historic Folsom Field in Boulder. In one of college football's coolest traditions, Ralphie VI will lead the Buffs onto the field. (Ralphie, it should be noted, is a juvenile female, 'cause male buffalo are big, strong, and ornery.)

As the video below will show, Ralphie is generally accompanied by Colorado's cheer team, who are then followed by the football squadron. A number of the cheerleaders carry large flags, as well. And as it turns out, my baby Buff will be one of those carrying a flag. Because she's strong as fuck - her sister calls her a tank.

The aforementioned season opener will be telecast on ESPN, so you all know what you'll be doing next Friday evening.

Mr. Astley... the Other One

So, everybody, even the younger generation, knows about Rick Astley. I do not care for his music.

But what about Jon Astley?? Here's betting that less than 1% of Gen Z knows about him.

To any of you 80's music simpletons, here's a reminder. A one-hitter classic from 1987.

A ridiculous video for sure, but Jon Astley was also a producer and a master of mastering and remastering. He worked with The Who (even producing a couple of their albums), the Stones, and hundreds of others. He was a whole lot better at that stuff than the whole being a pop star thing. But he had his one moment in the MTV sun.

And I do like the song. More than I should.

And you where you might have also heard "Jane's Getting Serious"? This commercial from the same year the tune came out.

A ridiculous ad for sure, but it does make me want to grab a frank for lunch. And that particular actor, who's now reportedly worth $85 million, was in some other fine fare...

Nice to see Aguado from Ace Ventura getting some work.

And here's another 80's ad... with another friend.

But does it compare to this?

Alrighty. Your time has been sufficiently wasted in the very vein that this blog was built on, Teej-style. Now back to something with some actual merit. Who's up? Maybe something a little more serious.

I could get serious, too. I could get so serious. And I cannot believe that I would ever admit that I could take Jane seriously. Come around eleven, we're still on our way home, all dressed up and nowhere to go, but all along I should have really known that Jane's getting serious (Jane). Jane's getting serious. Jane's getting serious (Jane). And I could get serious, too.

Bark at the Moon

According to NPR, a pair of lunar shutterbugs met over social media and collaborated on a project to get the best picture of the moon ever... by creating it out of a whole lot of partial shots.

It took astrophotographers Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne over nine months to edit their final image. It's comprised of more than 200,000 shots pieced together to make a single photograph.

Pretty cool. As Cougar sang, check it out.

Where's Johnny?

In honor of our long-lost friend Johnny G, Dave and I dusted off our old band Random Idiots.

Here's what we created before the Fishing Trip.

Dave nitpicks and points out the flaws, but I'd say we did okay for whipping off a quick single from New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.

We performed and recorded a live version whilst on the trip... very Random Idiots. Messy but fun.

Stay tuned for more Idiocy coming your way before long...

Etymology in Action

It's hot out there, people. Without getting into a fight about whether our climate is changing at unprecedented scale because of human activity (it is) or some other reason, it seems obvious that the general global pattern is trending towards substantially increased temperatures. By way of illustration, here's a chart from NASA that illustrates changes in the global mean temperature from 1880 to 2020.

As the climate changes, humans are finding ways to adapt. While I was in Colorado last week, my friends who've been in Boulder for nearly 20 years told me that air conditioners weren't in wide use when they first moved to the air. They're nearly ubiquitous now. Anecdote isn't data, but we've got some of that, too. According to a 2017 article in Denverite, 40% of homes in the American West had air conditioning. By 2017, that number had risen to 75%, and it's almost certainly continued to rise over the past five years. (The impact to the power grid and electrical availability is the subject of a different post, altogether.)

Animals have been forced to adapt, as well, but they can't really afford air conditioning. Instead, they take a behavioral approach, as this squirrel demonstrates:

That, my friends, is called 'splooting'. Merriam-Webster doesn't acknowledge that term as an actual word, but it's obvious that it describes what that little dude is doing. Linguists suggest that it's a colloquial combination of splat, splay, and scoot. That seems logical.

What's also logical, and practical, is that it works. So if you're looking for me on a scorching day, please assume that I'll be here:

Today in (My) History

An ordinary Monday for most, today is momentous for me in a couple of ways.

First, as of 2:30pm, I have sold the house we bought in 1983. As I wrote here almost exactly two years ago, I spent my middle and high school era here before renting and then buying the house from my folks over the past five years.

Not that anybody either remembers that I wrote two years ago "I'm gonna stay a while" or would hold me to it, but as they say about mice and men...

I recently decided to shack up with my lady friend (wwoman just doesn't look right), and we bought a place. As such, the old domicile had to go. Rates were rising, so it was touch and go, but it worked out.

And so I bid adieu to a home I've known for just shy of 40 years. Happiness, relief, wistfulness. 

On another note, 21 years and some hours ago, I came home from a night of heavy beer-swilling at the Cowboy Cafe, nodded off for an hour or so, and was awakened by my wife's contraction-induced alarm.  Several hours later, my first child entered the world in our nation's capital. 

Today that child could go into the Cowboy Cafe and legally order a beer.

Makes a man feel old, but all is well. Happy 21st to my Zoë. 

But Wait, There's More

When we last went down my family's genealogical rabbit tree (just go with it, man), we learned that I can count a handful of relatively famous folk as distant relatives. Just this week, I was reminded of a much closer brush with family ties.

My Mom, she of the assiduous documentation of our heritage, texted me a few days ago to say, "Found out today that one of my friends here [in Jacksonville] is related to the Nantucket Coffins. You're related to them thru Granny Russell [my Dad's mother]."

Hey, Cuz!

Coffins, you say? That's a unique surname, and it's one that happens to be the middle name of a FOGTB and fraternity brother. 

When I told my Mom the same, she said, "You're likely cousins many times removed. You go back to two of the sons of Tristram who was one of the first settlers there. One line comes through Jethro who owned what is now the "oldest" house." Don't think the 'Old' reference there didn't resonate with me.

My sister chimed in at this point to say, "We have a Jethro in the family? Damn. I would've named Max Jethro."

I reached out to the FOGTB in question, who responded by saying, "Pretty cool! The Coffin family is also mentioned in Moby Dick. I once had an argument with my high school English teacher because he said the name was symbolism and I argued it was just a common name in Nantucket at the time. Damn English teachers want to see symbolism in everything."

To which I said, "Fucking Pellicane".

And, scene.

TLDR, I'm related to one of my good friends. His side got more height than mine. Bygones. 

Genealogy is pretty neat.

Guestie: The OTHER Mark Has Some Thoughts

[The post count coffers fill when the other Mark gets one of my email addresses correct and sends me this opus]

Full disclaimer: These musings came to me as I was reading about Roadhouse getting a reboot.  Terrible idea, says I.  However, this is not specifically about Roadhouse.  No one is challenging its place among the most entertainingly terrible films of all time.  I’m here to stump for the various movies that, because of various throughlines with RH, deserve their place next to it. 

These films generally represent a fairly fleeting moment in time and will never (or shouldn’t) be made again.  These movies share several commons threads:

1.      Produced mostly in the mid 80’s through 90’s

2.      Feature a SUPER NICHE hobby, profession, or obsession (or “HPO” or “SN-HPO”)

3.      The filmmakers frame said HPO as (i) either the MOST important thing in the world/in life or the ONLY important thing and (ii) much more highly pursued and competed in than maybe common sense or real life would suggest

4.      These movies aren’t very good and the acting is terrible. 

Along with Roadhouse - which espoused the lucrative and apparently well-known and highly competitive bouncer/cooler industry – the movies I’m proposing for the inaugural induction into the super-niche HPO movie all-stars: 

·        Center Stage – The film about the highly competitive world of professional (or aspiring to be professional) dancers.  We meet several [narrowly drawn] dancing architypes that are competing for spots in selective ballet companies.  To make it in this cutthroat world, you have to impress some really discerning corporate dancing folks, including, most surprisingly, an engaging and firing-on-dozens-of-cylinders Peter Gallagher.  PG might have 6 total minutes of screen time sprinkled throughout, but the promise of his next scene will power you through sparse dialogue, withering glances to dancers of the opposite sex, male sleeveless attire, clichéd plot lines, and cheeseball smiles.  I have no idea how they got PG to do this movie - there's no way he actually had to audition, right?  I’m thinking they needed him much more than he needed them, and what does that sell job from the producers look like?  Regardless, he had every excuse to pocket the check and mail in his performance.  Instead, he gives the FULL GALLAGHER.  Also featured is an extremely catty dancer played by a young Zoe Saldana.  And is there an elite, bad boy male dancer who plays by his own rules, [consensually] sexes up most of the female hopefuls, and starts his own dancing company?  You bet there is!

With some notable exceptions, the cast is comprised of professional dancers moonlighting as actors.  Spoiler alert: it shows.  The acting in this movie is maybe the worst you'll see in a major motion picture.  If you watched this and then watched Attack of The Clones you'd be like "Wow, Hayden Christiansen NAILED this" or even “I wasn’t watching Hayden Christiansen, I was watching Anakin Skywalker.”  I get they had to hire people who were athletes/dancers first given the choreography is super legit, but I have to believe they could have done better.  Baryshnikov in White Nights is our benchmark here.  

·        Best of the Best – To contrast with our first entry, I actually think the acting here is dynamite, insomuch as these people were acting like they were making a legitimate film.  Very few movies I’ve seen have had a more absurd premise.  There are several credentialed people - James Earl Jones, Chris Penn, Sally Kirkland and Erik Roberts – in a movie about an international team karate competition limited to the US and "Korea".  JEJ as a legendary karate coach?  Yup. Roberts as a single dad, fighting for his son who was recently hit by car, who wins his match (spoiler alert) with a dislocated shoulder by going to his ZEN Happy place?  Apparently.  Chris Penn as a rotund, racist cowboy who somehow qualifies to fight a weight class below Roberts?  I’m getting a migraine.  I watched this movie a couple dozen times when I had one cable movie channel as a teen and I still have no idea how the scoring was calculated.  There are 5 matches scored on points, somehow the U.S. loses the first three but still has a chance to win on points??  Regardless, our final fighter, Tommy – fighting the guy who obviously killed Tommy’s brother in a similar competition years ago - goes full ’14-’15 Golden State Warriors on his opponent.  The scoreboard couldn’t keep up.

·        Sideout - oh, the high stakes world of semi-professional beach volleyball.  From what I remember of the plot: C. Thomas Howell blew off clerking at his rich uncle's (Weekend at Bernie's guy!) law firm to learn 2-man Vball from a mulletted pro volleyball washup (played by Thirtysomething’s Peter Horton – but I’m calling him Mullet Guy) and impress a beach cocktail waitress played by Courtney Thorne Smith (this, after Summer School, continues CTS’s unfortunate run of typecasting as a mostly brainless, directionless SoCal girl). 

Of course, there’s a big “All-Valley”-type round robin beach volleyball tournament at the end for CTH and Mullet Guy to team up in so they can bury some type of hatchet, CTH can get the girl and MG can wager on himself/CTH to win it all, pay off his debts and screw over his former business and sex partner, Harley Jane Kozak.  There’s romance, redemption, some vague mentions of obscure CA real estate law, and a very decent sex scene here between MG and HJK, esp when you consider it's a PG-13 movie.  This movie also features one of my favorite insults ever, when, after a resoundingly winning spike by MG in one of the early round robin matches, one of his opponents calls our hero a “Cheesedick”.  I feel like the volleyball scenes (which were supported by a bunch of real life former Olympians) were actually pretty convincing even if I remain dubious that people could bet on the outcomes of these matches.  I’m pretty sure the tourney was sponsored by a country club.

·        Airborne – Most of the characters in this film espouse the simple premise that you’re a loser if you don’t do highschool hockey and roller blading.  But I should note that this is actually the rare “double SN-HPO”, as our fish out of water California protagonist, played by Shane McDermott, waxes poetic about surfing as much as the new kids in Ohio that confront him talk about hockey.  Shane, once displaced to the OH suburbs to stay with his aunt and uncle during the school year, even surfs on his bed at one point.  But I'll give him this, he buys into the fact (a) he is in a good movie and (b) he is the coolest guy in the place.  He can't be bothered by the school bullies who are REALLY into hockey and anything else on skates.  The reputable name actors with this on their resume (sorry, not you Shane) is somewhat staggering.  Jack Black as a twitchy nintendo playing cool guy bully.  The guy who parlayed this movie into New Johnny Lawrence in The Next Karate Kid.  Then there’s Edie McClurg playing Shane’s aunt!  But Seth Greene – playing Edie’s son and Shane’s cousin as an awkward, misunderstood teen - absolutely steals this movie.  And I'm not gonna lie, the (feels like) 30 minute racing scene at the end is pretty well-shot.

·        Drop Zone - Yes, we've gotten to the competitive skydiving portion of our programming.  Air Marshal Wesley Snipes goes undercover as a parachutist to find the band of evil parachutists who staged an elaborate, probably unnecessary, and totally infeasible in-flight kidnapping on a 747, killing his fellow marshal and brother... wait for it... MALCOLM JAMAL WARNER in the process.  Everyone in this movie is 100% committed to the notion that sky-diving is a paying, full time job, and being a part of a competitive sky-diving team is like being in an elite military fighting unit.  Parker Lewis (nee Corin Nemic) as a rookie jumper embodies this spirit most fully.  But then you’ve got Gary Busey as the head bad guy, doing totally insane things.  This is probably where everyone started saying things like "guys... do you think maybe Gary Busey isn't acting?”  I swear there are a couple of scenes where I think Gary is doing something not written in the script that visibly surprised the other actors.  I also had a thing for Yancy Butler - she totally convinced me as the jilted spouse and 1/2 of a formerly legendary jump team, and she may have invented hot looking yoga pants.  I have no idea how this movie ends or if YB and WB were supposed to be romantically connected - there was more sexual chemistry in the Shania Twain/Billy Currington "Party for Two" video.

·        The Fast and The Furious – Okay, so these last two may hurt some feelings.  It’s a little later in time than others on my list, and the sequels were successful in changing the overall tone and arc, but the original TFATF movie (as well as third installment Tokyo Drift) absolutely fits into this category.  The thing that’s massively important that everyone is passionate about here is, yes, car-racing, but also pretty much anything Vin Diesel says is important.  Like “I live my live a quarter mile at a time” and “You can have any beer, as long as it’s a Corona.”  CORONA IS THE ONLY BEER THAT MATTERS AND IT’S SO IMPORTANT.  The acting is super wooden in this movie but it deserves an Oscar next to the performances in Tokyo Drift.  I also like the one guy who straight-faced tells Paul Walker that engines are the only thing that calms him down.  Just a huge collision of the SN-HPO energy and bad acting.

·        Point Break – I’ll concede that, on its face, PB has a lot going on – including a feisty game of beach football, a SWAT operation run amok that ends with a bullet stopping a running lawnmower, skydiving, Anthony Kiedis, masks of the ex presidents, and a makeshift gas station flamethrower – that would make it APPEAR that this movie is not singularly focused on one thing (in this case: Surfing, again).  Lest we forget, our merry band of miscreants are robbing banks in the aforementioned masks to FINANCE THEIR ENDLESS SUMMER of surfing.  For the love of God, Bodie dies on a 60 foot wave in Bells Beach, Australia!  Plus, there are no less than three scenes where some character is monologuing (usually around a campfire) about how awesome surfing is.  Sorry, it’s gotta go on the list.   

Happy to spitball others, or tell you why Karate Kid DOESN’T make this list (it was on the bubble).

OBFT: The New Style

Those of you that didn't make this year's Outer Banks Fishing Trip (the 29th of such experiments designed to test the limits of the human liver) missed two new additions to the usual agenda. 

The first of these was somber and emotional, as the assembled community of dipshits commended some of the ashes of our beloved friend John Grant to the sea in a place we spent so much time with him. In typical fashion, it turns out we probably broke the law in so doing without permission.

The second event was a bit anticlimactic for most of us. We arrived at the venerable Martha Wood cottage to see a protected area just south of the dune that protects her. Turns out the conservation community in the area located a sea turtle nest in that spot, and for several evenings, an earnest group stood watch around the nest in expectation that the little tortugas would make the playa run in fewer than 12 parsecs. (My guess is that it's nest 23 on this list.) Never happened while we were there, so we're hoping at least Whit gets to see this:

The 30th anniversary next year's gonna be a doozy. Clear your calendars now.

Some Thoughts on Chest Hair

I am hairy.  Not the hairiest among us but hairier than most.  Bushy arms and legs, a spray of hair across my shoulders, preposterously lush ruffs sprouting from each armpit.  And chest hair.  Lustrous and long enough to braid.

Chest hair puts complex demands on men with respect to fashion but guys like me manage to soldier through.  Walt Whitman did too, he was proud of the “scented herbage of my breast” and so am I.

I've always felt that this made me superior to the hairless, and now I have proof.  Men with hairy chests are smarter than those with glabrous sternums!  We are also more attractive to women--albeit older women.  I am living proof of both.  My father even once remarked "Why are all these old women into you?"  (We worked at the same place and I was popular with ladies nearing retirement age.)

Women who don't like men with chest hair likely live in places with lots of ectoparasites, and that's fine with me because it cuts both ways.  Women who draw men with chest hair are more likely to have positive attitudes towards sex.  Taken together, this means I attract women who like to have sex and who don't have fleas or lice.

So I have the last laugh on all you tonsured tools who mocked my hairiness!

My Thoughts on Electric Cars

OBX Dave recently asked for my thoughts on electric cars.  Here they are.

I have ridden in a Tesla twice, both times driven by the same driver and she didn't know how to drive an EV.  When you lift off the throttle the car starts the regenerative braking process, which throws you forward and slows the car down.  This prompts the driver to step on the throttle again, which whips you back in your seat.  The net result is carsickness.  The other backseat passenger threw up once we got to our destination.  The seats are uncomfortable and the build quality is terrible.  Obviously this doesn't apply to all EVs.

If everyone switched to EVs today we would destroy the grid.  I'm also not convinced that it would be a panacea, given that 61% of the US's electricity comes from fossil fuels.  Here in NJ, about 48% comes from natural gas and 42% from nuclear reactors.  The rest is renewable.  You can find out more about your state here.  While some states might make clean electricity others don't, so ramping up electricity production could cause pockets of increased pollution.  We need to make more clean electricity before we replace all our internal combustion engines ("ICE").

I think Americans have been hoodwinked into believing they need big cars.  If you have three or more kids you should get a minivan.  They are much more efficient in terms of gas consumption and cargo room than almost any SUV.  If you need to tow something then a traditional body-on-frame SUV makes sense.

I also think Americans have been hoodwinked into believing they need four-wheel-drive.  If you live in DC or further south you probably don't encounter enough snow to need all-wheel-drive.  If you're into camping it makes sense, but if you're just going to Harris Teeter and soccer practice you don't need it.  It just adds weight which requires more power, and thus more gas, to push it up a hill.

I also think that we have made insane leaps in engine technology.  For example, the cheapest car in America is the Chevrolet Spark with a starting MSRP of $13,600.  It has a 1.4 liter engine that makes 98 horsepower, or 70 hp/liter.  For comparison, a 1992 Porsche 911 makes 247 hp with 3.6 liters, or 69 hp/liter.

Even better: a Honda Civic EX starts at $25,500 and pulls 180 hp out of 1.5 liters, or 120 hp/liter.  And it gets 33/42 MPG city/highway.  A 2012 Porsche 911 makes 345 hp with 3.6 liters, or 96 hp/liter.  A 1980 Corvette also makes 180 hp but needs 5.0 liters to do it.

Imagine if we used these advances to maximize fuel economy instead of horsepower.  But it's hard to do that because everyone wants to drive a 4,000+ pound SUV.  More power is necessary.

It is no secret that I am an unabashed VWAG fan.  For my money, the best all-around new car is the VW GTI.  It seats four adults comfortably, has 20 cubic feet of cargo space, gets 32 MPG on the highway, sprints to 60 MPH in 5.1 seconds, handles beautifully, and sends power to the front wheels so it doesn't get stuck in the snow.  They're under $35k new and you can even get them with a stick.  There are very few circumstances where you need something else, at least in my daily life.

If you're looking for the perfect combination of utility and environmentalism available at this moment in time, I would consider a plug-in hybrid ("PHEV").  These cars are gas/electric hybrids but they can run on electricity alone.  They typically have a range of 20-40 miles on just the battery, which is all you really need for your daily chores around town.  If you are dead-set on a giant SUV, check out the Volvo XC90 Recharge.  It drives like your typical seven-passenger land yacht, but if all you do is run the kids to and from school and soccer practice, maybe do some errands in between, you can get it all done without burning a drop of gas.  Plug it in at the end of the day and you're ready to do it again tomorrow.  Then, when you want to drive to Maine, it runs as a hybrid for 58 MPGe.  Yes, it's stupidly expensive, but not more so than any other big luxury SUV.  Volvo's XC60 Recharge is smaller and cheaper and does roughly the same thing albeit with five seats.  If you don't need to be swathed in Scandinavian luxury, Toyota's RAV4 Prime has more electric range, better hybrid fuel economy, and is a lot cheaper.  Predictably, Subaru's Crosstrek Hybrid is probably the best deal out there but with limited cargo space.  The Jeep Wrangler PHEV is proof that nature fills a void.  I have no idea why anyone would drop $55k on a Wrangler but it's out there if you want it and the website says it's the "BEST SELLING PHEV IN AMERICA" so what do I know.

I am sure that someday I will own an EV because that's the way the world is going.  I hope that by the time I have to buy one the average EV will be cheaper, driving range will be longer, charge times will be faster, and there will be more charging stations available.  I also want real buttons for the HVAC instead of a giant iPad.  I don't know how easy it will be to dispose of or recycle the batteries.  I don't know how environmentally friendly or socially equitable it is to make the batteries or mine the minerals required to make them.  I suspect it's all a zero-sum game--making energy requires us to break some molecular bonds and that creates nasty byproducts in one way or another.

If only we had an energy expert on staff to tell me why I'm wrong!

TR's Origin Story

A lot of people asked me "Where did TR go?"  I'm finally at liberty to spill the beans.

All superheroes and supervillians have an origin story.  Radioactive spiders, cosmic radiation, gamma radiation ... why so much radiation at Marvel ... aliens from destroyed planets, newly evolved species, you name it.  Here is TR's.

The guy you know as TR isn't really named TR.  Like if you look at his birth certificate it doesn't say "TR."  As opposed to TJ's birth certificate, which say "TJ."  In fact, TR doesn't have a birth certificate.  He was born around 2000 years ago and has roamed the earth ever since.  Essentially immune to the aging process, he appears throughout the artistic record of history.

One of the earliest images of TR is dated around 170 AD, according to Dr. Darryl Butt from the University of Utah.  Dr. Butt analyzed paint from TR's portrait and was "able to determine the purple pigment was synthetic in nature, and not naturally from the glands of the Murex sea snails as most purple dyes were at the time."  Here is the portrait:

Those of you who knew TR circa 1992 will recognize that head of hair immediately and recall his high school nickname "Pubies."

Many years later, he got into a spot of trouble and needed to get out of town quickly, so he took a job on a boat.  Turns out he loved to sail and he did that for many years.  Thanks to his travels, pasta came to Italy.

TR eventually capitalized on his passion for sailing and bedlam and became a pirate.  This portrait nicely captures "The Look" he gets when particularly motivated for mayhem.

He eventually grew tired of the whole piracy thing and became a landlubber.  He somehow stumbled into the oil business and became quite prosperous.  However, one business transaction ended ... poorly ... and once again he had to pick up and move.

Eventually TR merged his interests in seamanship and energy--he became the captain of an oil tanker.  It didn't go as well as he hoped.

Then he went to William & Mary, where he met many of us.  He graduated and moved to New York City where he hung out with a much cooler crowd.  Here is Chuck Close's portrait of him from this period:

He got back into the energy business, but this time from a desk so he didn't have to bludgeon anyone.  That bored him, so now he's out west running a festival clothing company and a food truck.

So the next time you see a scowling bearded man take a close look.  It could be TR, continuing his journey across the world.