The Answer to Life, the Universe, and What to Put Into Your Tires.

It seems that more people want to know whether to pay for a nitrogen tire fill than want to know the real answer, which is 42.  So since I've been embroiled in this debate far more times than I care to remember, I've decided to memorialize it here by cutting and pasting some of my more cogent thoughts on the matter.

I have attempted to list all of the supposed 'benefits' of nitrogen in tires and my responses, supported by scientific fact, to each of them.  If the comments warrant it, I'll add some calculations or examples.

1) Prevention of oxidation: Some suppliers and users claim that the absence of oxygen in the tire inhibits oxidation and hardening of the rubber. While that is true, it only addresses the inside of the tire carcass, not the outside. Tires oxidize and age primarily from the outside, not from the inside. If they oxidize inside, they use up the 21% oxygen in there and it is not replenished until you pump in more air (which, unless the tire was totally empty, will leave much less than 21% oxygen in the new atmosphere inside). The outside is constantly bathed in a 21% oxygen atmosphere, not to mention lots of other ugly stuff (sunlight, ozone, etc.) that will make them harden and crack. Tires degrade from the outside, not from the inside. The existence of pumped-up 30-year-old TRX (or 40-year-old XZX!) spare tires is proof of that. So as an oxidation preventative, the effect is real, but inconsequential.

2) Stability of pressure: A gas is a gas is a gas. Boyle's and Charles's Gas Laws are universally accepted as a physical/chemical fact. No gas, regardless of its atomic or molecular weight, behaves any differently inside a tire. While the mass might vary by a barely measurable amount (some gases are heavier than others), the pressure does not. For those who seriously care about weight savings, nitrogen's molecular weight is 28 amu and oxygen's is 32. However, given that air is 78% nitrogen in the first place, the average molecular weight of air is only about 28.5 amu - effectively the same as pure nitrogen. If somebody with a better engineering background than I have would like to calculate the interior volume of a typical mounted tire, I'll be happy to calculate the mass differences for a few selected gases.

3) Dry gas: Another claim is that nitrogen, as a dry gas, makes the pressure more stable because there is no water vapor in it. This only matters when the water changes states. Frozen or liquid water (doesn't matter which it is) in the tire at normal pressures must vaporize to increase the pressure. That is only going to happen above 100ºC - but wait. That's only at normal atmospheric pressure at sea level! Tires are at least twice that pressure! So the boiling point of that water increases dramatically. Even if you could manage to get your tires hot enough to boil any water in there, it is likely to be an inconsequential amount affecting the pressure very little. Besides, there's a very simple solution to this: dry air. Anybody can put a dry air filter on a compressor line for about $10. That's a lot better than 600 times that for a dry nitrogen generator.

4) Less migration through the tire carcass: Nitrogen is a smaller atom than oxygen. That, too, is true. So nitrogen suppliers would have you believe that oxygen leaks out of small holes that the nitrogen can't get through. Now, let's remember that oxygen and nitrogen don't exist in the atmosphere as individual atoms.  They exist as pairs of atoms in what are called covalent molecules.  Oxygen's covalent radius (size, when bonded to another atom of oxygen) is 73 picometers (pm). Nitrogen's covalent radius is 75 pm. BFD. When you recall that a molecule of either nitrogen or oxygen is somewhat dumbell-shaped (consisting of two of those covalent radii) and that gas molecules simply bounce around anyway, any 74 pm-sized holes in the tire would block most oxygen molecules as well. Even if an air-filled tire lost all its oxygen, that would be only 21% of its fill. Refilling it with air would leave it at about 4.4% oxygen (21% of the 21% of gas replaced), so if you really did have a bunch of pesky 74 pm holes letting all your oxygen out, two air refills would give you a fairly pure nitrogen filled tire (less than 1% oxygen). Tires lose air because they leak gases, not a gas.

5) Nitrogen is inert: Pure unadulterated BS. Nitrogen is one of the most plentiful active elements we know. Life would be impossible without it. Ever heard of 'amino acids'? The 'amine' is hydrogen and nitrogen. Ever heard of 'nitrous oxide'? Nitrogen & oxygen. Either a 'shot' of horsepower or an emissions headache (NOX). Plants cannot survive without nitrogen. High explosives are largely nitrogen compounds - like the ones that blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The only thing nitrogen isn't is flammable ... or a lachrymator.

6) Nitrogen keeps the tires cooler.  I'm at a complete loss to understand how anyone could believe this.  I'm definitely waiting for someone to come up with even the slightest piece of evidence that it's true.  Nitrogen doesn't conduct or reflect heat any differently than any other gas.

The bottom line is that a nitrogen generator costs about $6000. If you've been dumb enough to buy one, you need to convince other people that you were smart in doing so; otherwise, you'll never amortize the thing. So those who try to sell the 'benefits' of nitrogen are very earnest (if not desperately so) in their pitches and they probably really do believe all this made-up stuff. If it's free, go right ahead. Put nitrogen in your tires. It won't hurt a thing. Just don't believe that it makes the slightest measurable difference.

Understanding Beemers on the road.

We have to start out today with proper definitions of terms.  I have two generally operational BMWs:


I drive a 'Bimmer'.  It is a 1987 535is BMW automobile also known as The Kelvinator.

I ride a 'Beemer'.  It is a 1978 R100RS BMW motorcycle also known as The Motorsport.  This vintage of BMW bikes is known as the 'Airhead', named because the heads (and engine) are entirely air cooled.

Notice the difference in the words.  Short 'i' sound - BMW cars; long 'e' sound - BMW bikes.


So a week ago, I drove my Bimmer to Pittsburgh for a BMW event.  It was the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, held in Schenley Park in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  What actually is going on is that a bunch of separate events by different car clubs and groups is held, centering around a handful of races through the park by vintage ('old', 'retired', etc.) race cars.  It is a charity event that raises a significant amount of money for autism and has been around for awhile.  This was at the height of the summer's late July heat wave and my air conditioning is somewhat - shall we say, 'marginal' in the car, so it was a pretty miserable time most of the weekend.


I set out very early Friday, clearing Milwaukee before sunrise.  At the time the sun was coming up, a nasty thunderstorm was coming down.  It was also the time I was thinking about a quick stop for a Kwik Trip donut and coffee for breakfast.  As I headed toward the exit ramp, up ahead, through the heavy downpour, I could see a taillight.  Just one, going on down I-94 ahead of me.  That meant it was a bike, a guy probably getting very wet, and a hardcore biker who wouldn't be stopped by a mere frog-strangler of a rainstorm.  In other words, probably a BMW rider.


It rained heavily all the rest of the way to the north side of Chicago.  I was thinking how glad I was that I was not that biker.  As the day went on, it got hotter all the way across Indiana.  By the time I hit the Ohio state line, it was above 95º and the car's a/c was fading fast.  I decided it was a good time to just stop and take a break at one of the excellent rest stops on US 30.  I was looking for a shaded spot but in the middle of the shadeless lot, I saw an Airhead.  Blue with white bags and seat, I was intrigued by it, so I pulled in beside it.  I could see a guy sitting back under one of the picnic table shelters and I yelled, "Izzat yer Airhead?"  "Yep!" he replied.


I walked back and sat down beside him.  I pulled out a picture of mine and showed it to him.  He was an old school hardcore biker.  Big beard pulled into a tie below his chin.  Work boots. Worsted work pants.  T shirt and head rags.  All good for protection and some heat dissipation.  But once the temperature and humidity hit those levels, there's no cooling effect from being on a bike.  Moisture doesn't evaporate and hot air doesn't remove any heat, regardless of how fast you go.  It's like being in a blast furnace.  I told him I was really glad I wasn't him riding in that heat.


We introduced one another and I asked him where he was headed.  "Mid Ohio," he answered.  To the vintage bike races there.  He figured he was about 90 miles away and I agreed.  He hadn't been there in a number of years, so I told him he'd love that 30 was new the rest of the way.  There would be no two-lane slogging through little s***holes like Crestline.  Four lanes, divided, and light traffic all the way - but hot.  Then, I asked where he was coming from.  I hadn't noted the plate on the bike. "Milwaukee."  "Hey, wait; was that you this morning ...?"  Yeah; it was.  He'd had an entire state to dry off, so it wasn't too obvious by then.  Wow.  It's not often that I get to pity the same guy twice in a day for two such totally different reasons.


As we got up to leave, I offered him a bottle of ice water from my cooler in the back seat.  He'd been drinking from a one liter metal water bottle and he tried to refuse.  When I insisted, as we walked toward the rest stop building, he said, "No; I can fill this up at the bubbler inside."


I stopped and turned to him to look him in the eye.  "No," I said firmly.  "There is no bubbler inside.  This is Ohio.  We have 'drinking fountains'."  As it dawned on him what I was saying and he started to grin, I added, "Besides, mine is colder."  So we went to the car and he got a cold one.


I hope you had a good time at the races, Jim.

Riposte to Jalopnik's "Renting a car sucks"

Some poor sap went to Wichita (it appears) to rent a car for a family wedding - reminding me of my own rental car nightmares over the years.


One of the earliest was for an unknown reason.  It was in Akron, so it was probably when I had a wrecked car in for bodywork and had an insurance-provided rental.  However, that did not cover the fuel charges.  As an inexperienced twenty-something, I hadn't learned about this scam when I went to turn in my car.  The Edie McClurg clone sweetly informed me that I owed them something like ten bucks for fuel.  "WHAT!?"  (This was when gas was around $1.25/gal.)


Agent:  "We put almost three gallons of gas in your car."  And only managed to spill about half of that down our drains.
Me:  "That's over $3 a gallon!"
Agent:  "Well, we're not in the business of selling gas."
Me:  "Obviously not, at those prices.  In fact, you're lucky to be in business at all.  I won't be back."


I think that was National.  I haven't been back.


Toward the end of my Akron Years, I was to fly to Salt Lake City for a legal services conference held at the Snowbird resort up in the mountains.  I figured it'd be fun to drive the mountain roads, so I checked on rental cars with Hertz, who provided "fine automobiles from Ford".  The phone call went something like this:


Me: "Can I reserve a Mustang for <date> at the Salt Lake City airport?"
Hertz agent:  "Yes sir.  Do you want the four cylinder or the eight cylinder?"
Me:  [This is rhetorical, right?  Who in creation would want to reserve a 4-cylinder Mustang?]  "Eight."
H.A.: [Words to the effect of, "No problem."]


So I was pumped.  As I flew out with the other lawyer, we talked about how cool it'd be to arrive in a Mustang, assuming I hadn't killed us both on the drive up the mountain.  On arrival, I headed to the rental counter.  [Time to plug in the Edie McLurg character again.]  This is the edited version:


Me:  "Hi.  I reserved a Mustang."
She:  "We don't have any Mustangs."
Me:  "WHAT!?  I reserved one!  I have a confirmation!"
She:  "We never have Mustangs here.  During ski season, we get Explorers, but we never get Mustangs."
Me:  "What about my reservation?"
She:  "I can put you in a Tempo."
Me:  "No you can't.  I can ride the damn shuttle bus up the mountain."

The Mustang I didn't get.

A few years earlier, I'd had my first foreign rental experience in Mexico.  Merida, to be exact.  This was a trip to the Yucatan with my wife and a good friend, Ed.  We flew into Merida and picked up a blue Renault 12 there.

El Renault.

It was a 4-cylinder 4-speed, but it never felt like it was running on more than three of those cylinders.  It was a real piece of crap well-suited to its environment of crap maintenance and crap fuel.  At least it never left us stranded.

In contrast, my first rental car in Europe was brilliant: an Alfa 155.  A 4 cylinder 1.6 liter 16-valve five-speed sedan in metallic red. [* None of these photos are of the exact car I rented, but they are representative of year, make, model, and color.]

The Alfa I loved.

We drove it from Rome to Sorrento; then down the Amalfi Drive to Salerno and back up through Benevento and more.  Italian gas jockeys complimented me on it ("campione del mondo!") and it was the only rental I ever paid to wash so that it looked great.  It topped out at 215 km/h on a slight downhill while drafting a Rover on the Autostrada.  [Only after I returned did I discover that the Italian national speed limit is only 140 km/h.]  It was like an autocrosser for the four hours of the Amalfi Drive, not getting above third gear for much more than a minute the whole time.  If I could have brought it home, I would have.



The next time, I got stuck with a 'leftover' 1.4 Golf at the Frankfurt Flugplatz.  They claimed they had no reservation for me and, to get me out of their hair, they 'found' this one.

The Pope had a Golf - only his was cooler than this.

Boring silver with crappy nearly smooth Firestone tires, we drove it through an 18" Alpine snowstorm.  Through closed passes.  Nearly rear-ended an Opel turning left because of the tires.  Managed to see 190 km/h flat out at redline in fifth gear on the Autobahn on the way to München.  It could have done more, but I figured it was bad form to puff the engine in the rental.

This last time, although it was larger and more powerful, I was unhappily ambushed.  I had reserved a car.  It was to be a compact with a manual transmission.  When I got to the counter, a pleasant young man waited:


Avis Guy:  "I know that you reserved a manual transmission car.  Would you mind driving an automatic?"
Me:  "Yes, I would.  I reserved a manual and I want one."
AG:  "Well, I can give you a manual, but it will be a larger car.  I won't charge you the difference."
Me:  "What's the catch?"
AG:  "It's a Renault."
Me:  "Crap; you're giving me a FRENCH CAR?"
AG:  "At least it's black.  Not as ugly as all the silver ones ..."


Oh, hell.  So I took it.  After signing things, he handed me a key ring with a big plastic card on it (with the usual 'lock-unlock' and 'panic' icons on one side of it) and an Avis tag.


Me:  "What's this?"
AG:  "That's the key.  You put it in the slot and push the button to start the car."
Me:  "O-o-o-o-okay-y-y-y ..."


So off we went to Space 29.  Along the way, we saw the metallic lime green Opel Astra we probably would have had otherwise - dammit.  We threw all our stuff into the roomy hatch and climbed aboard the black Renault Scenic.

Yeah; it looks like a Pontiac Vibe on drugs.  One of the most relentlessly annoying vehicles I have ever had the displeasure to drive.  It started immediately with a seat that was virtually impossible to adjust to be comfortable.  I settled for 'kinda' close' because I wanted to get on the road.  Then I looked for the slot.  Nothing on the dash.  Nothing close to the 'Start' button.  After a minute or two, I located it lurking, classic Saab-like, just behind the shift boot.  The dashboard (which, annoyingly, is in the center of the car, not in front of the driver where God intended it to be) came to life.

Renault Scenic cockpit.  That onboard nav system?  Forget it.  Didn't have it.

I pushed in the clutch and pressed the button.  The engine came to life instantly.  There was, however, a problem.  The parking brake was on.  I searched in vain for a lever, a pedal, the owner's manual, anything to offer a clue.  For a full two minutes.  Maybe more.  Finally, I spotted the big wide power window-like switch visible to the upper right of the shifter.  A 'P' in a circle and a red light on it.  That was it.  Pushing and pulling did nothing.  Cursing didn't seem to work, either.  Finally, my wife suggested I step on the brake.  I did.  I pulled up on the button.  A light electric whirring sound came from the rear and "Voila!" we were free to go!  Forty feet down the parking garage, I realized I hadn't a clue where I was going - and the nav system was in my luggage ...


Suitably 'navved up', we hit the road for Innsbruck.  Along the way, I discovered:

1. how annoying it was to have silver-outlined vents reflecting off the window around the mirror
2. that the gearbox was a six-speed, not five
3. that the Scenic is at least usable in the "2M" lane [that's 2 meters wide - on Swiss highways under construction]
4. that the seat still sucked
5. that it was no fun at all to drive

What I would not discover until the following day was the cruise control on/off switch (on the other side of the shifter console - logical, right?) and not until days later that the dash was switchable to at least give me a tachometer in addition to a fuel gauge and speedometer.  It handled dreadfully on the mountain roads I'd so eagerly looked forward to.  It was so dull on the Autobahn that I saw 170 km/h and didn't bother going any faster, usually running at 150 or less.  It was a transportation appliance - and I hate that.

As rental cars go, I don't often have one.  When I do, it's usually unpleasant.  So don't come whinin' to me if yours sucks.

My friend Pink.

Coming off a miserably hot trip to the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix/BMW 5er Fest, I figured I'd be writing about that by now.  Instead, as I sat in a Bob Evans restaurant checking facebook halfway across Indiana on the way home last night, I saw the news that Pink had died the day before.  I also saw that at least one other classmate didn't recall him, so I figure it's my duty as his old friend to fix that.


During elementary school, I was lucky to have two best friends.  Everybody who knew me in those years also knows Homer.  Aside from the name, Homer was and is a unique character and we are still good friends today.  Pink was the other one.  These two were polar opposites in just about every imaginable way.  While Lee Richards served as my second mother and Homer a spare brother (with whom I got along better), if I wasn't at Richards' with Homer, odds are I was somewhere with Pink.  I don't remember exactly when I met Pink.  It had to be by the third grade because I remember rejoicing with him when we both found out that we'd been assigned to Central School's resident 'hottie' (Mrs. Patterson) for the fourth grade.  


Pink was an only child of working folks.  He'd gotten his nickname from his mother, who simply described how he looked as a baby.  For that matter, he was always on the pink side because he was freckled, so he went with it.  'Alan' was a little too bland for his taste anyway.  The Affolters lived in a small single story house on Second Drive.  I spent days there.  Anita was my chain-smoking second mom.  Bob wasn't usually home because he was working (Joy Manufacturing, I think), but I remember him as a rough and good-natured guy who also sucked down cigarettes like they were candy.  They were always generous hosts, even if I was there daily.


Early on, Pink and I fished.  I don't think we ever fished anywhere but the Tuscora Park lake.  We never caught anything worth catching, but we fished anyway.  If we felt adventurous, we'd take a big hike out north of 'The Lagoon'.  At the time, this was a nearly impenetrable wilderness of thorns and briars.  It would take us hours to go a half mile and generally no one knew where we were nor when we'd be back.  Sometimes, I was sure we'd never get out, even though we never left that small valley.  If we weren't fishing or hiking, we were playing with toy soldiers, airplanes, and tanks.  We fought every WWII battle over and over in his living room, in his bedroom or in his yard.  OK; maybe not the Italians.  I guess neither of us knew the Italians had been involved at the time.  I do remember that the battalion on the sofa was rarely defeated due to the difficulty of scaling the front. Things were more even when the battleground was the hedge out front or the abandoned ruins of my sisters' Flintstones city-mounted-on-a-board.  While we argued over our respective casualty counts, it was an academic exercise, and we never really fought.


Later, we started building models.  First it was warplanes (so we could attack the infantry and armor, of course!) and later cars.  Pink was my motorhead friend.  We both liked Pontiacs and Fords while he occasionally strayed off to build a Chevy.  We spent hours at LaFountaine's basement (back around to the right corner) downtown, and at Dale's Hobby Shop, a block east, pondering our next acquisitions.  We spent days on end gluing, painting, and customizing in his bedroom.  In the end, I don't think either of us built much of anything to be proud of, but we'd enter them in contests anyway and one of us might snag a ribbon.  We drooled over the latest and greatest drag racers in the magazines we shared.  We 'bench raced' for hours, although neither of us was old enough to drive yet.


We played sports.  Football, baseball, and basketball.  Day-long games.  Wherever we could find a venue, we played.  While it was often at 'Krieger Field' at the corner of Second and Park, it was nearly as often in the big open field next to Pink's house at the corner of Dort Lane and Second Drive.  To this day, I don't know who owned it, but we were always there playing baseball and football - mostly because there were no windows close enough to break, as there were at my house.


The other players almost always included Tom West, who lived around the corner on Dale Lane, and Dick Avon, another half a block away.  Tom's older brother (Ed?) and a couple of his friends would occasionally join us and then we felt like we were playing with the pros. While Pink and Homer were my best friends, we were rarely a threesome.  Homer and Pink had completely different interests which rarely, if ever, converged.


John Kennedy was killed when we were in the sixth grade.  At 11 and 12 (I'm a few months older.), we felt the shock of the nation, but we weren't quite old enough to completely know why.  After the added sensation of seeing Lee Harvey Oswald killed on live television, we got together the next day (Sunday) instead of watching the funeral.  I remember it was a bright and not-too-cool day for the season.  One of those 'high contrast' days.  We were sitting on our bikes on Lake Street in the park, looking out over the lake in the early afternoon.  We speculated whether the funeral was over.  Pink said it must be, because 'Catholics can't have Mass after noon'.  I had no clue, so I went with that (later finding out it hadn't been the case since 1956).  I have no idea why that sticks in my mind all these years later.


When the British Invasion washed over us a few months later, we were both caught up in this 'new' rock & roll, but we ended up as contrarian fans of the patriotic-themed Paul Revere and the Raiders.  We played records for hours in Pink's room (neither of us played an instrument although I took some abortive keyboards lessons for which I never practiced - because I was off playing with Pink) and we competed to see who could come up with the newest stuff the soonest.  I clearly remember him telling me about the Raiders' "Spirit of '67" in his hands before I knew it had been released.  Then I went to his house (it was Christmas Day, or the day after) and we nearly wore it out playing it.  We like The Grassroots and The Buckinghams a lot.  LaFountain's was the place to shop 45s and LPs.  Right inside the east entrance, to your left.  There they all were.


Pink was also my horndog guy friend.  We regularly talked about the girls we thought were hot.  Turned out Pink was a 'boob' man and I wasn't, so we never faced the prospect of fighting over any women either of us might hope to attract.  Not that either of us had a clue how to do that anyway, in spite of the fact that we'd stealthily read Bob's haphazardly-hidden Playboy magazines when we got the chance.


It wasn't long after that that we diverged.  Pink became 'one of the shop guys'.  He'd never been much of a scholar and there was no real expectation for him to be anything but what he was and what he became.  He was going to start working right out of high school and I was going to be headed to college.  My friends were different than his by then and, although I'd always been a kind of 'in between' type, I gravitated more toward the college prep kids and he went the other way.  That was it.  I rarely saw him through high school and only a handful of times afterward.  The last time, he was planted on a bar stool like he'd grown there and the decades of sitting drinking beer for hours every night showed.  Pink was never slimmer than 'stocky', even as a child, and he was by then 'morbidly obese', to use the kindest term.  I figured then he wouldn't be around long because he seemed to have no real inclination to change.  We talked briefly, we shook hands; and then I moved on.  We never stopped being friends, but we never continued to be, either ... and maybe that's why I'm saddened  to hear he's gone.

"Too dumb for opera ...

... Too smart for NASCAR."  That's what a fairly popular shirt reads in road racing circles, like last weekend at Road America.  I don't own one yet.  I've got too many racing shirts as it is.  Still, I almost bought another one, with a '74 BMW 3.0 CSL printed on the front.  It's a great screen, but in white, I look like a beached whale.  So I passed.  Maybe next time.


Meanwhile, we had historic racecars on hand for the Brian Redman/Kohler International Challenge.  I generally get tired of seeing all the old Corvettes, Camaros, and even Mustangs (and I really like old Mustang racecars) after seeing this many of them.  Every weekend at a historic race, I pick out a few notable favorites to remember.  This event had more than the usual allotment.


First, there was an original Fiat Cinquecento (500) parked across from the Tech Center.  Kind of a benign beige color, with a slightly brighter interior trimmed in red.  These cars are really Spartan inside, but they ooze so much cool, VW Beetles and even Mini Coopers are jealous of this unbelievably small and slow Italian oddity.  'Luigi' in "Cars" is a Cinquecento.  On Saturday, it was parked directly next to a very good-looking Stingray for a perfect "Odd Couple" photo.


While I never saw it move, or on track, there was a very sharp black '63 Ford Falcon Sprint in racing trim sitting near SJB Racing and the track medical center.  Here's that car:

About on an equal plane was a burgundy-with-black-vinyl-top '68 Mercury Cougar that came through Tech while I worked.  Not certain if it was a real Bud Moore car, but if not, it was a very good clone.  Another beautifully-prepared car was a '67 Nissan Bluebird.  This was the well-known Datsun 510 in the US, but this was the RHD Japanese home market version, complete down to full-width taillight trim that never showed up on these shores.


Two more highlights included a 1958 Johnny Thompson Kurtis Offy DA Special Indy racer.  This was a 'laid down' Offenhauser variant that puts the engine nearly on its right side, with the crankcase, transmission, and driveshaft down the left side of the car, beside (not under) the driver:

Then, there was the Fabulous Hudson Hornet 6.  This is a replica of the car Marshall Teague drove to fame in the early 1950s.  It's shown here at Monterrey:

We were told this was the car used for the engine sounds used for 'Doc Hudson' in "Cars".  It is an authentic 308 c.i. Twin H powered car, so it would not surprise me.  The owner gave us a couple of sweet hatpins that I'll be wearin' for awhile.

From Wednesday on, it got progressively hotter and more humid; to the point where I blew off Sunday.  Saturday night, Brian Redman was kind enough to stop by the worker party and personally thank us for making his namesake race a success.  We are always happy to make it one of the best vintage racing events in the country.

The Laws of Green* Buicks

I devote a lot of thought to driving.  Probably an inordinate amount.  Certainly more than most people; otherwise more of them would act as if there were thought processes going on in their heads during the task of getting from one place to another in a car - other than catching up on all their phone calls (but that's another post).


Today's thought occurred as I approached an intersection I would be going straight through and on up a two-lane hill.  Ahead of me, I saw it: the light metallic green* Buick 4-door.  It trundled into the intersection and slo-o-owly turned left, the way I'd be going.  Green* Buicks always do this.  I don't know if they have speed governors limiting them to 10 mph below any and all posted speed limits, but it seems they do.  I therefore wasn't too surprised when the brake lights lit up for no apparent reason only a car length beyond the intersection.  I was surprised at my good luck when it made an immediate right turn into a parking lot (without a signal).  It might have been mating, or a magnetic effect of some kind, because there was another green* Buick 4-door sitting there parked, waiting for it.  The first one had a clear and simple 180º turn to park beside the second but, as it got halfway through, it simply stopped; as though it had run into an invisible wall of Jell-O.  This is typical behavior of green* Buicks.


As I began to assess whether this was blog-worthy behavior to observe, a green* Taurus 4-door pulled out well in front of me and perfectly mimicked the behavior of a green* Buick.  It went 10 mph under the speed limit all the rest of the way downtown - in front of me.  From these things, I am now able to articulate The Laws of Green Buicks©.


The First Law of Green Buicks: Given any randomly-selected vehicle and a green Buick, the green Buick will invariably go slower.  It doesn't matter if the other vehicle is a tractor pulling an entire f***ing house behind it.  The green Buick will go slower.


The First Corollary of Green Buicks: If there is a green Buick in any lane of multiple lanes of traffic, that lane will go slower.  Yes; this is somewhat obvious, given the First Law, but sometimes we need to use incremental logic to completely understand how a process works.


The Second Law of Green Buicks:  If any vehicle stops in the middle of a street or intersection for no apparent reason, odds are better than even that it is a green Buick.  It appears that the drivers of green Buicks are always confused, lost, or simply bewildered.


The Third Law of Green Buicks:  At any given moment, there is present in every city in the United States at least one green Buick inappropriately displaying high beam, brake, and/or turn signal lights.


The Pontiac Corollary:  ALL Pontiacs equipped with fog lamps are ALWAYS displaying them inappropriately.  While I suspect that GM simply omitted the switch from all Pontiacs, I have yet to confirm this.  As it is a dead nameplate, the problem will self-resolve in a few short years.


The Fourth Law of Green Buicks:  If there is any potential obstruction of a lane within the view of any green Buick, the driver will slow to half normal speed or less.  This applies whether it is the same lane of travel, the next lane over, any lane over (could be six or more), or in any opposite lane across a divided fenced median.


The Distributive Law of Green 4-Doors:  Two-thirds of all light metallic green 4-door sedans are driven according to the Laws of Green Buicks.  While you can depend on the majority of light metallic green 4-doors being driven like green Buicks, the percentage is markedly lower, depending on the make.  There are, for example, light metallic green Dodge Intrepids which are only rarely driven this badly.


The Law of Opposites:  In the event a green Buick is observed operating outside the Laws of Green Buicks, it will almost invariably be driven by a 41-year-old divorced male whose license is under suspension from his last conviction for Operating Under the Influence.


So there you have it.  The first in what will undoubtedly become a long list of random complaints about traffic and those who make it miserable.


* Because I am red-green colorblind, light metallic green looks about the same as light metallic gold to me.  So, if you plan to point out the error of my choice of colors of obstructive cars, take it as applying equally to light metallic gold Buicks, as well.

Maybe I'm not really that old.

A friend sent me one of those 'clever' complaints about cellphones and nav systems and Bluetooth stuff being too complicated, and I started to make a quick reply.  Of course, it ballooned.  So here it is:

I suppose at my age (60 this year), I shouldn't be such a 'gadget geek', but I am.  Frankly, I happen to LOVE that nice lady in the Jaguar dashboard with the lovely English accent (Would you believe she's fluent in, like, a dozen languages?).  She has never once told me, "Well, go to hell!  You're not getting any more help!" and then sulked the rest of the day, as my wife has.  Besides, you gotta love a woman who tells you to make a U-turn instead of screaming while you do.  She's also never complained when I'm driving a hundred yards off the paved road, whether it's because of a software update for a new road I don't have loaded or - well - because I'm driving a hundred yards off the paved road ...

Then, there's facebook.  I use it daily to keep up.  I find out on a daily basis who I've outlived; who's had more surgeries than I have; whose kids have been sent to jail or are getting divorced - all without having to dream up an excuse to delicately extract myself from a conversation.  I can comment if I want to; and I can stop any time.  It's great.

My phone does all that stuff and more.  It's my watch (I quit wearing one when I had both a phone and a Palm Pilot that had the time.), my calendar (Once carried a DayTimer for a year or so - no longer.  This one's 'cloud-based' and accessible by me and my assistant.  We can both schedule anything at any time and see it immediately.), my notepad (another egregious omission from years ago), camera (I used to carry a ton of equipment to take mediocre vacation shots of places I forgot I went to because I spent so much time looking for the right shots.), address book, seismograph (Yes, really.  Three separate axes can be displayed singly, in any combination, or as a vector.  It also works as a bubble level.), and general all-around price guide and bet-settler (Because I can look anything up in Google.).  It's also a nav system for when I'm riding with friends who don't have one (Ask my friend Dan if we'll listen to the nice lady's suggestion of an alternate route the next time she mentions it at midnight outside Chicago.) and I can track NFL scores in real time, even if the game's blacked out on TV.  I'll watch YouTube videos on it when I'm really bored.  Sometimes, I even send text messages so my wife gets one once in awhile.

Finally, I've got a Bluetooth headset.  Two, actually.  The stereo headset works great for walking the dog around the block listening to music or on long boring drives in my car without a radio.  I can also make and take calls on it.  The single earpiece keeps me from being one of those morons with my cellphone plastered to my ear while attempting to drive with one hand.  I can answer calls with a single touch - or not - and carry on a phone conversation under any circumstance where I could talk to someone sitting beside me.  The great thing about having a Bluetooth hanging from your ear is that it's an excuse.  Say you're standing in a checkout line behind a dumbass.  You involuntarily blurt out, "Ah, ya dumbass!"  The dumbass will turn to beat the crap out of you, but all you need to do is point to the Bluetooth, roll your eyes, and say in a 'stage whisper' "My ex ..." and all will be forgiven.  You can even throw in a final "Well, bite me!" at the end - because nobody knows you don't actually have a call going.

Now, I don't Tweet or Twitter or anything of the sort.  Not because I don't know how.  It's just that I've never had a thought I could express in 140 characters or less - except for the one I sometimes want to send to jerks that I don't like.  That one takes only eight characters, of which the first is an 'F', and the fifth is a space.  It takes nine if I add an exclamation point.

So the bottom line is, there's a lotta fun to be had from modern technology - as long as you take a little time to look for it.

A new frontier with no apparent purpose.

So here I am, reading some other guy's blog, and suddenly I've got one.  Don't quite know how.  Definitely don't know why.  But here it is.  We'll see how it goes - if it goes.  I suppose I ought to bookmark the damn thing so I can find it some day if I decide to write more.


OK; all the good names were taken.  "Braindrippings".  "Pointless drivel".  Can you believe it?  So I'm 'justaguyinwi', which you can pronounce 'Just a guy in W-I' and it kinda rolls off the tongue.  FWIW, I'm not from here, so don't expect me to know the history of this city or state going back more than the 20 years I've been here.  Wisconsinoids are far too parochial to either share that or to allow me not to know "that's how we've always done it".  You're just expected to know.  Looks like it's turned into a bitch session, which I don't want this to be, so I'll just go off and check facebook ...