Charlie

Because of their complexity, internal combustion engines are more costly for the owner to maintain than electrics, but I'm not sure that they are more costly to produce, once the mass manufacturing is ramped up to the same degree. However, I recently read an interesting commentary on the danger of the US becoming too dependent on producing EVs, whose energy source comes from batteries whose components have to be imported from countries (especially China) which are potential enemies. I have owned a couple of Priuses in the past, and although they were not my favorite cars, I would consider buying that kind of hybrid rather than a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric car.

At 34, I think he has passed childhood, too.

I am reading Forget the Alamo, a fascinating history of how a relatively inconsequential battle in 1836 became a popular (but in many ways inaccurate) legend, and its site a heavily promoted tourist attraction. It's a collaboration among three Texan journalists, Brian Burrough (author of the best-seller Barbarians at the Gates), Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford. Texans like to to speak of the revolt as a fight for political independence, but it was no secret at the time that the only important political issue was slavery: Mexico had abolished slavery, and the Americans in Texas were mostly cotton farmers whose economy depended on slaves, their most important "property." The constitution of the Republic of Texas specifically stated that slavery could not be abolished, and no free Blacks would be allowed in the new country. The most famous "heroes" of the battle, all of whom were killed, were William Travis (a shyster lawyer), Jim Bowie (who had fled to Texas to escape prosecution in the US for numerous crimes), and Davy Crockett (a failed politician who made up outlandish stories about his frontier exploits). They were all whitewashed into heroic figures by Texan patriots, abetted by the entertainment media in the 20th century. Even the site of the battle was not the building that almost any American can easily identify when they "remember the Alamo," but a nondescript barracks nearby that had been turned into a grocery store for years after the battle, and that the curators of the site wanted to tear down because it was not picturesque enough for the memorial they wanted to create. It is a classic American story, and a fun read if you are not a die-hard Texas conservative.

Strangely enough, I was living in Bohemia when he died. It was big news there.

And whaddaya know--European Boy's ad is gone.

One of my female neighbors goes all out decorating the front of their house for every kind of holiday--Halloween has skeletons, ghosts and witches all over the place--so I can only imagine what the inside of the house looks like. I had a couple of female relations who seemed to spend all year just preparing things for Xmas. We used to put up a small tree in the living room when we still had family around, but it's been a few years since we even hung a wreath on the front door.

Here in eastern Riverside county, I-10 runs through a long stretch of desert in which there are no other roads. A few years ago, a flash flood took out a bridge, and traffic heading west got stuck there for a very long time, because there were no exits and no way to turn around. A guy in a Tesla wasn't watching his charge, and ran out of battery power. Once things got cleared out, Tesla sent a truck to get the car and take it to their nearest charging station, which was miles back near the Arizona border.

Ad is gone already.

If he "became a star in Australia...London..." etc.. I can't find any references to that claim.

But it is hard to argue for a Tesla as a second car at the price, especially if you don't have charging capability at home.

Big Guy from Pasadena used to come to the Palm Springs Weekends, but he has been missing for some time.

The day after the election in 1948, I saw a copy of the New York Daily News on our kitchen counter, with the headline "TRUMAN WINS." My father (a Dewey supporter) picked it up and looked at it, and seemed to me to be completely baffled.

A friend named his Beagle Bailey, after the comic strip.

Nice '55 Ford.

Well, there are 3 other slams he can play in 2022 to hit the 21st title, and Roger won't be competing at all. Of course, there is the possibility that Rafa will be in shape to contest at Roland Garros, so the tennis commentators will be praying for a final between the two of them there to see which one gets to 21 first. Since he has already had COVID, he probably doesn't want to get caught in the [mostly political] argument between those who believe naturally acquired immunity is enough and those who believe in vaccination regardless of previous exposure (he hasn't said which position he takes). I'll bet he has political ambitions in Serbia after he retires, so I wouldn't be surprised if he found some other reason to simply not go to Melbourne.

I suspect he is searching for a wealthy patron rather than one hour gigs.

Spouse and I had Pfizer for all three shots, and had little reaction to any of them beyond a slightly sore arm. It almost made me wish I had more reaction, to know that it was the real thing.

Albertson's is the only market that sells the box-bags in Palm Springs. I use them all the time to carry bulky items.

I always take my own bags, most of which are Trader Joe's. The other day when I was in Von's (Safeway, to those of you who are not in SoCal), I heard the checker say to the packer, "Those TJ bags are really nice."

I forgot to mention that the only other dog we didn't rename was Duke, because he was 9 years old when we adopted him, and we thought he had earned his name by then.

I have sometimes acquired adult dogs and cats that already had names, but I usually renamed them. My Australian Terrier was called Snuggles, which I couldn't imagine calling out in a dog park; I renamed her Miss Jane, because she reminded me of my favorite author, Miss Jane Austen. When we got our black Persian cat, he was called Smoky, but he was so regal that we called him Cyrus (the Great). The only animal we didn't rename was a Greyhound named Guinevere, because she had already won dog shows with that name.

I'll say it again: "intelligence" means different things, to different people, in different situations. The assumption that it can be encapsulated in a single number is not very intelligent, IMHO.

Calvin Culver, of course, was one of the names used by Casey Donovan.

Although it would have been in character for me to name a dog after Mats Wilander, he is actually named after a very cute Swedish classmate of ours at a language school in Austria.

Ten years ago today I hired for the last time. I hadn't planned it that way, so I didn't recognize it as a milestone until much later. I had been hiring for over three decades, sometimes as often as a dozen times per year in the early years, but my hires had become much less frequent, since I no longer lived in a major escort hub and I was doing less traveling than when I was younger. It was not a "bad experience" in the typical sense. He was a mature, reputable professional, and the meeting took place in his room at a nice hotel in LA. However, after about twenty minutes, what started out as a hot sex scene transitioned unexpectedly into me holding and comforting an emotionally distraught man who could not maintain the pretense that he was enjoying what he was doing, and eventually I put him to bed and left. He called me the next day to apologize, and offered me a free appointment to make up for it, but I gently declined the offer. I didn't realize that meant I had passed the milestone. My attitude toward sex was always that it was a kind of sport. (The spiritually or romantically inclined probably would not agree with me on that.) Hiring an escort was kind of like hiring a pro to play one-on-one. But for that to be satisfying, the pro had to at least pretend that it was serious competition. I was finding it harder and harder to pretend to myself that I was still a player, and at some place in my psyche that experience had finally flipped a switch that was ready to turn. I'm still attracted to many of the pros on sites like Rent.men, but I no longer feel a need to actually have sex with them. Of course, I am still interested in escorts and clients, and wish them well, but I am cheering in the stands, rather than rushing onto the court to join them in the scrum.