Vintage Roadster
Reply
This little beauty pulled up across the street from my local coffee shop this morning and I had a few words with the owner. Don’t know if restoration is the right term for what happened here because he seemed more in tune with the spirit of the original (at least the original street version) than creating a perfect reproduction. This started out as a four-door!
I was delighted to hear him say he drives this every day and the interior (very cozy) looked nicely lived in.
Tom Boman, VP Operations, Learfield Sports
Tom Boman is Vice President of Broadcast Operations for Learfield Sports. He and the people that work with him are responsible for all of the game broadcasts and coaches shows for many of the top colleges and universities in country. He’ll be overseeing broadcasts for 130 schools this fall.
Based on my 40 years in and around radio, I’d say sports play-by-play announcer might be the most coveted — and hard to get — job in broadcasting. And Tom knows as much about what it takes to land one of those jobs as anybody. If you’ve ever wanted to be a “sportscaster” or know someone who does or if you just like listening to sports on the radio, you might enjoy this interview. It runs 20 minutes.
AirPods: First hundred days
I am not an audiophile. I thought the AM radio (WLS) music coming out of the dash speaker on my Ford Falcon sounded pretty damn good. During the 70s I wore headphones four hours a day. I lived through the refrigerator sized speaker era. It all sounded good to me.
But the music never sounded as good as it does coming from the tiny Apple AirPods. Is that perceptual? Maybe. But all music is perceptual unless you have a spectrum analyzer implanted in your head.
I’ve never heard better, more natural, separation. I was listening to CSN&Y (on the highway) this morning and could hear acoustic guitars in my left ear (for lack of a more scientific description). Even that little raspy sounds made when the fingers are dragged along one of the base strings (?). I could shift my awareness to the base in my right ear. (Channel is a better word, isn’t it?) And the vocals were somewhere in the rear-center of my noggin.
It feels like I’m hearing these songs for the first time. I know, I know… this is old news to you pros with the big cans clamped to your head. And good for you.
I’m seeing more AirPods here in the coffee shop every week. If I’m familiar with the person I ask how they like them and why they decided to give them a try. Usually some variation of the story above.
There are probably a lot of good reason NOT to try AirPods. That they’re made by Apple is not one of them.
Is it getting harder to write good spam?
I never look at the email Gmail flags as spam. I just delete it, or let Gmail delete it. If some non-spam email gets tossed, no big deal. But this morning a subject line caught my eye. “Stop Sending Me Your Photos!”
This struck me as mildly clever. Someone is sending a stranger my photos? Gadzooks! — or — Did I mistakenly send photos to wrong person?! — or — I better let Jackie know it wasn’t me sending her photos.
I don’t know why it is so hard for some people to ignore ALL email from strangers? Do such come-ons tap into some latent loneliness?
It occurs to me there are people whose job it is to craft email messages and subject lines that will entice recipients to open. I’d love to get half a dozen of those folks in a room for a discussion. How’d they get into that line of work? Where do you get your best ideas? Can you always spot spam?
Cars too precious to drive
I had lunch with my friend and former co-worker, Phil, a couple of days ago. Phil is a polymath in the truest sense of the word and one of the smartest guys I know. And he owns a 1970 GTO that he restored so I wanted to get his thoughts on my Great Land Rover Adventure. He asked if I planned to keep my MINI and expressed some concern when I said I did not. Why would I need two cars, I asked?
A little background. Phil spent countless hours and not a little money restoring his GTO. His first car as a teenager was a GTO so it has a lot of sentimental value. So it’s a lot more than a vehicle for getting around town. He certainly wouldn’t drive it up and down the gravel road that leads to my house. There are other considerations, of course, but I got the strong sense that ‘having’ the GTO is more important than ‘driving’ it. (Another co-worker has a restored ’67 Camaro and it stays in the garage most of the time, too)
When Mr. Wolf locates that perfect Land Rover (and fixes it up), I’ll have no such investment. No sweat equity. No ’skin in the game’ as they say. It will be the only vehicle I own. If it gets dusty and dinged coming up my hill… well, so did the MINI. If it gets dented, I’ll have it fixed.
Who knows, perhaps I’ll come to feel differently about my Land Rover after a while. But leaving it in the garage while I drove my ‘other’ car would feel like keeping my dog in a kennel and only taking her out for a walk on weekends.
“Meditation is awareness”
I have some bad habits and a couple of good ones. Perhaps my best habit is daily mindfulness meditation. I sit on a cushion for 30 minutes (sometimes as long as an hour) and concentrate on my breathing. That’s it. That’s my meditation practice. It’s the best half hour of my day.
And I haven’t missed a day for the last 271 days, tying previous record. My longest streak is 371 days. I’ve been practicing meditation for years but didn’t start keeping track of my sessions until November, 2014, when I started using an app called Equanimity. It times my session and keeps a simple log.
That first streak (371 days) was broken due to a bout with pneumonia. I started over and made it 271 days before I missed while out of town at my 50th high school reunion. So now I’ve set my sights on 371. If I can make it to September without missing a day, I’ve not a new streak. And I will have only missed two days in the last 1,000.
I can’t control the quality of my meditation sessions but I do have control over whether or not I sit every day. Which is important to me.
Title quote from Meditation Now or Never by Steve Hagen
1965 Land Rover Series 2A 88
Mr. Wolf continues the search for my Land Rover. He’s still focused on a Defender 90 but based on recent conversations, we’re broadening the search to include the Land Rover Series models. Produced by the British manufacturer Rover company, this model was inspired by the US-built Willys Jeep. Fun facts: In 1992, Land Rover claimed that 70% of all the vehicles they had built were still in use. And all three of the Series models could be started with a front hand crank.
This Series 2A is a good example of the iconic Land Rover look that makes me weak in the knees. And check out the dash.
I’m no kind of handy with with a wrench or a screwdriver but even I get a warm glow when I look under the “bonnet.” Someone said when you lift the hood of a Land Rover you can see the ground. Sigh.
Series model or Defender 90, I’m confident Mr. Wolf will find the right Land Rover for me. I’m eager but in no hurry because the search is at least half the fun.
An EKG in every home
The Kardia is a tiny ECG (or EKG) reader that works in conjunction with your iPhone to give you heart-rate readings.
Universal Theory of Cool
“To sell something surprising, make it familiar. To sell something familiar,, make it surprising.” Some interesting ideas on what makes something cool. Runs 4 min.