My car history – Part 4 The Charger

July 6th, 2006

Several ‘riced out’ Toyota Corollas and Honda Accords are expecting an easy day on the highways.  They routinely zoom around big slow SUVs and cut in and out of traffic with ridiculous ease.  It wasn’t a fair fight.

But out of the rear view mirror comes a dark blue blur.  An alien design never seen on the roads before.  Its menacing gaping shark’s mouth grill growing ever closer.  The little engines in the Corrolas and Accords struggle but it’s no use and all they can do is get out of the way while the blur passes them by.  The driver, wears a pair of wrap around dark glasses sneers disdain as he passes by.

Ok, that never happened, but it could have.

I had begun my research on a new car six months earlier.  I needed a replacement for my Rodeo.  Isuzu had dropped the ball and replaced the Rodeo with the Axiom, a more expensive and smaller vehicle which to me was unsatisfactory.  So I made up a list of all possible contenders.

My list considered anything and everything.  I looked back at Saturn, at a Chevy pick up truck, a PT Cruiser, and even a Mercedes.

I had heard of the Charger but had not really considered it.  “I’m not a kid anymore” I reasoned.  I needed a ‘grown up’ car.

But the Charger had grown up.  The design looks like your father’s old sedan had taken steroids and now had a mean attitude.  Muscle Car purists argue that a 4 door sedan can’t be a true muscle car.  To which I say if ya want two doors, go get yourself a Pony Car.  The new Charger lives up to the spirit of a big American car with lots under the hood.

I kept looking and looking, hoping to find something that would catch my eye.  Somehow I kept circling back to the Charger.

On July 4th I got in my Rodeo and just drove until I was at a Dodge dealership.  I immediately had a salesman chase after me and start the hard sell. We walked the lot looking at various Chargers.

If I had to dramatize the moment in film, it might have looked like this.  Ok, that’s probably going too far, but you get my meaning.  And then he showed me my car.  That just sealed the deal right then and there.

So we got to haggling over price.  We went back and forth for 45 minutes and three salesmen did everything short of chaining me to the floor to keep me there.  Finally I got the price discounted and squeezed them for every penny I could for the trade in value on my Rodeo.

I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched my old Rodeo driven away, but the old cargo hauler was getting on in age, and each trip I took in it might have been my last.

I got in my new Charger and drove home.  I found myself in a dream like state.  Something akin to the science nerd who suddenly finds himself going to the prom with the head cheerleader.

“Was this really my car?”  The Charger handled like a dream.  The pungent new car smell mixed with the aroma of the leather seats.  I could dash past anything on the road, and had to restrain myself from going flat out on city streets.

The Charger was ‘the’ car of 2006.  Everywhere I went there was this “jaw dropping” reaction.  People would actually stop and stare as I drove past.

I came out of the supermarket and on the windows was a row of little nose and handprints where little kids had pressed up to look inside.  An older lady in her 50s at my office asked to sit in it because she remembered her boyfriend in the 70s had a Charger and this was way more comfortable.

Time has passed.  We have had many adventures and have spent many miles on the highways of Texas.  Mainly though I drove the 50 mile round trip back and forth for 4 years between my home and office piling up many miles.

I still have the Charger and I plan on keeping it for now.  I may however get something small for in town use and let the Charger out on the weekends to enjoy the rush of the highway.

 

My car history Part 3 – The black bomber

Zeitgeist is a term that gets bandied about when people try to sound smarter than they actually are.  So it’s no surprise that I’m going to use it here.

But there was a bit of a zeitgeist as far as cars went at the turn of the millennium.  SUV’s were hot!  Little one’s, monster one’s, military one’s.  Everybody seemed to want that oversized monster in the driveway.  We were still feeling the afterglow of the mid 90’s economic boom and we wanted that big car but we also bought into that rugged outdoorsy image that we were convinced could be bought at the local dealership.

6 Years out of college and I’m finally making decent money.  It was 1999 and I was ready for a small spending spree.  SUV’s were the big thing and I was ready for mine

I didn’t want those tiny ones like the Geo Tracker or the Suzuki Sidekick.  Those were for the teenagers going to the movies on a Saturday night.  I certainly didn’t want a Suburban as I had no kids soccer team to pick up and take to get pizza.  So I went the middle way and chose the Isuzu Rodeo with a shiny black glossy paint job.

My family was outraged.  “Those things are overpriced!”, “They flip over easy!”, “What about gas prices?”  Every reason under the sun not to get one.

But I had made up my mind.  It was a handsome design that Isuzu had come up with.  Refined from the days of the old Isuzu Trooper and Trooper II.  When Honda wanted to sink its claws into the SUV market it borrowed the design and slapped a label on it calling it the Honda Pilot.

For its size it could carry a massive amount of cargo.  Chairs, tables, boxes, anything you wanted.  It was soon a family and friend favorite for moving stuff.

The height advantage over normal cars was impressive.  It almost seemed you were floating high over the surrounding traffic and it had allowed me to wade trough the worst of tropical storm Allison.

Isuzu however had made two blunders.  Or rather they made one and I made one.  They installed a 139 hp V4 engine in the S model I bought, and I was dumb enough not to notice.

This engine struggled with the weight and was almost paralyzed when the air conditioner was on.  It was a bad, bad idea.  The truck lacked acceleration.  I called it the “black bomber” because after years of small cars that could zip in and out of traffic like jet fighters, this handled like a plodding old bomber.

On top of it there had been bad luck.  The Rodeo was and is a reliable design and if you look online or in newspapers you will still find old Rodeos with high resale value.  However I blew two head gaskets in 7 years of owning it.

Don’t get me wrong I still loved the old Rodeo, but after 7 years it was time.  So I began 6 months of research looking for the next car.

My car history Part 2 – Champagne

On a dark and stormy night I wound up in front of the Saturn dealership. Saturn was a fairly new car company at the time. The basic premise was to give people a higher level of customer service and a decent car without any of the typical high pressure sales pitches or haggling sessions that were the norm for car salesmen before that time.

My dad came along with me and gave me one piece of advice.  Get a standard transmission.  They will be much easier to maintain and cheaper to repair.

My main criteria was price. Just out of college and making very little money, I couldn’t be picky. The sales lady showed me a Saturn SL1.  The cheapest car on the lot with a standard transmission was a gold champagne colored car.  I mentally groaned.  A gold car.  I would have preferred dark blue or black.  I even would have accepted red or white, but gold?  In my mind only flashy people had gold cars.

Finally I decided that whatever the color was, I had to take it. After half an hour I had completed the paperwork and it was all set. Part of the down payment included my old car.  I had to dump some stuff out of my old car so I would return the next morning to pick up the Saturn. I have to admit I was reluctant to give up the old Nissan. You will always have a soft spot for your first car just as you will always be fond of your first love. So the next morning I took an extra long drive and took the car to the dealer.

Now something happened that nobody had thought of. I had no clue how to drive a standard transmission. I knew about shifting, and the clutch but had never done it before. The car made some terrible grinding noises as I tried shifting.  So starting and stalling, starting and stalling I slowly drove away from the dealership. I eventually got back home, parked the car, and walked away.  I was almost ready to return it right then and there.

Over the next few days I slowly got used to shifting. I found that I enjoyed being able to shift up and down and control the power.  The manual transmission suited my more aggressive driving style and the little 4 door sedan was truly nimble.

Overall it was a very well made vehicle and I found it had many features that previously were considered luxury items; power windows, AM/FM cassette, keyless entry, and a brand new airbag system.

The Saturn was a great new car for starting out after college. The car never had a single mechanical problem while I owned it.  Despite its gold color, I found it to be unobtrusive and not flashy at all. Yet it was sharp enough that I could take it anywhere.  After 3 years though it was time to make a change into something more substantial. It was time for the SUV.

My car history Part 1 – The Bat Mobile

Growing up in the 1980’s I found that cars had already become a necessity of life in Houston.  Previous to this I had hitched a ride to school with a friend who eventually discovered girls and was no longer available.  I then temporarily tried school buses and found the experience less than satisfactory.  By the end of my junior year I knew that I needed something to drive.  So hitting several used car lots I found a dark blue 1982 Nissan Stanza hatchback.

The car was already 6 years old by now and had over 60,000 miles.  It was thoroughly used.  The grey cloth interiors were somewhat stained, the previous owner had been a smoker and for some reason had melted candle wax in the center console.  This certainly wasn’t a “chick magnet” but for $1400 hard-earned dollars, produced by my time at the local supermarket, it was mine.

“Transportation!  That’s all you need.” is what my dad told me.

Driving home I passed by Sherry, one of my school mates, and she was kind enough to “ooh and aah” at the “new” car.  This was about the kindest thing that anyone ever said about that car.

Well it got me through high school, and more than that it gave me freedom.  Freedom to explore new areas, to get in and out of trouble.

I used the car to get me to public libraries to do research.  I was now able to work past 9 P.M. at the supermarket and make more money.  I could go to intramural science competitions in far distant parts of town on the weekends.

It expanded my social life of course.  Going to see “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures” with friends, going to the “Montrose” area (which at the time was a thoroughly disreputable part of town), drinking with my friends behind the high school at 1 AM (yes I was underage, and no I don’t approve of underage drinking or drinking and driving, I was a lucky 18-year-old punk that got away with it).  I remember driving a friend to the downtown post office at 11PM on a Friday night to mail off their application to Duke University and barely getting it postmarked before the deadline.  I once drove a girl to a pharmacy to pick up an emergency supply of insulin.  I packed a lot of living into that last year of high school thanks to that car.

It got me to college.  I stuffed every last inch of it with things I thought I would need at school.  It stood by while my mom cried her eyes out about “her baby leaving the nest”.  This was my classic American “leaving for college” moment.

But soon I was out on Highway 290 headed out-of-town into the open country.  The wide yawning vistas of the central Texas prairies opening up for me, seemingly a metaphor for the possibilities opening up for me in college.

My college friend , Mark, dubbed it the bat mobile (since Batman the movie had just come out that year).  Since he didn’t have a car it became the focal point of our social lives in that little outpost of civilization in the middle of nowhere.  We took trips to Houston or to Waco for a few hours sightseeing or for the weekend, for “laundry runs” home.  We went to Oktoberfest in New Braunfels our senior year.  I remember a ridiculously frightening lightning storm that we drove through once and the purple after glow of a bolt that struck just yards from the road as we passed by.

Through it all the car was getting beat up.  It had survived being hit twice by drunk drivers, people kept breaking off the car antenna, and the front axle had nearly rusted through.

This last was the worst.  Here I am in a college town, in my sophomore year in school, with very little cash to spare, and a busted car.  So I had to get it repaired.  With a lack of spare parts and in the middle of nowhere, the car mechanic took a full month to find a compatible front axle.  In the meantime I walked to school from my apartment every day, no matter what the weather was like.

The walking habit got so deeply ingrained in fact that even after I got the car back I continued walking to school no matter the weather (blazing hot summer day, in the middle of a tornado storm, or zero degree weather in January)

My last year in college.  By this time the bat mobile had 120,000 miles and had suffered another breakdown.   The transmission this time.  Using my last penny I got that fixed and finally graduated and got back to Houston.

By now the car has seen me through 5 years of service and now it took me to and from my first job.  The electrical system was malfunctioning.  I had to keep a wrench in the car to adjust the front windshield wipers after every rain storm.  A brake line burst and sprayed brake fluid on the red-hot front disc and caught the wheel on fire.  Everyday I was more and more worried about the car dying on me.  Each mile became a strain.  Soon I was at 145,000 miles.

It became more than clear that I could no longer go on this way.  I needed a new car.  It was 1996 and I heard about a new car company called Saturn.

to be continued.

Apocalypse lost

Throughout history humans have had a fascination with the end of days.  Like all good myths this originated from the time before the written word existed.  This seems to be a polygenetic invention without regard to religion, language, or geography.

Some psychologists opine that this obsession indicates a deep-seated disaffection with the status quo and a desire to begin anew.  Others feel that it is a way of exposing particular dissatisfaction with certain aspects of life and the need to reform those aspects lest they lead to disaster.

American culture is no different from any other about this fascination but we may have cornered the market on this peculiar pass time.  The Millerites of the 1840s was one of the first of these movements in America to predict the end of times and the first to fail (The event was aptly named the Great disappointment).

And it’s not just devout christians.  In my lifetime we have had three great non religious predicted end times come and go.  As I grew up in the 1980s everyone around me knew that World War III was a certainty.  It was only a matter of time.  We were all suddenly taken aback in 1989 when 40 years of cold war just crumbled away with a wall.

Y2K was the next secular doomsday.  The prediction that faulty computer coding along with the change of the millennium would lead us to a stone age existence as all computerized machines suddenly failed.  This turned out to be nothing but a sales bonanza for bottled water companies and freeze-dried food makers.

2012 was the latest and greatest of the doomsdays.  At least two cable TV networks spent the last five years basing the majority of their programming around a vaguely defined end date of December 21, 2012.  Survivalists cropped up again, buying up land in far off places and stocking up on supplies.  The local museum even had a special exhibit on the Mayan 2012 predictions that extended its tour long past the alleged doomsday and just recently closed.  The date came and went without a hiccup.

My question is what now?  We have seemingly run out of these expiration dates.  Some dates still exist out there to be sure, but none are as powerful or in the near future.  The world situation is arguably less volatile than the worst days of the cold war.  Global warming seems to be a somewhat ill-defined and unsatisfactory bogey man.  Will we create another date just because there is an unconscious need for doomsday?  Can’t we instead just begin to work on living and making the world a better place?

Comparative Myths I

(This is an updated and edited version of a post that I did years ago.)

Mythology defines who we are.  It is the way we explain and justify the way that we live not just to others but also to ourselves.  In its way it helps make sense of our world.  Myths have been there with us before written language was even developed.  They help define what themes and messages are timeless and can relate down the ages to those that come after us.

To understand myth it helps to understand a little about how humans spread across the globe.  Modern humans burst out of east Africa about 70 to 45 thousand years ago.  Why so vague?  Like most things that people do it was an unplanned.  Tribes, bands, families, sometimes just individuals went out from East Africa.  Some up the Nile River, some crossed the then accessible red sea land bridge across to Yemen and some across through Jordan.  A few settled in the lush green Sahara and eventually watched their dreams turn to dust.  This exodus deposited groups of peoples everywhere it touched creating the seeds of future cultures and languages

(Writer’s note: I seem to be out of order in these stories but I am saving some myths like the creation of man for a future post)

It’s interesting to note in the book of Genesis the tower of Babel story

 “The Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”  Genesis 11:9

One could make an argument of this being a perfect description of the scattering of mankind across the old world.

This also compares well to the Hindu myth of language in which a proud tree grew up to the heavens and scorned the gods telling them that its branches would cover all mankind and protect them from the gods.  Brahma, the god of creation, cut the proud trees branches and tumbled them down on mankind forcing them to scatter all over the world and confusing their language.

The Bantu of east Africa have a story of extreme drought and famine causing people to scatter looking for food and as they scattered their languages changed.  This may be the closest to the truth as the ancient savannahs of east Africa probably didn’t have enough food to sustain the growing numbers of early humans.

The common thread in all the stories is how an outside agent forces mankind to split up forcing a change in their languages.

Now, during this time humans are still simple hunters and gatherers.  They carry their belongings on their backs, and they’re not much better off than their immediate predecessors like Homo erectus or homo rhodesiensis.  The archtypal hero is going to be the wanderer, the nomad, the man of action that doesn’t think before acting.

The initial exodus east finally gives out in Pakistan or northern India.  Further smaller waves would continue east towards Asia and Australia but western culture would be founded in three vital areas, the Nile River, the tigris-euphrates basin, and the Indus valley.  These three valleys had the things that early humans wanted, a good source of food (both meat and vegetable), fresh water, and almost as important a moderated climate.  Moderate at that time anyways.

In time these valleys would spring up the first villages and towns and people began telling stories of what they knew.  One of the first would be a story about sibling rivalry and the rivalry between professions.

Cain and Abel.  On the surface a story of jealousy and the first murder.  But it illustrates the concerns of those early cultures.  We have the herder with his flocks, and on the other side the farmer with his fields.  Both need water, both need land, so conflict is inevitable.  Herding is the older of the two professions (probably adopted as humans traveled out of east Africa), so Abel the older brother is the herder and Cain, the younger brother, is the farmer.  In the story the farmer dispatches the herder signaling the rise of settled farmer over nomadic herding lifestyle.

The story itself has an almost direct parallel in the Sumerian story of Enkimdu (god of farmers) and Dumuzi (god of herders) trying to win the hand of Innana (goddess of fertility).  In that story however the herders win.  This possibly signifies that the Sumerian story was created earlier and during a time when herding was still a very important occupation.

The same story crops up again in roman times.  This time in the guise of Romulus and Remus the twin brothers that founded Rome.  Curiously though in this story both brothers are herders.  Possibly this relates to the fact that the Latin tribes that founded Rome were themselves migrants into this part of Italy and they still depended on their livestock.  Both brothers offered sacrifices to the gods to see who should be king, Remus seems to be favored but Romulus uses a land boundary dispute as a pretext and slays his brother to become king.

Among other topics that people knew well would be life, death, floods, disaster and I will cover these in another post.  I will end it here but I will note that these people were not all that different from us at all.  They lived in different times but they had the same basic concerns we do.  That they can perfectly relate to us how they dealt with issues in their lives shows us how similar we are.

Developing that which has been arrested

The legendary comedy series “Arrested Development” is returning after a 7 year hiatus to the internet.  For those that don’t know, this series follows the mishaps of a rich California family and how they deal with losing their wealth.  The story will pick up years later with what happened to the characters after the last episode in 2006.

This set me to wondering about the original situation that started the series.  How would someone else have handled the situation?  In the original series George Bluth Sr, the CEO and patriarch of the family, is arrested for embezzling, fraud, and ‘light’ treason.  The series continues as Michael, the middle son, tries to clear his father’s name and revive the family fortunes.

The government has frozen most of the family assets, and the family and business reputation are now somewhat worthless.  They need to move the spotlight off them and get a new business leader that can take the reins and move them back to prosperity.  In the series they pick Michael, but let’s say they go another route and trust an outsider to help them out.

First thing is to list the remaining assets and list all the liabilities:

Assets:

  • A business.  Somewhat inefficient, partly paralyzed due to the frozen bank accounts, and full of George Bluth cronies but still viable.
  • A model home.  Lacking plumbing, but structurally sound
  • A frozen banana stand.  Located in Newport Beach (although unknown to you, there is always money in the banana stand)

Liabilities:

  • The family.  Unbelievably corrupt, self centered.  They are their own worst enemies.  As board members and majority stockholders they are also your bosses.  Keeping them happy is your biggest challenge.

We obviously need working capital.  Your options are somewhat limited as you don’t have much to sell and your employees won’t work without paychecks.  As a CEO not related to the family your reputation should help secure working capital in the form of a bank loan.  Use the banana stand and/or the model home as collateral.

The business is your lifeblood.  You need to get started building and selling homes.  Luckily the real estate bubble is still underway (this was set in 2003) and prices keep going up.  You have a piece of land that the Bluths planned to turn into a luxury neighborhood (Sudden Valley).  Start by repurposing this into a starter home neighborhood and selling cheap tract housing.

Damage control.  The Bluth name is worthless.  The company needs a new name and identity.  Renaming the company from The “Bluth Company” to the “Blue Company” will help disassociate from that tarnished reputation.  In addition you can leverage the blue man group popularity to kick off the opening of a new neighborhood.  Jessie the publicist can be used for this.

You need to sort out some of the financial mess that George Sr. made.  Hire an outside group of forensic accountants to go through all the various transactions.  George Sr. hid money in various international and domestic accounts and you desperately need that money.  They will eventually find all the embezzling that the company accountant, Ira Gilligan, was involved in.

Get rid of Kitty Sanchez.  Not only is she George Sr’s chief confederate and lover but she is mentally unstable and pretty useless as an assistant anyways.

The legal mess will also have to be addressed.  Barry Zuckerkorn obviously has to go.  Wayne Jarvis is the most professional and least corrupt of all the attorneys that the Bluths know.  He can work on settling the blame for most of the embezzling on Gilligan and forcing the government to make its case for ‘light treason’ or withdrawing the charges.  However you don’t want George Sr. out too soon.  He will try to take control back again.  Keep him in jail but make sure the press knows he is fighting the charges.  Jessie again.

You will need more land to keep building homes.  Uncle Oscar’s lemon grove would be ideal except for tanks rolling through it all the time.  Some discussions with the local army base commander and with your local government representatives may get this problem resolved.  This acquisition would attract interest from more potential investors to expand construction.

The family.  Your biggest headache.  They could quickly vote you out on a whim.  Keep them happy.  As they were already skimming funds from the company, put them on the payroll.  Their social security numbers should be on file.  Issue them all W-2’s and claim them as employees.  With a steady source of income coming from you for doing nothing they will be less inclined to revolt.

But can they be useful?  Let’s briefly take a look at them.

Michael.  Already on the payroll.  Very competent and well educated.  He is a solid asset except when he gets entangled with family matters.

Lindsay.  A self proclaimed liberal, she likes holding charity drives to boost her image in the eyes of her peers.  Fairly useless, though she could be realtor if properly motivated.

Gob.  Extremely lazy.  He can run meetings and make presentations provided that the presentation is written out for him.  Fairly easy to manipulate.

Buster.  Not moronic as is widely assumed.  He has finished college and has done some graduate level work (although this may be due to the largess of the family).  He is very easy to manipulate and responds well to kindness

Tobias.  Not an actual Bluth but still a stockholder.  I suppose as a doctor (analrapist) that he is intelligent but he is pursuing an unrealistic dream of being an actor

The kids.  Maeby and George Michael.  Little to no value as far as the company is concerned.  Let them be kids.

Lucille.  The most dangerous one of all.  She could fire you in an instant or just as well try and manipulate the company away from you.  An alcoholic.  Keep her happy and buzzed as much as possible.  Above all stay away from her as much as you can.

George Sr.  As discussed he would try to regain control of the company.  If you can build a trust with him by making him think you are trying to get him out of jail he may reveal some things that you need to know about the secret bank accounts.

Uncle Oscar.  Useful only for his lemon grove.

Once you have passed the initial emergency and the SEC has lifted some sanctions against the company you can begin trading shares in the company again.  Line up some outside investors.  Lucille Austero or Uncle Jack for example.  With some manipulation you can get minor shareholders like Buster, Lindsay, Tobias, and Gob to sell their shares.

Once you have a solid majority in the boardroom you can engineer the ouster of Lucille as Chairwoman.  Once that is achieved you can push forward a merger with Sitwell Enterprises and receive a golden parachute as you see the real estate crash coming and don’t want to get caught in that mess.

 

 

 

 

Star struck, well almost

It was a cool Friday evening in April 1993.  I was in the memorial student center (MSC) at Texas A&M in the current periodicals room listening to some music and doing some surveying homework when the student manager announced it was 8PM and they were shutting down.

She swept us all out and I was stuck wondering what to do.  I wandered round the building looking for some empty space to crash and do more homework.  Usually on Friday nights I would go to Rudder auditorium to see a film sponsored by the film society but this week it was booked for some guest speaker.

From the second floor balcony overlooking the main entrance I noticed several well dressed older people were entering the MSC and guessed that the lecture was over and soon the place would fill up with lots of older rich people.  I decided to call it a night and go home.  I took a back staircase away from the crowds and figured I could leave by a side door.  As I stepped onto the main level I came face to face with her.

Margaret Thatcher stood an arm’s length away from me.  She wore a bright blue sequined dress that was nearly as blue as her eyes and was carrying a white handbag.  Without missing a beat or seeming surprised at all she said “Good evening, young man.”  All I could stammer was a “Howdy Ma’am”.

Her security detail wasn’t as cool though.  MI-6, secret service, who knows what they were.  All they knew was that a grungy looking man had just stepped out in front of the ex prime minister with a satchel bag under his arm.  I saw several hands reach into coat pockets all at once.  Luckily they were in a hurry and didn’t bother with me. As quickly as it happened it was over and done.

I was left standing there.  The crowds began reaching the spot where I was.  I was stuck in a crowd of important people who had probably paid a small fortune to hear this woman speak and none of them had been as close to her as I had.  Now I had to figure a way out of there.

This wasn’t the first time that I almost literally ran into someone famous.  A year earlier I was late for class.  I parked next to the football stadium and was running to get to class on time.  I saw an older guy with white hair coming straight at me.  He wore overalls and I guessed that he was maybe a groundskeeper or something.  He was walking and looking down.  All I could think was “Watch where you’re going, jerk!”

He looked up and smiled.  It was coach R.C. Slocum possibly the most famous person within 100 miles, and I had nearly knocked him down.  He walked on to wherever it was he was going leaving me somewhat amazed by the experience.  Then as an afterthought assistant coach Bob Toledo held a door open for me.

Have you ever run into someone rich and/or famous?  What was your impression?

thoughts on tablets and schools

I often find my mind wanders while on the trails and I start doing mental exercises.  The other day on the trail I suddenly found myself thinking about using electronics with public school kids.

Given that a school district would want to do this, how would it work?  What would schools want out of these devices and how would it be organized?

School districts have long wanted to switch over to digital media,  The One laptop per child (OLPC) initiative was popular in the last decade but really didn’t go anywhere mainly due to costs.

Might tablets provide a better answer?  The newest Android operating systems have revolutionized the mobile computing world, and the cost of tablet components have made cheap models easily available.  In addition the cloud computing concept has opened up vast territories of cheap and accessible online storage that for the most part lays unused.

Firstly all the textbook writers would provide digital formats of the student’s texts available either on SD cards or through cloud connections.  This would reduce text printing costs, allow for regional customization (so California students don’t have to learn what Texas students learn), and alleviate childhood back problems from carrying heavy bags.  Students could never claim that they left their texts at home or at school.  At the beginning of the year students could upload new texts and continue on without having to check out new books.

Homework could be digitally done and checked automatically in some cases.  Quizzes could be coded in and students receive instant feedback on their progress, as could their parents.  Alerts could be set up to be texted or emailed to parents if a student begins to slip.  parent conferences could be skyped saving travel costs and making appointments easier to keep.

Access to the internet.  Apart from learning activities this could help whole families get access to online resources that they would normally not have.  A study credit program would allow a student to use the unit for personal use only after their homework was marked as completed.

 

Challenges and possible solutions

Cost – Obviously.  a 9″ or 10″ tablet with a simple camera/microphone set up and 16GB of memory would probably run about $300.  Even with the school district helping to offset the costs, it would be daunting for lower income families.  Consider however that such a tablet could be used for 4 to 6 years and hold mutliple textbooks over time.

Theft – Whether from a local bully or professional thieves, it is a possibility.  Apart from physical markers on the case, a program could be included that would render the unit inert if tampered with or if reported stolen.

internet cost – obviously this program would require wireless broadband access, not just at home but in schools.  This would probably need government subsidies for lower income families. Internet providers might consider what they could do with economies of scales from suddenly having much larger customer bases.  It would also incentivize the construction of a more robust national internet network.

 

Anyways some random thoughts to expand upon at a later date.

 

 

The penny, the postage stamp, and other useless things that just might save the world

Convenience.  I hate it.  Well not really.  I will make use of the latest and greatest gadget, idea, or service to make my life easier.  But I also realize that these conveniences have a dual edge that can cut both ways.

Take online banking for example.  Convenient, fast, and relatively safe.  Most businesses and utilities will accept online payments and will even automatically deduct the fees from your accounts without you even needing to think about it.

The scary truth however is that our accounts (whether you use online services or not) are not that safe.  Major retailers have had card readers hacked, major online companies and even banks suffer through waves of attacks from thieves that probably aren’t located on the same continent.  Our safety lies only in numbers and in not standing out as a potential victim.

So how does this all tie into the inconvenient and analog penny?  So hated that some want to do away with it.  Nothing directly, but as a symbol of a bygone system it is powerful.

A tangible representation of your wealth expressed in metal.  No longer made entirely of copper as that metal is too precious to waste on a mere one cent piece.  Perhaps that says something more about inflation than it does about the coin itself, but we will save that discussion for another time.

Once upon a time you had to strap on a weapon, fashion a bandana into a mask, walk in and look your victim in the eye and drag off a heavy sack of loot with the local gendarmes in pursuit.  Now you can order a latte, while playing online games as your bank account gets fatter and someone’s account gets slimmer.

So should we run to the bank and get out all our money in pennies?  No of course not.  But neither should we discard the penny either.  Think about it.  Your savings, your paycheck, it’s all a line of numbers in some bank.  All those hours of hard work, all that scrimping, saving, and self discipline are now a string of code that can be easily erased or altered.  How insane is that?   All I can tell you is good luck, keep your head down, and think.

Similarly some folks are pleased as punch with emails and texts, and tweets and would like to get rid of letters altogether or at least curtail mail delivery.  Again the reasoning is sound as far as that goes.  I myself cannot work without email.  It’s basically all I do day in and day out.  One simple contract with a foreign client could probably would take weeks if not months to finalize by regular postal mail.  So why not just get rid of all letters and make the postal service just deliver packages?

Again, a letter is a tangible thing.  The thought that someone far away once held this very paper, that they took the time not to type and delete and retype but very carefully and physically record their thoughts in ink, that makes it special.

These inconveniences make life real.  They are not random 1’s and 0’s that can be altered on a whim.  Long after the hard drives are erased, and the last digital record gets scrapped these will remain.