Here’s the first video in the EV swap series. This covers just the first day: dropping the battery tray and pulling the power pack (well, lifting the car up over the power pack, which was much easier). I’ll work on the next video this week and post it next Monday.
I spent the majority of last week at Brian’s house working with him on his Scout EV project, which was fantastic. We got a ton of work done and are at a stopping point until we have more information from the wiring harness manufacturer and another guy who machines adapter sleeves and plates for the EV motor -> manual transmission.
I’m coming up with a checklist of stuff I have to shoot while I’m working, because I continually forget to do stuff like stop and explain what I’m doing and why. Upon assembling the footage for Monday, I realized I never had Brian walk through the history of his truck and why he’s tackling this project. Luckily we’re gathering for a workday this coming weekend and I can film him while he’s here for the next installment.
I came back Thursday night and spent a quiet Friday with Jen, which we both needed, while Finn was at a badminton game. And yesterday, while it rained off and on outside, I sat next to Finn while she caught up on homework and edited the first full day of the EV project video, which timed out at ~40 minutes. I’ve got enough footage to space these out for the next four weeks plus any truck updates I can get to this week. And at lunchtime I ran out and got my fingerprints done again and my CCL application in to the State Police, so I can be legal on the way to the range.
I had a Spotify playlist going while I was working in Brian’s garage and this tune came up, and now it’s stuck in my head: Phantogram’s Howling at the Moon.
I sat through the first half of my concealed carry class Wednesday, and found it informational—but somewhat repetitive. The instructor I’m learning from has taught qualification courses for forty years to cops, FBI agents and other security professionals, and knows his stuff. He knows I’m not interested in carrying for stupid reasons, and focuses on the responsibility that goes along with it. I’ll be clear: I don’t intend on wearing a handgun wherever I go. This is primarily to get ahead of the weird Maryland law loophole that says you can own a gun but can’t technically transport it to a range with just a regular HQL. Knowing the way this country is trending right now, I want to be as legally above board as I possibly can. And I intend on doing a lot of range practice with the Glock to become proficient.
On Friday I went back for the second half, which included the remainder of the class time and then an hour of range practice. He set me up with a SIG chambered in .22 and fitted with a silencer, which was a hoot to fire (not silent, but MUCH quieter than I thought it would be). Then I used my Glock 48 to shoot two-handed, then right, then left at 30 feet. He was very happy with my groups, remarking that they would pass the State Police qualification test. I did feel better shooting the Glock this time—the refresher on grip and stance was extremely helpful, and because I focused on using my right eye instead of switching from my left, I was much more successful.
He gave me some basic instruction, a training plan for proficiency at 30 feet, and a paper certification. So now I have to go back and get fingerprinted again, fill out the online form, and send everything in to the Staties.
Meanwhile, because I was up in the area, I stopped in to the mighty Andy Nelson’s for lunch on both days. God, I miss that place. The barbecue is as good as ever, and almost nothing has changed—although I was sad to read that Andy just recently left us a week ago. Godspeed, sir.
I found a new (well, published in 2017) game to play through the Xbox Game Pass—Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands. It’s an open-world FPS where you can run around to complete missions, command a squad of three team members, and drive various vehicles. It’s got some of the same mechanics that The Division does in that you can modify weapons and earn points to upgrade gear, but it’s not as convoluted to figure out as that title. There are, of course, plenty of missions to complete, which unlock new missions at greater difficulty. It’s been fun so far, but getting used to squad-based combat is a challenge when I’ve been playing solo for so long.
Well, that’s just great. United Healthcare, our family insurer, has ended negotiations with Johns Hopkins to renew their contract, which means that Hopkins is now considered out-of-network. According to an email from Hopkins this morning,
This is not about money or small administrative issues. United’s frequent use of pre-authorizations and care denials delays critical treatments, takes away time that Johns Hopkins doctors and nurses should be spending on patient care, and puts patients’ health at risk. We will not sign a contract that allows an insurance company to prioritize their profits over our patients’ health.
I’m much more willing to take Hopkins’ word on this than UH’s, given the stellar reputation insurance companies have these days. However, I would estimate 3/4 of our family’s current doctors are within the Hopkins system, including my cancer team. And my final checkup is scheduled for next April.
This morning, theoretically, I am on day one of my second sabbatical at WRI. I spent the last three months cranking on a big project at work and with a few small details left, got it over the finish line (more details on that soon). I’ll have to plug in for a couple of small meetings next week, but hopefully I can step away and enjoy the next five weeks doing some personal projects and seeing family—because in the fall, things are going to get very busy again. Brian is looking at a Nissan Leaf parked in his driveway and wants help disassembling it for his electrification project, and I’m hoping I can put in a couple of solid weeks helping him with that. I’d actually like to keep working on that through the winter because I am keenly interested in that project. And as always, there are projects here around the house to tackle, and I’ve got a red truck that I wanna get on the road before the snow flies. I’m also signed up to get my concealed carry license next week, and I intend to put some time in at the range.
I will never own a watch this expensive in my life, but watching this guy disassemble, clean, and reassemble an original Rolex GMT was fascinating. This watch is gorgeous, and would be everything I would want in a vintage timepiece. That bakelite bezel is beautiful—the rich color and typography are absolutely perfect, and the wear on the whole watch is just right.
I’m currently taking a class/working group for creative directors run by the CD at Ogilvy Canada. I found it through my social media feed and signed up for it on a whim. I was lucky to get WRI to pay for it (after 11 years, this is the first class I’ve asked them to pay for) and so far it’s been pretty good. The class size is much bigger than I was expecting, and there are a lot of people who are in the place I was after about two years at WRI—they had the title, had been doing the work, but are still trying to figure out how their role fits in at whatever agency/company they’re at. This Thursday we went through the creative brief and roughly half the class had never written or used one, which I found kind of shocking. But something I’m finding universal is the lack of any formal training or mentorship for this role; if you’re lucky you work for a CD somewhere as a design or art director and they show you the ropes. My experience involved little mentorship—I had to figure it out along the way, which has been the theme of my entire career. The class will run through most of my sabbatical but that means I’ll be able to focus on the homework better.
A small glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak world: Defector, the creator-owned website founded by former writers at Deadspin, is five years old and profitable, quietly publishing excellent journalism. I’ve been a member since they launched, and will continue to do so (as well as the Autopian). Today I’m adding the Baltimore Banner to this group.
Today’s ASMR: watching this guy drop the chassis out of a Karmann Ghia, disassemble the whole thing, cut out and weld new metal in, and re-assemble. No gratuitous talking, minimal music, and a lot of the tedious stuff sped up. I think I learned more about how an air-cooled VW was made in 20 minutes than I thought was possible.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH
ADHD comes with its pluses and minuses. Having a song stuck in one’s head on repeat can be enjoyable (for a while, at least) or it can be a slow, grinding hellscape. This week is one of those latter times. I do not know how these two cocaine-dusted sex pests got stuck in my head, but here we are. This damned song floated across every AOR radio station in the mid-70’s that covered the yacht-rock playlist, which meant I heard it constantly as a child. And now it is trapped in my skull, imploring some poor woman to take a walk on a beach in a cloud of Hai Karate and Marlboro Red smoke.
Look at those two. Look at them. Would you let them drive away in their Monte Carlo with your daughter?
Here’s a cool site to check out over coffee on a Sunday: Historic Aerials is a Google Maps-style interface where you can look up your address and walk back in time as far as they’ve got aerial photos of it. They also have topographical maps which typically go back much further. For our house, the earliest photo is from 1957 but the topo maps go all the way back to 1894.