Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

A moment's notice

I read in the local newspaper the lone surviving passenger in a fiery Tesla Cybertruck crash back in 2024 is finally officially suing Tesla. The lawsuit puts the blame on the manufacturer for creating a death trap. Tesla vehicles famously use electrically actuated door handles, rather than the physical mechanical linkage. Federal safety laws mandate a manual failsafe, but inside Tesla cars the backups are rather hidden. One can understand that in a fiery panic, one isn’t in the best of mind to locate the functioning backup.

Certain model doesn't have manual door releases at all in the rear passenger compartment!

The Cybertruck crash is an absolute tragedy. Notwithstanding the utter lack of wisdom by the teens in getting into a 1,000 horsepower 6,000 pound missile whilst under the influence. At 3:00 AM in the morning. Were the teens in any other normal combustion vehicle, I think they’d all survive. Mangled, sure, but very much alive. A normal car would have had physical door releases that actually work, no matter if the vehicle is in a blaze.

I don’t trust it, these electric actuators. It’s unsettling to be at the mercy of a computer and electricity. Besides, is Tesla even saving any production costs? Rules dictate a secondary mechanical backup. There’s essentially two releases for every door. That doesn’t seem very economical from a cost-of-goods standpoint.

This is why my car is a Volkswagen Golf from 2019. It’s got mechanical everything, down to the emergency brake handle.

I feel bad for the sole survivor. Not only does he have to deal with the long healing process, but he’s also suing (the estate of) his former friend - the driver who is now dead. His entire life trajectory upended by a moment’s folly of late teenager. Who amongst us hasn't done some stupid shit in our time? At that age, no one ever thinks of the downside in the moment.

Patience, young Padawan

Ever since I purchased my new-to-me 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI last October, I’ve been doing small jobs here and there every weekend. The downside of buying a used car is that there’s bound to be existing blemishes and inconsistencies. The upside is obviously you save a bit of money buying second-hand. Though I didn’t really have a choice: if I wanted a seventh generation GTI, used is the only game in town.

I’ve no interest in the LCD-screen festooned eight generation GTI currently on the market. Car interiors should have physical buttons and dials, and I will gladly die on this hill.

In the process of fixing up a car, you kind of realize things about yourself. I found out that I tend to dive in without a care. Rambo-ing it. Leroy Jenkins. The consequence of this is that I’ve broken a few parts that I wouldn’t have otherwise. No big deal in the grand scheme of things because thankfully the Golf platform has parts a plenty - VW has sold millions of them. Nevertheless, I’ve learned that I got to be a lot more patient.

The enthusiasm stems from me wanting to get the job done as quickly as possible. Because I am chasing that sense of accomplishment after the work is finished. There’s nothing more grating to me than leaving in the middle of a project to tend to the human stuff. Like going to bathroom, eating, or going to bed. My personality is such that open-ended loops are crushingly stressful for me.

Owning the GTI have slowly weened me off that affliction. Because there’s nothing I can do about waiting for a replacement part to arrive. It’s already bad enough that I broke it in the first place, but then I get to stew in my incompetence and impatience. I’m not rich at all to pay for overnight shipping. Ever so slowly I am learning to tolerate - hopefully reach peace someday - open-ended loops.

Owning brand new cars is way less stressful for sure. But then I wouldn’t have learned a lesson about myself.

There's another problem

For the obsessive compulsive, buying a used car has one big advantage: it comes already imperfect! Having purchased three new cars in my life thus far, I can say the agony of that first flaw - usually a curb rash on the wheel - hurts a metric ton. The car is no longer perfect, and it is all my fault.

A used car solves that problem. The previous owner(s) blemished the car already. It’s physical impossible to keep a car perfect, short of trailering it from the factory right into a hermetically sealed, climate controlled garage. Forever.

Sadly, the compulsion to keep something perfect rear its head in another way. A few months ago I bought a used 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI. Ever since delivery, I’ve been fighting a battle to refrain from making it perfect again. Existing curb rashes on the wheels? I should buy a brand new set. The leather steering wheel is excessively worn? A replacement isn’t that much money. What’s another interior trim piece to “fix” the unsightly scratches?

See the problem? Instead of obsessively trying to keep a new car perfect, I am instead obsessively trying to make a used car perfect. Both are bad, I do not recommend. Soon as they figure out a pill for this malady I shall be first in line.

The financially conscious part of me is doing its best to keep the spending in check. The goal is to have a functioning car, properly maintained. Perfection is optional. Replacing wear items like perished rubber window trim is entirely appropriate. Replacing an interior button because the lettering has worn down? I shall not go that far. Not in this economy.

I will be replacing the wheels on the GTI. Because one of them is bent. I’ll allow the extravagance of buying four new wheels, even though I could easily buy just the one to replace the broken rim. We car enthusiasts sure love new car parts, straight from anywhere, not just Japan.

Stop it. Get some help

Headlines are buzzing about the high price of new cars. The average transaction price for new vehicles in America is now over $50,000. The average monthly payment for a new car is nearly $750. As is the wont during these high inflation times (why would Joe Biden do this?), people are grumbling about the ever increasing cost of personal motor transport.

I do not have an ounce of sympathy for this situation. The beauty of the capitalistic system is that it takes two to proverbially tango. Sling all the greed accusations you want against the automakers and dealerships: car buyers still have to sign on the dotted line. The Truth in Lending Act dictates that consumers are given complete information on exactly what sort of loan they are contracting themselves for. No excuses.

The average new car may be selling for over $50,000, but a perfectly fine Toyota Corolla sedan can be had for $22,275 starting. It’s got power everything, and Apple CarPlay. And because it’s a Toyota, it will last forever with minimal maintenance. Now you may say that you need something bigger for your family. That’s a want, not a need. The Corolla is equipped with child seat anchors in the rear. For sure it’s not as convenient as a Toyota Sienna minivan, but do you have $40,120 starting for a Sienna?

New cars aren’t expensive - the cars people want to buy, are. If stretching your wallet for that three-row SUV is going to be financially difficult, then perhaps it’s just not in a cards for you. No one is entitled to a fully-loaded SUV with all the trimmings. Consumers’ unwillingness to purchase within their means isn’t the fault of the banks or the automakers. Let’s not strip agency - and blame - from fully functioning adults.

I will however get on Porsche’s case for raising prices so dramatically over the last year…

Too dark too soon

While I greatly enjoy this time of the year of cold and coziness, the whole getting dark super early thing is not the business. Who really wants to be commuting to work in the dark, and then heading home also in the dark? If they ever manage to get rid of daylight savings time, I hope they keep the set time to be whichever provides the most sunlight hours towards the end of the day during the winter months.

Because when it’s dark outside but it’s only 5:00 PM, I feel weird eating dinner at my normal 7:00 PM hour. We’ve evolved to equate darkness with sleepy time, so it’s disconcerting to be two hours into darkness only to then start making supper. If they ever manage to make permanently below-ground living a thing with artificial sun technology, I hope they keep a consistent sunrise and sunset hour.

Perhaps I should move to somewhere on the equator. Word on the street is $100,000 USD can buy a Thailand residency visa.

You how when you buy a brand new car you tend to be super careful about it? Agonizing over the perfectly harmless parking space, and worrying about the slightest hint of dust laying on top of the painted surface. This motivation to keep something perfect - is it rooted in evolution, I wonder? Did caveman get traumatized from a lightning strike destroying their once intact cave facade?

What we do know is that nothing keeps perfect forever. After the first rock chip on the hood, or the first scrape from another parked car, we tend to relax into not caring much about the car anymore. The solution then is to buy used cars instead of new. Second-hand vehicles already come pre-blemished! Who cares if I chipped the wheel on a curb - there’s already existing rashes.

What you don’t want to do though is to fall into a trap of making a used car “perfect” again. That scratched interior panel because the previous owner hauled something carelessly? Leave it be. Even if a replacement panel is only a hundred bucks or so.

Fine, I'll do it myself

At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the post-credit scene shows the villain Thanos putting on the Infinity Gauntlet, exclaiming, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

Thanos understands that if you want something done correctly, you indeed do it yourself. I would also add that it’s the same if you want something done timely. Those of us on the control-freak side of the spectrum can’t bear the uncertainty of waiting for someone else to perform what you want done.

It’s no big deal of course if the stakes are low. The horse I’m on isn’t high enough for me to look down upon the Starbucks barista making me a cappuccino. There’s no worry whatsoever the job won’t be done quickly and correctly. Unless I’ve pissed off said barista during the initial interaction. Then I should expect something unsavory added to the mix.

When the stakes are higher, so is anxiety that stems from the uncertainty. I recently purchased a used car. It comes with a limited 100 day warranty, so of course I took it to the dealership service to check things over. The inspection report returned some items that need addressing. No big deal, right? Surely the dealership can coordinate with the warranty company to get it all sorted.

Except it’s been an entire work week, and there’s yet to be any movement since the inspection. I’m not placing blame on either party here. It’s taking a long time, nothing I can do about it. Except - to do the work myself. The warranty items were cheap enough and easy enough to DIY that I went ahead and ordered the replacement parts. Over this very weekend I swapped them in. Now I can rest easy knowing the problem is fixed, and I can move on to the next.

Endless anxiety

Back in the olden days when I used to build by own PCs, I can kiss my sleep goodbye if anything inevitably goes wrong. I simply cannot soundly sleep until a problem is fixed. The graphic card is giving out errors? It’s got to be remedied, even though it’s currently 2:00 AM in the morning, and the end is still not in sight. This is why I exclusively use Apple Macintosh computers now: reliable, with a warranty.

Imagine me owning a home, and the washer goes out. It’s too bad there isn’t a 24-hours Home Depot!

This inability to calm down until a problem is solved can’t just be idiosyncratic to me, right? I don’t know how to explain it. Impatience is the wrong word for it. It’s definitely anxiety, but for what purpose? Life is but an endless stream of problems - good or bad - for us to solve. The fallacy is that I seem to think there is a some happy equilibrium to reach, that once reached, everything will be okay forevermore. That’s of course not how it works.

It’s the wrecking my sleep that I find alarming. No amount of Buddhist breathing methods can calm my mind down for slumber. (Medical options, perhaps?) It doesn’t like open-ended questions. I recently sold my BMW for another car - a very simple and easy transaction. Even that, I had difficultly sleeping over the two days when the transaction was ongoing. I cannot relax until the thing is finished.

The new-to-me car arrived with some minor things to be fixed. (That’s typical when you buy a used car.) Cue up another bout of anxiety and sleeplessness! I fully understand that parts and shop time literally cannot happen overnight, and yet the anxiety over an “unfinished” car remains ever present. I just want to get it done and move on - but to what? Like I said earlier, life will only keep throwing problems at you to fix.

Am I then destined to suffer from anxiety continuously? On the flip side, isn’t it good to have things that make you want to get out of bed to solve? Tricky one, this.