Blog

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

Damn it, why can't I just drive?

I am indeed that person who implores people to drive their cars, that vehicles aren’t meant to be permanently stored in climate-controlled garages, that superficial blemishes give character to a car (those sweet patina points), and it’s okay for it to not be as perfect as the day it rolled out of the factory.

I am also the person who is supremely obsessive compulsive about keeping a car as perfect as possible, and the two diametrically opposed ethos create quite the friction point for me. There’s not a lot I love more than taking the GT3 out on a long drive: music on to accompany the melodic rumble of the engine, and with no particular destination in mind. But, as soon as a set of loose pebbles get pelted onto the windshield, creating fresh pockmarks, that’s when the agony begins.

So much for putting miles on cars and embracing the patina. Given the opportunity and resources I’d totally park a car forever in a my living room and polish it with the finest baby diapers and extra virgin tears.

Admittedly my car OCD was immensely worse back a few years; these days I’m much more accepting of flaws and scars from normal wear and tear (or self inflicted extracurricular wear and tear). I’d thought buying a used car would alleviate some of the compulsions, given the car is innately imperfect, and the first few cuts (if you will) have already been done. Contrast that to the brand new vehicles I’ve purchased, where it was an utter mental drain to pay attention to each and every weird sound, and thinking the worse of it. That pothole I ran over? The car is ruined!

Turns out I’m equally obsessive with a used car, and worse, I’m being OCD about blemishes that weren’t even my fault! Isn’t that just the most pathetic: I’m letting things done to the car by the previous owners bother me. He put a scratch on the steering wheel leather - that bastard!

Obviously I’ve been fighting myself to not be so caught up with the GT3’s imperfections, whether or not they were caused by me. As long as the car remains clean and mechanically sound, that is all I can and should ask for. The GT3 is a driver, not a museum art piece; though the process to be completely at peace with that notion is going to take some time. The work continues.

PSA: cars are meant to be driven

I don’t have much of a morning routine, other than laying on the bed for at least an hour (I work a late shift) while browsing on the phone. It begs the question: what did we do before the smartphone was invented? Go back to sleep, probably.

Amongst the places I visit during my hour of sleuthing is the daily Bring a Trailer newsletter. In it is a list of auctions that are set to expire that day, and another list that shows the latest cars put up on the block. I can easily lose many hours looking at each auction page, reading through the descriptions and comments. It’s especially fun when peculiar and interesting cars come up for sale, a great way to learn about models I wouldn’t otherwise have known existed.

Some of the cars up for auction can also be immensely frustrating. Case in point, from yesterday’s newsletter this particular gem of an Acura NSX started accepting bids:

An absolutely pristine 1994 model with only 187 miles on it. Supposedly a super-rich car collector bought it (and many, many other cars) new and stuck it in a climate-controlled warehouse forever. This particular NSX, for all intents and purposes, was never driven.

That is just the worse kind of sadness for a car enthusiast.

I noticeably groaned as soon as I opened the auction page; what a great shame such a legendary car didn’t get driven, and likely won’t ever be driven. Indeed, for those looking for the most sparkling sample of a first-generation NSX, this one is the ticket, but it’s going to be appropriately expensive due to the insanely low mileage count. The buyer of this car isn’t wont to put miles on it because the depreciation will be catastrophic. This NSX is worth so much because of the low miles, so each addition mile put on it will have exponential consequences to its value.

The auction winner will simply stuff the car in his own garage until another point in time in the future, where the car will be sold again for even more money. Car as an investment, nail on chalkboard to my ears.

Ideally, the person who buy this will not care about depreciation and simply drive it until it’s mechanically infeasible. That’s what cars are meant for, and the route I would go if I had the sufficient resources to bid on this NSX.

But then if I were looking to buy an NSX to drive, the smarter play would be to purchase a nice sample with 30K-40K miles: it’d cost significantly less money, and the car will be more mechanically sound. A 25-year old car that have sat since new – with zero service records – is going to require an enormous amount of maintenance done before its viable for the road. Think of all the perished rubber and gaskets that haven’t seen a heat-cycle in decades.

Obviously, how a man uses his cars or spend his money is none of my concern, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be disappointed in seeing cars not being use as its intended function.

A man and his castle

When I was in my twenties, I was completely into the urban city life. Having grown up in one, I love the density, the hustle and bustle, and how accessible everything is. Living in secluded suburbia was just about the dullest thing imaginable; there would only be the house, and nothing else. Give me the city, and the all of the lights.

Presently in my thirties, and properly “adulting”, my perspective on that has been changing. These days, peace and quiet is what I’m after, and ultimately a castle to call my own. I don’t want to hear the busy sidewalks and too many cars driving by; I don’t want to fight with the crowds and wade the troubles parking; I don’t want to pay the high tax for living in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

I want open spaces, and dead silence.

I want the proverbial cottage at the countryside.

Too crazy of a dream? Perhaps. The immediate and biggest concern is what the heck am I to do for money. I refuse to be amongst the masses who live far away from the urban core, yet still commute for hours every day back into the city for work. That’s a significant amount of precious time to be squandered on the road, even in these modern times of endless podcasts and super intelligent cruise-control.

But those people do the commute slog for a reason: the city has almost all the jobs. It wouldn’t be so prosperous and constantly full of new developments otherwise. No doubt they’d all rather work much closer to home, but deep in the heart of suburbia or rural counties, there are no high paying jobs.

For me, the solution to that problem is the Internet, in the way of digital freelancing, or join a company that will allow work from home. With the cost of living ‘out in the sticks’ immensely less than metropolises, I wouldn’t even need to be earning as much as I do now for it to be sustainable. Besides, aside from cars (admittedly a big one), I’m not in the least materialistic about anything; I don’t need a huge salary to be absolutely content.

It’s definitely something to ponder about. I certainly cannot afford a house in or anywhere near San Francisco, so if I really want a place for myself – can’t live with the parents forever, no matter how Asian I am – I think I’ll have to get out from this city.

Hot hatches are awesome

I have indeed seen the light.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI is universally known for being the best all-round car for the money, an indefeatable combination of power, sports, and utility. If you need one singular car to do everything in, and you’ve only got around $30,000, the GTI is the definitive answer.

Which explains my excitement a year ago when my brother brought home a brand new 2018 edition of the GTI. I’ve never driven one up until then so I was eager to get a taste of what everyone’s been raving about. For sure it seats four adults in comfort, and the boot can swallow a surprising amount of gear; but does the Golf GTI really live up to its sporting acclaims?

Initial impressions were a bit of a disappointment. Yes, the power from the 2.0-liter turbo four is wholly sufficient, and the torque shove is tremendous fun on urban routes. However, it’s when I took the GTI through some corners where it started to baffle me: it’s very quick through the turns, but to my hands it felt numb and sterile. It was as if there’s a filter between my inputs and the car’s reactions. The GTI is an adequately fast car, but as is from the factory it’s curiously lacking in driving thrill.

It turns out, the culprit was the tires.

A few months ago my brother had an unfortunately run-in with a serious pothole, and the left front tire got obliterated. A perfect opportunity to swap the stock all-season tires for a set of proper summer performance boots. I recently got a go in the new setup, and the GTI’s dynamics have been utterly transformed. The car was simply let downed by the stock tires.

I finally got to experience the genuine joy of driving a hot hatch. Armed with a sticky set of tires, the GTI becomes incredibly playful and alive. The turn-in is just mega: jerk the steering wheel with abandon, and the front-end responds with seemingly endless grip. Mash the throttle out of a corner, let the limited-slip differential do the work of finding purchase, and the GTI rockets out with the gobs of available torque. The amount of confidence in the front axle so high, it beggars belief it’s front-wheel drive.

Combined with a good manual gearbox and nicely spaced pedals for heel-toe maneuvers, the GTI, when fitted with good set of tires, is an absolute revelation. I can now see why people adore hot hatchbacks; I might need one of my own.

Spring has sprung

It is proper Spring season here in the northern hemisphere, and all I am wishing for is the rains of winter to not make the jump to the new season. Ever since I bought the GT3 back in January, I’ve been beset with inclement weather, and due to the sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires the car is shod with - tires that don’t work worth a damn in the cold and damp - I’ve been unable to really push the car to its insanely high limits. I might as well could have wait until now to purchase the 911, and it wouldn’t have made much material difference in terms of driving.

First world problems, yes, but I do live in the first world (extremely lucky to do so), and it is a problem for me. Life goes on.

So I hope the coming months will provide more opportunity for some proper motoring fun. California is officially out of drought conditions, so perhaps it would be fine to not have so much rain again – kidding not kidding.

The weird thing about working at a university is that during the typical spring and fall breaks, all of he students and faculty members are gone for holiday, but us staff have to still be at work. It’s especially odd for us service orientated staff, because without regular classes going on, there simply isn’t much for us to do. In order for staff to get the same break, we’d have to use our own vacation time. This year I’ve drawn the short straw, and will be holding down the proverbial fort whilst my colleagues are away.

Not that I could afford to go anywhere after putting down the enormous sum for the GT3. Since then any spare change has gone towards the car, be it for petrol or maintenance items. Indeed, I’d be in much better financial situation had I not made the purchase (as I was before), but again there’s but this one life to live, and sometimes you simply have to forsake the contingencies and go for it. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Not to say I’m “car poor” by any means, but the monthly outlay for the GT3 has been and is significant. Which is why I need to weather to cooperate so I can make all the monetary pain worth it.

Bring it on, Spring; don’t disappoint me. Please?

I just need all of this to go away for Spring.

My first ever CD have expired

A few days ago I received a surprise cheque in the mail (we like those!). Sadly, it wasn’t some rich benefactor wanting to support me in my creative endeavors (please support my Patreon - just kidding); rather it was from TIAA bank. My first ever CD account - a 5-year CD - has come due, and the final cheque signifies the account closing. Five years have indeed gone by already.

And what a difference five years make: my expired CD carried an interest rate of 1.90%, which was the absolute best one can do in risk-free account, at a time when savings accounts were only giving out 0.70%. Fast forward to today, I’m comfortably getting 2.2% from Ally, and long-term CDs are into the 3s. Shout-out to the Federal Reserve for finally raising the base borrowing rate these past few years.

You’d half expect me to go on some cliché tangent about how five years have gone by in a blink of an eye, and that it seems like only yesterday that I’ve just opened the CD account, but that is the completely opposite of what I’m feeling right now. What an absolute slog the five years have been; I went through an intense period of transformation, from my mid-twenties of still finding my place in this world, to now in my thirties, wiser yet still massively unlearned, and seeking to improve every single day. When you start to look at every single day as its own challenge and reward, your reference of time slows down significantly.

I think time goes by quickly when you’re directionless and bored. It contradicts somewhat the popular saying of “time flies when you’re having fun”, but I can only speak from my experience. When days are filled with salient tasks and good habits, the time well spent acts as a defense against pangs of emptiness and waste. You think time have gone by fast precisely because you regret not having done more during that particular timeframe. I actively fight against that.

Anyways, with interest rates at somewhat healthy levels, I’ve no plans to roll the money from the closed CD to another 5-year term. I prefer as much liquidity as possible (outside of retirement accounts), and not having to chase better rates frees up extra money to be funneled into my other investment vehicles.

Cheers to the next five years. May that end date also creep up on me unsuspectingly, but in the best possible way.

Where's the EV infrastructure?

The past few weeks I’ve been writing about automotive industry quickly evolving to mass electrification. The annual Geneva Motor Show confirmed that is indeed where auto manufacturers are heading, and very rapidly. Fairly soon we’ll be seeing electric vehicles all over dealership lots, hoping to find a good home that will hopefully be fitted with an appropriate charger.

And there lies my only contention with electrification: the charging infrastructure, or lack thereof. Lots of automakers are talking up plans for electric vehicles on a massive scale, but none I can see are discussing the other side of the equation. Gasoline-powered cars have gas stations; where’s the convenient equivalent for electric power?

Some will point out “refueling” stations will be obsolete because owners can charge at home; but what if you don’t have a home? My apartment certainly does not have any sort of provisions for charging, and neither does my workplace. You can give me an electric vehicle for free today and I’d have no practical way of using it. Driving to a charging lot to then wait many hours to “fill up” a car seems like a tremendous waste of time.

Owning a home isn’t in my future, not with the historically astronomical homes prices in the San Francisco Bay Area. Basically, I won’t have the ability to charge an electric car at the place I’m living in, and if manufacturers want to sell me one, they – or someone – need to build out a charging network facsimile to the traditional petrol station. Ideally I should be able to visit a charging station, and fill up the batteries in less than 10 minutes.

Automakers are coming in hot on the supply side, but without a proper infrastructure, will the demand side be there? Up until now, most people who have purchased electric vehicles own a home, therefore capable of installing home chargers; that’s certainly the case with owners I know personally. If electrification of the automobile is indeed the future, then those of us not lucky/rich enough to own a home will need a different solution.

Perhaps this massive infusion of capital by automakers into electrification will be one huge waste of money. I don’t think we can yet know.

Then on some days you just want to pig out.