The California Files

Déjà vu and Premonitions

I damn nearly cut a finger off t’other day. Again. Kind of annoyed me.

A few of you with really long memories might remember that back at the end of my freshman year in college, I whacked off part of my left thumb and the tip of the middle finger on my left hand.

Workin’ in the woodshop makin’ furniture, I was, got in a hurry. There’s an important lesson here: One does not ever hurry around power tools. Should one do that, one stands to lose pieces of himself. In one quick, messy hurry.

No power tools this time. Just a hatchet – an old Estwing. Got left outside by the woodpile, so it was pretty rusty. I’d brought it in, put it on my workbench and was working some oil into the leather-wrapped handle. Went off to do something else.

Consumables

You've no-doubt noticed that the price of gas has risen again. I certainly have.

And as I've written here previously, because of that, I drive very gently, to the point of hypermiling.

Basically, what that means is, I am very aware of the elements that my car uses that are consumed during that use. The biggies? Gas, brakes, tires.

This has been paying off because I routinely clock better mpg figures than the EPA established for my car, which is, of course, the definition of hypermiling. I usually beat those numbers by at least one mpg, and sometimes more. Not much, but worth something.

But driving gently has other payoffs. My car came due for a service this week, so I took it in - it's got 32,000 miles showing on the clock. I did so with some trepidation, especially as regards the brakes. Brakes on these things are expensive - last time we renewed the brakes on Laura's 5-series, it set us back 1200 bucks.

So I asked the guy about the brakes on my 3-series. As it happens, the sensors on the car look at this and send the info to the car's computers, which record it on the tricky electronic key fob. My brakes still have enough meat on them to be good for another 35,000 miles, according to that data.

Plenty of incentive to continue hypermiling, sez I.

-JFT

 

 

General Motors and Bankruptcy

I've thought a lot about the inevitable General Motors bankruptcy in the last week or so. I thought I’d provide a sample of what I've been thinking:

I'm pretty sure that the GM bankruptcy, as unfortunate as it is, is not the result of meddling by pointy-headed busybodies, bureaucrats, greenies or anyone else, as claimed by that pinhead P.J. O’Rourke in a column in the Wall Street Journal Monday. What it is, is the result of idiot execs at the company who haven't, since the late '60s, made a decent decision. It’s the result of consumers rightly voting with their wallets. And it’s also because society has changed.

Just cast your mind back to the point when innovation and quality seemed to stop at the Big3 – it was along about the mid-‘60s, about the same time for all three. No more Chrysler pushbutton transmissions or Hemis (until the latest “Hemi,” which in spite of its marketing pitch doesn’t have hemispherical heads), no more Rocket 88s, no more roll-down rear windows ala Mercury, no more fuelie Chevies. The manufacturers all came to believe that they were in business not to make cars, but to make money. They completely abandoned the notion that if they made great cars, they'd make money automatically. BMW works that way. So does Toyota, so does Honda.

Catching Up

OK, OK, I know I've been remiss in posting. Just trying to get used to a new reality, is all.

That new reality has me working different hours than I've ever worked before - I go in at 10 am and come home, supposedly, at 7 pm. Depends, though, on the work load. Sometimes I'm a good bit later than that.

That's completely scrambled my usual writing schedule, including the time I'd set aside to write. Get home too late, and too drained, to write; to early in the morning to do it.

That's my excuse, at least. I'll figure something out. I'd hate to just drop the CalFiles.

Truth be told, working as city editor is a challenging job with a much higher workload than I'm used to. Lots of stuff going on, and news to break just as we get close to the closing of deadline. Needless to say, the days rush by very quickly indeed. And I'm (mostly) having a blast.

I also know that I'm damned lucky to have a job. Many, many folks who practice the same craft that I do are unemployed, and the prospects don't look good.

So, fingers crossed.

More TK (to come, in newspaperese).

JFT

 

 

The Shopper

I'm a guy, right? (At least I was last time I checked.) So I'm supposed to be indifferent, at best, to shopping, right? 

And I usually am. Until it comes to shoes. I, uh, and don't tell anyone this, it's a little embarrassing, love shoes. I buy good ones, they last me a long time. Like, a decade or more. Makes it worthwhile to buy good ones. I probably have too many, but hey, so does Laura. Don't tell her I said that, OK?

Anyway, about a year ago I bought a nice pair of black slip-ons. Bought 'em at Nordstrom. Mezlans, they were, made in Spain. Very stylish. Very soft. Very comfortable. Very expensive.

Haven't worn them much - they're a bit on the dressy side, and usually I slouch around in a comfortable old pair of Cole-Hahn kiltie tassle loafers. But I wear these nice Mezlans every now and again.

I got them out yesterday to put a coat of polish on them and I found, to my horror, that the leather from which they're constructed is cracking. Caramba!

Took them down to Nordie's this morning expecting at least a bit of aggro. The guy in the shoe department looked 'em over, took 'em back, no questions asked. They're sending me a new pair. That's why I adore Nordstrom. Good stuff, good service. I'm not indifferent to either of those.

- JFT 

Back to Work!

I got word last night that this 60-day period of inactivity (professional inactivity, at least) is about to end. I've landed a spot as city editor at a mid-size daily not far from here.

What's a "city editor?" Well, the job can change a bit from paper to paper, but basically, that's the person who hands local news - "city" news, as opposed to regional or national news. It's the person who works closely with reporters to make sure that everyone is following assignments and that the resulting stories contain what they need to contain, and that those stories read in a reasonably literate fashion.

As you may know, these are difficult times for print media.  Lots of people have been laid off, papers are closing and the damage is far from over. So during this time of contraction, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have landed this gig. Especially since this is basically a day job. Some newspaper jobs - such as the editing gig I had a few years back at LA Times Community News - are night gigs. Swing shift, I guess you'd call it, with hours that can run from 2pm to 11 pm Tuesday through Saturday. Hard.

Newspapers constitute an incredibly satisfying way of making a living. So I'm thrilled and am anxious to bet started.

- JFT

 

 

Crazy People and Whitworth Tools

You have to be a fairly sick citizen to have Whitworth tools in your toolbox.

Whitworth is not a brand. It's a measurement. Seems that back during the Industrial Revolution, a Brit named Whitworth decided that life would be much easier if things like weights and measures were standardized. So he came up with a system to do just that.

He decided, for instance, how far apart rails for railroads should be. (In this country that was a mish-mash until during the war, when President Abraham Lincoln [drum roll, please] settled on the gauge that's used today so that the rails of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific would match as they built the transcontinental railroad. In case you're wondering, standard gauge is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.)

Another thing Whitworth did was decide on standard sizes for nuts and bolts. Nuts and bolts, of course, need wrenches and sockets. These graduated sizes, now superceded by better ideas, were known as Whitworth tools.

Kitchen Vs. Garage

You're maybe wondering how a kitchen could possibly compete with one's garage. And you'd be right to wonder. But listen, there are lots of ways. For starters, there's the question, especially in a house as old as this one (it's 82 years old), do we redo the kitchen or do we remodel the garage? Easy one, right? The garage, naturally! Cool work bench, lots of shelving, big stereo, an air supply to run air tools and inflate tires. Like that. Unless of course you're married, which of course I certainly am. So the kitchen won that round. Of course it did. You knew that.

But I've been home lately, as some of you may know (and if not, check this out), and since I sold my wonderful old Porsche last year - yes, I wrote about that here, if you're interested - for the first time in more than 20 years, I don't have a project - an old car or motorcycle - with which to occupy my time. I'd thought that I'd get along just fine without some contraption with which to fiddle, but maybe not. I may have to deal with this - I'm thinking maybe a 2002 or an Alfa. But in the meantime, the kitchen, by sheer dint of availability, wins out.

Plus, you know, there's food in the kitchen. Wine, too. Tools, including one of those mandolin thingies that have blades instead of strings, if you can imagine such a terrible and unholy thing. And back in the pantry there's about a million - point- five cookbooks.

Well, now!

We usually don't eat much in the way of an evening meal, but on Fridays, we do. Traditionally over the last - what, it'll be 27 years, this year - Laura has cooked something wonderful - and trust me, she's a monster chef. But she's working awfully hard and I'm not. So I've decided that on Fridays, I shop, then I cook.

I like the result. But I'm finding that I don't much care for the little, fiddly stuff you gots to do. Like today, for the Puttanesca sauce I'm doing, I had to peel tomatos. Peel tomatos?!? Yes. Don't want them nasty skins getting in the way of one's culinary pleasure, do we.

It's easy enough to do, of course. Soak those babies in boiling water for maybe 30 seconds, then shock their socks off with a bath in icy water, and the skins come right off. But this is not a process for someone with big clumsy fangers. Such as moi.

I think the result is going to be pretty tasty. But I'll be happy when there's another old crock occupying space in our garage for me to fettle. Going to have to work on that.

- JFT

 

 

 

 

 

"You Are Now Free to Move About the World."

Yes, we're now in the travel business. We've done this as an adjunct to Laura's company, Your Great Event. The name of this division is, naturally, Travels by Your Great Event.

We formed the company to supply cruise destinations to institutional clients. But here's the good part: We're also able to book travel for individuals - friends and family, in other words.

We're affiliated with one of the country's leading travel firms and what that means is that we have access to the very best prices for a wide range of cruises, hotels and other travel needs.

We've got an expert travel agent - some of you that date back to our mutual college years will remember Paul Aragon, a wonderful guy and a dear friend for all these years. Our agent is Ginger, Paul's high-powered and very organized wife, an experienced agent and also a dear friend.

So if you're thinking about taking a trip and want the best service at the best prices, just click on the link at the top of the page there at the right and check us out.

- JFT

Frugality: The New Extravagance

About a month ago, I wrote a blog entry called “Cars for Frugalistas” as one my last acts as blogmeister at Toyota’s Open Road. I opened the piece like this:

“You know what a frugalista is, right? It’s a person who manages to be stylish and hip, but who has learned to spend money very frugally and wisely – and who, as a result, manages to eat, dress and live well in spite of tough times.

“And now it strikes us that members of this disciplined set, the frugalistas, have presaged today’s new reality, a reality imposed on us all by difficult financial straits. The frugalista model suggests, in fact, that austerity – or at least very careful spending - is the new extravagance.”