Sometimes Weekends Last a Week

My weekend started last Tuesday with a run to the bar with Kroot, Raynor and a number of other affiliated fun Bentley kids. Needless to say before we knew it, closing time had arrived at one of the Irish pubs down the street and we were there with pitchers.

Thursday we were back at it playing bags over on Malbert St.

Friday I worked until 7 and drove to Raynor's place on lake Winnapasake (sp?) and had a few beer. We were up the next morning at 6:30 to get onto the Saco river in Maine, and by 10 AM everyone was feeling pretty good, except for Kroot who finished a 64oz. Madres that I allegedly made for him with a liter of Stoli.

In fact Kroot was in bad enough shape that he fell asleep by 1PM on a dragon raft towed behind the canoes. Raynor and I cut the two lines holding him on and watch him float down the river and get stuck against the bank. When we went to retrieve him he was starting to wake up as a result of being covered in mosquitoes and adventurous slug.

Other highlights included 4 rope swings, a bonfire and s'mores. We also successfully established that you can do a keg stand in canoes if you tie three together.

I got home Sunday just in time to find the living room set up and the new TV in place. It felt like Christmas. McCreary had arrived earlier that day and done all the grunt work with his dad. By 8 Ryan and Matt had come too, and after a bit we headed off for another night of closing down the bars.

Monday was a beach day in Gloucester. My proudest moment involved chasing a seagull who had taken a back of chips 800 feet down the beach and successfully retrieving them.

Tuesday I worked from home and headed to Fenway to see the O's get crushed. Matt C was crying in his beer by the end, and even the Sox fans that had been giving him shit were started feeling pretty bad for him.

Tonight I'm off to an SSC reunion at Kalah's house to catch up and watch this years ski movies.

I feel great, I'm just having a hard time staying awake at my desk.

M3 Fast, Prius Green: More Good News from BMW

Sad about Polar bears drowning? Full of venom because your girlfriend cheated on you? Worried about a dismal future where those fortunate enough to drive will own dung powered Tata Nanos?

Here's something to raise your spirits (a bit) -- BMW has rolled out a concept this week which primarily runs on battery and has the assistance of a small diesel engine. Not feeling any better yet? It has the 0-60 time of the current v8 M3, it maxes out at 155MPH, it can run 30 miles on battery alone, and when the juice is gone return 60-75MPG.

The bad news is that it's still a concept, it's made of a carbon-unicorn future fiber and it looks like a prop car from the seizure inducing speed racer.

The Triumphant Return of the Least Exciting Car in the World

After a long hiatus from Production, in 2008 Ford's turnaround expert CEO, Alan Mulally, decided to bring back the Ford Taurus. Rather than create something scratch however, they simply re badged the slow selling Ford 500. Sales remained lackluster and a second 500 based Taurus was made. For 2010, Ford is now trying a 3rd variant to recapture market share, and for something wearing the Taurus badge it looks pretty damn good.

For me, the Taurus name conjures images of getting driven to soccer practice and sitting in plush back seats coated in Cheerios and cheese curl dust. Surprisingly at the time however, the car was recognized as Ford's great hope, and a legitimate head to head competitor with BMW's 5 series. For most Taurus buyers however, what it really represented was an American made option to buy instead of the Accord, Camry or Volvo 240. A car that showed America could build something reliable, comfortable and easy on the wallet.

Now the new Taurus... Less a BMW competitor than a chrome covered Luxo-barge the 2010 Taurus is about as subtle as a rapper's Escalade. Tech options reserved usually for Mercedes, Audi and Lexus are on tape, as are AWD and Ford's new 365HP dual turbocharged EcoBoost engine. For Christ's sake the thing now comes with paddle shifters, once a hallmark feature found only on Masers and Ferrari's.

It is all a bit unsettling to me, but I am glad to see Ford trying something out of the box thinking and applying it to something people might but.

My true hope though is that Volvo will launch a counter attack and make a tarted up version of the so-boxy-it's-cool 240 wagon.

Caitlin of a broken home.

This weekend came to town for a bday camping trip that was rained out. Instead we spent our time catching up, making food and wasting time.

I was afraid it would be a little weird to navigate the waters of keeping mutual friends and for Caitlin's part she seems to be handling things as well as she could be expected to. Making things that much more tense, I knew that Meg was picking her up on Sunday so they could spend time together.

When Caitlin showed up, I wanted to be able to feed her vegan friendly food, so I made a run to the grocery store to get as many veggies as I could fit in the fridges crisper. I got home and started whipping up a salad, of course I had forgotten lettuce, which I did not realize until she was at the door. (Strike 1) In addition to raining out camping, the hurricane also made my 3rd roommate postpone moving in. He is the one with all of the furniture. The result? Another weekend without furniture, and no real legitimate place for Caitlin to sleep. (Strike 2) Finally, and there is the awkward issue of Meg coming up in conversation. After three years together and 5 years as friends it's strange to have her excluded from conversation. The result was an elephant in the room that kept me more than a little on edge. (Strike 3)

I am to a small degree living every divorce cliche from the Wire to Liar, Liar. Short of being unable to assemble an Ikea bunk bed set or missing soccer practice I think I fit the role quite well.

Today was also the ceremonial exchanging of left behind goods. I got some T-Shirts and a book back, she got "Franz Ferdinand: Tonight" out of my CD player where it has lived since May. Seeing her for a second in my foyer was like a punch in the stomach. It is the only time I have ever missed someone completely and wanted them gone so badly at the same time.

In some ways I may be be doing better, but everything I do still has a giant, neon "WTF!?" hanging over it that leaves me wondering where things went so wrong and how they can ever get better.

Redacted

After 8 years of not really knowing fact from fiction when it came to CIA and military conduct, several things have come to light in the last weeks that show just how totally fucked things were in the prime years of the now renamed GWOT (these days it's the Overseas Contingency Operation).

The first story which broke two weeks ago, and which continues to evolve is regarding Blackwater USA (now Xe), which for the uninitiated is the private army hired by the Pentagon to protect diplomats in Iraq, as well as other security operations. These are no rent a cops though -- comprised largely of ex-military, led by ex-special forces and commanding it's own air force and APC's Blackwater is in all right a full fledged army. If you'll recall they have had a very bad record of killing Iraqi civillians, and as it has now emerged during depositions, the former CEO may have actually demanded this behavior. According to former employees, the CEO and founder Erik Prince, believed he was part of a holy war against Muslims and allegedly went so far as to kill individuals in the US who opposed his doctrine.

While the track record of Blackwater as a protection agency is almost unblemished, the idea of such an idealogically motivated force operating in this, and other sovreign nations terrifies me.

The other story which continues to break this week regards the torture during the Bush years at so called "Black Sites" conducted by the CIA. A highly redacted report released by the Attorney Generals office confirms that the methods used went far beyond water boarding. High lights of detainee abuse include:

-Threats with power tools
-Threat of rape
-Threat of murdering and raping families
-Mock executions of other detainees
-Beatings
-Constriction of blood flow resulting in loss of consciouness

While these things are in themselves extreme, much of the document is not yet available and appears to be secret to prevent public and international back lash.

As the final icing on the cake, Dick Cheney who as recently as last month was asking that interrogation documents be released specifically to show that extreme measures were effective has been proven wrong. The documents he was referring to have been released, and rather than showing Jack Bauer like success resulting from torture, they show that conventional methods were in fact more effective.

It might not be until a long time from now that we know most of what happened during the Bush years, but knowing this much makes me glad that the neoCons are out of office.

Prius Killer from BMW? Yes, Please: Udated

In a wild and far off place called Europe, most of the vehicles are run off a magical potion called diesel. While the diesel of yore was smelly, worked poorly in cold climates and mostly used on large trucks, the people of Euroland have remedied this over the last 30 years, to create refined products some of which get over 100MPG with careful driving. In fact, almost every car in Europe is available as a diesel version which get 30% or better fuel mileage and come with the small downside of slightly less HP, but the huge upside of loads more torque.

And now the icing on the cake... BMW which started exporting the 335d (diesel version) to the US last year has come out with a smaller engined 320d capable of (drum roll)69+MPG. Even with normal driving, this means that the BMW is getting mileage significantly better than the 45-55MPG attained by a Prius or the new Honda Insight.

Not that I have anything against the Insight or the Prius, but if MPG was my motivator, and I had a little extra money I'd take the BMW. In Black.

As of Aug-26-2009 BMW has announced that the 320d is not for American tastes. I beg to differ.

A Birthday Eve Ramble on the Nature of Maturity

Last night I had dinner/beverages and Hookah with a friend that I have known since she was a freshman. As a freshman she was like some kind of feral drunken freshman animal. Sober she made little sense and seemed prone to tantrums. When exposed to alcohol she was all screams and insanity.

While I have seen her mature over the last 3 years, seeing her now, as someone with interesting things to say, a career and a remarkable new sense of self respect, I was stunned. I guess looking back to my freshman year, I was not much (or any) better. It still blew me away though.

What it really made me wonder though, is how will I look back on me in 3 years? With envy? Embarrassment? Pride? Shame? The fact of the matter is that who I am in 3 years will be nothing more than the sum of what I do with regularity in the mean time. Short of being an astronaut, in theory pretty much every option is on the table.

Too bad it's harder to dream at 24 than it was at 18.