I can really tell the semester is grinding along for another reason: my indifference to many things regarding my field. Sure, my interest in the historical end of it is as strong as it's ever been, and any time I find new footage or new airchecks or anything like that, I'm a kid in a candy store. But contemporary stuff, like I'm supposed to keep up with? I can't get into it. Intellectually I know I should be digging into the think pieces in the latest Columbia Journalism Review, keeping up with the latest developments in my field of teaching. But it doesn't seem to stick. I get enough of it to be conversant, and enough of it to keep my courses reasonably contemporary. But I feel inadequate, compared to my peers. Other folks in this field can talk about the latest developments, and where the future of journalism will be, until they're blue in the face. But I have no such aspirations. I'm too happy looking in the rear-view mirror. I'm much more interested in what Cronkite or Huntley said 45 years ago than in what's going on in the blogosphere.
:: Yesterday I talked about the internal debate about Baby's bent wheels, and what to do about it. That got me thinking about other possibilities for down the road when I'm able to divert a little money to other fun things, and can finally get started on a project car. Granted, I already have two project cars back at the old home place, but to be honest, I'll be content for a while if I can clean them up, stabilize their condition, put a shelter over them, then gradually fix them up. I'm more interested in their preservation at the moment. (What kind of shenanigans can you get into with a '79 Caprice, anyway, especially one you don't want to trick out?)
Nope, my thoughts turn to something smaller and more sporty. In my wilder moments, I've daydreamed about owning a Porsche 911. I'd have thoughts about finding a decent used one, old enough not to be too expensive but young enough to have plenty of life in it. (Also, old enough so that I can avoid the harsher end of our state's draconian property taxes on automobiles, especially those of higher value. That's part of the reason why I drive a nine-year-old car.) But three years of reading the tech questions in Excellence magazine put the kibosh on that. You're looking at parts and maintenance costs that approach those of a small aircraft. (That's a story an acquaintance of ours learned the hard way. He was all excited about the deal he got on a 944 -- until the car needed substantial repairs and he got the estimates.)
So I don't have the budget for that, I'm afraid. Instead, I've often looked at the other end of the German spectrum, the VW Karmann Ghia. It's a nifty-looking little car, and I've had a soft spot for Volkswagens for a long time, and its roots in the Beetle mean...well, you can figure it out. Or I've thought about an early Toyota Celica, one like Janet Guthrie drove back in the day. Where's it all going to head, if anywhere? I don't know, and it won't be anything anytime soon, if ever. But it's fun to daydream about. I stumbled across this really neat website last night, and that's not too terribly far from something I'd love to do.
Now what would I do with it? Would I go racing? I doubt it. I like to watch racing, but I don't like beating other people myself. I'm my own competition. I'd really be content if I could find a track, take some classes in high-performance driving, and see what I could do. It'd really be not that different from the stuff I was doing in the back yard 25 years ago on the go-kart. Only it would be more expensive, of course.
:: The big overpromoted festivus of football comes up this weekend, and brings with it another logo that looks like it should be on a beer can. I haven't liked the Super Bowl logos for a long time. They have looked progressively sillier. Nope, as a card-carrying nerd, I much prefer this proposal for a new Super Bowl logo.
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