neonvincent

I looked at the following video, then decided not to use it in either The science of catalytic converters, part 1 of why catalytic converters are being stolen because it was weak on science or The economics of catalytic converter theft, part 2 of why catalytic converters are being stolen because CNBC and Inside Edition had more up to date videos.

I decided to not use the following two images for CNBC explains why the pandemic caused a bicycle boom, plus a double driving update: Pearl and Snow Bear because it was taking me too long to write the post and I had to cut them for time.

My comments on:

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( five entries from seven years ago behind the cut. )

Today I'm posting a video of my last performance with the UCLA Solid Gold Sound, the 1980 Mirage Bowl in Tokyo between UCLA and Oregon State University.  Here, I'm merely a tuba player, although I think I was also squad leader.  I did not teach the flags for this game, although I did select them.  Instead, one of the sisters who designed the uniforms did.  I think the acting director (remember, F. Kelly James is in the hospital supposedly recovering but actually dying from a stroke at this time) appointed her, but I'm not sure.

She later replaced me as flag instructor, which was somewhat of a surprise to me, but I had prepared for the possibility for other reasons.  Remember, I wrote that the personality of the band changed when James fell ill and that I became less and less welcome there.  I decided to get out at the end of my fourth year instead of sticking around for another semester.  That required me to appeal a class that I had failed twice.  The appeal succeeded, so I was able to leave in June 1981 instead of December 1981.  However, I didn't tell anyone at school, so I reapplied for the position.  The idea was that I'd appoint a different member of the flag line to be my assistant, quit over the summer, then have her succeed me.  That didn't work.  What did happen was that the sister who taught the flags in Tokyo came up to me at a Spring flag practice and gloated that she was now flag instructor (the two of us hadn't gotten along in years by this point).  I replied that I wasn't going to be instructor, as I was graduating (that was the first time I told anyone at school).  That took the wind out of her sails, as she realized she wasn't taking anything away from me.  That incident confirmed that I had done the right thing by graduating when I did.  It was time to leave.

As for the performance, I had said that it would show the band's continued transition to corps style.  The opening and closing of the show are tunes that either would work for a drum corps (Overture in B flat) or are drum corps standards (Appalachian Spring).  The middle of the show is still a standard theme show (Disney, which the band did for the opening of Tokyo Disneyland).  There are a few places where squads of four still appear, but they're nearly invisible elsewhere.  As for the sound, it was miked by a bunch of guys in white running around the field.  The good news is that the band is loud.  The bad news is that it screwed up the balance and at first the timing.

The video shows the entire halftime, which is nearly a half hour long.  OSU's performance took up nearly 27 minutes, which I didn't remember taking that long.  UCLA's show starts about 26:50 and ends about 35:30.  We prepared a normal length halftime show.  Afterwards, both bands form the word Mirage and play the Mitsubishi Mirage car jingle (I remember that) and then "YMCA" and "America the Beautiful" (I forgot that). We then marched into a Sigma Lambda formation, which stood for other cars Mitsubishi made (the game was an advertising event for Mitsubishi) before leaving the field.

That's it for my adventures with the UCLA Band for now.  If more videos from my time with the band become available, I might return to this series.  In the meantime, happy holidays!


 

I ended Driving update for December 2013: My car by postponing making good on a promise.

Also, I made a promise at the end of the last report.

Yes, I bought this car in October 2003. I have a story about that, but I'll save it for the next report, along with why I named my car Yuki. Stay tuned.

I'm going to take a rain check on this promise. These look like the kind of stories I would write to post while I'm traveling, which I might do over the next two weeks.

Instead, I explained the name of my wife's car.

It's late and I'm tired, so I'm not up to it. Besides, this report is about my wife's car, which I call Ruby (my wife doesn't give her cars names). I gave her that name because of the car's color and because my wife and I are fans of "Once Upon a Time," which had a character named Ruby, who is really Red Riding Hood, for the first two seasons.

Well, my car turned over 220,000 miles today, so it's time to tell her story.

My previous car, a Nissan I called Molly, died in October 2003 after she turned over 210,000 miles during a drive back from an anime convention in South Bend, Indiana, although I didn't realize it at the time. I heard the engine knocking, which it did when the oil was low. I put in two quarts of oil (!) and continued driving home. Within a week, I had to put in more oil, and the engine began to sound just horrible. I took it in for service, and found out that all the seals had blown and the engine was getting ready to throw a rod. That was the end of my driving Molly. I had to get a new car.

About this time, one of the local Kia dealerships was advertising its deal. "Got a job? Got $100? Get a new Kia!" I qualified, so I rented a car and drove over to the nearest Kia dealer and got Yuki. It wasn't even the right dealership, but that didn't matter. I picked out a car from the previous model year that had a rebate to entice people to get it off the lot. I was able to roll that rebate into the down payment and was able to drive Yuki home without paying a cent. Ah, the long-gone days of easy credit!

As for Molly, the dealership accepted her as a trade-in worth $50 and had her towed away. At least I was able to get scrap value and free towing. Best of all, Yuki's interior looked exactly like Molly's. From the inside, it was as if I had just gotten a newer version of the same car with an automatic transmission. As I wrote back in 2011 and again in 2012, it was a concession to comfort and age.

When I needed to buy a car, I got a Kia instead. It got 32 miles to the gallon, but it was an automatic. I was willing to sacrifice a few miles to the gallon so that my left foot and right hand could rest. Yeah, I'm a sucker for convenience, too.

At least it wasn't the Aztek my son wanted me to buy. That would have been an environmental and economic disaster.

As for the name, my younger daughter suggested Yuki after Yuki Saiko, a character in the manga and anime "Silent Mobius." The character's image is the one I used at the head of this entry. It's the same one my younger daughter downloaded as a wallpaper on the computer I owned at the time. Why Yuki? In addition to "Silent Mobius" being a mutual favorite of ours, my daughter picked her out as the kind of woman she'd want for me; she was sweet, pretty and owned a coffee shop.* Yes, I love my coffee. Besides, the artist who drew the manga was named Kia Asamiya. My daughter wanted to name a creation of one Kia after the creation of another Kia. It stuck and that's how a Korean car got a Japanese name.

...
Now to celebrate my finally following through on something I've been teasing since March 11, 2010, when I was still posting these updates on my LiveJournal, I present the opening to Silent Mobius. Yuki Saiko appears at 0:45.

*Yuki wasn't my favorite character from the anime. That was Lebia Maverick. Even so, people who know the series would understand why a real person like her would have been a bad match.

**That was the day the renewal of my car registration was due. It was also my ex-wife's 65th birthday. That's as much as I'd like to think about her, thank you very much.

Adapted from Driving update for April 2014: Yuki, a longer entry at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

I completely missed reposting any of my posts from Crazy Eddie's Motie News for March on the Nablopomo theme of Whether. Bad dog, no biscuits. I'll get around to organizing and posting linkspams from last month eventually. In the meantime, I'll resume my regular weekly summaries of the Nablopomo posts for April. This month, the theme is poetry. Here's what I wrote on April Fools Day.

From Nablopomo on BlogHer:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?
POEM
In honour of National Poetry Month in April, we've made the theme POEM -- which can go in a multitude of directions. First and foremost, you can try your hand at writing some poetry. We'll be presenting a few fixed forms as well as prompts for free forms. Make a personal goal to write a haiku-a-day, write an entire post in rhymed couplets, or argue the merits of Pinterest... in sestina form.

We'll be writing about our reactions to poems -- which poems have come up at important moments in your life? Which poems do you return to again and again? Which poems have changed your mood, given you comfort, or made you want to be a poet yourself?

We'll spend the month looking at reflections of poetry in nature and social situations. And we'll be featuring YOUR poetry weekly. So get your poem on.

When I first read the theme and description, I considered not participating, as I'm not big on poetry. I especially had a hard time squaring the theme with a blog about sustainability, science, and politics, although "poetry in nature" might work. Then I realized that there were some forms of poetry that I liked, limericks and song verses. Most limericks wouldn't be fit for a family blog, but I can always find a good song for my posts. So, I'm participating again this month.

The songs that I've featured so far are:

• "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby in Nablopomo for April: Poem
• "Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas in March was a heat wave for Detroit and other cities
• "(Nothing but) Flowers" by The Talking Heads and performed by David Byrne and Thomas Dolby in Post 500: (Nothing but) Flowers at TED
• "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley and performed by CNN anchor Robin Meade in Olbermann on Letterman with bonus Dirty Laundry
• "Let the Good Times Roll" by The Cars in Auto sales up and that's no April Fools
• "Ignoreland" by R.E.M. in Rachel Maddow: Michigan is now Ignoreland
• "Why" from the album "Mystery to Me" by Fleetwood Mac in The first year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Part 3 of several

There will be more next week, as I already have another post up.

Happy reading and happy listening!

From Nablopomo on BlogHer.

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?
BEGINNINGS
January 1st is a blank slate, and you can make the year anything you want it to be? Leave your job and embark on a new career. Open that blank document and start that novel you always wanted to write. Join that online dating site, signup for a new class, or close your eyes and point to a place on a globe to plan your next vacation.

Beginnings can be scary, but as the adage by Lao-tzu goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." You can take a single step, right? And after that, it's just putting foot before foot, taking your new journey slowly and letting it unfold at its own pace. Along the way, blog about your experience, not only so readers can follow along, but so that you have a record of how far you've come any time you feel yourself falter.
...
So what are you beginning this year? If you can name at least five things, it means you have at least five blog posts inside of you. And if you can do five posts, you can certainly expand that and do an extra 25 or so.

I have no problem popping off a post a day, as blogging about sustainability and politics in Detroit means never running out of material, so I've signed up again. I'm one of only two politics bloggers there, and the other one has already missed the goal of posting every day. Is this it? skipped the 3rd, 4th, and 6th. Yay, me.

On that note, here are the posts with the beginnings tag from this week.

Nablopomo for January 2012: Beginnings
This one has two versions of Chicago's "Beginnings" one from Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire, and the other from the 27th Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps.

Occupy the Rose Parade, plus an astronaut on gardening in space
I love the Rose Parade, space exploration, and Occupy. I couldn't resist all three in one place.

2012: The Mayan Apocalypse? Yeah, right
Prepare for a year of DOOM!

Last night was the beginning of the primary/caucus season for 2012
And a year of politics, too.

WXYZ begins its North American International Auto Show coverage
This is a Detroit blog, after all.

Governor Snyder sued twice this week
Good going, Nerd.

New beginnings for two Metro Detroit transit projects
21st Century mass transit is "not dead yet!"

And that's it for this week.

I'll be able to walk to see this.

Chevy is preparing to celebrate their centennial at the Dream Cruise.