We’re a few days away from election day, Tuesday November the 8th and I hope everyone out there takes some time to vote.
If you’ve been ’round these parts you know, more or less, my politics.
Regardless of them, I hope everyone out there takes the time to look into the various candidates and issues presented on your local ballot and, even more importantly and as I said above, takes the time to vote.
I may not agree with all issues from all/any candidates, but not voting is simply not an option. At least for me.
So this past weekend they had the annual Miami Beach Car show and the wife, daughter, and I headed out to experience it.
Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting all that much and I’m not needing a new car anytime soon but I was curious to see how many of the car companies would display/promote their electric vehicles.
I’m of the opinion, by the way, that we’ve already crossed the threshold into EVs and that the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles are already a thing of the past… even if it may take a several more years before that transition is complete.
Anyway, to my delight, it turned out Florida Power and Light (FPL) was presenting several EV models and the people at the event were able to drive in them. Not drive them, mind you, but sit in the passenger seats while someone drove you around a small track.
We got to experience several models and this is what I found…
Hyundai Ionic 5
This car was available to be driven in two different areas, one devoted to the Hyundai vehicles and another at the aforementioned FPL section. We drove in the Hyundai section and while in that area they didn’t show the car’s acceleration (this was part of the FPL show) I found the Ionic 5 a great ride. It was very comfortable and had plenty of bells and whistles even if the two monitors it had were a little small compared to what I have in my Tesla. The car’s range seems slightly less than the Tesla as well but truthfully not that much of a difference. I can say this car, the first we rode, was the one that impressed me the most.
Polestar 2
This was the first car we were driven in on the FPL track and, as I mentioned above, they had a small area where the drivers did a hard acceleration followed by some tight turns and I liked the car but honestly wasn’t wowed by it. That’s not to say it was a “bad” experience. It just felt like I was riding in a Volvo and if you like that, this car is for you but it felt a little too old fashioned for me. Otherwise, though, a nice car!
Rivian R1T
I’m not into pick up trucks, though I have family members who are. Having said that, this was the car that impressed me the most after the Ionic. Very comfortable and smooth ride and an insane acceleration. I like SUVs so even if I wouldn’t consider getting this pick up truck model, I might in some future time consider their SUV.
Cadillac Lyriq
A nice vehicle but, as with the Polestar, not necessarily anything that totally blew my mind. Comfortable, roomy enough but my understanding, from the driver, was that this car won’t be released until next year and the one we were driven in is one of only 16 prototypes currently on the road and/or at shows. I imagine the car is close to being complete but as it stands now, not bad at all.
Mustang Mach E
The last car we were driven in was the Mustang Mach E. As we were waiting in line to ride in it, I must say that was the one I felt might be the most disappointing. Why? Because they had models of the car on the floor for display and, frankly, sitting in the car I found it disappointing. It felt a little too small in the rear passenger section and I found the front seats and displays only ok. So, as I said, going into the ride I figured this wouldn’t be good. I was wrong. Sitting in the front passenger seat, there was plenty of space and the car rode really well. Acceleration was insane on this one although the driver really pressed down hard on the brakes as well. Quite a shock!
…however…
That was my view from the front seat. My wife and daughter, in the back seats, said it was a little too tight there and they felt this was the smallest space available of all the EVs we rode that day and therefore weren’t quite as positive about the experience.
*****
There was a Lucid, Porsche, and Hummer EV at the show as well. The Lucid for some reason had one guy showing it off outside the Convention center (were they too late to get a floor space?) while the Porsche and Hummer were inside the Convention Center but were closed and could only be seen from the outside. They all looked very nice but without being able to either sit in them or ride them, all I can say is that they looked nice parked where they were.
So there you have it.
I strongly suspect next year’s show will feature an even stronger EV representation!
It has been a very long while since I’ve posted here and for that I’m sorry.
Those who have been ’round these parts know that things have been rather… rough… of late. I don’t want to keep repeating things, but scrolling back through the most recent posts of the last year/year and a half will tell you what you need to know.
In some ways, it feels like I’ve been floating about life since the events of June 24, 2021. There is a paradoxical feeling that my sisters and I are trying to settle the estate of my parents and, because of that, I haven’t been able to fully acknowledge the loss.
I might have noted this before but there was a Sunday a while back, perhaps some two or three months ago -this is another thing I’m noticing, time is so damn fluid and one day seems to blend into the next- where I woke up feeling quite good.
I felt like my old self and found myself smiling and enjoying the day more than I have any day since the collapse of Champlain Towers South and the loss of my parents.
What stunned me more than anything else was that in feeling relatively “happy”, I was able to realize just how down/depressed I have been all this time. The good feelings, alas, didn’t last beyond that day but at least having an understanding of those feelings has made me aware of the need to do things to try to get myself out of this pit.
Unfortunately, there were many things related to the estate that had to be dealt with. I don’t want to go into those things too much, but suffice to say the process is long and difficult but estate issues are being resolved, one at a time.
So after a month or more of not coming around here, I’m back. I’ll try to make up for lost time as best I can but, as was the case for the days between my last posting and now, I can’t guarantee too much.
For those who enjoy my writings, during the past month I worked on and completed -from my end, for the most part- a new project which hopefully will bear fruition in the next year. It’s something I can honestly say I’ve hoped to do in collaboration with someone I’ve known for some 30 years now and he’s a terrific talent and deserves to be better known.
Maybe this project will help make that a reality.
I’ll be speaking with him later today and we’ll see what happens!
There is perhaps no other figure that has endured in the public spotlight as brightly as Queen Elizabeth. Her passing yesterday at the age of 96 drew understandable media scrutiny, but what surprised me the most, though it probably shouldn’t, was an article that stated some 90% of the people alive today have lived while she was queen.
Queen Elizabeth, it should be noted, became Queen on February 6, 1952, meaning that she held the title for an incredible 70 years.
As I noted, a figure that has endured in the spotlight for so long… its going to be strange with her presence no longer around.
I first read this story about the possibility of Australia’s Somerton Man mystery being solved over on CNN in the below article, written by Hillary Whiteman…
As someone who is fascinated by reading about so-called “unsolved” mysteries, the Somerton Man one was on my radar for many years.
Way back in December 1, 1948 a man’s body was found a beach outside of Adelaide, Australia. He was fully dressed and the first people to spot him thought he was sleeping. Soon, it was realized something was amiss and when examined, it was realized he was dead.
There were no identification papers on him and, as time passed, no one came forward to identify the mysterious man nor were any reports of missing people tied to him. In the end and over the years, police were unable to identify him and for well over 50 years who he was remained a perplexing mystery. The story gets a little more elaborate, involving re-examining his clothing and finding some bizarre seemingly coded notes, a suitcase found at the train station, and a book with a ripped passage which apparently belonged to the Somerton Man.
Anyway, thanks to DNA analysis of hair strands which were found on the Somerton Man’s plaster “death mask”, it appears the Somerton Man has finally been identified as Carl “Charles” Webb, an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in Melbourne in 1905.
Mr. Webb did indeed appear to “disappear” at roughly that time and there appears to be no information about his passing anywhere to be found. Further, his estranged wife was living in this general area at the time and it is possible he was on his way there to try to meet her.
So all those lovely theories of the Somerton Man being an international spy or other such devious ideas seem to be washed away with a more mundane reality.
If indeed Mr. Webb is the Somerton Man, the big question that remains is how did he die? The original examination was inconclusive and there remains thoughts that he was poisoned but, again, nothing was found to prove foul play.
The Somerton Man’s body was exhumed as part of the examination process so perhaps that mystery will also be solved in time.
…and I’m sorry for the dearth of posts for -gasp- something like a month now!
The past month has been, emotionally exhausting.
Issues regarding the collapse of Champlain Towers South -and the death, among others, of my parents- has moved to its end stages, and the family and I have been incredibly busy getting everything readied.
There are two stages to the various lawsuits: First is the value of the lost property itself. The owners and heirs of the apartments are entitled to a portion of the sale value of the property and we needed to provide paperwork verifying our status as heirs. This was known for a while now, but things need to be signed and verified nontheless.
The second part of this is the wrongful death lawsuit, which involved filling out the paperwork for the deaths of my parents along with writing testimonials of what they meant to us. We also made an appointment with the judge who is handling the whole situation and, in his courtroom last week, presented their life story and what they meant to us.
It was, to say the least, a difficult thing to do. There was no telling how it would go and how coherent we would be. This was the first time, truthfully, we expressed our feelings about our losses outside of our family and… it was tough.
Tough but, in the end, cathartic.
I was proud of my sisters and their families. I was proud of my own family. We presented our feelings and memories and I believe we did well in telling the judge who our parents were and what they meant to us as well as the unimaginable horror of this loss.
So we did it, and now we sit back and wait to see what happens.
There are those out there who have speculated all the relatives/heirs of those lost in Champlain are going to get a big payoff, as if the money somehow will justify the horror we’ve gone through.
It may be a good amount. It may indeed wind up being a very big amount.
And I just don’t know how I feel about it.
Because there doesn’t pass a moment where I think about a world where my parents are still alive and most of their possessions aren’t lost in the rubble of the collapse of Champlain Towers.
In the afterwards to my latest novel, The Ebb of Time, I wrote this:
As cliched and silly as it sounds, I urge everyone out there reading these words to take a moment of time and hug your loved ones or, if you can’t, at least reach out and tell them you love them.
Things can change dramatically from one moment to the next.
I know.
Don’t leave things unsaid and, as my father used to say, please, please enjoy your day.
Been a very, very busy couple of weeks. Not only have I just finished off and released The Ebb of Time, my latest novel and that’s just the first of a seemingly endless amount of things I’ve been up to.
First, though, and I know I already posted it before, the paperback cover/backcover of The Ebb of Time.
I like it a lot!
What else has happened?
Welp, I traveled to my daughter’s new home again and spent a week getting stuff fixed up there. Getting a new home and fixing it up is serious business and my wife just spent 2 weeks -longer than she intended- dealing with the various handymen/plumbers/what-have-you.
I told my daughter before we embarked on this that she would grow to hate pretty much all the people we hire to fix things and, for the most part, that seems to have happened.
Not to everyone, though, and that was a relief.
But you get people who promise to be at the house on certain days and they don’t show… multiple times. We had one person whose company was supposed to specialize in renovating stairs and it’s safe to say the guy didn’t seem to know the first thing about his so-called business.
Thankfully, the incompetents proved the exception rather than the rule and -even more thankfully- we spotted them quick and let them go.
After returning home, I was met with another wave of stuff to do. As I’ve mentioned before, my parents perished in the collapse of Champlain Towers South. The wrongful death lawsuits are coming to their end and it was time for me to go over the paperwork needed to send in regarding this. Included in the wrongful death form was a narrative I and my sisters wrote regarding the loss of our parents and…
It’s not an easy thing to do.
Emotions run high and, soon enough, we’re going to go before the judge overseeing this case and talk about our loss. I anticipate yet another very emotional series of hours.
Anyway, for those who have picked up and read The Ebb of Time or any of the novels I’ve released, my thanks. I hope they proved entertaining and thought provoking.
It’s been a very busy week for me and, frankly, so many things are going on of late and so many deadlines and problems to face that it’s gotten me down.
But, I’m hoping, the worst of it may be nearly over and I will hopefully get back on track with the regular grind.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, perhaps too many times, but it’s been a rough year to say the least. In large part it’s been the tragedy of Champlain Towers South’s collapse and the loss of my parents and all the events that have followed that one. I’ve also been working hard on my latest novel and dealing with issues regarding a home fix up which have driven me to the brink of insanity.
There was a time I enjoyed watching all those HGTV shows about how they rehabilitate a home and everything seems to go so very, very well and how the biggest problem winds up being our hosts butting heads about which subway tile to use in their renovated bathroom.
These shows, and most “reality” shows, alas, present viewers with a condensed, easily digestible version of what is real.
The other day a comic book artist friend of mine presented me this video from the (yes) reality show Shark Tank and said the people presenting their book got really lucky…
After watching this piece, however, I was left with a lot of questions and some really strong doubts about the overall legitimacy of this presentation.
To begin with, it seemed not one of the panelists actually opened and looked at any of the books they were supposedly there to invest in. Further, the sales figures the creators were citing sounded rather… incredible, frankly. I’m not saying it’s impossible to achieve these lofty sales numbers, but as someone with more than a cursory interest in the comic book field, it’s strange I haven’t heard about these people at all and especially given their very strong sales numbers.
Their promo video was ok, I thought, but not all that spectacular (this is, of course, a matter of personal taste and nothing more… I found the promo reel only ok) and yet based on those very few minutes these people presented their ideas they get offered $500,000?!?!
Again, at least in the above clip it seemed no one opened even one of the books. No one read any of the material within any of the books. Yet based on a sizzle promo reel and sales figures which, again, I wonder about, they were willing to drop a half a million dollars on their venture?
I dunno.
I told my friend that I suspected there was more to this story than was presented here. That the hosts had to have been more aware of what this company was doing and, at the least, someone had to have read these books.
Thus, I told my friend, it wouldn’t surprise me if this segment was totally staged, that Kevin Hart and company already had a much more solid idea of what these publishers and their books were like and this segment was more fiction than reality, that a deal was already probably made and this was a summation for the cameras of that deal.
The “story” presented in this segment is a very positive one and one always roots for creators to have success in their ventures, but like too many reality shows, I wonder where the reality actually is.
Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back ’round these parts a little bit more in the following days!
Today marks the one year anniversary of a date that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
It has been one year since the collapse of Champlain Towers South and the deaths of 98 residents within that building.
Among them were my parents.
There are memorials being made during this day, religious services, and general gatherings but I don’t know if I have the emotional strength to attend them.
Since the collapse of the building one year ago, I have ventured near 8777 Collins Avenue only one other time. I went to the Red Cross station at 93rd street, some six blocks north, a couple of days after the collapse to provide DNA samples via a swab. These samples were used to identify my parents’ bodies and truthfully since that time I haven’t had a desire to drive by the site either before or after the rest of the building was knocked down.
Since that day, June 26th, I haven’t passed near that area and, frankly, I don’t want to.
I don’t want to see the now empty land that once housed a building my parents, and I for near a decade, lived in. I don’t want to come face to face with what’s left of two lives I still hold so dearly and can’t believe are gone.
So I sit at home, remembering their smiles and the many times we spent together while trying to understand the unfathomable.
I spent the past year working at our family business and finishing writing my latest novel, which in many ways has been my grief therapy. I finished the actual writing of the novel a week ago and, by an odd coincidence, I strongly suspect the cover will be completed today and I should be able to start the process, on this day of all days, to upload it and perhaps even make it available… at least through Amazon Kindle.
But there will be hours I’ll be sitting around today wondering if I should go and join the other mourners. I don’t know if I have the courage to do so.
Truly, I don’t think I have that courage.
It’s been a very tough year, frankly, and I can honestly say there has been maybe one day where I’ve felt like my old self, a day where I actually felt good.
Today, I’ll have another flood of memories along with the realization of the passage of time. I will once again mourn my losses, as will my family.
