Heald's Pre-Posterous

It Ain't Right

Wednesday, our 9-year-old Friesian died suddenly. Very weird. He literally dropped in his tracks, and the best we can figure is that it was either a heart attack, or more likely according to our vet, an aneurysm.
He was a fine horse. I gave him grief as he had quite an ego, and if ever there was a horse destined to play Gaston in Beauty and the Beast in real life, it was Cappy. Danielle is handling this well, but is inside deeply distraught. With all the horror in Haiti (and I deeply recommend supporting Doctors w/o Borders, but naturally do as you think best), it's easy for many people to say this was just a horse; just a dumb animal. This is rot. He trod lightly on this earth, and did more than most know to entertain a lot of people and regularly paid tribute to the war fallen in our local Memorial Day parade.
You can never fathom why loved ones are taken from us, especially years before it seems even remotely fair. But we're stuck with it. The nice part about the spirits that touch us is the happiness and soul remains with us, where the flesh has passed and goes back to the earth. Thanks Cappy, for your contribution to our lives.

Parade_cappie_copy

It's all in the Packaging

I do love it when you can pack a lot of kit in a reasonably small vehicle. The Mazda5 is basically a mini-minivan, complete with sliding side doors and a third row seat. You can get six people in the thing (as long as your third row residents are smallish in stature) and it's a comfortable, flexible hauler. It's little four-banger is no powerhouse, but the 5-speed automatic does a great job at finding the best gear to optimize acceleration. Lot's of useful features and a sub-$18K base price make this a sharp little unit. I see it being used effectively on the Circus circuit, for you really could cram a mess o' clowns in it.

A Sleigh that Hauls Hay

The compact pickup, in case you haven't noticed, really isn't too awfully compact anymore. They have been expanding in every dimension, and the wild part of it is that in many cases these things cost nearly as much (and get about the same gas mileage) as their full-size counterparts. But, apparently they are just the right size for many folks, and they have become pretty stout and fun to drive. They also have always been (for most makes, anyway) some of the most reliable vehicles on the road. Toyota's Tacoma is by far the most popular compact truck in terms of sales, and it's not hard to see why. It's comfortable, rugged, loaded with features and has a certain driver-friendly attitude (caused by excellent control placement and a nice, high driving position) that is very appealing. A strong 4-liter V6, 5-speed automatic, part-time 4WD and a SMC composite bed on our Double Cab 4X4 TRD-Sport tester are all very good things.

Taco_4x4

Also welcome is the back-up camera, and while it's pretty tiny situated in the rear-view mirror as it is it still comes in pretty handy. This is becoming more and more common and it's a damn good thing, because so many new vehicles, cars and trucks alike, are getting harder and harder to see out of when in retreating.

Bu

An Odd Post

Below is a bit of commentary I posted in the comments section of a frenemy’s blog, and for some strange reason I decided to post it here as well. The subject was the demise of book stores. Honestly, I didn’t even read the post that the comment addressed; the subject matter was enough. Weird, that. Anyway. . . 

I person I trust quite a bit says that Apple is going to launch a product this spring that will actually make the whole electronic platform for books and magazines work, and that publishers, writers, etc. will like the model. It will essentially be an affordable device where your books, magazines, papers, etc will be sent to this device which will be easy to carry and pleasing to read, and you'll have super easy access to all of this literature and it will aparently work much better than the the Kindles, etc. out there now. This is speculative, but I feel it's going to happen one way or the other very soon.

As for me, I'm not happy about it. True Story: to keep up with the various fields I write about, I spend a ludicrous amount of time staring at a freaking computer screen. The act of picking up and reading a magazine about the same subject is a revelation, and not only do I appreciate the art/photography more I (and I think this is a big deal) I notice the ads more, too. I ignore online advertising, and have an application that kills Flash unless I click on it so I don't even see have the ads out there. Online advertising in publications, in my view, is actually is a colossal failure. That said, magazines should survive for so many reasons, but I think they are about to go nearly extinct. 

Then, like books, I think they will come back. It's such a better, non-electronic alternative to the reading experience. But the carnage that will take place before this happens will be painful. There is nothing on the web that can duplicate walking around the amazing canyons of an old book store. I wish some billionaire would just start a bookstore chain and keep it alive, not matter how much money it might lose. People like us would be more mentally stable as a result. 
Clemens

A Grand Touring Instrument

As is their wont, Volkswagen has once again resurrected an old performance favorite here in the US by unleashing the GTI (or as I like to say in speedtalk, JeetyEye) upon a segment of the population that longs for some serious scoot in their practical, affordable hatchback. It's based on the new Golf platform, which as I said earlier (right below this, in fact) is bloody brilliant inside, outside and underneath. Instead of that wicked good Inline 5-cylinder, though the Jeety has a 200-horsepower 4-cylinder Turbo (or Tubbo, to those of you still residing Texas and did not flee the heat, as I did). My test beast also has the wild Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG), which is a clutchless manual that is therefore an automatic, and is a tranny I've sampled in VWs and Audis for a while and still am not simpatico with. That could be just me, though. More Testing!

Geetee

No Rabbit Here

It seems odd, when things happen that dominated a few news cycles, how it can change perceptions on things that have nothing to do with whatever happened that got so much press. For example, the Volkswagen Golf (which was back to being a Rabbit again here in the states and now is a Golf again) always was in my view a fairly weird name for I car. That said, the name is certainly not one that conjures up anything that timely or controversial, or at least it didn't. But now, thanks to the whole Tiger Wood fiasco, when you say or see the word Golf isn't there at least a chunk of the population who's mind will drift to an Escalade hitting a tree, and a golfer with more money than Moses having (allegedly) multiple affairs? It's just one of those odd cultural nomenclature collisions that comes out of nowhere.
As for the car, so far I think the new Golf is the best VW I've ever driven. The Inline Five is smooth and spunky, the 5-speed manual is perfectly geared and has precise feel and action, and the chassis is tight and well-integrated. Even the seats are superb with excellent lateral support and all this for a little over $18K. Very cool little car; loaded with features and imbued with an atmosphere of excellent build quality. Achtung, Baby!

Golf_time

Tree Wi-Yer

So, about a year or so ago, the power company elected to replace most of the high voltage wires on our street with much heavier, stronger "tree wires" that are pretty dang good at catching a falling bit of foliage and not breaking, thus reducing both power outages and repair time. This is the second time they've done their job (although the first time the power did go out for a while, but repairs where greatly simplified). Progress! That said, I really think they should just run them underground anyway, our of harm's way.

Imgp0312

Blondie Sang 'Bout it

"Raptor, be pure. Take a tour, through the sewer. Don't strain your brain, paint a train. You'll be singin' in the rain."

This was a song in the eighties, man. OK, Blondie was actually saying Rapture, not Raptor, but the lyrics may be apt. If you had the desire, you probably could take a tour through the sewer in this luxury tankette, which incidentally in terms of styling has this whole Tonka ethos goin' on. It is clearly constructed to satisfy your Apocalypto/Mad Max (both involving Mel Gibson, oddly enough) fantasies. Or, if you're into Romancing the Stone-type heroics, the Little Mule is now available at your Ford dealer iffen you have the dinero. Stoutly suspended, armed with a locking rear differential (but the 4WD is part-time only) and graced with huge rubber, this thing should be fairly hard to break. We shall see. I will task it as it is my job (but gently and responsibly, of course) and see if it is the true stock prerunner that the Border Patrol is interested in. I shall not strain my brain, nor will I paint a train, but it is raining, so. . .

Raptor

The Zero Hour

I have tasted a bit of the future methinks. The Zero S is my first turn on an all-electric moto, and I have to say there are some rough edges and issues but overall, I loved it. I did battle in a most excellent neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the more I rode the thing and got used to the eerily silent power delivery I really dug it. This is, in my humble opinion, a very big deal. I can only imagine what we'll have in a few years down the road. Amazing.

Zero_s

Toontown Bentley

The Chrysler 300C is still an odd beast. It handles really well, is roomy yet claustrophobic, and has this whole wild baby Bentley styling thing going on. That said, the high beltline looks like something really heavy sat on the roof. It's the antithesis of the old Chrysler Newport of my youth that had a veritable greenhouse on it, and an equally spunky V8. The 300 w/the Navigation system still has the worst radio interface on the planet. I thought they would have fixed this by now but nooooo. . .

300c