Stuff Old and New

I channeled my inner-NASCAR on Wednesday to do something for the first time in my life—I attended the Chicago Auto Show. Vroom, vroom. Now I understand why “football field” exists as a unit of measurement. We’re talking two or three football fields of enclosed space at the McCormick Place complex. Vehicle upon vehicle surrounding seven test tracks, where reality intrudes, if just for a second; you don’t get to drive the vehicles, just sit in them as passengers. For a test drive, you have to put up with your long-lost best friend, the salesman at the dealership. Michele and I were intent on finding a sedan, SUVs not being our thing. Then, as soon as we walked in, Michele spotted the Chevrolet Blazer EV, and suddenly SUVs didn’t seem so bad. But a lot of question, e.g., how many kilowatt hours to reach the 320-mile driving range? I may not be a gearhead, but I like crunching numbers. I track how much electricity we use on an annual basis, so I can come up with an annual average kilowatt-hour cost. I can take that number and multiply it by the number of k-hours needed for the charge to come up with an equivalent cost for filling up the tank. Do a little more math, and I can come up with a per-mile cost comparison, electric vs. gas. So, with these future computations dancing in my head, we looked at sedans. It didn’t help that I hit my head getting out of the Honda Accord, both driver’s side and passenger; I must’ve had a recent growth spurt. All of the sedans were a variation on this unpleasant theme. We were down to one possibility for a new vehicle until...we saw the Toyota RAV 4 plug-in hybrid. This would allow us to hedge our bets, fuel-wise; something about becoming totally energy dependent on Com Ed that gives me the willies. The future may be electric, but it won’t necessarily be cheap. At least it didn’t take that long to come up with possible replacements for the Ford Fusion; on the other hand, I’ve been looking for a second bike for two years now. Lo and behold, yesterday I found a 1972 Schwinn Sports Tourer in about as good a condition as you could hope for. Now, all I need to do is figure out how to ship it from Pittsburgh.