Eloping seems great. A big family wedding was important to my partner. I’m not wealthy, but grad school is paid off, I own a home, my 401k is fully funded and I’ve avoided cocaine and boat ownership so far.

Having recently rented a wedding venue, I can say that $1300 / hr is pretty well in line with a nicely appointed rustic barn or a decent urban event space. Catering and bar costs stack on top of that.

I know it was the 70s... but bringing a .22 revolver into a situation where you are expecting to get shot at seems like going in pretty unprepared.

I’ll sidestep the politics and just say this: The US DoD is responsible for 7% of global emissions, and is the single largest producer of CO2. DoD investment in emission cutting measures will have meaningful impact on total global emissions and the availability of lower emissions technology to other organizations.

Seems reasonable, but it will probably impact the budget for buying the car.

Nik should clarify if he lives in Boston or “Boston”. If he’s out in Waltham / Newton / Brighton and has garage parking those beautiful wagons make plenty of sense. If he’s in Boston proper and parking on the street, he should consider something that will live a short brutal life.

The siren call of dirt is impossible to resist on vacation. 

I can’t imagine I’m the only one who goes straight to the car wash after wheeling or driving on the beach. I also cut the oil change interval in half and clean out the air filter every thousand miles. Expensive parts hate salt, rocks and volcanic dust.

I have to admit that I fret about this. I don’t take my truck to OHV parks, but after careful review of my insurance policy, I’ve learned that as long as a road has a “National Forest Road” number then I am not technically offroading, even if I’m in 4-lo going over rocks.

Are we sure that Nicolas Cage didn’t steal it?

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but car prices have made me maintain, clean and insure my fleet like they are the last cars I’ll be able to afford. When I bought my truck 6 years ago, I assumed I’d upgrade when something better came out.

There are some really egregious behaviours in the woods right now from first time or infrequent campers. The ugliest one, is people who buy basic Amazon camping gear, and leave all of it at the end of the weekend.

It turns out most people aren’t as rich as they think they are. The folks buying $240k sprinters with $900 a month payments on 10 year terms will sell them when kids arrive, tuition is due or they want to buy a new house. 

The one silver lining here is that most of these rigs aren’t getting used much. When the pandemic winds down, I’m looking forward to a used market full of lightly used rigs sold at saturated market prices.

When I watch the Waymo videos and drive Teslas, it certainly seems like AV4 is coming quickly. I suspect companies that embrace Lidar will have fleet vehicles out on the streets driving geo-fenced areas in most major city by the end of 2024.

I would pay an extra $15k for a car autonomous enough for me to legally sleep and drink in.

This weekend, I went out hiking in the mountains and the road to the trailhead was bad. On the way out, there was a family in a current gen Jeep Cherokee that was badly stuck. The driver had used the all speed, no brains approach and gotten high centered. I towed them out and followed them back to plowed pavement.

Meanwhile, Toyota split the difference and sold 144k 4Runners. Not bad for a truck that’s on its 8th year of the current generation. 

I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data, but I’ve known a handful of folks that have specifically avoided the Model 3 and Model Y based on build quality issues. A certain generation still takes Consumer Reports as gospel and the bad scores have made an impression.

That would be fantastic