Electric Porsche!

I'm even pickier than you think: I want someone who'll have me, and that pretty much excludes everyone. On the other hand, I've got something in common with most women: They wouldn't have me, and I don't want them. I want someone who's not actually unattractive, someone who does not smoke, and who has a pleasant disposition. Someone who does not think that insults can be "good natured fun." Someone who does not think that you can judge someone by the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. I'm damn picky. Not that it matters. When you're looking for a unicorn, it really does not matter if you insist that it must be pink with blue spots.

 

I know it. And it's a big part of my problem. They can tell I'm hungry, and they run.

I get two contradictory pieces of advice from roughly equal numbers of people: One school is you have to stop looking and just let it happen; the other school, equally adamant, is that you won't find someone unless you're out there looking.

I've tried both in my 60 years (or say, 45 years in the market): I've been through periods when I just gave up and lived my life, and I've been through periods when I put ads and answered ads and joined things and enrolled in dating services. No matter what, I'm batting a perfect zero.

Part of it is that I don't fit in anywhere: Christians don't want me because I'm an atheist and atheists don't want me because I'm a teetotaler. Women who I'm friends with through church or work or peace groups like me as a friend but flat-out refuse to date me. Some are turned off because I have strong opinions. Some are probably turned off because I have a kind of a facial tic. And I'm sure some are turned off by things I'm not aware of. A lot of women like my wit, my intelligence, my humor, and my sensitivity, and think I'd make "some woman" a great husband. But not them. Life is shit. Most people have it far worse than I do. But I'm more likely to win the lottery than find a companion. And I never buy a ticket. All that crap about there being "someone for everyone," well, if it was true there wouldn't be so many people who never find anyone. I've been warned to watch out for gold-diggers. No worries. Even they don't want me.

Screw it! Nothing really matters anyway. Soon enough I'll be dead, and then nothing I've been through, good or bad, will matter in the least. (No, I'm not threatening to kill myself. I'm just saying I'm 60 years old with high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease.) This is how the world works: the fit find mates and the unfit go through life frustrated. Like I said, I have it better than most: It's better to be rich and unhappy than to be poor, unhappy, and poked in the eye with a sharp stick. At least I get to drive a fun car and travel to places with nice scenery.

 

I am an enrolled member of the Unitarian Universalist Church. The UU has Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, pagans, atheists, and people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." I like to say that the UU is a church without a religion, but it's much more common for it to be described as a church (or a religion) without a dogma. Where other religions tell you what to believe, the UU tells you that you must think for yourself and make up your own mind.

The Unitarian Universalist Association was formed in the early 1960's when the Unitarian Church merged with the Universalist Church. Both were very liberal churches where there were probably more agnostics than "true believers." Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Unitarian minister and Henry David Thoreau was a Unitarian. The principal activists on the underground railway were Quakers and Unitarians.

Unitarianism is the belief that god is one person, and not three, and universalism is the belief that everyone goes to heaven. Both beliefs existed in the first years after the death of Jesus, and both were persecuted as heresies after Pauline Chritianity became the dominant sect. But both were revived in America, and eventually they decided that they had so much in common that a merger made sense. At that point they abandoned all pretense of "knowing" anything about god, or even if there was a god, and instead adopted a set of principles dealing with how people should treat each other.

The UU appeals to people loking for community, who either have no set religious beliefs, or merely do not accept the notion that some book or clergyman can possibly know about such things, as well as people who have felt abused by authoritative religion telling them what they must believe, or that they will be sent to hell by a god who "loves" them. It attracts mostly educated people who value the intellect. It does not seem to appeal to people who just want to be told what to believe, or to people who find comfort in absolutes, or in a vision of the world as good vs evil.

The UU welcomes people of all faiths and people of no faith, though fundamentalists of all stripes would not be happy with a church that would demand that they respect the beliefs of others. The UU welcomes people of all sexual orientations, and we are (IIRC) one of only two denominations (the UCC being the other) that ordains openly gay men and women. (I am not certain that there are only two such denominations. I'll be happy to be corrected on this.) Within the UUA there is a program called "Welcoming Congregation" wherin congregations display a rainbow and explicitly welcome openly gay people. Personally, I would not join a congregation that had not declared itself a Welcoming Congregation.

That's probably more than you wanted to know. But you don't expect brevity from me.

Anyone who feels the desire for a community of place, but feels you cannot fit in in a traditional church or religion, I would suggest paying a visit to your local UU. There is a finder on the web site linked above. Note that some congregations are more "religious" and some are more secular. All of them will respect whatever your own faith is, providing that your faith respects others. But some are heavy on the god talk, and others seldom make mention of a god, while others are in between. Many have a pagan or Wiccan sub-group and have special pagan services to celebrate the passage of the seasons.

 

More on the subject of whether the Porsche might be a girl magnet:

I've been observing people's (non-) reaction to the car. Women on the sidewalk do not even seem to notice it when I drive by. People stare at the Xebra, but not at the Porsche. Today I parked at one of the parking lots on the Centennial Trail to go for my walk. The trail is used by walkers, joggers, cyclists, and roller-bladers. A woman came up to the car next to mine, clearly saw the Porsche with it's "ELECTRIC" emblem on the back, and said nothing about it as we exchanged a few pleasantries.

A couple of people have gawked as they passed me on the freeway, but mostly, nothing. The only real interest was at the EV club meeting, where of course everyone was interested in anything EV and my Porsche was the highlight of the evening.

 

What electric assist? It IS electric. But I'm not a muscle-bound six-foot-plus guy. I'm a 5-foot 6 1/2-inch pot-bellied weakling.

*****

:focus:

Back to the Porsche: I'm going to have a 2,000-amp Zilla controller put into it. It's going to cost a bundle, but it's the best controller in the world for an EV for street use. Not sure when it will happen. The guy is very busy. Probably some time next month, maybe while I'm away in Canada. Not only is the controller the best there is, but the guy that's going to do it totally knows what he's doing.

 

The controller will give me more power to the motor, and therefore faster acceleration. And because I'll have more power, I won't have to go through the gears as much: I'll be able to start in a higher gear and not have to shift.

However, to the extent that I actually make use of this power, it will reduce my range. And the controller will not give me any more range, unless maybe the present one is dissipating too much energy as heat, but I think that's unlikely. On the contrary, using more amperage will create more heat and lose more energy.

So with the new controller, I'll still have to drive gently, as I do now, when I want to go to Coeur d'Alene or otherwise drive a long distance. But when my trip is shorter (say, under 40 or 50 miles) I'll be able to take off a lot faster.

For freeway driving, I'll have the power to merge safely, since that's a brief burst of power just when getting on the freeway. It's inefficient, but so brief that the energy lost translates into very little lost range. If I lose 1/4 mile of range it doesn't matter.

Finally, the biggest reason for getting the new controller is that it will not overheat (it's water cooled!) so I will not lose power after 20 miles as I do now. When my present controller is cold it can draw over 400 amps, but yesterday when it was hot after a drive that consumed 1/4 of my pack, it would barely draw 200 amps under full acceleration. My Xebra does better than that!

I may have a quarrel with the builder over who pays for this. But I am dissociating the decision to get the controller from the quarrel over who pays. The car needs a good controller. A car this nice cannot live with the under-powered and mis-matched controller.