Le Mans 2023 or bust

The annual 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race is this weekend. I wish I was in France right now to attend in person. Barring anything too dramatic, the winner of the race will likely be a Toyota. The top P1 class just isn't that competitive. Next year, entry from Peugeot, Ferrari, and Porsche will flip the excitement level to the other end of the spectrum. That’s the one to look forward to.

So let me put in on paper now: I aim to attend the 2023 running of Le Mans. Getting time off from work shouldn't be a problem, since the summer months are significantly less busy on a university campus. The main barrier will likely be cost. Travel cost right now is insanely high, and if the trend doesn't come back down. an international trip to France might be prohibitively expensive.

For shits and giggles, I looked at flights to Seoul, South Korea for early August (this year). Prices are at least twice as much compared to the last time I flew there back in 2017. Two thousand dollars for an economy roundtrip is rather high. Even flying on off-peak days won't really save significantly over the weekend days. Probably a confluence of high demand, high fuel cost, and overall inflation.

I am definitely not going to fly anywhere this summer, and likely the rest of 2022. I have to hope that things will return to a true normal next year. In the meantime, there's much saving to do in preparation.

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Hey buddy!

I get to gripe about gas prices again

Gasoline prices have uniformly shot back up above the $4 dollar threshold here in San Francisco, and it feels weird for me to once again be able to grumble about high petrol costs. After nine months of not owning a car, I’ve now got a vehicle to feed, and a super thirsty one at that. The 15 miles-per-gallon average I’m getting with the GT3 almost makes me miss having my previous MX-5 Miata, a car that in its worst day still averaged 27 miles to the gallon.

The GT3 is loads more fun, though. Obviously.

Nevertheless, feeding a 15mpg habit gets expensive really quickly, especially so because the GT3 has a 23-gallon fuel tank. With the latest uptick in prices, a typical fill-up is well into the $80 dollars territory; now I know exactly the pain drivers of heavy SUVs feel every time they’re at the pump.

It’s well known California has the dubious honor of the highest gas prices in the nation, but the real indignation is for that privilege we don’t even get the best possible grade of gas. While rest of the States get to enjoy the sweet nectar of 93 octane, California is saddled with lowly 91 at the maximum. Worse, highly strung sports car engines absolutely demands as much octane you can give it: the GT3’s flat-six is tuned for 93, so being restricted to 91 is not an unsubstantial compromise.

There are gas stations in the area that sells 100 octane petrol, but we’re talking about nearly $10 dollars a gallon. No thanks.  

I wouldn’t mind paying the most for gas if we were able to get the highest grade of octane. Since that’s not the case, I’m going to protest along with the rest of the drivers whenever prices shoot up, as it has done this past week. Indeed, even though I commute using public transportation, on the weekends I put quite a bit of miles on the GT3, so I’m not all that different from the person who commutes via car.

Granted, no one ever said the car hobby was inexpensive.

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I so wish I can get this California legacy plate and not the sort of ugly black and yellow one.

People think shipping should be free

Yesterday my boss complained to me about another person complaining to her about the shipping costs on this big purchase the department is making. The person is stunned to find the cost to ship a container's worth of furniture from Wisconsin to San Francisco - including setup - couldn't and shouldn't possibly be $3,000 dollars. 

What did she expect? Free?

I remarked to my boss that Amazon Prime and its free shipping (within two days, no less) have completely ruined people's expectations of what delivery should cost. Just because you can get laundry detergent shipped for free doesn't mean goods of a certain size (say, furniture) can costs equally nothing for UPS to get it to your home. 

I'm paying 10 grand for the television: can't you throw in delivery for free?

Amazon Prime sets a bad precedent in other marketplaces as well. Anybody that have tried selling items secondhand (or even firsthand) knows that offering free shipping is huge incentive to entice customers to buy. 

So they eat the cost. 

I'm starting to think one of the reasons wages have been stagnant is because the poor and lower middle class simply refuse to pay for quality work. They want things done as quickly and cheaply as possible. The rich understands the adage 'you get what you pay for', and have the monetary means to do so. Everyone knows 'Made in U.S.A.' denotes supreme quality but that tool set made in China is half the cost so let's go with that one. 

I guess I'm one of those people because man do I love Amazon Prime. 

Percipitations in May.