I looked at the title of this post and realized that the two words in it differ only in one letter. Funny, isn’t it? It’s going to be a sunny Sunday. Funny and sunny rhyme. I’m quite the wordsmith today. Which reminds me that I learned William Wordsmith’s 1804 poem Daffodils by heart in middle school and can still recite it by heart. Its final lines are the best:
“And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.”
So, what’s happening? Yesterday Courtenay drove down from Oakland to visit for a bit. Hadn’t seen her since January. She had tales of woe. Got fired from her job a few days ago; car’s leaking oil and could set her back a few thousand in repairs; husband and teenage son are tearing around the house breaking stuff; bills to pay; neighbors are being jerks, etc. But she’s a good sport and laughs it off.
You can take the girl out of Toledo, Ohio but you cannot take the Toledo, Ohio out of the girl, is what they say.
She has this something for her Honda delSol. She’s fixated on that car since she got it in 1993. That’s an unbelievable 32 years — considering that American’s replace their cars every seven years or so. She loves that wreck. I have borrowed the car occasionally. One time I drove it all the way to the Grand Canyon and back via Los Angeles.
Here’s a picture of the delSol. Guess what the California vanity license plate reads. Click on the image to get a better look at it.
It’s quite clever, actually. Notice “sol” and “soul” rhyme. But the other bit is even cleverer. Think about it. Fabulous prizes if you figure it out. The answer will be revealed at the end of this post.
Back in the day, I too owned a rather clever California license plate: “NU DEY”.
Seeing it people may have thought that it was a cute way of writing “new day” but it is actually my name.
To my family and friends, my name is “Nu” — which in Bengali is called a dak naam. Every Bengali has a formal name (the first name or the given name or bhaalo naam) but is called by the informal name. My parents used to call me Nu, and I later was given Atanu as my first name.
Some of my friends have my permission to call me Nu. Yoga, for instance, calls me “Nu da” (da is short for dada or elder brother) and his two kids call me “Nu da uncle.” Funny.
Cars. How about a song that has something to do with cars? Here’s just the song we want — Drive by The Cars.
Who’s going to drive you home, tonight?
Important question. But the urgency of that question does come down a notch these days of robotaxis and self-driving cars. A few weeks ago, I got to have my first Waymo ride around Mt. View, CA. Here’s a short clip I took as I rode shotgun in the cab.
Notice that up here in California, fall begins and ends rather late. Even in late November, you can see lovely fall colors. Along the north east, fall end by late September.
I am quite simply impressed when I first encountered the most rudimentary form of self-driving — cruise control. “Wow! You don’t have to keep your foot on the gas and yet the car keeps going at the same speed. What will they think of next!” The first car with cruise control I got was a while back in 1989 — which was sort of rare then.
The Honda CR-V that I got in 2018 had what is called “adaptive cruise control.” It maintains the set speed but also adapts to traffic conditions by slowing down with slow traffic. The car also had “lane assist”: it would follow the lane. On road trips, ACC and LA were very useful. I could drive along for hours without actively driving for more than a few minutes. Not quite self-driving but definitely a huge improvement on having do for all the driving.
I believe that self-driving cars would be common in about 10 years in advanced industrialized countries; in underdeveloped countries, it may be another 10 years.
That would be a good thing since most people are lousy drivers. Indians, particularly, are the second worst. The worst? I think they say the Chinese are the worst.
Alright, time to wrap up. The song for today, most appropriately, is Lazy Day from the album On the Threshold of a Dream by the Moody Blues.
The answer to the license plate puzzle: it says, “❤️et soul”. Courtenay’s kids are half-French. The plate reads “heart and soul.” Told you it was quite clever.
Happy Sunday!
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 