Occupational PTSD

 I currently work for a company in its death throes. The entire engineering dept, save for me, has quit or retired and none have been replaced. Every day I trudge into work steeling myself, waiting to be assaulted by accusations of incompetence, laziness, and poor work ethic. The state of the job market is the only thing keeping me working here still.  Every morning upon entering the building my bowels flinch and my stomach churns. I feel like I’m under assault. Constantly. Every. Single. Day. I had a coworker a while ago who coined a phrase,”Give-a-Shittedness Quotient” to describe the amount of concern an employ had remaining for providing a job well done. Short-timers about to retire famously struggle to give any more shits. A person who has submitted their 2-weeks notice similarly will phone it in. High School seniors, already accepted to university - pending successful graduation - famously suffer from senioritis. I am not in those situations yet I find myself struggling to give a shit. I struggle to drag myself to work. No one knows what I do or why. No one cares if I do well or not. To the contrary, everyone seems to default to me struggling to keep up for some unknown reason. Nevermind that I fill two different positions, each a distinct title that would ordinarily be a full time job by itself. In my engineer role. I am all that remains of a 5-person department. In my department manager role, my department has been cut in half, MORE THAN DECIMATED.   I can’t imagine why I, or my department, might be struggling to keep up.  I explain all this so it might be understood when I say I have Occupational PTSD, self-diagnosed of course. I have trouble sleeping, eating, my temper is short and I fear I’m harming close relationships because my fight/flight response has been on high-alert for months. I’m applying for jobs only tangentially related to my training or experience, willingly accepting 20-30% pay cuts if necessary…but the local job market is so broken there’s almost nothing even close to what I need. 

Tesla to the Moon...

 When people ask how far behind other automakers are, perhaps this will put it into perspective. GM announced that they set a record for sales of their lone electric vehicle, the Chevy Bolt in Q1 2021. They sold 9000 units in Q1, a nearly 54% increase year over year. Tesla, for comparison, grew their production capacity year over year by 109% and produced 189,000 EVs in Q1. Tesla is buying mines to produce lithium, nickel, and graphite for their batteries because they are materially constrained in their battery factories. GM is about 2-3 years away from completion of their first battery factory. By that time Tesla will have battery factories in CA, NV, TX, Germany, and China, all producing batteries in quantities that dwarf GMs capacity, and it still won't be enough. VW sales of their ID3 vehicle are doing well compared to GM, with sales of 28k, but 1/4 of those were sold to VW itself, so not as good as it may appear.  The EV revolution is here, and it's happening WAY faster than people in the US think.  By 2025 they'll have a hard time buying anything other than an EV.

 

GM Posts Q1 '21 record EV sales:

https://insideevs.com/news/498574/us-chevrolet-bolt-sales-q12021/

VW sells thousands of EVs to VW:

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/19/how-many-volkswagen-id3-sales-volkswagen-sales-to-itself/

Long time no talk

 It's been a long time since I posted anything on here.  Does anyone still read blogs?  2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year. 

Chevy Volt...the Unsung Hero of the GM Stable

GM EV1

Bob Lutz is nothing if not sure of himself.  When GM created the EV1 it was done as a large scale experiment.  The results of that experiment was that he decided the time was not right for a large scale deployment of commercial EVs.  The EV1 was well received but on the whole, it wasn't really a viable transportation option unless a number of other pieces fell into place - primarily charging infrastructure and battery power density.  He pulled the plug on the experiment, crushed all but a handful of EV1s and let the markets ferment for a bit.  Tesla, through cunning, funding, and sheer force of will, pushed EVs into the mainstream. 

Tesla Roadster

Bob Lutz w/ Chevy Volt Prototype

     Lutz recognized the advantages offered by EVs and how the market conditions had changed by then, largely because of Tesla.  He gave the greenlight to the development of a plug-in hybrid that would eliminate the biggest complaint with most EVs...range.  Eventually that vehicle was unveiled as the Chevy Volt.

Chevy Volt

The vehicle would travel about 35 miles on electric battery power exclusively.  When that was exhausted an on-board gasoline fueled generator would fire up and allow the vehicle to continue on for a few hundred more miles just as it's conventional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) counterparts do.  The 35 mile electric only range means that the vast majority of the miles that the car travels in its life will not produce any emissions. Most drivers in the US travel 38 miles/day or less.  The Volt was the stepping stone that moved people over. 
     GM grossly over engineered the vehicle. They recognized that the Lithium Polymer battery was a weak spot in the design because there wasn't much known yet about how the large batteries behaved or how long they'd last.  GM tested the batteries extensively and found that extreme swings in temperature and the number of full charge/discharge cycles were among the most significant factors affecting battery performance and longevity.  To get around this limitations, engineers gave the Volt about 20-30% more battery than it actually needed.  This meant that it would never fully charge/discharge.  The battery would never need to work very hard.  To keep it at a stable temperature, a liquid cooling system was used to regulate the temperature.  All rechargeable batteries will degrade eventually.  As the battery degrades, the controls in the Volt make more of the battery's capacity available to ensure that the user doesn't experience loss of capacity.  As of 8/16, GM had zero reported cases of battery replacement due to loss of general capacity.  There have been a few replaced due to component failures, but none that have suffered general capacity failure.  The Volt has a small but extremely loyal, and satisfied, user base.  The Volt has been ranked high or highest in customer satisfaction since its introduction, crash test ratings have similarly been among the best.  Fuel economy obviously scores well.  Reliability is the one that surprised me.  For all the high-tech stuff in the Volt it has proven to be a surprisingly reliable car.  Sure it's had a few quirks to work out, but this is new technology in uncharted waters, some bumps are to be expected. 
     So why doesn't everyone own a Volt!?!?!  The Volt commanded a high price initially at $40k+ and had the misfortune of being released as GM was declaring bankruptcy from the largest financial collapse since the Great Depression.  Bob Lutz was shown the door as part of GMs restructuring and the bailout by the US federal government.  The Volt was his "swan song".  The Volt received a flurry of publicity initially with high-profile celebrities making Volt purchases.  The $40k price tag was a significant hurdle.  The pluses outweighed the cons for the Volt though, and it sold reasonably well.  Over time, the price dropped until it could be purchased for about $30k.  Better still, the federal government created an income tax credit for purchasers of EVs based on EV range.  The Volt is eligible for the full credit of $7500 making the price drop into the low to mid $20k range.  Eventually, when enough are sold, the credit will go away and the Volt's price will return to the $30k range.  It is still the best selling plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).  In 2016 a second generation Volt was released that provided a more powerful motor, more electric range and some additional features added to improve the Volt's standing. All of this adds up to a fantastic car, at a reasonable price that no one seems to know about.  Those who do know about it generally love it and won't shut up about it.  It's only real competition is from the Prius Prime plugin. 

Prius Prime PHEV

The Prius has half the range of the Volt on battery but better gas mileage afterward.  Having driven a Prius, I can confirm that the Volt feels like a more significant vehicle.  The Prius feels like a stripped down shell of a car.  The Volt feels luxurious in comparison. 

Juggling Benjamins

Because of various transitions and the sale of my employer to a new owner, my 401k and HSA funds have been transferred a combined 8 times from one account to another in the last 6 months.  That means that neither my 401k or my HSA investments have accrued any increases in value for most of the last 6 months, and they've largely been in limbo between different account managers as the transfers were being completed.  It is very frustrating and nervewracking to have large sums of money literally disappear with no trace and have no visibility on it for days or weeks at a time.  I think things are starting to settle down, but I still have about $20,000 that's in limbo.

Guns, Guns, and More Guns

About 5 years ago I was sitting in a restaurant with a friend when the place was robbed by an armed robber.  I think he got away with something like $85 from the till.  Fortunately for me, he didn't look my way.  I suddenly felt very helpless and defenseless.  It was a strange feeling.  I'm not exactly a towering giant of masculine force, but I've never been left feeling defenseless.  For some reason, this experience really set off a chain reaction in my brain.  I'd always had guns.  I grew up in PA.  They give you a Terrible Towel and a .30-06 at the border when you move there for crying out loud.  I passed the hunter safety course at age 12 and went out hunting with my dad a few times, but I never really felt compelled to do much hunting.  It just wasn't for me.  I did enjoy shooting the rifle and shotgun though.  That was always fun.  The deer rifle was expensive to shoot though. I thought about getting my Washington hunting license, but that involved a big complicated process of online courses and field training.  I just wanted to shoot things. So I looked at some guns at a store and learned a bit, and during this time, Washington State passed some very draconian gun control laws.  (I'm not a gun nut, but the law, I-594, can't be enforced, has no way to ensure compliance, and really does nothing to prevent gun crimes.)  I felt if I wanted to get into guns, now was the time, or I'd need to find another way to scratch this itch.  While researching guns I found videos on YouTube from Ted's Holdover.  I discovered that 'BB' guns had grown up since I was a boy.  No longer was the Daisy Red Rider BB Gun the pinnacle of air powered weaponry.  There were now .50cal airguns pushing, massive amounts of lead down range with enough force to take down MASSIVE game animals.  Elk, wild boar, bear, FREAKIN' BEARS!!!  The more I watched the more interested I became.  Here was an option that I hadn't considered.  I could shoot a gun for which there was no deafening 'BANG', there were no legal restrictions, and the projectiles wouldn't send me to debtors prison.  I started researching. 

Umarex PX4 Storm

I started out buying a knock-off Beretta PX4 CO2 pistol.  It's really fun to shoot, but the CO2 powerlets are expensive.  I kept reading about guys shooting PCP rifles and I had no idea what that was, well, aside from a drug that gave people superhuman strengths...I learned that PCP rifles are Pre-charged Pneumatic air guns.  They have a reservoir on-board that stores a charge of compressed air allowing a number of shots from each charge without having to re-pump or prime the reservoir.  It seemed to be a pretty good system.  The guns had a HUGE range in prices, features, calibers, performance...where to begin with learning?  I read, watched videos, read some more, watched some more videos and eventually arrived at a few potential options.  The Benjamin Marauder by Crosman was simple, reliable, and common.  It was the Toyota Camry or Ford Taurus of the PCP gun world.  No frills, but it got the job done.  The other option I looked at was the Hatsan AT-44.  That one looked like a good option on paper, but it had little or no history at the time, so I went with the Marauder.  

But man, even this is still really expensive...$650 for the gun, $100 for the scope, $200 for the pump...$50 for the case...$15 for ammo... so I waited...and waited and watched, and waited...finally I found an angle to get all the pieces I'd need at a reasonable price.  I've had so much fun shooting this gun.  For $15 I can shoot 250-300 rounds.  I eventually purchased a used surplus SCBA tank from eBay and built my own filling station for the gun, so no more pumping for me.  I also learned that my PA Hunter Training certification from 1987 was portable and valid in WA! I got my small game license and I'm in business.  I read through the regulations and learned that I can't take any game with an airgun in Washington...Grrrr!  OK, so now I need a small caliber rifle.  I'm not ready to hunt deer yet.  I start shopping around looking at .22 caliber rifles.  I finally find what I'm looking for at Bi-Mart: a Savage Model 64 .22.

Savage Model 64 .22LR

It's compact, accurate, semi-auto and FUN to shoot. Within two weeks of buying it, I've burned through about 300rounds! I had to purchase gun locks, a gun cabinet, rifle cleaning equipment, scopes, cases...man this is expensive.  But fun.

The Stock Market is Baffling

I posted before about Genspera (GNSZ).  I think that it is a really interesting company with a compelling product.  Today (9/9/15) Genspera announced that their Phase II trials of their lead candidate drug shows promising results against not only liver cancer, but also brain cancer and solid mass cancerous tumors in general.  You'd think that would be a positive bit of news, right?  Apparently not, as the stock nosedived 25% in short order after the announcement.  Baffling.