Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The cover of the book tells you all you need to know: a fictional diver gets swallowed by a sperm whale. The writer somehow got a publisher to accept a 300-page [more on that in a bit] book about it. I originally requested the audiobook from the library, but that was taking a while to come in, so I then requested the print book. Both came in at the same time. I started listening to the audiobook, but gave up on that because the reader had a wimpy teen-like voice. To be fair, the book’s narrator is a wimpy teen.

So how do you make an entire book about being swallowed by a whale? You don’t; and the author didn’t. There are many pages with a single word on them, others with just one short sentence. That’s why the 300 pages is misleading, presumably stretched with mucho white space for commercial purposes. Much of the “dialogue” consists of whale noises. The whole concept is preposterous and the writing pedestrian at best. If I had any other book to read, I wouldn’t have finished this, but with plenty of skimming, it was easy to complete in a few hours, although I did spread those out over a few days since I still didn’t have another book in at the library. Since I did at least read to the end, I’ll give it two stars, but I don’t recommend this to anyone.

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The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was slow to get hooked into this book, but in the end, I enjoyed it. The author is good at setting the scene and making the reader feel he is there. In this case, the scene is the coast of Maine in a tiny town appropriately called Littleport. The undisputed ruler of the town, Grant Loman, owns a vast real estate empire. In addition to his own monstrous house he rents out the many surrounding cabins, cottages and other properties to summer vacationers. His two children, Parker and Sadie, rich and beautiful, were raised in private schools in Boston but are now the heirs apparent to the empire. Our protagonist, however, is Sadie’s best friend, Avery, an orphaned teenager at one time, but now employed by the Lomans to manage the Littleport rentals. Despite the loss of her parents in a car accident, the death of her grandmother, and a rebellious period, she has made her way in life and become Sadie’s bestie.

There is an end-of-season party and a death. Was it a suicide? A murder? Avery is both a suspect and a self-appointed, obsessed investigator. The suspense builds slowly as more and more information is revealed to the reader. This is done in a way that is trendy but which I find irritating: a constant barrage of time switches from the current day to an earlier time, usually the day of the party, but sometimes even earlier as Avery relates bits of history she is remembering. Whatever happened to telling a story in chronological order? In any event, the reader is not told important events and facts until near the very end making it impossible to make a logical guess to solve the mystery until then. The denouement is a little too pat and predictable; at least, it’s predictable once you are told all the necessary stuff in the final chapters. The storytelling maintains a slightly creepy noirish feel throughout while conveying the isolation and grandeur of the Maine coast (which I can imagine but have never seen). Enjoy it more for the atmosphere and the characters than the plot.

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Here’s another gem from the radio (anchor asking a reporter):

“What have we heard about the hostages that were kidnapped from the White House?”

Here’s a video

I want to take this opportunity to pay my own tribute to Rancho San Antonio County Park and Open Space Preserve (RSA). RSA is both a county park (one part) and the rest an open space preserve owned and managed by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD), a separate governmental entity that spans San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The whole thing is administered by MROSD. It has been a favorite place of mine since I moved back to the valley in 1980 and today was a somewhat special day.

I went on my regular out and back run today from Lot 1 (formerly called the horse trailer lot) to the far western point on the Rogue Valley Trail (N37 19.772 W122 05.139 to N37 20.332 W122 07.638 for you geocachers) and three unusual things happened. On the road to the farm next to the Lower Meadow Trail I saw a buck with an impressive set of antlers just to the left of the trail. The deer there are used to people, although they will usually avoid us and the bucks are shyer than the does. This one stayed put and eyed me, then as I got close it lowered its antlers and started toward me. This startled me for a second, but it immediately became clear he was heading to cross the road behind me. He trotted briskly across the road  and I turned to watch as he leapt over the wire fence (at approximately N37 19.913 W122 5.848). The fence isn’t very high, but it was a magnificent display nonetheless. There was only one other person who saw this, a man coming the opposite way. He stopped in his tracks and said “Wow! Amazing!” I told him we got to see a nature show.

That was on the way up. On the way back I was nearing the parking areas and two old men (by that, I mean about my age) were walking ahead of me when we all saw a dust devil whirl up some dirt from the trail directly ahead of us, It formed a violent funnel for a few seconds then disappeared just as quickly as it had formed. As I passed, one man said to the other, laughing, “I guess we can tell people we saw a tornado today.” It was no tornado, but it was unusual.

Finally, on the very last leg, on the Permanente Creek Trail I saw a lone coyote standing right in the middle of the trail about a hundred yards ahead of me. It didn’t seem to notice me as it was facing the other way. I kept running, expecting it to run off. Instead, it started trotting slowly away from me, toward the PG&E Trailhead. I wasn’t gaining on it at first, but after twenty yards or so it spotted some hikers on that trail where it crosses the trail we were on and it slowed, then stopped. I kept going and got to about fifty yards away when it turned and noticed me. It then dodged into the bushes to my left. I never saw it after that. Behind me was another jogger gaining on me (almost everyone is faster than me now) so I turned to him and asked if he’d seen it, too. He confirmed he had and gave me a big grin.

Where else in a busy high-tech hub like Silicon Valley can you see such a fun nature display? I’m not even including the everyday attractions of the place like the cute baby goats at Deer Hollow Farm, flocks of wild turkeys and quail, bunnies, and the hikers talking a myriad of foreign languages. I hear Mandarin and Spanish nearly every time I go there and have often heard German, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, and various Indian or other Asian subcontinent languages I don’t know. If I want the place all to myself I can go early on a cold, rainy winter morning. The nature show is often great those days. So RSA, my hat (or running cap) is off to you. Thank you for the many years of enjoyment.

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m no history buff. I only read this because my book club chose it. But I loved it. From page 1 it’s a thriller. You know in general what happened. The title tells you that if you didn’t already know anything about it. But you don’t know exactly why or how it happened and you certainly don’t know who will survive and who won’t. The author personalizes the victims and the parties who may or may not have been responsible for this tragedy.

I learned a great deal about dams and spillways. There’s a lot more to them than I thought. In our valley there are some reservoirs that aren’t allowed to fill up even during heavy rains. I’ve always thought that was a near-criminal waste of capacity in this drought-prone region. Now I understand why engineers take the cautious approach they do. The author sneaked in lessons in history and engineering while foolish me thought it was just an exciting suspense story. He also taught us valuable lessons in human nature, like how people become inured to warnings and pretty much anything they don’t want to believe. Everyone knew the dam was dangerous, but nobody did anything about it. It’s always someone else’s responsibility. It’s the chicken little or the boy who cried wolf. Only after the worst happens did people accept it was real this time.

I listened to the audiobook and I can affirm that the reader did a perfect job – not too maudlin, not too casual. There was just enough drama in his voice without undue histrionics. I highly recommend this book.

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A Flaw in the Design by Nathan Oates
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this umpteenth take on the unreliable narrator shtick we hear the voice of Gil, a professor of creative writing at a not-so-prestigious Vermont college. Gil and his wife Molly are struggling financially and his writing career is going nowhere. Suddenly Gil’s obscenely rich sister and her husband are killed in a car crash and the will names Gil as the guardian of their son Matthew, at that point 17 years old and finishing his senior year at a prep school. Gil despises Matthew for reasons hinted at but not immediately revealed, but he feels a duty to his sister and the job comes with a healthy stipend for expenses, so he and Molly agree.

Matthew was, when Gil last knew him, a foul-mouthed, spoiled, selfish little brat. There was a dark incident that is finally explained about page 50. Note to author: why wait? Either tell it right up front or save as a big reveal at the end. Why hint at something you’re about to reveal in a few pages? But I digress. When we learn of it, it is not clear whether Matthew did something evil or was otherwise at fault. Gil may even have been more responsible, especially since the story is told from his viewpoint with his assumptions and conclusions about what happened.

Now, years after that incident, Matthew settles in with Gil and Molly and Gil becomes increasingly paranoid about having him in the house. Every time Matthew smiles, Gil sees an evil smirk. Every time Matthew helps Gil’s daughters, his cousins, Gil sees it as an attempt to weasel his way into their confidence in order to set up some nefarious deed later. Molly and the girls think Matthew is nice and Gil is overreacting, judging him based on a childhood incident. The money he brings is certainly welcome. Then there’s a police investigation into the fatal crash, but we’re not told much about it. Matthew also manages to gain entrance to Gil’s creative writing class. The stories he writes Gil finds disturbing, taunting, while other students and Molly think they’re harmless fiction. Gil becomes increasingly unhinged. The story becomes a psychological mystery. Is Gil going crazy and persecuting his innocent nephew? Is Matthew secretly building a plot against Gil?

I like the basic plot setup to this point, although I’m tired of the unreliable narrator hook. I did keep reading to the end and enjoyed it enough to give it the three stars, but I found Gil to be too unreliable through the latter pages. In plain language, the author overdid it. Gil just seemed wacko, even though Matthew clearly showed himself to still be a foul-mouthed entitled brat at times. Neither garners our sympathy, which means it’s easy to lose interest in the outcome. Still, it was cleverly written with enough suspense building after the slow beginning. I did foresee the twist at the very end, which usually gives me triumphant satisfaction with the ending, but in this case I did not find it fulfilling.

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I just updated the playlists I have on my phone, which I listen to in my car via Bluetooth. I’ll list the ones I’ve removed from my playlists separately, then the ones I’ve added. Bear in mind that the ones I’m deleting aren’t necessarily things I don’t like or no longer listen to. They’re all good enough for me to have put them on my playlists in the first place. Sometimes I just get tired of them. Sometimes I hear them on Pandora or listen to them on my computer at home through my stereo system. Some later get put back into my playlists after having been removed, like Adele’s Rolling in the Deep today.

Removed List

Added List

Judas 62 by Charles Cumming
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This spy novel is divided into two main parts. It begins in the modern day (pandemic) and we are informed that “Lockie” Kite, a British spy, is on a Russian hit list, but under an alias he once used. Quickly the story switches to that time many years earlier when as a young man he was involved in an exfiltration operation of a Russian scientist. This all takes place early on, so this is no spoiler. The next 170 pages (of 494) are rather boring. They portray Kite as a hard-drinking, smoking, drug-taking, cheating roue. This may have had some cachet in the days of 007, but doesn’t make him an attractive character by today’s standards. I found him quite dislikeable. Starting around that page, the earlier operation action is laid out. It is fairly credible, exciting, and well-written for the next 120 pages. I enjoyed it, although there’s little suspense since we already know Kite is alive and still doing spy work decades later.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of it. The scene switches back to the modern day and as you might expect, Kite is bound and determined to get the Russian bad guy who is after him before he can get to Kite. An absolutely preposterous, laughable, and needlessly dangerous British operation is then undertaken starting with Chapter 33. Don’t bother to read it after that point. The book is way too long anyway.

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It’s been a while since I posted a W3W post. If you’re not familiar with the website/app, it’s a clever system to identify any spot on the surface of the Earth using only three words. You can read more about it on the website or in my prior post here: What3Words.

Every now and then it’s sobering to see how these random word combinations are so appropriate to the location, even newsworthy. Here are some examples.

wildfires.outdated.afraid = near the center of Lahaina, Hawaii

rockets.rockets.rockets = a suburb of Volgograd, Russia where earlier this month that area was attacked by Ukrainian drones for the first time.

duck.worth.plan = in Quincy, Illinois. U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth represents Illinois. She was instrumental in getting a Veterans’ center built there.

The Stepfamily by Bonnie L. Traymore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Laura is the stepmother to two children from her husband Peter’s first marriage. His first wife died by suicide more than ten years ago. Or was it suicide? That’s the first big mystery. Then there are tensions at work for both Laura and Peter with a financial crime lurking in the past. Then it looks like someone cut the brake line on Laura’s car. Is someone out to kill her? This doesn’t even touch on the possible frictions and resentment a stepmom can face from children still loyal to their mother.

The author does a good job of ramping up the suspense. It is properly subtitled “A psychological thriller.” I enjoyed the book enough to recommend it. Having said that, it suffers from some self-published book flaws like poor proofreading. I also didn’t like the chick lit vibe, e.g. the constant descriptions of female characters’ outfits and even toenail color (plum). I did like the local references as I live in the area. Chef Chu’s is the best Chinese restaurant around.

The author shows a good deal of knowledge about tech startups and Silicon Valley culture and business, but she is clearly not up to speed on police procedure or investigative matters. That’s why I say it’s a psychological thriller, not a detective novel. She refers to the the Santa Clara County Police as investigating the case. Sorry, no, there is no such agency. If a crime took place outside a city, it would be investigated by the county sheriff, otherwise by the police agency for that city. Los Altos Hills, Laura’s location, uses Los Altos Police for most detective work although the sheriff’s office might assist on a possible homicide. Worse, though, is the private eye she conjures up who seems to have magical powers to find out anything. As a retired FBI agent and attorney, I can tell you it doesn’t work that way. For example the P.I. searches for someone using facial recognition. How? That requires a network of hundreds or even thousands of cameras, very sophisticated software and hardware, and a series of good photos of the person sought. He had none of that and neither does any law enforcement agency in the county. He also found out about an affair from years ago with no indication that either of the lovers told him about it, or for that matter, any explanation at all of how he did. Admittedly, I’m a bit picky about that stuff because of my background, but these eye-rolling mistakes have the effect of taking the reader out of the credibility of the story. There’s also a major timeline error at the very end. Even so, I found myself engaged with the story and continually wanting to read the next chapter. At least she stuck to the old rule, “write about what you know.”

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Soccer is generally more poplar in the United States than tennis. Google searches on the two words usually favors soccer by a big margin. However, with Coco Gauff winning the U.S. Open recently, tennis has stepped into the spotlight. It’s interesting to see where tennis has broken through to Americans. Oops! I labeled it 8/6-13, but it should be 9/6-13/23.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book about people, not plot. The main characters, Sadie Green and Sam Masur, are young brilliant people with a fascination for games. They grow up and found a successful video games company. They love each other, but are not partners, not of the romantic sort, at least they don’t seem to be in the early going. The author leaves that unanswered until the end. They fight; they reconcile. There are moments of triumph and joy and many tragedies and mistakes. Sam’s college roommate, Marx Watanabe, takes on the role of Sam’s protector and big brother and later game producer. He is as much a main character as Sam and Sadie. Many others, mostly from the game company, fill out the roster. The backstories on all the characters and their parents are fleshed out as separate short stories with the overarching novel. In a way this can be considered a high concept book. It is about story-telling, about life and love and grief.

Much as I enjoyed the book, it left me just a little disappointed, or perhaps more accurately, unfulfilled. I’m used to murder mysteries and spy novels and science fiction. I miss the plot. I like the idea of a goal being set and worked toward, whether it’s solving the murder, escaping a peril, or successfully creating a post-apocalyptic social order. The author writes beautifully and the characters are interesting. I think the author is a frustrated game designer herself. She certainly invents a number of them throughout the book and they’re fun diversions. But the book is more like taking a bus tour through lovely landscape just to enjoy the leisurely pace and all the visual treats, but ending up at the beginning, rather than running a marathon through that same countryside with a clear goal in mind. I had to fight off snatches of boredom here and there to reach the end, but I’m very glad I read the book.

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Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author, a degreed designer and staff writer at The Atlantic provides this compelling indictment of America’s mindless adoption of free parking everywhere for everyone. He writes with wit and entertains us with a plethora of amusing or mind-boggling anecdotes and inside lore from the world of parking. If you’re the type that likes peeking under the hood of the machinery of a vast, largely overlooked enterprise (it’s more than just an industry) you’ll find this fascinating. It reminds me very much of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade. There is so much more to parking than I ever imagined and the author has been studying it for years.

I was an attorney for a transportation authority, so this hits a topic I know a bit about. Not everyone is so interested, I realized, which is one reason I can’t give it five stars. He discusses how America’s love of parking, especially mandatory parking minimums for developers, drives more car ownership, hurts mass transit, results in excessive paving, and in more flight from urban centers. The once classic masonry buildings were replaced by parking lots and garages due to outlandish parking requirements in building codes that were based on no science or examination of need. He touches on parking meters and how they’ve been manipulated by gangsters and major corporations (if those can be distinguished). He gives a clear picture of the life of a parking attendant (ixnay on “meter maid”). He’s shown quite convincingly how removing mandatory minimum parking rules in Los Angeles and some other cities has revitalized downtown, or at least certain neighborhoods. His research and statistics sources prove that there’s a lot more free parking than is actually needed and most of it sits vacant most of the time. That’s incredibly valuable land going unused. There’s much more here than I’ve already mentioned, but I’ll add one perspective of my own that he only touched on briefly. When my district had to widen a commercial street, say for a bus lane or light rail extension, business owners would all claim six figure damages when we had to take a two-foot strip off their parking lot, notwithstanding the fact it was never full and creative restriping can save them the same number of spaces, and they’d often get it since it costs the district that much to take an eminent domain case to trial. And there are usually dozens, even hundreds of affected landowners for such projects. City planners don’t realize that those mandated spaces are going to have to be bought back by taxpayers later on at highly inflated prices.

But there’s another reason I can’t go to five stars, and that is I don’t think the author has gotten it right. He is writing from the perspective of one who loves big cities, especially New York and he is clearly a preservationist. I believe he’s in a minority and is ignoring the wants and needs of most Americans. When I was transferred to New York, I rented an apartment in the north end of Manhattan in a building that promised me an underground garage parking spot. After I signed the lease and moved in, they told me the spot wasn’t empty and I was “next on the list.” I had to wrestle with alternate side parking and after a few weeks my car got stolen off the street. I never bought a replacement while I was living there and never got a discount on rent. I despised everything about New York and its old masonry abominations with their inadequate plumbing, electricity, insulation. I love it in the suburbs of Silicon Valley where I live now with plenty of parking on my street and the local stores. My son and his wife both worked at Google HQ in Mountain View. They shared one car and would take turns walking or biking to their separate office buildings. They hated it. They sold their condo at a loss during the pandemic and bought a two-acre place on Puget Sound in Olympia, WA where they can now work from home when they’re not kayaking around in a natural paradise from their back yard. A comparable place in the Bay Area, if it existed, would cost at least three times as much, maybe twice that. Now they have two cars, including a Tesla, and plenty of parking. The fact is that people historically lived densely in big cities like New York because they had to, not because of its charm (except maybe for actors, writers, and artists). Most people want to live out away from the teeming masses, and technology and employers are now allowing them to do that. My point is not that he’s wrong about how getting rid of parking in general and free parking in particular can revitalize a vacant city core, it’s that we shouldn’t be trying to. Those old masonry buildings are environmental disasters with their impossible to heat 10-foot ceilings, fuel oil heating systems, and lack of insulation. The parking mandates that got them torn down did us all a favor.

The author certainly disagrees with me, and he is entitled to his opinion. I certainly respect his deep knowledge on the subject and enjoyed the book a great deal. Even if you don’t agree with him, it’s something every thoughtful person should read, and, by the way, I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

More than anything else, this is a great story. It’s fun to read and eye-opening in so many ways. You all know the basic plot: a young white boy flees a bad situation in St. Petersburg, Missouri and hooks up with Jim, a runaway black slave. They float down the Mississippi River on a raft and have many adventures including getting taken advantage of by con men, barely escaping murderers, and so on. It is an American classic.

It is told in the first person by Huck Finn in the dialect of that time and place. It could be a difficult read for people whose English is not their first language, or even English speakers who didn’t grow up or live a long time in America. This includes use of the word nigger and depicts the racism of the day in stark detail. For this reason, among others, the book is considered controversial. Some find it a satirical exposé of that racism and the cruelty of slavery while others see it as racist itself. I see it as both. I think Twain was trying to show that cruelty and the injustice of racism, but also held typical white southerner’s views of blacks as inferior to white. Jim is not depicted in a favorable way as to intelligence, although he is a good soul.

In the end, I see no point in trying to judge the book by today’s standards. It was just a ripping good yarn and I’m glad our book club chose it.

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Give a Boy a Gun: The True Story of Law and Disorder in the American West by Jack Olsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This remarkable book tells an astounding true story in riveting prose. Claude Dallas was a poacher and trapper in the I-O-N (Idaho, Oregon, Nevada) area who shot and killed two game wardens. He then fled and was a fugitive for years. The book describes how it happened, according to an eyewitness, according to Dallas, according to various people in the legal system, according to press reports, and according to many rumor-mongers and gossips. It is a prime example of how everyone believes whatever they want to believe. The outcome of the pursuit and what happened thereafter are artfully concealed until the very end. There are more twists and turns than in any John Grisham novel. I can tell you I was totally surprised twice in the final pages.

I’m surprised this book doesn’t have more reviews and ratings. It’s top-notch and told skillfully. I recommend that you do NOT look through the photographs in the middle until you’ve finished the book, because there is a spoiler there. The book spends quite a bit of time setting the stage and introducing the characters, so it’s not exciting right off the bat, although there are some heart-stopping moments. Stick with it and you won’t be able to put it down by the last third.

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Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This very silly book can at best be considered a time filler. The premise is that there exists a “conservatory” devoted to homicide, or, according to its own jargon, deletions. It teaches its students the art of poisoning, disguise, creating alibis, and much more. It is run much like a British prep school, although its actual location is kept from the students, who are taken in blindfolded. I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by Simon Vance (in a very stuffy Etonian accent) and Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Cliff, the male lead, a student bent on killing his employer.

Cliff’s target is the company CEO who modified Cliff’s aircraft design in a way that saved money, but created a deadly flaw that could lead to airliners falling from the sky. He also fired Cliff for pointing out that the change was deadly and framed him so his career was ruined. Other students had equally just reasons for wanting to delete their employers. The incongruity of the stuffiness and propriety of the school while advocating and promoting murder is amusing for a premise, but it doesn’t sustain the book beyond the first page. The students finish their courses and are set forth in the world to complete their “theses,” i.e. the deletions for which they trained. The rules of the school are such that if they fail, they must be deleted themselves as they know too much and pose a threat to the school. Somehow this is only if they fail but not if they succeed. A smidgen of suspense is added by inserting some students who seem deserving of deletion themselves and some innocent people who might be killed or blamed by botched deletions. I’ll leave the outcome of these attempts to you to find out on your own.

The whole idea is ludicrous and so are the convoluted schemes the students, or, I should say, graduates, attempt. Another odd choice of the author is to set this book in 1950. For a while I thought I must have stumbled an old mystery book from that era, but, no, it’s first published in 2023. I can’t recommend the book, but it provided some background noise while I did my email or played solitaire on my computer.

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I own a Volvo XC40 Recharge, an electric vehicle (EV). When I was doing comparison shopping for it in 2020 I took a look at the Tesla Model 3, another EV. They’re close to the same size and price, although the Volvo is shorter and taller and is a small SUV, while the Tesla is a sedan. At that time I didn’t care for several features of the Tesla and I’m now very happy with my choice. But last week I was in Texas visiting family and I rented a car, which turned out to be a Tesla Model 3 (although that’s not what I asked for). So I drove one for a week and formed a more educated opinion.

The bottom line: I really didn’t like the Tesla. Before I tell you why, let me say what I liked about the Tesla. First, it’s an EV. That’s a huge plus with me and should be with you. Their charging system, especially the superchargers, are much superior to the CCS fast charge system used by Volvo and most European carmakers. Tesla’s public (i.e. not home) chargers are faster, easier to handle, and more reliable, too. That’s important if you plan to drive it on long trips, but if you’re like me and able to charge every night at home or work, then that’s not very important. The Tesla navigation system is excellent, I was in a strange city and needed guidance. The voice directions were clear and perfectly timed. Volvo uses Google Maps and it’s very good, too, but I think Tesla’s system is slightly better. Warning: on one occasion it told me to make a U-turn at an intersection marked with a No U-turn sign.

Now for my complaints. The roof is not opaque!!! The sun shines right through it. It is darkened plastic, but still lets in enough bright sun to be annoying. I had to wear a hat in the car several times. What could the designer possibly have been thinking! That alone was one original deal killer in 2020 and driving in 102°F heat with the sun in my peripheral vision proved to be as bad as I had imagined. Along those lines: the air conditioner was inadequate and can’t be directed. To be fair, I’m not sure how well my Volvo would do in that heat, but at least I know how to lower the temperature, move the directional louvers, and increase the fan speed on mine. The Volvo uses the Google Automotive app and I can just call out climate control commands to it while driving. It’s usually perfect. I didn’t know how to change anything on the Tesla, certainly not by voice. I did see the temperature was set at 66° but inside the car it was easily 95°. That big screen control system also made driving difficult. Some controls, like the bluetooth, were located on the far right of the screen, basically in front of the passenger seat. I had to use it several times to change the volume of the music that was playing from my phone and that was dangerous as I had to take my eyes completely off the road. My Volvo has a small nav screen right in front of the steering wheel so I can see my next turn while still looking ahead. On the Tesla I had to look off to the right.

The key system on the Tesla is ridiculous. It’s a big honkin’ card about the size and shape of a pack of bubble gum baseball cards. By itself, that might not be too bad if you could fit it in a pocket or purse (which I couldn’t because the rental people fastened a big plastic tag to it), but you have to hold it flat against the outside of the doorpost in order to lock or unlock the car door. That’s really inconvenient, especially when you have your hands full, which I do quite often when getting in or out. It’s quite glitchy, too, and sometimes required me to put everything down and try repositioning it multiple times before the car recognizes it. My Volvo key stays in my pocket the whole time. I just reach for the door handle and if I have the key, it unlocks; to lock I just touch my hand to the outside of the handle. I can do this on my Volvo without letting go of whatever I’m carrying, and it’s 100% reliable. On top of that you have to slip the Tesla card into the center console area to get the car to start (the Volvo just starts when you sit). Then as soon as you start, the key card slides into the cup holders. It would be easy to forget the key when exiting. What’s wrong with an old-fashioned push-button remote to pop open the doors or trunk? Tesla just has to be “cool” at the expense of utility.

The door handles are yet another disaster on the Tesla. They’re flush with the body. This may be to reduce wind resistance, although I can’t imagine it makes much difference there. You have to press one end with your thumb and that levers out the rest of the handle, which you can then grab. If you can see it, that is. One night it was very dark out and I could not see the handle. I heard the door unlock, but without exterior lighting the car looked totally black (even though it was a red car with black handles). I felt around for the handle and only felt a smooth surface. It’s no problem finding the door handle by feel on the Volvo. With the Tesla I finally had to put everything I was holding on the ground, get out my phone, and use the flashlight just to find the door handle.

The interior door handles are even worse, at least in the back seat. There are none! Once at the supercharger I decided to wait in the car (est. 20 min). At first I sat in the driver’s seat and listened to my music through bluetooth. But the car faced south, full sun coming through the windshield, and it was blazing hot despite the A/C. So I decided to get in the back seat where the semi-transparent roof provided some shade at least. When I did that I discovered the car stopped the A/C and the music, presumably because no one was in driver’s seat, so I decided to get out and go to a nearby store. But when I reached for the “handle” I found it was just a fixed grab bar. There was no release lever like in the front, which had a normal pull-up door release. I felt all over and could not find a lever to pull. The door was locked and the window wouldn’t roll down. I actually started to panic. I tried both doors and the roof lining, the back of the center console, … everything, and could not find a door release. I’m over 75 and I could have been trapped in there. Fortunately I’m agile enough to climb between the front seats and exit out the front passenger door. That’s not just stupid design, it’s positively life-threatening. After I got out, I went into a store and searched for how to exit the rear of a Tesla and found a video. Apparently there is a small button (black on black, naturally, so you can’t see it) that one is supposed to slide forward. I never saw or felt that button. Sure, if you owned one of these cars and read the manual, you’d be aware of it, but this was a rental. I had only one minute of orientation to it, and I certainly didn’t think of asking directions on how to get out the car. Yet another idiocy in the name of coolness.

The car was too low and long. That’s the other major reason I didn’t consider the the Tesla in 2020. It wouldn’t fit in my garage and visibility is terrible since all the cars around you are taller. The seating height in my Volvo is nine inches higher and the car is shorter. The Tesla design is not a flaw, just a choice to go for less wind resistance (meaning longer range) but it was deal killer for me. The rear window on the Tesla is set too high and is too narrow. I was constantly readjusting the rear-view mirror trying to see behind me. It’s a safety problem.

So you may think I’m biased, and perhaps I am, but I spotted several of these problems back in 2020  when I didn’t have any investment in a Volvo. My mind was open then at least, and I didn’t like what I saw. Now I know why. And in case you’re wondering, I love my Volvo.

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me by something I subscribe to (NYT?) and I like science, so I grabbed it for something to read while on a trip. The writing is professional and at times entertaining. There are a good number of curious animal facts and stories. But the book really has only two main points: first, Female animals have historically been given short shrift by the male-dominated science world which considered them dull and unworthy of study when in fact they are often the more aggressive and dominant of the sexes. Second, female researchers have been discriminated against by male academic higher-ups and journal editors. They are biased against anyone, basically limited to women, who suggests point one.

To bolster these points she fills the chapters with stories of female spiders who eat their mates, alpha female chimps, various species where the female has the more impressive and male-like genitalia, lesbian albatrosses, and so on. The women who submit articles about these things are routinely told by journal editors that they can’t or won’t publish the research documenting these studies because they “can’t be true” or “I don’t believe it.” Basically male chauvinism prevails in the science world.

I don’t disagree with the substance of these points. I just didn’t find it very entertaining after the eighth or tenth species. Every page or two I wanted to scream, “Okay, I get it.” I thought I was checking out a science book, not a feminist tract.

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