Ferrari Mailing List: Stuff, was: Doug DeMuro

[Rick Lindsay (richardolindsay]

Hello old friends,

I just read through the tractor thread and the underlying age theme. (I read the List in digest form now.) Its funny that in the almost-twenty years that I have been here, its not just me getting older! CG is 44?! When the hell did that happen? And Matt's son will be driving soon?! And sadly, a few of us are no longer on this Earth.

I was 45 when I joined the list, and bought my 308GTB a few months later. Interestingly, 45 was the average age, at that time, of the first-time Ferrari buyer. Mid-life crisis or finally can afford it? When I got my 308 my wife jokingly told me, "If you were going to have a mid-life crisis, you should have gotten a blond. She would have been cheaper and a lot less trouble!" Gotta love her.

So here I sit, a few days shy of 64-years-old, with two Ferraris in the garage keeping company with eight other interesting cars. Sadly, no tractors though. I have always wanted to restore a tractor; a little Farmall Super-A cultivation tractor. But alas, EVERYTHING on a tractor is heavy so restoration would be difficult. I only recently got a powered hoist. And of course, I live in a subdivision administered by a Nazi HOA. So my desire to restore a tractor (and a locomotive) goes unsatisfied. 

Anyone have records of how the Ferrari List membership has changed since Steve first launched it? I have no clue as to how large the membership is now. I also don't know how large it was in 1996 when I joined, or even how I found out about it! There are a lot of things I don't know...

I do know that my '78 Lotus Esprit has new front brakes. Well, the left front is back on the car and the right front is rebuilt and on the workbench awaiting reattachment. That's today's job, after a few hours exploring for oil.

And a quick aside regarding oil; While sub-$60-oil may be great for those struggling to fill the gas tank, its long term effect is freightening. My friends over at Exxon say, "If oil hovers around $60 for a while, it will soon bounce back. However, if is continues to slip downward, we expect it to bottom out at $45." And while some might cheer, OPEC's plan (read: Saudi Arabia's plan) is to cripple America's shale-oil industry and keep us dependent on imported oil! Yes, Exxon, BP and Shell will survive but I fear the smaller producers will fold. They just don't have the huge reserves of operating capital needed to weather this Saudi storm.

Oil exploration is extremely expensive, mostly because of the long concept-to-production time lag. I won't go into that but imagine you have a store and are looking for a supplier to satisfy your plan to buy inventory. Now imagine you must pay for it all in advance. And finally, imagine that you can't sell the very FIRST item to your customers until a DECADE later! Can you weather low product prices? Such is O&G exploration.

Yes, we're all getting older. I did hear an interesting statistic the other day, and it is encouraging. It seems we have passed the era of the you-owe-me-everything-millennials! Teenagers are smoking less, drinking less, doing fewer drugs, and accepting responsibilities for their own actions, better than we've seen in the past decades! I've seen that too in the kids I talk with. Imagine teenagers a decade ago, with 5-year plans! They have them today! I find that interesting, and encouraging. It also tells me that EVERYTHING is cyclical.  I had to get old to recognize that!

So perhaps I will restore a tractor some day. Who knows. Perhaps I'll stick to my frightfully unreliable British cars. And perhaps a teenager will help me with the work.

Gawd, it must be Tuesday. Never could get the hang of Tuesdays. (Reference: paraphrased from Arthur Dent.)

Woohoo,

-rick