Highlights of 2008
March: Car crash; no more car.
May: Bought brand new motor scooter.
July: Had an accident with the scooter, damaged shoulder, had to wear an arm brace.
August: Wore arm brace for most of the month, relieved of it at the end of the month.
September: Started riding the scooter again at the end of the month.
October: Sent to Mexico for a meeting.
I am still carless at the end of the year.
Fortunately, I was carless when the oil prices were at their peak.
Lewis Hamilton became the youngest ever Formula One World Driver's Champion this year. The previous youngest F1 champion was Fernando Alonso. Alonso had also been the youngest driver to win a F1 championship race, but he lost that record this year to Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Toro Rosso at the Italian Grand Prix. I love seeing Alonso being taken out of the record books. :)
Interestingly enough, before Vettel won in the STR at Italy, the last time an Italian-made Formula One car that wasn't a Ferrari won a championship race was fifty-one years earlier at the 1957 German Grand Prix. It was a Maserati 250F driven spectacularly by Juan Manuel Fangio in his last F1 racing victory. I have just realized that Fangio was not the oldest driver ever to win a F1 championship race and never was. Luigi Fagioli was 53 when he and Fangio won the 1951 French Grand Prix (drivers were allowed to share cars in those early days of F1). Fagioli was the only person born in the 19th century to win a F1 championship race.
With the New Year will start an uncertain new era. The world economy is in turmoil. General Motors, once the largest corporation in the world, is standing shakily, depending on government help to survive. This, oddly enough, is despite GM making money everywhere except in the United States. Buick sold more cars in China than it did in the US (not sure about right now, though...), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden are thriving in their respective markets... what is GM doing right in Europe, Asia, and Australia that they are not doing in North America?
Before Dubya, there was Nixon. Nixon resigned halfway through his second term and was replaced by Gerald Ford, who was then voted out of office and replaced by James "Jimmy" Carter. Everyone had high hopes for Carter and saw him as a new beginning after the Johnson/Nixon-style duplicity. Carter, however, was a tragic failure whose ineptitude in foreign affairs exploded into the Second Gas Crisis and a massive recession in 1979-1980. I sincerely hope that history is not repeating itself and that Obama is not the next Carter.
May: Bought brand new motor scooter.
July: Had an accident with the scooter, damaged shoulder, had to wear an arm brace.
August: Wore arm brace for most of the month, relieved of it at the end of the month.
September: Started riding the scooter again at the end of the month.
October: Sent to Mexico for a meeting.
I am still carless at the end of the year.
Fortunately, I was carless when the oil prices were at their peak.
Lewis Hamilton became the youngest ever Formula One World Driver's Champion this year. The previous youngest F1 champion was Fernando Alonso. Alonso had also been the youngest driver to win a F1 championship race, but he lost that record this year to Sebastian Vettel of Scuderia Toro Rosso at the Italian Grand Prix. I love seeing Alonso being taken out of the record books. :)
Interestingly enough, before Vettel won in the STR at Italy, the last time an Italian-made Formula One car that wasn't a Ferrari won a championship race was fifty-one years earlier at the 1957 German Grand Prix. It was a Maserati 250F driven spectacularly by Juan Manuel Fangio in his last F1 racing victory. I have just realized that Fangio was not the oldest driver ever to win a F1 championship race and never was. Luigi Fagioli was 53 when he and Fangio won the 1951 French Grand Prix (drivers were allowed to share cars in those early days of F1). Fagioli was the only person born in the 19th century to win a F1 championship race.
With the New Year will start an uncertain new era. The world economy is in turmoil. General Motors, once the largest corporation in the world, is standing shakily, depending on government help to survive. This, oddly enough, is despite GM making money everywhere except in the United States. Buick sold more cars in China than it did in the US (not sure about right now, though...), Opel, Vauxhall, and Holden are thriving in their respective markets... what is GM doing right in Europe, Asia, and Australia that they are not doing in North America?
Before Dubya, there was Nixon. Nixon resigned halfway through his second term and was replaced by Gerald Ford, who was then voted out of office and replaced by James "Jimmy" Carter. Everyone had high hopes for Carter and saw him as a new beginning after the Johnson/Nixon-style duplicity. Carter, however, was a tragic failure whose ineptitude in foreign affairs exploded into the Second Gas Crisis and a massive recession in 1979-1980. I sincerely hope that history is not repeating itself and that Obama is not the next Carter.
annoyed
tired