Martin Pease

So the MRI results came back, and I definitely have a brain. Long a matter of discussion in my family and circle of acquaintance, I have a piece of paper from a real radiologist that confirms the residence of a brain in my cranium. Suck it, haters! The other good news is that my real, existing brain is operating normally. I recently had a couple of episodes where I had some tingling on the left side of my face, and in my left arm. 40 year old cigar smoker, expert drinker, and general bon vivant? We've heard this tune before, and it plays in the key of "heart attack" or "stroke". Happily, both the CT scan and MRI ruled out both of these possibilities. We're now considering something mundane, such as the fact that I sleep on my left side and perhaps irritated or pinched a nerve. The experience of getting the MRI done was interesting. In theory, there's nothing to it- you lie on a table and slide into a tube, and magnets unleash the power of Gre...

Over the weekend I sat down to watch Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey with my wife, who was seeing it for the first time.  Depending on which critic you read, the movie is either a masterpiece of deep philosophical questioning, or a vastly overrated mishmash of half-baked ideas that runs much too long. In my opinion, the movie falls someplace between these extremes. Most people vaguely remember a few discrete scenes, such as the apes at the beginning, or The Blue Danube playing as the space shuttle docks with the station, or "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." But the small details really impressed me with this latest viewing- all of the costume designs, the color palette, how the visual effects still look good. Mostly, one can't help marveling at the absolute perfection of Kubrick's execution of all the audio and visual elements into a complete sensory experience. And yet, for all the brilliance on display, the plot ultimately fails to hold up unde...

The proximate cause of this vehicle purchase was the imminent arrival of Squeaker, our fifth baby. Up to this blessed event, I could still shuttle all the kids to school and daycare in the trusty Range Rover, but now this would not work. The secret, true cause is that I fell in deep desire when I first saw pictures of this car, approximately 2 years before it was released. And lo, deliveries of the new model would start at the end of 2017, coinciding with Squeaker's entrance. We placed our order at the beginning of December, 2017, and I was told it might take 8 to 12 weeks to arrive. Fortune laughed at this statement. Six months is how long it took to receive my 2018 Lincoln Navigator. The first car that was delivered to the dealership after about 4 months wasn't configured properly- one of the few must-have features of this car is the optional 8-passenger configuration, as opposed to the standard 7-passenger seating arrangement. Sure enough, someone at the dealership ent...

The moon converging with Venus, over the dock. Since I was a kid, my family took our infrequent summer vacations Up North, that is to the northern forests of Minnesota. Sometimes, we'd visit Grand Marais over on Superior, other times we'd visit Duluth. There were several trips to the boundary waters, in the Ely area, in my late teens. But the one spot we'd vacation the most was the Chippewa National Forest, just north of Grand Rapids, MN. Since having kids, my wife and I have taken just a few trips Up North. Lately, we've been vacationing in Maine, which is my favorite place and the only spot in North America that I have seriously considered moving to. But, with an infant in tow, the 2 day drive was out of the question, so we returned to the north woods. Mostly, you sit on the deck, watching your kids fish and swim from the dock. A week on Turtle Lake. Fishing, hiking, boating and relaxing. We filleted and fried these fish up in a pan, coated with Shore...

Last year, I wrote up a review of a loaner Range Rover Velar, and submitted it to the personal website run by Jack Baruth, an auto journalist for sites such as Road & Track and The Truth About Cars. He asked for reader submissions, so I sent this in. He's just getting around to running it, which you can find  HERE .