A Key, With Air Bags

You'd think the BMW had air bags enough, but apparently the new key we ordered needs the kind of protection you might expect for your own brain pan.  When I get a package like this from Amazon or some other place, protecting a thing like a key or some other tiny gizmo, I can't help imagining some worker in a warehouse.  In this case, he's got the little envelope in hand, wandering along looking for a box:  "Nope, too small, too small, too small . . . AHA, just right!  All I need now is a half-dozen pillows to protect this delicate key."  I'm sure there's a reason for such packaging, but don't these people know about padded envelopes?  

Even Bavarians Make Mistakes

If you've got a junk yard, used car business, and a scrap metal business, it's no surprise if sometimes odd and wonderful things come across your line of vision, and you just have to divert the scrap from the scrap pile.  That's what happened to Mr. Lee Roy Hartung, who died in May and whose automobile, motorcycle, and bicycle collection will be sold off in bits and pieces.    The car here is one of those, a 1949 Veritas, with running gear by BMW and a body by Spohn, a German company.  Take a look at The New York Times article on Hartung here and a site called Bring a Trailer with lots of pictures of the old beast here.  Now I'm a big fan of some of the good work the Bavarian Motor Works has done, but this thing looks more like the whale that Captain Ahab was hunting than the spritely convertible the wife and I brought back from Seattle.