Cars And Boats

TigerBlog has a "new" car.

Why the quote marks? It depends on what you want to consider new. It's "new" in that TigerBlog has never owned it before. It's not new in that it has 90,000 miles on it.

It's a 2008 Ford Focus. TigerBlog remembered it as being blue when he first saw it, but it actually was white. He's not sure how he messed that up.

The Focus joins TB's two other cars, a 2008 Honda CR-V and a 2013 Nissan Rogue, which between the have just short of 400,000 miles. The third car was made necessary when Miss TigerBlog recently got her driver's license, which meant that, among other things, TB would now be able to greatly reduce the amount of time he has to listen to MTB's music.

TB likes all three cars, though they don't have all that many frills. That's okay, TB supposes.

They have more frills, though, than his first car, a 1977 Dodge Diplomat. The "new" car is nearly 10 years old, but it's still 31 years older than his first car. He should have hung on to that car; it might be a classic now.

The 1977 Dodge Diplomat was red. Of this he is sure.

The "new" car has a button on the console for satellite radio, though TB doesn't actually have satellite radio. Maybe he'll get it. The 1977 Diplomat didn't have satellite radio, but it had something cooler - an eight-track player.

The "new" car does have a cassette player. TigerBlog used to have a lot of cassettes, but now he's down to one, which is a four-disc collection from a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. It's sort of like having satellite radio anyway, since TB would probably listen almost exclusively to the E Street channel, especially when there was a concert on, or "Thunder Road."

Oh, and here's one detail that TB should have mentioned - he bought the car from TigerBlog Jr.'s girlfriend's mother. They are the only owners the car has had, and they've obviously taken care of it. TB is confident in that.

Anyway, when he went to listen to the Springsteen CD, he noticed that there was already one in the little slot. When he popped it out, he saw that it said "JT" on it in big letters. "James Taylor," TB thought.

Wrong. As he looked closer, he found out that this "JT" actually was Justin Timberlake. While he will admit that "Can't Stop The Feeling" is less objectionable than most of the songs that Miss TigerBlog likes, TB is not exactly a fan of that "JT." And the fact that he thought "James Taylor" and not "Justin Timberlake" made him feel old.

TBJ's girlfriend is a very nice young woman named Lauren. She is a rower at Sacred Heart University, with a career ambition to be a strength and conditioning coach. And her car was very clean.

As for the Princeton rowers, it's been a good start for the teams in the boathouse. The women's open boat already has defeated perennial top five team Brown, and the men's lightweights defeated defending national champion Columbia.

On top of that, men's heavyweight rower Alex Michael was featured for this week's "Achieve, Serve, Lead" series for his work with the Special Olympics.

You can read about it HERE.

And for way more, HERE. They're both worth your time.

It'll be a busy weekend for the rowers, with four teams in four different locations over two days. The only ones to row on the Princeton campus will be the men's lightweights, who are home Saturday against Delaware and Dartmouth.

Also Saturday, the men's heavyweights will be in Philadelphia, rowing against Penn and Columbia for the Childs Cup. And the women's open will be in Cambridge, where it will row against Cornell and Harvard for the Class of 1975 Cup.

The women's lightweights will be Mercer County Lake Sunday, where they will row in the Knect Cup event.

April is a very busy month for the rowers, with events each weekend. There's then a week off before the Eastern Sprints (the two men's teams and women's lightweights) and Ivy League championships (women's open), and then another two until the national championships.

Speaking of rowing, one of the best Princeton Athletics pictures that TB has ever seen is one of the boathouse. It's from the late 1990s or so, and it was taken from across the lake.

In the picture, you can see the reflection of the boathouse on the lake, making it look like there are two boathouses. If TB is correct, you can also see the reflection of the clouds off the water as well, making it look like there are clouds in the air and on the ground.

It was a color picture, reproduced in black and white on the cover of that year's rowing guide, back when guides were done. It was a really nice effect in black and white, but the color one was so much better, since it showed off all of the different blues and whites of the sky and clouds. It was almost like a painting, one that can make you actually feel the peacefulness and serenity of the scene.

TB wonders where that picture is right now. If he can find it, he'll put it here. Hopefully it's exactly how he remembers it.

Peaceful and serene.