The things I appreciate: My family, a few close friends, my country, conservatism, TRUMP (2024!), Ronald Reagan (as much as I love Trump, Reagan is still the Presidential GOAT), history (WWII, mainly), old-school WWII simulation board games (Avalon Hill, SPI, etc.), cool cars — I have a nice ‘86 Shelby Charger (Bucket List car) and a cherry ‘06 Mustang GT — auto racing, Carroll Shelby and '80s New Wave/Alternative/Punk music. I spend most of my days living in the past.

This is my '86 Charger, photographed at the showroom just before I purchased it. Dodge only produced 793 of the blue Chargers in '86 (total 7,669 for the year, mostly in black and red), with a total production run of only 16,389 for the three turbo years ('85-'87). The low production numbers make it fairly rare when compared to other "muscle cars" (an oxymoron in the '80s) produced, like the Mustang (Ford made over 50K GTs in '86 alone, more than all Shelby Charger model years combined). And because you rarely see one it always draws a small crowd at the local gatherings. It was never a great car (cheap thrills), so many of them were driven into the ground. So glad I finally have one, and especially in this condition. It's not perfect (the previous owner did an acceptable repair to the right side of the hood that I'll have to fix properly at some point), or a show car, but it's pretty darned nice.