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Happy birthday guys. Sorry I wasn’t around for the actual day. Been serving on the worst kind of jury duty possible, but it’s finally all done.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Today makes a week since we moved into the new house, the movers were pretty quick and efficient w/ the furniture last Thursday. Been unpacking boxes, getting rooms around the house set up (my office is pretty well along), going to the old house in the evenings to clean out, etc. Just exhausting...been relaxing in the hot tub in the evenings. Going out for some good seafood Friday night for my birthday...will Uber downtown. Looking forward to the 4 day weekend, more unboxing, working on cleaning up the old house, going to the Indy Car race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Sunday. Did do a fun thing the other evening--went and saw Santana in concert--had never seen Carlos play, he's great live. The June weather has been crazy...hot and dry at the start of the month, then lots of rain lately, and this week smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires (I think Ontario is less than 50 miles from here across the lake). Looking forward to July.

Thanks you, gents, and happy birthday to my birthmates.

Today June 29th, 2023 the North America largest independent charging station company, Electrify America (EA) has announced their commitment to a broad charging solution for Electric Vehicles today by adding NACS connectors to their stations. EA will continue to provide CCS-1 connectors throughout their network of charging stations and will add the Tesla NACS connector option to all existing and future charging stations by 2025. Robert Barrosa, president and CEO of Electrify America stated the following: “Since our founding, we have focused on building an inclusive and open hyper-fast charging network to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles. We look forward to continuing to support industry-wide standards that increase vehicle interoperability and streamline public charging.” EA has also joined the newly created (ChargeX) National Charging Experience Consortium where they will focus on strengthening the national charging infrastructure and improving EV ownership experience. EA has stated that as e-mobility accelerates, EA will continue to deliver what the customer needs. The addition of the NACS connector continues this commitment. EA network has 850 charging stations and growing across North America. The 4,000 individual charges as of today in the U.S. and Canada are either 150 kW or 350 kW and will continue to be improved. EA has committed to spending $2 billion dollars in upgrades and new charging stations in 2023. Part of this expansion is the partnership with TravelCenters of America. EA is just the latest in the growing group of auto and charging companies to support the Tesla NACS connector. You can find more information on the other companies here: NACS the North American New Charging Standard? - Automotive Industry - Cheers & Gears (cheersandgears.com) View full article

Two random thoughts that occurred to me tonight ... 1 We sit there and watch squirrels scurrying around, eating what they find, and standing up on their hind legs, but if they didn't have those bushy tails, we'd find them to be pests. 2 I bought some fuel tonight and threw away a wrapper into a trash bin. I saw more than half that trash bin filled with plastic bottles. Can't they just take them home and do a recycle each weekend? Probably not. Is that too much to ask to both beautify and make the world around us more sustainable? Probably so. I'd be insulted if someone called me liberal, but, while @David is passionate about our movement toward EVs, I've got some issues with people who think it's too much trouble to recycle. There are recycling bins just about everywhere you go in Europe and even their versions of our rednecks - who definitely do not recycle - seem to do it over there.

@Robert Hall @bobo @loki Thank you for letting me know about the birthdays, for some weird reason I no longer see them on the home page.

The birthday board at the right side of the forum page indicates/d: Happy birthday to @Robert Hall Happy birthday to @bobo Edit: Happy birthday to @loki , too! There's a little bit of slush in the time zones, but close enough. Enjoy your b-days ... and many more. - - - - - I was up for 25 hours yesterday flying back to the states with delays. Thankfully, I changed planes in Chicago. Those changing planes in New York and thereabouts most likely misconnected and may have even been stranded. A friend who was coincidentally coming back from Europe on the same day was in fact stranded at New York - JFK. She just got home within the last few hours. It feels good to be home even if feeling like a wet noodle. Lots of interesting sightings ... and even some interesting car rentals.

Kind of like Tesla EV's compared to others. Much better design at Tesla. They can all switch the charger, but they can't switch their cars.

I think the Tesla exterior style looks pretty good, their cars still look modern even after being around several years. It isn't lemmings buying them either, Tesla's beat the competition in range, performance, charging, charge network, autonomous tech, and price. That's why their EV's sell and the others don't.