BajaZ Build Video #1

So I think I’ve dubbed the project the “BajaZ”. If the original was the SafariZ built by Bill Petrow at Broken Motorsports, this one will take it a step farther and be Baja in its flavor vs. Safari…Day 1 video of the build can be found below. I’ll post the others here in the days to come. This was the “get it up on the lift and take off some of the easy parts” stage from back in December.

Tracking Mel Kiper

Here’s one out of left field…I hate talking heads. I hate frauds. I hate people promoted and paid for being an idiot. Mel Kiper has always felt like one. Year after year he is put forward like he actually knows something. Hours and hours are spent covering his projections and weight placed on them like they matter. I’ve wondered often if they have any value whatsoever. ChatGPT doesn’t want to provide an answer no matter how I phrase the question only reply canned responses of “He is a well known analyst whose projections are valued and sometimes accurate with a few known instances of missteps”…Great...Thanks for nothing. I want data. So off to review manually. I had a feeling that he (and all “analysts”) were grossly wrong and whatever they got right was heavily weighted at the top of each draft with those picks being essentially well telegraphed by anyone with half a brain and not really valuable in real prognostication.

In 2022 Kiper was accurate on 6 of 32 picks having projected 3 of the first 4 only hitting on 3 of 28 after those (19% overall, 11% outside the top 4)

2021 had Kiper at only 5 of 32 with 4 of those coming in the first 5 (15% overall, 4% outside of top 5)

2020 was 6 of 32 for Kiper with 4 of the first six correct (19% overall, 8% outside the first 6)

2019 was 7 of the 32 with 4 of the first 5 correct (22% overall, 8% outside of the first 5)

2013 (yes, this skipped a bunch of years just because this was the next easiest list to find, not that I am skipping years to foster my argument) saw 6 of 32 and actually he only got 2 of the top 5 and none of the top three. (19 % and 15% outside the top 5)

So there is a sample of 5 recent drafts and his “hit rate”. Not good…outside the top 3-5 picks his accuracy drops into single digits. Yet he is paid hundreds of thousands to pontificate for hour upon hour upon hour and heft given to his opinion which is given with such strident confidence. He has been in this position since 1984 with ESPN and brags about an 80% accuracy rate which isn’t remotely true…he picks 80% of the players to be picked in the first round to actually go in the first round, not who or where they will actually be selected. Gee…congrats.

You and I can pick who will go first in the draft any anyone with a modicum of college football knowledge can pick at a 60% rate over the top 5 of any given year. So what value is there in his opinion? None. Yet there he is taking up tons of ink and screen time year after year. Question everything and demand better. Throw a dart at the board…you’re better off. Bury this fraud.

Edit to add 2023 results…Kiper picked 1, yes 1, of the first round picks…and guess what….it was the #1 overall in Bryce Young who was a slam dunk that everyone knew. The rest of his prognostication? Garbage. Fire him. Ignore him.

Book Review: The Gun by CJ Chivers

The work ended up being substantially more than I had anticipated. Given the title and how it is often described in other reviews and the press, one would think that it was solely a work about the AK-47, its invention, and its influence/spread throughout the modern world.

It covers that, yes, but so much more. It really covers the entire spread of the development of the modern, automatic, battle rifle. From Gatling and Maxim through the STg44 and on through the AK itself and its near-peer on the other side of the fence the AR-15/M-16.

Deep is the coverage of the invention and usage of early “automatic” rifle devices throughout the English, German, and Russian empires of the 19th century as well as their early use by Americans. WWI and II are covered extensively. The gross failings of American military decisioning in the late 50’s and 60’s that lead to the disaster and deaths resulting from bureaucratic REMFs making unsound decisions affecting those in the line on the other side of the world is here too.

The AK becomes a focus in how it came out of all the earlier work and thinking and then how it affected the world around it once it sprung into existence. Whether it was the result of the theft of various other ideas and cobbled together behind the Iron Curtain into a creation that only the mass of Soviet Russia could product or whether it was the brainchild of a genius gunsmith is debated heavily herein and Chivers presented a balanced view of this as there being some truth in each view.

The Communist society from which the AK sprung could have produced no other battle rifle and the AK could not have been produced by any other society. As will all world changing items a confluence of tiny events and decisions spread out over extended periods of time result in something that is truly unique to its time and space. Kalashnikov just happened to be the progenitor of the most efficient killing machine humanity has ever seen and one that will be with us for literally a century or more to come.

An incredible piece of history and represents the best of what non-fiction can be. The Gun deserves a spot on every man’s shelf…just as every man should have an AK or two in his gun safe.