trinacriabob

Seeing something like this might have sent them scrambling home ...

Is the 24 Hr. Fitness in a shopping center, with an exterior entrance on the first level, next to quaint downtown Kirkland still there? Yep, LA Fitness branches are closed as well. As for food, being able to eat at Denny's - which I don't knock to begin with - might be like sleeping at the Waldorf Astoria.

I live in a very quiet neighborhood that has always been almost too quiet. Somehow, it feels even quieter. Same idea, different foods - oatmeal every morning and many cups of tea - I've also lost about 5 pounds since I haven't eaten my usual junk food that I buy at check-out.

Seems too soon. I wouldn't know. As they say, "haste makes waste."

What? China is letting people circulate at this time? City or region specific?

First, the map confirms a few things and brings up more questions. The counties of King and Snohomish have the bulk of the cases. Then, the numbers in Pierce (Tacoma) and Thurston (Olympia ... typical diverse, multi-ethnic workforce of state capitals) are surprisingly low. Numbers up in Whatcom County, with WWU, and right beneath Canada are also low. When the border was open, there was a lot of transit through there. Out at the desolate coastal counties, the numbers are super low ... good. Second, that's a good article. We are behind the curve in testing. These aren't blood tests. They're swabs, right? They need to amp up both testing and mask availability. People are going out sparingly, to do necessary errands. If they used masks sparingly when they did that, it would help. It's that people have hoarded them up. I don't see anything wrong with people having a few boxes each. We've got a few boxes of most household things in our homes. I saw photos of students in Florida on spring break, huddled together and goofing around at the beach. De Santis didn't act to close the beaches, so local jurisdictions did.

I was thinking that we can all move to West Virginia. That is, until today. U.S. possessions or territories in the Pacific like the Marianas are still viable options. I think I'm going to try to support small businesses like restaurants these days. There are a couple of them I like. They feature specials on certain days. I've gotten e-mails from them urging people to call in and that they will bring the food out to your car when you get there. That sounds plausible for a couple of evenings a week.

I like the front, except for maybe where the front lamps merge into the grille. That rear pillar looks sort of thick. I'd prefer slightly higher displacement and no turbocharger.

Looking at that gun shop (further ahead) in that strip mall, why am I not surprised at the types of vehicles parked there? Who said consumer research doesn't work? Energy drinks don't look appealing and seem bad for you. I remember drinking a lot of Mountain Dew for all-nighters to cram while a student. I now can't look at a can of Mountain Dew without having it turn my stomach. But I'm with you on most Coke products (regular and calorie free) except for the latest flavors up on billboards. I can't do that much coffee. If at a Starbucks in the a.m., I will get decaf when they have it around. I probably drink 3 cups of tea a day.

Thank you! Same to you. Two weeks ago, I knew where I was going to go for an Irish lunch today. It's an Irish pub/restaurant ... not part of any chain. Now, they are not open.

We can always rely on our resident Greek-Canadian member to say what he has to say with passion and conviction. Keep up that zesty Mediterranean candor. And I mean that in a nice way. I'm not in on the conversation you two are having but, like so many other teenagers, I had a brief stint in fast food during high school. In the U.S., I have seen a steady decline in the quality of service. If we didn't treat customers right, we got in big trouble. I remember that my paper application had a spot on it for G.P.A. And that the hiring manager put a check next to it. I look back at this and laugh because, today, it seems you just need a pulse. Nowadays, a lot of the kids at these chain fast food places look like they don't want to be there. Some don't want to explain anything to you, don't look at you, and are incapable of saying thank you. There are exceptions. Generally speaking, I see that suburban and rural fast food locations, like ones along the interstates, have better mannered young employees. If you go into a Subway and it's a busy one, those people have to hustle during their busy times. That would explain the huge turnover. If they do their work correctly and are nice to their customers, you have to give them credit for that.

It's hard to think about the stock market in regular or bull markets because you don't know how far the bull will run, what the real financial profile of a company is like (there's this area called technical analysis which is beyond most of our heads), and then some. Even with those who know that stuff, the opinions of analysts about certain companies are still all over the map. Back to health matters, do you think that the quarantines and limitations will help flatten the curve? State and local governments here in the U.S. also seem to be relying on it. They say this technique has worked before. @A Horse With No Name It's good to see you on here.

Thank you. I've also looked at the ones by the CDC and Wiki. I'm trying to focus on the recoveries. This one actually paints a less favorable, though still good, picture of the "Diamond Princess," which looks better on Wiki. It indicates 7 deaths to 325 recoveries. The problem seems to be that, even if the mortality rate is low, the serious case numbers are still a lot higher than the resources typically available during a flu season when people in poorer health might need to go to the hospital. Overseas, that has called for triage management and prioritization of who gets more thorough treatment. At this point, I am more interested in the recoveries. I'm not up to speed on this one. Did they ever pinpoint how it got into the nursing home in Kirkland WA to begin with?

Probably right about the masks. I wanted some in case I had to board a plane. I sit in "steerage," so there's none of that personal distance factor. I once got tickets for the deep discount inaugural period for the nonstop Lufthansa Portland to Frankfurt service. The outbound is always better ... jet stream. On the way back, the trip is longer and you're tired from the traveling. I saw this one person in the boarding area at Frankfurt and thought, 'anyone but him.' It was a 400 pound + Greek Orthodox priest, dressed in the traditional black robes and with the helicopter landing pad shaped hat, and, sure enough, I got stuck out in the 2 seats on the Airbus 340 on a full flight with him in the adjacent seat. I had the aisle. He literally spilled over into my seating space. As he ate his food, some of the crumbs fell into his beard. He also ordered quite a few of those small bottles of liquor. I leaned into the aisle for the entire 10 hours, risking that the carts would hit me. I did not sleep a wink. That's funny. I guess those would be a less relevant staple in these times. That Maverick and that dog just seem to go together.

@dfelt and everyone else We should try to stay calm. Fauci or someone else important mentioned 'hunker down.' I got an extra 24 pack of bottled water and an extra 12 pack of TP. I don't want to hoard ... other people need that stuff, too. I'd like to be a able to get a box of N95 masks. No such luck. I have some of those you'd use for sanding, but I'd like the N95 label. Also, there's no sense in traveling. Even though warm weather tends to call.

Resumption of the "Costco lunch" (and I'm not talking about their food court - ahem) would be one indicator of a return to normal.

I was able to get soup. The variety was not all there. Too bad that a person can't do "Cafe 1.50" at Costco, as in eating it there at their picnic tables ... the "simple pleasures" in life that we took for granted.

Good Parthenon Bad Parthenon (I once read an auto review that likened the grille of the '77-'78 Riviera to the Parthenon.)

This was my first weekend of grocery shopping after all the shutdowns have been announced. Water was available while toilet paper and bread had been picked through fairly thoroughly. People are probably doing the freeze/thaw with the bread. Any of the more upscale grocery stores where they had self serve deli areas to put artichokes and the like into cartons, make salads, etc. had emptied the containers of ingredients to pick through. The stores were not at all crowded. People are practicing social distancing. Restaurants are sparsely populated. Those random casinos that all seem to have a buffet (and buffet specials during the week) are closed. Don't even think about the "Costco lunch." I saw a curve about the pandemic. If you don't suppress it, it spikes faster and higher, and then cycles through. If you do suppress it, the spike is much flatter but its duration in the population is longer before cycling through. We can only hope the health policy gurus have a good grip on this.

Found this photo of a '77 on line. The Malibu Classic could sport the stacked rectangular lamps more so than the Monte Carlo could. Those wheel covers were great, and shared with the Impala/Caprice of the same year. They often seemed to be missing on these cars - theft. Anymore, they are tough to find. That's the Central California coast, with the historic Bixby Bridge in the distance. So many car ads have been sited here.

I've seen a few in March. I will try to remember previous ones. Today, I spotted an interesting GM intermediate. It was probably a '76 Malibu Classic coupe. From afar, it looked basic - blackwalls, hubcaps, no uplevel trim. I thought it might have been one of those rare 250 c.i. inline 6s. Nope. As I got closer, I could see two modified exhaust pipes and that it was rumbling - 305, 350, or 454 V8? - I don't know. It was burgundy. The body was in good shape but the paint was faded. Of the '76 and '77 fold, most of GM PLCs got more garish in '77. This one had the simpler tail lamps ('76) but the nicer vertical bar grille ('77), as opposed to the busier diamond hatch pattern of the preceding year. It would have been cool to see if it was a purist model with no A/C, where you can better see the layout of the engine bay.

I know. Especially as a daily driver. For rented wheels with an automatic on the cheap in a less populous area in a foreign country, it was fine.

Photos taken during this 5 day rental Here's the Toyota Aygo at a filling station and Autogrill adjacent to the highway. That's it - and the one on the left is a roll-aboard that you can't roll aboard into the cabin when you stuff it to the gills. The cheap rear compartment cover was flailing with the wind (a small vid would have been better) and did not engage into its slots that easily. Here's the IP - speedometer (kms), tach to the left, idiot lights to the right, and a decent steering wheel set-up (stitched, but probably still urethane). Here's the center stack - the infotainment screen was easy to use and the climate control cluster was even easier to use (less is more). One big windshield wiper for this little windshield - note that the trees and bushes kept their leaves during winter. This is the automatic gear selector - no console, armrest, or anything like that ... if you look to the bottom right, you can see the "E." There's not much in the way of rear leg room and you push out the rear windows like you would vents - they don't roll up or down. Here's the split rear seating and you can see the cover over the small rear trunk/storage area. Even with a thicker rear sail panel / C-pillar, visibility is very good, largely because it's a small car. - - - - - End of photos

@dfelt Right now, the north of the country has been severely affected by COVID-19. Sicily has only seen a few cases. On a shaded map, they were are 1 to 10 cases the last time I looked. A friend who lives there told me that most people are doing fine and trying to keep their chins up. I'm fine but it's distressing to read about what they're going through. I read that the country has been badly affected because, percentage wise, it has the oldest population in Europe and the second oldest population in the world. I set aside a series of photos to put up when I wrote the review. I will put them up, along with explanations of each.

Generally speaking, I prefer not to drive a rental car in Europe unless it has an automatic transmission. That allows a person to pay more attention to the nutty or aggressive drivers than on timing the clutch in tricky situations. Now, even with an automatic transmission, I would not drive in left-hand drive countries - UK, IE, or Malta. Period. Automatics are more readily available and larger cars over there. And they cost more. That slims how many econoboxes with automatics are available as rentals. The icon on my rental reservation indicated a Smart coupe, which would have been fine for 5 days. Instead, I was given a Toyota Aygo. The tiny Toyota had almost 60,000 km (about 36,000 miles), so they weren't as fussy as they've been in the past with small dings and scratches at Italian airport rental agencies. And, while not many were noticeable, closer inspection revealed that there were quite a few of them ... and I made sure that they were noted. It was sort of cool that my rental car would be a sedan. I felt it would feel more substantial on the road than a Smart coupe. And that it would have more trunk space. Getting used to the Aygo was easy. There isn't much to set up, except maybe for the Bluetooth. There is a center instrument panel, a tidy center stack area with simple controls, and the glove box to the right. On the steering wheel were infotainment tuning adjustments and phone controls. The seating was just okay ... a little on the hard side. The rear seat was tight and only suitable for people who aren't that tall. Trunk space was extremely limited - one medium sized suitcase and one smaller bag or item. I did not bother to look at what was under the hood until later. The Aygo was sufficiently powered for everyday situations but insufficiently powered for merging and passing. It was an automatic that really, really wound out when the car was throttled ... and then shifted. It was in fact a geared automatic. The reason it wound out is because it was hooked up to a 3 cylinder engine, the first in my life I've ever driven. It didn't vibrate at idle, and you might have even assumed it was a small 4 banger. However, it sure was grainy ... grainier than most 4 cylinders in cheap cars. The automatic transmission had 3 automatic modes - R, N, and E. I couldn't find a P, for park. I guess you put it in N and apply the parking brake ... and find a level place to park. I didn't know what E stood for, but that was the setting for forward driving and automatically shifting through the gears. If you moved the shifter to the left and downward, you could move through the forward gears manually. I saw no point in using that feature. The Aygo's handling was competent and not much more than that. It held the road but it wasn't set up for aggressive driving in curves, cloverleafs, etc. Looking back, the ride of a Smart coupe was surprisingly better than one would think. The same is true here. It was just a little bit smoother and more planted than a Smart coupe, even though neither of them can soak up road imperfections all that well. I found the rear visibility to be good. It was very easy to park. Between the good visibility and the mirrors, parking in small spaces, changing lanes, and driving defensively was more possible. This is one cheap car, though. I liked the center stack, where audio controls on a touch screen and climate controls in a square-round cluster (as opposed to a horizontal strip) were easy to learn. However, there is a lot that one would take for granted that is missing. One thing is that there's no temperature gauge. I've even seen this in some domestic offerings these days. Another thing is that the rear windows don't go up or down. They just push out ... like vents. There is only one windshield washer up front. Then, much like a contradiction, it featured some good amenities - a remote fuel door, power windows for the front 2 windows, a tilt and telescopic steering wheel, and a stitched steering wheel, though I couldn't tell if was leather or urethane. They cut corners in many places to make this basic transportation that people can afford. Its best feature was its gas mileage. I didn't calculate it but, ball parking it, I was getting about 50 mpg in mostly highway driving. The Aygo base sedan with an automatic transmission (or a manual one) is basic transportation. I would not want one as my daily driver. It was fine for a short rental.