trinacriabob

You might surprise yourself. I picked up and moved to ATL from the cushy comfort of my parents' home in LA a few years after college and made a go of it. I then returned out West (to Portland) to be near them and wound up leaving again, this time to Northern Cal. Could this have some meaning?

How many other "mistakes" are there in your family?

I am in one of those deals right now. Bad service couldn't be taken care of locally, so rather than 'eff with it with a regional manager, I am taking it up with a name I found on the corporate web site for the NY-based headquarters. My friends love my "poison pen" letters, as they call them. They are very diplomatic and professionally written, but they have an "edge." Therefore, they come to me when they want help writing one. I have written about 7 or 8 of them in my life, and in about 3/4 of the cases, the "big bosses" rectify the situation in my favor. I'm not a TOTAL jerk. I have also written about 4 letters to companies praising them for excellent service or an excellent product. If you don't stand up for yourself, nobody else will. So, are you one who takes issue with bad service? All the way to the top?

What kind of/year of car is it in, NDL?

break dance

Times 6 = 12 years....AT LEAST I've only bought new once and it's coming up on 15 years, next month! This way, the fact that a car depreciates so much when you drive it off the lot becomes a non-issue. If you take REALLY good care of it and if you start out with a LONG-LIVED powertrain to begin with, making a dozen years and 200,000 miles should be no problem.

I'm catching up to you, 76CT. 234,000 miles and she will be 15 y.o. on May 16th! No oil consumption in between oil changes, either.(In some Hispanic cultures, she's ready for her "quinc-anera" or however that's spelled!)

Hey, Pantho, happy early birthday Buick to you! Tell us about the powertrain!

The vehicle silhouette I see in the first post is both ugly and generic. Kudos to the Lucerne, at least it doesn't look like anything else!

objective

All right, PB! You with those trucks...and me with opera-windowed RWD GM mid-sizes and then W-body GM mid-sizes.

Ok, I'll drop the French now, but I can't resist the last one:Quoi? La voiture est "mal cul," aussi quand il pleut! As long as it's not "demi cul."

Regardez, il pleut Grand Prixs!!! Translation for non Francophones: Look, it's raining Grand Prixs!!! (Nous attendons pour les fotos, n'oubliez pas) Voila, post 4,000.

American Gothic

Pudding (bread pudding...delicious)

Wow, how opinions differ.I think the taillights were a great fix to the "grafted on pumpkins" of 1997-2003....good riddance to those. However, they messed with the front lights too much. Fortunately, for P-C-S, he is getting the GXP where the slightly squarer grilles look a little better. The triangular flare of the headlights themselves is a little over the top. That's my main beef with the car. I like everything else and it makes a lot of sense for me, too...though in base form.

Un-friggin'-believable! I looked up the exchange rate and the Euro is sitting at 1.33 x the US dollar. That means that the 100 Euro plane ticket which used to mean you'd pony up about $105 now means you will part with $ 133. When that multiplies through everything you touch on your European vacation, it gets ugly. SH1T!

Tammy Faye Bakker

Consider yourself lucky, Z. The greater NY area has a commendable transit system. America's second city got on board with one in the mid-90s (absurd) and it is nowhere near adequate for where it needs to go such that Angelenos, except for the poorest ones, continue to live in their cars.

You're not kidding!At one time, my Dad owned both a 76 Olds Cutlass Supreme with the 350 V8 and a 76 Buick Regal with the 231 ( 3.8 ) V6. My God, the difference in smoothness and engine sound was unbelievable. The V8 moved with a confident whoosh while the V6 sounded like it was farting. Not only that, it did shake at idle because of the lack of offsets in the crank that were later introduced. (That little engine has gone from 110 hp and shaking like it was in front of a firing squad all the way to 205 hp as a normally-aspirated product...what a chronology).

Yo, O.C., you have an opinion on everything! Do you like the GP (since this is what this thread is about?)

I just looked up the "Freedom of the Seas" in both Wikipedia and on their own web site. Northie, it is supremely ugly. I initially thought the new QM2 was pudgy compared to her sleeker stablemate, the older QE2. However, when compared to the new QM2, it's like the Freedom of the Seas is a Chevy Malibu Maxx and the QM2 is a Grand Prix. The "Freedom of the Seas" is NOT a pretty ship.

One thing I read is that it fell a few KM shy of a Japanese speed record. Still, it's impressive. Los Angeles to Las Vegas ought to be a prime contender for such service. They've talked about it for as long as I can remember. Maybe they are worried about too many rattlesnakes and coyotes getting spooked...

Wow! Must be an Oregon thing! Actually my parents are domiciled in Oregon, but I'm south (yeah, one of those) and I quit my job, too. I resigned on January 10 with 2 weeks notice. Wound up staying until the end of February.Always thought that being an architect would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It wasn't (for me, at least). I worked for some jerk-o outfits. I worked at this last one for 3 years. The first 2 years were great as I had the best of the firm's partners to work for. When he and a handful of others left to start their own firm, I had to contend with some of the remaining partners and I then understood why the "cream of the crop" left. The remaining partners are jerks. In fact, their leaving caused many others to leave within the next 6 months. Out of 42 people, I would say 18 to 20 have left since January 2006! The big gift is that I left them was a nice difficult high-profile project (for a jerk partner I was assigned to) without a qualified project manager. What I did do is simply not work any overtime since October and, whithin my rigidly metered 40 hours, I had to take care of some of my own projects/clients, so it put this project at 28 to 30 hours a week of time. It realistically needed about 60 man hrs. every week. Oh well, and they had no clue I was going to school at night and preparing to say "adios." Should be done with an evening graduate business degree in mid-May. It's in a track for which I have a professional certification (that I put up on the shelf) since I had majored in business while first in college. You know, it may not be as glamorous and you can't walk through your finished building, but, sheez, I remember it being much easier for the same amount of income. Good luck with all your changes. BTW, what ever happened to the Intrigue you were selling? Or, I must have forgotten if you reported it.

What lot size are you on right now? From the multi-car photo you posted, it looks like you have a good spread of land. When I owned in ATL, I had .48 acre at my house which is unheard of in LA where lots are about 6000 to 8000 sf on the typical cookie-cutter home. And, in ATL, I had an ATL zip code, so I was in town but the yardwork consumed WAY too much time (I know that's not an issue for you). The next time I move, I want the house to be on a small lot since I want to be less married to a property. In ATL, they call these "cluster homes." Funny, because a "cluster home" lot is an absolutely normal sized residential lot in Southern California.