trinacriabob

Inflation has been a weird beast lately. Most things have gone up in price, but gas has come down about $1.50 per gallon. With the previous per gallon prices, it would have seriously messed with the travel industry (mostly food and lodging), the airline industry, and all things at the market with having to fuel their transport. I'm now less reluctant to driving more. One is a big head scratcher. A year or so ago, Aldi's was selling these 4 packs of chicken sausage (feta and spinach, basil and tomato, and other varieties) I really liked for $3.19. They are now $4.59. That's a ~44% increase.

This is very sad. It contradicts a fairly recent article uploaded by another C&G member saying they would delay pulling the plug a while more. As for the numbers, 1.5 million Chargers seems like a lot, but that's over a long span of years. They sold over 500,000 Cutlasses in 1976 alone. So what happens, then, there's a vacuum in those vehicle niches until Stellantis figures out what to slot in? I was hoping for a slight refresh. They could have pulled it off and kept the Brampton, ON, Canada plant humming along a little longer and there would have still been buyers for those cars. Without a doubt. Just get rid of the gas hog models with 707 (or 797) horses to bring up CAFE numbers.

Join me in wishing @NINETY EIGHT REGENCY , a long time member and our reporter, a happy birthday! Thanks to Landis, we get to sample automotive videos and articles from past decades as well as more recent ones. Some of them now look and sound very funny to us in 2022 and, then, some of the regular presenters of these videos are quirky and entertaining. Nonetheless, all of the content is informative. Today is also the birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte and Julia Child. I always knew that. Of more contemporary personalities, it is the birthday of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lawrence, and Melinda Gates. But most of all, this is a day I always remember because it would have been my dad's birthday. My dad always spoke his mind and his filter didn't always work, so this could be entertaining. My mom always went for the diplomatic approach and tried to keep the peace with everyone. I think I'm much more like my dad in this regard. Happy birthday, Landis!

So, everyone seems to know that Princess Juliana international airport on the Dutch island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean is the place to watch large aircraft buzz over you on the beach as they land at this airport, just across the roadway and fence. It turns out some Greek islands, such as Skiathos (Sporades chain) and Corfu, also have close margins for landings and take-off. This one - recently occurring at Skiathos, a beautiful, greener, and less known island of Greece compared to Santorini and Mykonos - takes the cake. Caught on camera: Viral video shows Wizz Air plane landing close to beach at Skiathos Airport in Greece - ABC7 Los Angeles Another "tight" airport is Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer player) Airport on the Portuguese island of Madeira - not part of the Azores chain. On pylons next to the ocean.

Just an FYI about jumbo aircraft and who operates them in these changing times. I was contemplating some travel in the future and looking at Google Flights. Of ALL European carriers with scheduled commercial flights to international locations, and especially the U.S. The Airbus 380 is only operated by British Airways* - they are now flying them to quite a few U.S. cities, such as MIA, ORD (Chicago), SFO, BOS, and IAD (Washington DC) The Boeing 747 (8i) is only operated by Lufthansa - they bought almost 20 of them and use them a lot - - - - - * Other Europeans, namely Lufthansa and Air France, have (had) Airbus 380s. It just remains to be seen whether they will return to service or are parked somewhere warm and dry waiting to be sold. If you want to experience flying on an A380 or B747-8i, it will be easier to do so on Asian (Singapore, Korean, Cathay Pacific) and Oceanic (Qantas) carriers. - - - - - It's good fun to hunt and peck (not that slow, actually) on Google Flights and dream ...

Wishing the python hunters in South Florida productivity and success ...

An oldie but a goodie. Was thinking about it and then looked for it. "Got on board a westbound 747" etc. etc. Then, he's shown performing it some 40 years later in Germany. The ensemble of German locals accompanying him is doing a great job. He sounds exactly the same, which is not always the case with musical artists.

Good morning ...

@ccap41 Congrats on your soon to be completed degree. That landscape used to be very different. You would just get a BSBA, BBA, or BS Acc. with an accounting concentration (120 cr. hours), go to work for a firm where you got the right experience, and then take the CPA exam. Different states then started phasing in the 150 cr. hour requirement (semesters, not quarters) and it was sort of muddy. In some places, I believe, you got the regular undergrad. in accounting but they weren't very specific about what the next 30 cr. hours should contain and in some places it had to be in business and/or accounting. I wondered if it was to thin the ranks. The reality is that, for those extra 30 cr. hours, you could get a M.Acc., which might be more practical and aligned with what you studied before. I have a cousin who went to UF who did BS + M.Acc. in succession, so he had 5 years of accounting education. Either way, they are now wanting 150 cr. hours to sit for the CPA exam, with a stipulated number of cr. hours in specific accounting subjects. Sure, for some jobs you need a CPA or it helps, but It can also go to waste in jobs like auditing and accounting policy inside a corporation when you were attracted to it because you like to do exacting work - like working with numbers and data. For people who graduated a while back, just the BS with a CPA followed by a law degree usually leads to a lot more money, if that's how you run the show and that's what you value, than BS Accounting with an MBA (other than accounting) and a CPA. These people often ended up in the exact same jobs that BS + CPA got. In big cities, a lot of people would add the MBA later, since great schools were offering them at night, weekend, hybrid, etc. What few classes I had in Business Law were like pulling teeth. My attention span can get short when I see no numbers, graphs, formulae, tables, and information I can easily retain. Even though I can retain quirky information fairly very well, too.

What random thought I really had, based on some discussions I've had with a friend who is looking for a professional job and thinks sending out than you letters help. She is well qualified for any of the jobs she's applying for. I told her my opinion: they've already made up their mind about the candidate, and they do it quickly, after she sort of hinted at seeing this with the results of what's going on. When wrapping up college and more college, the placement office went on and on with their scripted arsenal of job hunting tools and they would always stress the thank you letters. What I saw is that there are certain candidates (graduating students) they liked and it was certain companies who were all over them like a cheap suit. Those people didn't need to send thank you letters, even though I don't know if they did or didn't.

I was looking at consumer reviews of the last few years of Dodge Chargers. Just surfing. I came to learn that these cars weigh about 4,300 pounds. I don't know if that's with a V8, or just the base V6. Two cylinders can shave off about 100 to 200 pounds, based on past cars that published weight with both 6 and 8 cylinder engines. No wonder they feel "planted."

Spotting at the very end of the month. This was a good one. I'm walking out of a place I had just eaten at and there's a car show. Most of the other cars (too garish and not stock enough) didn't interest me. I headed over to this Buick Reatta. This is a view of the rear of this convertible with about 50,000 miles on it. This is the leather interior with buckets and console as seen from the driver's window. For a 2-seater, it's nicely detailed and the dash is substantial. This is an even nicer view of the dash. The volumes are appealing and you can see that it's related to the Riviera produced by the same GM division This shows both the Reatta badging on the door and the typical alloy wheel seen on this specialty 2-seater. Being a 1990, I am thinking this is a Series I 3800 V6. In my '92, I had a series I 3800. My ignition coils on the ignition module were round. There are rectangular. I wonder why there's a difference. This is one clean engine bay. This engine is set up with a very direct connection from the air filter box to the throttle body. Here is the main under hood placard and serpentine routing diagram. It said 3.8 liters at the very left of this sticker. Here is the original sticker. It was built out in Lansing, MI. For 1990, this was a fairly high MSRP. It was about twice what a basic Regal coupe would had on its sticker. This is the owner's manual - "Premium American Motorcars" indeed. This was an interesting item the owner showed me - each Reatta came with a certificate of the people who worked on its hand assembled aspects. The Reatta name is different, but the font is cool. I have seen some of these folks around this car show before and not many of them are very friendly. It seems like a clique that regularly gets together and some of their talk is kind of crass. However, the retired gentleman who owned this car was very polite and enjoyed talking cars. We must have talked GM for about half an hour! A truly random occurrence. I really like the unique Buick Reatta, but am not sure I'd want to own one. But they're great eye candy.

Yes, I tend to agree. I hope so! It's just that, when the deep red fades, it can look like a dark orange when the flag or decal began its life as an Italian one.

I saw this last week. I was leaving the supermarket and she was going in. I noticed that she exited from this truck. Let's see ... Sticker on the left side: "I'm a girl ... Yes, this is my truck" Sticker on the right side: "Shoot like a girl ... if you can!" Flag on the rear: I seriously hope third color on the right is orange, and not red, because I sure as s**t don't want to claim her Bottom line: This gives a new meaning to "Ram tough"

Thank you, thank you! If this is the way it will play out, then that means a person might be able to look at the outgoing model and the incoming model and decide. But it might also mean that, if tapering down production, the opportunity to order the outgoing model - or find it on the lots (where distance is not an issue) - more or less the way you want it decked out might be challenging.

That dash was a little lopsided, and I thought that when they released the last Bonne, but it could be rearranged into shape, somewhat, and convey the same idea. Pontiac has always had the best dashboards of the GM stable, except when they went overboard with them ... just like they did with ribbed cladding. Thank you. I'm totally content with my current car, but understand that I will have to part ways with it sooner or later. That said, if I am going to buy something, I'd like to buy into the current base Charger platform as late as I possibly can. Sadly, my GM rewards points will be thrown to the wind. I do not believe that Chevy/Buick can't support 1 or 2 sedan lines. Perhaps it's that they can't design some smart and appealing ones that would divert customers from being potential Cam-cord buyers.

Dodge Chargers ... and coupons! Coupons are funny because they might expire on July 31 which, to me, means the 31st is included. Some might interpret it to mean they end on the 30th. As for the Charger, they say production for Charger and Challenger will end in 2023. Does that mean 2023 will be the last model year, for which production typically starts later in 2022? Or could it mean that they will still produce them in 2023 so a 2024 model year might be the last one? I'm hoping it's the latter. But I'd prefer someone chimes in and/or may have seen other news and articles.

Good morning .... - - - - - By the way, guys, that "Planet of the Apes" was a good movie!

Seen on July 26 while running errands - I didn't see the driver so I couldn't assess whether he or she was cut from hippiesh cloth ...

Seen on July 21 - this was the sportier model of the first FWD Grand Prix, which had the air intake slots, the headlamps within those narrow horizontal slots, and the "Smokey and the Bandit" pinch in the front fascia. The base models had a more austere and even "less is more" front end ... at least in my opinion. This is somewhere between 1988 and 1994 (+/-). That gas cap door has seen better days. Reminds me of something a la Sonny Corleone by the toll booths for one of the tunnels in NYC.

Seen on July 20 - this appliance needs to breathe, so let it breathe .... can't believe no one in the design department got yelled at for such ugly crap

Seen on July 18 - I have no clue what it is, but it's old ... funky color, too.

If you are talking about specific models, I'd agree that, while the MC was a dud, the Malibu was "safer" than the aero-back-like Buick Century and Olds Cutlass (an insult to the Cutlass name) that they released. I almost forgot that they made a coupe. I think the sedan almost looked worse because of all the window divisions along the greenhouse sides. What surprised me is that some head honcho didn't slap the s**t out of the designers for designs so ugly. (They didn't do that for the Citation's design, either.) Bob Lutz "tossed over the tables in the temple," so to speak, about some fairly bad Hyundai Azera like design work-ups for the first-gen LaCrosse. Boy, did they ever right the ship on that one: Jaguar-esque front end, Mercedes like rear end, and classic tried American greenhouse and sides. I think that the problem with the first downsized late '70s MC is that it too strongly went from being too much to being too paltry. Then, the cheapness of the interior and dash on all Chevy models on that chassis - that ran all the way until the platform was done away with - was almost appalling. It got a little better along the way, both inside and out. Outside, they put quad lamps on the '80 MC and the '81 refresh was a breath of fresh air. It's all water under the bridge, but I have been accused of "living in the past!" 1978 Buick Century sedan - this thing was a fright * 1978 Buick Regal coupe - on the same chassis, but sort of dignified ... not bad. - - - - - * what a hoot it would be to find one with the even smaller 3.2 (196 c.i.) V6, no air, no electric options, and low miles belonging to some elderly person in the heartland where they didn't salt the roads during winter who wants to unload it.

Saw this today in a supermarket parking lot, parked way out. What a feast for the eyes. I think I'm dreaming. The last of the 500 cubic inchers, perhaps. You could have taken MANY high school friends to the drive-in free of charge in a trunk like this if your parents lent you their Eldorado! There's my sled beyond, and slightly to the left. A Cadillac dash shared with its siblings. And, with the placement of that bag, a flat floor due to FWD. I suppose it is strange to take photos of the interiors of random people's cars. My sled as viewed through the hood ornament and finned front fender (say that 3 times, real fast) of this Eldorado. I don't recall if I've seen Eldorado inscribed on other Eldorados, but this was a Biarritz. These look like 50/50 seats with individual armrests. Cadillac used this color (chamois, vanilla, I don't know what they called it) that was not seen in other GM divisions which used a uniform and darker tan interior. Some family friends had this color in the first downsized Coupe De Ville to use the 425 c.i. V8. I can do without the wide whitewalls. The thin whitewalls seen on some Lincoln products might have worked better. I believe a standard whitewall came with the car. I definitely like the opera windows. I prefer a vinyl roof that is not padded. I'm walking back to my car at this point, but this is the first view I got of it as I was about to get into my car to leave. I'm glad I didn't leave. What a presence. I also like the canting and character lines on the belt line near the opera window. This is somewhere between 1975 and 1978. I'm guessing it's a '77 or a '78. If so, the 500 c.i. V8 may have been gone and this vehicle would have been powered by a 425 c.i. V8 by then.. - - - - - With 8 photos (actually more), I obviously liked this car. While it didn't make it day, it helped make it better.

I'll take the Bonne, not knowing what that Chevy is.