trinacriabob

I just had my first ortho consultation. I decided that, with the flex spending plan at work, I would pop for braces this year. My uppers are right on. My lowers are crowded. I got this consult because only some dentists can do the Invisalign. He said it would take 12 months + up to 2 or 3 more months. The cost is $ 5600 for conventional ones (which he recommends for me) and $ 6300 for the Invisalign which will take 18 months. YIKES. I definitely need the remaining 2 consults. Two girls who work in my office went to the same, but different, ortho for quite a bit less money. Any of you gotten braces PAST your teenage years? Costly? Was it painful? I'm going to go through with it. I am doing it mostly so I can floss and keep my teeth in good health in later years since both of my parents had problems in their later years with their teeth. It's just a matter of picking the right ortho at this point.

Z28 - you are CLAIRVOYANT (sp)!!! Good to be back. I missed the C&G gang.

Some interesting observations. My take on them: 1) Disagree - sometimes one does better in a more competitive setting. Being at a tougher school (or university) and around focused people brought out the best in me and my grades showed it 2) So true - in general, once a GPA acquires a "critical mass," it is hard to change it, to a great extent 3) Yes - my screwing around was different. I finished the sheepskins on time but used them to go do something different. I definitely made no use of my UW degree since I continued to work in the field I was in before that. 4) Right again - I was in the 3.3 to 3.4 range when I started college because I was clueless as to what I was doing there and what I would do with it. As soon as I got proactive and "took the bull by the horns," it seemed to get better. Good luck to all of you considering or starting out in college. One thing I cannot even comprehend is how screwing around and having fun can take the "front burner" over getting the job done. Like your time to goof off is SOOOH valuable. No excuse. You can't undo what you did in college (item 2 above). It is only 4 years. You can have lots of fun afterwards and have the money to do it (look at me, I still haven't grown up) and there are summers and the month between fall/spring semester to have even more fun . Cheers!

On an annualized level, how many units of LaX are they currently selling? I think that, to do what Century and Regal did together, they had best be looking at about 250,000 units. I like the LaCrosse well enough. I just was expecting more. The comment that it would be a very easy car to live with day in and day out / year after year is an accurate assessment.

Sci: I grew up 6 miles north of the airport. The reason why the air is clean is because the coastal basin does not have mountains/foothills that hem in the smog. That's why the real estate on the West Side is so pricey...clean air and no real need for A/C. It is "the valleys" (San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, etc) that harbor the smog and are about 10 to 15 degrees warmer. Crime rate depends on the neighborhood. It is the "bad neighborhoods" of LA that have the high crime rates. Most of the decent neighborhoods in LA are very liveable with crime rates that, I would guesstimate, are low. Most of Orange Country is very suburban, professional and Republican that you hardly need to worry about crime. How was Sydney Australia by the way? Been thinking about it and NZ in 2007.

You must have been in Portland BEFORE Christmas. I missed the ice storm. I hadn't been to my Mom's since Labor Day. Yes, all of your NW observations are true. However, Portland has an incredibly shitty job market for SOME professions and it is a tad inbred. (Seattle has more to offer in this regard). Being that you are from sun-drenched Denver (300 days of sunshine), you had best think about what living in the NW is like. That vegetation requires a constantly dripping faucet. Nice outdoor weather lasts 2 months (7/15 through 9/15). You must love to curl up with a good book and good coffee if you want to live there. I think that this does something to the people. Did you notice all the morose people at Powell's Books (I tell my Mom I want to slit my wrists every time I go in there)? If you are prone to political correctness, then you can hang with it. I'm not... I love irreverence (to a degree). I have inside jokes where I currently work with about 5 people that would offend co-workers in Seattle. People who transplant to Seattle from the Northeast population corridor and So Cal don't like it much. They feel that their personalities are being suffocated. (On that same note, northern Europe makes me cringe. I may change planes in a Frankfurt or a Copenhagen but make a bee line for the coastal cities of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece where I feel as though someone has handed me an oxygen mask). I took my cousin from Italy all up and down the West Coast in 2002 and 2004. She is 5'8, thin and attractive. She said you can cut through the NW and California differences with a knife. She said people in CA (we went all over SF, westside of LA, OC and SD) are a lot more free-wheeling, informal and friendly. She still laughs about some bizarre interactions on BART on the way to Berkeley and at a shopping mall in SD whereas people in the NW would have never been that nervy and colorful.

Sure. Well...some people I already remember from before...like !!!Ted!!!!, Z28Luvr, Nick, "Pantho" and Ocn....and a few others. One surprise was Ven. I expected him to look bookish. Instead, he looks "standard issue Seattle" (goatee, Nordic, tending more toward the stoic). Sorry, Ven, couldn't resist. I have to be outdoors and under the sun any chance I get, so no longer live there and sure as heck don't look like someone from there (though that has been changing with more transplants). There were other surprises, but none are that notable. Comments about some other people I remember from before: Ocn - I thought he looked like my friend Steve who went to San Diego State. It must have been a fleeting coincidence when he had his "banker's" head shot in his Avatar. Based on the current pictures, the comment is retracted. But, he's still my buddy...I think. Mustang84 - looks a heck of a lot more like an architect (a normal one as opposed to an eccentric one) than I ever do and I've been at it for some 10 years.

see immediately below.

After many tries at snagging a LaCrosse from Alamo or Avis for a weekend, I finally succeeded. It was at the Alamo location at LAX. Interestingly enough, I had just taken a Friday off in Las Vegas where I had a Grand Prix, so I got to test them back to back. In short, I used to drool over the LaCrosse. Now, it's just a nice car. Chief among my disappointments was the purported quietness. Maybe this only applies when equipped with the 3.6 VVT V6. With the base 3800, the engine roar is just a tad quieter than it is on the Grand Prix. I took the LaCrosse out to the desert and back as well as all around the West side. The ride is fairly controlled yet pavement gaps do cause some undulation -- Buick style. It is not a tight riding vehicle. In terms of cornering, it does so more flatly than its predecessor but still does not beg to be pushed. I noticed this in the cloverleaf exits from the 405 onto Wilshire Boulevard. It is a nicely appointed car. The instrumentation is clean and (as Paulie always questions) it's illumination is green at night. While the Grand Prix groups its chimes and warnings more succintly, the LaCrosse has a zillion little indicators in the instrument cluster. It was almost distracting. In terms of ergonomics, the seating up front is comfortable and the flatness of the buckets allows one to move over to reach things. The flatter panel gives the illusion of roominess, but it would be no easier than in the more cockpit like GP to crawl over the console and get out. Now, the Buick sports the glassier greenhouse. However, this works best for vision over to the rear passenger side of the car. In changing lanes to the left, the doubling up of the pillars to make for that little opera window make it a challenge. The LaCrosse is a clean, safe car in terms of its exterior sheetmetal. It won't age quickly. However, I just saw the new Lucerne last weekend. (Kudos to Buick for a leapfrog over the LeSabre/PA, but it's too big for me). However, I will have to say that the crisp, canted angular grille would work wonders for the LaCrosse. In comparison, the LaCrosse's front end styling approaches the "frump zone." This is all very fresh since I lived in a Grand Prix the preceding day in Las Vegas. The GP's big liability is the overstyling...particulary in the front. It is, however, much more of a driver's car. The handling inspires confidence and it does what is asked of it. Smoothness at cruise and the sense of quiet (when the engine is pushed and via wind intrusion) are not markedly different from that of the LaCrosse. And, with the split exhaust pulled out of the base model, the exhaust burble (or fart) that I found offensive in the 2004 is a more subdued and more even exhaust note. But, when one hits the pavement joints and freeway ripples, GP reacts crisply and stays composed. The dashboard, while quite different, is a pilot's domain...you really are in a cockpit of sorts. All in all, I think I would opt for the Grand Prix. I like both cars. It's just that I like the GP more. Now, if the LaCrosse spruced up the front and made it more angular while the GPs stayed the same, I would pop for the LaCrosse. If the converse occurred whereby the GP got rid of the "Smokey and the Bandit" pinched fascia while the LaCrosse kept its chromey oval, I would go into the GP with that much more enthusiasm. Either way, proven "old school" platforms and cast iron 3800s can't be argued with.

B.S. - small Catholic university in California M. Arch - Univ of Illinois Urbana-Champaign M.S. - Univ of Washington Seattle preceded by 12 years of Catholic school and would do it (the Catholic school) all over again. I like school, in general. Always have. It is more of a meritocracy than the "real world." Almost 30 % of the respondents went to grad school This is a smart bunch. And no, this is NOT about snobbery as neither my father nor my mother went to college because immigrants leaving post WWII Southern Europe did not have those options.

I definitely need to be close to a big city even though LA and NY are now overwhelming for me. I have adjusted nicely to the second tier cities. However, I like the suburbs. To me, living in the suburbs means you are NO less hip or sophisticated. (I tend to hate in-town bohemian neighborhoods). In Atlanta, I moved straight to Dunwoody. While in Seattle, I lived in Kirkland for over 3 years. I will always prefer suburban living and this has been the case since I graduated from college (the first time)

I L-O-V-E South America. I only went to 2 places this time (Argentina and Uruguay) because that's where I feel at home, can blend in and feel safe. I was in Rio last time in 2003 and it is probably the most beautiful city I have ever visited. However, at one time during the four days, I felt like I was being set up or something on the bus from the statue of Christ the Redeemer back to the hotel. I avoided the situation. Rio is not considered safe but one can take precautions. It's just that I would rather be in European Buenos Aires or on the quiet beaches of Uruguay. How do you say Merry Christmas in Armenian, BTW?

Here are a couple of pictures trying out my (fairly) new digital camera in my room at the Radisson in Montevideo Uruguay before going to Buenos Aires Argentina the next morning. My co-workers said I look angry but I will post them because I can't seem to take a decent picture. A little sunburnt I don't normally look this dour and have such a long face...especially after a week of sunshine and laid-back South American living. Maybe I was pissed because I had to come back to the states and to work. Some of you still need to post some pictures. As for the others - some look just like what I thought...others shattered the mental image I had.

Hey, if I recall, it was late summer when the BIG CRASH occurred. Never thought C&G would continue to exist. In the interim, I got involved in an evening program in graduate business. I took 6 semester credits (Investments and Estate/Gift Taxation). Both were ball busters, but got an A and a B, respectively (just checked today) while working 50 hours a week and running around to get my mom to finalize her estate plan (in another state, no less). Also, went to Argentina and Uruguay (where it's summer) during Thanksgiving week instead of going with my mom and brother to a condo in Bend, OR. That was a slam dunk. Where would you have gone? Duh. Christmas was the 3-dayer to Portland with a day-hop to Seattle. I was thinking about all of you as all the bad GM press has been hitting the media. I finally rented a LaCrosse (I will post a review) and post some pix. HOW WAS YOUR CHRISTMAS? WHAT DID YOU DO?