trinacriabob

"coyote arm"

Without hesitation! - - - - - Articles like this make me sad, just like the elimination of Olds and Pontiac made me sad. Olds and Pontiacs were selling like hot cakes when I was a kid. And this was in import-crazed SoCal. Now this. It appears to be official. Boeing will be pulling the plug on 747 production in 2022. This plane aged like a fine wine, with each variant getting better. I've had the opportunity to fly on the 747-8i once and it's a feast for the senses. Just like the last and possibly best version of the 767, the 400-ER, for which Boeing did not get many orders, Boeing has not gotten many orders for the "8." Most of the orders have been in freighter, not pax, form. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/after-a-historic-run-it-s-game-over-for-pioneering-boeing-747/ar-BB17kOay?ocid=msedgdhp At phase out, the jumbo, or "queen of the skies," will have been flying for 52 or 53 years, depending on whether you count the test flight (1969) or introduction into commercial service (1970). Whether in real life, in photos, or in videos, it's always been a beauty, and I'm certainly not in a minority of nerds who love this aircraft. Many people the world over do.

Music from the '70s is weird. Unmistakable Steely Dan can be labeled - fusion of rock and jazz. But artists like Van Morrison have musical approaches that are harder to label (anyone care to try), but his music is unique enough and definitely cool. IMO, I think this is his best (followed by "Brown Eyed Girl"):

@ocnblu Fair question. I don't see the "problem." I know the Corvette has had a fiberglass exterior for some 5 decades. Was it "born" that way, or was it first crafted in sheetmetal? Yes, I know Google and Wiki are my friends.

Yield

Has it always had a fiberglass body?

I think new. I don't buy that frequently. However, I wouldn't buy a brand new model and would wait until the model has been around for 2 or 3 years ... just like I did with my current and last car. I want to make sure it gets broken in correctly, which is somewhat of an "old school" concept. I know that I've also been advised on here to look at CPO. I'll have to see. As they say, it's the "second largest purchase."

Here's what I did for the car "lately" - within the last week or so, given it was around 100,000 miles: Dealer - my usual dealer - lube, oil, and oil filter; cabin filter Dealer - NOT my usual one, and won't be - air conditioning service and charge Costco - free tire rotation and balance (was told the Michelins are wearing very well) Me - FRAM premium air filter with the red paper, Techron fuel system cleaner, and a full tank of Shell 93 octane to go along with that

Rather than create a separate thread/review, I thought I'd write update what's gone wrong / gone right in 100,000 miles and 12.5 years of motoring in the LaCrosse. Stuff that wears routinely such as tires, brakes, hoses, struts, and batteries excluded, though they did hold up well. 1 - Powertrain: - fitting at the junction of the transmission cooling line to the radiator was leaking and had to be replaced 2 - Cooling system: - thermostat was throwing a check engine code that it was not correctly informing the coolant temperature sensor and had to be replaced 3 - Suspension and braking: - front driver side hub bearing assembly for ABS had to be replaced 4 - Hardware: - front hood prop struts gave out and had to be replaced 5 - Electrical: - door actuators (3 of them) went bad - headlamps (3) - hard to get to - had to be replaced - many dash illumination buttons (D.I.C., light control switches, and console) went bad - - - - - That's it. Not too bad. Still on my original serpentine belt, but waiting to replace it very soon. Was going to tune it at 100,000 miles, which I will do soon, but got ~ 32 mpg on a road trip within the last three weeks, so that tells me things are tight. I'm just driving it until the automotive market gives a clearer indication of where it's going to see if any vehicles I like get refreshed or introduced.

Sad to learn that Regis Philbin died (at 88). He was great on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" He was from The Bronx and a Notre Dame grad, which he sometimes mentioned on TV. He was named Regis after the prestigious Catholic high school in Manhattan that this dad went to. On one show, he had some nuns who were part of the charity someone was playing for and, as the stakes were getting higher, he said something like, 'work those rosary beads, sisters ...' He got a laugh out of that. My mom would watch his morning show. He apparently had good chemistry with Kathie Lee Gifford, with her trademark deep voice. However, I don't thinking working with an obnoxious airhead like Kelly Ripa would be good for anyone's health. I always assumed she was from SoCal. However, Ripa is from New Jersey.

I really liked the 4.6L V8 in a rented Thunderbird coupe toward the end of its life as a large coupe and like how that engine has served FoMoCo so well. Enough power ... smooth ... good gas mileage. The more I look at the Mustang, the more I think it's the best retro rebirth job of the Camaro-Mustang-Challenger trio. - - - - - I see this duo periodically, and parked next to each other just like this. It took me some warming up to the current-gen Charger's slimmer, cleaner looking, and more rectangular grille. Now, I definitely think it makes for the best refresh of the Dodge Charger yet.

@balthazar My association with the Andrea Doria is that my parents knew people who came to the U.S. on successful and uneventful voyages, and one couple who was on the tragic crossing but obviously survived. And I heard these people talk about their crossings in our living room. The thing about the Andrea Doria is that America was glued to their TV sets watching this live, from the ship laying on its side to it slipping completely underwater the next morning. Recounting the Titanic story was largely anecdotal (but factual) and via print and radio. What the heck kind of a car is that ^ ? I'm digging on that console, even though I can't tell what the different slots are. Is it an integral armrest or a separate assembly that sits on the transmission tunnel? Nice. - - - - - Yesterday marks another milestone. I got my first haircut at a place you pay for that service. (I had been sloppily cutting my own hair since March.) There's a nearby cosmetology school that charges under $ 10. Come back special: 5 BUCKS! Instructors are always walking around checking what the students are doing. This girl did a great job. I gave her a nice cash tip.

On this day in 1956, the SS "Andrea Doria," practically having completed her westbound transatlantic crossing from Italy, was t-boned by the SS "Stockholm" about 8 hours before she would have been mooring at her Hudson River pier in New York City.

I wish people would give up on eating Warren Buffett. He is not edible. (The misspelling has gotten irritating.) However, here are photos from a Friday lunch buffet that can knock someone out for the rest of the day. Salad plate (cranberry juice as the drink) Italian plate (tortellini, penne alla vodka, chicken marsala, and greens) American plate (pot roast, corn, mashed potatoes - could have done without the extra fusilli pasta salad) Dessert plate (small apricot and lemon tarts, chocolate/coconut macaron, 2 cookies, and sugar free strawberry mousse) The wallet is only $ 10 lighter! Most of the stuff was good. Even though this isn't the healthiest way to go, I'm guessing 100% of your RDA of protein was covered. In reality, I limit myself to about one buffet a month. I went here because I'm not sure if the "classier" Brazilian rodizios are functioning normally these days.

That will take 17 (or so) years to go generic.

This thread is big on Mustangs this month. Saw this at about noon on my way to a buffet! (Which rhymes with Happy Friday.) One of the cool Mustangs colors we've been talking about. Probably a 4.0 L V6? Not sure. Either way, nice car.

I looked at your "garage" after the fact and saw that there's a Chevrolet truck. That didn't stick the way your once mentioning a Malibu to take on a road trip did. Actually, those graphics are early 2000s. Later ones are a little niftier, with blue illumination like you see on the Impy and the Monte. Liked the dash on the outgoing Chevy W-bodies as long as it had gauges.

The graphics look very Chevrolet. This is a (fill in the blank)? Malibu?

I noticed that, too, and think they did it on purpose so a person looking to buy a car or a service writer won't overlook it. It will probably be the same with the initial 2##,### and so on.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED! (It actually happened at night late last week, and I pulled off to drive around in circles in an empty parking lot) Before: After:

And way, way left of center progressives who belong to the Sierra Club and read The Atlantic. (Couldn't resist.)

Nowadays, there's so much uniformity that you don't see quirkiness in ordered cars, either by the dealer or the buyer. It was huge in the '70s, with too many combos to mention. Here's a photo I found: '76 Cutlass Supreme (because I can't get over how cool it was to sit behind this dash), crank windows, too cheap to spend the $30 to get the beige colored seat belts, no air conditioning (vaned vents for the passenger without the adjustable feature), but it had a gauge package (because the fasten seat belt warning sits in that little pop-up above the dash). I'm always curious as to which part of the country, or Canada, the quirky orders were destined for.

I'm thinking this counts. I "spot" it almost daily, on my classic GM car calendar that I get at the parts department at the dealership. For July 2020, the poster child, photographed in what looks like John Steinbeck country, is this - definitely a Pontiac GTO, somewhere between '69 and '73, but sure would like to know what's under the hood. I can only think of 2 possible contenders. My dad had the basic LeMans version of this coupe that we picked up used for about $1 K or $1.5 K when it was 6 years old and with about 48,000 miles. It had the inline 250 c.i. 6 cyl. and no power gizmos. Even though we got it for the dog, because the seats were vinyl and our primary car's seats were cloth, it was the most reliable car my parents ever had.

Thank you for confirming what I thought. Largely based on they were laid out in the engine bay, I liked the small block Pontiac V8s next in line after the small block Olds V8s. The thing is that, with the internet telling us (and showing us) how long people have kept cars and with more efficient and cleaner fuel delivery systems, people's cars "seem" to be lasting longer. When the cars of the '70s and '80s were around, people didn't keep them as long. You seldom ran into people who kept a car longer than 150,000 to 175,000 miles and analog odometers only had five digits to the left of of the fractional mile (km).

Creativity in automotive design these days seem to focus mostly on what you can do with the headlamps/fog lights (stretch, push, pull, thin out) and goofy ledges and volumes in grilles.