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He's baaaaacccckkkkkk......

The O.C.

By The O.C.
in The Lounge

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The O.C. Newbie

The O.C.

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Hey guys I just wanted to post a thread on here and say a big "hi" to all my C&G friends! Sorry I have been away for so long but perhaps this is a good time to update everyone on what's been happening to me......

After basically going thru a ton of $h! (who hasn't these last few years), just trying to keep any sort of job after Flex Fund closed down (the auto finance company I was working for) I went to Las Vegas for about 8 months and worked at the Cadillac store there then came back to Southern California in December of 2009.

I guess I should change my name to "The L.A." lol because I moved from Orange County up to L.A. to work at Audi of Santa Monica. Found me a cool little apartment in Brentwood off the 405 and Sunset. Been up here for about 2 years and actually love it! I didn't know how I would like living right in the city after spending so long in suburban O.C. but it has actually been very very cool.

Back in May 2009, I finally landed and settled a great gig. I'm a sales manager at a BMW and MINI Cooper dealership in the Pasadena area. The GM is a long-time friend of mine. I spend most of my time down as a manager at MINI, but I also order all the BMWs so I get to keep my fingers in the BMW stew somewhat as well. It's a big store.....about 400-500 (BMW, MINI, used, CPO)units a month.....and MINI is the 11th-largest MINI Cooper dealership out of about 110 dealerships nationwide.

So that's my excuse. You guys all know the retail dealership hours are pretty horrific, and they are even worse here at MINI because we only have two managers. I usually pull 3, sometimes 4 14-hour days each week. By the time I get home at 10-11pm, I don't have the energy to sit on the computer and chat and I never get to take weekends off. I'm going to try to be way more active on here.....try to login during weekdays when biz slows a bit.

As far as my personal rides, I've had a couple really cool, low-mileage and cheap rides lately....when I first got here, I picked up a 1997 Benz E420, black-on-black, with only 50K actual miles (literally was a little old lady from Pasadena that had it lol) and what a great "old" Benz....I believe the last of the pre-Chryslers. What a smooth V8, super solid feel, and I got 23mpg commuting from home! Then this last winter's rains stole her from me in a crazy ass car crash....so I had to replace her.

Found a 2001 (E46....one of my favorite 3-ers)BMW 325Ci Convertible.....red over black, 5-speed, sport, premium.....only 65,000 miles. The lady that owned it babied it so much from day one (garaged and covered all the time) the car is like new! If you didn't know your body styles of BMW, you would probably think the car was 2 years old versus 10. So the bimmer ragtop is my current ride....and loving the sweet-revving inline 6 and stickshift.....getting 26 mpg commuting in this so I figure that's pretty good!

So at work, the hours are tough.....but I love the store and love working with MINI Cooper and BMW. So if any of you local SoCal guys are ever in the area, stop in to MINI and say "hi!" It's BMW and MINI of Monrovia off the 210 freeway about 8 miles east of downtown Pasadena!

Great to be back guys.....keep in touch! [email protected] email me if you wanna swap cell numbers!

Cheers, Chris

post-503-0-26644300-1318375373.jpg

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The O.C. Newbie

The O.C.

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E-46 - The last bastion of pure BMW DNA. You cannot do anything wrong there.

LOL I agree.....in fact it's funny.....one of our sales guys just bought a 2002 325Ci convertible we took in on trade, also really well kept.....the other sales manager just bought an '01 330i sedan we took in on trade....and one of the other sales guys has an '04 330i Coupe ZHP.....so we have four E46s in our "family" here at MINI...!

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A Horse With No Name Experienced

A Horse With No Name

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Your living in California, where I've always wanted to live, you worm in MINI dealership, and MINI is one of my fav. cars...you drive a bas ass BMW...and your sorry why?

Welcome back dude...so good to hear from you.

Oh, and welcome to the convertible Mafia here at C and G...the RWD Convertible Mafia...Camino owns a 72 Vette, I own the Miata, Big Pontiac owns a 68 Bonneville, You own the BMW, Future of GM owns a Mustang Ragtop....

LONG LIVE THE RWD RAGTOP!

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Croc Newbie

Croc

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Welcome back!

Welcome back! The commute must be vicious from the westside all the way to Monrovia...

I can't even fathom. I slog it out on the 10 every day to Santa Monica, and I get up at 6 to hopefully get on the road before 6:30...just so I can leave work by 3-3:30 and avoid the evening crunch.

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pow Newbie

pow

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Welcome back!

Welcome back! The commute must be vicious from the westside all the way to Monrovia...

I can't even fathom. I slog it out on the 10 every day to Santa Monica, and I get up at 6 to hopefully get on the road before 6:30...just so I can leave work by 3-3:30 and avoid the evening crunch.

LADOT Commuter Express? I've been using it to get from PV to downtown most mornings... takes about an hour an 20 minutes... not too bad for rush hour.

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Croc Newbie

Croc

Posted
Posted

Welcome back!

Welcome back! The commute must be vicious from the westside all the way to Monrovia...

I can't even fathom. I slog it out on the 10 every day to Santa Monica, and I get up at 6 to hopefully get on the road before 6:30...just so I can leave work by 3-3:30 and avoid the evening crunch.

LADOT Commuter Express? I've been using it to get from PV to downtown most mornings... takes about an hour an 20 minutes... not too bad for rush hour.

Yea well it takes me an hour in heavy traffic, but 15-30 minutes if I just get up early and go to work early. Another side benefit: leaving at 3-3:30 in the afternoon means I still have a day to live my life after work.

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pow Newbie

pow

Posted
Posted

Welcome back!

Welcome back! The commute must be vicious from the westside all the way to Monrovia...

I can't even fathom. I slog it out on the 10 every day to Santa Monica, and I get up at 6 to hopefully get on the road before 6:30...just so I can leave work by 3-3:30 and avoid the evening crunch.

LADOT Commuter Express? I've been using it to get from PV to downtown most mornings... takes about an hour an 20 minutes... not too bad for rush hour.

Yea well it takes me an hour in heavy traffic, but 15-30 minutes if I just get up early and go to work early. Another side benefit: leaving at 3-3:30 in the afternoon means I still have a day to live my life after work.

TDM, yea!

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Croc Newbie

Croc

Posted
Posted (edited)

Welcome back!

Welcome back! The commute must be vicious from the westside all the way to Monrovia...

I can't even fathom. I slog it out on the 10 every day to Santa Monica, and I get up at 6 to hopefully get on the road before 6:30...just so I can leave work by 3-3:30 and avoid the evening crunch.

LADOT Commuter Express? I've been using it to get from PV to downtown most mornings... takes about an hour an 20 minutes... not too bad for rush hour.

Yea well it takes me an hour in heavy traffic, but 15-30 minutes if I just get up early and go to work early. Another side benefit: leaving at 3-3:30 in the afternoon means I still have a day to live my life after work.

TDM, yea!

Honestly...my takeaway is a little different; the Santa Monica Fwy needs a continuous, non-auxiliary #5 lane from La Brea thru to the 405 in each direction. Caltrans pretty much needs to eliminate auxiliary lanes in general, as they do nothing to facilitate merging/diverging--and in my observation, clearly impede it (see Bundy/Overland lane striping interfacing with the 405 interchange)--but the viaducts thru Culver City are the biggest bottlenecks.

I mean, yea, LA has 9 million people in the metro area, poor/nonexistent off-street transit throughout most of the city...but there's traffic, and then there's traffic caused by bad design...bad design with infrastructure engineered in 1960 to be functionally sufficient for 30 years yet still in use relatively unchanged 20 years after the intended design life.

Edited by Croc
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Croc Newbie

Croc

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Too much information that has nothing atall to do with OC's return, sorry... zzzzzzzzzzzz.... :smilewide:

Oh, it's very relevant...all you talk about in LA is traffic, "secret" routes, shortcuts, and armchair engineering. Unless it rains, there's no point in talking about the weather...and even when you talk about the rain, you're really talking about the traffic. He lives up here now. And has an unenviable commute.

Edited by Croc
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knightfan26917

knightfan26917

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Posted

Hey OC!

Great to see you posting again ... WELCOME BACK!!!! :)

Cort | 38.m.IL | pigValve + paceMaker | 5 Monte Carlos + 1 Caprice Classic

* PRE-SURGERY PARTY = ~5:30p-10:30p, Saturday, 10/29/2011 at Beef Villa, 1225 W Spring St, S Elgin IL *

"Do you remember me, too?" __ Stereo Fuse __ 'Everything'

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