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no, but this month is 18 years together.

I think you need to look deeper at this. He made his money, millions of it, by talking, so he has a natural desire to keep the conversation going. He was also incredibly disingenuous about it. It's all well and good to say we shouldn't build walls, but he was responsible for building or reinforcing most of them. This tweet is just rage bait designed to get the right wing angry at the gays, many of whom serve in the military. May is Military Appreciation month. So not only is he spreading bigotry, he's also spreading misinformation.... and he did that All. The. Time. When he got shot, he was in the process of trying to blame mass shootings on trans people. I frequently see people say that he was taken out of context, but when you go look up the entire context, what he's saying is even worse. You know what dead guy you don't have to ever explain context about? Mr. Rogers. Did you know he also kept a public list of professors who taught on subjects like feminism, LGBT issues, or even just American history that he didn't like? He posted these professors pictures and contact information on his website and turned his supporters loose on them flooding them with death threats, sending barrages of e-mail and phone calls to universities to get these professors fired, some of them even having to uproot their lives and move. Doesn't sound very in the spirit of "just keep talking" does it? Imagine having 100,000 people e-mail your boss saying you need to be fired in the worst terms possible. That's not very freedom of speechy of him. He spread Covid misinformation too, something which conservatives have been 100% wrong about on every angle of the subject for over 5 years now. His entire operation was grift. Getting people angry in order to extract money from them. Heck, his memorial service yesterday was selling Merch! His wife set up a gofundme even though they've been bringing in millions for years. So, while you feel you may have some alignment on his views, I would highly encourage you to find out what he was really about and the positions he took specifically to build the very walls he was claiming to want to pull down. But feel free to post a position he had that you agree with and I'll take a wack at it.

Oh I LOVE to engage in politics and talk politics. It is difficult for me to follow my own rule here. But there are other places on the internet for that and I would rather we keep this a friendly place. Politics can, especially of late, ruin relationships and friendships. I've left car clubs over politics and the general bad behavior associated with older white straight men of a particular political party. For a time, I considered shutting down C&G because every thread devolved into an "I love EVs"/"You're a dumb liberal if you do" fight and it really killed my love for this hobby. It has been difficult for me to return to it.

Today, Jan. 14, would have been my LaCrosse's 18th birthday. It could have done everything except drink. Same color, but different alloys. (stock photo) I hope that the buyer is getting good service from it. Every once in a while, when I see one, I miss it. Between the '92 Regal coupe and this last one, I have driven the 3800 V6, both as the original owner, for 399,000 miles. And the way I maintained them, there would have been a good bit more useful life in them left.

Happy Birthday @Drew Dowdell!

It's not about putting down the fork. It's about changing what that fork picks up.

Since making major changes to my diet and walking more, I’ve taken off 10 pounds in the last month. Still got a ways to go, but almost under 200lbs for the first time in 25+ years.

Not religious, but I find the orthodox church about eleven billion times more Christian than American evangelicalism. I have several man caves, a spare bedroom in my house for reading, a garage woodworking shop, my living room set up for Stereo equipment. This is why most of my time is in my wood shop, my living room with my stereo, or out hiking/on my bicycle. The more I know about humans, the more I like cats, dogs, and birds.

Different account. You're thinking of @VenSeattle. All of the accounts were new signups that got through 2 layers of spam filters. I pay for an extra layer of spam security for this site, that's why incidents like this are relatively rare compared to other sites. The first line spam firewall has blocked over 5,400 attacks over the last 7 days, and it's like that every week. So 11 getting through once every few months is still fantastic results. There's a second layer of spam filter as well. These spammers were reported to both.

Speaking of guys holding a Yorkie, here I am with Lola recently at the vet. She’s been to the groomers since then.

He was sleepy joe because we could all sleep at night and he wasn't up at 2 a.m. posting unhinged tweets. You're right about all the rest, but here's some additional context. The Chinese EVs are so cheap because there is a price war going on in China in the EV market right now. They are being sold at a loss even in their domestic market because they have so many companies producing them, they are trying to outlive each other to eventually dominate the market. The Chinese goverment also is subsidizing the purchase of EVs on the consumer end while supporting the industry with subsidies. It's the EV tax credit and battery plant subsidy we did but times 10. The Chinese want entry to the North American market for the same reason. They don't want to just sell here, they want to put the legacies out of business so they can raise prices later. They did this with the solar industry already. We once had a booming solar panel production capacity in North America, but China came in and undersold everyone and now China controls that market.

In this latest war with Canada (we'd been bros since like 1813), this American is taking the Canadian's side. That's all I've got to say on it.

Talking, in general, about politics is not taboo. Talking politics where politics are not wanting to be talked about, is taboo. Nobody is going to specific group pages (Corvette, Mustang, Dallas Cowboys, Montreal Canadians, Dale Earnhardt Jr) groups and wanting to talk politics. Go to political pages that are dedicated to talking that stuff. There are sooooo many pages/sites available if you want to talk politics. Talk politics with people who want to talk politics. That seems fair, right? Personally, I don't want to be talking about the new Silverado EV's multiple trims and battery sizes and have somebody cram some political garbage into the comment section.

30 years ago at the U of Michigan my PhD advisor had a dark green '93 Bonneville w/ the tan leather interior.. I don't recall the trim level or engine, but it was a nice car..rode in it a couple times to dinner/etc. He also had a white '92-ish GMC Jimmy 4dr (the square S15-based one). He's now the president of Carnegie Mellon U.

I would totally drive a red or black Bonneville with the tan leather interior... like '93 - '95. I'd want the SSEi for the supercharged 3800, but I wouldn't turn down the regular 3800.

These were awesome engines, just needed a huge engine bay as any straight-line engine needs. I call BS on this, I feel that if you cannot respect the cost of taking care of your truck and to me abuse it by damaging it, then your just lazy and clearly have no idea about how to use tools properly. I have heavily used my trucks, SUVs and CARs and never babied them, but always kept them looking sharp. Yes, accidents happen and sometimes when one is tired you might put a scratch on it, but this truck has just been abused by someone that does not care. His statement of a Truck you're afraid to beat-up is no longer a truck is BS, you do not need to beat up a truck to still have it as a useful tool. A person who abuses their vehicles tells me a ton about their approach to how they work and live and they are just lazy and do not care. Do you really want a person like that working with you or doing work for you when they cannot take any pride in their own tools, makes one question if they would really take any pride in their job, products they do, etc.

In both cases its the cycle that humans let run for decades. Neither party is innocent, go back to the year I was born Americans were bombing kids in Vietnam and the Chinese were enslaving children and adults in the cultural revolution and the Marxist garbage in China. The thing that disgusts me is that I think we have more economic and political liberty to change the situation and it persists, so, in my calculus having more ability to change and not changing is worse. One of my favorite philosophers is Simone Weil. She was highly skeptical of both Capitalism and Marxism, and doubted that humans were in many cases capable of grand change or collective action. I am kind of with her on this. Thank you for being sane and reasoned, and putting up with the bitching on the left from all of us here. We now return you to this forum, where our love of dashboard plastic matches the love JD Vance feels for living room furniture. In Sport mode, the Camry will move, and the Turbo 4 in the Ranger has not disappointed me. 131,000 miles on that beast, has run well so far...knock on wood. They were damn fine vehicles. The last of them are rotting to oblivion and running their final miles here in Ohio. Sad to see them go. The Big Buicks were the best of the lot IMHO. The Camry and Ranger are both easy for me to park in the city, even parallel park. A dually pickup truck would not be so easy though.

Heh heh..I'm 55.. can't believe 60 is so close. After 25+ years of mostly driving Grand Cherokees, I do enjoy driving my Cadillac sedan. But it is a handful in tight parking lots due to the overall length, long wheelbase and AWD. Had to make a few 25 point turns in tight parking lots in Beaufort, SC and Savannah GA on my vacation....as I was driving around those cities with their colonial-era narrow streets I was wondering what it was like in the 60s-80s with the huge and downsized but still huge B-bodies, C-bodies that were common then... a lot more scratched bumpers and door dings then, I suppose. I have no idea how people park full size double cab/crew cab pickups in cities, but I see a lot of it.

Good morning: Sending Sicilian Saturday vibes your way. I dropped off a rental car to board my plane in the States while it was flurrying. That is the hydrofoil that goes to Malta. I think that - where I am standing - I am a hair south in latitude compared to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia! But this is still Europe ... sort of. Walking along the beach in a small town I spotted this - the new and the old.

Call me old fashioned, but as much as I like two-tone exteriors, I don't like all those colors and stripes. Looks like a basketball shoe.

By far, the sexiest wagon since the CTS-V Wagon.

Very slick! Very nice! Straight to my wagon lovin' heart!

Over the last six years or so, I have slowly grown my Vinyl collection. This project was an effort to preserve my vinyl playing ways after the original 50 year amp gave out and I could not find a replacement anywhere on earth lol. Here's some other pics of the progress over the last week or so... After gutting it, I installed some wood slats. For the record, nothing was cut away from the cabinet itself. I steed away all the original components in case I ever come across another OEM amp for it. The only change to the cabinet itself was the paint and stain job. After that, I set did a little "switcharoo" with some old school Sony floor speakers that were put into storage due to a pair of blown passive woofers (top speakers in them were active woofers with the bottom being the passive woofers). I combined the working woofers into a single cabinet and cut out two holes on one end to install the mid and tweeter from "gutted" floor speaker cabinet. Then that was installed through the back of the console and it barely fit lol. Here's the rest of the work.

Yeah, small terriers make me happy.

And a huge happy birthday to Drew!

@Drew Dowdell Thank you for all you do and for letting a bit of RAGE happen as sadly, you nailed it that politics is intertwined with the auto industry due to various view points. @ccap41 @A Horse With No Name @surreal1272 @Robert Hall @trinacriabob @oldshurst442 I think we all would agree that life has been changed by those of the 1% focusing on themselves rather than society. Yes, we have had a fair share of political posting and rage, yet we all do still love auto's in one way or another. In this regards, we all have our favorite auto area and due to inflation costs as well as the 1% pushing prices on old iron up to levels that I would say we all here cannot afford, we have to look at other ways to enjoy life. Yet, the passion for self transportation is still there be it biking, walking or driving and I hope that we can still find that passion to have interesting conversations on the auto industry. Right now, my own job has been extremely busy so that I have not had much time to write for this site, but I do hope to increase in the coming months as things wind down before I get crazy with tradeshow season in January. Expect to see some stories based on the release of new auto's from the LA autoshow. I am excited for some of the releases and that even includes the new Kia Telluride that is expected to be Hybrid and look very much like an EV9. This brings up my own wondering if Kia might retire the EV lineup and with their new Platform that supposedly supports ICE/Hybrid/EV having a Telluride cover all three areas rather than an EV line and an ICE/Hybrid line. LA Autoshow is coming soon. Happy Hump day to all! 🐫 Very interesting read on Regenerative braking. Does Regenerative Braking Wear Down Brake Pads Or Save Them?

You're right. At the time, the forum was more GM-centric and all of the car divisions were around, with Oldsmobile just having exited. The Canadians on here were just like the Americans and they themselves also had a long history with GM cars that they owned or that their families had owned. Some of these folks were interesting, and even funny. One such person was a Torontonian who had held a lot of different jobs, one of which was selling GM cars. He took us back to the Toronto that had a sizable middle class thriving there, unlike the very expensive Toronto of today. He told quite a few ribald stories, sometimes oversharing, but they made for interesting reading. He had a significant other from Brazil, so he began dividing his time between Toronto and Brazil and then participated less and less. But he made some eye opening posts! Yep, it was just normal back and forth car stuff - commenting about mostly ICE coupes and sedans that were still around - or just random daily cartoon strip stuff that was happening in our lives. During this period, I met one of the more understated Canadians on the forum when I was in Canada on vacation and he had recently picked up a babied rust-free Cutlass Supreme colonnade. That meeting was a good experience.

Same. I have no problem with a little auto related politics but most of the last few months here has been basically a bunch of “F America” nonsense with no real substance. Just trolling is all it is and at 52 years old, I have better things to do than to constantly sift through the same nonsense just to read something of actual interest.

It's painful to be an auto enthusiast these days. All of the fighting over stupid political shit is such a turn off. Like what you like and don't yuk other people's yums.

So stop it.

Today marks the two-year anniversary that I do not have a motor vehicle to my name. There's less to hassle with. But the periodic renting is also annoying. When I see a nicely kept same model year LaCrosse going by, there might be a slight wince. I think it went to a good owner, as far as I could see, and hope that they get good use out of it. Actually, you can make an adventure out of riding transit. For example, I love that cheap 7-day MTA card that works across all five boroughs of NYC. Discovering large metro areas using public transit passes can be fun, as long as it does not lean too much on the "thrillseeker" side.

A friend and former coworker has a Regina SK-themed area of his man cave in his house in Huntington Beach, CA...Western Pizza menus on the walls, SK Roughriders merch, regional beer bottles, etc. I have a bunch of NE Ohio/Great Lakes region stuff for my man cave in progress--- miniature lighthouses, light house photos, freighter photos, etc.

Going to be a nice sunny day. Got to get out of my home office and take a walk..

Random thought: Talking politics non-stop on an auto enthusiast site is like talking autos non-stop on a political enthusiast site.

Stephen Miller 10/6/2025: “A district court judge has no conceivable authority whatsoever to restrict the President…” Hitler, Reichstag speech (1933): “The German nation will no longer tolerate that its will be nullified by judges of a corrupt system.” Miller: “The President has undisputed authority under both statute and the Constitution to deploy troops… to defend a federal facility.” Hitler Speech, Berlin 1934: “The Führer alone is the bearer of the will of the nation; his authority is the highest law.” Miller: “This large-scale political violence is domestic terrorism.” Hitler, Munich 1923: “Whoever resists us is not a political opponent but an enemy of the nation, deserving no mercy.” Miller: “The Portland Police have refused to render aid and assistance to ICE officers… The attacks on ICE are violent armed resistance designed to incapacitate the federal government.” Goebbels, 1934: “Whoever obstructs the work of the state, whoever aids its enemies, commits treason against the nation.” Miller: “We’re going to liberate this city from the criminal element that has plagued it for generations.” Hitler, Reichstag speech, 1933: “We will liberate Germany from the poison that has corroded it from within for generations.” Stephen miller, Memphis speech to LEOs: “I see the guns and badges in this room. You are unleashed. The handcuffs you’re carrying—they’re not on you anymore, they’re on the criminals.” Hitler, Speech to SA and SS, 1934: “You are the soldiers of a new Germany. You are released from the weakness of the past—your duty is to act, not to hesitate.” They're not even hiding the plagiarism.

Washington has pretty color change for a drive through the mountains, but I love that most of the year we stay green no matter the season. HWY 20

I still love the Front Range…felt a twinge of homesickness, lived there nearly 12 years. Took pics of my old apartment building in the Springs, Garden of the Gods, and the office building where I had my first cubicle nearly 30 years ago…

Here's a pic I took Sunday at my favorite local beach on Lake Erie...been up there the last two weekends...taking a folding chair and a floppy hat, sit and listen to the waves..very relaxing...dip my toes in the lake. One of my happy places where I can shut out the drama of the world.

No. He had a gross misunderstanding, intentional or not, of what DEI is. The rest of that quote does not improve the context. He said he specifically questioned the pilot's competence because of skin color. Just like he questioned Justice Jackson's abilities to be a supreme court justice. Direct quote: "If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us! They're coming out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action." Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously. Kirk then played a clip of Jackson Lee speaking in Congress, saying she had been admitted to educational institutions on affirmative action. Kirk then went on to make his point again: "We know. We know. It's very obvious to us you are not smart enough to be able to get it on your own. "I could not make it on my own, so I needed to take opportunities from someone more deserving." That's not how Affirmative Action worked. It didn't take spots away from those more deserving, it took slots away from the mediocre old-white-boys club who only would have gotten in because they're a legacy. A black pilot is a pilot because he completed all the required training, not because of some quota. DEI DOESN'T HAVE QUOTAS. DEI is just about making sure that anyone qualified is able to apply and potentially win the position regardless of gender, sex, race, religion, sexuality, etc. So to wonder if United/Delta/American put a black pilot in the driver seat just because he was black and they needed to meet a quota is just plain racist. There's a pilot shortage anyway, so anyone who is white and qualified is going to be able to find a job if they want one. No. That's a cop-out "Well I don't agree with everything Mussolini did, but at least he made the trains run on time." Don't say you agree with some of the things a nazi says without being able to very strongly qualify it. He was a bigot against race, sexuality, gender, women, and more. So unless its "Well I agree with him that the sky is blue", you're probably better off just not agreeing with him on anything.

Just a few months ago I was getting Kerry Gold on sale for $10.99 Your grammar lesson for today.

I get that, but it was cheap. We (myself included) are always wanting more affordable cars but when they make them, we complain about how cheap they are.

Ok, a few things to address, but I agree with most if not all you've said. My only Air B&B experience in Italy was in July 2023, in Bari (southeastern on the boot; top of the heel). The only caveat of the whole thing was an elevator issue, which was rectified (it was on the top floor, and one day it wasn't working so we had to walk down all the stairs, and it was 115F outside, and you know the interior of the building doesn't have a/c). Since I broke my leg falling down a flight of stairs during lockdown, I still get anxiety on them today. Everything else about the experience was perfect. My only experiences not in the south are limited to 25 years ago... I've spent a few trips on the bottom of the heel at my in-laws homes, and the south in general, is opposite of the south of the US in terms of being progressive. When it comes to more liberal topics such as homosexuality, the south is surprisingly friendly. Even the town priest walked up to me and was very welcoming. The places you may come across more right-leaning ideologies are in central Italy and the north. Of course it's not everyone, but in general, you'll see more bigoted people in central/northern Italy. It's tricky for me to give an accurate, unbiased reaction to the country though because when I go there, I am fluent enough to be confused as a native, and they always peg my accent as southern (which has to be from my late fiance's and my grandmother's/father's influence). You will still get the reaction from northerners that are against the south... just like southerners who are against the north, but I'll save that history lesson for class. Small towns in the south are incredible.. I stayed in this tiny hotel... 40€ a night, air-conditioned, breakfast included (granted in Italy that's just a cornetto and a cappuccino, but that's all I eat anyway), WiFi, so clean you could eat off the bidè, and the hotel owner's wife treated me like her child. I came home one night and she washed and folded my dirty laundry (seriously). I approached her about it, which, I understand most might find this a huge invasion of their privacy, but when a man is traveling alone (and she knew I was a widower), the "mother" in them comes out. In fact, she didn't think I was taking good-enough care of myself, so she'd tell me to go into the kitchen and help myself to peach juice, taralli (for those who don't know, they're the Italian versions of pretzels but have a texture of like a cracker), cookies, etc. Southern Italy has become more like home to me (aside from my fiance being buried there, it reminds me of my own family). My only hatred is for the blistering sun and summer heat.

Some more pics.

Dad sent me spy photos of the 2026 Ford F-150 SUB testing south of Miami last week.

I got a mid-size portable one rated for 4500w. It doesn't run the whole house. It's enough to keep the downstairs fridge and freezer going, the internet up, and the phones/laptops charged. In the wintertime it can also be used to run the furnace. We lost power for 18 hours overnight this past winter when it was 11 degrees out, so getting one that will run the furnace was on my list of requirements. We get multi-hour outages several times a year, during the worst of covid we had a transformer blow a couple streets over and they couldn't get a replacement for days, so I think it was an overdue investment. While it does have a connection available to wire into the breaker box, my breaker box is not set up for it. So for me, it was just stringing orange extension cords under the garage door and out the living room window to plug into the unit in the driveway. We got power back for a short time at 11 p.m., then again at 3 a.m., I was able to power down the generator at 3. Last I looked, there were still 134k without power, over 400k at the worst of it. They're saying more bad storms tonight.

This thing looks worse than the EQS. 2 things that car companies need to get rid of is the bar of soap design and the yoke steering wheel. And I just saw Mercedes is going to steer by wire and showed a yoke style steering wheel. People don't want yokes in a car.

On mine, there is a box on the lower right marked 'PARTS CONTENT INFORMATION'.

Just not good enough at being a motor vehicle period...just hideous, shoddily built chod..