trinacriabob

Happy Bastille Day!

I am bordering on being disgusted with GM. If you build something on their websites for various models, the fact that I may want a driver's side power seat, which is almost a basic need anymore, does not mean I want all the other shit that makes for a $2,800 package.

There might be, spread across different manufacturers from many countries. After renting one, I like the new Toyota Camry LE Hybrid quite a bit. What a difference a tweak here and there can make (exterior and interior) and the previous-gen dowdiness is now gone. I was impressed. But choices like this also mean "sayonara" to a reasonable GM Card chunk of change.

This is less about politics and more for a laugh. You know how when you deplane at the end of the flight, the captain may be there at the front of the cabin along with a few flight attendants? A lot of these guys look like clones of each other. So, I often wonder which way they vote, at least in the U.S. I wonder if there's a token one or two who vote(s) for 'the road less traveled' in the privacy of the voting booth.

This isn't new. I can't make a decision on buying a car, since I haven't made the even bigger decision to precede when and WHERE to buy a car. I've got a lot of points from my GM Card. Never would I have thought the market would change so drastically after I last used its accumulation and would start accumulating again. So, if I were to buy a tide over used car to keep for a few years, then what? All low mileage ... the last Buick Verano 2.4 L the last Chevy Impala 2.5 L the 2015 Malibu with Camaro rear lights 2.5 L the last Mercury Milan 4 cyl. the last Charger base 3.5 V6 Something else Low mileage "older" cars cost a bundle, IF it's a dealer that's selling them.

I hate to say this, but so many people from India who run hotels are very cheap and combative. I was in a place belonging to a chain I've NEVER had problems with and like where I'm staying now for a week. This guy was just rude. We had an argument about something critical he misrepresented via phone some 2 days before I checked in. I also asked him for a bottle of water on the 3rd day of departure, which they give routinely at all their other properties, especially for people who are members of their loyalty club. It was boiling hot outside. He said he didn't have any. On the other hand, in the preceding 2 evenings, the friendly Americanized Hispanic guy gave me a cold bottle of water. I told him that most people here are not prejudiced to foreigners and my parents were from another country. However, they should expect to be called out when they run a business here and their style is not compatible with how business is done and customers are used to being treated here. As for the bottle of water, which might have had a cost of 15 cents, I told him to hang on to those 15 cents and that he was so cheap that "he'd squeeze a nickel until the buffalo shits." This was on my last day. I'm sorry. This isn't about political correctness. It's all about an ugly reality that plays over and over again like a broken record. You can also have some horrible one-off experiences in Italy, typically about utilities and climatization, because they, too, can be cheap.

"Don't you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run ... run" I think she says "run" 10 times in each refrain. For years, I though the singer was a man with a high voice. One of a kind.

First random thought: It always makes for a sigh of relief when they hand me the keys to a Malibu Second random thought: I'm irritated by fuel tank filler doors that are not on the same side as the driver's door

Every once in a while, I crave a Brazilian steakhouse buffet ... like now.

If someone has sex in Denver, does that make them a member of the "Mile High Club?"

Dang ... ... airfares are high ... rental car prices are high Since Southwest pulled the plug on the low cost model circa 5/28, their airfares are much higher, and so are the fares of the legacy carriers.

I know. But, man, Chevy could have put on some kind of a real dashboard instead of something that looks like a kid would have wanted from Toys 'r' Us.

I was cleaning out old photos and archiving and I found this ... ... amazing ... what a nasty rat-tat-tat dashboard ... any guesses? . . . . . It was a rented Chevy Sonic. Its dashboard was quite a bit more underwhelming than that of its smaller and cheaper sibling, the Spark

Happy Friday!

Legacy is going away, as is Malibu. As someone who obsessively makes fun of Subaru, the Legacy is actually nice, not to mention apolitical. Eh on the Altima and the Sonata looks too much like a jelly bean. Cam-cord are good choices but I would have preferred American iron.

Some appliances last a long time and some don't. I have a feeling this one will go the distance. There aren't many choices in this segment.

Even this option is gone. This is a white Passat with the light tan interior. I could have very easily seen myself in the Passat in that light metallic sand color with this interior. I really liked their taut roadability combined with a smooth ride. * sigh *

That's an interesting observation. I did not get a squeaks and rattles feel. The build quality in the interior says "larger Corolla." While it may now have a nicer cabin, none of the finishes and materials reach the point of being impressive. Also, you feel the lighter weight in the doors. My first-gen LaCrosse had better materials and more solidity than the Camry ... any of them.

You have put across that you are intent on doing it. I'd look at a LOT of YouTubes and even forums. To distill it to its basics - it's a wash, almost a complete balance of positives and negatives. But it's your personal weighting of these that allow you to break that tie. On Jan. 31, the $ bought .96 of a Euro. Today, it buys .88 of a Euro. That's a big drop in a short time. Even thought .88 is "bad," what I saw in 2007 or thereabouts was far worse and it was the W to Obama transition years.

Right. I remember when the Seattle area once had exorbitant rental car taxes. When I asked what they were for, they were for the new stadium(s) going up. Right. I know. But California has good roads throughout, for the most part, whether it's the freeways or even local streets with nice landscaping and features. Not only that, I'm sure they're taxing for some type of environmental offset and to defray other "stuff." The toll for the PA Turnpike the whole way across is absurd. To that, add fuel for the car. It's cheaper to fly to NYC than cross Pennsylvania by car in most cases.

Another thing: Italy does not swap out driver's licenses for U.S. and Canada. You have to go to driving school ... about $750. Portugal swaps them out. Spain is teetering on how they're going to go with this. The decline of the dollar is concerning for being an expat anywhere if what you have is denominated in dollars. With an eroding middle class, California ain't so great. As an 18 year old, I thought I would never leave. It's expensive and not worth it.

I read the whole post with a lot of interesting situations, but this stood out. First, to be fair, my not so great experience was in and around Pescara, which is Abruzzo. Except that Dean Martin and Madonna have their ancestral roots there, not many people talk about it. It's shielded by the mountain range, which is very high, but only 2.75 hours directly across from Rome and on the sea. My parents have never said anything negative about this region. They sure have about other regions! In fact, because my dad was at work, some Abruzzese family friends came over to pick up my mom when her water broke to have me. My dad joined up a few hours later. I already mentioned the normal Airbnb. As for the really negative Airbnb, it was a problem with the water. In a week, hot water arrived in 15 minutes on 3 days, didn't come at all on 2 days, and would run hot and cold while I was in the shower. I had gotten a temporary fitness center membership and there were a couple Airbnbs near it. I didn't like her face and I was right. She was attractive but there was something pathological about her, in addition to looking like a "lipstick," even though she was married. I took her unit because it was on an upper floor. A very normal looking guy had an Airbnb, but with too many floor to ceiling doors at ground level, with bars. With all my stuff and documents, I didn't want that. Studying faces is something that people should do with their gut. My friend in San Diego told me to turn her in to Airbnb. I did and she had to cough up a partial refund. I then looked at reviews on both ends, and she only had problems with guys and it was about the utilities. She was trying to pin the blame on the solar roof panels. In a building built in the '80s or '90s, those are now reliable technology. The reality is that I've had a lot of problems with hotels, gyms, etc. with climate control. They are the cheapest bastards when it comes to utilities. The warm season may come on very early in June and they don't turn on the central air throughout an entire hotel or they don't turn it up as high as would be optimal for comfort at a gym. My father would say that they are "morti di fame" or "pezzenti." It's ubiquitous. As for their personalities, the people of Abruzzo are very flat. They exhibit very little voice modulation. They are not too interested in anyone who is not from there, and ask, "How is it that you're in our region?" Sicilians never ask that. They've had 6 major ancestral groups occupy them and they know they have a beautiful island. The other thing some Abruzzese do is speak to you in their crappy English if they notice the slightest inflection. Most other Italians in big population centers don't do that. In the hospitality industry in a more economically advanced area, it would be considered rude, almost as if correcting you, and they know better. I had this one waiter at a hotel restaurant where I had already ordered with the main waiter and was eating my pasta. He had also seen me at breakfast. He looked like Mr. Clean, but with a mustache. I'm sitting here eating dinner and he came over and asked in his awful vowel-rich English: "Would you like a glass of wine?" I went off! The other thing is that, what if the person is French, Dutch, Polish ... then what? You start up in English? They have a Union Jack rammed right up their asses. They have this thing with "Inghilterra," as if that's the only place that produces Anglophones. There was a coffeehouse I really liked in Abruzzo where I would take my laptop. The slogan attributed to the people of this region is "forte e cortese," which they probably are, but, except for this one girl who worked there and was always happy to see me and addressed me by name, the other employees were dull. You would see the typical turtlenecked 40 something women with young kids in there and even younger people with not much voice modulation who all seemed as boring as watching paint dry. I asked a few people outside the region about this. One guy in Rome who owned a pizzeria said, "They've been there forever, have never moved around, and everyone is related and knows everyone." One Sicilian guy who lives there and is married to a local woman started talking about the locals and looked to the heavens and rolled his eyes. Yet, I barely went into this local bar in Southeastern Sicily to get a snack, a granita, and mess with my phone and, within about 3 visits, the people behind the counter would recognize me and kid with me. I got a haircut at a place in Sicily I found on Google and they were all goofy ... in a good way. The same was true at a Conad supermarket in Sicily where they had a lunch cafeteria I'd patronize. But I also told them my parents were from the area. I agree with your observation but it's hit and miss in the north. Across the top, all the regions are hard on outsiders living there, but those from the Veneto (more than just Venice, as you know) have always been more friendlier than the others. People from the Veneto have always been great to me. In north-central, Emilia-Romagna has a stellar reputation for being the most welcoming and is like an island that regard. Maybe having the University of Bologna there causes that open mindedness. My cousins who live in pissy Florence which, beyond the historic places, is not at all nice and they were born and raised there. They said that a newcomer to Florence would have a hard time being absorbed yet 1 hour north, in Bologna (obviously Emilia-Romagna) they could work their way into being absorbed by the area and feel pretty good about living there. A lot of more insular Italians keep foreigners at bay, even if from a EU country. I don't think that happens if a Spaniard or Frenchman has a professional position in a multi-national firm in Milan or Turin. If you are raised in America, your accent may be fairly close, but not enough to broadcast the news. I was in Catania and had accidentally taped myself conversing with a local lady by not shutting off the video. The accent is a hair off only on certain words, but not like that of someone from a country where they would not speak a Romance language. With southerners, it's usually more of a cadence than it is an accent. A Roman waiter said, 'yeah, you look "American," but you speak well and the Sicilian cadence can be heard.' I thanked him for that comment. I have been to Puglia once, in 2022. I wanted to see Bari, Polignano al Mare, and Alberobello. The people were nice and I had no problems. Bari once had a bad "port city" reputation and it has now been cleaned up. As for the expats, there are some funky ones. The ones who have the background, such as parents and grandparents, and go back and forth and are now living there tend to be normal. Some of the other ones who have no Italian roots are weird AF. Some have left the workforce too early and are trying to sell their services like translating and being bird dogs for realtors and car rental places. Others are living in the most rural communities up in the hills or mountains and trying to be artists or writers, growing their own food, driving beaters, and having babies delivered by a midwife ... and, even if they speak English, I could not relate to them. Some of the most insular Italians live along the Adriatic and in the Golfo di Taranto north of the touristic places in Puglia and south of Ancona. In other places in the north, they're not dumb, but snobbish. In Valle d'Aosta and Sud-Tyrol up at the top, respectively, they associate with France and Austria, and downplay being Italian. For being 2/3 the size of California, it's a big head trip. My dad was super proud of both Italy and Sicily but, after living in the U.S. for so long, said that Italians in Italy can be "una massa di pavoni." A friend from Madrid acknowledges that the Iberians also see Italians as having an annoying "pavo real" problem. I wasn't planning on responding in so much detail, but I got rolling.

I wouldn't say I feel concerned, but I wonder about the topic because I tend to analyze most things in practical and tangible terms. State and local governments are trying to balance budgets. For states who don't charge income tax or sales tax, I wonder how the other sources pencil out. I know that California gas prices are absurd principally because of the gas taxes to pay for a good and extensive road network with not much in the way of tolling. One thing that makes me feel less "sorry" for them are the hotel charges and guest taxes that people pay. These are often in the 14% to 18% range. A lot of people fill up hotels, whether motels, airport hotels, or fancy downtown hotels. Think of all the revenue that brings in and how it can pay for stuff.

I had a good and a mixed Airbnb experience in Sicily and East Central Italy, respectively, lately. In Sicily, they were just cool people. In East Central, they were nice but a little stiffer. The condo was sort of a loft where a curved standard staircase went up to the sleeping area. Grand total about 600 s.f., but the floor to ceiling windows kept me in an upbeat mood. The mom of the owner would bring stuff weekly and, when I extended, she quipped that I was getting it for a steal of a price. Considering that it was spring and not summer, it did not command the summer price. All she needed to do is take my nightly price and multiply by 30 to see they didn't do so bad and how that looks vis-a-vis the debt service, if any. I also did okay, so win-win. She didn't understand the common sense concept of market equilibrium, which is intuitive but studied in school. I think the unit would have gone for 125 to 150 K Euro if for sale. Italy may not have white trash as we know it in the States (sorry), but when you explain our social systems, educational systems, etc. to give nuances as to how they differ, reasonably educated people there can be just as obtuse as our basket of deplorables. Also, when I read reviews, many hosts give foreign guests a ride to the train station. It was 2 to 3 miles away. They saw I had beaucoup luggage and did not offer. The bus line serving the train station was luckily there in 5 minutes and I had a pass. Different region from Sicily and a little more insular, too. I have friend who has an Airbnb in San Diego and he says hosts love it when guests don't cook in the Airbnbs. Well, I don't cook. Beyond breakfast, I eat out. She shouldn't have looked a gift horse in the mouth. Bleh.

Just joking around: this evening, I left the library and pulled into the employee lot a little further out to check my phone. I counted 12 cars. Librarians tend to be left/progressive and it shows in their apparel and grooming. Of those 12 cars, 5 were Subaru wagons. I have not had such great experiences with Airbnb. I never quite settle in. One experience in Italy was rotten and I had to report it. So did another person. This person lost "guest favorite" status. That said, Turo also makes me apprehensive. I've heard it can also be awkward for the renter/guest. Reviews are more bad than good.