trinacriabob

I never gave much thought to VW products until, when renting a full size at a local Budget years ago, I was given a Passat. I liked it more than I thought I would. I liked the user-friendliness of the dash and the controls. And I liked the flatness with which it cornered and rode. This "flatness" was more noticeable than in similarly sized Camrys and Altimas often found in the same tier of rental cars. The second and only other VW product I have driven was a VW Golf with an automatic. This was across the pond and the rental lasted 3 days. I immediately liked and disliked a few things about the Golf. I liked the dashboard and console set up, as well as the general comfort of the seating. The build quality of the interior was good, essentially comparable to that experienced in the Passat years before, albeit in a package that was smaller and with less content. I immediately disliked the thick rear quarter panel which gave the car a chunky or boxy look. The front angled view of this car is more favorable than the angled rear view. The layout of the dashboard and controls was intuitive, and well suited to someone used to American cars, such that getting underway was quick and easy. The 4 cylinder, presumably the 1.5 L, made more than 100 horses and was adequate for this size of car. The transmission was a DSG, which I've come to learn means "direct shift gearbox." DSG is what they've been calling most automatic gearboxes in Europe within the last handful of years. The weird thing about the Golf's DSG was its odd number of gears - 7 of them. As cars pick up more automatic gears, it's harder to identify the shift points. I sometimes could tell if I gave it more throttle and was keeping an eye on the tachometer. Incidentally, the gauges are nicely arranged, as is everything else for both the driver and front seat passenger. The Golf's ride was flat and composed and it was more compliant in highway driving than it was on hilly roads with tight hairpins. There were certainly a lot of these. Perhaps an up-level model with a more taut suspension could have handled them better. This car fared better on city streets and on the highways. Again comparing it to a larger VW sedan, its handling and ride would be like that of a smaller and less noise-dampened Passat. It would be more like a Corolla's manners in ride, handling, and noise suppression compare to those of the bigger and heavier Camry. However, for most things, it inspires a fair amount of confidence. And that includes passing that isn't overly demanding. Parking was also fairly easy and, even though the rear quarter panel looks like it might be challenging to see out of, it turned out to be doable, possibly because the back lite is fairly vertical. The fuel economy was very good, though not exactly great, when one thinks what kind of mileage heavier, older Chevrolets with 3.1 L and 3.4 L V6s could return under near perfect open road driving conditions. Handling was predictable and noise suppression was above average, possibly in the upper end of the economy car segment. The feel of occupying the front part of the cabin was probably this car's forte. Rear seat passengers also had adequate room while the trunk behind the hatch type door was somewhat limited. In three days of driving this VW Golf 5 door hatchback (at a very reasonable cost), I had one event that was perplexing and I thought I'd be in a bind. I pulled over to look at a panoramic vista and parked it on a slight downslope. When I got back in the car and tried to put it in reverse, it was giving me an unusual message in another language that the reverse needed to be applied manually. I could figure this out in context but I couldn't figure out how to do that with what was supposed to be an automatic! I was wondering if I'd have to summon some locals to help me decode the problem or possibly help me push the car back before moving it into a forward gear. I took a deep breath, pulled out the parking brake again, and tried again several minutes later. I was finally able to use the automatic reverse setting and be on my way. I made sure never to park on a slope and try to start it and then put it in reverse in the remaining day I had left with this car. The only thing I could think of is that there was something conflicting with a possible "hill hold" feature I didn't know about. Overall, the Golf is a compendium of good and average traits, which makes it above average. Currently, VW has released the New Polo, and it's about the same size but more streamlined, with an extra window in the rear door which effectively slims down the rear pillar and makes it look more attractive. From driving the Golf and seeing the photos of the New Polo, their best feature seems to be their nicely put together cabins that are comfortable to occupy for extended periods of time and put them quite a ways above some econoboxes being marketed across the pond. For some, or many, the VW Golf could be the answer to their automotive needs in this market niche.

They're annoying, cute, stupid, and a few other adjectives.

Yeah, weird with its one windshield wiper, pop out rear seat windows, etc. Between how cheap it was and how many kilometers it had on it, they were not too vigilant when I brought it back. If it's a nicer and newer economy sedan, with good options and low miles, it is scrutinized when returned way more so than they would in the U.S.

Any deer meandering through your neighborhood? Those coupes were rare, even when they were newly released. Not many were sold, IIRC. Trying to figure out which "fraternal twin" looked better - the Buick LeSabre 2-door coupe or the Olds 88 Royale 2-door coupe ... maybe the Olds.

It'll happen for you. It will either be (1) wow, (2) that was okay, or (3) you won't like it. Most people are in the first 2 groups. A small group, such as my parents, would have been in the last group. I'm definitely in the first group - wow.

Olympic Airways (Greek carrier no longer flying to North America) A340-300 - nice livery Aerolineas Argentinas A340-300 - Argentina has had some great liveries for their fleet

@oldshurst442 AirTransat flies a lot of A330s to cross the pond. I think cruising speed advantage can be cancelled out by tail winds and head winds. The last Alitalia flight from Rome to New York was 10 hours. The pilot said it would be 1 hour longer because of strong head winds. Normally, it's 9 to come back to the U.S. and 8 to go to Italy. I've also seen the eastbound trip be as short as 7:20 because of tail winds. The 747 is just impressive to be in. One of the things, though, is that there are 3 seats out on the sides. That's more people to crawl over if you like windows. If you sit way in the back and the 747 turns 180 degrees while taxiing, you get a good spin from it compared to those sitting in the middle, near the fulcrum. With reference to Greece, I've seen Olympic's Airbus 340 going to Athens at JFK parked at the gate across the way. The 340 is probably my favorite Airbus product.

Have never been to Hawaii. Yet. I'll check out a HNL airport map. British used the 747-400 between SEA and LHR in the evenings as well, in addition to the 747 service from PHX to LHR you mention. It's easier to see planes doing their thing at PHX, which has come a long ways, than it is at SEA, where there's no planespotting area that I know of. As for DEN, I know that Lufthansa used the 747-400 for non-stops to FRA. It looks like Lufthansa will park their A380s, retire their remaining 747-400s (they've seen a lot of action), and probably use their 747-8i for nonstop long-haul that have the demand. The newer 8i is one beautiful machine. I've only flown on a 777 once. Can't say I liked it all that much. For passenger comfort, the 767 is better, with 2-3-2 in economy. That could pencil out better and that's why everything with 2 aisles is at least 8 economy seats across now. I vaguely recall that, from the initial roll to rotation, a 747-200 or -400 (?) consumes about 800 gallons of fuel.

Just as a distraction ... I once wondered how many gallons (or liters) of fuel it took to get a fully booked 747 from somewhere on the East Coast to one of the major gateways in Europe (like LHR, FRA, or CDG) and it was almost pointless to calculate that sort of thing. If first and business class are somewhat full, they more than take care of the cost of the fuel. The low priced seats in the back, upwards of 325 of them in economy, would pay for other operating costs, overhead, and profit. Cargo would do the same. That's one possible way to look at it.

Just an FYI - if you're "shopping" for airfares months after the curve has theoretically flattened, the domestic legacy carriers' fares aren't what they can be, meaning lower. I am sure that they need the revenue and might be anticipating that people will cram all their air travel into this window of time when the weather is still decent.

One thing is probably going to change when it comes to buildings. My local post office is newer, but not that new - maybe late 80s or early 90s. You have to grip the metal door handles to get in. You can exit by leaning on the doors. In the future, I see more of those entry doors for big public and commercial buildings where a sensor or some other contraption will cause the door to open and close. Also, I see more translucent partitions in cashier-customer situations. And, we will have to get accustomed to bowing to greet people, like the Japanese do.

I ran it through the car wash yesterday. I applied Mother's paste wax to it today.

Andrea Bocelli just gave a live solo performance for Easter at Milan's cathredal (Duomo di Milano) upon being invited by the city and the (arch)diocese. In the beginning, he's inside the church but, at the end, he is singing outside the church and they pan over some of the world's great but empty cities. One of the lines in the lyrics of the last song is especially noteworthy. Happy Easter to our members who celebrate it. And anyone else who wants to share a day of peace and rebirth in general.

I read that the Burning Man festival held in the Nevada desert has been cancelled. My heart aches ... NOT.

I went on it. And went off it. It keeps people in high school type dynamics. No bueno. - - - - - In it's heyday: It went out with a bang ... literally ... what a send off ... When they do show you their marquee, it says "No Vacancy." Duh. There was a lot of fire once the implosion got started. The Kingdome stadium was imploded - the only one I've actually seen - but you only saw the flares and some smoke when it got started; nothing like this. The Dunes went down to make room for the Bellagio.

I agree with just about all of that. Said another way, most things are better in moderation: being mentally, spiritually, and physically "incarcerated" is one extreme. A "free for all" would be the other.

I will not opine too much on this but agree that guilt has been used as a control mechanism by organized religion. There's something to think about here - Slick Willie slotted in right after the Bush 41 1991 recession and right before the dot-com bust. His timing in the business cycle couldn't have been more fortuitous. Not talking about politics and ability, the first time I heard him open his mouth, I didn't like him. He's too much like a car salesman, but with a very impressive IQ and educational background. Talking business, there's one business that's not doing too shabby around here: Starbucks. If you've got a Starbucks in a suburb and it has a drive-through, you may see the "addicts" lining up through the drive-through. They're the ones who don't wear down the seats and tables, use the restrooms, or use the wi-fi. What they've "lost" is their in-store clientele, but some of those customers, myself included, can be cheap - order a cup of coffee or tea ... and sit there for a long time. I usually leave their nice employees a tip, though.

@daves87rs I'm not sad about Bernie dropping out. At all. I'm hoping that Joe picks your state governor as his running mate. @oldshurst442 She could have died of cancer. The article mentioned that she has battled it before. If she was weakened by that battle, it would have been harder to overcome COVID-19. Some famous people, as we see on the news, have succumbed to it. We don't know if it was the issue here. A few days prior, Honor Blackman, who played the Bond girl with the character name that has gone unforgotten in "Goldfinger," died at 94, and it was entirely due to other health issues. I have heard that theory that Linda Tripp was a case of being scorned and being jealous of Monica. If Linda Tripp was jealous or thought she had a chance, she was delusional. As for gossip and sinfulness, imagine this. Try to spend an hour with someone, such as a friend, and not talk about anyone. It's not possible to operate in a vacuum. Possibly, there are two options - just talking about someone in a "shoot the breeze" way and gossip of the "nasty" variety. If you want to talk sin, the first one would not be while the second one could be. I don't want to digress into a spiritual discussion. Regardless, all this talk about Linda Tripp and company got me thinking about this classic tune (better here than in the music thread):

Random thoughts could include mulling over current events: - Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the race, and - Linda Tripp died a day or two ago, at age 70. The cause has not been revealed. When I thought of the word bureaucrat, I thought of employees in European government posts who pushed paper and took forever to do so, probably giving priority to their smoke and coffee breaks. We definitely have these same types over here. At any rate, Linda Tripp, a previously obscure federal employee, became the American face of the term "bureaucrat" some 20 years ago ... and this is the face most likely to be etched into people's brains:

I agree. Even if they lean a little to the left or a little to the right, you can use the information and make up your own mind on the topic. We probably have our own opinions about the topics they present ahead of time. My parents had these neighbors a couple of blocks over. They were a younger married couple with kids. The wife often began sentences with "you need to" or "you have to." For being "uneducated," she was very patronizing. One time, I got an emphatic, "You need to watch Fox News." It turns out her husband moved to another state to attend to family matters and, last I know, hadn't moved back. I'm sure he had had enough of "you need to" and "you have to." On top of it, this lady was also a holy roller.

I read the book before I saw the movie. True, in "The Exorcist," the younger priest's surname was Karras. And, when they showed his elderly mother in NYC, she was sitting in her apartment listening to a Greek language radio station. However, why was he hanging out at Georgetown? Could it be that a very small percentage of Greeks are Roman Catholic? There were always Greek Orthodox kids and Middle Eastern Christian (Coptic, etc.) kids in my schools but that's because they didn't have enough critical mass to have their own grade schools and high schools and their parents had no intention of sending them to public schools.

Or we could say it's like having the blues, but then it would be confused with depression. I believe he has a degree. He dumbs down his presentation to connect with everyday blue collar folks. He started out at Fordham and transferred to Penn to finish. Since his father built out one of the largest and nicest developments in Queens NY (Jamaica Estates) back in the day, his dad's money could have kept him in, with the university sort of buying in to push him through with B-/C+ grades. If he doesn't want to show transcripts, it's possibly because his grades aren't much to look at. It's okay. When I was a kid, I would have thought the same thing, let alone even think about either of these schools. On the East Coast, I only gave some thought to Georgetown because it looked cool in "The Exorcist," but I doubt I would have gotten in. Also, up until about the late 90s, I always assumed your McGill was private because of its WASPy sounding name and because it didn't have the Univ. of (insert place) names given to most other major public Canadian universities.

CNN is my point of reference. I looked it up in Wiki and the article said that, while the perception is that they lean left, the reality is that they present a balanced viewpoint.

I'm talking about the perception of the virus rather than reality. Your imbecile president, with an Ivy League pedigree from Penn, hastily called it the Chinese virus.

Stop being so Canadian and apologizing! I, for one, am rarely offended. It's hard to separate humor from political correctness, so let it roll (laissez les bon temps rouler). So it goes like this: the virus started in China, so it was a Chinese virus it then got transported to Italy in 2 ways - 1 person from Wuhan repatriating to Italy (Lombardy, in the north) and 2 tourists from China staying near the Colosseum (Rome, in the center) * there rea also contact traces where there was some movement between Germany and Italy related to work and that caused it to spread * so, it is now an Italian virus and the EU hates them the south of the country got its first cases a month later - 1 person, a mother, returning to the east coast of Sicily after visiting the kids in Lombardy and 1 person in Palermo, on the northwest coast, who was vacationing from Lombardy so, to the south, it's a northern Italian virus ... and southern Italians think northern Italians are cold and structured while the northern Italians think the southern Italians are unruly and unfiltered then, somebody who may have been in China returns to the Seattle area and WA state is at the center of the spotlight so, in the U.S., it's a Pacific Northwest virus the West Coast puts a lid of sorts on it, but cases in tri-state NYC skyrocket so, in the U.S., it's now a New York virus and, to the world, it's now an American virus - - - - - To put some humor into this, I can only think of the commercial for Pace picante sauce. Some dude is getting food in what might be a diner in Texas and gets a hot sauce that looks odd. They are probably thinking it's Tex-Mex or from across the border. Then, together, they examine the label on the Pace picante sauce and it comes from a company headquartered in New York. So, in unison, they exclaim with a twang: "New York City?!?" You know some rednecks in the U.S. are thinking that exact same thing right now.