RichW5

Grew up in 1950's Chicago.... polish, bohemian, middle european neighborhood. No one in my neighborhood did drugs. Most of us didn't start drinking until we were 19 - 20.

The first drugs came into our area during and after Nam. I saw lots of screwed up guys during my time in the service and decided that I didn't need to be one of them. Getting drunk, more than I should have, was bad enough.

Now I'm down to a beer on the patio after cutting the lawn and a glass or two of wine a couple of times a week.

Enjoying life, friends and my grandson is the only high I need.

A well written article with "constructive criticism" rather than the "I hate Cadillac and GM" criticism I've seen in other articles, and from some posters here at C&G.

I bought my CTS in May of 2002 because of a need to transport our grandson, something my Vette couldn't do. It was a great choice and both my wife and I love to drive the CTS because it's a "drivers car".

I didn't like the dash, especially the hard to use DIC (in the NAV), but you get used to it after a while and it isn't as bad a some people think. Placement of the clock was truely stupid!

Our CTS will be about 5 years old when the NG CTS comes out and while I'm retired (somewhat fixed income), I hope to trade-in the '03 about a year after that.

GM needs to follow up the resurgence of Cadillac with new, better designed and engineered models, in all their divisions. They need to challenge their competitors, not just match them.

"Chicagoan". I will always be proud of Chicago, no matter where I live.

My grandparents came from Slovenia, then a part of Austria, that became part of Yugoslavia after WWII. It was the first counrty to split with Yugoslavia in the early 1990's and was bombed by the Yugoslav government for about a week. Then they gave up and went after Croatia and Bosnia.

One of my great grandfathers was adopted by an Italian doctor, but no word if he was of Italian or Slovenian heritage.

While I'm an American, one of the mistakes I made was not learning the language of my grandparents.

It was April 2nd of 1975 and I left work at 4:30pm, with my car pool driver in a 1965 Pontiac Tempest convertible (his car). It was snowing (Blizzard) and the roads were so bad that we had to pull over and abandon the Pontiac at 11:30pm. We had only traveled about 8 miles and had about 5 more to go.

After grabbing a burger at a local restaurant, we started walking the rest of the way home. With about 2 miles to go (1:00am), a local cop spotted us and asked if we needed help. He had the departments K9 station wagon and pretty decent traction, so he drove us the remaining 2 miles, to our front doors.

Later that week, I heard that this cop had picked up 30 - 40 people and drove them home or to another town's cop car to take them the rest of the way home. It seems that the local cops from 3 or 4 towns had worked out a plan to get people home or to a shelter.

Here's an interesting editorial from the Chicago Tribune on Ethanol. The vote to expand refineries narrowly passed and the representitives from Illinois are listed below. Since I don't believe in arguing over politics, I'm let you guess which party voted "NO" to refinery expansion last October. The same party is currently crying about the price of gasoline.

Clue... one of the "NO" voters has a famous father who once ran for President.

The ethanol factor

Published April 27, 2006

There are many factors that go into $3 gasoline, and even more political opinions about how we got there. Republicans blame Democrats for blocking more exploration and drilling. Democrats accuse Republicans of paying too much attention to Big Oil's needs and not nearly enough to conservation.

Next time your congressman wails about how the opposition is to blame, ask this: Exactly what have you done to lower energy costs?

Here's a good case in point: Last October the House narrowly passed incentives to expand refinery capacity. No new refineries have been built in the U.S. in 30 years, which has created a real bottleneck for gasoline production here. That has spurred higher prices, because production can't keep up with demand.

U.S. Reps. Judy Biggert, Dennis Hastert, Henry Hyde, Mark Kirk, Don Manzullo, John Shimkus and Jerry Weller voted in favor of promoting more refinery capacity.

U.S. Reps. Tim Johnson, Ray LaHood, Melissa Bean, Jerry Costello, Danny Davis, Rahm Emanuel, Lane Evans, Luis Gutierrez, Jesse Jackson Jr., Dan Lipinski, Bobby Rush and Jan Schakowsky voted no. In effect, they voted for higher gas prices.

Refinery capacity is one factor. Let's focus for a minute on another key issue in the price of a gallon of gas, one that's near and dear to almost every Illinois politician: ethanol.

Ethanol is billed as a locally produced fuel (it comes from corn) that cuts down on our consumption of foreign oil. But here's how ethanol policy actually drives up the cost of gas.

As a gift to the ethanol lobby, Congress last summer mandated a near doubling in the use of ethanol in gasoline by 2012, to 7.5 billion gallons a year from today's 4 billion gallons.

Ethanol is an oxygenate that reduces pollution (though gas refiners insist they have figured out a way to cut pollution without it.) Congress required more ethanol use at a time when the country is moving away from the only other oxygenate on the market, MTBE, because it has been found to contaminate ground water.

So ethanol producers are scrambling to meet demand and as a result, the price of ethanol has shot up. It's now selling for more than $2.80 a gallon (around $118 a barrel). That's up from a low of $1.35 last summer and a four-year average price of around $1.70. The ethanol mandate has caused price spikes above $4 a gallon and spot shortages at places on the East Coast.

The prices would no doubt be much higher if the federal government didn't provide a whopping 51 cents per gallon tax credit for ethanol producers. Illinois also provides a state sales tax discount that amounts to three or four cents a gallon. And did we mention the high tariffs on ethanol imports that protect the domestic industry from competition?

Gasohol, which includes 10 percent ethanol, is common in the Midwest. The cornfields it comes from are close by and, over the years, an extensive infrastructure to blend it into gasoline has been developed. But there's no comparable infrastructure in other parts of the country; one must be developed. That also adds to the expense--and the price of gas.

Perhaps that added expense would be worthwhile if ethanol substantially reduced oil consumption. But some studies have found that the production of ethanol consumes more energy than the final product saves.

Wait, there's more. You think gas prices are high now? If Illinois pols have their way, ethanol will be the alternative fuel of the future. E85, a blend that is 85 percent ethanol, is on sale at more than 100 stations.

Taxpayer-subsidized ethanol is a boon to some farmers and to Archer Daniels Midland Co. So you won't find many Illinois politicians who question its tax-subsidized production.

But the next time you see members of Congress blaming each other for high gas prices, ask them to explain the economics of ethanol.

Ask how they voted on refinery capacity.

Ask how much of that $3 a gallon can be attributed to ... them.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

There is no easy answer, based on the way the poll is structured.

I always walk into the showroom when I take our cars for an oil change. At our Caddy dealer, someone always walks up to me and asks if he/she can help. Some sales people are very knowledgeable. Some are not.

I can almost always count on the knowledgeable salesman being there each time I visit. The others come and go.

Is the best salesman accurate 100% of the time, yes ....... but if someone is only 50% accurate and willing to listen to my point of view, I consider them to be a good salesman.

If a salesman is 100% correct and arrogant about it, I probably wouldn't buy a car from that person.

When I bought the Trailblazer in December of 04, the salesman took me out to the vehicle and explained the controls. When I asked a question he couldn't answer, he excused himself and came back with someone that had the answer. Now that's a good salesman. He's still at that dealership. so I assume he's well liked by the dealer and the customers.

There is no "Truth" in the "Truth About Autos"!

Cadillac (GM) has some great vehicles and some not so great. That's the Truth.

The same can be said for every other manufacturer. That's the Truth!

When I read the "Escalade" article and some of Farago's other Cadillac reviews, I thought; "It's amazing how negative someone can be." There isn't anything positive here." Was he dissed by GM at some point in time? He must have had his "negative word" dictionary or "bad word" thesaurus working overtime, when he wrote those articles. Farago's writing comes through as "ego" more than truth.

Lets' face it. In this day of the internet, anyone with a few dollars can originate a web site or blog and call it the "Truth about something". That doesn't make him/her a journalist.

Lets' get back to the "Truth". Cadillac (GM) makes some great vehicles and some not so great. The truth is, GM has finally realized that it must make better vehicles, and it has begun to do just that. It isn't perfect yet, but I can find more positive than negative about GM's efforts.

There is more "Truth" in the pages of C&G, thanks to some "insiders" and members who look at GM constructively, than there will ever be in the pages of "Truth About Autos".

GM Bought new 5 - 1 non GM

63 Ford Galaxie 500XL convertible

66 Olds Cutlass Supreme convertible

70 Olds Cutlass Supreme convertible

98 Vette Roadster (Dealer titled with 1500 miles)

03 CTS

04 Trailblazer

As much as I would like to see GM gain market share, I don't still see the vehicle that'll help GM do it.

GM needs a "sales leader" to begin the process and I still see mostly plain, boring cars. Take a chance GM, put the SS concept out there as the next Monte Carlo. Oops, I'm sorry, it'll be called the MCS (Monte Carlo Sedan).

Make the Impala (IS) [impala Sedan], oops sorry, someone else is using that alpha/numeric configuration, a stunning vehicle, something everyone wants to see sitting in their driveway.

Hire Audi's interior designer to create "world class" GM interiors. Pay him/her whatever it takes to get the job done.

GM will never regain market share until it becomes a leader and risk taker, not a follower!

is there ANYONE who actually thinks 'smooth jazz' is REAL MUSIC?  or even GOOD?

IT IS THE EQUIVALENT OF HELL ON EARTH.  TORTURE LIKE HAVING YOUR TESTICULARS SLOWLY BURNED OFF.

For some reason I got stuck listening to something called 'Mindi Abair' tonight.  Her picture was hot, so I'm like, why not?  NOW......I WANT TO PULL MY EYEBALLS OUT! 

SMOOTH JAZZ / LITE JAZZ is the music of SATAN!!!!!

My God, YANNI, ENYA, JEWEL SINGING ABOUT HER BREASTS, CHARLOTTE CHURCH, SARAH BRIGHTMAN, CELTIC WOMAN, ANYTHING BUT SMOOTH JAZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!

if i came across this stuff listening in the car, I'd need to drive into the big concrete wall, just to STOP THE MADNESS!!!!!!!!!

This is horrible!  do they play this at 'wine bars' and 'natural foods stores'?

AND THE SPA TOO I BET!

ARRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Hi! My name is Rich and I'm a former "smooth Jazz" listener.

I grew up with "Ella" and the "Count", "Benny Goodman" and "Miles Davis". I switched to "acid rock" in the 60's, then changed to "Fusion Jazz" in the 70's & 80's.

Eventually, I moved to smooth jazz (WNUA in Chicago). I continued with this format until a friend told me I was listening to the "Shaday" station. It dawned on me the she was right, every time I turned on the car radio and switched to WNUA, a Shaday song was on.

I'm reformed now. I listen to my wife's country music, switching to "old jazz" on the local college station occasionally. I have a intervention phone number to call if I switch to smooth jazz.

I've been off smooth jazz for 6 years, 2 months and 5 days.

OK...

Where the hell did they get these numbers?

I'm a software engineer, and I know many people in the industry. None of them make anywhere near $80k, even the ones near retirement. Average salary my a--.

One of my friends, from the old Western Electric (where he was an AutoCAD drafter), became a software engineer. He started at $90K about 6 years ago. He had a Vette roadster (C4) and a Z06 (not sure what year). He hoped to get one Vette from each generation.

We'd been out of touch for 2 years, when I e-mailed him about a month ago. He was out of work and considering selling the Z06.

I guess it's easy come, easy go at that pay level.

Walter Peyton had a restaurant in Illinois, called Studebaker's. It served American food and featured an auto themed interior.

There are a couple of Italian restaurants I know called "Avanti".

There's a 50's themed drive-in called "Cruisers", featuring hot dogs, hamburgers, italian beef.

"Ferarri" could be an upscale italian restaurant, with the prancing stallion as part of the decor.

"The Cadillac Ranch" is a country and western bar and dance hall in the area. You could take the name and update the decor with Cadillac booths and make it a steak house.

Just a few suggestions.

My CTS will be remembered as:

My first non V8 car.

Fun to drive.

Bought in May of 2002, it was fun to park near car shows and watch people come over to look at it.

Caused one neighbor, my wife's boss and two friends to buy CTS's. (I'm a leader, not a follower.)

The car that started my internet searches for "Car Oriented" web sites.

The car that I owned before my Next Gen CTS.

The Dealer is "Cadillac of Naperville" and he has had a few of the Deville (DTS) conversions around during the last few years (usually 1 per quarter).

It's the dealer where I take the CTS for service (oil change) and they do an excellent job. It gives me time to roam around the dealership and see what he has in the showroom (XLR-V on the last trip) to DTS conversions in the backroom.

Don't remember who the conversion shop is, but I believe I saw one on e-bay about a week ago.

All kidding aside, the NAV on the Trailblazer has the stupidest mix of english and icons. The icons are on the right side of the screen controlling Nav functions and the english is on the left, controlling the radio, CD, Nav and audio functions.

However, the CD and audio buttions are symbols and the rest are english. This is really stupid! Almost as stupid as the NAV/radio/dic buttons on the CTS. What a complicated mess.

I have adult male fingers and need buttons that are large enough to fit them, not the tiny little buttons on the CTS.

Reg is right. Give me a touch screen and some programable buttons, or make the voice activation controls easier to use.

"Doesn't apply to nav radios, but plain jane ones."

I've heard of Bose and a few others, but who makes "Plane Jane" radios?

"I always find writing English on the buttons was rather stupid, especially when they want to go global. I much prefer the ones we have up here in Canada, where we replace all English with icons."

The buttons on my CTS were "pre-written", so I don't have to write in english on them. Besides, I thought they replaced "English" with "French" in Canada.

"Also troublesome is that last time I saw a nice six disc changer unit for cheap, but I couldn't get it because all the buttons were different, and if I install it, it would look odd."

Shouldn't all the buttons be different? If they were all the same, it would just do one thing no matter what button you pushed.

"Why don't they just make one radio with different firmware for metric and imperial units, and bother with the buttons??"

If there were no buttons, it would have to be voice activated, then what would you speak in ......... English or Metric?

Sorry Toni! I just made a pot of Chilli and when I make chilli, I drink beer as I make the chilli. So if my comments seem goofy, it must be the chilli.

Same reason that the US is not the world's leader of fuel right now.  We could switch to Biodiesel (which runs on diesel engines with NO alterations) and in doing so we could end farm subsidies, become an export country, and be rich.  Why don't we?  Oil lobbyists...

I have yet to see a single negative for biodiesel.

Hate to tell you this but .........

biodiesel is made out of veggie oil (soybeans for an example) and soybeans are a "subsidized" product.

There ain't enough refineries to make biodiesel.

We would have to replace our cars and trucks with new diesel vehicles, or put new engines into our existing vehicles, thereby doubling the national debit.

People would run to an accident, where Ford police cars were rear ended, to cook their fries in the spilled biodiesel.

The French would riot!

Cubes are great!

Before the cubicle, we sat at desks in the open, row after row, with the Dept Head in a glass cubicle and the section head just in front of him. There was no privacy and the noise made talking on the phone (part of our job) difficult.

Once I left my microfiche viewer turned on at lunch time. The Dept head left his office, went to my desk and turned off the microfiche viewer. Everyone said that I was on my way out. It turned out that he was a pretty good guy and hated having to watch the back of our heads all the time. The section head hated the cubes because he didn't trust us to do the work without being watched. Guess who won?

When the cubes came along we had 1, 2 or 6 people to a cube, depending on the type of engineering being done. I loved my cube, with the string door across the opening and all sorts of wierd signs hanging on the wall.

As I got more time with the company, my cube seemed to have it's own life. It grew in size everytime I got a chance to adjust the walls. The bosses would come in monday morning and shake their heads. Rich has been moving walls again, they'd say. Still, I had the best quality and efficiency in our engineering group, so "To the winner belongs the spoils".

Good Luck and know that you will be missed.

Guess what? It's tax time and restructuring costs are just part of the game companies play to gain a tax advantage. I don't like it and it gives the media more to complain about, but it's part of corporate life today. GM screwed up by reporting this after their initial financial report.

I'd be more concerned with the $175 million income of Consumers Union (CR's parent) with absolutely "NO TAXES PAID". Isn't that what CU complains that the corporations do?

1. '62 Starfire either the hardtop or convertible.

2. '66 - '67 Cutlass

3. '53 98 Fiesta convertible.

4. '62 - '63 F-85 Jetfire

Great pic's!

My '66 Cutlass Supreme ragtop was one of the best cars I've ever owned. I traveled the west (Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, California, etc) for a couple of months, in the Cutlass, with a tent, fishing poles, a pistol and a change of clothes in the trunk. It was a fun time; then came 30 years of work for Ma Bell.

I start out the day with a cup of coffee. Used to have 4 or 5 when I was working, but I don't need the extra caffein now that I'm retired.

Don't drink much milk, although we buy 2%. Most of the time I drink 100% juice (Juicy Juice Berry flavor). If we go out to eat, It's Sprite for me.

I loose my taste for beer in the winter and will have a glass or two of wine every other day after dinner. When it's really cold outside, I have a shot of Blackberry brandy or B&B every afternoon.

The wife drinks lots of water, orange juice and too much Diet Coke. She has acid reflux, so the doctor told her to eat yoguart.

When summer comes along, I try lots of different beers, starting with a Corona in the afternoon after cutting the grass or working in the yard. Then in the evening, it's an Irish ale or stout after dinner.

The basement bar refrigerator is currently stocked with Heineken and Smithwicks Irish ale.

I think we have a healthy mix of drinks, especially if the wife cuts down on the cola.

Anyone remember the issue where Honda's marketing agency...er, I mean "Consumer Reports" tested beer?  AHAHAHAHA!  Really, they did. I think it was back around 2000.  Of course, the beer brewed by Honda was rated "excellent in all respects". It was also judged to be the most reliable when it came to stimulating one's kidneys.

But I really ain't kidding about them testing & rating beer a few years back.

Dear NeonLX,

"Sorry to correct you, but we are the designated marketing agency for Honda."

Signed

Motor Trend

Our first car, when I was about 13, was a 4 year old, 1951 Studebaker Commander Starlight coupe. Commanders had Studebakers new V8 and an automatic transmission.

It was a great car and we kept it about 3 years. I almost polished the paint off the car, waxing it every month. The V8 had lots of guts, but did burn some oil.

We traded it for a 1957 Ford Custom 300, with a 292 V8 and three on the tree. It was the car I learned to drive stick on.