Robert Hall

Then there is 'warter' or 'warder'...seems to be an Eastern Ohio/WV panhandle/W. Pa thing? Used to hear that a lot when I lived back there... I think I've always unconsciously pronounced it 'wadder'..(raised in E. Ohio and S. Florida, parents immigrated from Kentucky 20 yrs before I was born, maybe picked up some accent from them). Anyhoo, back on topic...seems like it's about game over time for SAAB, unless they get a Swedish saviour (these China deals seems pretty fishy).

Not going to happen. Detroit's functional literacy is at 47%... its computer literacy is likely at 90%... and the rest of the country is trying to catch up in the race to the bottom. I don't do helpdesk... Yes, I have the No, I will not fix your computer T-shirt. Actually, I have several of Think Geek's classics and I am horrified needing to explain the shirts to people working in IT at various "Internet companies". But I do computer and network security... and so any really inane question is followed up with questions concerning an inquiry as to "Are you even allowed to do that?" That stops inane questions pretty quickly. LoL....I love Think Geek's stuff... I used to have their 'LNX' and 'JAVA' car window decals until they peeled off...have a couple of their coffee cups..

Strangest are the tiny Japanese vans w/ custom front ends that are made to look like scaled down '70s Dodge and Chevy vans..chrome grilles and bumpers.

Funny thing is the custom van craze has been huge in Japan for a while now...Chevy Astros are popular there, along w/ extreme body mods.

My brother had his vanning phase in '77-78...had a dark green '68 Ford Econoline window van..didn't do much to it besides put some Cragar SS mags on it. I think he put yellow shag carpeting inside, huge stereo speakers, and a paddle fan/ceiling light in it. Sold it and bought what probably was the rustiest '65 Mustang in upper Ohio Valley at the time..the Mustang later caught fire while driving across the Ohio River.

Sure it wasn't just a cap on the back of a new Super Duty? Nope...by the way, there is a company that retrofits used Excursions w/ the new front end and interior parts, etc...

Saw a gold '2011' Excursion today....i.e. an Excursion updated w/ the latest front clip.

I can relate..it really irrates me to work w/ people that let their technical skills freeze 25-30 years ago and didn't keep up and evolve.. At my last gig, I had to deal w/ a mainframe developer that was 20 years older than me and went out of his way to avoid the more modern systems or even basic knowledge of modern development environment tools like FTP, Sharepoint, Toad or other database clients, etc. He had Level 1 support responsibility for a complex enterprise application that had a mainframe part, a database part, and a web application front end..for anything remotely related to the database or web app, he acted helpless and passed the buck to me..

Some real variety today.. Very sharp dark red '57 Ford Fairlane 500 4dr ht. Silver blue Nissan March. Bubby 4dr, smaller than the Versa Bright red w/ black nose stripe '67 Camaro RS/SS convertible Gold '00-02 Rolls-Royce Corniche converible..thought it was a Bentley Azure at first Red and white Corvair pickup White '62 Ford Falcon 2dr sedan

This is too literal IMO...rather than utilize design cues from the '69, this appears to use the exact same designs from the '69 for the lighting, grille, hood scoops, etc...don't seem to work very well w/ the basic Camaro shape.

I'm glad I've never had to directly do IT support for end users.. most of my career has been in new development (both as a developer and software architect) and extending/updating existing systems. But I've had to do a fair amount of level 3 support for production systems, and it's never fun..phone calls/pages at 5am to help diagnose why my enterprise reconcilement system is off by $32 million dollars relative to the general ledger, why policy statements are printing out with blank customer addresses, why batch jobs keep crashing, etc... Working as a development lead on a few projects over the years, I've spent a lot of time working with project managers and business analysts translating business requirements into technical requirements and estimating level of effort and figuring out development schedules. Project management is one career direction I've contemplated pursuing, but I think my comfort zone is still more in the code, in hands-on application design and development...back in the hired gun contractor mode these days. I've thought about taking a Scrum Master certification class, since more and more of the places I've worked at in recent years are trying to do Agile/Scrum development.

They can't go too high without getting into Cadillac's space...they have the bling lux market covered w/ the Escalade..(the Yukon Denali seems to be in the same space). Cadillacs aren't really off-roaders. Neither are GMCs.

Interesting, but too smooth..needs dents. If I wanted that look on a new car, I'd do it myself w/ a ball-peen hammer, sander, drill, angle grinder, and a few cans of primer..also, drive into a brick wall at low speed at a shallow angle to get scrapes...

I dated a girl in college that liked Michael Bolton alot..he was the shiznit around 1989...sort of.

I don't think I'd call the Ridgeline a flop...it's been around 6 years, and I see a reasonable number of them around.. For Smarts, now the ForFour was a flop..was on sale in Europe for only 26 months.

Excellent.

IMO a flop is something that came and went in a short period of time...like the Blackwood, Subaru Baja, or Chevy SSR. (I wouldn't classify the Kappas or G8 as flops, as their premature demise was due to larger corporate issues rather than poor sales). Smart and Maybach have both been around a long time and are still being sold worldwide, and a high-end luxo car like the Maybach is intentionally low volume. I see at least 2-3 Smarts a week...I've seen a couple Maybachs in Scottsdale and in Las Vegas (hotel limos) but thats about it..

I wonder if a cow fell on it...

Lincoln blackwood and mark LT.. Wouldn't consider smart or maybach as flops considering how long they have been around.

Nope..never..this is one of those things that's going to be argued until the end of time, like FWD vs RWD.

Hmmm..denty.

Hilarious

Actually, those are perfect examples. I see those more than I do 3ers. I can go a week or two w/o seeing an X-type..I can't go 10 minutes without seeing a 3 series...very common around here...

Well, and also necessary in a large metro area...the Phoenix metro is sprawling and vast...I had a 50 mile round trip mile daily commute for a couple of years, not on the light rail path. It would be hard to live here w/o a car even in the downtown areas. And walking/biking anywhere isn't practical w/ the vile summer heat (5 months of triple digit temps). Looking at the places I've lived over the years, only in a few of them could I have lived w/o a car--college towns (Kent, Ohio and Ann Arbor, MI) the big city (Chicago) and downtown Denver..but in all of those places, I always had a car or three as I always had things to do and places to go frequently outside of the downtown area or areas not served by rail...

I wouldn't quite call it 'tiny'..over 1/2 million, slightly larger than Denver..2.2 mil in the metro area..I like that size of city, manageable...lots of tech jobs, lots of good local beers, pretty diverse restaurant scene, lots of outdoor recreation..