Robert Hall

Saw an interesting '90s Roadmaster blasting along on the freeway this afternoon...pale yellow (no vinyl top), black steel wheels on black wall tires, riding high in the front...

It was Crosby, Stills and Nash at the sweet little Dodge Theatre here in Phoenix. Saw Paul Rodgers at the San Diego County Fair a little over a week ago, seeing Bad Company at the Orange County Fair in July, and Rush in Seattle in August. None of those 3 in Phoenix this year.

I'm still pretty active on it...been on a couple years now...been able to reconnect w/ former coworkers, friends from Colorado, from grad school, college, high school, even elementary school...my use of it really took off after my high school reunion a couple years ago...I play some of the games, esp. Farmville (so addictive). I've reconnected w/ ex-girlfriends and people I haven't seen in 20-30 years, which is fun. For the most part, I haven't friended people that I don't know IRL. Not sure whether I should expand to include more people I know online only. There is a lot of interesting content also on the FB, such as from sites like Motorsport Retro, various automotive blog pages, etc. As far as social media, etc, I'm pretty active at using the FB, Linkedin, and the Twitter..each has its distinct place and purpose.

I need a real vacation...haven't taken a week long or more one since I went to Hawaii in '07. I'm taking a number of 2-3 day long weekend trips this summer.... A weekend away someplace beautiful (the beach, the mountains) and disconnected helps a lot. As far as the daily grind, coming home to spend 1/2hr to 45min in the pool is extremely relaxing...after that, a quiet dinner, feed the dogs, then listen to music or watch some TV and hang out w/ the dogs and have a couple beers relaxes me further. I've been at my current client for 15 months now, the contract ends in September. But my work load has increased and I've taken on more managerial tasks, and they want to hire me as an employee to lead a team...decisions, decisions... As far as the glass being half full or half empty, I've been told that my view is that there is no glass. Not sure what that implies.

I thought about my Dad a lot this weekend...lost him over 10 years ago to cancer. I never really got to spend much time w/ him as an adult--from 18 I was away at college then grad school--then moved 1500 miles away to Colorado...we had a lot of time when I was growing up--he retired when I was 8 yrs old (he was 50 when I was born). Sometimes I envy the relationships my sister and brother had w/ him as adults, they had a lot more time w/ him since they are considerably older than I...

Congrats!

Good luck and hope it all works out!

Whinging

I'd get this. 2 yrs old, 10k miles. Would be a great daily driver. on ebay

Arizona summers...getting into really hot weather now. But the flip side is the pool is really nice.

Not fun...Bitey has bitten me only once, bit my sister 5 times over the last few years. (she doesn't like to be moved or touched when asleep...) I love my bipolar dog, even after her latest surgery this week..

I could see such an engine being useful in a CTS Sport model between the regular CTS and the V-series, and maybe in a Camaro between the LT and SS, among other applications. More torque would be good, at least 300 lbft (or 406nm).

Saw a 1990 or so (base model, gray egg crate style grille) Lumina 4dr in light blue, minty condition. Strange to see a 20 yr old W body in such clean shape. Saw a derelict '80s Monte Carlo SS on the freeway--nose riding really high, primer gray all over, dented left door and front fender, nose cap askew w/ a piece of the plastic broken and flapping in the wind. Saw the Synergy green '10 Camaro LT parked next to the yellow w/ black stripes '10 Camaro SS and a black '10 Camaro LT parked in a row at the office in one of the outer edges of the front lot. Neat to see they coordinated their parking.

Had another one of these this past weekend. Picked it up at San Diego airport, drove some in the city, on I-5, and along the coast (La Jolla up to Carlsbad, stayed in beautiful Del Mar). Drove pretty nicely..this one was silver w/ a tan interior. Had the same odd rear view mirror distortion the one in Colorado had. I still found myself turning on the wipers when signaling. I like the capless gas cap. Plan to get a Mustang convertible on my next trip over to So Cal in a few weeks.

Spent the weekend in beautiful So Cal (La Jolla, Torrey Pines, Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad)..saw an interesting selection of cars...lots of the usual, predictable modern high end cars and a number of oldies.. A drop dead gorgeous turquoise/turquoise '66 GTO convertible, red line tires, Rally I wheels, absolutely mint. A clean dark blue '61 Caddy 4dr ht, A pair of vintage birdies--a red '55 T-Bird and a med. blue '65 T-Bird w/ black Landau roof. For the imports, saw a clean yellow Porsche 914 and a sharp blue '70s vintage Aston Martin coupe. Most interesting modern car was the black XLR-v rumbling along...great exhaust note. Saw a number of current Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers.

Hilarious.

dinner

Love the interior. I want.

True enough.. Interesting..I see a lot more 2nd gen Intrepids than Concordes or 300Ms..the scarcest 2nd gens seem to be the LHSes. I rarely see 1st gen LHes of any version. Some oldies I've seen in the last day incl. a clean white '78-79 Cutlass Supreme coupe, red interior, looked all original w/ some paint fade and a very clean, original looking '72 Plymouth Satellite 4dr in tan w/ dark tan top and interior, and blue & gold California plates.

There are some clays pictured..they explored some interesting ideas--there is one head on pic that was a proposed front end for '68 or '69 that strangely looks like the '70 Dodge Coronet.. the '67-68 Grand Prix is included in the article. It's the August issue.

Can't Stand The Weather- Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Speaking of big Pontiacs, the current Collectable Automobile has a good article on the '67-70 full size Pontiacs. A couple good photos of a '68 Catalina 2dr sedan..don't think I've ever seen one of those either in person. I always liked the taillights on the '68s, and the pointy nose.

Turn some threads each day into the C&G audio podcast...hysterical. I'd be LoLing in my cube...I probably listen to 5-6 hrs of tech related podcasts every day..

Wow..64 2dr sedan..got be pretty scarce..don't think I've ever seen one of those in person.

Really liking it after a couple of weeks...runs great, incredible battery life (about 6 hrs). No problems installing software on 64 bit Windows (though I had to install iTunes twice to get it working). I thought about the 17, only downside is it would be bigger and heavier...the 16 is one big and heavy laptop..I wouldn't want to carry it to work everyday (my work hp laptop is a lot lighter). Heavier than my old Mac Book Pro. But as a home computer/desktop replacement (I haven't used a desktop PC in over 2 years) and developer machine, it's excellent. I got the 5400rpm/640GB disk, lots of space. i5 processor, 6gb ram. It has a wireless 'N' card, my home network is a 'G', may upgrade the router to 'N'. As far as gaming, well, Farmville (on Chrome or Firefox) is great on it...