Robert Hall

This was one of those things that has seemed inevitable the last few years, GM has largely ignored Pontiac and invested very little in it. GM may end up just Chevy and Cadillac before all is said and done. The market has moved such that it seems difficult for automakers to have middle brands between their entry-mainstream and premium brands. Mercury seems barely there; Plymouth went away and Dodge moved down sort of. And in the US, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW etc have no middle brands--just broad mass-market brands and premium ones that start at the top of the mainstream ones. Oh well...what will be, will be.

I saw an oddball today... a black '84 Plymouth Voyager minivan panel van with '70s style round tinted bubble windows on the rear quarters, w/ red and yellow stripes, running boards, aluminum Shelby GTH style wheels. Trippy.

I'm surprised they don't trim them as a Caravans... I think some places already use Caravans as postal vans.

It would be cool to see a new Postal Jeep based on the current Wrangler, I think....

I think it would have been quite appropriate to see the CEOs/etc of the corrupt financial firms jump off (or be pushed off) the top of NY high rises...people would be cheering in the streets.

I've noticed that with some GMs..with my Jeep, I can configure it to flash the parking lights/taillights and/or sound the horn on lock/unlock. I turned off the horn setting, too annoying. Though it would be useful in crowded parking lots at night.

Wot's a 'B4C' ?

When I first got my Jeep back in '00, I got a few comments like that from passersby. But they seem to be a very common feature on cars today, I would think most people would be used to seeing them...

Or GNU/Linux Beta Tester. Lots of those guys use the LAMP stack (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl).

Yeah, more so with the 2nd gen and later GCs...it seems like the 1st gen GCs had more specific interior parts, probably since they were originally an AMC design. My Jeep has the auto-on.. I usually leave it set on auto-on, great with parking garages and tunnels. When it's set to auto-on, the lights go off after 60 seconds (which is what I set it to)...if it's not on (and I leave the lights on otherwise) they shut off after about 5 minutes, IIRC. Though since it chimes when you get out w/ the keys but the lights still on, that's hard to do.. One other option my Jeep has in the overhead console that I like is the Home Link garage door opener...I have my garage in Denver, my condo complex gate in Denver, and my sisters' garage in Phoenix programmed in.

Yes... I don't know how it is on the LHs, but on my GC it's all configurable through the overhead console controls. I can set the light delay to 30/60/90 seconds, drivers door only or all doors on first click of the remote unlock, flash the lights or not on lock/unlock, sound the horn or not on lock/unlock, etc. Speaking of LHes, one thing I noticed a while back, my friend Karyn has a '99 Intrepid--in riding in it and also driving it I've noticed many of the controls (stalks, stereo, HVAC) are pretty much identical to my '00 GC.

Speaking of the retro look, I recall seeing a pic somewhere of a white '97-03 style Grand Prix coupe, painted white w/ a custom shaker hood scoop and a blue stripe, like a '70 TA....really sharp looking car.

Yeah, I was talking to my sister earlier today, said it's much warmer in Sacramento this week than it's been in recent weeks.

Yeah... back in hills of eastern Ohio where I grew up there is another 'horse crowd' that slows traffic--the Amish..

I still get nose bleeds from the dryness... but after nearly 12 years in the West, I'm used to dry climates...it was a shock last July to go from Phoenix--110 and maybe 15% humidity--to S. Florida--98 degrees w/ 95% humidity. The humidity sapped all my energy. Good thing for beers and mojitos, sitting at the tiki bar overlooking the Atlantic at my hotel at Key Colony Beach (in Marathon). As far as AZ summers, the only way I can tolerate it is by having a nice big pool in the backyard. Without a pool, I wouldn't be here... In Colorado, I don't get annoyed so much by granolas, but by the atheletes--the 5% body fat spandexed bicyclists and runners that slow traffic on the windy backroads.. I love going up in the mountains, not so much for the sports, but for the roads and the scenery.

Agreed, no fun at all. I did like when it rained in December, though..gray, cool days, rain in the morning..driving to work downtown in the dark in the rain made Phoenix way more interesting than it usually is..

Rain is nice..we don't get a lot here, except for the heavy storms during monsoon season.

Sharp car.. I miss my E36 M3 sometimes. I'll probably have another BMW someday.

wood

Took me a few minutes to figure out what that beautiful blue coupe in yer sig is...it's a '90s Eunos (Mazda) Cosmo! Cool.

And lunch sometimes. Had the 3 basic meat groups today...bacon egg and cheese burrito for breakfast, beef fajita salad for lunch, and a spicy Thai Basil chicken dish for dinner.

Cool..that's a neat looking hotel..nice neighborhood also.

Went out and dipped my feet in the pool.. still not warm enough to jump in..will take a week or two of weather this warm to get the water warm enough. Ultimately, I'd like to spend 6 months (Oct-Apr) here or some place else that's warm in the winter (maybe S. Florida, still a lot there that I like), and the rest of the year in Colorado. Or Colorado year round again. My AZ fling will last a couple years, then I'll be off in search of new horizons.

I've stayed at a Holiday Inn in Studio City (kitchy--it's the Bevery Garland Garden Inn), a Holiday Inn Express at LAX, a Holiday Inn Express on Olympic in the Century City area (not bad), but my favorite place to stay is the Loews Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, walking distance from the pier. Stayed there a couple of times.

No A/C? In So Cal? That's unthinkable. I couldn't imagine living anywhere in the US w/o central air at home and A/C in the car..