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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    I've worked for the same company for over 10 years. I've survived 5+ mergers and I don't even know how many downsizings.... they just announced another round of downsizing again, yet I've been marked exempt from the get-go..... so I must be doing something right. I break my back for this company. People know me as reliable and very knowledgable about our internal I.T. structure. People know that if I don't know the answer, I know who talk to to get the answer. (Why do I say this? I just had my year end review and it was brought up). I spend 90% of my job fighting just to be able to do the right thing and 10% of it actually working. Yet in that 10 years, I've had 1 minor promotion and 1 big promotion. There is a common joke at the company that the only way to really get promoted is to quit and go work somewhere else for 6 months then get hired back, largely because it's happened so many times. To answer your final question, it's my optimism for my own future away from this company as I build one of my own. As negative as I seem about my employer, and while I still have my eye on the exit, my work ethic dictates that I still bust my ass for them every day. 2017 will hopefully be the year I can finally break free from them.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    The oil changes aren't any harder than any other car, but you do need a specific socket wrench for the Olds 3.5 oil filter cover to get the filter out. This is the time when GM was experimenting with cartridge oil filters and couldn't decide where they wanted to put them, but in this case, they're right in the bottom of the oil pan. Just keep an oil filter on hand ahead of time because more often than not, it will need to be ordered. http://www.autozone.com/external-engine/oil-filter/mobil-oil-filter/276027_0_0?checkfit=true
  3. Drew Dowdell
    It would probably also need to be weight based somehow. Why would a Fiesta pay the same tax per mile as a F-250?
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Shortstars use oil by design. Keep up with oil changes. Buy oil filters online because they're expensive everywhere else. Intrigue is a great car and the 3.5 was a great engine when new... but for someone concerned about maintenance costs, a 3800 powered Intrigue may be a better choice.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Not necessarily handouts, but there is no more working while going to school and coming out of school debt free anymore. It doesn't exist without some sort of handout in the form of scholarship or grant money. My parents could work while they went through school and still afford to rent a small place in Philly and come out of it mostly debt free. They bought a house, raised two kids, mom stayed home till we were 8 and 10 respectively, then went back to nursing and they paid off the house in 15 years. The difference is, it could be done back then. It can't now. You can't get a University of Pennsylvania Nursing degree, rent a small apartment in philly, work part time, and come out of that debt free anymore. It's impossible. And that is the situation faced by so many people these days... they don't want a handout, but they do want a fair shot without having oppressive debt for the next 40 years. In most cities, the cost of decent housing has skyrocketed out of the reach of most people so that the only places they can afford are hours outside of where the jobs are. The system is rigged by those who have money against those who don't already have money. It's only going to get worse.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    and no crippling debt? How unamerican! Oh he's not born American? That's why he's got two bachelors degrees without debt.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    Promote from within?! That's a laugh.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    The W-Bodies in standard issue form, were majority crap. The only exceptions I can think of were the 3.8 powered Regals that had few electrical gremlins and a powertrain you could take a shotgun to and it would still run. I had a '94 Cutlass Supreme Convertible 3.4 DOHC... and as great as that car was on paper, the interior would fall apart from broken plastic pieces, etc. The engine was a nightmare to maintain... and even though it had gained 1,000 lbs over the base 4-cylinder coupe model of '88, it had the same brake pads and calipers.... 10,000 mile pad changes anyone? These are a great choice too..... I would totally have one in my fleet if only you could find one without a blown transmission.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    Well, fortunately for all of us, you happen to be wrong. There are a lot of countries that have living minimum wages and the price of a Big Mac is pretty much the same. Would there be some price increases? yes. Would they be equivalent to the raises that people get who are at the minimum? No. Furthermore, the champion of the minimum wage staunchly disagrees with you..... no offense, but I go with his advice over yours. Or
  10. Drew Dowdell
    Ehh... not if it looks like that. That looks like a Sentra with an Infiniti badge.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    A wage that if 40 hours is worked, is a living wage.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    Uhm. I don't think there was a Ford Focus GT in 1991 And if you complain about the space in mid-size SUVs these days, how in the hell were you going to fit in a Reatta??!
  13. Drew Dowdell
    What's your favorite piece of crap car? I've always liked certain iterations of the GM W-Bodies. The Cutlass Supreme Coupe with the 3.4 DOHC V-6 (available with a 5-speed Getrag). The supercharged Grand Prix Coupes. The Lacrosse with the 5.3 liter V8. They were always labors of love, but they were great in their own way.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    The biggest welfare queens all have ticker symbols on the stock exchange.... I'm all in favor of elimination of free stuff and tax breaks for them. I'm tired of taxpayers having to subsidize Walmart's payroll, they can pay their workers a fair wage and benefits or get charged for the "free" services their employees use.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    I *know* you are capable of bigger picture thinking than this. We have infrastructure that has been around since the Roosevelt Administration.... sometimes even from the first Roosevelt Administration. My grade school and high school were built during the Hoover Administration. Our infrastructure as a whole, not just roads and bridges, is way behind falling behind. A lot of this stuff is simply aging out of being useful.... some of it did that decades ago, but they'd slap another coat of paint and a few reinforcing rods on it and hope it holds another 5 years. We are barely even keeping up with the rate of failure. All of that kicking the can and refusal to do the appropriate maintenance and replacement decades ago means the bill to fix things properly keeps getting larger and larger. You can pay now or pay more later. Add to this the fact that most state governments and the federal government have refused to raise the gas tax for 20+ year AND falling revenue per wear mile caused by cars getting better fuel economy and of course things are under funded. You're a contractor... you know better than most that it is more expensive to do a cheap job multiple times than it is to do a good but expensive job once. And cheap jobs are exactly what most of these states have been doing for the past 30 years. Here in Pittsburgh, instead of replacing a crumbling bridge built in the 1920s, they built another fake bridge below it to catch the parts falling off the old bridge onto the highway below. 10 years later, they finally imploded the bridge and are in the process of building its replacement. It's insane that we had to build a bridge to catch a bridge because no one wanted to pay for a replacement that should have happened circa 1983, but that's what happened and is happening all over the country. And the longer you wait, the higher the replacement bill gets.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    Come on, you're smarter than that statement.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    Few states have not been pulling from the general fund for decades now.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    This isn't about squeezing the public again. This is about trying to address a disparity in the way the fees are levied. I'd agree with you how Indiana did it isn't the best way to go about it, but it is an issue that is going to have to be figured out. Our roads and infrastructure are in shambles... we aren't even keeping up with the maintenance on what we have today. Furthermore, the infrastructure is already being subsidized by the general tax base instead of solely on fuel taxes... to the tune of 57%.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    Eventually they're going to have to address that too. There's even revenue being lost when Explorers and Durangos are getting 25mpg now verse the 18 mpg they got 15 years ago. The vehicles weigh the same or more yet are traveling further on the same gallon of gas, thus the tax per wear mile is lower today than it was 15 years ago.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    I'm not sure that Indiana's solution is a good long term one, but it's probably the best they can do at the moment.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Why should a pot user who doesn't own a car pay for the roads? The gasoline tax was instituted because fuel use is a direct correlation with both distance traveled and weight of a vehicle. All 4+ wheel vehicles put wear on roads, but a million Ford Fiestas do a lot less wear and tear on the road over time than a million F-250s. So a Ford Fiesta should pay less tax for that wear... and it does so by using less fuel and being more efficient. Conversely, an F-250 that only travels 5,000 miles in a year uses the roads a lot less than a Fiesta doing 50,000 miles in a year, and pays less tax by using less fuel. Unless we went to a yearly tax based entirely on distance X weight, the fuel tax is the fairest way to apply the tax. EVs and Hybrids messed up that equation by not using as much fuel or not using fuel at all. A Chevy Volt can go 20,000 miles in a year and only fill up 4 times. I'm not against full review of spending projects at all, that could even mean a reduction in gasoline taxes..... But the tax paid should be levied fairly. Why should EV drivers get a free ride?
  22. Drew Dowdell
    Bentley has always been known for torque.... so having an EV like torque curve fits that
  23. Drew Dowdell
    Well all that does is push the vehicle way far out. I'm betting they wanted to make it big enough to make short and long versions to run the gamut all the way from base Tahoe up to Escalade ESV Platinum.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    How else do you want the roads paid for? Toll everything?
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Well that doesn't seem to be working so well. VW is up to about $19 billion in fines so far just in the US. I haven't kept track of what they're doing in the EU.How many engine programs is $19 billion? And if GM can engineer it right, why can't VW who was supposed to be the diesel king? If you can't do it... just don't release it.
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