mustang84

Congrats Drew!

The link works for me, but you have to give away personal information such as name, address, e-mail, etc. via surveys before you can even view the page. I wish there was a workaround, because I'm not willing to share my personal info just to see a PDF.

Here is proof Japanese-built Toyotas can be subpar and defect-ridden. This doesn't even scratch the surface if you include all the recalls they have had in North America since 2004 for American built Toyotas. September 2004: Toyota recalls 176,000 vehicles in Japan for faulty braking systems October 2005: Toyota recalls 160,000 Japanese-built Prius' worldwide for faulty electrical systems that can lead to stalling October 2005: Toyota recalls 71,000 Japanese-built Scions for sunroof defect March 2006: Toyota recalls 565,000 vehicles in Japan for faulty drive shafts March 2007:Toyota recalls 470,000 vehicles in Japan for various quality control problems April 2008: Toyota recalls 630,000 minivans in Japan for potential fuel tank punctures due to poor quality control January 2009: Toyota recalls 1.35 million Vitz/Yaris in Japan, South Africa, and North America for faulty seatbelts and exhaust systems April 2009: Toyota recalls 95,000 Japanese-built Scions for poorly engineered braking systems The Toyota mystique is dead. Toyota has grown so fast that quantity has come before quality, and they are paying dearly in public perception. We're starting to sound like a broken record repeating this over and over, but it's 2010...educate yourself and get with the times. The quality gap between American and foreign makes is largely non-existent, and in many cases American makes are superior to their foreign competition.

I have spent New years at keystone resort in Colorado. Unfortunately I am ringing in the new year with a sprained wrist while skiing today. I'll probably be taking it easy the next couple days. Hope everyone had a happy New Year!

I'd take you up on the Mustang if I hadn't bought a car already... Althoughb I'm also kinda saving up for a 2011 or '12 5.0. I'm anxious to find out what the base price will be.

I put a couple Winterforce tires on the rear of the LS and they are doing a great job. I have no problems in snow anymore, and there even seems to be better grip on ice.

The company announced raises last week and will be giving out bonuses in January, so that was some good news. Between higher rent, higher utilities, student loans, and repaying my car loan my finances have been much more stretched this year than they were last year. The health of my three remaining grandparents has all improved. My grandpa on my dad's side underwent surgery earlier this year and lately seems really energetic again. His wife broke her hip a few months back and had to go into a nursing home until it healed, and now she is back home and back to normal. And my mom's mom is 87 and was very ill earlier this year and we feared the worst, but the past few months her energy has come back and she is in good health again. For being 87, she still gets up every morning at 5:30, cleans the house and gardens, and makes the boys lunch every day when they come in from farming. I'm heading to Keystone, Colorado to ski over New Years. It'll be my first time on the slopes.

It's a county courthouse built in 1892 of Indiana limestone. It used to have a massive clock tower on the top prior to 1899, but the weight was causing damage to the roof and they dismantled it. The red building on the corner is one of my favorites as far as our collection of 1870s-1890s Romanesque architecture goes.

Matchbox 20 - Long Day

Somewhere under that snow drift is kitty's dish.

I had a perfect mental image of this in my head. Thanks for posting!

Merry belated Christmas everyone. I spent it snowed in with relatives and digging out from 15 inches of snow.

I haven't seen that 85% figure before, but I do know that 51% of US energy consumption is from heating, cooling, and powering buildings.

Today I was cleaning the wheels on my car to avoid them getting pitted out from all the salt and sand that have been put on the roads lately, when I noticed dozens of little rust spots all over the side bodywork of the car. I freaked. I had spent so much time over the summer claying and waxing, trying to get it prepared for winter, and there were these tiny pin drop rust spots everywhere. I started running through my mind what could have caused it and decided it was probably all the salt they have been putting on the roads lately. So I took it into the garage and started wiping it down with Fast Wax to remove salt residue and found out it was also removing most of the spots. Later tonight, I went inside and found out the rust is probably not due to salt, but from fallout (metal particles from rail dust, industrial fabrication, power plants, snow plows). The fallout only became visible recently, so I'm guessing it is from snow plows. I also park next to a rail track, but I am in a parking garage 5 stories up so I doubt the rail dust could travel up that high. And I do drive over at least one railroad track a day, so I don't know if particles are kicked up as I drive over it. Has anyone dealt with fallout on their vehicle's paint before? I have read that you use an acidic compound and equalizer to prevent the fallout from "re-blooming," but I would be a little leery about doing it the wrong way and damaging the paint.

TM USA headquarters are in Torrance, an LA suburb, so this is hitting them right where it hurts. I'm loving every minute of this.

Iowa's unemployment edged up slightly from 6.6% in October to 6.7% in November, although it's still considerably lower than other areas. Both the Cedar Rapids and Des Moines metros have dropped back down into the 5% range, but the Quad Cities (which 1/2 of them are in Illinois) bumped up from 8.4% to 9.1%. Waterloo also jumped from 5.6% to 8% after John Deere laid off a significant number of employees.

It looks like it was fairly warm to shovel at least. When we had our big storm a week ago, the temps quickly dropped to below zero after the storm was over and I froze my ass off trying to clear a path.

Damn, that's one hell of a fleet!

A buddy of mine in high school had a puke yellow 1975 Mercury Marquis with some light surface rust. Every time I watch the Top Gear episode where they go to the southern US and the one guy walks around the Caddy and says it takes a "really long time to walk around it," I can't help but smile and remember that big old beast of a Mercury. I would love to see Ford someday do a modernized take on its executive style cars from the 60s and 70s...brawny, black sedans that looked like they meant business.

I've been a witness to static. My parents recently got rid of their 1980 RCA turn-knob TV they had up their bedroom. I think it had something like 33 channels on the dial, although we have had it hooked up to a cable box for 15+ years. I bought my dad a vinyl-to-MP3 player/converter for Christmas. He was a disco DJ in the late 70s & early 80s and has dozens of vinyl records up in the closet. I should flip through them sometime...may have some old rock records mixed in. I've always heard about vinyl having a particular richness that can't be duplicated by digital recordings such as CDs. I haven't used a record player since I was a kid, so I may try out his Christmas gift to see if there really is that much of a difference. I'm curious to know.

+1 I've never understood why some feel they need to tell others how to live, act, and think. There are plenty of good Christians out there who go about their lives humbly, but they are overshadowed by the nasty fundamentalist "do as I say, not as I do" type who truly have forgotten what it means to be a Christian. Live and let live.

I bet that kid had some stained shorts later on.

Badass GMC, balthazar. I like the regular cab / shortbox combo...you don't see too many trucks of that configuration these days.

Last time I rented at Enterprise, the Saturn Aura I got was considered a premium full-size.