mustang84

Eerily similar About the not living in fear comment, it's true...tornadoes such as this are so rare. Kansas and Oklahoma seem to bear the brunt of Tornado Alley, but elsewhere it's not too bad...we get a couple tornadoes a year but they are usually F1 or smaller and confine themselves to the extremely rural parts of the county. A tornado hit a small town nearby my hometown in 1940 and one hit 72nd Street in Omaha in 1975, but it's quite rare for a tornado to do as much damage as it did in these pictures.

Toy manufacturing locations: Lexus IS made in Japan Lexus ES made in Japan Lexus GS made in Japan Lexus RX made in Japan and Canada Lexus SC made in Japan Lexus LS made in Japan Lexus LX made in Japan Lexus GX made in Japan Yaris is made in Japan Corolla is made in California or Canada Matrix is made in Canada Prius is made in Japan Camry is made in Kentucky or Japan Solara is made in Kentucky Avalon is made in Kentucky Tacoma is made in California or Baja California (Mexico) Tundra is made in Texas or Indiana Sienna is made in Indiana Sequoia is made in Indiana RAV4 is made in Japan (to be made in Canada soon, factory being built) Highlander is made in Japan (to be made in Mississippi in several years, factory announced) Land Cruiser is made in Japan 4-Runner is made in Japan Scion xA is made in Japan Scion xB is made in Japan Scion tC is made in Japan

The tornado that hit it: Main Street, before and after

Damn...I love tornadoes and spring storms but sometimes it's just too much. I can't imagine what the people of Greensburg, KS, must be going through right now....90% of the buildings in this town of 1500 people are gone. Historic Main Street is gone, the water tower is gone, the high school is gone...somehow the elevators and the courthouse pulled through. Watching a mile and a half wide tornado coming straight for your hometown...that must truly be terrifying. Eight confirmed dead so far. http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

Wow, I didn't know Toyota was that low...I thought I had read once that they were around 63% for American parts content. So much for baseball, apple pie, and Toyota.

Fresh outta Puerto Rico...those ground effects just complete the look.

For some reason I thought this game was going to be something about the GM multifunctional "stalk"...

It's going to take a month or two for the media to get articles like this out of their system...it's been building up for years and they've just been itching for the time when it was right to publish them. It's all about sensationalism, feeding Toyota's ego, and feeding the egos of the editors and journalists ("we were right all along"). Whatever...let them have their glory time in the spotlight, as long as GM and Ford are building good products and continuing to improve on income and sales. Let Toyota feel what it's like to be under the watchful eye of everyone as #1.

Today at the dentist, my dentist and the assistant started talking about cars after there had been an article in the local paper about gas possibly approaching $4/gallon. They started talking about how they were phasing out the incentives for hybrid cars and how the auto companies could be making more fuel efficient cars if they wanted to, they just weren't because they were in bed with the oil companies. I had all kinds of metal $h! in my mouth and it was numb so I couldn't refute. But there have also been other times where people have said stupid and uninformed things about the auto industry. For example: "I hear those electric Japanese cars get 60 mpg...I just don't get why American car companies don't make anything like that, all they build are gas guzzlers." But sometimes I will just stay out if it because I'm too passionate about the subject and don't want to rub someone the wrong way, as much as I want to correct them. Or if you do manage to correct them politely, they don't believe you or they just don't seem to hear. And this is the bread-and-butter Midwest where GM and Ford have always reigned; people are starting to doubt them and go out and buy a Hyundai because "it has that 100,000 mile warranty" even though they say their last Oldsmobile or Mercury wasn't really a bad car. Especially the old folks around here...more are more can be seen leaving the traditional "old people brands" like Buick, Mercury, and Olds for Hyundai, Toyota, and sometimes Nissan. My dentist used to drive a Crown Victoria and a Taurus and now drives a Honda Accord. I guess it's just a sign of the times...you can't rely on long-time customers to continue to be loyal any longer.

Yeah, I loved the song "The Boys are Back in Town." I remember I had the hardest time getting it recorded onto cassette because my radio sucked...to record you had to push the play and record buttons at the same time, but sometimes one of them stuck and it wouldn't start recording. One day I was all set to go and heard the song come on...I ran over and the stupid record button wouldn't depress and I got really mad started pounding on it, finally about 20 seconds into the song it started recording. That was the fourth attempt to get that song on tape...gotta love the early days of music piracy!

Just getting back from Europa, it was odd seeing all these new cars on the road that I hadn't seen before I left. I saw a new Sentra, Outlook, Acadia, three Aspens in an hour (that one really surprised me), 2 Edges, a Sebring and Avenger, and 3 Silverados. This was all on my 8 hour drive home from O'Hare.

Yeah, I think you're right...it seems like in the Midwest, as soon as college or high school is over it's time to settle down, get married, and have kids. I'm not really interested in getting married until I'm 26 or 27...at least until after I get through the IDP and license exam. And no, I don't know who Donna Summer is although I've heard the name before. I couldn't tell you a song she wrote without looking it up. I have an inkling of a feeling that she was disco? I just got back from Europe on April 30th...I'm still recovering from jet lag and trying to get back into the old sleeping pattern. Luckily, I have a week off before I start work so it'll give me time to move into the new apartment and just relax.

Yeah, I was 3 when that came out, lol....but I still remember hearing Paradise City a lot in the early 90s on my little single-cassette radio and recording Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy, and AC/DC onto tapes from the classic rock station Z-92. Ahh, the memories...

I went to that fleet-central site, and looking at the fleet breakdown for 2005, 10.6% of cars fleeted were Toyotas. Toyota made up 50% of the import car fleets. Interesting contradiction: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=3598

Large sedan Note that not only does the Five Hundred outsell the Avalon, but the Grand Marquis does as well. I know some go to fleets, but not a huge percentage. I remember reading an article a while back that called the Avalon "the best Buick that Buick never built" or something like that...seeing its sales performance today, I don't think that's such a positive statement. Magazines talk about how much of a failure the Five Hundred has been...where's the Avalon criticism? Midsize sedan Interesting to note that the Fusion has moved up to fourth best selling car, with Camry, Accord, and Altima still leading by fairly comfortable margins. I think the Malibu will move back into the 4th spot in 2008 though. The Aura is really selling in low numbers...I don't think it's going to hit the 100k target unless they really start moving them soon. The 4-cylinder should help though.

Yeah, my pseudo-emo sister always tells me I've grown up in the wrong decade. But I've gotten her into Guns N' Roses at least, so all hope isn't lost!

It's a pretty odd thing to say at 22 (almost 23), but I've been feeling more and more that way lately. I just found out tonight that one of my good friends from high school is engaged, another friend is getting married in June, two others are engaged, one is now married and having a baby in September, and most of them are starting to graduate from college and get jobs in the real world. I still have a year left due to my five-year program, single currently, and don't have a permanent job yet (although I'm working again this summer at the same arch firm I was at last summer). It's amazing how much has changed from a year ago...and I'll soon be out of college and living the 8-5 world.

The Compass Rallye epitomizes everything that is wrong with Chrysler today.

This is all going to come back to bite Toyota in the ass one day, just wait.

That is terrible. Everything about it just looks wrong and overdone.

I'd probably say Ford, but the fifth frame just reeked of Toyota and their aloe fiber seats or whatever the hell it was that is supposed to be great on the skin.

I don't like this movie...one of my friends has it on his computer and we watched it one night, and it's just Al Gore pointing the finger at the auto industry and what have you. Yet this hypocritical guy owns a house that consumes enough energy per day to power four houses, and even W.'s house is more green than Gore's (check Snopes.com...Bush's Texas ranch designed as a green home using geothermal wells to heat and cool...Gore uses natural gas). We should start conserving resources and cutting back on pollution, but this crap is getting out of control...in the last month, I have read articles about ending our love affair with cars, cutting back drastically on meat production, and now ending travel all because it's supposedly killing our environment. Let's just go back to the stone ages, shall we?

IMO, the '59 Buick is one of GM's most daring production designs ever. The way the crease forms an eyebrow over the headlights and follows back into a point at a tailfin hasn't really been matched by anybody. Personally, I think it's even a little more daring than the '59 Cadillac. Speaking of which, I saw a pale pink '59 Cadillac convertible heading down Via dei Fori Imperiali past the Roman Forums. It's the second Cadillac I've seen in Italy (the other was a '70 Eldorado) and it was turning a lot of heads. You definitely don't confuse a Fiat Cinquecento with a tailfined Cadillac.

Nice pics dude! A few of my friends from studio went there for spring break this semester (since we're in Italy, it was much more accessible for a short spring break journey) and they apparently had a great time. Very nice pics too!

Good thing I decided to go for the slightly more expensive apartment in Des Moines rather than living in Ames this summer. The apartment will be about 5 miles from where I work vs. 35 miles from Ames. So a 10 mile round trip per day vs. 70 mile round trip @ $4/gallon...I think I made the right choice!