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hm, eldon,
well, i think owning a caddie is consistent with owning a steinway c or an m&h.

but i have had big cushy rides. there was my olds vista cruiser, my ford gran torino station wagon, and an olds cutlass. in my younger days, when it came to buying the next junker, i took whatever i could get for around $400.

one of my favorite $400 cars was a '71 chevelle with the slant six engine. it was really fast, great for driving in city traffic, and for parking on city streets. and i've also had a couple of dodge vans, the old kind, the tradesman and the sportsman. hard to drive (gave me biceps) but really fun to own, very practical, great for road trips and hogging the road.

the really great thing about those cars (none of which i owned longer than a couple of years at the very most), was that when i sold them, i usually got back just what i paid for them. no depreciation!

but having grown up with volvos (i did own an old one of those once, too), i learned to appreciate that "road feel" you get with a european car.

to me, that's a sign of great engineering. just my opinion.

Wouldn't that be Hummer?

Give the man a see-gar!

I used to know the answer to the B U I C K buttons question, but time has erased the memory!

Gee guys apparently I was right when I said you don't read my posts. Several posts earlier I said:




About the law/tax mentioned above that led to an increase in SUV sales... well there is no law that did that.

The gas guzzler tax is placed on automobiles (SUV's, minivans, trucks, etc... are exempt) that fail to meet some minimum number of miles per gallon of combined city/highway driving. The more they miss the mark, the higher the tax. Very few cars are ever assessed a gas-guzzler tax.

The Sierra Club and other similar organizations want the gas guzzler tax imposed on all 'vehicles' the auto-makers produce. Many domestic auto-makers are voluntarily trying to increase the efficiency of their SUV's, etc... primarily out of fear that CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) rules will be altered to include SUV's in the mix.

Derick

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Derick ]

We tried that for a while, but the comparison just doesn't work. There are similarities in style I suppose (Asian sound, American sound, Euro sound) but the fact is that with pianos at least, the Americans and the Euros can make pianos that last as long as anyone else, and sound darned good doing it.

This should be good news for you Fazioli owners. If the pianos were built like Fiats (or their hopped up brethren - Ferraris), you would have to be hauling the wee beasties back and forth to the shop so often that you would forget how to play.



I'd say you subscribe to the adage that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.



[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Steve Miller ]

To answer the Buick button question - rearrange the buttons to spell CIKUB. When the lassie asked what that meant, one would reply "Can I Kiss U, Baby?". Hey! When you're ugly, you try harder! :p


As to cars I've owned - I guess my favorite was my first car and my second. The first, in 1975, was a 1947 Buick Super, original, immaculate, straight 8, three on the tree, wool seats, just a great car.

My second was also a Buick(c'mon Dad has been with Buick since 1953), just a wee bit different from the first. A 1973 GS Stage II. 455 cubic inches of high compression V8 monster. Dual exhaust, keystone mags and an 8 track tape deck. Didn't matter if I was ugly, with that car I could still get a date on Saturday night! I put 200k on that sucker(along with 7, count 'em 7, waterpumps), and cried when I had to sell it. Just had to pay college bills, couldn't get around it. I miss that car everyday, although now I probably don't have the guts to drive it.

Since then it's been a Wildcat, a Riviera, 3 LeSabres, a Century and a Park Avenue. And also some non-Buicks - a S10, a F150, a Rabbit.

So mostly, I also like the big Detroit ride. Fast, comfortable, and when you get out of one after driving 17 hours straight, you can still walk!

I wonder what that says about my personality? Detroit iron and Chinese piano?

I'd say you are the kind of guy who knows what he likes and doesn't mind doing a little work on things to get 'em/keep 'em the way you want 'em.

I like my car because it only needs an average of 5 litres of diesel per 100km (can even get it down to 4 litres on highways).
It always makes me wonder why people drive big SUVs or BMW's that swallow huge amounts of gas. Anyway on German highways you can only drive with 200km/h at 3 o'clock in the morning, at most other times it's much too crowded no need to have cabrio sports cars, although they get really fancy here.

Derick, who gets 36 days of vacation in Germany? I must have the wrong job

Hi Ruth,

I have an article that states the average number of vacation days for various countries. So it's only an average. I'm not sure if they were counting holidays in there or not.

If you worked for my company in the US, you'd start out with 10 vacation days. But in Germany, my company starts everyone out with 20 vacation days.

My BMW gets better gas mileage than my previous Ford. 18 mpg city, 29 mpg highway.

Derick

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: Derick ]

Derick, that can't be right. The minimun in German is 24 vacation days

I have 30 vacation days (not counting holidays in) like most people over here.

Ah, yes and I own a Citroen...

Do you have many big SUVs on the roads in Europe? Around here it makes sense with the bad weather, bad roads, and bad drivers in sports cars trying to negotiate winding mountain passes in snowstorms.

OK, I'm in a snipey mood, having just read a few flame wars...

One would get the impression from these posts that all us westerners live in horrible areas with terrible roads, unspeakable weather and lack of pavement. While some of this may be true for a few of us, by no means is it anywhere near the norm. I'm pretty sure the population in the west is far more concentrated in a few large cities than scattered around as it is in the midwest and east.

So, instead of spending $35K on an SUV that gets less than 10 mpg, why don't we just stay home when the weather is bad and the road is impassable? Or rent a 4WD for a few days?

I will wager that a HUGE percentage of 4WD/SUV owners: 1) don't need 4WD; 2) can't remember how to get into 4WD without reading their owner's manual; 3) have put their car into 4WD once, in a vacant lot, on the way home from the car dealers after just purchasing it.


See you
Nina

I've been out west, Montana in fact (hi pique!). My mother-in-law lives in Hamilton, Montana. She NEEDS an SUV. The road she lives off of is fine. In fact, the speed limit is 75 mph and it is *relatively* safe to travel at that speed. However, she lives high on a hill with a winding, very bumpy, dirt driveway. Her views are incredible though.

However, *most* people do not need SUV's. I frequently see single people driving Lincoln Navigators so clean you could eat off the engine block. The Cadillac Escalade is the 'in' vehicle among major sport stars as well as some Hollywood stars. These people, as well as the "commoners", do not need an SUV. They are simply fashion statements.

Don't be fooled into thinking you are safer in an SUV than you are in a car, you are not. You may have a better chance if you hit another car, but most fatal accidents are single vehicle accidents. In such an accident, you are at much more risk for serious injury in an SUV than a car. Rollover rates in SUV's are significantly higher than in automobiles and account for more deaths in an SUV than any other type of accident.

One more thing, I drove a Jeep Grand Cherokee for about a month last year thru both rain and a snowstorm. While it seemed the Jeep would climb a snow covered mountain, it was totally unmanagable when attempting to stop it or go around a corner.
I wound up leaving the Jeep behind and taking my car because I could control it (once I got it moving!)

Derick

derick, i live just an hour up the road from your mother-in-law!

gee, any chance we can persuade piano worlders to take a vacation in mt this year and have a piano party?

our solution is we have the ageing toyota 4x4 station wagon for nice weather, short runs, and pavement, and the jeep cherokee for more demanding conditions. but even just to get around town here you must have 4x4. we've had winters where i put the toyota into 4x4 in november and don't switch it back until some time in april. you need it just to get out of the garage. and when you are off pavement you have to have a high clearance vehicle or risk high-centering.

Pique,

Really, you live that close to my mom-in-law! Kewl. Next time we get out there I'll have to look you up. It would be great to have a PianoWorld get together in Montana.

Montana is so beautiful. My mom-in-law's house has a perfect view of snow-capped mountains and hummingbirds feed off the wild flowers (I really love those creatures). And at the bottom of the "hill" from where she lives, there is a babbling brook. So peaceful and quiet... At times, I felt like I was 12 years old again (you know 10 years ago, haha).

But, as nice as it was to visit, I don't think I could live there. Costco was 45 minutes away!

Derick

I played a joke on some friends while in Cambridge, U.K. about 10 years ago. I told them I was in Portland the day that Mt. St. Helens blew up, which was true, and that thousands of square miles of land was flattened by a pyroclastic cloud, which was also true. Then I started pulling their legs. I told them that THOUSANDS of people died in the initial explosion and that THOUSANDS more died from the mud slides. (You have to gesture in a grandiose manner to get the full effect.) Not realizing that the population density of the central washington national forests is very low, the brits bought it hook, line and sinker. I was so amused I kept elaborating. By the third day this leg pulling exercise had grown to include the collapse of two Seattle bridges (the earthquake that followed you know), the loss of the entire city of Olympia due to mud slides, the confinement of all people indoors due to volcanic dust and an Indian uprising. I think it was the Indians attacking the "Iron horse" that finally sunk me.

derick, i you think costco is only 45 minutes from your mom, you must not have yet heard that we DO have a speed limit in montana.

t2, we'll have to make you an honorary westerner, for carrying on the tradition of tall tales.

Hmmm...'honorary' aint needed. I've been here all my life.

Pique,

If you call 75 mph a speed limit! I call it heaven.

Derick