Comments on: Bossy’s excellent road trip.

By: Just Juli

Just Juli — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:50:08 +0000

Nancy -
It was so nice to meet you too! And the tiramisu you brought was fabulous.
You should definitely post that recipe as well!
~julianne

By: mwg

mwg — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:46:58 +0000

Thanks to pure, unadulterated nepotism, my summer job while I was in college in the eighties was as a security guard for Chrysler. Ensuring that people parked in the appropriate portion of the parking lot for their make of car and status as an employee was an appallingly large part of the job.

Employees with Chryslers parked in a lot at the front, while employees with domestic non-Chrysler cars parked a little further out. Employees with imports parked in the back. Executives (I usually worked at the old headquarters in Highland Park) typically had special parking spaces just outside the buildings where they worked. They also treated per diem employees (contractors) differently, although nowadays I don’t remember how.

I assume all of that changed when they moved to Auburn Hills. It was obviously already underway when I was there. For instance, my pay as a summer worker was cut nearly in half between the second and third summers I worked there, which should tell you that I was ridiculously overpaid the first two summers.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:36:35 +0000

Best car buying experience I ever had was when I bought a Saturn in Cincinnati, May 2002. We’re probably going to buy a Saturn Vue in about 18 months, once we pay off our daughter’s car. We need room for two dogs in the back of a vehicle (we’re adopting a dog that belongs to our former neighbors in SC because they are moving to LA.)

By: basset

basset — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 04:11:06 +0000

Jeff, your assignment for today is to find and post the slider casserole recipe.

(I’ll see your sliders and raise them an Elvis “Fool’s Gold Loaf” recipe… this is the one with the hollowed-out French bread and a pound of burned bacon…)

By: Dexter

Dexter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:49:34 +0000

Here’s some info on NUMMI.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:43:39 +0000

Car loyalities: a great thesis topic. Dearborn is FORD COUNTRY.
Many old time GM and Ford families won’t allow a competitor’s car in their driveway. In 1980 I attended a UAW summer school at Indiana U and an instructor told of how he could barely contain his desire to run any foreign car off the road…and Vincent Chin was murdered because Chrysler employees let hatred of Asians cloud their humanity.
“Buy American” was the UAW chant until it was OK to buy NUMMI products after GM and Toyota joined forces.
Big cars, little cars, pickups and vans all have their advocates and haters alike.
On a blog I frequent a smartass New Yorker was trashing a Texan because Tex had a pickup truck. The New Yorker was a straphanger, the Texan did have a daily Amtrak pass by twenty miles from his house, which was real handy to go buy a sack of groceries …some people are so over-zealous about other peoples’ carbon footprints that they don’t realize the other’s life-situation. Would I take an interurban train to Toledo instead of a gas-sucking minivan? Sure I would! However, someone decided steel-on-rubber automobiles were the answer and tore up the tracks, and I’d need a really strong time machine to get back to interurban train days.
Yes, lots of talk about reducing car trips to the stores , but people are still driving a lot more than they need to. My wife vows to not give in —to keep driving as much as ever. I have been using a bike for grocery shopping for years, I have a bike with a huge basket that will hold two paper grocery bags, but of course Wal*Mart drove the local market out of business. It’s a hard world.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:05:40 +0000

All y’all are pretty hot stuff, I’d say. Nice group; nice shot.

Dexter, watching Ricardo is still a hoot, bad as it is, but even worse IMHO was a ‘73 Chrysler commercial where the Chairman himself was hawking New Yorkers. An experienced broadcast commercial producer, my cousin was responsible for that one. Sinatra volunteered to help fellow paisano Iacocca during troubled times, and as Kirk said, you don’t say “no”. I think it ran all of two weeks.

I tried to find it on You Tube to no avail.

By: MIQuilter

MIQuilter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:17:37 +0000

You are too kind to me Thank you for helping to make such a wonderful evening here in Detroit!!

By: Dexter

Dexter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:38:54 +0000

…and worst, at least in my view. (Even though I did actually buy one!)

By: Dexter

Dexter — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:34:09 +0000

Best car salesperson , all-time:
Dinah Shore. “See the U.S.A. \ In your CHEVrolet!!!”
Dinah sings