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GM loses big-time
"Eisboch" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in message news:UgXkk.51647$nD.26502@pd7urf1no... "Eisboch" wrote in message ... Although dismal financial results, the bulk of the "losses" are write offs and charges to re-tool for the manufacture of more smaller, fuel efficient cars for the US market. Sounds horrible, and I am not making light of the problems, but it's not as bad as the media (and you) are making it out to be. Sounds worse actually. Posting a quarterly loss that is more than twice as much as your market cap well, in my books is serious bankruptcy coming on. GM's troubles are understated, and in fact it is probably too late for GM as we know it to come back from this. My guess is GM will be broken apart. The US side will just go bankrupt while if GM has any profitable divisions off shore they will be bought piecemeal by others. Target price, $0.20 as a speculation buy. Time will tell. Eisboch Private equity buy at say $3B? |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:xcZkk.154620$gc5.54872@pd7urf2no: If it was in ace shape, offer them $9 or 10K? Also consider Winnipeg. Canadians are just figuring it out, while it is nice to have one vehicle that is "green" and efficient, the other still needs to be a 4x4 V8 or V6. Where I live, every 3rd vehicle is a truck, SUT or SUV. They don't plough my road in winter and only see the Smart Car up the road from May to early November. Makes more sense in SC, nice state BTW. Thanks for the advise. I didn't think of the snow problem. Here, it's the heat. I have a remote sensor digital thermometer on the intake of my AC unit where it can actually measure the air, not the radiation. It's reading 92.8F at 1PM and I live on the river which cools the place off a bit. In the parking lot at the mall, crowded today by an annual back to school even the state runs called "Tax Free Weekend", where the sales tax machine is turned off for ONLY A FEW items kids need for school making the parking lot full, it will be 50C outside and 70C inside those locked up cars! Air conditioning is to South Carolinians like snow tires and tire chains are to Canadians....(c; Have no idea how the A/C works in them. I have one in my F150, and really only need it for 15 days a year. But nice to have for more. Sort of the opposite problem. But my guess is the A/C, if they have it can't be too good, but maybe good enough to make it liveable. Might want to rent one for 2 to 3 days. |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:_D_kk.51817$nD.36480 @pd7urf1no: Now how about they try that say on January 10th. If they have any brains, they'd be driving it across from Miami to San Diego on January 10th, leaving the snow to the boys from Possum Lodge! I was thinking the Trans-Canada highway. In places like Toronto it resembles a big city interstate. In other places, mostly west of Sudbury Ontario to the Pacific it doesn't classify as a state quality grade highway in most places. Embarrassing actually. Just getting through three western provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, I guess you hit near 80 traffic lights if not more. When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I just wanted them to take the same route in the winter. Bet they do the Miami to San Diego in the winter when A/C in Nevada and New Mexico, Arizona isn't as critical. PR. |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in message news:sI6lk.111081$kx.65643@pd7urf3no... Looks like a company I left in 1995 is also drowning more shareholder value, NorTel. But that is another story. Nortel was one of many that got clobbered when the telecom hype bubble burst. It's hard to believe how many big boys completely missed the boat on that one. Eisboch |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Don White" wrote in news:48946978$0$4011 : http://www.wheels.ca/article/29504 Wow! Thanks! "By the numbers Distance (Halifax to Vancouver): 6,168 km Diesel fuel used (total): 337 litres Average fuel consumption: 5L/100 km Total cost of fuel (average $1.05/L): $353.85" His diesel must be set a little rich and there are several programmers for the EPROMS in it to improve the mileage. A team of Italian auto journalists took a smart from Rome to Nuremberg over the mountains and got 3.3L/100km with two adults aboard and luggage. I think it depends on their driving habits, too. He was trying to rush it in 9 days so probably kept his foot in the injection pump most of the way, giving us a sort of worst- case-scenario figure. It's just awful that driving this tiny diesel car STILL costs $CN350 to go across.....in a country with plenty of oil...but the same central bankers as us. I will stick with my F150. @1.05L, say gas was $1.10 at the time, but closer to $1.25 now for either... could make it in nice A/C roomy comfort, quiet, stereo and not crawl up BC hills for $1000. So I would save $647 or so for 9 days travel. Ok, well I would like to save $647 but to be in a seasonal vehicle cramped? I still want to see those PR people do that in January on the same route in Canada. Or do that Miami to San Diego in July. Would not doubt the pettle was to the metal. Doing the prairies, 55mph (almost 90kmh) is well, so boring. Want to do at least 70mph (112kmh or so). Probably 120kmh. Which does increase fuel use. My F150 seems to get the best mileage between 100 and 110kmh with cruise on. When you hit the prairies, you make a small but steady rise in altitude that will drop your mileage. Winter also drops it further. From Regina to Calgary you go from 600 to 1100 meters. From Calgary to Rogers pass, add another 250 meters for 1350 or so. 3.28 feet in a meter makes 4428 you peek altitude. In Thunder Bay, only 310 meters on the shores of Lake Superior. But I do notice my F150 fuel mileage goes right up at lower altitudes. Always seem to leave sea level Vancouver wondering if their fuel is somehow better. |
GM loses big-time
"Eisboch" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in message news:sI6lk.111081$kx.65643@pd7urf3no... Looks like a company I left in 1995 is also drowning more shareholder value, NorTel. But that is another story. Nortel was one of many that got clobbered when the telecom hype bubble burst. It's hard to believe how many big boys completely missed the boat on that one. Eisboch Ya, I was lucky on that, sold at $50 on the way up. Was kicking my brains until it hit the big negative turn. Bought a small position back in at $3.10 before the reverse, but took a small loss at $2.80 on the sell. But there is truth to what they say, if you bought a $1000 of NorTel, and $1000 of beer back then, you will still have the Miller empties for 10 cent return. NorTel surprised me again visiting them the other day. Reverse split 10:1 at $3 or so, reset it to $30 and now down to $6 something. That means what was once sailing over $1000 is now at $6.50. NorTel is now chasing beer caps. Good management is hard to find. But on the light side, NorTel was at one time, up until about 1994 with before Stern impact was felt at my level, a good company. Left in 95. Ferchat (?) was the last really good CEO as Stern was just an over hyped clown looking for a fat pension out of the employee coffers. Probably still paying the ******* some $960,000 a year. Left a lot of good friends that since like myself, scattered. Unfortunate NorTel is a victim of unscrupulous greedy executive management and crazy incompetent over rated directors. Could have at one time given Cisco a run for their money with the right management. And all they have to is give a crap about the company. http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=N...=on&z=m&q=l&c= Via tinyurl if the above is broken: http://tinyurl.com/56sxjx |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:iM6lk.156490$gc5.149024@pd7urf2no: Have no idea how the A/C works in them. I have one in my F150, and really only need it for 15 days a year. But nice to have for more. Sort of the opposite problem. But my guess is the A/C, if they have it can't be too good, but maybe good enough to make it liveable. Might want to rent one for 2 to 3 days. It was 92F the day I test drove a Smart ForTwo gas one here. The $600 AC plant slowed down the little engine quite a bit, but at 92F you can overlook that really easy! It did a good job cooling the interior, in spite of the HUGE windows all the way around that let the sun have at the interior. If/when I get one, I think a nice velcro'd Sunbrella top you can stick in place on Velcro pads custom fit over the top with a cartoon drawing of car windows full of smiling kids staring out at you and waving would help cool it off in the parking lot....(c; Actually, if diesel and great mileage, and not too cramped I would ownd a second "efficient car". Really makes sense for ordinary commutes. But they do have limitations. Talked to another owner at the mall today. He was thrilled with it and has owned it for nearly 4 months. His is bright red with black trim. He says it gets really hot with all the black interior and those huge windows sitting in the sun, but blow that hot air out and run the AC cools it off in a fair amount of time for such a little engine..... http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=14826 Here in the South, we have many ways of keeping our cars cool all summer....Some even work when the car is parked at WalMart like this one! LOL. That was a hoot. Bet too it was cheaper with the generator than getting the original fixed. That CFC or old A/C fluid is part of the past for the most part. ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. Discovered of course on my GC application and when my now estranged and deceased father got nabbed at the border that I found out years later. Now I know why he didn't want me to go to the US to make 2 times the gross and 3 times the net for a more efficient economy. Probably slipped a bit. But love the US... Left when my H1B ran out. Oh well. They were good times. Wisconsin fishing, don't get me started. Need to win the lotto 649 and I will be there for 2 weeks nailing Coho, King, Steelhead, Walleye and Bass until my bursitis kicks. That is, see the doc, then do Minnesota. For the winter, lake Okeechobee for the winter. Spent Christmas once there nailing so many Crappie I could count them. Missed that elusive big mouth though. Need to convince the wife to let me retire early to Rainy River. |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no: When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass phone booth.....until you went inside. Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator. My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone wire that went West, the direction we had been heading. I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6 minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness... She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed with the trailer. About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us help was on the way. This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd heard a hundred times before. Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town. So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning. Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk. I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning. I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from nowhere..... |
GM loses big-time
|
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:sI6lk.111081$kx.65643@pd7urf3no: Ford, hard to tell. They are on a knifes edge but the only Detroit 3 that has much of a chance if any. Depends if the "family" can motivate lethargic management and kick some union ass real hard. Tata would like a peace of their market and the competition fierce. I walked into the Ford dealership to look around and a salesman came to ask me what I'd like to see. I told him a brand new Ford Fiesta hatchback that got 65mpg from its tiny Korean engine....just like my friend James has that runs faultlessly since way back when he got it new for peanuts..... They had huge beasts with huge discounts....ONLY. Every American car I looked at USED to be a small, easy to feed, cheap to keep model, except for the cars that were SUPPOSED to be big. Now, ALL the American cars, even Saturns, are HUGE!.....STUPIDLY HUGE! Car inflation has happened at Asian cars, too....Instead of following their hearts, they tried, unsuccessfully, to guess what Americans wanted....ending up with such gas guzzlers as the Toyota Tundra clone of the F-250 guzzler truck. I looked at Hondas and they've all grown HUGE over the years....The salesman asked what I wanted there. I told him a new Honda 600: http://www.honda600coupe.com/ like the one I SHOULD have bought the day they came out at the Honda motorcycle shops. It was a great little car....(c; http://www.honda600coupe.com/Photos_..._-_page_1.html We HAD the right cars back in the 1960's! We were just too stupid to KEEP them! Look on this webpage at how SIMPLE the engine compartment is...it's one-throat motorcycle carb behind the simple, air cooled, cylinder block. That dryer hose and fan on the port side is the HEATER! The car is AIR COOLED and has no water cooled system! It's basically a 600cc, 4-cylinder Honda motorcycle....one of those that run ALMOST FOREVER....with electric fans cooling the heads... |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:sI6lk.111081$kx.65643@pd7urf3no: Ford, hard to tell. They are on a knifes edge but the only Detroit 3 that has much of a chance if any. Depends if the "family" can motivate lethargic management and kick some union ass real hard. Tata would like a peace of their market and the competition fierce. Here's an even BETTER Honda 600.....the original in perfect condition: http://www.honda600coupe.com/Honda_6..._22_Honda.html How cute and detailed it looks.....AND SIMPLE! |
GM loses big-time
GM, my guess will be bankrupt inside of 16 months if not bought out. Get rid of the over-priced upper management, and all the perks, and they might live. |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no: When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass phone booth.....until you went inside. Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator. My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone wire that went West, the direction we had been heading. I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6 minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness... She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed with the trailer. About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us help was on the way. This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd heard a hundred times before. Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town. So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning. Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk. I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning. I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from nowhere..... Excellent story. Eisboch |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... I looked at Hondas and they've all grown HUGE over the years....The salesman asked what I wanted there. I told him a new Honda 600: http://www.honda600coupe.com/ like the one I SHOULD have bought the day they came out at the Honda motorcycle shops. It was a great little car....(c; http://www.honda600coupe.com/Photos_..._-_page_1.html We HAD the right cars back in the 1960's! We were just too stupid to KEEP them! Look on this webpage at how SIMPLE the engine compartment is...it's one-throat motorcycle carb behind the simple, air cooled, cylinder block. That dryer hose and fan on the port side is the HEATER! The car is AIR COOLED and has no water cooled system! It's basically a 600cc, 4-cylinder Honda motorcycle....one of those that run ALMOST FOREVER....with electric fans cooling the heads... SIMPLE has value. Easy to fix. Bet changing the plugs was a owners task too. Knew one person with a 6cyc inline, simple as you get, got 350,000 miles on a Chevy Biscane, the only out of normal maintenace was a water pump and front tie ends or something. He did all the maintenace except for brakes and tires. Had to take if off the road as it rusted out and started to burn oil after 20 years. Got good mileage for the day too. Let someone else pioneer the complexity. Bet for $2500 those Nano's are not complex. |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no: When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass phone booth.....until you went inside. Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator. My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone wire that went West, the direction we had been heading. I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6 minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness... She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed with the trailer. About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us help was on the way. This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd heard a hundred times before. Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town. So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning. Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk. I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning. I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from nowhere..... While younger than you are, I too remember the days like that. My parents had a flat in Hearst, needed some work in Timmins, out of gas once and much the same experiences. Never forget out of gas. The local farmer only had purple gas, gave us whole load for a real good price and just said I won't tell if you don't. People back then and in the more rural areas were always happy to be able to help. Today, your credit card number? Although the rural areas still maintain much of this charm to some degree, it has unfortunately deteriorated. I think it has to do with big cities, where people forget people are people. Just started working in a downtown environment for the first time, what a rat race. People are not friendly, they just want one step ahead of you and it seems to make their shallow day. And their faces are blank and expressionless. I am lucky, will retire in a few more years. That is not life. Add in modern media bombarding people with murder, war, killings... while I am sure much of the same happened back then, it wasn't sensationalized and packaged as entertainment. Back then you were also more dependant on your neighbours and proactively helped each other out, today you might not even know them. Our modern society needs some serious social work on a grand scale. Don't be surprised to see the old stuff in out of the way places in Canada. Bell Canada isn't known to be that modern in Telco, I wouldn't doubt they still have party lines in service in older and smaller rural areas in Ontario. I do know you can go to Trout Lake BC, catch some trout and gas up using a hand pump into a 5 gallon cistern. When it full, drain it back to your tank. I don't know the circa for hand pump gas stations but it was before my time. Asked the operator why not one pump is modern. He says, handy even today when the power goes out. Nice quaint hotel in town too. Nice scenic area too. Remnants of a old 1900's mining town is about 20 miles back of there. Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a city chick. |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no: ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube. Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes! |
GM loses big-time
"Eisboch" wrote in message ... "Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no: When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass phone booth.....until you went inside. Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator. My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone wire that went West, the direction we had been heading. I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6 minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness... She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed with the trailer. About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us help was on the way. This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd heard a hundred times before. Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town. So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning. Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk. I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning. I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from nowhere..... Excellent story. Eisboch It was, but I also know it to be true. Had a chance to make a community of 30 (year around, 60 in summer) my home once, kicking my brains out for not taking it every time I think of it. |
GM loses big-time
wrote in message ... GM, my guess will be bankrupt inside of 16 months if not bought out. Get rid of the over-priced upper management, and all the perks, and they might live. Agreed. Be swift and start with the rot at the top. |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no: ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube. Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes! Funny, I never saw it but by Wiki's description, I might have liked it. But I don't watch much CBC or TV for that mater. I would say less than 3 hours a week, maybe. CBC is too leftist liberal big government sponsored for my tastes. Costs 33M Canadians some $2B a year. |
GM loses big-time
"Eisboch" wrote in
: Excellent story. Eisboch I can still see my mother sitting in her lawn chair waiting for my father to return with that worried look on her face....48 years later. |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in news:eujlk.157258$gc5.91959
@pd7urf2no: Bet for $2500 those Nano's are not complex. They will be by the time Canadian and US government bureaucrats get done with them.....and they'll be just like the Smart car....$15-20K....to pay for it. |
GM loses big-time
On Aug 3, 12:08*pm, Larry wrote:
"Canuck57" wrote innews:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no: ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. *CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube. * Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a huge list. *I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes! The Red Green Show was one of my favorites! |
GM loses big-time
"Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no: ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube. Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes! Say what? Most Canadians 60 or over will tell you the Don Messer Jubilee (produced in Halifax) was the most popular show on CBC. http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/messer.html http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...=U1ARTU0002357 |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in message news:UXklk.111782$kx.56688@pd7urf3no... "Larry" wrote in message ... "Canuck57" wrote in news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no: ....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is purely coincidental....(c; Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up with INS. There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube. Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes! Funny, I never saw it but by Wiki's description, I might have liked it. But I don't watch much CBC or TV for that mater. I would say less than 3 hours a week, maybe. CBC is too leftist liberal big government sponsored for my tastes. Costs 33M Canadians some $2B a year. Two billion...CBC wishes that were so. Last I heard it was about 1.2 billion with advertising revenue making up the rest of it's budget. |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in message news:RIklk.54512$nD.20516@pd7urf1no... Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a city chick. Women are nesters. Get rid of the nest, and your options multiply. Eisboch |
GM loses big-time
On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:58:45 -0400, Eisboch wrote:
"Canuck57" wrote in message news:RIklk.54512$nD.20516@pd7urf1no... Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a city chick. Women are nesters. Get rid of the nest, and your options multiply. Eisboch So do hers, poison, guns, knives. Nope, way too risky. |
GM loses big-time
wrote in message ... On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:58:45 -0400, Eisboch wrote: "Canuck57" wrote in message news:RIklk.54512$nD.20516@pd7urf1no... Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a city chick. Women are nesters. Get rid of the nest, and your options multiply. Eisboch So do hers, poison, guns, knives. Nope, way too risky. Unfortunately for us, you are correct. What was I thinking? Eisboch |
GM loses big-time
On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 15:58:45 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Canuck57" wrote in message news:RIklk.54512$nD.20516@pd7urf1no... Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a city chick. Women are nesters. Get rid of the nest, and your options multiply. Just have to provide a suitable nest elsewhere. I think. --Vic |
GM loses big-time
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:RIklk.54512$nD.20516@pd7urf1no: Just started working in a downtown environment for the first time, what a rat race. People are not friendly, they just want one step ahead of you and it seems to make their shallow day. And their faces are blank and expressionless. I am lucky, will retire in a few more years. That is not life. The people in the city are just acting like the corporation they work for. It rubs off, the same reason the bureaucrats at the tax office are such ****s. That rubs off, too. So, we become a nation (or nations) of corporate rats who only care about ME. Just watch rec.boats for a few weeks and you can see its effects right here. People from far away are quite incredulous when our little group of locals hauls it all out on the docks and starts steaming 200 pounds of oysters or crab or some other seafood. The look on their faces when these complete, utter strangers that "talk funny" in Charleston brogue tell them welcome and to come join us for Dock Dinner and libations into the night, the crabs long since consumed and new friends from exotic places sitting on someone's deck trying to figure out why the boat is swaying around in perfectly flat water...(c; I remember an outing not long ago when we "hooked" a Scottish couple working their way down the coast towards the Canal Zone. They ate a good plateful then he excused himself as he had to "do something important on my boat, but I'll be back." Off he went and came back in about 30 minutes toting the biggest bottle of the FINEST single malt Scotch I had ever tasted! "My brother makes this in the family business that's been going over 500 years.", he told us. You couldn't buy it here. Some liquids smuggled into the country would be classified as weapons of mass destruction. Oh, what a fine Scotch it was!....traded with the Scot for some Charleston seafood...(c; I fell out of the forward V-berth still reeling the next morning....What a great party and only TWO fell off the dock into the river, a very safe night, indeed, by our usual 7-10 dunkings standards. Single Malt Scotch can sure make a floating dock complex very quiet the following morning....(c; The Scots were late leaving and promised to return as they had a wonderful time, too. They told us we were the friendliest bunch of boat people they ever encountered.....(c; .....It's not about a bunch of snotty old hermits bitching and shaking their fists.... |
GM loses big-time
Larry wrote:
"Canuck57" wrote in news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no: When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2 across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads. Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time. I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass phone booth.....until you went inside. Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator. My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone wire that went West, the direction we had been heading. I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6 minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness... She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed with the trailer. About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us help was on the way. This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd heard a hundred times before. Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town. So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning. Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk. I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning. I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from nowhere..... That reminds me of another story I read here a while back... Sometime in the early 1960s, I was driving back from Ft.Leonard Wood to Kansas City in a nice old MGA I owned at the time. About halfway home it started raining heavily, I turned on the wipers, and EVERY SINGLE electrical accessory and light in the car flashed on, there was a large popping sound and it all blew out at once. And the car caught fire. I pulled over to the side of the road, watched the fire, removed my license plate and hitched on home. For all I know, that old MGA is still there. Sure was a pretty little car. |
GM loses big-time
DK wrote in
: And the car caught fire. I pulled over to the side of the road, watched the fire, removed my license plate and hitched on home. For all I know, that old MGA is still there. Sure was a pretty little car. It's always so sad to see an old friend, and this car was I assume, go to ground. I'm sorry you couldn't save her. They were great cars and lots of fun to drive. |
GM loses big-time
On Aug 3, 6:49 pm, DK wrote:
That reminds me of another story I read here a while back... Sometime in the early 1960s, I was driving back from Ft.Leonard Wood to Kansas City in a nice old MGA I owned at the time. About halfway home it started raining heavily, I turned on the wipers, and EVERY SINGLE electrical accessory and light in the car flashed on, there was a large popping sound and it all blew out at once. And the car caught fire. I pulled over to the side of the road, watched the fire, removed my license plate and hitched on home. For all I know, that old MGA is still there. Sure was a pretty little car. Well, they didn't call Joe Lucas the "Black ([K]night" or the "Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Q. why do the british drink warm beer? A. Because Lucas builds refrigerators, too! |
GM loses big-time
Tim wrote in news:a4045281-3a97-4305-8ae4-
: Well, they didn't call Joe Lucas the "Black ([K]night" or the "Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Q. why do the british drink warm beer? A. Because Lucas builds refrigerators, too! With Italian cars and motorcycles, one could say the same thing of Magneti Marelli....(c; |
GM loses big-time
On Aug 3, 10:53 pm, Larry wrote:
Tim wrote in news:a4045281-3a97-4305-8ae4- : Well, they didn't call Joe Lucas the "Black ([K]night" or the "Prince of Darkness" for nothing. Q. why do the british drink warm beer? A. Because Lucas builds refrigerators, too! With Italian cars and motorcycles, one could say the same thing of Magneti Marelli....(c; Interesting enough. Marelli own's some joint production with Lucas. "the blind leadeth the blind..." |
GM loses big-time
On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:49:44 -0400, DK
wrote: About halfway home it started raining heavily, I turned on the wipers, and EVERY SINGLE electrical accessory and light in the car flashed on, there was a large popping sound and it all blew out at once. And the car caught fire. That **** has been known to happen to pilots of aircraft flying in clouds, at night. A parachute would be good, but some in that situation haven't had one. Casady |
GM loses big-time
Tim wrote in news:3f78bd39-2c13-4acb-9ae5-
: Interesting enough. Marelli own's some joint production with Lucas. "the blind leadeth the blind..." The pretty much describes driving a Moto Guzzi at night! |
GM loses big-time
On Aug 4, 7:38*pm, Larry wrote:
Tim wrote in news:3f78bd39-2c13-4acb-9ae5- : Interesting enough. Marelli own's some joint production with Lucas. "the blind leadeth the blind..." The pretty much describes driving a Moto Guzzi at night! Evenw ith the old Generator, I never really had any proble with mine. But To note, that the "gen" light in the dash always did glow. I never figured that one out.... |
GM loses big-time
|
GM loses big-time
hk wrote:
Larry wrote: Tim wrote in news:7e6b6b40-3ade-4572-917c- : Evenw ith the old Generator, I never really had any proble with mine. But To note, that the "gen" light in the dash always did glow. I never figured that one out.... A DC generator, unlike the alternators used today, only generates power after a certain RPM threshold, caused by the counter EMF of the battery. There are no blocking diodes, so a generator is actually a LOAD with current backing up through it at low speed....or, worse yet, not turning at all, which cooks whichever rotor and commutator core it happens to be sitting on at the time. This is why old people are always so crazy about NOT leaving the key on when their car isn't running. The modern car, it makes no difference. The old cars, it cooked the generators and contact ignition systems, killing the battery in the process. My Guzzi Marelli problem was always switches, in the handle bars. They corroded in the rain and you rode in the dark or it wouldn't run...or it wouldn't crank, and had no foot crank on it. Replacing the entire handle bar assembly including electrics with one from a wrecked Honda 750 cured this problem for the rest of their lives. I lost a starter, once. It's core came apart. Being in rural SC, my only choice was an auto electric shop that looked like it had been in business since rewinding Ford coils in the 1920's. The owner, a nice old guy, pulled it apart to look, shook his head we weren't gonna fix that one and said, "This is just a Fiat starter running backwards. Let me pull the gear off the end of it and put it on a rebuilt Fiat starter and you'll be fine. You can't beat expertise in any field. He instructed his worker what to do, an hour later they had it mounted back on my Guzzi and she cranked right up. It was on there when I sold it years later. The points in its little distributor were also the same as the Fiat rear engine Spider I also owned at the time. There are rumors that FIAT is planning to re-enter the American market...again. I had a FIAT Abarth 850 for about three months once. Used. Awful car. Now they are collector's items and fetch big bucks. They're still awful cars. But the prettiest awful car I ever had was an MG-A. Gorgeous, white with red leather. Looked very pretty sitting in the driveway where I lived in Kansas City. That's where it spent most of its time, too, sitting in the driveway. It was a mechanical and electrical P.O.S. It was sort of like the girl I was dating at the time...very pretty, with really nice upholstery, but it was damned hard to start her up and keep her running. Did you ever think it might be the operator and not the equipment? |
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