Karaoke Trio

At Miss Petal's Birthday party (A fun, fabulous affair) we had a great time. We even managed to coax Poodle into singing a song but not without a cost. We had to agree to all sing together. We belted out "I Love You Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel. A perfect song since times like these together will be suspended here pretty soon once we move away. But for today - we're all together and having a great time. We also played poker after - but I should have stuck the microphone. Happy Birthday Miss Petals!

Oxidized Bad

Oxidized Bad
Originally uploaded by ChristopherSolis.

We're preparing for the move to Texas. I had to get new tires and once my truck was off the ground with the tires removed, even I had to admit. How ugly this thing is.

Oh sure. Just under the oxidized exterior lies some potential but right now? Mmph. Just ugliness. That's ok. From this view you can see the worst of it. The hood is seriously oxidized and the sides of the truck are poor too. The clearcoat is peeling so some spots are shiny, others are unbelievably dull.

Can't drive all that way without new tires and of course, looking at the rack of bling-shoes, i.e. RIMS - I thought hmm. What would it look like if we went from these fugly stock 14" Dakota 'sport' wheels to these glam-look-at-me-18"-chrome-beacons?

Answer: A little like an ugly stepsister wearing cinderella's slipper, but here's the start of potential becoming reality. We'll see.

Ford Pays New CEO 39.1M in Four Months

Oh uh uh. Ford Motor Company is in the worst downward spiral in the companies history and managed to negotate a salary fit for a king. They're still continuing to lose money and still authorized a bonus for the new CEO Alan Mulally. This would be absurd, if it wasn't so SAD.

The Bottom line is just this. Bring us fuel efficient cars. Bring us exciting cars to drive that are dependable AND green. Bring us mini class cars. Bring us some of the better products you're producing in Europe, rather than what you're currently making here. Redesign the Focus - it's old. Don't think that renaming the 500 "Taurus" is going to save the company. Don't put all your eggs in the Mustang basket. The sporty coupe demographic is fickle and will always want the 'next newist thing'. The Mustang, for this group, is already aging. Stop smacking retro grills on Lincolns and expect us to ooo and ah. Build a powerful, technologically innovative, competitive Lincoln sedan. With suicide doors. And a four-door convertible. Nobody is doing it. And nobody has done it as well as you once did. So reassert yourself.

Bring over the Mondeo and turn Mercury into your euro-taste division. Sort of the vision you originally had for Merkur which may have been ahead of it's time, or just a dumb idea for its day. But Saturn is having a reneissance bringing us opels - why can't you bring a german-tuned car, intact over the pond for us to drive? You should have kept Aston Martin and lost Jaguar. That being said, and being too late - don't put a dime more into that company. Tell them it's sink-or-swim. And, mean it.

Redesign the F-150. You went from jellybean to brick. How bout something in between? Where are the hybrids? You were once a great industrial giant and still a large company. How bout funnel some of that CEO bonus into putting a damn hybrid on the road? (I mean a prius competitor, not an Escape). Toyota is going to release it's THIRD generation passenger-car hybrid, before you've even released your FIRST.

There's no more excuses. There's no more time to waste. Either get off your ass and run an autocompany right, or be relegated to the biggest industrial failure in American history. We may just rename the whole company from Ford to Edsel and be done with it.