Doc1647545523

It's not as though I needed car manufacturers to make yet another car that I want but can't afford ..... http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_02_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg 6.3 L bi-turbo V-12, 974 lb-ft of torque has been limited by ECU/TCU to a mere 811 lb-fts. 730 hp. Top speed 205.2 mph. Engine meets EURO IV emission standards. 21" lightalloy wheels. http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_03_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg So, when you get dressed in the morning and decide to go out for your paper and latte, would you want to drive a car like this ... http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_04_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg ... or be driven in it? http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_05_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_06_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Brabus%20Maybach/epcp_1002_07_omercedes_benz_brabus_.jpg I didn't see any price mentioned. I chalk it up to the category of "if you need to ask, then ..... " Reference article in European Car http://www.europeancarweb.com/features/epcp_1002_mercedes_benz_brabus_maybach/index.html

Nah. Just take it for the weekend. Easier for me.

Raised about 2"-3" it would be a really sharp car. :thumbup:

Yeah, I'll call you if I need help getting out. Please wait by the phone. http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1131549#post1131549

We old farts enjoy lots of things to make up for our lack of sex. We wear outrageous t-shirts, pick fights with minorities on the bus, sling snow from our plows onto residential sidewalks, and we especially love to tell long, boring stories of our glory days to a younger, captive audience. Bring your hot chocolate and sit over here by Uncle Doc and let me tell you all about the Great Blizzard of 1978. It had been an unusually mild winter, and weather forecasters had mistakenly forecast heavy snows a number of times, but none of those had materialized. One night in late January, 1978, they again forecast blizzard conditions for the following day. It was hard to believe because the temperature was 40 degrees and it was raining that night. I drove from my job in Marion to the 50 acre farm I managed outside Olive Green, Ohio, near Sunbury, then went to bed. During the night, things changed. A lot. The polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream "phased," or twisted together, in the Ohio Valley. This is a very rare occurence. The lowest non-tropical atmospheric pressure every recorded in the U.S. was January 26th in Cleveland, 28.28 inches of mercury. On the ground in Ohio, between 12 and 40 inches of snow fell, then sustained winds of 50-70 mph (with gusts of 110 mph) drifted the snow, knocked down powerlines, billboards, mobile homes, barns, and trees across the state. Temperatures across Ohio dropped to between zero and -20. Wind chills in Ohio dipped to 60 below zero. The National Weather Service dubbed the event a "severe blizzard," extremely rare, perhaps a century storm. Our power went out. Our heat failed. Water lines froze quickly. All the water troughs in the barn froze solid. Our dairy cattle had to be milked by hand. We had one mechanical water pump near the house, and we used that to pump water to carry for watering the cattle, dairy cows, horses, and pigs. We flushed our toilet with water from snow which we melted on the wood-fired cook stove in a big canning kettle ..... that is, until the toilet froze. We could not find the tractors or the cars for almost a day. We eventually dug them out, but there was nowhere to go. One drift on our road was over 50 feet high. The road didn't open for over a week. A farm outbuilding in Marion County: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/outbuildingsMarionCo.jpg Statewide, a lot was going on. Governor James Rhodes activated the Ohio National Guard. He asked that anyone with snowmobiles or 4x4's relinquish them to local law enforcement so that doctors could be transported to hospitals and people with medical emergencies could be rescued. 45 Guard helicopters flew 2,700 rescue missions in 3 days. Miraculously, there were only 51 blizzard-related deaths in Ohio. The Ohio Turnpike was closed, end to end, for the first time ever. President Carter sent Army engineers from Fort Bragg to Toledo with arctic gear, bulldozers, and fuel tankers to try to open the major roads. Groceries were stripped bare, and yes, there was some looting. The State Highway Patrol escorted food trucks from out of state to restock grocery stores. The Red Cross flew 80,000 loaves of bread to relieve hunger in Springfield. The U.S. Coast Guard used cargo planes to fly 30 tons of food to shelters in Cincinnati. We had food and water, and stayed somewhat warm (house was below 30). Electricity came back on after 2 days. It was over a week before the furnace was running again. Most of the plumbing pipes were broken, and it was a month before they were all fixed. (Heating and plumbing people worked without rest for weeks on end.) People without animals to care for mostly stayed in their homes for a week, shoveling when they got bored. House in Wood County: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/woodco.jpg Many roads were closed for weeks. The commander of the National Guard said that the blizzard's effect on transportation in Ohio was equivalent to a nuclear blast. For example, a trucker on I-71 driving from Cleveland to Mansfield was stranded for 6 days in his truck in a snow drift 30 feet high and over a mile long. Rescuers heard him banging on the cab roof with an iron pipe: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/truck.jpg Eventually, the counties, the Army, and the National Guard got the roads open, but it was still quite weird. State Route 4 in Marion County: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/plowedroad-Marionco.jpg There were two more heavy snows in 1978, but it stayed pretty cold. The snow was so deep that you could still find snow for snowball fights in April. In Delaware City, they trucked some of the snow they cleared from the downtown sidewalks to an empty block the city owned near downtown and piled it all there. I remember that the last of it disappeared in June. For the next few years, when there was even just a bit of snow in the air, people panicked and went to the stores to buy food. You couldn't hardly find a kerosene heater for sale anywhere for six months. Same with lamp oil. So, my young friends, when some weather forecasters run their computer simulations out 10 days and claim a storm like the Great Blizzard of 1978 is going to hit us, I just say pshaw! :bs: No doubt, if we even end up getting 4 inches of snow, some of you lames are going to slide off the road, get your AWD cars stuck, complain because you broke your snowblower trying to clear your 250 foot driveways, miss two days of work, and then declare that the weathermen were right and that you survived the terrible hardship of the great blizzard. Well, bully for you. :gtfo: If you need rescued, call me and I'll drive over to your place in my Buick and save you. Now take that dirty cup out to the kitchen and rinse it in the sink.

Repost. Sorry. http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77100 (Only 3 pages of comments in the last 2 days though)

While you're at the store, get about 4 bags of charcoal and a can of lighter fluid. You're in charge of getting the grill going.

Just for that, you're bringing the burgers

RELAX That's just a bunch of pencil-dicked weather geeks doing the equivalent of some bench racing. At two weeks out, they're good at forecasting sunrise/sunset and moon phases, but when it comes to knowing something as complicated as the local weather, they're notoriously inaccurate. I consider it lucky if they accurately predict a blizzard even 3 days in advance. I think I'll plan a barbeque for the end of February just to demonstrate the point.

It wouldn't surprise me if other guys without valentines are thinking of getting a handgun and drinking. Now that I think about it, mebbe that's not such a good suggestion, Paul. I'm waiting for Taylor Swift to get back to me about the Valentine's Day card I sent her. I forgot to put my cell # in the card, so I gotta stick around in case she drops by.

Thanks for the thought, but that addy comes up about 1000 times if you Google just my name. If you maintain a medical license, many details of your past (where and when you went to school, did your residency, practiced, any formal actions against you by the medical board, patients' "ratings" of your skill, your office address and phone, your home address, your business net worth, your age) are part of the public record and available for the world to view with just a few keystrokes. And I've posted to CR the exact address and even a map on how to get to my garage (for the open house, for example), so I don't give much thought to having my address viewable in a photo on CR. Besides, the only CR member I fear stalking me is the Ginger, and the restraining order has that behavior under better control now.

Have you decided yet what you're going to teach the guy about snipering? :bangbang:

Mebbe you shouldn't have told him to "go kill yourself" in his intro thread ....

That would be sweet, wouldn't it?

Nope. I was out of state Sunday night through Thursday. The WRC has never been in snow/ice.

It's on the '94 Toyota Celica GT-Four WRC. I don't have any stateside photos of it, but I'm sure plenty of CR members do. Here it is in Tokyo: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/grill.jpg

The early "Happy Birthday" cards from the State of Ohio: http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/Pict0002.jpg I'm beginning to appreciate how Hertz feels. :barf: And, as if that itsn't enough, it's driver's license renewal year for me as well. Then, as I bitch about all this, I remember how much "fun" it was to be 30 years old, couldn't afford a car, and got to use a bicycle and the bus line for transportation. Makes a great story now, but it left a lot to be desired. Enjoy what ya have.

Getting together tonight with a few CR buds at Akai Hana. You're welcome to join us. The food is excellent and affordable. The sushi is also very good. The online address, menu, map are all here: http://www.akaihanaohio.com/ Post below if you want a spot saved for you (don't text me).

This looks like it's going to be fun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWOFXcICkls

Like the man says, this is the least expensive cross-country rally you're gonna find. :thumbup: I'm registered. It would be great to have a CR contingent in this rally, so why not step up to the plate, guys? If you're hesitating because you're not positive you can get the days off, the worst that could happen is that you've made a $100 donation to an excellent cause. Scott phoned me and told me more about the rally. Sounds very cool. The host motels are some of the older ones that have tried to keep the Route 66 "feel" to them. He says that there are 6 spots left, so I wouldn't delay. What better excuse to give your boss/customers/spouse than you have to take a few days in May to drive cross-country to help support cancer research?

Those who live by the sword, die by the sword ....

Welcome to CR, Paul. Good intro. Interesting stable of cars ..... do you garage them all? Any pics? I would be especially interested in your choice of the Benz..... I hope to see you out at our meets in the spring. + rep for having the name "Paul" but spelling shenanigans correctly

That would presuppose that there was any part of the video that I'd want to watch a second time ... and there isn't. And ...... ya better watch yourself there, boy-o. I could cast a FORTRAN spell on you that would have you keypunching your IBM cards for weeks to try to undo! http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/FortranCardPROJ039_agr.jpg

2 1/2 minute video with about 15 seconds of real content .... ho-hum

Welcome to CR, Mike. Good intro. I hope to see you at some of our meets this spring. And when you get ready to do some of your mods, check out our sponsors. They've got lots of good suggestions for what you want to accomplish and I've found them eager to help CR members. After you come on board, you can view the sponsor list here: http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36577 + rep