I left the stability of an established DoD aerospace firm today. I spent over a dozen years there.

But I've never been so anxious to start a new gig before. I'll be joining an exciting new venture...in the automotive industry.

It's going to be a LOT of work, as any such new venture has its challenges. If it doesn't work in the long run, it will still be amazing experience that could springboard me to working for major automakers. I'm just looking forward to do something I've always wanted to do, in an industry I never thought I'd get to be a part of.

Wish me luck, Oppo.

Let’s see if it shows up before 2023.

F-350 Lariat
6.7L
Rapid Red w/black interior
Lariat Sport and Tremor packages
Moonroof
And a few other things I’m forgetting..

Clarkson, Hammond and May should make accounts on the hyphen.

...and houndstooth seats. And a ducktail spoiler. And Fuchs style wheels.

I think I want this more than a GT3.

I shudder to think of the cost of these with ADM's..

Good Lord this is schmexy

Moving from SoCal to the Greater Seattle Area was one of the worst experiences ever. We had the absolute worst moving company.

But, it's over now. We're here, our stuff is here, and we're settling into our temporary home while the house in SoCal sells. Due to the craziness of the market we decided to clear out and move ahead of time..being within minutes of the areas where we want to buy will make a decision much easier to make than trying to close two escrows at once WHILE moving such a huge distance.

The move was worth it. We love it so much here, and I'm still loving my new job, which is exciting stuff. It'll be awesome to some day see UI in cars that have been developed with tools I'm helping to create.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to do some [Un]necessary wagon shopping. Audi killing their ICE's means I want to start hoarding them.

I'll be wasting a lot of time on this.

Pickup trucks. All of them.

Kavinsky has had a new album in the works for a while. The second track hit the webz today, and I'm loving it.

And that artwork is bitchin'

I love me some good synthwave. His first album "Outrun" has been in my regular music rotation when I'm behind the wheel.

If you've seen the film Drive (and if you haven't, you should) his track Nightcall was featured as the title track in the film, two years before he released the full album.

Finally had some weather that was agreeable enough to cook on charcoal again.

Smoked chicken thighs, with blanched and charred broccolini. Not shown is garlic parmesan red potatoes.

I think it's a bit over-hyped.

We only do fresh now anyway. Ever since starting chemo, Mrs. Saracen can't handle red meats that aren't fresh. Pretty sure aged would make her gag.

@WBizarre said in The new BMW 3 Series Facelift in GIF form::

@Saracen I seem to be in the minority, but I like the screen. It evokes a home interior look, like you have a widescreen tv on a sleek wood cabinet. Not everything needs to melt together.

It should look clean and integrated. It should flow nicely. That would be a harmonious design. This is not. This really isn't really much better than the Tesla "design" language. An empty dash with a big LCD screen tacked onto it.

That was my subjective perception. But objectively speaking, it's certainly not lazy design. It takes way more effort to make a screen "float" than pushing a screen into a big dashboard. There is more work to design the mounts, making them look good and have the strength to support she screen through decades of road vibration. The curved screen also needs to support itself, and to look good on the back side. There is a vision and intention behind this, and great effort was exerted to achieve it.

That's not 'objective'

Also, half of what you describe is engineering in order to make the lazy design work. The engineering as always, is admirable. That design is not.

It's not attractive, and it was not well executed at all. I would argue it takes far more effort to cleanly implement a large LCD display into the dash while making it useable to the driver and the passenger (see, Mercedes EQ's, Taycan, even the Ioniq5 and EV6). This looks like they did the minimal work needed to design a system intended for future EV's. Ugly.

And as someone who is OCD about keeping cars clean, that would drive me nuts. First thing I thought when I saw that is how much dust will collect back there and how I wouldn't enjoy keeping it clean.

A neighbor of mine put on a deposit down for a Cybertruck years ago. He insists it's coming.

He also bought into Rivian's IPO...

Subtle improvements, but they're for the better.

The LCI interior, though. Ugh. The curved LCD screen that BMW is using now looks terrible. It looks like it was just glued on to the dash. Such lazy design.

@davesaddiction Yeah, the one we had came with captain's chairs. They were very well received.

The ride was excellent. Engine was smooth and torquey. ZF8 was as good as ever. I definitely understand why they were commanding premiums even pre-covid. It's a lot of car for the money.

We had a Telluride for a long road trip a couple of months ago.

Mrs. Saracen loved it. I was impressed with it too.

Her: "Why didn't we consider this when we were shopping?"

I said "Because it was still a year out and you didn't want to wait for MY2020.."

@Wobbles-the-Mind well that's certainly the spiciest take on the CGT I've ever seen..

also, you're wrong. It looks great, has such incredible presence in person, and it deserves ALL the reverence.

Thirded. Chalk is a great color.

Me: Lightly optioned GT3 Touring 6MT- approx. $175k (pretty much just the bucket seats and front axle lift)

For Her: Escalade ESV Duramax..~ $75k ish with my supplier pricing through work.