New American Blog

I have always loved Thomas Sowell’s “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene” he writes about once a month at his column at Townhall.com but never thought to do my own until just recently. It is just a collection of thoughts that help to explain the world and the craziness going on in it. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back. Finally getting settled in our new house here in North Carolina. What a beautiful state. The view, the weather and the people. When my wife and I first came to visit NC in May of this year we fell in love with the scenery and the people. Now five months later we still love to drive through the forest of tall trees that lead us to every location we go to. Going to Home Depot? It is either five miles or fifteen, both of which are lined with tall birch, pine and maple trees. The small rental place we took until our home was finished being built was surrounded by  tall trees, dropping leaves and making the deck a flurry of colors. The neighborhood kids washed our car for five dollars and though the oldest was twelve and the youngest four they did a great job. The car stayed clean for over a week even parked outside. A major change from living on a dirt road in California. Read the rest of this entry »

In May of this year my wife and I flew to the Raleigh area of North Carolina to begin looking for a home. We looked at many resale homes but none of them met our needs. Then at church we met a man who is a builder. He showed us completed homes and a lot that was just perfect for us. So now we have a house being built and this last week we drove across country with the five cats in the wife’s car, a 2009 Toyota Venza with all the bells and whistles. I got to drive a Penske rental truck. The truck was a 22 foot box on an International 4300 chassis. It was a cantankerous diesel with a speed limiter that just topped out at 70 m.p.h. and 8.9 m.p.g. It was an interesting drive but the most intriguing part was the cars passing me while I struggled up the various grades. Since I’m a car guy I started noticing the cars that I encountered and found quickly that my preconceived notions were way off.

In the last ten years we have owned a Toyota Avalon, a Camry, a Tundra, an Accord, a Pilot, an Acura RL, an Acura MDX and finally the Venza. I told you I’m a car guy. I am currently disabled and the RL and the Pilot were traded for the MDX to consolidate to just one car. After a year the MDX was just too tall to get in and out of for a disabled person so we went to the Venza.

So back to my informal survey. I have to admit I had some ideas on what I would see in different classes of cars. I made the decision to exclude cars from the state I was in to exclude those cars that were in the state I was in at the time. It may not be accurate but hey, it’s my survey.
First, big cars. Driving across country I thought for sure I would see Cadillacs, Lincolns and big Fords and Mercs. Nope, only one Caddy on the whole trip. And it was one of those dolled up ones with the fake convertible top. Not a single Lincoln the whole trip, even local cars there was only one Lincoln and it was a 10 year old Continental. The number one big car I saw going across country was a Merc. That is the European way of saying Mercedes. I saw three S class cars and two E classes. These were the largest “foreign” cars. In the SUV category I also saw three ML 500′s and several 350′s In comparison saw no Ford Explorers. Still in SUV the American car winner was the Yukon/Tahoe of which there were more than I could count. There were two Expeditions and probably 10-12 Escapes. No Excursions at all. GM had a small showing in the small SUV category with a couple of Acadia models and 4-5 Traverse models. Other models included a few Saturn SUVs and also a couple of Saturn cars. Staying with American brands I was surprised to see as many Chrysler Caliber models as I did. There must have been 20 of them. They all seemed to be white as well. Chrysler won the overall minivan model with the Caravan. Almost all of them less than 5 years old and every color under the rainbow. No one else even had an entry. Chrysler started it and still controls it. Jeep surprised me by a no show of Grand Cherokees and only two Compass models and one Liberty. There were also two of those awful long Wrangler models, both Green. There was one Mustang, a 2010 GT in Red and one Camaro in some horrible green color.

The big American brand car and a total surprise to me was Buick. The Lucurne and the Lacrosse were well represented on the road with Mom, Dad and Grandma. Lots of Black, Dark Wine and of course White. I must have seen 40 from California to North Carolina. I was blown away, never expecting to see anywhere near as many Buicks.

Drum roll please………. The winner of every category, size and model is the Camry! ! ! ! Yes it is the new navel car. But not even the Corolla, Accord or Civic came anywhere close. I must have seen 200 Camry cars. The interesting thing was that the speeders were the Hybrids. There were a few Prius cars on the road, all owned by liberal Democrats from their bumper stickers.

Ford did have a good showing from their number one seller the F150. There were more F series pickups on the road than all the GMC, Chevys, and Dodge Rams put together. One final note though on this survey. The number one vehicle was of course the Semi Tractor rigs. They were everywhere, out numbering cars ten to one at least. Makes me want to thank all those guys and gals putting up with slow speeds, inattentive drivers, high diesel prices and the long lines for fuel at the truck stops. After driving just a tiny version of what they drive across country all the time so all of our food, clothes and even cars get delivered to us. I may start a drive to get the feds to fix all of the interstate highway system right lanes only and make all truck stops, full service for the same price. Believe me they deserve it.
Signing off from the road, I’m Terry Clayton, a car guy.

OK, I know there are women who are turned on by men of power, but Al Gore? Come on ladies, he is FAT, Opinionated, FAT, and did I mention he is FAT? Read the rest of this entry »

Debrahlee Lorenzana is filing a lawsuit against Citibank because they fired her, she says, for the strangest reason: she’s too hot

She’s 5’5”, 125 pounds and well, beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »