As a young fellow I lusted after an Alfa Romeo GTV6. Nearly bought one, but ended up in a 1962 EJ Holden instead. Interesting life choices we make. I think the desirability of the Alfa Romeo GTV6 was enhanced by the Alfas competing in the Group C Touring Car racing in Australia at the time. They were up against the Toranas, Commodores and Falcons but always did well in the short circuits. As did the BMWs. It was not uncommon to see photos of Group C Bond Alfas going around a corner with a back wheel in the air. Very entertaining.
A lot of the European car brands you see in Australia are completely absent in the US; Peugeot, Renault, Alfa Romeo, etc. Not sure why. European and American safety standards are different. For instance the Smart Car to come to the US is a totally different car to the one sold in Europe. This is because it had its chassis changed to pass US safety standards.
The markets are also very different. Europeans pay a premium for small cars that are frugal on gas. Americans are cheap, very cheap, and will tolerate all sorts of cheap plastic and corner cuttings as they buy on price. Because the cost of gas is cheap by world standards in the United States cars, trucks, SUVs etc tend to be bis as well.
Despite all that. BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and a few other European car manufacturers do well for themselves in the US. Fiat plans to emulate this by buying Chrysler and using the existing Chrylser platforms to give them American cars - ie SUVs, while importing other cars like the Fiat 500 and Alfa Romeos.
The latter of which I am very interested in because of my interest in the Alfa Romeo GTV when younger. Additionally, the recent Alfa Romeo 8C was gorgeous. Way out of my price range with only eighty five of them coming to the US from a total of five hundred. It is a beautiful looking car. Apparently there is an Alfa Romeo Spider on the way for the US market in 2012. I will be interested in that car.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
