Uncategorized – Page 2 – Alex Calinescu

#SubaruSnow

Posted on September 15, 2018September 15, 2018 by Alex Calinescu in Social Media, Uncategorized

During the Skiing and Snowboarding season, Subaru of America hosts its annual event, called Subaru WinterFest. The event takes place across popular skiing resorts in the United States. The automobile company is able to introduce their new line-up of cars as they are show-cased on the snow. Representatives from the brand inform the audience of the contests and give-aways, as well as the prizes they’re able to win! Subaru has created the hashtag #SubaruWinterFest and #SubaruSnow to raise awareness and spread the word on social media apps.

I’ve personally attended this event at Jack Front and Big Boulder in 2016 and I believe it is a very successful campaign strategy. Not only does Subaru benefit but also the resort sponsoring WinterFest. The event is for everyone and you can lay back and relax while you enjoy a hot beverage and food. At the 2018 WinterFest hosted by JFBB, a band (Lukas Nelson and Promise) was featured to perform in a live concert.

One of the activities you can participate in is skiing or boarding around the different trails in hopes of finding signs with the #SubaruWinterFest. Some of the signs were easy to spot while others were hidden on the double black diamond trails making the game more of a challenge. The objective for this was to find as many hidden signs containing the hashtag and to post pictures on popular social media sites such as Twitter or Instagram with #SubaruWinterFest. Once you’ve spotted all 17 signs and have uploaded them you are all set to cash in your prize, some of the prizes included Ski goggles, ski mask, tools for adjusting skis, sunscreen, t-shirts, tissues and lanyards. All of the products are engraved with the Subaru logo.

Subaru is able to demonstrate their CSR (corporate social responsibility), they are more than just any car brand, Subaru is engaging with current and future Subaru owners. The hashtags that people post online and the geotag is consumer based advertising for Subaru but also the resort. Representatives are also able to listen to the owners and future owners face to face and via iPad as the event has a stand of iPads where you can enter your name and share your experiences.

Screen Shot 2018-09-15 at 8.55.20 AM.png — “SKI.SNAP.SHARE”

Subaru will be hosting its upcoming WinterFest event in starting around January 2019. Every year Subaru has the opportunity to engage with future stakeholders and future Subaru owners. Skiers and Snowboarders are anticipating the 2019 event!

#SocialMediaCampaign #Subaru #WinterFest #CC406 #winter

My Nissan

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Alex Calinescu in Uncategorized

It was a rainy afternoon on April 2014, I get home and notice that my mom isn’t home but her car is in the driveway. I patiently wait and sit around the house, as I was scrolling through my phone I get a phone call from my mom. I knew she was up to something because she told me she was driving home. She kept telling me she has a surprise and I was asking her to tell me and she made me guess. She called half an hour later and says “look out the window”, I run to the window and see her driving a silver car. I started screaming because I was so excited, I knew that she bought me that car! I run outside and hug her.

I get inside and notice its automatic, I was a little upset because I spent the whole summer learning to drive stick shift. I realized that the paint was also chipping away. The first thing I did was drive to the store and bought the cassette aux adapter so I could play music from my iPod!

As much as I was happy, I was also let down because I hoped my first car would be something cool like a Toyota Celica coupe or Volkswagen GTI. My mom can sometimes have a strong accent when she speaks and I asked her over the phone what the car model was and she kept saying Sentra SE. I quickly looked the car up online and saw that the SE was the sport version with 175 horsepower.

This was the Sentra SE model. When I saw, I was excited as a car enthusiast.

turp_0104_02_z+2002_nissan_sentra_ser+front_right

It was a different story when I saw the car in person, my mom meant to say XE. The lowest economy model they sold. The car had roll up windows, only two wiper settings, the radio screen was so small it wouldn’t even show the clock at the same time as the radio station. The car didn’t even the most basic safety feature: Anti-lock brakes, every time I would brake in the rain it would just slide forward.

I disliked the car so much, it would always have the service engine light warning. Although, I didn’t have the nicest car, I learned to appreciate what I have. I realized what it felt like to be independent, I started working my 1st job while still being in school. I drove to school during 10th grade, when no one had a car yet. I think that when I will be older I will be extremely grateful for what my mom did, but to this day we always laugh about that car.

#firstcar #Nissan

https://www.edmunds.com/nissan/sentra/2000/

Driving the 2018 Corolla

Posted on September 9, 2018September 9, 2018 by Alex Calinescu in Uncategorized

This summer I had the chance to drive a car equipped with autonomous braking and lane keep assist. The car was the 2018 Corolla XSE which is a compact car made by Toyota. I am not a fan of Toyota due to their dated design so I will be a bit critical analyzing the car. I liked driving the car because of Toyota’s Safety Sense Technology.

At first glance, the interior seemed very luxurious with a leather dashboard, edgeless touchscreen display, all-black interior with blue trim stitching.

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After driving the car I noticed that the steering wheel had fake leather stitching, the dash panel had a fake leather stitch which turned out to be plastic and nothing was actually sown in the dash. The car had a cramped climate control display which only controlled one zone, unlike most cars which can be set to have two different temperatures. The car was missing the Welcome Lights feature and it didn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

My favorite part of the car was the front fascia, the XSE model featured the premium sport grille with LED fog lights. The front of the car was very aggressive and caught the attention of the eye. The car has Bi-LED headlights which are very bright and automatic hi-beams which deactivate when another car is detected by the radar.

2018 toyota corolla xse sport New New 2018 Toyota Corolla XSE 4dr Car in East Petersburg

I was intrigued to drive this car because it has new autonomous safety features. I tried to test all of the features to see how it reacts in a real life situation. If you’re speeding into traffic and not paying attention the car will alert you with a loud beep and “BRAKE!” will flash red on the center display. I think this is a really useful feature considering the high amount of people texting and driving which we see everyday! The lane keep assist feature was useful but mostly annoying because every time the car was nearing the yellow line it started to beep, once the car is centered the beeping stops. I thought it was really cool how the steering wheel can turn itself to center the car on its own. The new Toyota is also able to follow a car in front of you while using the dynamic cruise control. Once the car in front slows down, you also slow down and vice versa.

To conclude my analysis, the new Corolla is a very interesting car with a sharp exterior design, and advanced safety features. I think that Toyota needs to improve the material quality as it was mostly faux-leather. I believe every single automatic car should pre-collision avoidance systems because people are always driving distracted and this can reduce the chances of having an accident. Since I have driven the car Toyota has already created a redesign for 2019 which features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but only for the hatchback.

Here is a video from Toyota showing how the car stops on its own.

#Cars #Toyota #Corolla #Safety #technology

The Other Side of the Globe

Posted on August 31, 2018September 9, 2018 by Alex Calinescu in Uncategorized

One of my favorite summers was 2015! I was born in Bucharest, Romania and I usually strive to go back and visit my family every two years or so.

In 2015, I had returned to Romania and had also visited Amsterdam. I was intrigued by the architecture as it seemed very similar to Bucharest. I went on a canal tour with my Mom and saw most of the city. Europe is very different from the U.S, as most people do not have cars in Metropolitan cities but instead bicycles. I witnessed 3 bicycle accidents within 30 minutes of being on the street. The streets are paved in cobblestone to preserve the classic feel of the city.

Romania is not much of a well known country to most people outside of Europe. Let me introduce it to you with some striking facts. Romania is the country where tales of Vampires originated from. Transylvania is located 2 hours away from the capital. There are multiple castles in Romania. The Bran Castle is located in Transylvania which is also known as Dracula’s Castle. I have visited to every single castle in Romania. The country is also known because of Nadia Comaneci who is a five-time Olympic gold medalist.

As a teen, my favorite part of visiting Romania was the beer and pastries! Like the rest of Europe, Romania is not very strict on drinking and the legal age to drink beer is 16! A year before visiting, I met someone at my high school who was also from Bucharest. I was pretty amazed as there’s not many Romanians in the U.S.

By chance my friend Jen happened to visit Bucharest at the exact time as I! Being 18, the first thing we did was go out and have a beer. We noticed that in Romania beer is sold pretty much everywhere. We went to mall to just look around and there was a restaurant with a bar, which we found very interesting. The nightlife in Bucharest, Romania is great. Jen and I went to the center of Bucharest in a place called “Central Vechi” which translates to Old City. There was a wide array of bars, restaurants and clubs. I thought it would be funny to only speak in English to our waiter so we could see if they were going to badmouth us. They didn’t…

The next day we went to the park, “Parcul Herăstrău” which is a park that overlooks the city and has a lake. I was so surprised when I noticed that there was beer being sold at the park, for us it seemed really unusual to see. We had rented a pedal boat and we went off to explore the park on water.

I thought it was really funny when we stumbled upon a street named Benjamin Franklin.

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Romania has had a rough past due to a corrupt government and over four decades of communism and socialism. My mom told me stories of how she was made to attend ceremonies to praise the communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu. I remember stories of my mom telling me that she was almost shot during the Revolution because the government was shooting protesters. My grandma still tells me stories to this day about how she would have to give up her chickens and animals to the government. My grandma would tell me stories how people didn’t have bread or chocolate. One of the saddest things I have heard her say, is how people would put cardboard on their windows so that planes flying above wouldn’t know where to bomb during World War II.

Romania is a wonderful country enriched with history and I would recommend anyone touring Europe to consider giving Bucharest a visit.