This past week I got a call from the body shop that they were done with the E-type.
The day before they had told me it would be another week and I was unprepared to pick it up since I was in Seattle in the Jetta. Adding to the confusion was the fact that it was a clear day, likely the last we’ll see for quite a while. It was a “now or never” thing if I wanted to get it home without driving in the rain. I got a ride up to Redmond with Damian, picked up the car, and drove it to my office. It gets dark here now around 4:30, and I don’t like driving this car after dark. I grabbed Dan, our new Windows admin, as a ‘dead head” to use I-5’s carpool lane up to Everett where he lives. I think he enjoyed the ride, even though he didn’t have a coat. It was dark by the time I got him to Everett, but I was able to get home a lot faster than if I were alone. I stopped and filled the car up, stopped at NAPA to buy some gasoline stabilizer, and put the E-type away for the winter. Yes, there will be some projects to do with it, and I may take it out for a spin if the weather breaks, but mostly it will hibernate from now until spring.
The dent is gone:
The numberplate on the nose is gone as well. =/
The body shop offered to make me a new one, and I think I’ll take them up on it. I know a lot of folks think they are “ugly”… mostly due to the fact that they are required in the UK, so like all governmental interference, they are seen as intrusive. Here they are not, and you never see an E-type with a big black numberplate over the nose… except mine. I’ve grown to like it over the years… sort of like a mole on a supermodel’s face, it is the flaw that makes the whole that much more desirable. Unfortunately I did not have any idea it was at risk, so I never documented it. I have plenty of photos, but nothing specifically of the numberplate, so now I’m scrambling to reverse-engineer one. The font used is something of a mystery. At first I tried to research what font was used, or find an equivalent. No luck. Then I took an old photo and enlarged it to full size (18″x4”) and started a Beziers Curve drawing of it that could be rendered in PostScript. I haven’t worked in PostScript since the late 80s/very early 90s, but back then I practically dreamed in PostScript – Aldus FreeHand 2.X specifically. It was a fun little project. I still have a copy of Aldus FreeHand 3.1 on my hard drive, and it works in “Classic” (amazing!) Between Photoshop (I’m using an almost current version of that at least) and FreeHand, I was able to render something pretty close. I’ll share results when it comes back from the shop.
Since I left a car in Seattle at my office I rode the train back the next day. I was a full-time train commuter for a while this summer and fall. I liked it, and will start doing it again someday. My only complaint about it is they go too slow, and pause too often. Makes British trains seem efficient by comparison. The ride from Everett to Seattle is truly awesome though. The rails follow the shore of Puget Sound all the way from Everett to the entrance to Salmon Bay in Ballard. From there they follow the route I used to ride on my bike from Ballard to Downtown. This particular morning there was still a break between large weather systems and the whole Puget Sound basin was beneath a clear streak arranged SW-NE following prevailing winds. I had a nice perch on the Sound side of the train, with a fine view of Camano and Whidbey Islands, plus the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas as the sun came up over the Cascades. The clouds were lit by the rising sun.
You can see the Olympic mountains in the distance, already being swallowed by the next weather system, while the Puget Sound, and the south tip of Whidbey Island remain in darkness below the glowing clouds above.