Author: chuck goolsbee

On the road…

On the Road Again...

OK, so I haven’t really been on the ROAD, so much as up in the air, or in a hotel, or working at my new gig. Apologies dear readers, for the dearth of updates, and the complete lack of “car photo of the day” posts. I am at home now after spending two weeks in northern California being immersed in my new job. Facebook is a very cool company to work for, and my new colleagues are awesome.

My time home here is really just a “touch & go” visit, as I arrived back very late on Friday (actually Saturday morning!) and will be flying out to the east coast on Tuesday afternoon. While I’m here I’m taking care of household issues. While I was gone the skylight over our “sun room” sprung a leak during the first rain in ages, and caused the back room of our basement to collect some water. It is as if the house knows we’re leaving and is throwing a fit. Yesterday I bought sheets of polycarbonate twin-wall to replace the 30+ year old poly sheets, and this morning Nick & I were on the roof replacing it. I did a better job of installation, using silicone sealant and bonded washers on the stainless screws. It should last another 30+ years.

I’ve also finished the complete dismantling of the BioDiesel refinery out in the barn (Sorry Bruce!) so now we’re ready to move when I come back from the east coast.

Hopefully the east coast datacenters will be less distracting than my visit to Silicon Valley, where meetings at HQ interrupted my time in the facilities learning the Facebook way of doing things. If so, I should be able to have some time in the evenings to post to the blog here. (sound familiar?)

OK car geeks… where was the above photo shot?

Car Photo of the Day: Flights of Fancy

I’m flying today, so here’s some airplane pictures for you. (though the lead image has a car in it!)

I’m going to be in a 737 from SEA to SFO, but these photos were taken somewhere in between those places, notably the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Chris & I stopped there on our father-son roadtrip last summer. The photo above is the mount of a MoH recipient.

I love this photo of Chris and an early Grumman Navy jet…

Inside the museum you’ll find some iconic American hardware, that when you look at them and realize they are contemporaries of Packards and Pierce-Arrows it sort of blows your mind…

A truly iconic visage…

…as is this one.

The drop-tank of this ME 109 has an inscription in German: “Return to a Post Office for a 10 RM reward.”

OK, here’s one for the car- er… plane-spotters in the audience…

Everyone recognizes the 1:1 scale Supermarine Spitfire, but what’s that model under its wing? Can you name that plane?

Here is an image taken while poking my head out the top of a B-17. The enormous tail structure is fro this museum’s most famous exhibit…

…the Hughes H-4 Hercules Flying Boat, aka “The Spruce Goose”:
The H-4, wingtip-to-wingtip

I was very proud of myself for being able to capture the entire wingspan of the world’s largest aircraft.

Car Photo(s) of the Day: My final “BK bunch” cruise-in.

Still Life with Odd Panel Gap & Blower.

I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks working like a mad man to clean up the property and prepare for selling the house. We’ve cleaned and painted the house and barn. We hired a handyman to rebuild the last un-rebuilt deck. Now we have to paint it. I’m brewing up as much of the remaining WVO into BioDiesel as I can so I can dismantle the brewery and clean and repaint that part of the barn. I’ve basically been running non-stop. Part of the barn-cleaning process involved moving the Jaguar – a drive from the barn to the garage. As I pulled the cover off the dirty car I realized that it has sat unwashed and unused since the Northwest Passage Rally in June(!) I resolved right then to wash the car, and take it for a drive, even if it was just a run into town for the local cruise-in. So yesterday when I finished the runs to the dump and recycling I pulled the 65E out of the garage and gave her a good sudsy washing… and zipped to the Burger King on Highway 9.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when I slide behind the wheel of the E-type after a hiatus. It sounds so good, feels so good – in fact it is always better than how I remember it. It isn’t neck-snapping, or awesome… just very very good.

Along the way I saw a pair of Morris Minors driving north – obviously returning home from the ABFM in Bellevue. At the cruise-in was the usual collection of yank tanks and muscle cars, plus a few machines I’d never seen here before. I wandered around, chatted with a few guys, and snapped some photos…

The Arlington, WA BK Bunch cruise-in… an informal car show every Saturday evening all year around.

A blown... Fairlane?

Two for the die-hard CPotD car-spotting geeks:

The only other non-domestic machine this time. Can you name it?

This car was next to mine.

Unfortunately I didn’t see many of the folks I usually run into, so I missed my chance to bid them farewell. Oh well.

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Pixels!

Apologies for the lack of updates this week. It has been a crazy 10 or so days.

In short: Sue & I flew down to central Oregon, and found a new home, then we came back and I’ve been working like mad to prep our current home for sale.

As far as house-shopping goes, I am a good husband and just let Sue find what she wanted. I only ask for enough garage/workshop space for my hobbies of old British car maintenance and homebrewing. Everything and anything else is just a “sure honey, whatever you want.”

The choice came down to two places (after discarding dozens of alternatives) and both had excellent detached workshops for me. One had a stunning 270° hilltop view of all of central Oregon and the Cascades from Bachelor to Adams, along with a Garage Mahal of a workshop… easily room for a half-dozen cars and then-some. Unfortunately the house itself was … odd. Really a bizarre mish-mash of architectural styles thrown together in an outrageous excess of late90s/early00s Mcmansionism.

The alternative, and the one we ultimately chose, is a very understated and elegant house, that fits our personal style. It has a modest view (Mt. Bachelor & the Three Sisters) and a fairly generous workshop, though not in the Mahal-class of garages. I think I’ll have to put the homebrewery in storage until Spring, as the property will require a bit of preparation for it. The current owner runs a woodworking shop now, but it should adapt well to a car-wrenching area. Here, have a look for yourself:

The ceiling is a tad low, so lift clearance may be an issue. Not so much for the Jaguar, but certainly for the Jeep and maybe the Jetta. We’ll see.

We move at the end of August, which is timed to have Nick start at his new high school the beginning of September. Meanwhile my blogging may remain sparse until we are settled and I’m in a reasonable daily routine. I start my new job on Monday 8/2, but will be in the Bay Area at first. Would love to meet any Northern California readers for dinner/drinks in early August!

I’ve got a nice backlog of “Car Photo of the Day” posts, so I’ll try to make them live when I can.

Car Photo of the Day: You don’t see these every day!

Name this car.

I encountered this car in a parking lot in La Canada, California as we departed on the return trip northwards back home on our Father-Son road trip last summer. I don’t think I posted it, or made any reference to it at the time, so it is a newcomer here on the web site. In fact I’ve never seen one of these before or since… it is that rare a car.

Larry Wade was with us at the time, so he’s disqualified from guessing the car as he’s seen it!

Car Photo of the Day: Parallax View

Name that car.

This is actually a lousy photo. The depth of field is off – pushed too far towards the lens. Pushed a bit outwards, it would have been a bit better as the window frame and other further bits would have been sharp. Oh well.

However it is salvageable as a CPotD though as the odd view of this car, with a wide lens, and a close perspective on the trailing edge of the window presents a view that few people have really paid attention to. The car itself is somewhat common, and has appeared here before, so don’t go fishing into exotica to name it.