Author: chuck goolsbee

Why I haven’t been blogging.

Life’s been keeping me very busy.

At home Chris & I have been rebuilding the deck. I know… it seems like this is a never ending project! When we bought the house a decade ago the inspector told me “You’ll be replacing the roof, and rebuilding the deck at some point.” The deck has been a piecemeal project that I’ve been doing for years now. The roof we wisely hired out. With the exception of the break when we took the road trip in July Chris & I have been replacing the rotten wood on the deck every spare moment we’ve had this summer. Before July we finished up the southwest side of the house, and after the return from the road trip we started on the southeast side. At first it was just a “replace the railing and a few rotten boards” scope, but once we started on the southeast side I changed it to include replacing ALL the old original wood, both the remaining old joists, and the deck surface. We took the time to pre-paint all the wood (except for the deck surface, which was only primer.) This added at least 3 weeks to the task, and we should have been finished about a week ago except the weather turned right as we hit the home stretch. It is still raining and we can’t add any coats of the “Deck-Kote” stuff until we have a 3-day stretch of sun.

Removing the old wood, laying down the new

Almost done with carpentry.

Laying down the Deck-Kote

Once this is done we’ll rebuild the railing. It will all be done just in time for winter rains! (sigh)

I’ve missed two JCNA slalom events because of this project. 🙁

At work I’ve been REAL busy on something of a skunk-works project. We’re developing software for managing our power resources. I built a prototype over the past year and this summer I’ve grabbed one of our coding geeks to take my prototype and make it real. To free up his time I’ve been covering his shift as best as I can, which means working nights in our Network Operations Center. My sleep schedule is all messed up. Then to top it off Seattle City Light made our week interesting.

I’m trying to write up the Monte Shelton rally story as fast as I can, so stay tuned.

2009 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally: Day One

My father and I have been Vintage TSD (Time, Speed, Distance) Rallying now for eleven years and three months, and you would think we’d have it figured out by now. Our first rally together was in May of 1998, and I flew back to the USA from England, where I was working at the time, to join him in his newly restored “retirement project” E-type Jaguar. We won our class and had a great time driving all over Maine in this amazing car. Since then we’ve rallied all over the country, and once even all the way across it. We’ve done stately tours, and insane regularity rallies where we’ve fallen into almost every trap. The one thing I’ve learned in that time is that when we’re on, we’re on. But… when we’re off, we’re REALLY OFF!

Continue reading “2009 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally: Day One”

One…

two, three, four…

I’ve been leaving for work very early in the day recently. Caught this image just as the sun came up over the mountains to the east, casting an exceedingly warm orange glow over everything. This is a white wall with green numbers but the rising sun’s amber glow overpowers the spectrum. I love the shadows, especially of the wood grain itself, and the screws.

Just thought I’d share.

Car Photo of the Day: Still Life with Bonnet Prop

As a “Car Guy” I love looking under hoods and bonnets. It is always fun to see something unusual, which here in America means something OTHER than a pushrod V-8. Or these days, ANYTHING other than a plastic engine cover. I delight in finding straight sixes, vee-fours, and flat-anythings. Bonus points accrue for side-draft carbs, dual overhead cams, slanted engines, and wild manifolds. This car is a dog’s breakfast of almost all the above (the less said about the bonnet prop the better however!) I could spend an hour staring at it, and in fact did so when I snapped this photo.

This car belongs to an occasional commentator of on this website, so he’s ineligible to ID it, but do any of you other reprobates know what car this is?

It’s Official… itineraries are being arranged as we speak.

The route of the 1999 Cannonball Classic.

A few weeks less than a decade ago my father and I drove the 65E in what was the looniest adventure we’ve ever done, the 1999 Cannonball Classic. We missed the 2000 run, and vowed to do it again in 2001, and even found a car specifically for the event, but as we were the sole entry, it was cancelled(!) Oh well, it was too crazy an idea to survive.

I found out this morning that the two of us are going to be moving that very car coast to coast almost 10 years to the day after that amazing week in 1999. The start and finish points are different, and we’re going alone instead of in a group, but we’re still driving the entire breadth of the USA in a matter of days.

Stay tuned for more!

Car Photo of the Day: Composition is everything.

The Whole Shot.

I’m posting this image for two reasons. One is because it shows one car from a different angle that appeared in the last CPotD… and I’m not talking about the Jaguar in the foreground. The white car behind it is the subject here. I had thought it was a Turner, and Paul ID’ed it as a Triumph. I was going to say he was wrong, but I looked again. I REMEMBERED a Turner being in this rally (The 2007 Monte Shelton) and just assumed it was this car appearing behind the Jaguar. I looked closely at my pics of the Turner and this car is NOT a Turner. I looked for any other white convertible from that weekend and could only find these two photos. It very well could be a TR, but I’m not sure enough to call it.

I also looked at this photo and saw two photos. One was just a record/snapshot sort of thing to make note of the cars and people, the other, more likely what I was looking at while I was peering through the viewfinder was this:

The shot within the shot...

This is the photo in my minds-eye whenever I see an XK. That luscious bonnet and fenders, with all those light-capturing curves. These cars are a photographer’s dream for this feature alone.

Car Photo of the Day: Rally Check-in.

No. This is not this year’s check-in for the Monte Shelton NW Classic, but a past year. It always looks the same though as it happens in the exact same spot, and many of the same cars participate each year… so I could have lied to save face. I’m too honest for my own good sometimes. So here’s a little distraction to while away the day while I work… at work, on my deck, on making BioDiesel, or whatever else is keeping me from writing up the story of our rally.

Can you name all the cars in this picture. SIX are visible enough for an ID from an expert car-spotter. Try your hand in the comments.