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My Right Brain at Work
For all of you folks shivering in the snow take solace here in the inevitability of the change of seasons.
This is a timelapse from last year at this time as the big snow of 2008 melted away and Spring returned.
Testing the look on Vimeo over YouTube (what do you think?)…
Winter into Spring from chuck goolsbee on Vimeo.
When my boys were very young a near nightly ritual was for me to read to them. This occurred either on the living room couch, or at their bedside. We started with “kid books” such as Dr. Seuss’ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (Christopher’s first non-parental related word was “fish”) and culminated with reading long literary classics such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings over a period of months. One book I read between those, when Chris was maybe three or four was Crow and Weasel by Barry Lopez. One particular quote, spoken by the character “Badger” from that story has stuck in my head since that reading almost two decades ago:
The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be a good storytellers. Never forget these obligations.
There is so much truth to that bit of wisdom, since as human beings most of what we truly learn comes from what we hear, read, and are taught from others. For example, we take for granted the Thomas Jefferson’s authorship of the Declaration of Independence, and bonding of hydrogen and oxygen to make water, but how many of us have directly observed those facts? The ability to learn from secondary sources is in many ways what separates us from other species.
It is ironic then, that this particular story is told entirely from the perspective of a dog.
I’ve been aware of this book for a while, as it is has been endlessly pimped by the guys over at Cold Track Days, I just never bothered to pick it up as my reading tastes these days trend away from fiction. Sue on the other hand reads nothing but fiction, as her work-enforced reading is all facts, and all tragedy (she’s an attorney who works in cases where parental rights are being terminated.) She likes to read fiction and tears through books twice as fast as I do. I was surprised to find this one in her pile of completed books that she was returning to the friend she borrowed them from. I snagged it for myself and set aside the others I was reading to dive into it.
Well this is indeed a story to be given away when needed as Badger instructed Crow and Weasel. Filled with pathos, every character in the novel learns valuable lessons from life, and we learn right along with them. What I found refreshing was the specifically, and completely male perspective of the story, be it by man, or dog. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed the read so much more than Sue did.
But then, she doesn’t like to drive either.
It is an excellent, and well-told story, and plays out in a wonderful cinematic fashion, strictly however from the point of view of a mutt named Enzo. I’ve heard that it it being considered for a movie, but I can’t see how a visual re-telling will work from the canine perspective. We’ll see I guess. Certainly a challenge for a filmmaker!
The tale takes place right in my former hometown of Seattle, (in the mid 80s, until I met Sue and moved to Ballard I shared a house with two other guys in Mt. Baker near the old 1-90 Bridge) and so many of the places and names were as familiar and comfortable as an old pair of slippers. Leschi, the CD, Capitol Hill, downtown & Mercer Island. A wonderful scene takes place at Pacific Raceways in Kent, and is described by the narrating dog in such a perfect way to capture the essence of being at that track as a spectator. The contours and curves of the track described only as one hears it by exhaust note… very well done.
So if you’re a guy in need of a story more than food to stay alive, you might find this as enjoyable as I did. Give it a read (before Hollywood screws it up.)
Note this is an article I’m developing for another website. Feel free to comment with suggestions, observations, or corrections.
Having lead a life of high adventure in my youth, scaling pinnacles of rocks and ice, I never imagined that I’d meet my end, flat on my back crushed beneath a falling car. My life was flashing before my eyes as I set a new land-speed record for butt-shoulder-shuffling my way out from under the creaking, swaying mass of steel in the form of a 1999 Volkswagen New Beetle suspended above my body on my tried, and until-that-moment trusted ramps and jack-stands. There I was, staring death in the face in the form of my wife’s “cute bug” looking like Damocles’ Sword, or Poe’s Pendulum, my garage floor playing the Pit. The tremor ceased as my head cleared the oil pan, and the Beetle had stopped making the horrific creaking noises as the jack-stands stopped wobbling. I cleared the bumper and leapt to my feet in a single motion, and relief swept over me like the expected post-quake tidal wave should. “Damn, I’m still alive!… in fact I’m completely unharmed!” Running into the house I yelled at the family: ‘Did you guys feel that?!” … only to be met with a non-chalant: “feel what?”
In retrospect the tremor which scared me out from under the car was only a barely-rattle-the-china 3.2 on the Richter Scale, but it drove home an indelible lesson to this DIY mechanic living in a region where three tectonic plates meet: I gotta get a lift!
With kids heading for college in a few years, the budget was tight, but the family’s financial committee agreed that my life and future earning power were worth an investment of about a thousand bucks or so. Armed with that vote of confidence I perused the web for advice and good deals on a better platform for the home mechanic to raise his car off the ground. Most of the work I do on my family’s cars involves basic maintenance: Fluid Changes. Tire Rotations. Brake Jobs. Occasionally tasks are a tad more involved, especially with my hobby car, a vintage British sports car, which always seems to have some little thing, and occasionally a big thing wrong with it. Major engine overhauls and complete restorations however are out of my league, so in reality the lift I required could be a light-duty model. Sure, I’d love a deluxe two- or four-post lift, but at the time I was shopping I really had no place to put one, and they were all priced out of my budget. Scissor lifts however seemed to be a good compromise: small, semi-portable, usable in a small garage, and far safer than ramps & jack-stands, while being reasonably priced.
At the suggestion of more than one like-minded cheapskate wrench-turner I settled upon the “US General” 6000lb Scissor Lift from Harbor Freight. (Item #46604) It is likely the lowest-price lift on the market. Using a Triple-Word-Score combination of coupons, online specials, and shipping discounts the total price came to about $850 in 2003. I live in the boonies 60-some miles out of Seattle and due to the size and weight (~750lbs) of the lift Harbor Freight would only use a freight forwarder for shipping. This meant I had to pick it up at a loading dock in Seattle in my battered old farm pickup. It arrived in two pieces: a large wooden crate, with a cardboard box containing the hydraulic control unit strapped to the top of it, which fit right into the short bed of the old Dodge. I borrowed a neighbor’s tractor with a backhoe to unload the bulky unit from the truck’s bed and set it on the concrete floor of my garage. A few months later I relocated it to our barn, which became my workshop after the last of the domestic livestock were moved to better accommodations elsewhere. Moving the whole unit around is unwieldy, yet once upon a concrete slab it is very easy for a single person to maneuver the lift around an open space due to the magic of leverage and physics. The Control unit is essentially designed as a wheeled lever, and the lift is equipped with sturdy rollers at one end, and a lever-eye at the other end.
First, the bad news: Two minor parts failed almost immediately. The original plastic wheels of the control unit are just not up to the task of holding the weight of the lift when used as a lever. They literally crumbled after a few tries moving the lift around. I replaced them with sturdier units from my local hardware store with actual bearings in them. Secondly the control unit is very top-heavy and with the broken wheels it tipped over, falling right onto the fitting for the hydraulic pipe, breaking it. At first I tried calling Harbor Freight’s customer service department to have the pipe replaced. Eventually I gave up that fruitless exercise and had a new pipe fabricated at my local NAPA store. Both repairs have held up for almost six years.
The good news: It is simple to operate, safe, and makes common automotive maintenance work a breeze. Low clearance cars such as my vintage Jaguar require help getting over the folded lift, so I have collected some long 4×4 & 4×6 lumber to arrange around the lift for that purpose. Vehicles with more ground clearance can just drive over it. Moveable arms with adjustable rubber-topped pads provide the lifting surfaces under the car. The pads are scored with right-angled grooves to mate up to the body work of cars like VW, who use flanges as lifting points. The lift has several pre-set ratcheting safety latch points as it goes up, providing safe, stable levels to perform work. To raise the car you operate the hydraulic pump, which runs from a standard household electrical outlet, with a push-button. To lower the car you must hold two levers, one retracting the safety-catch, the other slowly releasing the hydraulic fluid.
Oil changes, tire rotations, and brake work are now super-easy, and so much safer and faster when performed on the lift. Instead of spending lots of time raising, lowering and fiddling with jacks and stands, you can now get right to work. However, since the lift itself is positioned directly under the car working on things like transmissions or exhaust can be problematic depending upon the car. For these applications a traditional lift would be much better, but for the home mechanic on a budget this small lift is a wonderful luxury. I’ve used it countless times for oil and filter changes, and when it came time to sell the New Beetle I was able to do it right with numerous photos of every nook and cranny to put it on eBay Motors.
Had that tremor in 2003 bloomed into a genuine 6.0 or larger quake I might not be here today to enjoy life. Even if you don’t live in a “geological entertainment zone” like I do the peace of mind provided by such a simple and safe working platform is well worth the cost.
The final installment of of my collection of favorite photos from 2009. Tell me your favorite from this batch in the comments.
I was blown away with the scenery when Larry and I pulled into this overlook. I grabbed the G1 and used my long-neglected rock climbing skills to ascend the side of a granite dome across the highway to look back and get this shot of Half Dome, and our cars. It wasn’t until long afterwards that I spotted the woman at the right, turned away from the grandeur of Yosemite Valley and taking a picture of the two Jaguars. Sir William would be proud!
Continue reading “Best Photos of 2009, Part Four (the end!)”
Part Three of my collection of favorite photos from 2009. Tell me your favorite from this batch in the comments.
Shot with the Lumix G1 on our Father/Son Road Trip this photo has a somewhat funny story to it. It was morning at Olmstead Overlook, with good light and very few cars around. I was hoping to get a good photo of both my car and Larry Wade’s for the XKEdata.com 2010 calendar. After shooting the cars while looking south towards Half Dome, Larry took off to maybe get some fishing done up in Tuolumne Meadows. I repositioned the 65E down at the far end of the overlook’s parking area facing towards Tenaya Lake. For the entire 45 minutes or so that we’d been at this location not a single car had EVER parked at this far end of the overlook. That is, until I parked my car there. Three times over the course of me trying to get this shot, a car pulled in from the highway and parked RIGHT next to the Jaguar, despite having several hundred empty spaces elsewhere in the overlook area, all of them much closer to the Yosemite Valley overlook that this location is noted for. This must be some Photographers variation of Murphy’s Law! Literally every time I had the lens on right, and everything set where I wanted it to be a car would pull up and park… one time as I was standing in the parking spot they were pulling into! I’d politely explain what I was doing and request that they move their car, and then as soon as I was ready again, another car would arrive. Very strange.
Part Two of my collection of favorite photos from 2009. Tell me your favorite from this batch in the comments.
One our way home from the Monte Shelton Rally in central Oregon we drove across the Columbia River and then climbed Maryhill out of the Gorge towards Goldendale, WA. A huge windfarm is being constructed that spans both side of the river and I stopped at the Maryhill Scenic Overlook as I knew a great photo awaited somewhere. I parked and wandered about with the G1 trying to find the right shot. Unfortunately it was mid-morning and the light was very harsh and flat. I gave up on a great photo and settled on a placeholder pose for a return to this spot some time in the future with better light. Dawn would be the time, ideally with some interesting clouds. Meanwhile, enjoy this photo.
Here’s a four-part wrap-up of what I think are my best photos taken this year. I’ll number them so you can cast your vote for favorites in the comments section. Most of these are car-related, as you would expect. Keep in mind that several of them are not so much great photographs as they are captured moments or places that say something to me. Most however are overall good shots. Let me know what you like, and why.
These were shot with my usual repertoire of three cameras, and I’ll try to identify which camera was used for each. I’m still getting the hang of my newest camera, the Panasonic Lumix G1. It has a LOT of promise, and will likely start making some great images for me once I get the hang of it. The G1 was bought mid-way through 2009, so early photos were shot with my trusty old Olympus C-5050 zoom, a 2002 vintage digital camera. Despite its relative low resolution and limited lens, I had been shooting with it for so long that it became an extension of my brain and eye. I’m astounded on occasion how great the images from this camera can be. Finally I have a Nikon Coolpix L11, a 2006 vintage point & shoot that I bought dirt cheap for use doing time-lapse videos. Since it is so small I tend to carry it around with me almost all the time – mostly to shoot random oddball cars for the CPotD series – but I also hand it to my kids when we are traveling for them to use as “their” camera. Nick especially burned up the memory card on our father/son road trip.
Note: I’m not happy with the JPEG output of PicMark, the application I use to add the copyright notice on the images, (the B-17 image is completely borked!) so expect some higher quality images later today when I can re-run the images from the originals
The E-type is a compendium of long-radius curves and ovals. The only place on the car that gets complicated is the rear, especially on the open two seater (the coupe’s rear has a more elegant resolution of these converging shapes.) At a pause in the action on-course of a JCNA slalom event in Vancouver BC I swung around and snapped this study of my own car’s rear end. I like the way it turned out.
This is one of the first shots I made with the G1 and the telephoto lens I picked up for it. After years of shooting with short lenses and ultra-wide angles having a true telephoto again (my last one was with my old Pentax in the 80s!) was a revelation. Long lenses open up a different world. Traditionally people use them to shoot far-away objects. I can see that value for people who shoot things like birds, such as my buddy Chuq. I mostly shoot cars, so for me the telephoto allows me to shoot detail shots without the radical distortion that usually comes along with my wide-angle lens. That distortion has its place, but sometimes the compressed perspective of a telephoto is preferred.