Category: life

where everything else happens

Kudos for a Jaguar parts vendor: Bill Tracy.

knockoff

Bill Tracy Jaguar Parts

I bought a set of knock-offs a few weeks ago, along with a couple of other parts from a vendor named Bill Tracy. (Note: The picture is not of one of the ones I bought,,, it isn’t even my car!) I’ve installed the other parts already, but I haven’t even unpacked the knockoffs other than one, really just to look at it. You see, the ones on my car are getting a bit chewed up from my inept hammering, and I figured it would be good to have a nice, pristine set to put on the car when I show it. Rare, I know, but since this car is a “driver” it looks a little ragged around the edges so to speak.

The price was right, and I bought some.

Tonight I received an email from Bill Tracy which said:
“It has been brought to my attention that these knock offs I sold you would fit better if they had been machined on the inside instead of a raw casting. I realize it is a problem with packaging, shipping etc. so just take them off and throw them away, make them unuseable. I am refunding your credit card with cost of parts and shipping. Sorry but I do not have any replacements at this time.”

Wow. What a refreshing bit of honesty and integrity from a vendor!

Especially given my outright horrible, or merely annoying experiences with other vendors in the “Jaguar community” this action showed me that there still are decent, honest human beings out there.

So now the question is: what should I do with these unusable (at least on my car) knockoffs?

Door handle on the barn? Us ’em to beat my staff? Paper weights?

Let me know what you think!

Nick’s outtakes

I stumbled upon this on my hard drive. It is from a few years ago. Nick had a school project where he had to make a video about “how to” do something. He chose “get ready to go skiing.”

We set up a camcorder in the family room and Nick had all his ski gear and narrated choice bits of info about the equipment and such while I read him the outline, ran the camera, etc. After we gathered the footage we sat down and created/edited his movie, which we then put back on tape and sent off to school with Nick.

I deleted the actual main part of the movie for presentation here… but left the even longer collection of out takes I compiled at the end of it. To me, that was the most enjoyable part of the whole project. 😉

New BioDiesel Feedstock found.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/ancient_plant_biodiesel.php

Saw this link on Digg.com. I love the idea that alternative feedstocks are being found. I’m not too thrilled that the industry is looking to agriculture as a primary source. I would think that the secondary source of WVO would be more logical, and more in tune with a conservation ethos.

Christopher’s mail from Chile

pacifica

Two packages arrived from Chile this week. Mostly books which Christopher has read and doesn’t want/need to carry them back home in his luggage. It also contained a memory card from his camera, filled with almost 500 pictures. Unfortunately, it appears his camera was damaged not long after he arrived in Chile, and the focussing mechanism isn’t working well. Most of the photos are blurry. 🙁

There are a few choice ones though, and I’ll share them here.

Chris in Chile

Above: Christopher about a week after he arrived in Chile, and camping on the beach with his host family

Yayo

Above: This is Gerardo, Christopher’s host father. “Yayo” as he is known, speaks very good English and he and I have conversed a lot over the past several months. Gerardo was an exchange student himself, in North Carolina, when he was in high school, so he understands a lot of what Chris is experiencing. I owe a great debt to Gerardo, as from what I can tell he is doing a wonderful job with Chris.

Yayo y Lorena

Above: This is Yayo and Lorena. Lorena is Chris’ host mother. She speaks about as much English as I do Spanish, so the one time she and I spoke on the phone was… hilarious. We both spoke slowly and loudly, and neither of us understood a word, other than “Christopher” and “Gerardo”. 😉

I have bought Chris another camera, which I will send down to him next week, along with his memory card. I think I also need to provide a little long distance Art Direction, as most of his shots fail to capture what people want to see. Of course, I look at my photography when I was 17, and it wasn’t much better. But then again, I had some people teach me how to compose and what not, so now is the time I guess. I do really like the shot at the top here of the sand and sun. It is a very evocative photo for me. Looking at it in context of the pictures taken at the same time though, you can see that it is a happy compositional accident… just one image in a series of sweeping panorama shots. The key to good photography is SEEING what is in the viewfinder as a complete image. We’ll see how that concept can be transmitted 10,000km via email!

I will post the rest of Chris’ photos from Chile later on today, with a password protecting them, to share with friends and family.

Track Meet.

Nick on Track

I took the afternoon off work today to travel up to Mount Vernon to watch Nick run at a track meet. He ran the 7th grade boys 1600 meters (roughly equivalent to a mile, about 19 feet short of one in fact). He made a time of just over seven minutes, which beat his last time by forty-eight seconds. He was in a very fast crowd though, and finished fifth. The first place kid literally almost lapped the field… he was VERY fast.

I told Nicholas that all that hair is obviously slowing him down… it is like strapping on a parachute. 😉

Nick also threw the discus, with his best throw just under 50′.

I could walk, ice skate, or ski 1600 meters no problem, but if you pressed me into running it I’d likely fall over dead. I hate running.