The Big Snow of 2008-9, start to finish.

I finally had a chance last night to edit together all my time-lapse footage from the big snowfall over the holidays. Our snowfall events here in the Pacific Northwest generally are short-lived. I set up my time lapse gear to capture the rapid snowmelt that USUALLY happens, but instead it ended up continuing to fall and then staying around for over 3 weeks! So I varied the shots and continued to capture until the very end. I’ve compiled it all into a ~7 minute video. See the snow accumulate and then melt, icicles grow and shrink. Trees shake off their mantles of snow. At this latitude (>48°N) at this time of year days are short and nights long, hence the darkness. Enjoy!

Car Photo of the Day: Name that car!

Name That Car!

I ran into a friend and occasional c.g.o commentator Sandro Menzel at an industry event last week. I introduced him to Shaun Redmond, and they both had iPhones with car pictures on them. Shaun’s with his Volvo P1800es restoration, and Sandro’s with his Jensen-Healey and many, many shots of various cars. He showed me this pic and asked if I could “name that car”… I stared at it for about five minutes and just as I was about to hand the phone back to him and give up I pulled a name out of thin air… and nailed it. Sandro must think I’m some sort of genius… but honestly it was just a damn good guess. 😉

So with Sandro’s permission here is the photo in question. Can you Name That Car?

(Since Shaun Redmond was present when I guessed it, he is disqualified. Sorry Shaun!)

Years in the making, and passing.

I was looking for a set of photos from an event in 1999 earlier today and stumbled upon this image from May of 1998. It was taken at the end of the New England 1000, where my Dad & I won our class in our first outing together in the 65E. The car was pretty fresh from it’s initial restoration and my Dad was freshly retired. I was living in the UK back then, but flew over to the east coast for the week. We had a blast!

While it was not really the start of either of our “car guy” lives, it certainly was the start of a very important era for the two of us. It has been over 10 years since that photo was taken. We’re both older, and a bit wiser. We’ve been on many many rallies since. From cost-to-coast “Vanishing Point” high-speed adventures, to weekend evil puzzlers. We still do our best to get out and have a blast. 😉

I hope to do at least two rallies with my Dad again this year, so stay tuned.

If you are terminally curious, I can dig up the URL for my very first rally report. Let me know.

Car Photo of the Day: Light at dark

I’m not a Porschephile, BUT… I’ve always had a liking for these old Targas and those “flower” wheels that were popular in my early 70s childhood. I was attracted to this particular Targa more however for the wonderful reflection of the Pacific Ocean sunset in its paint. This was actually shot in VERY low light… hand held… using my digicam’s “night” setting, so it was surprising to get as good color as it did. Still not as good as it was in-person though. Beautiful evening at Otter Crest on the Oregon coast two summers ago, a night’s rest after a day of competitive TSD Rallying at the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic. While most folks were having drinks, I was wandering about the area where the cars were parked shooting photos in the amazing light. By the time I got to this Porsche it was almost gone.