Month: October 2009

Cringe worthy word abuse

I’m not a grammar nazi. I don’t correct people in mid-sentence. I don’t flame people online who make language missteps. I can’t even profess to being mostly correct in my writing as lord knows I abuse it constantly with ellipses and parenthetical statements (as I’ll soon demonstrate … d’oh!) I’m sure all my English teachers would tell you I was nowhere near the top of their class when it came to grammar. Sometimes though I see things that make me cringe.

I have pre-built RSS searches that scour Craigslist’s “Free Stuff” section for things I use to make BioDiesel. One of those searches is the word “barrel”. When I was setting up my system I needed barrels and why pay for one when somebody is always giving it away somewhere? I no longer need barrels (in fact I should give a few away!) but occasionally people give away a barrel full of stuff (waste oil, veggie oil, methanol, Diesel, etc) that I can use, so I leave the search there in my preferred RSS reader, Safari.

I swear, at least once or twice a month, this one comes up…

It is not always this person Samantha giving it away. I’m sure she is not an idiot, and in fact could very well be a very nice person. Most people I’ve met named Samantha have been nice. I even dated a wonderful woman named Samantha when I was in college. But … THE WORD IS WHEELBARROW DAMMIT! Wheelbarrow. Look it up!

ah… there … I feel so much better now.

Gone… (sniff)

A sad day here in Goolsbee-land. I spoke with my father a bit ago on the phone and he informed me that the red 300sl that he and mom bought nine years ago has sold. That car will be missed. I only was able to drive it a few times but each moment at that wheel was magical. In many ways the 300sl was the very first “supercar” and to have any miles in one is a privilege. In that respect I am a very lucky man.

Two bonus photos for the car spotters. Name all the cars in these last two images.

Car Photo of the Day: Speaking of Bonnets, Louvers, and Lustrous Paint…

I’ve featured many of the amazing Jaguars in the collection of Philippe Reyns before, including his XK-SS and pre-war SS100, but I’ve rarely displayed the first car I met him in, his black Series 1, 3.8 E-type. Philippe and his wonderful wife Francoise attended the 2006 Going To The Sun Rally in this E-type. It is in much better condition than mine. We’ve become friends and now I always get together with them when they come to the Seattle area (except this past year when I was out of town when they were in!)

As for the functional beauty of the E-type’s louvered bonnet, it is clear from the D-type predecessor that the function is really required on the left (exhaust) side of the bonnet, but the right (intake) side was also louvered to balance the appearance. I may be wrong on this, so hard-core gearheads feel free to correct me. Of course it all went “banana-shaped” as the Brits say with the Series 3 E-type in 1971 when they had to put shielding under the louvers to keep rain off the cylinder heads of the wider-than-XK V-12 engine.

Regardless of all the above, it is beautiful, isn’t it?

Car Photo of the Day: Reflections of beauty

There was an illustration in the brochure for the E-type Jaguar that just showed the bonnet, seemingly coming at the viewer at an angle like this… minus the rest of the car. While this photograph is not of an E-type, it has the same aesthetic about it. The focus here is all upon the wonderful curves, adornments, and reflections of this most shapely and beautiful bonnets.

I could stare into that gorgeous paint all day long…

Keep Clam! (Earthquake simulation on Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct)

Oddly my first thought upon watching this is: Who wants to meet me down at Ivar’s for some clams?

My second thought is: Let’s see the simulation of the proposed tunnel filling up with seawater during a similar event.

(hat tip to my neighbor Bill Gilliam for the link)