Family Treasures
I’m spending a little holiday downtime taking a collection of my father in law’s old 35mm slides and making digital copies of them to distribute to family members. It is mostly pictures of Sue’s family life & adventures in east Africa in the late 60s when her dad was working for the UN’s FAO. Mixed in are plenty of photos of Oregon in the 50s and 60s. This one above caught my eye though as it is clearly different than the rest. It is a Kodachrome slide, but the mount is made of brown kraft paper and is very thin. One side has a red border around it with “KODACHROME” in Futura type.
Handwritten on it is a note, “Orluz, 1940”
From the position of the Three Sisters mountains on the horizon I’d place this photo somewhere west of Terrebonne in Deschutes County, Oregon. Somewhere around here… near Lower Bridge perhaps. But I could be wrong, who knows that could be Mt. Jefferson from the East… it has been a while since I was in central Oregon on a clear day. 😉
It is clearly the oldest photo in the whole bunch, and shocking to see a color image from that time.
SUV drivers are Idiots
There is a discussion over on the Jag-Lovers.org E-type mailing lists about SUVs and how much damage they can do to small cars. I’ve always said that I’ll meet my death under a GMC Yukon being driven by a latte-sipping, cell-phone yakking soccer mom who runs a red light. SUV owners think that by driving some hulking monster of a vehicle that they are somehow “safe”… in reality they are just shoving the risk down everyone else’s throat. What would be minor fender-benders become dream-destroying disasters for those around them. You can not change the laws of physics. Your SUV can not stop as well as a car. Your SUV can not corner as well as a car. Your SUV can not handle as well as a car. Your SUV will do shocking damage to cars when you are an idiot and think that somehow the laws of physics do not apply to you.
I don’t relish >$3.00 a gallon gasoline but if it gets morons out of these road barges sooner rather than later then bring it on.
Crap mashup, but inspired choice…
OK, this is a completely crappy mashup, but I have to say the first part wonderfully mimics the crappy stuff that Microsoft produces out of their Marketing & Advertising groups (trust me, I know… I used to work for a Microsoft marketing vendor!)… but the second half, where it falls apart is video from a GREAT 80s sci-fi flick that I loved. It i now in my NetFlix queue.
Car Photo of the Day: Name That Car!
Another one of those “could be easy, could be hard” cars. I bet some pathetic car geek nails it on the first guess. 😉
It is certainly a weird machine.
Sorry for the light blogging of late… work has monopolized my time recently.
Another site on my blog roll…
I’m going to add another site to my “blogroll” today, namely The RPM Blog.
RPM is a noted restoration shop in Vergennes, Vermont. I have gotten to know the Markowskis through my participation in several of Rich & Jean Taylor’s Vintage Rallies, where the big black RPM truck & trailer serve as ‘sweep’ vehicle. Steve & Eben from RPM saved our butts during the New England 2000 by fishing a clutch hinge pin from the bell housing and replacing it in-situ using surgical tools(!) This was accomplished overnight and the car ran fine for many years afterwards!
RPM has built a reputation for excellence over the years, and Peter & Stephan are great guys. Being so far away it is unlikely I would ever have the opportunity to do business with them, but if you are in New England and need service I’d highly recommend them.
I have their blog in my RSS feed because they often have unique and interesting machines in the shop and document their projects there. At the moment they are dealing with one of those legendary dream cars… a Miura. Go have a look.
Entropy on the path to a Christmas Tree
Above: The boys at Tannenbaum Tree Farm circa 2002. Our home is off beyond the treeline behind them.
We moved out to the boonies 10 years ago not long after our return from the UK. We were pleasantly surprised to find many tree farms around our house. The first few years we just walked to the nearest of them, Tannenbaum Tree Farm to pick and cut our holiday tree. For several years we’d walk a path through a 44 acre wood that existed behind our property and exit right at the tree farm. The family that ran Tannenbaum had created an ideal world for the acquisition of Christmas trees. A log shelter with a warm fire in a cast-iron stove. Hot cider. Candy canes. Some small decorative gifts for sale. Custom-built tree-netting stands between the shelter and the parking area. Just grab your saw and go pick your tree. They had a great assortment of VERY nice trees. Like I said in the beginning we would walk over and cut our tree and carry it home. One year we even did it while it was snowing. It was sort of magical.
It was obvious that they treated their customers like family and many people would drive from as far away as Seattle every year to pick their tree. People there were always smiling and happy, even if it was wet, or cold, or snowing. Magical.
Above: Sue & Nick at Tannenbaum Tree Farm circa 2002
Then the 44 acre wood was clear cut and some developer built a housing development on it. So we would all just pile into the old pickup truck and go drive ‘around the block’ (though that is about a 2 mile drive) to Tannenbaum and select our tree. They would always ask if we needed it netted, and we always answered with “No, we live just over there” (pointing east towards the mountains).
This year we received a post card just before Thanksgiving from the Tannenbaum Tree farm that said they were no longer selling trees, and thanked us for our years of patronage. One of our little family traditions was lost!
This weekend the family decided that we had to get our tree now, so they pulled me away from my computer and we went off in search of a tree. All the Christmas Tree Farms that littered the neighborhood have all vanished! Every last one has been replaced with housing developments. We saw a sign advertising one on the road down to Granite Falls, so Nick & I went there. Boy were we disappointed. Scraggly little trees that only Charlie Brown could love, and all of them outrageously priced. I can’t recall paying more than about $40 for a tree and Tannenbaum, and in fact most years it was less than $30. Not a single tree at this other place was less than $35 and all the reasonably good looking or tall ones were priced between $75 & $150! Not only that but it was all out in a muddy field behind a travel trailer. Not what I would remotely call “magical”.
We gave up on tree farms… ok tree farm.. and drove into town and grabbed a tree at the grocery store. A fine looking and quite tall Douglas Fir. (Logical since one fell over in our yard exactly one year ago!) I paid $20 for it.
On our way home Nick & I drove past Tannenbaum, and their trees are there, but they are closed. Out in front is a Snohomish County Land Use Permit application sign. Obviously the site of another housing development, coming soon.
It is official: The Boonies have devolved into the Suburbs.