The hood ornament of a Dodge Brothers Model 30.
Apologies Dear Reader!
Since mid-summer my life has been… topsy-turvy… and you dear reader, have suffered for it.
Both Sue & I found new jobs – 500 miles away from the place we have called home for over twenty years. I joined Facebook as part of the new datacenter in Prineville, Oregon, and Sue will be a Public Defender in Jefferson & Crook Counties of Oregon. This lead to a search for a new domicile, and an attempt to sell our old one. All the while I’ve been “on the road”, having spent several weeks in Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia at Facebook’s existing datacenters learning the ins and outs of Facebook’s systems.
Finding a new home also meant finding a new school for Nick. A huge life-change for a 16 year old, deeply involved in academics and athletics.
We found a wonderful home in the hills SE of Bend, Oregon. Sue can board her horse nearby, Nick has X-C coaches that are awesome, and I have a pleasant, two-lane twisty back road commute to work, with stellar views of mountains and hills.
Selling our old house became an exercise in futility (we’re trying to rent it now).
Buying a new place became an exercise in frustration (banks are not lending money anymore).
Sue’s mother passed away suddenly in August while I was in Virginia. She had just been at our home in Washington and seemed to be doing very well. Quite sad.
Nick & I lived in a hotel in Bend for two weeks in early September while he started at his new school.
We moved in Mid-September, Sue & Chris arriving with pets, and a moving truck arriving with our goods. (We’re still unpacking.)
Chris returned to college at the end of September.
Now, once again, I’m in Virginia for several weeks.
Sue starts her new job soon, and …hopefully… life should return to some semblance of normality by the end of October. We’ll all be in the same place, and settled into a semi-normal schedule.
The short end of the stick for all of you is that my writing here has been minimal, and spotty. I hope to change that asap. I post to Facebook often, so FB users can always follow me there, but I try to reserve this space for more in-depth thoughts, “Car photo of the day/name that car” stuff, and of course, car adventures. All of the above will resume soon. Apologies for the dearth of posts of late, but I’m sure you understand.
Thanks for hanging in there!
My god, it’s … full of stars!
Car Photo of the Day: Mystery Car
I have been woefully remiss in posting of late, both CPotD and regular updates. Truth is, I’ve been living out of hotels for the past two months plus! I’ve been travelling for work, and moving my household from northwest Washington to central Oregon. Nick & I have been at the latter location for the past two weeks as he’s started school, and I’ve been attending to all those things that setting up a new household takes… first of all being getting the house itself! As many have heard, securing loans these days is damn near impossible, with banks dragging their feet and tracking every penny, both yours and theirs. Sort of the opposite end of the scale from the freewheeling zero-down, credit for anyone with a heartbeat days of not so long ago. Honestly I prefer it somewhere in between, but more on that later. The good news is, we have the house and the movers arrive tomorrow. Stay tuned for details.
Meanwhile here’s a “Name that car” mystery for you all to ponder while I set up power, TV, Internet service, and start unpacking our goods in a new home. I found it in a museum (obviously) and it stuck me as a real oddball in a lot of ways. What oddities can you note about it? Can you identify it? Discuss in the comments…
Mystery Cargo!
I saw these devices being carried on a flatbed in Tacoma, WA. Can you identify them?
Milestone
This morning I pumped the hydraulic fluid out of my car lift and dismantled the lift mechanism.
This is essentially the final step prior to moving. I’ve packed up and organized everything else. The movers come in a little over a week. On Tuesday Nicholas & I depart for Oregon as he begins school on Wednesday. We’ll be living in a hotel for at least a week while the house closing completes. It has been a long and stressful month for the Goolsbees… here’s hoping things start to smooth out going forward.
More Flights of Fancy, and some difficult news.
Last weekend I was in Northern Virginia and on my way back from the Bull Run battlefield I noted an exit for the Udvar-Hazy Center which was very close to my hotel. I popped in with camera to check it out. It was 90 minutes from closing, so I was unable to see the entire museum. I did capture some highlights however:
It was really a dash, with inadequate equipment (I really should have had my monopod for better shooting in the low light) but it was an interesting place that I’ll have to return to some time. You can see the rest of my shots here.
My life all went awry later when I received a call from home with Sue informing me that her mother had passed away. This news was both shocking and upsetting. Sue’s mom just spent several weeks at our home, on her usual summer trip to visit family, and she looked better than I’d seen in years. In fact she had accompanied Chris & I to the airport when I left for the east coast, as Chris was dropping her off at King Street station to ride the Cascades down to Portland to visit her brother next on her trip. Sue was beside herself, as you would expect.
It always seems that things like this happen when I’m away on business trips. 🙁
Thankfully my new employer is understanding and compassionate, and in short order I was able to change my travel plans, cutting short my stay in northern Virginia. I’ll return again sometime soon however.