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Last time I pictured this Opel on my site I received an email from somebody in Germany asking me questions about it. Unfortunately I have no data on it, other than the fact that it appeared at a local car show here in Arlington, WA. It certainly is a nice example of something you don’t see much of these days.
No, this isn’t one of my rants about cloud computing hype. I’m talking about real clouds here, not mythical ones. As I was leaving my house this morning a rainbow caught my eye. What was most striking about it at first was the fact that it was partially behind some clouds at first. In all my years on this earth I have yet to see a rainbow that is mostly obscured by clouds.
Thankfully I had my camera with me (as I’m stalking the 787 around my office window these days.) I stopped, and backed up a bit, and stepped out of the car to fire off the shot you see above. I continued on my way, and at the bottom of the hill, where I turn onto SR 530 there is an old-style blue barn, and the rainbow was now clearly visible above that picturesque barn. Unfortunately this dairy farmer has stacked up shipping containers around the base of the barn so a little telephoto in-lens cropping to eliminate the eyesores…
Further down the road where the two forks of the Stillaguamish River meet and the valley opens up I noted how the light was playing all sorts of tricks and had to again stop and shoot a few frames. The rainbow was now casting a strange “shadow” of light from the low-angle sun we see at this latitude (48°N) this time of year. Another phenomena I have rarely seen, and until now never captured.
Sitting aside the road, with my camera atop a small tripod on my car’s roof, it was a great start for the day. Sort of put me at peace to stop and catch a rainbow instead of just trudging to the office through traffic again.
From the YouTube page description:
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.
I love visualizations like this. Thinking at scales like this is very hard for the human brain to do. Seeing it helps, but the timescales involved in traveling this distance overwhelm even my fairly open mind.
Hat tip to Tom Negrino via twitter.
As I drifted off to sleep last night, I heard the hum of the well pump in the basement of our house. It usually runs when anyone uses water… the diswasher, a shower, toilet, etc. I didn’t think much of it as we had a full house – Christopher came home from college last night. Around 5:00 am I sort of half-awoke, and the pump sound was still there. My brain sort of skipped a beat and then I jolted fully awake. I knew that a pipe somewhere was broken. Things had just thawed completely from the recent big freeze. We’d had snow all Saturday night, into and through Sunday. This after two+ weeks of sub-freezing weather. So I throw some clothes on and grab a flashlight to go check that indeed the pump is running (it is) and then start searching for the break.
I really love this house, but it is obvious that it has an Achilles Heel in the form of its water system and plumbing. I actually PREPARED for this freeze. I shut off the water to the barn, and drained its pipes. I even shut off the valve I installed to protect the last pipe that burst in a big freeze. I found the leak, and thankfully was able to fix it easily.
Since Chris is home, and would like to have a car to drive, and I have some bulky items in my office to bring home, along with a waste-oil run to Snohomish, I left the Jetta for Chris and drove the truck. We rarely drive this truck. Sue bought it a decade ago to haul horses, but now the horse trailer is gone, and most of the horses are gone, and the sole remaining one lives elsewhere. The truck has been kept for runs to the dump, the hardware store, etc. and of course situations like today. So I’m driving down I-5 to work and I note an (obvious) unmarked police car following me for a long ways. I’m in the right lane, and have the cruise set at 55, even though the limit is 60. I don’t like to drive this truck, and never feel safe going fast in it as it always feels top-heavy and dangerous. After several miles the cop flips on his lights and I pull over onto the shoulder. He tells me my tabs have expired… in March(!)
WTF?
How did I let THAT happen? Usually the DOL sends out renewal notices and I renew them online within days. I never forget to do this… how did I not notice? The truck gets driven maybe 10 times a year, and usually only a few miles. But still… I’m usually not that unaware of things.
The cop takes my lic, reg, insurance, etc and goes back to his car. When he comes back he says “I’m not trying to be a jerk but… ” Sure enough he hands me a citation. Grrr. He explains how I can deal with it in court, but all I’m thinking is “What a jerk.” Now I know I can have Sue take care of all this, as she is an “officer of the court”… but I also know she’s going to be all ticked off at me for:
1. Forgetting to renew the tabs.
And
2. Getting a ticket.
I take the citation from the Sheriff, and drive off to work in a bad mood. I renewed my tabs online as soon as I arrived at the office, but my mood hasn’t improved any.
I am privileged to have witnessed first-hand today a historic moment. Mind you it is a small one in the big scheme of things, but I had the chance to see it, and now I’m sharing it with you.
My office is very close to Boeing Field, and my window is host to all manner of interesting aircraft, as you have seen occasionally. The flight path of Sea-Tac is also behind our building, so there is always something flying by. Today though, was a historic day as something special was set to fly by. Boeing’s new passenger jet, the 787 “Dreamliner” took flight for the first time. I watched it take off from Paine Field in Everett live on the Internet and set my phone’s alarm to remind me to be ready to photograph it 5 hours later when it arrived at Boeing Field a bit before sundown.
The winds were from the south which meant it would land towards my window, not across it. I was preparing to make a run to the post office to mail a few things when Kevin, our Facilities Manager and Civil Air Patrol member informed me that the flight was now scheduled to land much earlier. As I grabbed my camera my phone rang and my friend John, who works on the 787 project at Boeing let me know exactly when it would touch down: 1:22 PM. This meant I had about 12 minutes to go find a spot near the runway to catch it. If it had been a clear day with wind to the north I would have gone to the south end of the runway and been right underneath it as it landed. It was coming from the north though and 12 minutes would be not long enough to get to the far side of the airport and found a spot to park, so I gave up on getting really close shots and drove as fast as I dared to the Museum of Flight, which has a good view of the runway and a large parking lot. Of course EVERY light between my office and the Museum was RED.
I arrived with about 3 minutes to spare, with a large crowd already gathering. I lucked into a parking spot and walked around trying to find a good spot for photos. The air was thick with cold rain (the weather was what cut the first flight short), hovering news helicopters and a pervasive sense of anticipation.
You can see all of my photos, as they were dumped out of my camera, here.
Today’s photo is not an exotic racing or sports car, it is instead a prosaic American passenger car. I chose this image to commemorate in a small way the first flight of the newest American passenger plane, Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner” which lifted off the runway at Paine Field in Everett, Washington just a few minutes ago. Congratulations are in order to Boeing and all of its employees (including a few who are my friends.) This hood ornament from the 50s pointed to a bright future, which we are indeed living out.
I hope to catch the 787 with camera in-hand when it lands at Boeing Field near my office later today, so stay tuned.
Today’s CPotD is an engine bay shot of a truly landmark car, though this particular example seems to have suffered at the hands of somebody who has spent far too much time, and money, in the JC Whitney catalog. Can you name the car?