Car Photo of the Day: Wet Louvers

Weather actually looks good this morning, but since were vintage rallying in the Pacific Northwest rain is always possible. May father, who is navigating this rally for me is thrilled as the rally master handed out the route last night, allowing us more than the usual 30 minutes to prepare our calculations. I went out in the evening and tried to calibrate my odometer. This rally is in Canada, so everything (speeds & distances) are in metric – adding a challenge for those of us with cars in imperial gauges. Technically my water temp gauge is in metric, but that will provide us no advantage!

Wish us luck!

Car Photo of the Day: Desire.

Can you name this car (small bonus for the blue one in the background, which any car guy should be able to name with one eye tied behind their back!)

I will admit to having a total mancrush on most everything this company has ever built. I can’t explain it but they have always made the most appealing cars. Well, most of them. They’ve coughed up a few hairballs, but the vast majority have fallen somewhere between “Mild Desire”, and ‘I’d kill all of you to have one.”

This example falls in the former category, but I’d still not turn it down. Oddly this marque is rarely recognized when seen by the non-CARnoscenti, and even when you ask car people to name
“[X sorts of] car companies” it falls four or five places down the list, or not even showing up at all.

Geographically Challenged Canadians

Bit Bucket – One small correction guys, our Washington is on….

This from my friend Tom Bridge, who lives in Washington DC and is interviewed in this clip on a Canadian news show. After it aired he noted their geographic blunder. I actually live in Arlington, Washington, which is a tiny town in northwest Snohomish county with about 10,000 people. Arlington, Virginia on the other hand is a rather large city adjacent to Washington, DC that has a population of nearly a quarter-million. They are also about 3,000 miles apart. Usually when I tell people I’m from Washington I have to qualify it by either saying “Washington state” or “the OTHER Washington.” So it is odd to see the outline of my state being used to illustrate the place most people think of when they hear “Washington.”

Finally, it is a common Canadian theme to make fun of Americans, especially concerning their lack of knowledge about the rest of the world, and in particular things about Canada. I live within a slap-shot of the Canadian border and watch Canadian TV and listen to Canadian radio. While I consider myself particularly knowledgeable about geography (I always score above 85%, and usually higher, on this test for example), I don’t expect the average “man on the street” to know where Flin Flon** is… but I sure as hell expect a major new outlet to not make a blunder like this.

You can watch the video (and hear Tom’s report) here.

Continue reading “Geographically Challenged Canadians”

What Just Flew By My Office Window

One of the cool side-benefits of working where I do is our proximity to Seattle’s Boeing Field. Interesting aircraft seem to fly by fairly often. My office window faces NNW and Boeing Field’s main runway’s southern end is literally smack dab in the middle of my window, a bit over a mile away. My office is on a hillside, and I’m on the 6th (top) floor, and the runway in the Duwamish valley below:


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I was at my desk a bit ago and heard the unique sound of four big radial engines roaring by. I look up just in time to see a distinctive boom tail go off the edge of my window. I grab my camera and run out onto the deck outside the kitchen and sure enough there is a B-24 Liberator. Unfortunately it is in a steep bank left turn, flying away from me. By the time it turns and is heading north with a side profile it is over Lake Washington and far away. I snap off a photo though:

B-24 Liberator over Seattle

I walk back inside and sit at my desk, only to hear ANOTHER roaring warbird. I scurry back to the deck just in time to see a P-51 Mustang roll left, then away following the B-24. It was too small and too fast to get a photo of, but I was able to watch it with my binoculars when back at my desk.

One old plane is an anomaly. Two in quick succession is a pattern. So instead of getting back to work I sit and watch the runway. Sure enough a few minutes later an unmistakable shape arose from behind a massive hangar that houses the Boeing Military AWACs planes at the SW corner of the field. It slowly and gracefully lifts away from terra firma at a pace leisurely enough for me to get outside and shoot this sequence of photos:

It is of course a Boeing B-17. One of this city’s most significant contributions to the war effort in WW2.

Just thought I’d share.

Update A little while later the B-24 took off again and I managed to shoot it:

I’ve got to run up to Ballard this evening, so I’ll stop by the airport and see if I can catch them on the ground.