Author: leh

rDay Eighty-Five

With Ivi back home, meals take on a new meaning. Today, she prepares for me a grilled cheese sandwich — Cotswold double gloucester, pesto and tomato on Dave’s Killer Bread. The kitchen is abuzz.  Nik blisses out to music while washing dishes.   And, as always, Charlie is ready to spring into instant action should anything hit the floor.

Riding over to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, I practice my no-look, over-the-shoulder brand of photographic composition in motion, capturing two bikers about to saddle up after coming out of Redemption Tattoo, a local purveyor of dermal art, and some little girls hawking fresh lemonade along a downtown street.

And the most interesting vehicle of the day so far would have to be this Mini Cooper.

And, in case you missed it in the first paragraph above:

http://www.daveskillerbread.com/

 

rDay Eighty-Four: She’s Back!

After what seemed like weeks (actually a day or so in Corvallis, then nearly a week in Portland), Ivi drives in at about 8:30pm.    She arrives with Trader Joe bounty and regales us (minor abridged version) with tales of her adventures, deferring major regaling until tomorrow.  And she reminds us that this could be a watershed event, as it is the first time that she has made an almost all-day road trip completely solo where she alone could make the decisions about where and when to take rest stops.

 

 

rDay Eighty-Four

Today we visit the post office, accompany Kim to view flowers and other plants at the local Bi-Mart nursery, and drop by the library.  At the library, I stumble upon and quickly read a piece in the 5/31/15 New York Times Magazine entitled “What We Don’t See” (clickable urls to follow as a value-added service):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/what-we-dont-see.html

as well as spot (and make a mental note for future reference) the Marc Goodman book, “Future Crimes” that I blogged about a few months ago at: 

http://www.eoni.com/news/marc-goodman-and-future-crimes/

But the big treat of the day was to share traffic with one of Stuttgart’s finest, albeit nearly 30 years old, a rather rare “S” variant of the 944 (more detail on my P-blog):
20150617-DSCN8376-Edit

rDay Eighty-Three

Secured a signature this morning on a five-page development contract proposal that I worked up Sunday (plus my requested advance payment!) early this morning, so the day is off to a decent start.  And, of course, Tuesday is pretty much always a shopping day for Kim, so that happened.  But at least I did snag a circa -’57 Chev restomod pickup in a driver’s seat, over the shoulder, no look shot.

 

 

rDay Eighty: Meet Jerry and His Truck

It’s a 1928 Mack logging truck.  

I’ve passed by it a couple of times on the way to Bi-Mart, but today Kim was happy to stop and read the New York Times Review of Books (always at hand in the PF for just such delays) while I jumped out to take a few quick snaps.  The lighting conditions were at their very worst, and I only had the old point-and-shoot along, but I was  soon engrossed in inspecting & documenting.  And the owner, identifying himself as Jerry, soon appeared and proceeded to unwind a lengthy dissertation on the truck’s history, features, provenance and his adventures bringing it back to life.

Jerry found the thing up to its axles in mud, where it had been since 1947, the last time it was started.  Amazingly, with just new belts, hoses, spark plugs, wiring, and oil; cleaning of carburetor and felt oil filters; and radiator repair, it started up and ran.  Cranking the four-banger quickly started it and it ran quite smoothly in my presence.  Jerry pointed out a number of unique features including a large inspection port providing access directly to the crankshaft.  The original tires had become hard as rock with missing chunks, but were replaced with new ones, readily found to fit.  Rated top speed for the torquey, geared-down four-cylinder was 27 mph.  Rear axle ratio was something like 9.3:1.   The radiator and oil pan are aluminum.  Electric lights, but manual crank starter.  And on and on.

Jerry has the original factory build sheet, with part numbers for every component, which he has been inspecting to confirm for authenticity and possible replacement, if needed.  It turns out be a numbers-matching classic (!), for those who were wondering.

Jerry says he has been around the block a few times with it, and down the street to Bi-Mart, and invited me back for a ride (after a few more tweaks that are in progress) and when a better photographic set of conditions exist.