LaConner, WA Car Show 2019

1930 Chevy Commercial Delivery
1932 Ford 5-window coupe
1932 Ford Roadster
1935 Ford 5-window coupe
1937 Chevy business coupe
1961 Pontiac Ventura
1928 Ford Model A–with another old model!
930 Ford Model A
1930 Ford Model A

1932 Ford Vicky

1934 Ford Victoria
1934 Ford Victoria
1936 Ford Phaeton
1936 Ford Phaeton
1936 Plymouth touring sedan
1936 Plymouth touring sedan
1937 Chevy  master coupe 1
1937 Chevy master coupe 1
1937 Chevy master coupe 2
1937 Chevy master coupe 2
1937 Chevy master coupe 3
1937 Chevy master coupe 3
1937 Studebaker custom coupe
1937 Studebaker custom coupe
1948 Plymouth
1948 Plymouth
1955 Ford Crown Victoria
1955 Ford Crown Victoria
1955 Ford Thunderbird 1
1955 Ford Thunderbird 1
1955 Ford Thunderbird 2
1955 Ford Thunderbird 2
1959 MGB Limited
1959 MGB Limited
1960 Studebaker Avanti
1960 Studebaker Avanti
1961 Chevy Corvette
1961 Chevy Corvette
2017 Chevy Corvette
2017 Chevy Corvette
1956 Lincoln Continental Mark ii
1956 Lincoln Continental Mark ii
1956 Lincoln Continental Mark ii - rear view
1956 Lincoln Continental Mark ii – rear view

2018 Camano Car Show

As we were driving to this year’s car show, it began to drizzle, then rain, then pour. We had  heard some thunder earlier, but were hoping the storm would pass us by.

No such luck. The car show still had an hour to go, but they shut it down early because of the rain. By the time we arrived, the display area was deserted, emptied of classic cars except for three old beauties.

Michael shot two of them in the rain. (The owner of the third left before we could get to it.)

So I’m sorry I don’t have much to show you this year, but as Spencer Tracy said to Katherine Hepburn in Pat and Mike, “what there is is cherce.”

Here are Michael’s photos of two of this year’s grande dames.

1940 Ford Coupe

1940 Ford Coupe

1948 Mercury Sportsman

1948 Mercury Sportsman

 

 

Camano Car Show 2017

Oh, they sure don’t make ’em like they used to, do they?

Here’s the cream of the crop from this year’s Camano classic car show.

1939 Lincoln Zephyr

1939 Lincoln Zephyr

1932 Chevy

1932 Chevy

1927 Ford Roadster

1927 Ford Roadster

1927 Rio Coupe

1927 Rio Coupe

1930's Ford

1930’s Ford

1937 Ford Coupe

1937 Ford Coupe

1952 Packard

1952 Packard

1952 Packard Convertible

1952 Packard Convertible

1952 Packard interior

1952 Packard interior

1954 Mercedes

1954 Mercedes

1957 Chevy

1957 Chevy

1957 Corvette

1957 Corvette

1959 Morris Minor

1959 Morris Minor. Michael used to have one of these–too bad he didn’t hold onto it.

1962 Mercedes Benz

1962 Mercedes Benz

1974 Corvette

1974 Corvette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2014 Camano Car Show – Classic Cars – Part 1

I was so depressed this year, because we went to look at houses on Camano Island on the very day of the Magnolia Car Show that we so love!

But as fate would have it, Camano Island had its very own classic car show–on the same day! It was hot–they have it at the Community Center, and there are no shady trees as there are in Magnolia Village. But there were at least as many gorgeous old rides. Here are some of the highlights:

1927 REO Flying Cloud

1927 REO Flying Cloud

1930 Ford

1930 Ford

1931 Model-A-Ford-covertible

1931-Model-A-Ford covertible

1957 Corvette

1957 Corvette

 

1959 Eldorado Cadillac interior

1959 Eldorado Cadillac interior

 TO BE CONTINUED!!!

Is It Bertha’s Fault?

Viaduct meme

Seattle is digging a BIG tunnel.

When it gets done–assuming it ever does–it will replace a LONG overhead viaduct. The viaduct casts a shadow over prime city waterfront property. It is not a thing of beauty, unless you’re driving on it, and that makes property owners unhappy.

However, several problems have developed with its replacement. A gigantic, expensive tunnelling machine got stuck, hurt its teeth on an old steel pipe used in 2002 for groundwater studies and for some reason, never removed. Then Bertha took sick with a fever, got doctored up, but is still…stuck.

In the meantime, the viaduct has developed noticeable cracks and has to be temporarily closed for repairs years before the tunnel is completed.

Officials say the cracks are the result of settling from an earthquake that occurred 13 years ago. They have nothing whatsoever to do with Bertha, a 58-foot-tall, 7,000-ton boring machine blasting away–before it got stuck, that is–under the ground nearby.

Who knows, maybe they’re right. I hope so.

But my own common sense took my thoughts in a different direction and led me to create my first meme, at the top of this post.

 

 

Signs of Spring 2014

blue sky

Blue skies come to Seattle

It’s not here yet, but unmistakable signs of spring have hit Seattle. Not every day, but some days. Parts of days.

Sunshine. Blue skies.

Herons tidying up their old nests and moving back in to raise their younguns.

Flowers and trees coming into bloom, or forming big buds.

Join me virtually on our walk at the Ballard Locks as we discover the uplifting hints of spring.

daffodils

Daffodils are in full bloom, as are crocuses.

Forsythia

Forsythia is coming out.

Herons in nests

Herons are returning…

heron nests

…to their abandoned nests, fixing them up for their new families.

red leaf buds

Some trees are sprouting tiny red buds.

white buds

Buds that look like pussywillows are getting very close to blooming. What are they? I don’t know!

cherry tree

And cherry trees are coming into their own.

It’s getting to be a time of juvenile silliness, when students grow restless, looking out the window and longing to be outdoors. I’ll leave you with a “poem” they wrote on the blackboard back in my own youthful spring so long ago:

Spring has sprung

The grass is green

The bird is on the wing–

No, that’s absurd!

The wing is on the bird.

Happy almost-spring!

 

Privacy: It’s A Brave Old World

 

privacy then and now

My gut reaction to this Wall Street Journal story about a company that puts sensors in downtown businesses to track the whereabouts of customers for marketing purposes—They go to the gym a lot? Sell ‘em tank tops! They’re barflies? Better apply for a liquor license!—was probably the same as yours: outrage and disgust.

How dare anyone track your location without your permission? Is it even legal?

As it happens, the company that tracks customers everywhere they go is in Canada. But in the US, it’s legal for companies to collect and share customers’ location, though a bill is afoot to restrict that. Many US companies already track your movements inside their stores.

No matter what the courts decide, the fact is that Google and Apple, whose software operates smartphones, know where you are at all times. It’s just a question of what they can do with that information.

One solution is to turn off wifi. But that’s kind of beside the point.

Which is that it’s getting damn near impossible to keep anything you do or say private anymore.

It’s the nightmare everyone’s talking about, it’s Big Brother, it’s 1984, it’s the Horrifying Future it’s…it’s…

A throwback to the past. To where we’ve lived throughout most of civilization.

Example 1:

I recall in my early years as a lawyer, I tried to call Tom Forbes, a lawyer in Eureka, Kansas. I looked up his number in a phone book and gave it to the long distance operator. Instead of transferring my call, she informed me, “Mr. Forbes is at the race track,” so this ended my request. I did not ever get the satisfaction of being told this by Mr. Forbes’ office secretary. It came from the long-distance operator. That was the uniqueness of the small town, where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

–from Trials of a Small Town Lawyer, by Ervin E. Grant

Mr. Forbes never gave the long-distance operator permission to disclose his whereabouts. But the technology of the day was such that she had that information, and having it, chose to pass it on to someone who wanted it. Sound familiar?

Example 2:

Growing up I was raised in the country in Skiatook. Everything about me spelled out country girl.

Skiatook was like every other small town. Everyone knew everybody. Everyone knew everyone’s business and who you are who your momma and daddy are, and who your grandma and papa are. They knew where you lived what you drove and whether or not you went to church on Sunday. Some people thought this was a bad thing, everyone knowing your business and all.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter where you live; every small town is the same. Everyone knows everyone else’s business.

–Tobi Smith, Wagoner Tribune (Oklahoma)

It doesn’t matter where you live, all small towns are alike, and everyone knows your business.

We all came from small towns. Cities came from small towns.

This is how people lived, and live. They track one another’s whereabouts when they can, and then they spread the information around, and they lay it on thick, like cream cheese on a bagel. Sometimes the bagel gets turned into a doughnut, or a cream puff, or maybe a hot fudge sundae with an extra scoop and whipped cream and toasted almonds on top.

It’s human nature. We’re interested in other people, their whereabouts and whatabouts, whether it’s for marketing purposes or gossiping purposes.

Which doesn’t mean it’s right for a company to track your location. But it’s not a brave-new-world thing, either.

Could the internet be bringing back the small-town connectivity that the early 20th century, when people moved from their small towns to big, anonymous, disconnected cities, took away? The automobile took it away; big-city jobs far away from family and friends took it away; radio and TV and later tapes and CDs and DVDs took it away.

And the internet did too at first, when it was a new, isolating, confusing thing.

But by now there are internet communities as established and close-knit as Skiatook. With all the gossiping and feuding—and support and helpfulness—that any community offers its inhabitants.

And living in a place like the internet where everyone is connected is similar to living in a small town, where other people know your business and a lot of other things about you, whether you like it or not. Some of them use that information to try to sell you stuff—and surely small-town salesmen in days past did the same thing.

Others engage with your interests and hobbies—and maybe your business—in a way that was not possible before.

Example 3:

Shannon Ehlers lived and worked in tiny Soldier, Iowa (population approximately 300). When he was working as a traditional Chinese medicine chemist, he didn’t have a lot of industry peers anywhere near him. But he was a master of using LinkedIn to connect, and not just within chemistry circles. Shannon asked and answered lots of business questions on LinkedIn, connecting him with peers all over.

–from Small Town Rules, by Barry J. Moltz and Becky McCray

No one would argue that connecting with others by choice is a good thing—it’s a great thing, actually.

It’s when we don’t make the choice to let others to know about us that we get outraged. Just as Tom Forbes must have been, if he ever found out what the long-distance operator said.

So while you can accurately say modern technology is invading your privacy, you can also say:

Don’t like it? OK, turn off your computer and your tablet and your smart phone, quit your job, pack up, and go live in a small town far,  far away from all this infernal spying.

Except it’s not.

 

Guest Post from Ryan Rivera: Why, Yes, I Talk to Myself…And So Should You!

talking to yourself

I learned to talk to myself when I began suffering from panic attacks. It relaxes me. It balances me in a moment of chaos. It is my way of managing my panic symptoms, and it works.

But it’s more than that. It’s my way of affirming myself. It’s my tiramisu.

When I feel like a mess, I look in the mirror and tell myself, “You are not a mess. You were created by God in his own image; therefore, you are close to perfection. Go out there and be awesome!”

There was a time when I really hated my co-worker. But when I felt like shouting at him, I went to the washroom instead and talked to myself, saying, “The world will be a better place if you try to understand people more. If he gets in your nerves, just walk away. You are better than your anger.”

I used to have a stage fright. It kills me to be in front of people, especially if I have to speak. But I had to do it for a literature class. Besides calling on the angels and saints above to help me get through it, I told myself over and over, “It’s just for a few minutes. How bad could it be? You need this. You can’t fail this important subject just because you are afraid. Go break a leg!”

When I started having panic attacks, I found talking to myself to be a big help. It keeps the symptoms from getting worse. The moment I feel an impending attack, I breathe in and out for a couple of minutes, and then I go on to self-talk. I tell myself to take it easy. Just relax. Breathe in. Breathe out. Space out. “I am in a good place,” I say. “I will be okay. Nothing is going wrong. Everything is normal. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.”

And it helps a lot! Psychologists acknowledge the benefits of self-talk to improve your perception of yourself and alleviate tension, anxiety, stress, and panic attacks.

The study Talking Yourself out of Exhaustion: The Effects of  Self-Talk on Endurance Performance investigated the effects of motivational self-talk on endurance performance. It showed that “psychobiological interventions designed to specifically target favorable changes in perception of effort are beneficial to endurance performance.”

On the Brown University web site, they published an article about body image, which listed some tips on how to boost your body image. One is to practice thought-stopping when It comes to negative statements about yourself. It explains that you CAN reprogram your self-talk about your body, and positive statements are needed to replace the old messages.

If you think that self-talk is awkward, well…you’re right. But only in the beginning.

Think of talking to yourself as a motivation strategy. Use it to create a more positive atmosphere. Do it to make yourself feel better.

Feeling awkward is nothing compared to the benefits you get out of self-talk.