Sunset – the pictures

Here are some of the gazillion pictures I took last night out at the Great Salt Lake.

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Sunset over the Great Salt Lake

I went out to the Great Salt Lake this evening and took these pictures, one frame every 10 seconds with my huge telephoto lens.  As you can see, I didn’t account for the trajectory of the sun, and had to move the camera a couple of times to keep it in the picture.  You may also notice that I did some light adjustments.  Next time I’ll be prepared for these two things, and you’ll see much smoother movement.

The blog background picture is another one I took out there.  You can see the whole thing here.

Don’t forget your ID.

I’m used to having to have the checker clear me when I’m buying NyQuil, especially when I buy more than one bottle.  And there are a lot of other over the counter medications that you’ll get a funny look when buying more than one.  Heck, buy baking soda and aluminum foil at the Chevron and we automatically think “meth head”.

But transmission stop leak?  According to the counter person at Pep Boys, they have a whole bunch of things that they are required to check ID for.  Not because they are used in the making of meth, but because kids like to huff them.  Again I thought “but transmission stop leak?”  Ok, I guess if kids are stupid enough to sniff glue and huff Lysol, then what’s going to stop them from huffing automotive fluids. 

“Hey, you kids.  Get your nose off my engine!”

What is this world coming to?

 

 

P.S. – If you want to waste 12 minutes of your life seeing what it would look like driving from the Great Salt Lake to Sugarhouse strapped to the front of my ‘72 LTD, just click here.  And keep in mind, I don’t really drive that fast, I doubled the speed because I figured nobody would spend 30 minutes watching, instead of just almost nobody.

The Cat

Another one bites the dust.

In the beginning of the automotive age, there were literally hundreds of car companies.  Studebaker, Fischer, Hertz, Packard and Rambler, to name a few.  By the time I became aware of cars (when I was 3 according to my dad) they had coalesced into 4 major American car companies ; American Motors (Rambler and Jeep), General Motors (Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Cadillac), Chrysler (Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler) and Ford (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury).

Things were pretty stable back then.  AMC had the ugliest cars on the planet and Jeeps were trucks. Chevy was basic, Buick more upscale, Pontiac more sporty, Oldsmobile upscale and sporty and Cadillac was all luxury cars.  Dodge was the basic line, Plymouth the more upscale and Chrysler the luxury line; Ford, Mercury and Lincoln followed the same pattern.  You could tell cars built by AMC, GMC, Chrysler and Ford apart from each other a mile away, and you knew what to expect from it by the name on it’s trunk lid.

1987 saw the demise of AMC, absorbed by Chrysler who scrapped everything except the Jeep badge.  But then things were stable again, the “Big Three” remained untouched.  Until 2001, when Chrysler decided to discontinue their Plymouth line.  Shortly after, General Motors shut down their Oldsmobile line, and just recently their Pontiac line.

Well, I read in the paper today that Ford has decided to discontinue the Mercury line.  Bummer.   Of course it’s great that the company is doing things to remain financially strong,  but I have to admit, just like the news that they were discontinuing the LTD (Crown Victoria) line, it makes me a little sad to hear Mercury is done.

By any other name…

It’s still vandalism you @$$.

I don’t care how purdy, how colorful or even how meaningful it is – graffiti is plain and simple vandalism when it’s on someone else’s property.  period.  It is NOT art.

Yes, I spent a half hour scrubbing some tagging off the pumps at the Chevron today.  Our nice stainless steel bathroom partitions are all scratched up because we have to scrub them clean every now and then.  And we’re in a  “good” neighborhood.  I find tagging ugly and annoying, but short of the gang crap that is the human equivalent of cats spraying their territory, I’m willing to accept graffiti as an art form as long as it’s somewhere it’s wanted.  Let’s face it, if van Gogh had painted his stuff on the side of my house I would have been ticked.  So, don’t claim you’re an artist when you’re nothing but a punk ass vandal, or get some canvas and an easel and earn the title.

On the more fun side of things, there was some sort of major scavenger hunt going on.  We must have had 20 carloads of college kids running in looking for a block of ice and Haagen-Dazs ice cream and cutting each other off in the parking lot.  Made for a busy night, but at least it went by fast, and fortunately without any fender-benders.

Today