Hood Ornaments and Open Engines

Yesterday we went to the Carolina Classics at the Capital and while the cars are impressive it is the finer details of some of the vehicles that really catches my eye.  I would like to have a car with a swan taking flight or a gazelle running down the front of my hood.  I even like the old Ford and Chevrolet emblems proudly displayed on the front of the car. Maybe they represent another era or maybe I just never drove a car cool enough to have a hood ornament.

Either way – I had some fun taking pictures of them and might have to find something that would be a good fit for the Solara – what about this one? No – that looks a little too much like this from the State Fair of Texas (the last car show I went to). More hood ornaments and a few open engines after the jump if you see one you like for the Solara just let me know.

Carolina Classics at the Capital

Carolina Classics at the Capital returns to downtown Raleigh for a weekend packed with 100s of cars both in the convention center and lined up on Fayetteville Street. You saw a preview of the cars from the Random Photos post earlier this weekend but Sunday morning was a good time to go downtown, meet up with the family and look at the cars parked outside before the crowd hit.

We got there earlier on Sunday morning and had fun walking around with relatively few people out and an awesome breeze. I saw a lot of cars I would like and even more I with I could afford. We left shortly after the music started and well before the crowd filled in but I don’t think we missed any of the cars. We did opt not to go inside but should this come back again next year we may have to check out some of the cars that they were promoting like the vehicles from the TV show the Munster’s and a 1961 Aston Martin valued at over $2 million. More pictures after the jump.

And no – I am not a car expert and I wasn’t taking notes so your guess is better than mine on the particular make, model or age of the car.  My personal favorite from the show is the one to the right but I would really have to get it painted another color if I ever wanted Travis to ride in it.

Implementation of a Self Watering Planter

Recently Cara went to a workshop at the Inter-faith Food Shuttle Farm on Tryon Road. She came home with a lot of good ideas and a few seedlings to build our garden. Unfortunately the quality and quantity of space we have for such activities is extremely limited. This creates a small hurdle in planting a garden but not one that you can’t solve using a little technology and creativity.

I had read a couple of articles on self watering planters on lifehacker.com (here and here) using storage containers. If you read about the EarthTainer on tomatofest.com and watch the videos you’ll be sold on the concept of a contained self watering planter. At least – I was. The obstacle? Finding the time to get the parts, build the box and do it all before the plants were beyond being able to be planted.  Bottom line? We needed one of these that was already built and ready to grow. Fortunately they do exist and are relatively easy to find under the common name EarthBox and they can be purchased locally at Logan’s Trading Co. and Plow & Hearth (where we got ours on sale).

The concept here is simple – the container creates a self-contained, closed loop “eco-system” that efficiently uses water. The plants sit over a water reservoir that feeds the roots so there is no water run off. The setup was simple and in the pictures after the jump we have the step by step setup of the box as well as pictures of all the parts.  We are hoping to grow cauliflower, broccoli, squash, and a pie pumpkin in our container. Optimistic? Maybe. But we’ll see. If this works we might try to increase the number of boxes we are using by spring planting. From start to finish putting the pieces together took about an hour with stopping on occasion to take pictures of what we were doing.

Random Photos in Raleigh

At times when you are out and about you encounter unusual or eye-catching things that need a picture taken. Or you are just bored and passing the time with a shot here and there. Either way – when you check the camera the next day you have a few fun shots and some that make little to no sense at all. After the jump is a small gallery of the images that came out well enough to see or ones that could be Photoshopped back to being visible. They were all taken with the Canon Powershot in the dark. (Not this camera’s strong suit.) So for the pictures…

The beer? Guess who was drinking what.

Not sure who Igor & Red Elvises (should that be Elvii?) are but they had a well placed sticker outside of Player’s Retreat. Sometimes that is all you need to get a plug and a link from NOSVC. With songs like Drinking with Jesus, I Wanna See You Bellydance and Closet Disco Dancer they can’t suck – right?

The cars are from a car show that is going on downtown the weekend. More from BobG – here, here, here, here, here and here.

Deep fried everything? Those are collateral damage taken at the car show as a result of talking to Paul Jones about the NC State Fair and walking past a closed “we deep fry everything” booth later in the evening. Coincidence or fate – you decide.

The Fantastic Sky Race

Earlier this month the Wake County Parking deck (one day to become the L Building) got a colorful new addition – The Fantastic Sky Race. If you are like me you heard art installation, saw it was cool and took a couple of pictures of it and didn’t think much of it. I had heard in passing that the project had something to do with the Wake County Library so I assumed all the images were from random children’s books of which I was not familiar.  Not till we parked under the last panel with the title of the piece did I realize that perhaps this had more of an original and local angle than I thought.

So I did a little web surfing and learned that this was not images from random children’s books but art from three NCSU design students. I also found a photo set on Flickr of the images used for the panels.  On closer inspection I found the NCSU bell tower, a zeppelin with an acorn and a flying statue of Sir Walter Raleigh. There is probably more I missed but the images on Flickr are definitely worth looking at closely.  There may even be a Star Wars reference – is that Cloud City on the next to last panel?

Enjoy the largest and perhaps coolest art installation in Raleigh while it lasts and hit the Flickr set for a few details that are hard to catch as you drive by.