Happy Festivus (for the rest of us)!

Today, December 23, is the official day of Festivus. While I don't have a Festivus pole and I have no one I really need to invite to dinner for the official Airing of the Grievances, I do want to acknowledge this day because. . . well, because it's fun!



So may your Festivus pole stand unadorned and straight, your Festivus Feast be hearty, your Airing of Grievances be short, your Feats of Strength be victorious, and your Festivus Miracles be many!


Oh, and if you'd like to know more about what I'm up to, visit my other blog, Knit For Joy!

Lavender!

My friend Margie and I went to two, count 'em, two lavender festivals yesterday. Now, this may sound like an exhausting day, but in reality it involved driving to a couple of lavender farms not too far from home, then stopping for lunch at the historic Helvetia Tavern (no, we did not order the famous 'jumbo burger'), and finally driving out to Yamhill to see what was shaking at their festival. The fields of lavender are beautiful and it smells divine!

However, beyond picking lavender and watching the kids make lavender wands, watching someone demonstrate how to make a lavender wreath, or buying a few things from the small groups of vendors at each location, there wasn't much going on. I wish they would have had some hands-on stuff for the adults. Making those wands looked like fun! Anyway, it was a nice day and a nice drive with a good friend. And now my car smells wonderful because of the lavender sprays we purchased!

Now, all that said, if you want to enjoy a day in the country and pick bunches of fragrant lavender for a very reasonable price, visit a lavender festival in your area!

Yep, I'm still here!

Just been way busy with other things and am behind on posting!

We had eight cars in the Hillsboro Fourth of July Parade on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun, even though we ran out of candy to throw about half way through the route! I think every kid in town was lining those sidewalks! Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at the new Rose's Restaurant at the Streets of Tanasbourne. Great food and really good service!

You can see more pictures at my Club Photo site.

Oh, and yes, I now have my license plate mounted on the bumper. :(

However, I did add something new to the back of my Cruiser that I think is pretty cool. It's a perforated vinyl graphic, so from the outside, you see the picture, but from the inside, you see out the back window as if nothing was there. Obviously, I had the graphic already (a drawing I commissioned last year) and then Michael at Promotion in Motion in Vancouver, WA did the rest of the magic. I love it! You like?

Oh, if you like the Cruisin' graphic, you can get a copy for yourself printed on t-shirts, mugs, bags, and even stamps! Just click the link on the right to Buy Cruisin' Stuff! :)

Of license plates and motorcycle cops

Well, the saga continues. Today was my "arraignment" date for the ticket I got. To recap, the ticket was for not displaying a front license plate on my car. The thing is, the plate WAS displayed prominently (as the statute says it must be), it just wasn't bolted to the middle of my front bumper.

So, I trotted down to the Municipal Court and presented myself. This is something of a joke, because you don't really go to court at this point at all; you speak to a clerk at a window. I had the option of paying $35 and presenting proof that I had corrected the "problem" and thereby having the ticket cancelled, or pleading not guilty and asking for a trial date. Since I really want a ruling on this before I let anyone put holes in my beautiful custom-painted bumper, I entered a plea of not guilty and requested a trial date in person. That was all for today. Now I wait for a letter telling me when the trial date is set.


Here's where the plate was when the officer pulled me over. Can you read it? Does it appear to be "in plain view and so as to be read easily by the public" from the front of the vehicle? After all, that's what the statute (803.540 of the Oregon Vehicle Title and Registration code) specifies.

Call me crazy, but it sure looks like it fits the standard defined by the statute to me.



The picture to the right is where I have the plate temporarily mounted now. It truly IS temporary, though, 'cause it's going back onto the front dash this afternoon. I'll put it back on the grill again when I go to court and then, depending on what the outcome is, it will be moved to a more permanent location -- whether that's mounted on the bumper or on the dash again. I'll comply with the law, I just need to have it clarified before I'll deface my car.

Stay tuned! :)

Star in your own commercial!

I found this info on another blog and went and made my own Kodak commercial. You can put five of your own pictures in. Pretty cool. Here's the one I made:

Picture requests

Okay, I got a request for pictures of my car from my buddies over at the TV Clubhouse, so here you go!

This first one is from a cruise to Mt. Hood last summer. It was taken in the parking lot at Timberline Lodge. If only I could have gotten those other cars to move, it would have been PERFECT! :)

And here's a composite picture that I had done at a car show a couple year's back. It's actually a BIG poster on the wall in my living room. Yes, I'm crazy about this car!!! :)

I'll be posting new pictures as cruises happen this year, so stay tuned!

Star Cruisin', baby!

It's a new day and a new look for the website. I no longer have time to build my own site, so I'm turning it into a blog format instead.

Summer Cruisin' season is almost here! I'll post updates on our activities as I get a chance.

Latest addition to the Star Cruiser: A 10" subwoofer and amp and connection for my iPod directly to the Alpine head unit. No FM connection for my iPod, instead, it connects directly and gets charged as I cruise and listen. Pretty cool. Plus, I now can turn the bass up to window-rattling levels. WHEE!!

Bad news of the week. I finally got pulled over for not having my front license plate mounted. The officer also said that my front window tinting was too dark and so was my rear window. Hmmm. . . the rear window is factory-tinted and the side windows? Well, I'll have them checked, but the meter he used to measure light transmittance probably wasn't going to be very lenient on a dark, cloudy Oregon spring day! At least he didn't write a citation for that one.

As for the license plate, I looked up the statute and it DOES NOT specify that the plate must be mounted to the front bumper. It merely says that the plate must be clearly visible, which it clearly IS while it sits propped against the front windshield on the passenger's side. I will attempt to get the judge to agree with me on this one and let you know what happens. Worst case, I get the darned thing mounted in the middle of my pretty painted bumper.