Searching for Coffee Photos - Milwaukee

Searching for Coffee Photos are a photographic diary of the details I stumble by on the jet-lagged search for caffeine in whatever random city I happen to find myself in. They are always so much more fascinating before the clarity of caffeine. As Milwaukee is my third post under the Searching for Coffee Photos label, following Paducah and Sacramento. The blistering cold made for a teary-eyed, six block trek across the Milwaukee River to the nearest Starbucks. It did put a damper on my enthusiasm, but I still managed a few mediocre details worth capturing.

Snowy Owl

Yesterday I flew from San Francisco to Pasco, Washington, to Denver. As I was clearing the runway in Pasco I spotted a white figure perched on a runway distance remaining sign. It was a gigantic snowy owl. It was at least two feet tall with haunting yellow eyes. I think it was a female, who's white plumage sharply contrasted the yellow grass of the airport grounds. After we taxied to the terminal I asked the tower controller if he could spot her with his binoculars. The terminal was easily half a mile away and I could still make her silhouette with my naked eyes. He had no problem finding her and decided such a large bird on the edge of the runway was a threat to both parties involved. He called Airport Operations to drive out and scare her off the runway. I had a small pair of binoculars and watched as the truck approached. Snowy owls nest on the ground and have no fear defending it against arctic foxes, grey wolves, or other larger predators. The truck had to get really close before she budged. When she did spread her wings and fly away the enormity of her size became apparent. Ed, the operations guy, said her wingspan was at least five feet. Ed napped a few close ups and offered to email them to me, which I readily accepted. Seeing such a dramatic animal so close up in the wild (of the airport) really made my day!

iPhone Pic through my Binoculars

Cropped

(you can see her standing on the black sign directly below the left side of the house)

Close Up

Photo Courtesy of Ed Bayha

Flying Away

Photo Courtesy of Ed Bayha

Waking Up a Sleeping Midget

In 1972 my Dad bought a brand new MG Midget. He drove it almost daily until the late '80's. Over the years he added lots of switches and gadgets, like every thing else he owned. It has clocks and a compass out of a WWII fighter, custom dash and console, custom engine gauges, an inverter, a smoke screen, and an uga horn. Most of it is disconnected. When my Dad got sick in 2004, he didn't have time to give me anything more than a hand-drawn diagram to make sense of the mess of wires under the hood before he died.

Dad's Midget back in the '70's

Crazy Gauges & Switches

The years of east coast daily driving have rotted the vulnerable British paint and body work. The interior isn't much better, especially the giant piece of foam sticking out of the driver's seat that. I do my best to ignore it! To an outsider the car would be best described as a basket case, but due to my Dad's dutiful maintenance, it is mechanically sound. Ever since he passed away, I've made a commitment to keep it running as long as possible. It gets more smiles, waves, and comments than the M Coupe and brings back nostalgic memories of riding in the passenger seat as a small child, barely able to see over the dash. It spent a couple more years in Maryland before I brought it back to Colorado in 2007. For some reason Diogee took the car. If Jo wasn't with me, he always rode shotgun.

Enjoying the Boulder Foothills with Diogee

He Took this Picture

(dam good shot for a dog)

In the summer of 2008, while driving up a steep hill in my neighborhood, the engine started hesitating. I nursed it home and into the garage. It was the middle of my mountain bike racing season, between work and training I didn't have time to troubleshoot the problem. Summer turned to fall, weeks turned to months then years and the Midget sat in the corner of the garage. The layer of dust thickened, along with my guilt, and the repair evolved from solving a running issue to starting a motor that hadn't been run in years.

3 Years of Dust

Fast forward to 2012. Over the next couple months I have a crazy scheme in the works. I'm not gonna say what it is yet, but I will say that I can't go through with it in good consciousness unless the Midget is running first. When it originally started running rough I suspected either a fuel issue or an ignition issue. I decided to rule out the latter by replacing the 40 year old condenser in the distributor with a solid state ignition. It's a great modern upgrade that remains hidden inside the original distributor cap. I also picked up a new high performance Lucas (prince of darkness) Sport Coil, rotor head, and spark plugs. For bad fuel (if it wasn't bad when I parked, it would be bad now) I compiled a concoction of dry gas, fuel treatment, carb cleaner, and new filter. The battery was long dead so I picked up a new one. It's barely bigger than a motorcycle battery.

The Tools for Awakening a Sleeping Midget

The oil was actually good. I changed it right before I parked it back in 2008. I poured fresh oil into the cylinders and cylinder head. Then it was time to see if the engine was seized. I couldn't turn it by hand without taking the fan belt out of adjustment so I put it 4th gear and pushed it forward slowly. It moved freely! The prep would be completed by installing the electronic goods, flushing the old fuel, cleaning the hell out of the carbs, installing the new fuel filter, and priming some of my gas concoction into the fuel lines. The process took days, but just after dark on Friday night I was ready to try starting it.

Scary Nest of Wires

Solid State Ignition Installed

Jo came out and cranked it while I sprayed a combination of carb cleaner and starter fluid directly into the carbs. It kicked on the first try, but quickly sputtered back to silence. The second prolonged try resulted in nothing. After dumping copious amounts of starter fluid into the intakes, the third try was a charm. It kicked and the revs rose into a grumbly idle. A thick sheen of white smoke poured out of the exhaust as the idle stabilized. Within five minutes it was purring like a kitten, an amazing testament to my Dad's mechanical care.

Dark but Running

WIth air in the tires I headed out to car wash to clean off the dust. An extended road test revealed that the original running issue wasn't totally solved. It happened again going up a steep hill which makes me think I have water or foreign objects in the gas tank. The dry gas in my concoction probably absorbed most of the water. It ran better once the road leveled out, but I don't think it's solved yet. The important thing is the Midget is running again.

Wash Time

Foam Bath

Clean At Last

I laughed out loud at the absurdity of the Midget and its gadgets compared to the sea of boring modern vehicles surrounding me. I can't wait for spring so I can do some proper British motoring with the top down!

Searching for Coffee Photos - Paducah (that's in Kentucky)

Last month I started a new label called "Searching for Coffee Photos". It's about how the random details of what ever city I happen to be in are way more interesting before caffeine than after. The first post in Old Town Sacramento (here) was easy; with giant golden bridges, steam locomotives, and cool urban art I couldn't help but be enthralled by my surroundings.

The hotel we stay at in Paducah, Kentucky is located across the street from a strip mall. It would be hard to find things worth photographing, even with the benefit of pre-caffeinated haze. The point of the post isn't photographic brilliance, it's noticing beauty or at least wonderment in the minor things that I fail to notice once the hustle and bustle of the day takes hold. The same rules apply, only the iPhone camera and only before caffeine. Here's what I came up with from a morning in Paducah.