I found this via a comment by “BitterOldPunk” on metafilter, which seems to be via manoverse. It surely has to contend for the world’s most perfect photo.

The “Wall of Death” was (is?) a common amusement park attraction in England. Lions were (are?) extra.

Went past the Flying Heritage Museum (again!) while running errands on Saturday. They were going to be flying the P-51 Mustang and the Messerschmitt 109…what they actually flew was a bit of a treat: They flew the 109 and three P-51s. The three Mustangs flew in honor of Captain Harrison “Bud” Tordoff, who was assigned the very P-51 the museum owns during Hitler’s war.
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Note: To see the item below, you have to have the photosynth plugin installed. You may be out of luck on a non-Windows machine, too, sorry about that–I’m just fooling around, here.

This was automagically stitched by photosynth, a Microsoft Live technology. I uploaded the photos from my visit to the flight museum, and it was able to put a few together. When it works it’s pretty neat, but some of the failures leave me scratching my head…not that software like this isn’t insanely complex, and it’s neat it’s available at all. But there are a few examples where the photos would seemingly be easy to stitch, and yet they’re not.

Anyway, if you can see it, enjoy.

Before picking the car up on Saturday, my friend and I stopped by the Flying Heritage museum to watch them take the Hawker Hurricane and Polikarpov I-16 Type 24 Rata up for a demonstration flight. The Hurricane is a beautiful aircraft, not as pretty as a Spitfire, perhaps, but quite handsome. The Rata is like a pug dog–squashed-nose and barrel-bodied but likable all the same.
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I picked this car up on Saturday with the help of my friend Jeff. Seems like a good machine so far, the usual “oh my god, what have I done” moment hasn’t yet arrived (you’ll know when it does). I even got 28 MPG on the trip back!
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This is probably more like it.
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I’m not sure how realistic this version is–need to do a cost guesstimate and then recoil in horror, I imagine. It’s “smaller” and more “zoned” than the prior effort, but with the complication that my office and Allie’s darkroom need to be housed out here, due to a smaller house. That means the cut floor space is added back in more expensive form. Sigh.
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Consider: This car was $69,000 new in 1996 (in today’s dollars, that’s about $90,000). I’m paying almost exactly 5% of the 1996 price for this car, in 2008. That depreciation is absolutely mind-boggling; in constant dollars, the car essentially lost 97% of its value in a bit more than a decade. Much as I love Jaguars, I cannot imagine buying one new unless I had chests of gold doubloons.

This Vanden Plas is not absolutely perfect, but it is in very nice condition, with 84,000 miles. I think it’s “Kingfisher Blue,” which is a darkish blue-green, depending on the light. The inside has all the usual excess, including lambswool over-rugs and picnic tables for those carefree afternoons picnicking in wine country gorging on gut bombs at the drive-in. It’s also the long-wheelbase version, which means the rear doors are about ten feet long.

After visiting the air museum (see the post prior to this one) we took a jaunt to the 2008 All British Field Meet. We arrived as things were winding down a bit, a few cars were leaving…still plenty to see!
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