Answer

Here is the display that is brought up by pressing the button in the prior post. Thanks to those who submitted guesses - both were very good and better than I did!

What Does This Button Do?

This is a button on the dash of the new Jaguar XJ. Anybody care to guess what it does?

Guesses I've heard so far: (1) prints a ticket to the Gun Show, (2) turns seats face-to-face for texting.

Friends In Low Places

It's funny the things you discover when poking around the net at random. I'm not sure how it started, but I started looking at the last place I lived in Stillwater, OK, on a map.

In my college years, I was trying to save a little money so a few friends and I rented a trailer out in the country, just outside of Stillwater, OK. It was on Lakeview Road and it was waaaaay out of town. The road was barely paved and there were about 5 to 10 trailers in this plot of land that must have been two acres or so.

It was cheap, full of mice, and so far out of town that we rarely got visitors. But it was our place. My life started to spiral out of control about this time, and I can definitely remember laying in bed in that trailer, asking myself what I was doing out in the country in Oklahoma. I hated my major at OSU. I hated my job. I had no girlfriend. I was just plain unhappy. So I decided to move to California. I decided I would be gone by the end of 1980, and I made it with a month or so to spare. I've only been back to Stillwater once since then, but I'm pretty sure we were the last people to live in that dilapidated old trailer (my roomies moved back to town when I went to California).

Today, I noticed on the map that there was a huge building approximately where the trailer used to be. The trailers are long gone so I can't locate the exact spot, but it appears to me to be darn close to the same spot. Reading a bit, I found out that the building was a country ballroom built in 1981. When it was built, they brought in country acts, many of them famous, from all over the country. Now this surprised me because there was NOTHING out there but farm fields when I was there. For miles, you wouldn't see anything but a farmhouse every half mile or so. And in 1981, someone built a ballroom there? Wow!

But not as strange as the next thing I read. It turns out that another OSU student named Garth Brooks worked as a bouncer at that ballroom, called Tumbleweeds, in 1981. He liked it so much, in fact, that he started performing there. On this little lonely country road, just a year or two after I left, Garth Brooks did his first performance. That, my friends, is absolutely bizarre.

AutoDoodles

At home, I carry a small spiral notebook around with me quite a bit. I jot down my thoughts and ideas in it, which helps me remember things I need to buy, ideas for home improvements, and just general things to improve our lives. I also carry it to evening classes and meetings I attend, which allows me to do the above. The side benefit is that I get to doodle in the boring moments that typically happen any place I go - what else would I do while my oil is being changed at the dealer?

So here, for the first time ever, I am sharing some of the doodles I have in those spiral notebooks. A favorite doodle of mine is cars. I have drawing cars since I was about 9, and while I wouldn't want to make a career of it, it is a fun thing to do to pass the time.

From the drawings you'll see that sports cars and convertibles are drawn often. This is not necessarily because they are "cool" cars (whatever that means), but because they allow the drawer the most freedom. With sedans and trucks and SUVs (which are just tall station wagons), there are a lot of "must hit" points that limit the freedom of design. With sports cars, two doors and four wheels are the only requirements.

But I do draw sedans too. Here's one, with a coupe and a hot rod. Guess the coupe is my favorite out of the three. I think what sparked my interest in drawing cars was the discovery of CarTOONs magazine when I was about 9, a bi-monthly mag that was devoted to artists drawing cars. We lived on an Air Force base at the time, so that mag sold well to the single airmen on base. I would purchase one any time I went to the BX.

More of a quick sketch of a commuter car. I can't tell if I ran out of time, or decided I didn't like it enough to finish. It was coming out kind of frumpy anyway.

Another coupe, with headlights, etc running up the fenders to the base of the windshield. I predict this is going to be the decade of wild lighting designs on cars, with LEDs taking off and being small enough to do a myriad of new things. I also really like big flashy wheels, as you can see from the drawings. Tiny wheels make a car look like an elephant on rollerskates.

A sedan, economy car, and a pickup.
Economy car is my favorite of the three, with a industrial exposed-infrastructure look to the lower door area.

Don't car much for the front and rear views, but the 40s throwback at the bottom came out well. I don't relate well to pre-1960s era cars since I didn't see many when I was growing up, but some of the designs are still appealing.

And one more sports car to round out the bunch.

Random Doodles

And just to show that I do doodle other things, here is a bright cheery sun to liven the day.








A camera, which matches nicely to the home security system I was designing in the diagram below.









Here is a diagram of our northern California vacation that we took in the summer of 2009. It covers visits to San Francisco, Concours d'Elegance in Carmel, Fort Bragg, the redwoods, our son in Chico, my father in Lincoln, and a much needed tour of the wineries in Napa.









And sometimes, the doodles are of nothing at all.

Doodling A House

Another favorite thing of mine to doodle is buildings. Apparently, recently I've limited that to doodles of our house. At least, the outside of it.

Here's another rough sketch of it. I don't doodle buildings as much as I used to, they've kind of fallen out of favor with me for some reason.

We've been considering putting in a pool, so the real focus of many drawings of the house has been pool options. Here's one with the pool on the left side of the yard, with a hot tub on the left bottom edge and a fountain on the left top edge.

A circular design I considered, with a patio on the left, a hot tub top center, and the pool area on the right.

Troy Pics

Time for more Troy pics! About a week ago, I wandered out front with the camera to take pictures of Lucy's new car. Troy and Marcy followed me, so I took that opportunity to get a few shots of Troy.

He's out in front of our house, enjoying a 70 degree San Diego winter day.

We bought this blue parrot whistle when our boys, David and Ron, were little. You blow in one end and adjust a lever on the other end, which changes the pitch of the whistle. It is a very fun toy - but can get very annoying if done for too long.

Luckily, Troy can't blow that hard yet so he can play with it until his heart's content. One day when he's got more wind, the toy will mysteriously disappear. As it did when our boys were little. lol

My favorite photo from that day.

Troy, surveying his kingdom.