Mercedes 300d Time Travel
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By: Chris Greacen - 11/15/2023
The Woods & Barclay guys shared a video recently of a pristine 300d specimen with about 1500 miles on the odometer that they found through its owner north of Montreal. Take a peek at this thing which is as shiny and new as the day it rolled off the line.It's especially a treat to have someone so knowledgeable point out all of the details. I have to imagine that there are parts of that car that even an expert hasn't seen before - the crispness and texture of the dash. It's worth scrubbing through the video to see how deep they go on this vehicle.
There are so many of these old things on the road in the bay area, many running biodiesel or veggie oil. People like that these things are sturdy, long-lasting, and tough. It's easy to forget that these things were the top of the pyramid in luxury and engineering in their day.
The convo at the end of the video brings this into perspective - even though it's the same model, daily drivers are really a different breed from a showpiece like this one-of-a-kind vehicle. Most people can get what they need from a re-furbed vehicle with 250000 miles on it (or 350 in my case).
category = FUN
tagses = W123, MBZ, 300D, CLASSIC CARS, MERCEDES BENZ, MERCEDES, BENZ, COSMOLINE,
Leave a comment More Mercedes Love: Soup Classic Motoring
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By: Chris Greacen - 10/22/2023
I've been really enjoying the videos that George Karellas have shared on his Soup Classic Motoring channel on YouTube. His lockdown restoration of aJust watch one video and you'll get the gist -- cool music, mesmerizing narrative, clear steps for working on these things (the stop-motion disassembly is strikingly effective). How is he able to make the rebuilding of a front-end so interesting?
All of these strip-down, brush-down, repaint scenes scratch the cleaning fetish itch too. A fetish which I certainly lack -- BUT I have noticed that I'm cleaning the engine bay of my 300td more frequently.
The Irish sideshow at the end is especially magical. Watch this end-to-end if you can.
Parting thought, I think I might need to make a new 'category' for these W123 videos and photos as I think there will be more that show up on this blog.
category = FUN
tagses = W123, GEORGEKARELLAS, GEORGE KARELLAS, SOUP CLASSIC MOTORING, YOUTUBE, OM617, 300TD, 300D 240D, MERCEDES, MBZ,
Leave a comment Technical Debt Talk at Bay ALN Meetup
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By: Chris Greacen - 10/19/2023
I recently wrote a post on Lab Zero's blog on the topic of recognizing sources of technical debt. This caught the attention of one of the organizers of the Bay ALN meetups and they invited me to present on the topic.I put a brief talk together based on the outline of that blog post and delivered it the other night. I think I can embed a couple slides from the deck I used...
The presentation followed this path through the story.
- Intro, caveats
- Tech debt background
- Recognizing trouble
- Two common sources
- Recognizing progress
- The real casualty
- Two questions for you
Give this a listen if you're curious about how this went or if you're interested in Technical Debt.
category = TECH
tagses = TECHNICAL DEBT, MEETUP, BAYALN, AGILE LEADERSHIP, PRODUCT MANAGERS, ENGINEERS, SOFTWARE ENGINEERS, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, STANDARDS, MANAGING TECHNICAL DEBT,
Leave a comment Mercedes 300td love
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By: Chris Greacen - 10/14/2023
I've been working on getting my 1984 300td back onto the road after a long hibernation during the pandemic. I got this thing in the early 2010s and it's been a joy to drive. If you're familiar with these things, you know exactly what I mean. For the uninitiated, I'll break it down for you.These w123 cars were designed and built by Mercedes during a time when the company gave incredible amount of power and permission to its engineers. It was an engineering-led effort to design and build these vehicles. This resulted in a ridiculously expensive and long-lived vehicle.
In 1984 dollars this vehicle cost around $36k, which would be about $100k in 2023 dollars. I bought it for about $2500.
It's steel. It leaks a little oil. I've replaced the engine during the time I've owned it (long story). It needs a little bit of work pretty often at this point, but it's still on track to reach a million miles.
I run this thing on biodiesel thanks to the availability of B20 at the nearby Biofuel Oasis. But I know that this isn't exactly an eco-conscious car when you look at the particulate, COx, and NOx emissions.
There's a great video that I came across that's really a love-letter to these w123 and w115 cars. Worth watching if you're interested/curious. If you scroll up to 14:13 on the video, the host addresses the environmental trade-offs and impact of driving this kind of car. Take a peek:
It was surprising to see the mention of tire particulate pollution. I have a hunch we'll near more and more about this as more people convert to electric vehicles. We live near many highways and I'm pretty sure that we're bathing in these particles. More on this in another post.
If you see me driving around, honk and wave!
Doubleplus Alright at Tamarack 10/7 photos
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By: Chris Greacen - 10/12/2023
Couple of great photos worth sharing from our double-double on Saturday 10/7 shot by Paul Ivey.We're grateful for the chance to share these songs with friends at a place like Tamarack. Grateful also to the other bands who played: Da Pupz and Cassowary. Would do this again in a heartbeat.
Next up for us: we have to record some music. We've started work on Record #3 and we haven't even really done #1 yet. We'll get there...
More about Doubleplus Alright over on the website.
category = MUSIC
tagses = HIGHGAINPOP, POWPOP, POWERPOP, CHUGPOP, BLITZPOP, SPUNK, PUNK, DOUBLEPLUSALRIGHT, DOUBLEPLUS, TAMARACK, SOLARVANSATURDAYS, OAKLAND, BERKELEY, DOUBLEDOUBLE, PJ.EYE, ALLAGES, ALLRAGES, CASSOWARY, DA PUPZ, VKTMS,
Leave a comment - 10/05/2023 — MUSIC —
Double Double Saturday 10/7
- 09/01/2023 — TECH —
Wishing a good Labor Day weekend, calling out blog posts
- 08/28/2023 — TECH —
Two Most Common Sources Of Technical Debt
- 03/08/2023 — TECH —
Lies we tell ourselves: the 10xEngineer
- 02/13/2023 — TECH —
Reflecting on the project that started it all
- 02/08/2023 — TECH —
A vision for Lab Zero
- 01/02/2023 — MUSIC —
Trip Down Memory Lane: Black Market Music
- 09/08/2022 — MUSIC —
Outdoor Doodles
- 08/22/2022 — FUN —
Austria Trip
- 10/05/2021 — MUSIC —
New Day Undone
- 10/04/2021 — MUSIC —
Blert album release: New Day Undone
- 03/09/2021 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day 2021: Mile On Ice
- 01/02/2021 — TECH —
This damn site
- 12/07/2020 — MUSIC —
New Blert Song: Escape
- 11/22/2020 — MUSIC —
Bump Doodle on Instagram
- 09/09/2020 — MUSIC —
New blert song: CTRL-Z
- 08/23/2020 — MUSIC —
Blert - For Obvious Reasons
- 07/17/2020 — MUSIC —
Doodles 2020
- 04/28/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Build To Learn
- 04/21/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Self-Healing Teams
- 04/05/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Embrace Risk
- 04/05/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Are You Agile?
- 04/04/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: What is Essential?
- 04/02/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Trust From Home
- 01/22/2020 — TECH —
Why is Agile Popular?
- 02/04/2019 — TECH —
12 Signs Your Client Trusts You
- 12/07/2018 — MUSIC —
#MyMusical2018 Part 5: Other Shows
- 12/06/2018 — MUSIC —
#MyMusical2018 Part 4: Doodles (something New)
- 12/05/2018 — MUSIC —
#MyMusical2018 Part 3: Open mics and other gigs
- 12/04/2018 — MUSIC —
#MyMusical2018 Part 2: Song-A-Day 2018
- 12/03/2018 — MUSIC —
#MyMusical2018 Part 1: Doubleplus Alright
- 06/29/2016 — FUN —
Missing 1963 Bing Log
- 05/10/2015 — MUSIC —
Doubleplus-Alright
- 03/06/2015 — MUSIC —
Om One
- 02/19/2015 — MUSIC —
Music is all around us.
- 02/17/2015 — MUSIC —
Leftovers from MP3 Compression
- 01/13/2015 — FUN —
Favorite Friends Episode
- 10/29/2014 — FUN —
A Wave
- 08/22/2014 — FUN —
OMG Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (The Art Department)
- 08/21/2014 — FUN —
Holy Crap Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Peggy Olson)
- 08/20/2014 — FUN —
Even More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Ted Chaough, Pete Best)
- 08/19/2014 — FUN —
More Artwork From Mad Men, Season 7 (Don Draper, Jim Cutler)
- 08/18/2014 — FUN —
Artwork Seen In Mad Men, Season 7
- 05/06/2014 — FUN —
Chrissy Tomasco and the 2014 Overnight Walk
- 02/20/2014 — MUSIC —
Observed: Scat/Rap Counterpoint
- 01/16/2014 — FUN —
2013 Overheards and Observeds
- 12/27/2013 — FUN —
A wave
- 10/22/2013 — FUN —
A wave
- 09/25/2013 — FUN —
Instagram Embed Test
- 09/25/2013 — MUSIC —
Manatee gig 9/27/2013 at Hemlock Tavern!
- 06/25/2013 — MUSIC —
Manatee gig 6/28/2013 at Thee Parkside!
- 06/05/2013 — MUSIC —
Manatee gig 6/6/2013
- 06/04/2013 — TECH —
CTA- the most important part of your page.
- 06/03/2013 — TECH —
All web apps
- 05/06/2013 — MUSIC —
Manatee KXLU session
- 03/28/2013 — FUN —
Surfing on Easter Sunday
- 12/20/2012 — FUN —
2012 Overheards and Observeds
- 02/29/2012 — TECH —
Strata Conference
- 02/22/2012 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day In-Progress
- 06/29/2010 — TECH —
And Boom!
- 02/25/2010 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day what a difference 25 days make
- 12/15/2009 — TECH —
Rubicon Project Ad Network Sloughs-off Small Publishers
- 10/23/2009 — FUN —
Shopping for Used Surfboards
- 10/19/2009 — MUSIC —
HELL -- Your Soundtrack For Halloween
- 09/28/2009 — FUN —
Story of a Surfboard: SF Green Ten-Footer
- 09/08/2009 — FUN —
Story of a Surfboard: 1963 Bing
- 09/05/2009 — FUN —
Dings With Stories
- 08/18/2009 — FOOD —
Absurd Film/Foodie Moment
- 06/24/2009 — TECH —
Allspaw talks at Velocity Conf.
- 04/05/2009 — FOOD —
Menu and Wines from Dinner at Cyrus
- 03/29/2009 — TECH —
Twitter-Based Blog Syndication Flowchart
- 03/26/2009 — TECH —
Twitter-Based Surf Report Flowchart
- 03/09/2009 — MUSIC —
Top 10 things to do now that Song-A-Day is done:
- 03/02/2009 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day 2009: DONE
- 02/23/2009 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day Notes From The Studio
- 02/15/2009 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day Week 2: Still truckin'
- 02/09/2009 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day Week 1: Awesome
- 01/26/2009 — MUSIC —
29 Again: Song-A-Day
- 01/19/2009 — TECH —
GoFish Becomes Betawave
- 01/17/2009 — MUSIC —
Song-A-Day Shopping List
- 01/07/2009 — FOOD —
Espresso. Pulled, Not Stirred
- 12/25/2008 — FUN —
Merry Christmas!
- 12/19/2008 — FUN —
FOTC Season II
- 12/15/2008 — TECH —
Darwin's moth: a survey of behavioral targeting solutions
- 12/12/2008 — TECH —
100k Pageviews For Free
- 12/06/2008 — FUN —
Mad Scientist
- 12/05/2008 — FUN —
The Magic of Surf
- 12/04/2008 — MUSIC —
The Darjeeling LTD. Tunes
- 12/03/2008 — FUN —
Blert, A Zeen
- 12/01/2008 — TECH —
The End Is Near
- 10/31/2008 — MUSIC —
A Great Pumpkin
- 10/09/2008 — FOOD —
New Crop of Food TV
- 10/02/2008 — FUN —
Time To Take A Stand
- 09/22/2008 — MUSIC —
Seth Adds To His Music Store
- 09/18/2008 — FUN —
Skate or die
- 09/03/2008 — TECH —
A day on Chrome
- 08/21/2008 — FUN —
Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty
- 08/20/2008 — TECH —
Digsby will change the way you communicate online
- 07/29/2008 — FUN —
No Effing Way
- 07/16/2008 — TECH —
twitterfountain, fun stuff!
- 06/27/2008 — TECH —
Post 1000
- 06/26/2008 — FUN —
The horror of AOL
- 06/25/2008 — FUN —
Fun with Wordle
- 06/16/2008 — FOOD —
RIP tastespotting.com
- 06/13/2008 — PHOTO —
twitpic, kinda cool...
- 06/12/2008 — FUN —
Ryan & Chris score surfings hat trick.
- 06/05/2008 — TECH —
Matt Freeman to GoFish
- 05/29/2008 — FOOD —
Even More Shrimps...
- 05/28/2008 — FUN —
Drunk Goldblum Meme
- 05/15/2008 — FUN —
Linda Mar Extreeeem #2
- 05/14/2008 — FUN —
Double Surf-Swap Happiness This Weekend.
- 05/08/2008 — FOOD —
Super Foodie
- 05/07/2008 — FUN —
Hello, my name is Stud
- 05/01/2008 — FUN —
Geo Quiz
- 04/24/2008 — FUN —
All-Time Favorite Commercial
- 04/21/2008 — FOOD —
Foody Weekend
- 04/18/2008 — FOOD —
April in Carneros
- 04/17/2008 — TECH —
AdTech: Widgets and Gadgets
- 04/17/2008 — FUN —
Greacens in the news again...
- 04/17/2008 — FUN —
Effing greatest video effer.
- 04/16/2008 — FUN —
All time favorite video
- 04/15/2008 — TECH —
GFSearcher=Nutch
- 04/15/2008 — FUN —
Robert Greacen Dies at 87
- 04/09/2008 — FUN —
SF's fleaflicker works, crowds duped
- 04/09/2008 — TECH —
bashWebTest Lives!
- 03/24/2008 — TECH —
Simple Rss Widgets
- 03/19/2008 — TECH —
COPPA, friend or foe?
- 03/17/2008 — FUN —
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
- 03/05/2008 — TECH —
Social Widgets
- 03/04/2008 — MUSIC —
29 done...
- 02/28/2008 — MUSIC —
Song-a-day almost done!
- 02/25/2008 — MUSIC —
I can see the light!
- 02/19/2008 — MUSIC —
Still playing catchup
- 02/18/2008 — TECH —
GoFish, For Reals
- 02/14/2008 — MUSIC —
More Lack of Engineering
- 02/13/2008 — MUSIC —
Engineering... and lack of
- 02/10/2008 — PHOTO —
Surfed, not rocked
- 02/09/2008 — PHOTO —
Sifting through some stuffs on kodak
- 02/08/2008 — TECH —
KodakGallery FINALLY integrates with the web
- 02/07/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs: Day 4,5,6:
- 02/05/2008 — MUSIC —
James Blackshaw, wow
- 02/05/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs: Day 3: More To Come
- 02/05/2008 — TECH —
QA Interviewing: The Phone Screen
- 02/04/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs: Day 3: If Yes, Then No
- 02/02/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs: Day 2: On The Other Side
- 02/01/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs: Day 1: Took To The Air
- 01/31/2008 — MUSIC —
29 Songs Starts!
- 01/31/2008 — MUSIC —
Jon Brion on Eli Somethingoranothers
- 01/30/2008 — FOOD —
2005 Directors Cut Russian River Charonnay
- 01/29/2008 — TECH —
GoFish spilled, again...
- 01/29/2008 — TECH —
108 Votes for NetScrap.com
- 01/28/2008 — FUN —
Break-ins at Lafayette BART Station
- 01/25/2008 — TECH —
Seeqpod sued by Warner Music
- 01/25/2008 — TECH —
js-kit comments on greacen.com
- 01/24/2008 — MUSIC —
February 2008: Song-a-Day a.k.a 29 Songs
- 01/23/2008 — FOOD —
Chasing the blue dragon: Blue Bottle Coffee Opens
- 01/23/2008 — FUN —
The horror of the Hayward fault
- 01/21/2008 — TECH —
34 million lattes on Howard St.
- 01/21/2008 — FUN —
What's the Greacen?
- 01/18/2008 — FUN —
CC, the Casual Carpool
- 01/15/2008 — TECH —
Macworld today
- 01/13/2008 — MUSIC —
OMG
- 01/13/2008 — TECH —
Technorati? Well, ok.
- 01/13/2008 — TECH —
Netscrap top queries
- 01/12/2008 — FUN —
Mavericks today!
- 01/10/2008 — MUSIC —
Tuesday night covers
- 01/10/2008 — FUN —
Today, I am Sven
- 01/09/2008 — TECH —
Gofish, spilled...
- 01/09/2008 — TECH —
Caffe Trieste in SOMA is the place
- 01/08/2008 — TECH —
Vizu Survey on Netscrap.com
- 01/07/2008 — TECH —
Netscrap's birthday
- 01/01/2008 — FUN —
Happy 08!
- 12/26/2007 — FOOD —
A letter to Michael Cimarusti
- 12/26/2007 — FOOD —
Zinfandel-palooza
- 12/25/2007 — FUN —
Merry X-Mas!
- 12/16/2007 — FOOD —
2005 Falcon Ridge Lodi Zinfandel
- 12/12/2007 — TECH —
ruby, python, or php?
- 12/10/2007 — TECH —
Zombie Technology
- 12/06/2007 — TECH —
Hello World, From the phone
- 11/26/2007 — FOOD —
Daniel Boulud on Mojo
- 09/23/2007 — TECH —
Long time no blog.
- 09/10/2007 — TECH —
Is it the weekend?
- 08/05/2007 — FOOD —
Carneros loop
- 04/25/2006 — TECH —
Whack-o-pedia
- 04/24/2006 — TECH —
Startup moments
- 04/10/2006 — FOOD —
Salento Primitivo
- 04/05/2006 — FUN —
Sonoma Bikeride
- 04/02/2006 — TECH —
Selenium: Neat!