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Porsche
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Out
In The Passing Lane
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 Spending
four vacation days indoors at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston may
seem like a poor use of time to most of you readers, but for Susana and
me it will be time well spent. After Labor Day we’ll be attending the PhotoShop
World Conference, an event organized by the National Association of Photoshop
Professionals. At the conference experts in the use of Adobe Photoshop
software will demonstrate a variety of creative techniques to a crowd of
well over 2000 users of this product. We’ll be attending workshops and
general sessions over the four days, hoping in the process to ratchet up
our capabilities to use Photoshop. If we’re good “students”, readers of
this publication will benefit, as we’ll of course want to put into use
our newly acquired knowledge!
In addition to the over sixty sessions covering everything from digital photography to print production, the conference will include exhibit space for a wide range of vendors selling software, printers and scanners, how-to books, training programs, cameras, and supplies of all types. We’re hoping to learn a bit more about wide-format color printers, as we’re considering make a purchase of an Epson printer capable making museum quality prints up to 44” wide by 100’ long (don’t ask me what one does with a print that large!). Of course those four days will probably be the best days of weather we’ve had all summer! While I’ve grumbled on more than a few occasions about being trapped indoors for work on a great weather day, I’ll be more than happy spending those four days indoors! The downside of attending this conference is that we’ll be commuting into Boston four straight mornings right after Labor Day, when everyone goes back to work. We’re told that the difference in traffic between the last week of August and the first week of September is dramatic. Maybe we’ll stay late in Boston each evening, we can then check out several of our favorite restaurants. Speaking of traffic in Boston, I made a trip into the city to attend a meeting at the World Trade Center. At rush hour I zipped right in over the Tobin Bridge, drove over the Zakim Bridge, exited at the South Station ramp, took the first left and a couple of minutes later was in the parking garage at the Seaport Hotel. The entire trip from Gloucester took maybe 40 minutes parking spot to parking spot. It couldn’t have been any easier and stress free. What’s the big deal about driving in Boston! I know some of you will be shocked to learn that I am a regular patron of drive-through car washes (for my company car – not for a Porsche). It’s a necessity when you park in a city with a huge sea gull population! I mention this because we now have a new car wash in our neighborhood. Construction took all spring and summer, and at times we weren’t quite short if it would ever get finished. But wonder of wonders it finally opened in mid-August and we were one of its first customers. Noting the open for business sign, we drove onto the guide rails, paid our money to a friendly male staff member, and then sat in the car as it was pushed through the new equipment. As we emerged at the other end there was our friendly male staff member along with an attractive young woman, both with towels in their hands. They cheerfully dried my Audi – providing both Susana and me reasons for watching their efforts. I almost wanted to circle the building and get back in line! I’ll be a regular customer of this operation, ending my many years association with a car wash in Danvers – which always left me with water streaming off my car as I departed. I just received the most recent edition of Porsche’s Christophorus magazine, which has a feature story on the new Porsche Cayman along with a number of pictures of the car. Looking at the pictures and reading the text left me with a very favorable impression of the new Porsche. The car is very attractive from several angles, and I particularly like the look of the car from the rear. The performance statistics are pretty impressive; the car should be great fun to drive in an autocross event in particular. Elsewhere in this issue of the NOR’EASTER I have a brief story on the future Porsche Panamera, the four-door Porsche under development. The illustrations of the car make it look like a stretched 997 – the proportions seem a little unbalanced, but I’m reserving judgment till I see the actual car. It was probably only a matter of time till Porsche decided to take on more directly BMW and Mercedes, I just hope they’ve done their market research on the size of the potential market for $150,000 plus vehicles. I can’t imagine the market is that large for cars that expensive? In the same issue of the magazine is an article noting the assembly of the 100,000th Cayenne two years earlier than Porsche had initially forecast. I was a skeptic about the long-term prospects for a Porsche SUV; guess I’m not the best prognosticator of automobile trends. I just couldn’t imagine that the market for SUVs costing over $60,000 was all that large, particularly since SUVs have increasingly been the press’s favorite vehicle to slam. I wonder what ever increasing gas prices will do to the SUV market in general over the next couple of years. Once I send this issue of for printing I’ll need to decide if I’m entering the PorscheFest Concours d’Elegance. I can maybe justify spending four summer days indoors, but I’m not sure I can justify spending hours cleaning and waxing a Porsche – there are limits to my willingness to sacrifice summer leisure time. |
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