heycoolplates

[heycoolplates]

Hey! The end

So, this is the last post for Heycoolplates.com. Hey! We’ve reached the end.

This 60-day project became a 90-day project, and today is the 90th day. Can you believe it? Friend Alex cannot and sent me this plate today to tell me so.

I know. I can’t believe it either. This plate from friend Alan puts it well.... 

Vanity plates are a strange thing. When we get vanity plates, we transform an ordinary thing into a statement. Or a performance. If the last three months have shown anything, it’s the range of performances and statements. Vanity plates hit on nearly every topic that can come to mind, and in our constant surprise and amusement at them, they show how we all think differently. The game even goes meta, as this plate from friend Ashley shows so well...

Turning this interest into a hobby was a long time coming for me. Four years ago, I did a few themed posts and then a Vanity Plate Week, all collections of photos. These were fun times but a sideshow. I gave up plate posts for a good while afterward. But couldn’t quit them entirely. I saw the below plate on the walk to work a couple years ago, on the walk to my digital job, and had to take a picture. This photo sat in my photos folder untouched, but it still popped up in searches and file browsing from time to time. Always looming was a question -- how far could wacky plate photos go, digitally? Could they be a whole blog?

So, this Tumblr happened. And I almost killed it five minutes after launching it. I called Lori in a panic. It was too public. I’m not a very public person. I test hard on the introverted end of INFP-land. Two minutes into the blog, I was asking three minutes later, why had I tweeted and Facebooked the link? Anxiety anxiety. I couldn’t find a design I liked. I’d spent too much timing copying over my old plate photos and indexing them. But most of all, I think, I was worried no one would send any photos. No one would read the blog. No one would like it. This plate from Lindsay pretty much captured my fears. I’d put myself out There, on this weird little project, and maybe no one would be There.

Lori talked me off the blog ledge. I added the time limit to the project. With that change, things got better. First, a few of my plate correspondents from the old days got going again. Just as valuably, a few other folks I didn’t know as well -- and certainly didn’t know their weird plate interests -- leapt in too. Vanity plates were weird, yes. But for you, for me, they resonated in our lives. Strangely. But honestly. The commonplace asserting itself in our brains.

You all surprised me from there. People started hunting! Eyes peeled, cameras at the ready -- or were quick with a link whenever a loved one got a good one. You all made me happy to know you. You all make me happy every day, but seeing you in the minor-but-real thrill of the chase and the capture was exciting and strange and lovable.  

You all were... well, this action plus emotion from Lindsay. And nobody got hurt! That I know of. No plate was worth ridiculousness. But every good plate was worth a little care. A tiny salute to the driver of the car you were photographing. 

When we’re driving, I’ve always thought, the activity saves us from certain road boredom, which friend Melissa captures here. If just for a moment. 

The plates that consciously looked outward, like this one from Lori, were the best. Are the best. Will be the best going forward, especially when there is no plate-blogging happening here but we’re still looking for reasons to smile.

Some vanity plates are about vanity, I’m sure. But I don’t think most are. Not anymore. They’re too permanent a statement to be ego-driven, en masse. I think this plate from friend Everett gets more at their intentions. We acquire vanity plates to make other people happy. Or think. Or question. We use them to engage strangers and welcome them, for a second, into our lives.

Vanity plates are a moment-based and truly human exercise in, literally and figuratively... from friend Beau’s friend Laura...

This blog intended to catch those moments, for you and for me. I hope it did so.

The blog was originally supposed to be 60 days, but as we approached that point, you all had sent in too many plates to stop. This plate from friend Ellen, basically. The backlog was weeks long! I could hardly keep them all straight.

So -- thank you to friend Tom for this plate -- on your submissions by Tumblr, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text message, the blog kept going.

But I wanted this blog to be temporary for a reason. From friend Everett:

Vanity plates are marvelously evocative little elements in our modern world. But the world consists of so many such things, and they’re each waiting for our attention. Or, more accurately, we’re waiting for our attention to discover them. 

We don’t know we’re waiting for such a find, most of the time. Far more likely, we feel swept up in a stream. Taking a picture of a good plate or even noticing one in line of our vision is, I think, one way to slow down the rush of the water. 

And finding other ways of slowing the rush or otherwise keeping a head above water interests me. You too? Because I think the stream may keep sweeping.

Or to put it another way, in this plate from Lori, one should seek...

Or to put it one last way, in this plate from friend Karen, one should avoid...

... because trying to collect all the cool plates in the world is a certain kind of flying too close to the sun. The small, colorful, metal sun. 

Besides! Spring, as this plate from friend Ashley possibly notes, is here.

And baseball season starts here tomorrow! “WERTH5″ says this plate from friend Melissa, and I’ll be sitting in the ballpark in, hopefully, the warm sun.

Might the blog ever come back? This plate from friend Emily answers that. Not soon. Someday. Who knows, though! Maybe next I’ll send my plates to YOU.

I’ll continue to blog on my other site, Greetings from Evanston, Ill. I’ve been lackadaisical during the run of Hey Cool Plates. And a bit before then. But still. Whether through there or elsewhere, I hope you all stay in touch some way.

So, thank you. You all deserve this plate from friend Melissa.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for your friendship, friend A and friend B and friend C. Thank you for taking pictures of cool plates and sending them my way. Particularly in this moment, thank you to friend Jeff N for sending this plate.

[heycoolplates]

To two of this blog’s top plate correspondents, thank you

Especially as you continued to send me plates even on the last day of this blog.

From friend Lisa today:

“I like to think the second one is Attorney General Tuna,” Lisa says.

And from friend Melissa today (”I still get to send you these when the Tumblr ends, right?”):

[heycoolplates]

As this project ends, let’s toast

From friend Lisa, here’s to passion -- and how we show it on our plates:

From friend Everett, here’s to modern medicine:

From friend Jym, here’s to sacrifice:

From my collection, here’s to happiness and friendliness (”OL-NICE” it says):

From friend Jym, here’s to admitting our faults:

From friend April, passing along one from her brother-in-law, here’s to love:

Also from Everett, here’s to believing in higher powers:

From my travels yesterday, here’s to believing in yourself:

From friend Jym, here’s to nicknames:

From friend Jason, here’s to public radio:

From friend Stephanie, here’s to our grandmothers:

From friend Lisa, here’s to our mothers:

From my own collection, originally posted four years ago and many states away from Lisa’s plate, here’s to mom power being a thing:

From friend Jym, here’s to children... and Virginia’s “KIDS FIRST” license plate, and Virginia revoking “EATTHE” (story via friend Adam) but letting “SNAKON” get through:

From friend Jym again, here’s to the teams we love, the teams we hate, the teams we love to hate, and the teams we hate to love:

From our trip to Fredericksburg yesterday here’s to our pets:

From half an hour later on that trip, here’s to our other pets:

From friend Kasia, here’s to never-ending plate mysteries:

Also from Kasia, here’s to making the most of life:

From friend Jym, here’s to being true to the life (the plate life, of course):

Also from Jym, here’s to supporting something, no matter what it is:

From friend Laura, here’s to laughter:

And here’s to finding threads between plates as I race to get all the last-minute plates into this blog before it ends tonight...

[heycoolplates]

A salute to a fellow plate-blogger

Plate-blogging is a strange thing to do. Few people wake up in the morning and wonder, “What awesome vanity plates am I going to see today?” And then think, “Where should I put them on the Internet?” And then take the time to do so. The looking, the capturing and the blogging, it doesn’t take all the time in the world. But it takes some time and some dedication.

So, I want to give a tip of the cap to friend Mary, who kept her PL8WTCH Tumblr going for quite a while and who deserves a visit from you. It’s all kinds of entertaining. And through the last three months, it’s been nice to know there’s some fellowship in the plate-blogging life.

My favorite posts from her blog:

-Her second post ever, “YEAH OK.” 

-”BTL FAN,” which friend Heidi spotted for this blog just this week.

-Learning that “EATTHE” Kids First belongs/ed to her friend’s brother.

-“DUCHEZ” which can’t be real but somehow is.

-The truly kind and outward-looking “URDAMAN.”

-Yet another WTF plate.

-”CRZYNLUV” which also showed up in this blog and may have lived in my old apartment building.

-Another shared one: “YANNI.”

-The I-can’t-believe-it-exists “VEHICLE.”

And so many other good ones. I love the few that somehow magically overlap. I love the many I’ve never seen before.

[heycoolplates]

The photo is from friend Jym. Thank you to Lori for supporting me and this crazy project throughout its span. She persuaded me to keep the project going when I nearly ended it five minutes after starting it. And she suggests when and when not to photograph plates while in traffic. And she’s all-around great.

[heycoolplates]

To all those who celebrate, happy Easter!

[heycoolplates]

The final, final mysteries

A day or so ago, I posted what I thought were this blog’s final mysteries. Then more cool, mysterious plates poured in. I now present to you the final, final mysteries. 

One I saw this weekend -- and I support it: I love croutons and have on occasion bought them without salad. But why it would be a plate, I don’t know. Does that car look that much like a crouton? Maybe. But there must be more! A mystery. But I respect it.

From friend Beau’s friend Laura -- magic scooter? magic skater?

From friend Lauren. “Not sure if ‘CO2CAPT’ on an old Toyota pickup is something to do with carbon dioxide emissions.” 

Again from friend Lauren! I wrote her back to see if I was missing something obvious -- it’s been a long plate week, many coming in and going out across my desk -- and she said it was a mystery to her too. And she got all of these mystery plates in one parking lot and has rarely seen any vanity plates since. Tucson!

One of mine from a little while back, never posted because I never knew what it meant. Was this person identify as a yahoo? Or did they really love Yahoo.com? Was it an old plate from back when Yahoo was hot? Or was the person just a yahoo at heart? 

From friend Laura. I believe in good branding. But I don’t know, man. Does getting a vanity plate help business that much? A business where you’re summoned by people who already know you’re a cab? OR maybe this Audi driver is a wine snob. Laura lives in Northern California. Anyway, a mystery.

From friend Jym, a plate that makes me hope this car never comes to downtown Washington because the traffic jams will be really something before the cops resolve the scene and send the driver home. Why choose this plate?

From friend Jym again. I’ve seen a similar plate before. And this one as the last one, the motivation is unclear. Does the driver always know where he or she is going? Was this plate predicted centuries ago by mystical, horrible powers? Who buys a car and thinks of Nosferatu? 

And maybe the ultimate mystery, a work of mystery plate art, again from friend Lauren:

[heycoolplates]

Turn it on! From friend Kasia, nice music to prepare for the final posts.

[heycoolplates]

The banned list is not keeping up with the kids’ acroynms

From friend Sara recently: “I saw this license plate on a Mini in Bethesda over the weekend: WTF OMG (no picture, unfortunately). My husband wondered if an elderly DMV worker was on duty the day that was issued...”

Or the worker had too much Pepsi.

BUT. Sara’s spotting does fit with several others in this blog’s land before time. From this blog in 2010, plates from friends Sondra and Meghan, respectively:

Come on, people. Antidote plate from friend Emily:

[heycoolplates]

Great plate for a lady editor. From friend Malaka, from her friend Michael. 

[heycoolplates]

This one is likely to blurry to see, even zoomed in. It said “ZEU5″ and it appeared on the highway today, just a couple days after friend Melissa sent along a completely different “ZEUS” car. The minds of the masses.

[heycoolplates]

Doctors, everywhere!

All from friend Melissa.

And here’s one from me, a plate on a very boxy car that I really hope is owned by a doctor. Practically Seussian. 

[heycoolplates]

ELLO is suddenly everywhere.  A day after friend Melissa sent me the play, friend Beau’s friend Laura found the plate in a clearly different place. With just today and tomorrow left to go in this blog, this is the tightest re-spotting yet. 

[heycoolplates]

From Lindsay and possibly a clear spring day’s few clouds in the sky. “When I stopped and turned around, I was en route to dinner with some people and they thought I was going home. Nope, just gotta take a photo of a license plate."

[heycoolplates]

The final animals

From friend Tom:

From friend Karen:

From friend Emily:

From friend Tom:

[heycoolplates]

Tell ‘em where you’re from!

All but one friend Lauren in Tucson, where, as she notes, vanity plates are a lot harder to find.

The city!

The bank!

Both side of the aisle! From Lori:

Canada! Or maybe you’re Jewish!

[heycoolplates]

Getting close to the end

Just posted a bunch this morning. So many more left to go. But the Tumblr will end Sunday. Night, probably. Get your final submissions in now!