Ahh, who can forget that classic song from the film version of 'Cabaret'...



The physical appearance of money changes from place to place, reflecting both local aesthetic preference and historical events. Dark Roasted Blend has an interesting collection of unusual paper money from various countries and time periods.

It seems fitting that, since we started off with a musical number set in inter-war Germany, that we see some money from that general time. I'll leave you with the infamous 500 Million Mark note, which by mid-1923 wasn't enough to buy a load of bread:



Today, you can buy one of those notes for less than $10.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's a Hollywood staple: man and woman driving down road. Obviously lost. Woman suggests man stop at gas station and ask directions. Man refuses, insisting he knows exactly where they are. Hilarity or tragedy ensues, depending on the theme of the movie/TV show.

As it happens, there are solid scientific reasons that humans can't navigate all that well. This article from NewScientist lays it out.

(For the record: as long as I have a map, I'm gold. If all I have are written directions, no matter how detailed, I'll get lost. Odd, huh?)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Aircraft, as you may have heard, are vulnerable to missiles. Whether launched from the ground or another aircraft, even a small missile can easily down the largest plane. One of the few defenses to an incoming missile is the dispensing of chaff (small metallic particles/strips) and flares, both of which are intended to fool the navigation systems that guide missiles to their prey.

What's odd is how pretty those countermeasures can be.



Even odder, this pic - along with many others - can be found at a site called Environmental Graffiti.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

The site English Russia entices me to visit the former Soviet Union - the sheer number of abandoned installations makes my head spin. Today the site beckons me with two related stories about abandoned railways in the former superpower.

First, a look at a never-operational line in northern Siberia, apparently built at Stalin's personal request. The reason for a railroad from nowhere to nowhere remains a mystery, though in all fairness we do the same thing with highways in Alaska.



The second is of a locomotive depot in the same part of the country, but these were all operational - until the USSR broke apart. At some point, everyone just walked away...



-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

For the bibliophiles amongst us...

First, a regular reader sent me this link to a collection of beautiful libraries around the world. My college's library looked nothing like this, believe me!




Second, Dark Roasted Blend has this great article on bookplates. Very cool, and increasingly a symbol of times gone by. (Jack Dempsey?? Apparently boxers were smarter back then; I don't know about you, but I can't see Mike Tyson having one.)


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: books

My sister is an organist, and one of her ambitions is to someday build a custom house - around a pipe organ. If you aren't familiar with what that entails, let's just say it would need to be a big house.

Pipe organs, even modest examples, are large instruments. As they increase in complexity, though, they grow seemingly exponentially. A large organ can have thousands - even tens of thousands - of precisely tuned pipes that produce notes when fed with pressurized air. Just the valving to make one of these behemoths work is mind-boggling in complexity.

Even the part you can see - known as the console - can make a 747 look positively simple:


Main console, Atlantic City Convention Hall organ, from http://www.acchos.org

For more great pictures of pipe organs, check out this Dark Roasted Blend story.

(Oh, for those who are interested - the Atlantic City organ is perhaps the largest ever constructed, but has never been completely operational. The largest working pipe organ in the world is the Wanamaker organ shown in the article. The building in which it is housed is now a Macy's store. No kidding.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: music

The LIFE website this week unveiled a photo retrospective of Project Mercury, America's first human spaceflight program. If you look at the picture captions, you'll notice one name on most of them: Ralph Morse. There's a good reason for that.

Ralph Morse was a staffer at LIFE (and later TIME) when he was assigned to cover a press conference in Washington in 1959. That event was the announcement of the Project Mercury astronauts. Sensing the long term importance of the announcement, Morse contacted his editor and told him that there would be a lot of public interest in these men. He suggested that the magazine assign someone permanently to NASA, which was then less than a year old. Morse got the job.

It was a good choice; Morse had already been with LIFE for over a decade, bringing back some of the most well known pictures in their archives. NASA was a fledgling agency, and Morse had gotten himself in on the ground floor of what would become the Space Race.

Over the next couple of decades, Morse would become an insider at NASA. He got exclusive access, and was even allowed to place his cameras in restricted areas his competition at NEWSWEEK couldn't even dream of. Along the way, he produced some of the most iconic images of the various NASA projects.

It all started at that press conference, where an idiot reporter (some things never change) asked the astronauts which of them expected "to come back alive." Morse grabbed this shot of the astronauts showing their mettle:




Some of his shots were very well known...



...while others weren't:



All of them, though, came from the camera of an inventive genius whose enthusiasm for his job knew no bounds. Were it not for his eye, his ingenuity, and his nose for news, we wouldn't have this great visual record of our nation's greatest achievements. George Hunt, at one time LIFE's Managing Editor, said “if LIFE could afford only one photographer, it would have to be Ralph Morse.”

Ralph is now 92, but unfortunately for us gave up photography some years ago.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa, photography

Some years back I had a job that required me to interface on a daily basis with a local governmental body. There was a form they required us to fill out and mail to them; a form with an odd dimension. I've forgotten the exact measurements, but it wasn't a full 8.5x11, or a half-sheet, or even a quarter-sheet. It wasn't one of the common postcard sizes, either - it was a completely custom size on 3-part NCR paper.

At one point I was writing a piece of software to automate the process of gathering the information and filling out the form. I really wanted to submit the data electronically, but that wasn't an option. The second best choice would have been to simply print the information on an 8.5x11 sheet. No, they insisted, it had to be the same form factor as the handwritten form.

WTH??

Using all the diplomacy I could muster I tried for weeks to negotiate a compromise. I asked time and again why we needed to use THAT specific form size, and all I could get out of them was "that's what we use." Why, I wanted to know, couldn't they use something else, something more common and less costly?

I finally got one of their people to spill the beans: the reason for this odd form size was because, many years ago (decades, actually), the office now occupied by this agency acquired a little filing cabinet whose original purpose was unknown. The cabinet's drawers were permanently configured for this odd paper size.

At some point the office was vacated, but the strange cabinet remained behind. After several such occupant shuffles, this agency moved into the space and there was that cabinet! It was pressed into use for this form, and that was the end of the discussion.

Our company was being dictated to by an orphaned filing cabinet older than its users, and the situation was unlikely to change because "that's the way we've always done it."

I read this story about the NYPD and had a flashback.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: futility

I decided that I'd raked enough muck for one week, and that you deserved a day off. So, it's Friday Surprise time again! (Don't worry, I'll resume the Self Defense series on Monday.)

Today we're going to see what happens when a megalomaniac decides that he needs to export the American Way Of Life into a jungle. In Brazil. Let's just say things didn't go as planned.

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I first started college, my ambition was to design optical systems for spy satellites. No, I'm not kidding, that's really what I wanted to do! That didn't work out, but I'm still fascinated with the idea of photographing the earth from space. I like seeing what familiar things look like from a very high vantage point, and you can't get higher than that!

Here's one, for example. Can you guess what/where this is?



The answer, along with a huge collection of other spectral composite Landsat 7 images.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

Spent weekend away from home. No computer. Mailbox very full on return. Yuck.

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Speaking of email, I've noticed an uptick in the spam that makes it through my filters. They're almost always some variation of the Nigerian scam, or an advertisement for Viagra. Apparently I'm on the "greedy and impotent horndog" mailing list.

From a purely intellectual standpoint, I know that these people wouldn't continue their efforts unless they were seeing some return, but on an emotional basis I simply can't fathom that there are a sufficient number of stupid people with positive bank balances to keep them going.

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While I'm on the subject, would someone please tell me who would be fooled by a Nigerian scam from "MICROSOFT CORPERATION"? (Yes, the spelling is theirs.)

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William Safire died on Sunday. Politics aside, his crisp writing and unrelenting crusade for proper language were an inspiration to me. I'm not at all sure my prose even begins to measure up to his standards, but I do know it would be worse without his influence.

---

New breakfast taste treat: scrambled eggs and fried summer sausage. Yum!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Nothing witty or exploratory today, just a great picture of star trails from the Astronomy Picture Of The Day website. I post it because it's beautiful, intriguing - and shot right here in the state of Oregon.

Grant's Pass, to be precise. (I couldn't help indulging in just a bit of narcissism!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: oregon, photography

Back in 1999 there was a Titan missile base for sale in California - Chico, if memory serves. If the salesman's information was to be believed, it was it great good condition, unlike most such abandoned facilities. I was fascinated by the possibilities of one of those huge complexes, but it was my brother who came up with the bright idea to buy the thing, convert it into a "Y2K Survival Community", and sell condos to rich people skittish about the coming millennium.

He figured that the three silos - each 150 deep and 55 feet in diameter - would net 45 condos of about 2,300 square feet each. Were there that many gullible millionaires who could be relieved of their money, if they could be assured that their families would survive the coming catastrophe? People in Hollywood are infamous for their susceptibility to even wilder schemes, so it seemed plausible.

Of course we never got beyond the talking stage, and as we all know nothing much happened on New Years Day 2000. It was fun to speculate and scheme, though!

That was as close as I ever got to one of those behemoth underground complexes. I've always wanted to visit one, but never have, and thus have settled for doing so vicariously.

Just as I did with this and this from www.terrastories.com

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

If you ever get to attend a major shooting match, one thing that will impress you is how accessible the top competitors are. If you want to meet Rob Leatham or Jerry Miculek, no problem - they're usually happy to shake hands and talk.

The same is true for the top jazz musicians. Jazz is a personal music, and because of the smaller fan base getting to meet even the biggest names is relatively easy. Imagine being able to walk up to a well-known pop or rock artist and being able to do that. Unless you're a buxom groupie with a purse full of cocaine, their security staff isn't likely to let you get within a country mile of the star! Jazz musicians aren't like that, and I've had the experiences to prove it.

My interest in jazz matured in high school, which is also where my first brush with fame occurred. I went to school with the brother of Alan Yankee, who at the time was a saxophonist in the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Kenton was my idol, then and now, and meeting Alan was a highlight of my young musical life. Little did I know that it was only the beginning.

When I was attending college in Portland (Oregon) in the early '80s, there were a bunch of jazz clubs in the city. Portland was known as a jazz town, and major players would often make a stop on their way between San Francisco and Seattle. We had not one but two jazz radio stations (one commercial and one funded by a local college), as well as an internationally regarded jazz festival. Life was good for a jazz musician and lover of the genre.

By the turn of the century, the Festival had been reduced to a weekend in one of the city parks, one of the radio stations was gone and the other played more blues than jazz, and virtually all of the jazz clubs were no more. I was lucky enough to meet quite a few notable jazz musicians before jazz disappeared from Portland.

Freddy Hubbard played a single set at one of the local clubs, to a packed house. Despite the cramped surroundings, he made sure that he got around and shook people's hands before jetting off to who-knows-where.

One of the high schools managed to snag the great Clark Terry for a benefit concert. The school was in a bad part of town, and the concert was not well promoted. Still, I was surprised at the sparse crowd. For a city with a jazz reputation, it was embarrassing. That didn't stop Clark from putting on a great show, and I told him as much when we met afterwards. "I"ve played bigger crowds, but that's not important - I'm just happy that people appreciate my music." Clark is known as a consummate gentleman, and his reputation is well deserved.

One summer a local college held a small jazz festival, and the headliners were guitarists Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel. During a break between acts, I went to use the facilities. Standing at the next urinal was Herb himself, and we started talking. I normally wouldn't remember a conversation from almost 30 years ago, but the surreal setting burned this one into my mind: gardening. After finishing our respective business, we went outside and sat at a bench, still talking gardening. Nice guy, that Herb. (For those who think the sun rises and sets on rock guitarists like Van Halen, check out the link - Herb is the gray-haired gentleman. Perhaps you'll learn something.)

The Woody Herman Big Band, one of the most popular in the history of jazz, made a surprise visit to Portland one year. I don't remember the details, but for some reason they unexpectedly found themselves in town. Somehow they managed to find a venue at one of the colleges, which had an open auditorium that day. Word went out on the jazz radio stations that tickets were available for that evening - dirt cheap, with all proceeds going to some charity. The place was jammed, and the band was in top form. Later I got to thank Woody for the unexpected treat, and expressed my appreciation to number of the band members as well. One of them was Frank Tiberi, who would later take over the organization after Woody's death.

Trumpeters Pete and Conte Candoli appeared in Portland one year, and of course I saw their show. At the time the Candolis were at the top of their game; it was virtually impossible to find a big band that hadn't had one (or both) in their trumpet section at one time or another. I got to meet Conte, but Pete disappeared somewhere after their set was over. The next day The Oregonian newspaper had a review of the show. The writer, who apparently knew nothing of jazz, lamented that when they soloed together they often hit "clashing notes." I wrote a letter to the editor that said something along the lines of "yeah, that happens with simultaneous improvisation, you moron!" They didn't publish it, which wasn't a surprise.

I remember taking my buddy and roommate, Ed, to see a then-unknown Diane Schuur. Between sets I introduced myself and told her Ed was dying to meet her. She giggled and I motioned Ed over; he was quite taken with her. That was understandable, as she was a terrific singer and a wonderful person. I hope she hasn't changed in the intervening 25-odd years ; she certainly still sings well.

Of course, there has to be the exception that proves the rule, and in jazz that was Maynard Ferguson. I found him to be the single rudest person I'd ever met in music. That attitude had rubbed off on some of his band members, as the rest of his trumpet section was as obnoxious as he was. (His sax players, who apparently didn't get as much attention, were nicer. I almost felt sorry for them.) I originally chalked the snub up to his having a bad day, but have heard from many people since who tell me that it was SOP with him.

If memory serves it was the second Mount Hood Festival Of Jazz that featured an appearance by a young and highly touted Wynton Marsalis. I ended up (unintentionally) running into him around the venue, and though he was polite enough, I frankly didn't find much in his music to be impressed with. I haven't heard anything from him since which changes that impression. My contrarian opinion hasn't seemed to hurt his record sales, though, and I hope he doesn't hold it against me!

My favorite trumpet player is the late, great Red Rodney. In the early '80s he had a quintet with the phenomenal Ira Sullivan, a group which to this day gets my vote as the most overlooked in jazz. They showed up in Portland once, and my buddy Bob and I were there front row, center. Between sets Red ambled over and introduced himself, and asked if I was a trumpet player. Confused, I asked him how he knew; he said that I was the only one in the audience who "got" what he was playing. I never did quite understand what he meant, but he sat down at our table to chat and eat his dinner. It remains my favorite jazz experience, and on that note I'll leave you with this video of Red at his best.



-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: music

I believe I've made mention of my musical background. In college I minored in music performance, and I spent my off time playing in quartets and quintets. Jazz quartets and quintets.

Jazz has been my passion as far back as I can remember. When the other kids were listening to Queen and America, I was devouring Stan Kenton and Sonny Rollins. I reveled in the complexity of the music, which fed both the left and right sides of my brain.

To this day, I can't abide jazz playing as background or mood music; it engages me and comes to the foreground. If one is to truly understand and appreciate jazz, one has to actively listen to it. It requires the participation of the listener, for jazz at its core is music that is custom made, fresh, for the audience. It is demanding music, constantly evolving yet always retaining the essence that separates it from the insipid pop of American Idol.

Unfortunately not everyone desires that kind of music (and the world would be boring if they did!) From the WSJ we learn that the jazz audience is shrinking rapidly.

Liking jazz may put me in the minority, but there are some wonderful aspects of the genre that go beyond the music itself. Next Friday I'll talk about one of the unique perks of being a jazz fan - one that some "gunnies" can identify with.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: music

An email popped into my box on Monday which asked "do you have a favorite knife steel?" As it happens, I do!

Oregon seems to be a mecca for knife enthusiasts. We boast what is reputedly the largest knife show in the world (the annual Oregon Knife Collectors Association show), along with a stellar list of native knife companies: Benchmade. Kershaw. Al Mar. Gerber. Lone Wolf. Columbia River Knife & Tool.

If that's not enough, Oregon is home to some of the greatest knife designers and custom makers, people like Bob Lum, Wayne Goddard, Bill Harsey, Butch Valloton, Jess Horn, and Ron Lake - as well as a veritable army of well regarded "up and comers."

With all this edginess around me, is it any wonder I have an opinion?!?

I've owned knives made from D2, O1, 1095, VG-10, ATS-34, 154CM, S30v, and probably some I've forgotten about. Of all those different materials, from a number of different makers, my favorite steel is one most people consider pedestrian: Sandvik 13C26 (and its derivatives.)

Sandvik steels are made specifically for cutlery, and boast an exceedingly fine grain structure. When properly heat treated (in the area of 58-60 Rc) they make a blade that holds an edge surprisingly well, won't chip like some of the more esoteric types, and is still easy to resharpen. As an all-around daily use steel, I've not found anything that will surpass it.

I know it's not very exciting, and it's not sexy, and it's not high tech. It just works well at cutting things, which is what I want my knives to do. My knives get used every single day around the farm, and I want blades that perform well under such heavy use. Sandvik steels do so, well enough that I actually seek out those manufacturers who use the stuff.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: knives

The only area in which I feel inferior to Europeans is in the history of our respective lands. I once worked with a fellow who grew up in England, who told me the house in which his family lived was the newest on the block - and it was built in the mid-18th century. Here in the U.S., we just don't have century after century of defined habitation to study. Given my love of old and abandoned buildings, it's torture learning about the great ruins the Europeans get to explore!

The latest involves the high-tech rediscovery of the ancient Italian city of Altinum. I'll have to get the latest issue of Science and read up on it!


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

I'm no vexillologist, nor do I play one on TV. I am, however, fascinated by historical flags. The synthesis of design, color, and history make them irresistible (to me, at least.)

Take the flags of the American Revolution, for example. Everyone knows the Gadsen flag:




Far fewer are familiar with the Fort Moultrie flag:




Only serious history buffs, however, will recognize the flag of the First Continental Regiment:




See more flags of the American Revolution.

Flags of the world (don't click unless you have lots of spare time to burn!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

An acquaintance of mine once experienced a burglary of his house. They got away with some valuable items, but I wondered just how the thieves were planning to profit from them. They couldn't pawn them, and if they tried to sell them on the street they'd be laughed to the curb. I couldn't imagine a thief stupid enough to steal this guy's stuff.

You see, this acquaintance was an electrical engineer who collected weird pseudo-medical devices. He'd found a surprising number over the years, and apparently he's not alone - there are a lot of quackery collectors who have put their finds on the net.

One of my favorite items is the The Neu-Vita Oculizer:



From www.americanartifacts.com, it is supposed to fix your eyes so that you no longer need glasses. It has two sets of eye cups; the soft rubber ones use a crank and pulley system to rotate them against your eyes, while the other side carries hard rubber eyecups. They have a concave faced plunger to poke the eye when the rubber bulbs are squeezed, and vacuum can also be applied by covering the air intake hole and releasing the bulb.

Yeah, just what I want to do to my eyes! Anyhow, that's just one of the many places on the net that you can find the history of quackery. (Sadly, most of the sites have designs that seem stuck in the mid-1990s and a surprising lack of decent images.)

One of the best is the Museum of Quackery. Tons of links. (Quackery, as you'll learn, is alive and well in the 21st century!)
Museum of Quack Electrotherapy Instruments.
American Artifacts (neat site; medical quackery is only a part of their collection, and they have items for sale.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's a rare thing when I make social commentary, as Tam and Marko cover such things far better than I ever could. I hope you'll forgive me, however, for this brief interlude from the technical chatter.

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The rest of the world (meaning everything outside of the gun culture) is just now finding out about our ammunition supply issues. I found this column from Maine's Morning Sentinel to be quite interesting. When people who live their lives wholly apart from the concept of self reliance start paying attention to stuff like this, you know something is about to reach critical mass.

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It is my habit to sit down with my lunch and watch the midday news. (The internet, sadly, is still lacking in quality resources for local news coverage, at least here in Oregon.) Much to my surprise, the local network affiliate was running not the news, but the memorial service for a has-been singer/odd duck. ABC, CBS, NBC - all had preempted the news for continuous, live coverage of what amounted to a freak show.

Surely, I thought, the serious news outlets would not fall to this madness. How wrong I was. CNN, FOX, and MSNBC were all covering, not the imploding economy or the federal takeover of private industry or the all-time record deficits or North Korea's saber rattling, but the funeral of a mere pop star.

I've often said that being a pessimist is great, because you can never be disappointed. I guess I just wasn't pessimistic enough.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers

We learned this week that Kodak finally pulled the plug on what was their signature film, Kodachrome. Photographers will fondly recall the fine grain, superb resolution, and vibrant color of Kodak's iconic product, while everyone else will remember Paul Simon's hit song by the same name:

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Kodachrome wasn't the first time the company had influenced musical history, however. It's true that Kodachrome was invented by a couple of amateur chemists who were also professional musicians, but the influence I'm thinking of goes far deeper.

As it happens George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak, was an aspiring flutist and music fanatic. His love of making and listening to music led him to found the Eastman School of Music, cementing his place in American music history.

Now you're probably thinking "Eastman School of Music? Never heard of it!" Most people, when asked to name a prestigious music school, immediately think "Juilliard." While Juilliard is a fine school and better known to the general public, those with a deep knowledge of musical education will often quietly refer you to Eastman. Since 1921, Eastman graduates have enjoyed a solid reputation for being "musician's musicians", which persists to this day - it is often ranked as the top music school in the country in major media surveys.

George Eastman was a remarkable individual who also gave major grants to engineering and technical schools such as MIT, and involved himself in a range of social and business innovations. It could be argued, though, that giving the world both Kodachrome and Frederick Fennell would have been enough for any one person.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography, music

In 1997, NASA launched the Cassini spacecraft to study the planet Saturn. It finally reached the ringed planet in 2004, and started sending back some positively amazing images. The craft continues to work perfectly, and as a result the mission has been extended to 2010.



See more of these incredible pictures.

A quick synopsis of the craft and mission.

The Official Cassini website.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

Quick question: what color doesn't exist in the visible spectrum? And, if it doesn't exist, why do we see it?

Null Hypothesis has the answer.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Or, more precisely, forest.

Many people have heard of the Maginot line, a series of fortifications designed to protect France from invasion by Germany. As you may have heard, it didn't work all that well - the Germans simply went around it, through Belgium and the Netherlands, and right into Paris for coffee and gloating.

You may not have heard of the Mannerheim line. It was Finland's fortification intended to protect it from Russian aggression. During the Winter War (where the Soviets sustained losses heavy enough to make them wish they'd never set their sights on Helsinki) the Mannerheim sustained heavy damage. Unlike the Maginot line, the Mannerheim was very lightly constructed and took the full force of the Russian advance. The majority of the installations were destroyed, leaving little behind but memories.

This is one of the better-preserved pieces:



The Mannerheim Line website. (Has the most complete list of sites and current condition.)

Detailed history of the Line at winterwar.com

Quick overview of the line and its purpose.


-=[ Grant ]=-

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds, at all.

-- Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides Now"


I grew up on a farm in a very rural area when that Joni Mitchell song was popular. Life was simpler, both as a consequence of the times and of our location. Things that were very entertaining for us would bore today's youth to tears; such is the consequence of instant gratification and endemic narcissism. (I suspect our parents said the same about us!)

One particular pastime was cloud watching, and some of the best was just before or just after a storm passed through. To this day, I watch the skies for unusual cloud formations, particularly in the late afternoon when the lighting becomes more dramatic.

Dark Roasted Blend has a nice pictorial of the kinds of clouds I like to see.

-=[ Grant ]=-

You probably think nuclear bombs have limited application - destroying cities, that kind of thing. But you'd be wrong! You'd be surprised what you can do with an energy-liberating nuclear fission device!

Wired.com has a list of 7 things you didn't know you could do with an atom bomb.

-=[ Grant ]=-

In case you weren't aware, my background includes a stint as a watch & clock maker. That's where I learned my precision machining skills, and honed my ability to deal with very complicated devices in which each part has to work perfectly.

I've always been fascinated with timekeepers. I'm not all that keen on the sway they hold over our lives, and I'm hardly obsessive about the flows and uses of time, but the mechanisms (and the way in which they transmit information to humans) intrigue me. Over the years I've owned some unusual clocks, but Dark Roasted Blend brings us a great article on some really "out there" watches and clocks.

(I'm a little surprised that they didn't include one of the iconic "mystery clocks" of the 1960s, and one of my all-time favorites, the Jefferson "Golden Hour" clock:



Somewhere in my pile of old clock parts I have one of these. Maybe I should dig it out and get it running again - it would look great on my desk!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back in 1959, Peter Sellers made a film that, today, is sadly forgotten: "The Mouse That Roared."



The film relays the story of the tiny Duchy Of Grand Fenwick, which declares war on the United States. (There is a lesson in the clip that seems to have been lost in the intervening decades, but I'll leave that to your discovery.)

The mythical Duchy, though, has little on some of the tiniest 'countries' in the world, places whose origins and history are even more bizarre than Hollywood could concoct.

Cracked has the true stories of six of these mice.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It may surprise you to learn that the vast majority of transatlantic data traffic - phone calls, email, internet connections - doesn't go through satellites. Instead, most of those bits and bytes goes under the water through long cables stretched between the continents. Sounds awfully low-tech, doesn't it?

When the first undersea cables were laid, traffic was in the form of the telegraph message. Later, as the telephone became prominent, voice channels were added. There were some attempts to use radio to carry communications across the sea, but cables on the seabed were still the way most Americans kept in touch with Europe. It was that way up until the mid-1960s, when the first communications satellites were launched.

The satellite was the darling of data travel, and for a time it looked like underwater cables would be relegated to the back of the communications bus. By the early '80s, over half of all overseas traffic was carried on satellites, with more space-based capacity planned. Then something interesting happened...

In 1988, the first fiber optic cable between North America and Europe went into service. Fiber optics held the promise of bandwidth that was orders of magnitude greater than the copper wires previously laid in the Atlantic, and the new technology didn't disappoint: that first cable itself offered half of the entire bandwidth available on all of the communications satellites. Another cable would exceed the space capability, and that was just a start. Fiber optic cables were cheaper to deploy and had a much longer service life than any satellite, with corresponding reductions in the cost of moving data from one side of the earth to the other.

It didn't take long for the commercial satellite business to experience a serious drop in popularity; today, it's estimated that satellites carry less than a half-percent of all traffic between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Fiber optics were a hit, and it doesn't look like they'll stop being a hit anytime soon.

Thanks to all this fiber optic bandwidth we have the world wide web, which allows us to go back and relive how it all started: with insulated wires dropped off a ship into the middle of the sea. Here is a great site devoted to chronicling that early technology, complete with maps of historic cable routes.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

Back in 1980 I was working behind the sales counter in a camera shop to help pay my way through college. Without being too immodest, I had a prodigious knowledge of the photographic process, to include everything from vintage cameras and films to the equipment, chemistry, and procedures used to bring the images out of them. (I would later put that storehouse of information to good use when I opened a unique photographic lab that specialized in obsolete and obscure processes.)

Because of my deep base of arcane knowledge, I was often called upon to authenticate or debunk (depending on one's point of view) various kinds of "UFO" and "ghost" images. Over several years I looked at perhaps a couple hundred such anomalous images and, save for one, was able to immediately identify the source or cause.

Oh, that one? It took me a little time and some research, but eventually I was able to show how the image was made. I'm told that the person who paid a tidy sum for that "proof" of extraterrestrial life wasn't at all happy, but remained unconvinced. True believers are usually like that.

With that in mind, check out this gallery of "authenticated" spirit images. Who, exactly, authenticated them is unclear, but I can guarantee it wasn't me!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

I've written about the Hubble space telescope here and here, but I just could resist sharing this gallery of extraordinary Hubble images.

Take this one, for instance:



A nebula in the form of a hollow tube. What does it look like from inside? Sadly, we'll probably never know. In the meantime, Hubble can show us the outside, and generate wonder at what the rest of the universe holds. Not bad for a day's work, eh?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

As I mentioned last week, a family medical issue kept me traveling back and forth to the hospital. I spent several evenings sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a cramped hospital room, which is most assuredly not my idea of a good time.

On one of those visits I decided to get something to eat, and so made my way to the hospital's cafeteria. I got my French Dip sandwich (which wasn't bad, especially considering where I was) and sat down at a table, adjacent to which was another fellow eating the same sandwich.

He glanced at my tray and mentioned the food coincidence, and we struck up a conversation. He was wearing a nylon windbreaker with a logo on it, one which I didn't recognize, so I asked him about it.

Turns out that it was for a multi-level marketing company that hawks one of those "miracle" automotive lubricants. He started telling me about how his product "bonds to metal at the molecular level", and Tam's recent comment on this article popped into my head. I just couldn't resist...

Me: So, it bonds to the metal? It doesn't wear off?

Him: Right!

Me: And it bonds to both the piston and the cylinder wall, right?

Him: You got it!

Me: So, if it bonds to both, what keeps it from acting like SuperGlue and seizing the engine?

Him: [crickets chirping] Uh, no, it...uh....alters the magnetic properties of the metal molecules. It's not like glue.

Me: So it magnetizes my engine? Won't that destroy the engine's electronics? Ho do you magnetize aluminum, anyhow?

Him: [awkward pause] Well, I gotta get back to my wife's room. Nice to meet you!

Me: [Yelling as he runs for the elevator] Hey, do you have a business card? I'd like to talk some more about your products!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: snake.oil

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI) shot tens of thousands of photographs. The vast majority - and the images we most associate with their work - were in black and white:



However, there were a number of assignments which were shot in color. That number was far smaller, likely because of budget constraints, but produced some stunning images:



This article from Photo District News shows some of the portraiture from the collection. You can view the whole collection at the Library of Congress site for FSA/OWI color images. (If you click on the Subject Index, you can browse by categories.)


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

The Friday Surprise, for anyone who's been paying attention, is often devoted to my love of the old and abandoned. (My arch nemesis, TomW, will no doubt be along soon to point out that revolvers fit into those categories. Thought I'd beat you to the punch, Tommy!)

Where was I? Oh, right...anyhow, many times I'll drive along a little-used road out on the middle of nowhere (Oregon has a lot of that) and see an abandoned homestead. They always get me to wondering: why did people walk away from that home? Why didn't someone else take it over? Was it a lack of something, or an overabundance of something else? Of course I never find the answers, but the questions come back with the next deserted abode.

With that in mind, It's not surprising that I found this article, Wrong Side Of The Tracks, more than a little interesting. It's an informed look at how neighborhoods become extinct, about how a single house may not always be the whole story, and how this kind of occurrence isn't confined to the hinterlands. A great read.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

The combination of abandoned structures and obsolete technology is, to me, irresistible. Radio facilities, underground communications bunkers, and fortifications of all kinds fascinate me to no end.

As you might imagine, abandoned power stations would be near the top of my "can't get enough of that" list, and Dark Roasted Blend brings us a bunch.

One of them is here in Oregon - I know where the building is, but wasn't aware is was a power plant. I'm glad someone was:



-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

Or, How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Cruise Missile!

It's late in World War II. You're Adolf Hitler. Things aren't going all that swimmingly: the Russians are using your troops as landfill, the British and Americans took out your vacation home (along with everything else) in Dresden, and your girlfriend is tired of the amount of time you spend at the office.

What's a despot to do?

That's right - you bring in whatever weapon designers you have left after your latest loyalty purge, and tell them you want to be able to precisely target those dastardly Brits - down to the very building in which Churchill buys his favorite cigars.

Lo and behold, one of those designers comes up with a human-guided bomb launched from a glider (because powerful digital computers and GPS systems are still a little ways off, and conscripts are cheaper anyway.)

That could work. Or not.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Way back in the mid-70s I was a geeky high school student whose career dreams were split between playing trumpet in the Stan Kenton band, or designing optical systems for spy satellites. Kenton died in 1979, which quashed my first ambition, and a dismal showing in differential calculus (don't ask) convinced me that engineering wasn't my forte, either.

(What happened between then and now is a long story...)

Anyhow, back to high school. Our science teacher was an ex-JPL scientist who'd taken early retirement and ended up in our small Oregon town. This was a major score for a backward mountain community, and he was a wealth of information. I took every advanced physics and chemistry course our little school offered.

One day, he presented to the class what was then a very recent scientific find: the existence of a natural nuclear fission reactor. That's right, a nuclear reactor where atoms were split without human design or interference, and long before humans walked the earth. At the time, despite learning all the details, I found it hard to believe that such a thing had happened. I understood that it was theoretically possible, but it seemed fantastic that just the right physical conditions necessary to sustain natural fission had occurred anywhere.

But they had - more than once - in the tiny nation of Gabon in west Africa. Here's a great story about the reactors were discovered (warning: science content)

Here's a Wikipedia synopsis of what happened.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

When I say "underwater photography", you probably think pictures of colorful fish or grotesque mollusks. Jacque Cousteau, that kind of thing. I know this, because that's what I think of.

Think again.



Many more of these unique images at this link.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

Great bird's-eye (satellite, actually, but who's counting?) view of the Chaitén Volcano in Chilé. Learn more at Satnews Daily.



-=[ Grant ]=-

Recognize this?



How about now?



Well, you're not alone. This blob of corroded bronze was discovered off the Greek isle of Antikythera in 1900. In the decades since, archaeologists have been baffled by (and no doubt argued about) just what the thing was - let alone what it did.

The Antikythera Mechanism, as it came to be known, remained an enigma until the 21st century - when advanced imaging techniques allowed researchers to see into the amorphous blob, identifying gears and inscriptions. As it turns out, the Mechanism is a mechanical computer to predict astronomical data - the solunar cycle, eclipses, and even Olympic years and the intersection of all of those.

From those images, a British gentleman - one Michael Wright - was able to build a working replica of the Mechanism. Here, for the first time in over 2,000 years, you can see what it actually did:



The Mechanism is exciting in two ways: first, and most obvious, is that is shows a level of mechanical design and workmanship that is a full millennia ahead of what we thought was possible. Scientists date the mechanism to about 100 B.C.E, and comparable clockwork mechanisms don't show up again until more than a thousand years later.

Second, it suggests that the people who constructed it had an understanding of the concepts of a heliocentric (sun-centered) universe, which would not become accepted for nearly 1,500 years after the Mechanism had been built.

What is interesting to me is the idea that knowledge - in this case, mechanical and astronomical - can be forgotten, at least in a cultural sense. In this age of abundant and ubiquitous information, it is hard to accept it as a perishable commodity. It makes one wonder: what else have we forgotten?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

Over 400 years ago, Tycho Brahe (great astronomer, bad swordsman) observed a bright light in the sky. He watched it for a fortnight, coined the term "nova", wrote his first book about it, and decided to go into astronomy full time.

It wasn't a good way to make a living in those days - telescopes not having been invented yet, which made it a little like deciding to become a rock star before the electric guitar and LSD were available - but luckily enough his family was rich and he could afford such silliness.

His observations, though, were far from fanciful. Modern technology gives us a peek at what he saw in 1572:



Read more about it.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

I just couldn't come up with anything that really tickled my fancy this week, so I'm going to leave you with this story about an ancient chariot recently unearthed in Bulgaria.

It's not much, but it's the thought that counts!

-=[ Grant ]=-

In 1936, an audacious Henry Luce changed the way we looked at the world. He took a staid publication, gave it a new, photojournalistic makeover, and created the legendary LIFE Magazine.

Luce hired the best photographers he could find, and sent them out to cover whatever was interesting - if not always the biggest story. LIFE became the must-read periodical for the next several decades, owing to a combination of superior illustration and good writing. People of my generation, and those of the previous one, can easily remember at least one great LIFE photo - if not a whole bunch. That's what LIFE was about, and it is not too great a stretch to say that LIFE defined American photojournalism.

Many of LIFE's photographers would become well-known, like Margaret Bourke-White...




Alfred Eisenstadt...




Gordon Parks...




Ralph Morse...




Robert Capa...





Joen Loengard...




Co Rentmeester...




...as well as many more whose names weren't as familiar, but were stupendous "shooters" in their own right. LIFE was THE gig to have, and it attracted (and got) the best talent.

Now, in the digital era, Google and TIME have teamed up to bring the entire LIFE photo archive to the web. The hundreds of thousands of images in the LIFE vault are being digitized and indexed by Google as fast as their scanners will scan. At this moment, only about 20% of the collection has been archived - but more photos are added every day, and they hope to be finished with the project in mere months.

The collection includes everything - photos that have been published, and those that haven't. You'll get to see images that didn't make the "cut", those that weren't good enough to be published, as well as those iconic images for which LIFE was so well known.

Visit the LIFE/Google archive at this link.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

Tam, talking about the Clintons:

Are she and Bill even living together these days? Last I heard, their girlfriends weren't speaking to each other...

Milk. Nose. Out of.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers

I've written before of my appreciation for the mighty Saturn V rocket. It was, for my generation, perhaps the singular embodiment of American achievement. It showed the world what we were capable of doing when we set our mind to it, in a most spectacular fashion. (Quaint patriotism? Perhaps. I'm not normally prone to such things, but the launch of a Saturn V was always a huge event when I was a kid, and occasionally I miss the "old days." Somehow the Oprah Show isn't on the same level of accomplishment, but many people in this country apparently believe it to be!)

The Saturn V - the largest rocket ever made, and the crowning glory of Dr. Werner von Braun - celebrated its 41st birthday this week. It didn't need any candles, being able to provide fireworks all by itself!


Here it is, November 9, 1967, just before coming to life for the very first time. Happy (belated) Birthday, Saturn V!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

Growing up on a farm it was necessary to know how to tie a knot. One had to be able to secure a load in the back of a pickup, lash a load of hay to a trailer (we didn't have those ratcheting tie-downs back then), or tie a tent down to it's pegs. It's not as if I learned a whole passel of knots, just a few well-proven ones that were useful in our day-to-day endeavors.

Knots can be both functional and beautiful, though, and in the last year or so I've learned how to do some fancier braiding and knot-tying. A lot of my inspiration comes from Stormdrane's blog - he's always finding neat things to do with cordage!

Spend some time on his site; it's fascinating and somewhat addicting. (Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go order some more paracord...)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Bet you thought I'd have some Halloween-themed article today, didn't you? Hah! That would be too predictable. Instead, let's talk automobiles!

I had an interesting conversation with our local Fire Chief a while back. We had the department out to do a practice burn on an old barn, and they brought out the whole inventory - including a Ford engine from the mid-60s. It's the oldest piece of equipment they have, the rest of the gear being less than 10 years old. They're planning to replace it, not because it doesn't work (the truck has very low hours), but because it's a stick shift (the rest of their vehicles are automatics.) According to the Chief, only a few of the department's members know how to drive a truck with a manual transmission!

To this old farm boy, who grew up with changing gears himself, that seems strange. It's also the way of the world - even my wife has driven a stick shift only once in her life, and that was a long time ago.

It should come as no surprise, I suppose, to learn that less than 8% of all vehicles sold have manual transmissions. Even some performance cars come equipped exclusively with automatics these days.

I guess I belong to an earlier time. Not even 50, and yet pining for the "old days." Sigh.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Some of you may remember that I have a thing for old, abandoned places. You may also remember that this predilection most emphatically includes mines. I've been in a number of them with my buddy Dan, or my cousin Tim, or both of them. (In fact, they got me into mine exploring: "hey, Grant, if you like old buildings you'll LOVE old mines!" They were right.)

It was with great joy, then, that I found the Abandoned Mines of NY/NJ site. Nice layout, and the pics are beautifully detailed. Go, and prepare to be captivated.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

For some reason it's difficult to accept that people holding certain kinds of jobs would be tempted by something as fleeting as money and fame. Doctors, police officers, accountants, and clergy are supposed to be above such petty motives, yet a small percentage always fall to the lure of the "dark side."

It's when scientists go bad that it becomes...well, not funny, but certainly more amusing than having your accountant empty your bank account. It's the stuff of a South Park sketch:

1. Fake data.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Sometimes the fakes aren't even all that good, yet a trusting scientific community (and the public who trusts them) still falls for the ruses. Read about some of the most amazing examples over at Cracked.com.

-=[ Grant ]=-

So, where was this picture taken?



Italy? Scotland? Switzerland, perhaps?

Nope. This is the Middle East. Yes, it is! It's the beautiful country of Lebanon.

Hard to believe? What's hard to believe is that people go to Dubai instead of Baalbeck!

I have good friends who are from Lebanon; from them I've learned a great deal about the country, the people, and the history. Lebanon is truly the jewel of the Middle East, with a beautiful coastline, verdant valleys, and ski resorts. (Yes. Skiing. In the Middle East. With real snow on real mountains, unlike the artificial stuff that attracts crowds in Dubai.)



Why, you may ask, is Lebanon known for war and strife instead of scenery and recreation? The answer would take pages upon pages of explanation; let's just say that when a healthy national pride is replaced with violent sectarianism you get hell instead of paradise. The Lebanon of the late 20th century (and, it appears, the 21st as well) was closer to the former than the latter, which tends to explain why the mention of the country brings to mind bombed-out Beirut instead of the gorgeous Bekaa Valley.

Rather than dwell on the negative, run over to Dark Roasted Blend and marvel at the pictures.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Perhaps this isn't exactly in line with the things I usually chronicle, but Xavier posted this article about a gut-wrenching day at work.

Prepare for an emotional reaction.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: bloggers

The only total solar eclipse I've ever seen was in 1979. I was a high school senior and a serious science buff (did that make me a geek or a nerd? I've never been totally sure.) The solar eclipse was a big deal, being the first visible in the Pacific Northwest since 1918.

It was fascinating to watch the solar shadow run across the landscape, plunging our high school into darkness for those few minutes - then just as quickly receding to leave us in daylight again. It was easy to see how primitive peoples could be scared out of their skins by such an event!

It left me wondering, though - what did it look like from space? Thanks to the Mir space station, we can see.



Read more about this picture at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

Those of a certain age will remember when, with great fanfare, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched. If you remember the event, you'll also remember a few weeks later it was revealed that the main mirror had a fatal flaw, and speculation abounded that the $1.5 billion telescope (a lot of money back in 1990) would be nearly useless.

That was, however, until the Space Shuttle got up there and repairs were made. Today it's all ancient history, as the repaired Hubble continues to send us some of the most amazing images ever taken of space.

The HST also makes some interesting discoveries. Just recently it was looking deep into space and captured an image of something. I say "something" because scientists can't figure out what it is - it just suddenly appeared in the middle of nowhere, then a few months later just as mysteriously disappeared.

(Cue Twilight Zone theme.)

Read about it here.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

With credit to Andy Griffith for the title!

So, if you go to your local prepared food emporium and order a long sandwich, what do you ask for - a sub, a hoagy, a grinder, a hero, or something else? This is just one of the many cultural differences one finds traveling across the United States.

There are others, and none as surprisingly contentious as the word used to refer to a carbonated soft drink. "Pop", "soda", "coke" (used generically) all indicate strong regional preferences. Believe it or not, some people research this stuff and make maps of their findings.



Take a gander at the large version of the map, and look at my native state of Oregon. We're one of the more consistent areas in the whole country, showing a distinct preference for the term "pop." (We're 'blue' in more ways than one, sadly, but things around here are still far better than in our southern neighbor's backyard.)

Anyhow, as I was studying the map and gloating about our agreement on the word "pop", I noticed an anomaly. Not a small one; a significant one. Wheeler county, in the north-central portion of the state, is solidly in the dark green indicating "other."

Huh? How'd that happen? I think I can explain.

Wheeler county is on the dry side of the state. Not 'dry' as in alcohol consumption, but 'dry' in the sense that it doesn't get much precipitation. (For those who don't know, Oregon - despite having a reputation as a rainy state - is darn near two-thirds desert. Everything east of the Cascades, with only a few exceptions, gets very little rain.) It's also a rugged county, full of canyons and rimrock. It's beautiful country, really, but a scary kind of beauty. This combination makes for desolation; not many people live in Wheeler County.


(Oregon State Archives photo)

Now, Wheeler is one of our smaller counties. Still, it's 75% larger than the entire state of Rhode Island, and within spitting distance of the size of Delaware. In all that area, only 1,600 people live. That's right - less than two thousand people live in the entire county.

With such a small population, it's likely that only one of them responded to the soft drink survey. The map tells us the person in question cannot be a native - more likely, a transplant from a state where they refer to carbonated soft drinks by some other term. If this is allowed to spread, our whole state could turn green before our very eyes!

Then again, Oregon is known for being green, which attracts pink, which results in voting blue, which turns me purple. Clear?

-=[ Grant ]=-

P.S.: I found this over at the Strange Maps blog. It's a fun place to explore.

Tags: oregon

For the life of me, I don't know quite how to introduce today's post!

Imagine taking snapshots of typical 1930's life. Now, do it underwater. That's it in a nutshell!



These just have to be seen to be appreciated.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

Many years ago, I worked with a fellow who'd been raised on the east side of London. His stories about the Thames were romantic and intriguing: you could, he swore, walk along the banks of the river and pick up small items - clay pipes, etc. - that dated back four or five centuries. That wasn't surprising, he said, in a land where a 300-year-old house might be the new one on the block.

I never made it to England to find out if what he said could really be done, but there's no doubt of the history of the country. In our little land we get excited about something that is a mere century old, but in England that probably wouldn't rate a yawn.

Given that the Thames is so historically important, and that it flows through one of the most densely populated areas of the planet, its treasures should be well known. That, however, is not the case. A recent salvage expedition in the Thames Estuary - which is the area where the Thames runs into the North Sea - netted some seven forgotten shipwrecks, ranging from 1940 all the way back to 1665.

The interesting thing to me is that the operation was carried out in waters "up to" 16 meters deep - that's only about 50 feet. You'd think that some of those wrecks would have presented navigational hazards over the years, thus charted and hardly in need of discovery. It's when you combine the size of the Estuary (it's huge), the water visibility (roughly zero), and the extreme tides (up to 13 feet!), you begin to see how such things might get lost.

Check out the article in the UK Daily Mail.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back in the 1950s, General Motors was at the top of their game. Their cars were selling well, and many consider 1957 the peak of their design and marketing prowess.

At lot of that was due to their concept or "show cars." Like today, those were vehicles built to show their prowess and to gauge consumer reaction. Some of their design details would make it to production, some wouldn't, but they were all interesting to see - even a half-century later.

Check out this slideshow from the New York Times.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you're over 40, you know the woman in this picture. Not in the sense of personally knowing her, of course, but you know who she is.



Don't recognize her? I'll give you a hint: 1976.

Montreal.

Romanian.

Perfect 10's.

Famous theme named after her.

If you haven't already guessed, that's little Nadia Comaneci - now 46 years old, and married with children.

Her rise to dominate Olympic gymnastics was stunning. I remember watching the broadcast (back then it was on ABC) and being amazed that this little girl could seemingly come from nowhere and beat our own American athletes. With perfect scores, no less!

The whole event was darned near unbelievable. It seemed that her life was charmed; that she was on top of the world.

How little we knew. Romania in the late '70s was far from a paradise; Nicolas Ceaucescu ruled the country with an iron fist, and that included Nadia and her career. I won't give away the rest of the story, but it's a tale I knew nothing about until I read this article in London's Daily Mail.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've previously mentioned my appreciation for the work that NASA has done over it's 50-year history. NASA grew up right along with me - or me with it - and NASA was always doing the exciting stuff boys of that era were smitten by: Astronauts. Fast planes. Rockets. The Moon.

(It wasn't just spectacle, though; NASA was the catalyst for technological progress that continues to be felt today. A surprising number of the things we now take for granted can be traced directly back to some NASA project.)

We learned about the exploits of the engineers, technicians and astronauts through NASA-supplied pictures in the magazines of the day. My early interest in science was kindled by those pictures, and some of them I still remember.

NASA documented everything, but not all of their photos were of general interest. A large percentage of their images were never seen by the general public because the media was understandably reluctant to publish anything of interest only to nerds. Through the magic of the internet, however, we now have ready access to some of those great pictures.

The agency has launched a new site just for NASA images. You can search or browse and download your selected pictures, drawings, and illustrations - some of them of quite high resolution. You'll find lots of astronomical images, of course, but you'll find all kinds of other things too.

Two of my favorites from the 1969 launch of Apollo 11, taking the first men to the moon:




Saturn V rocket FTW!

If you're a science buff like me, you can spend large amounts of time on their site. I recommend that you not try this a) at work, or b) when your significant other expects you to be paying attention to him/her/the kids/household chores/your dinner guests. You have been warned!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa, photography

Let's say you have a million dollars or so to spend, and want a home in an exclusive neighborhood. You'd expect a certain level of amenities in the house, with good restaurants and shopping close by.

Oh, and neighbors whose properties were as pristine and aseptic as yours.

Right?

Not in Pacific Palisades, California.

Yuck.

-=[ Grant ]=-

You hate telemarketers. I hate telemarketers. Everyone hates telemarketers. (If you're a telemarketer, I'm sorry - I just can't work up any sympathy for you. Yes, I realize you need that job to buy diapers - but life's tough enough without getting your phone calls in the middle of my dinner!)

The hapless victims of telemarketers are finally starting to fight back. Take a look at this collection of tips about turning the tables on those who interrupt your life to sell you cheaper long distance. (Courtesy of Dark Roasted Blend.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

As the New York Times observes, there are two things you can find in Portland: vegans and strip clubs. That's pretty accurate.

Out state constitution has a very broad protection of freedom of expression, which the courts have consistently held to cover "exotic dancing." The result is that Oregon in general tends to have more strip clubs than other parts of the country. Portland, being the biggest city, naturally has the largest single selection of such establishments.

So, one Johnny Diablo (Carpetbagger-CA) decided to combine his love of vegetarianism and his love of...uhhh....flesh to create the first vegan strip club.

This is not his first attempt at an off-the-wall establishment: he tried a pirate-themed vegan restaurant last year, which despite intense media attention failed miserably. His new venture, Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, has gotten even more media attention, which I cannot recall a strip club ever receiving. When it seems that every other corner has such an establishment, one would have to do something very unusual to warrant any media notice. After all, how many other strip clubs have been profiled on the Earth First website?

Here's a local story on the joint.

Here's the NYT take on the place.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian, nor a patron of strip clubs. My omnivorous wife is thankful for both.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: oregon

Portland, Oregon has for years had one of the highest numbers of movie theater seats per capita. Oregonians, it would appear, can't get enough of the silver screen. (Save for this Oregonian, who sees one theater movie every five years or so whether he needs to or not.)

It seems to have always been this way. Portland had a large number of neighborhood movie theaters up through the '60s, and many of those buildings are still standing. The theaters were converted to other uses, and some of them actually retained some of their former features. Finding and exploring those old locations is a hobby for some, an obsession for others.

Back in the early '80s, when I was doing some moonlighting as a commercial photographer, I was retained by an older gentleman to photograph the abandoned Egyptian Theater in northeast Portland. The theater, originally built as a vaudeville venue, had been converted to the newfangled "moving pitchers" in the early '30s. It operated until 1962, when it was closed and used as overflow warehousing space for the chemical company which had purchased the location.

The gentleman who hired me was a serious movie buff, and was writing a book on old Oregon theaters. He wanted me to shoot pictures of the interior of the Egyptian. (I got the job because i was the only photographer he found who could light an entire large interior without benefit of electrical outlets or a generator. The power in the building had been shut off for years, the wiring having been declared a fire hazard. I'll leave you to guess how I pulled it off.)

Once in the building we found many of the seats still in place; the entire balcony was intact, as were the Egyptian-motif decorations and appointments throughout. There were torn ticket stubs littering the floor and even remnants of coming attraction posters in the lobby.

When theater closed, the awning (shown in this 1933 photo) was removed, and the front of the building simply covered with a false wall. The ticket booth and original doors were still there!



It was a surreal experience, as if the building was simply waiting for the janitors to arrive to clean up for that evening's business.

The building was torn down in 1989; sadly, the book never materialized. I had a good time, though.

What brought this to mind was this article at WebUrbanist about abandoned movie theaters across the U.S. (Somewhere in storage I have my shots of the Egyptian, but exactly where is a mystery. Until I can find them, you'll have to make do with WebUrbanist's article!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

If you're under 40, the name Douglas Engelbart probably means nothing to you. It should, though, because a huge amount of the machine on which you're reading this sprang from his fertile mind.

Engelbart (yet another product of Oregon, having been born in Portland) worked at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) before the dawn of the personal computer revolution. Many of the things we now use without a second thought were developed by him, or made possible by his work: bitmapped screens, the graphical user interface (GUI), hypertext, and networking. The very birth of the internet occurred when his lab at SRI and it's counterpart at UCLA networked their computers to become the first two nodes of ARPANET.

His greatest moment would have to be his "Mother of All Demos" in 1968. In that presentation, he introduced to a stunned world the early working implementations of video conferencing, teleconferencing, interactive text, email and the aforementioned hypertext. It is, perhaps, the single most important event in the history of modern computing.

One of his inventions revealed for the first time at the Demo was a new invention: the computer mouse. It would take over a decade before his now-common pointing device finally reached the market (attached to the ill-fated Xerox 8010 Star Information System), and several years after that before it came to the notice of the general public (as an integral part of the original Macintosh.)



(John C. Dvorak, computer pundit, wrote in 1984 of the new Mac and Engelbart's invention : "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." Dvorak is not known for his prescience, which surprisingly fails to deter his continued employment.)

YouTube has the entire Demo available.


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

That's a quote from one of my favorite photographers, Life magazine's fantastically great Ralph Morse, about his rivals at Newsweek. Ralph, it was said, was of the "old school" - a term once used to describe a code of behavior, before the "hip hop" generation co-opted it to describe MTV's previous seasons.

It's ironic that Ralph's words came on the eve of his coverage of the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981, because it was this article on Soviet cosmonaut deaths which brought them back to me. The combination caused me to think not only about the attitude of the gracious winner, but of the trials and tribulations of the losers in all high-stakes games.

While I'm proud of U.S. achievements in space (I am a child of the Sputnik Era, after all), I'm simultaneously saddened at the loss of life experienced by our (former) enemies. I'm not talking about the maudlin, paralyzing, "new age sensitive man who cries at the drop of a hat" kind of sadness, but rather a genuine empathy for those who attempt something great and leave the world poorer by their absence.

Like our astronauts, the cosmonauts were proud of their homeland. They were willing to put their lives on the line to advance not only their nationalistic pride, but something more. There was an altruistic component to their flights, which they seemed to know were advancing science and technology to benefit all those who were firmly anchored to terra firma. Even as we celebrate our own successes we need to be reminded that we are as much in their debt as they are in ours.

We see where we are today only because we stand on the shoulders of all those who came before us.

(Thanks to Tam, who found the article.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

I suspect, in this Age of Wii, that board games are solidly out of fashion. When I was a kid that was most assuredly not the case!

Growing up on the farm, there was no such thing as cable (or satellite) television; music was on vinyl records, not iPods; and personal computers, let alone the internet, weren't even on the horizon. Board games were therefore a significant portion of our recreational activities, and we looked forward to getting together with friends and playing our favorites.

The king of games, of course, was the all-time best seller: Monopoly - "by Parker Brothers", as the TV commercials reminded us. Kids liked it, adults liked it. Everyone, it seems, enjoyed passing the time by passing "GO" - and collecting $200.

It turns out that for some people, Monopoly wasn't a pastime - it was deadly serious.

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I was growing up we spent a lot of time at the beach. My older sister, during her off-time from college, worked and lived at the Oregon coast. Since gas was cheap back then, we often made the trip over the mountains from our valley farm to visit her. As a result, I spent a whole lot of time playing in the sand.

My efforts at sand castle building were poor at best. I didn't have a bucket and a miniature shovel, and my imagination was limited, so I contented myself instead with making driftwood fortifications and defending them from imaginary invading hordes. It never occurred to me that one needn't be limited to building just castles from sand!

Flash forward, and today sand sculpture is a hot activity. There are several competitions on the Oregon coast every year, as well as around the world. Dark Roasted Blend has a great bunch of pictures from competitions all over the globe - including right here in Oregon.

My favorite:



(Allow me to get a bit political and suggest that it is a parable for what happens when one believes that government programs are the solution to everything.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I just came up with a hot idea for a film script. We take an archeaologist who is obsessed with the Holy Grail, and we set him out on a search for it...and we'll throw in some evil Nazis who are just waiting to get it for themselves! Wouldn't that make a great movie??

Drat. Turns out that not only is my idea not my own, it's also been done already.

Day late and a dollar short...

-=[ Grant ]=-

I probably should have waited for the Friday Surprise for this one, but I just couldn't help myself...

The local news is buzzing with the story of a recent liquor store burglary. Yes, burglary - not robbery.

Seems our erstwhile rumrunner broke into a local adult beverage emporium a couple of weeks ago, bringing his own large-size garbage can to carry off the loot. He first raided the cigarette shelves, then proceeded to the liquids of his choice.

Allow me to digress for a moment to explain my strategy in such a situation. First, I don't smoke - never have - so the tobacco products would not interest me. No, were I to find myself alone in a liquor store at o-dark-thirty, trick-or-treat bucket firmly in hand, I would make my way to the single malt shelf. I would then proceed to gingerly (and with all due respect to the golden liquid contained therein) place the bottles in my basket. Starting, of course, with the Islays and working my way inland.

First to go would be the Lagavulin, then the Caol Ila, then (in no particular order) the Bowmore, Ardberg, and Laphroaig. That should easily fill up the 33-gallon can that this fellow toted, but should there be any room left a few bottles of Highland Park would easily fill any gaps. That is what I would do.

This fellow? He spent all that time alone in an adult candy store stealing Jack Daniels. What a waste. The man should be publicly flogged for terminal stupidity and a profound lack of good taste.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: stupid.people

Last Friday I linked to an article that described what I don't like about my home state of Oregon. Today, I'm linking to a terrific Dark Roasted Blend article on something I truly treasure about Oregon: our great scenic drives.

I must say that this article is a surprise. We're so used to reading about "great" drives along the California coast, when we know that our coastline is both more beautiful and more accessible. It's great to finally get some well deserved press, not to mention being ranked among the world's most beautiful roads!

(Did you know that the Oregon coast is open to everyone? That's right - the entire coastline is public property, and there are very few spots that are not easily accessed. Take that, California!)

Terrific article, great pictures. Thanks for the plug, Avi!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: oregon

I'd planned to introduce today's topic with a short essay on the state of Oregon, about its natural wonders and its recent societal changes. No matter how I approached the topic, I couldn't help sounding like a malcontent.

You see, I'm an Oregonian - a proud member of SNOB (Society of Native Oregon Born.) I was born here, lived my entire life here, and hope to die here (not right away, you understand.) I love this state, but even my love has its limits.

I will add only this: Portland is not like the rest of the state. More precisely, the rest of the state is not like Portland, for which I am eternally grateful!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: oregon

So, imagine you're a geologist searching for diamonds in Namibia. You haven't found any. You're disappointed; perhaps, you think, you should reconsider your chosen profession.

Then you trip over a shipwreck filled with gold, silver, and artifacts.

Think you'd feel better? I sure would!

-=[ Grant ]=-

+++
I managed to finish the last post on my "Self defense, stopping power, and caliber" series last night. When I re-read it this morning, prior to uploading, I decided I didn't like it. Oh, the informational aspect was fine - it was the writing. For whatever reason, it wasn't as clear as I had thought. I'm re-writing it, and will post on Wednesday.

Today, you get the quick-and-dirty, all-linky-and-no-thinky post.

+++
From the No Quarters blog, a graphic example of why one should never allow a member of the media anywhere near a firearm. (I have my own story of a media person being handed a gun, but forces over which I have no control demand that I never tell the tale. More's the pity, as it's at least as good as this one.)

+++
This article - from the Wall Street Journal, no less - has been getting tons of play in the blogosphere. Michael Bane's corner of the web was the first place I saw it, so he gets the tip o' the hat.

(Yes, I am as well. Thanks for asking!)

+++
Finally, this has nothing to do with anything at all, but it was just so...odd that I just knew I had to bring it to you. (Leave it to Tam to find stuff like this...)

Tags: bloggers

When I was a wee lad, America was at the forefront of space exploration. By the time I was old enough to know what was going on, we'd recovered from the shock of the Soviets beating us into space, and had responded in a big way with Gemini and Apollo programs.

In those days, our grade school classes would literally come to a halt as we gathered around a television set to watch a liftoff or a splashdown. The mighty Saturn V rockets - spewing a fireball that remains unequalled for sheer excitement - would take our astronauts into space for yet another thrilling mission. Landing men on the moon was our crowning achievement, watched by just about everyone in the country.

Space flights were national events on a scale that I haven't seen since - and probably never will again. The SuperBowl and American Idol Finals may draw larger audiences, but in terms of captivating our collective conscious, of instilling pride in our country and what we were capable of doing, they will ever equal the NASA of the mid 20th century.

NASA has put together a little retrospective of their first 50 years, using photos that have rarely been seen publicly. If you are a child of the '50s or '60s, this will bring back stirring memories of what we briefly referred to as Cape Kennedy.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: nasa

Let's take inventory: secret government projects - check. Eerie underground facilities - check. Mad-scientist-movie electrical equipment - check. Iron Curtain intrigue - check.

Yep, I have everything I need for another great entry: Russian Nuclear Research Facilities.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

It pains me to think that the '70s - the decade of my young adulthood - are now considered "vintage"!

However, that is the case, and a look through this Flickr photo set of a logo book from that era brings back many memories. It's surprising how many of these logos I still recognize, even though some of the companies are no more. Others have had major makeovers since that time; some of them have been for the better, as bad design existed back then, as well.



Take a look, courtesy of 43 Folders.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: design

When I was a teenager, I took a trip to British Columbia, Canada. Aside from the fact that they couldn't pronouce the "ou" combination correctly ("Grouse Mountain", one of our stops, was pronounced "Groose Moontain"), what struck me about the country was the currency. Where our was the time-honored and respectable green and black combination, theirs was colorful - garish, to my young eyes.

I gave my good-natured hosts no end of ribbing about their "play money", and by the end of my trip I was happy to be back in the U.S., with our familiar greenbacks. This happened well before the adoption of their famous bird-themed coin, but to this American kid Canadian money has always been "loonie."

Today, of course, even the staid U.S. dollar is becoming more colorful in an attempt to thwart counterfeiting. Most of the other countries in the world have long since adopted colorful bills, and some of them are gorgeous.

Check out The Color of Money from Around the World.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Today I thought I'd give you some feedback from my Adventures in Online Shopping.

When I factor in my diminishing free time, the price of gas, and the distance between everything in my locale, it becomes faster, easier and often cheaper to shop online. From clothes to chainsaw parts, before I do anything else I check the net - and very often, I choose the BBToJ* over my Suzuki.

Most of the time my virtual transactions occur without a hitch, but on occasion there are problems. Of course, at the other end of the bell curve are those companies that go out of their way to make the faceless exchange a surprisingly pleasant experience.

Size and reputation have no bearing on the shopping outcome, even online. I've had some of my worst purchases from some of the biggest web stores, and some of my best from little mom-and-pop sites. It's tempting to think, on encountering a small, amateurish site, that it is not a place you want to spend your money. Like those great yet undiscovered restaurants, what you see on the outside may not be a good indication of what ends up on your plate!

Take my favorite knife seller, Ragnar's Ragweed Forge. This has got to be the ultimate example of a minimalist site, put together on the cheap and devoid of the e-commerce niceties we've come to expect. No shopping cart here - just a (secure) online form you fill out by copying and pasting the catalog number of the items you want! (Back in the '70s, there was a local chain, a precursor to the Costcos of the world, called Prairie Market. Its claim to fame - remember, this is pre-UPC code times - was that you had to write the shelf price on every item with a grease pencil, so the checker could ring you up.) What you get for your work at Ragnar's is a superb selection of hard-to-get knives, terrific prices, reasonable shipping charges, and fast delivery. Ragweed Forge is almost a legend on the knife forums, and for good reason.

One little place I've come to like is Sage Creek Outfitters. Located in Idaho, it's a small outdoor and hunting supply company with a nice website that belies the personal service they deliver. Their prices are generally good, they actually have the items in stock, and they are FAST! I've never had such fast shipping from an online vendor; part of that is their proximity on our eastern border, but it's still surprising when their packages show up long before I expect them. Great folks, and their customer service is as good as anyone's.

I recently discovered Have A Life Outdoors, a small retailer that handles primarily Gransfors Bruks and associated products. (Gransfors needs their own blog post, but in the meantime - if you want the best axes and hatchets in the world, Gransfors Bruks is the choice.) Again, they're working hard to make a success of their little niche, with a good stock and rapid order turnaround.

We heat our house with a woodstove, and with 11 acres of woodlot I'm always buying some sort of logging equipment or chainsaw part. My two favorite stores are Bailey's and Amick's. I've never had a problem with either, they always ship promptly, and their pricing is better than I can get locally - if I can even find the item. (That's the reason I started doing business with them in the first place - my local outlets rarely have what I need in stock. I hate to hear the term "I can order that for you" - my response is "so can I!") Bailey's stock is aimed primarily at arborists and loggers, while Amick's is more of a general outdoor power equipment source. Both are great places to do business.

Then again, all of the companies I've mentioned have been terrific. Kudos to all!

-=[ Grant ]=-

* Big Brown Truck of Joy, aka UPS. A generic term for any delivery service.

There are very few things that can start a raging debate like politics, religion - or the Civil War. Get a few people together, perhaps with some adult beverages, ask them what started the war, and wait for the fireworks.

(Personally, this Yankee reserves his invective for President Lincoln. Regardless of the actual cause of the conflict, the fact remains that he was the first President to invalidate whole sections of the Constitution to further his schemes. That modern day leftists rail against President Bush's encroachments on civil liberties, but give the far more Machiavellian Lincoln a free pass, never fails to astonish me. But I digress...)

Anyhow, the actual conduct of the war itself is fascinating. In just a few short years, we leapt from smoothbore muzzleloaders to self-contained metallic cartridge rifles. (There were times when both would serve on the same field of battle, a clash of technologies that would be roughly analogous to having Sopwith Camels and F-15s serving in the same theater of operations.)

Espionage, sabotage, psychological warfare, and manipulation of public opinion as tools of war saw similar advancements. Not all of the operations would work out too well, though, and the story of Captain Thomas Henry Hines is a great example.

-=[ Grant ]=-

As a child of the West, I'm generally not one to get excited about the upper-right quadrant of our country. I've visited the northeast, and in general am not all that attracted to the region. However, one thing the inhabitants of the region have that I'm quite jealous of are layers of old infrastructure, just waiting to be explored.

In the distant past my job occasionally required me to travel to upstate New York. Even the things that residents of the area consider commonplace - say, the remnants of the Erie Canal - just fascinated me, because of the long and storied past of that engineering marvel. Thus I spent a large portion of my "off" time visiting local museums and historical attractions.

On one visit to the Rochester area, I took the time to follow the Canal's path from there to Tonawanda. Since I was in the "neighborhood" - literally just a few miles - I made the short hop up to see the fabled Niagara Falls. (It must be said that even I, somewhat jaded by close encounters with much higher waterfalls, was amazed at Niagara Falls. It's worth the trip.)

At the time I wasn't aware of the history of power generation at Niagara, let alone the extent of the abandoned facilities that were literally right under my feet. I am now, and boy would I like to go back and see some of it!


Courtesy of www.vanishingpoint.ca

Check them out at vanishingpoint.ca, which is a great site for urban explorers.

-=[ Grant ]=-

One of my favorite abandoned/unknonwn/old technology subjects is the fabled Beach Pneumatic Transit System in Manhattan. Nothing exists of it today - neither facilities nor artifacts - but this article at Damn Interesting gives the best overview I've seen of the ill-fated project.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

Remember a few weeks back, when I was wondering when Global Warming was going to take care of the foot of snow in my driveway?

Turns out that I probably won't get my fair share.

Darn it.

-=[ Grant ]=-

As you may have guessed from previous entries, history fascinates me. Not in the sense of ancient history, or even battle locations and dates; the history I'm interested in is the history of technology. I'm interested in the history that was displayed in what used to be known as "science and industry" museums, before those institutions got caught up in showcasing meaningless "interactive" exhibits carefully crafted so as not to "offend" anyone (while managing to avoid any real education in the process.)

Anyhow, part of the history of technology is how products were represented to the buying public. The product logo, aside from showing the pride of the people who made it, served as a point of reference (and sometimes of reverence) for those who might decide to own the thing.

Vehicle logos are perhaps the perfect example of how logo design changes not only with fashion trends, but with regard to customer's expectations and aspirations. Check out this collection of auto logo evolution, courtesy of Neatorama.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: design

I'm not a huge fan of modern children's cartoons. I grew up watching Bugs Bunny, who was the quintessential American cartoon character: brash, self-assured, didn't take guff from anyone, and always won. He lost some of his edge with the ascension of producer Chuck Jones, but compared to what kids see today he was still a pugnacious little furball.

When I first saw the Smurfs, my reaction was something like "what kind of namby-pamby, touchy-feely, feel-good crap are they teaching kids these days? Heck, Bugs would've just dropped a rock on his antagonist and been halfway into his hole by now!" Of course, their Communist lifestyle sets my libertarian hair on end, and I've always wondered where the baby Smurfs came from, given the virtually all male Smurf demographic.

(It goes without saying that I have no children to explain these things to me, and I'm not sure I'd want to have them explained. Where oh where is my Acme Deluxe Bazooka Kit when I need it??)

Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of bringing you an interesting "news" item: Croatian Smurfs left blue-faced as world record attempt falls sadly short.

Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of bringing you an sadly interesting "news" item: Croatian Smurfs left blue-faced as world record attempt falls sadly short.



(Frankly, I would have thought this to be more of a Belgian thing, given where their creator hails from. Apparently, though, the Croatians are catching up in the emasculation race.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Let's see now...this is the view from my front yard:



Here in Oregon, we're getting historic snowfall amounts - even in our temperate valleys. Record low temps were recorded across the midwest recently, while south of the Mason-Dixon Line Tam has been freezing her tuchus. Personally, I wish someone would explain to me where my share of this "Global Warming" thing is, because I could use it right now...

---

This morning I got an email from AFGWWWTRA, who is en-route to the SHOT show. I'm hoping my secret correspondent will send me back news about neat new revolvers, though I'm not holding my breath. (Note to Taurus: revolvers that shoot shotgun shells are not my idea of "neat.")

---

Note to S&W: the "TR Special Edition" thing is getting a bit long in the tooth, and the guns themselves are getting uglier. If this keeps up, the next one will cost $5k and cause eyes to bleed upon opening the box. Please, no more.

---

Tags: afgwwwtra

...too much snow. (Big doin's afoot, though - I'm pledged to secrecy, but look for an announcement in a few days!)




-=[ Grant ]=-

One of the reasons I hate the very concept of reading books online is because of the typefaces involved. (In fact, that's one of the saddest parts of the entire online experience.) There are only a handful that will reproduce distinctively on a website, and if you're using a Windows PC (as opposed to a Mac) that number is cut in half (due to the way Microsoft renders type.) Even such niceties as italics and boldface are substandard - or non-existent - when getting words through the 'net.

(A typeface, BTW, is a family of type; a "font" is a specific style within that typeface. For instance, Arial is a typeface consisting of the fonts Arial Regular, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, etc.)

Typestyles are tremendously important in their ability to bring emotion to print. One gets a profoundly different feeling reading a paragraph in, say, Caslon versus that same text in Optima. Subtle variances in typefaces can bring huge changes to how the words are perceived by the reader, and the skilled designer recognizes and exploits that.

The beauty of one specific typeface is the subject of a neat feature-length independent film called, simply, "Helvetica." Filmmaker Gary Hustwit looks at this ubiquitous type, where it came from and why it's important in the wider world of graphic design. I know, it sounds dry - but I found it to be engaging as it persuaded me to take a closer look at something that is, quite literally, everywhere. If you're a fan of good design, you should check it out.

It's currently available for online viewing at Google video.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: design

For those that actually remember the dawn of the computer age (my first computer experience was on a time-shared GE 600-series mainframe), looking over old computer advertisements brings a flood of reactions: amusement, embarrassment, and the occasional "I wish I'd bought their stock when it was first offered." (Of course, there is also the "I'm glad I didn't buy any of their stock!")

Take a look at these vintage ads. I particularly like the one explaining what email is - not just for the content, but for the company promoting the concept. (Honeywell, once a player in mainframe computers, is perhaps best known these days for making thermostats - which is what they made before they bought their way into the computer business.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

When I was in college, I had a keen interest in economics. This is a subject that most approach with trepidation; it is seen as a "difficult" subject to grasp, let alone master. Let me assure you: economics, in terms of understanding the mechanisms involved, is pretty simple. Then again, so is football. Predicting with any certainty the long range outcome of economic activity, though, is far from simple. Gee, again - a lot like football!

From my first freshman level course to my very last, the whole subject fascinated me. I had one prof who was an unrepentant Keynesian, while I - also unrepentantly - was a monetarist from the University of Chicago mold. ("Milton Friedman was right!") We had a mutual respect of each other's opinion, but our class time virtually always devolved to a debate between just the two of us, other students looking on with expressions of incomprehension.

(Most of the students in econ classes, at least at the lower levels, were business school students who were there because an MBA required a certain number of econ credits. I'll spare you the then-common jokes about how MBA students were people who couldn't hack the PhysEd curriculum, but they do tend to explain why B-school folks had no clue what we were talking about.)

For them, as well as a majority of Americans, economics has come to signify some sort of black art that few understand. Fortunately, today we have something other than dry textbooks to show you just how easy and approachable the subject really is.

One first needs a good understanding of what money is and how it is created - and believe me, it isn't done in the way you probably think it is! A few years ago, a Canadian graphic artist by the name of Paul Grignon made an absolutely masterful animated short that deftly explains money, both from a historical and a modern perspective, and will leave any viewer with a solid and comprehensive understanding of just what "money" is.

So important is this film that I recommend everyone see it, share it with friends and family, and talk about it at work. If you do nothing else in terms of economic education, watch this film!

The original is 47 minutes long, but to make it a little less daunting several people have posted it to YouYube in sections.



Money as Debt - Part One
Money as Debt - Part Two
Money as Debt - Part Three
Money as Debt - Part Four
Money as Debt - Part Five

(One caveat: Part Five contains Grignon's prescriptions for a solution to the problems inherent with our current monetary system. Being Canadian, he's obviously cut from a very socialist cloth and his solutions involve ever greater government intervention. I think he's completely mistaken in those conclusions, but they don't detract from what is otherwise a superb explanation of money for the average person.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Many people, it seems, do not know about archive.org. It is an online digital library of old (public domain) photos, music, movies, books, and much more. It is an absolute goldmine for anyone who likes to peruse life from another era.

Let's say, for example, that you want to see Thomas Edison's 1910 film adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein." Not a problem - archive.org has it.

If it's old or obscure, I always look for it first at archive.org; it should come with a disclaimer, though: "Warning! This is a site that can literally eat up hours of otherwise productive time!"

Check it out.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've been reading this screed for any length of time, you know my fascination with old and abandoned places. WebUrbanist, a site that deals with various cultural scenes and artifacts from all over the world, has sometimes fed this addiction of mine.

This time, they have a collection of great abandoned sites right here in the good ol' US of A.

Now, just to prove to you that I'm not "all hat and no cattle", here's a shot of an abandoned mine I ran across in southern Oregon:



Yes, it's full of water. You're looking at the roof supports, which are about six feet above the floor. No kidding.

(There was an old sign on the entrance that read "extreme danger - do not enter." Ya think??)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

I'll admit that today's Friday Surprise is a bit "out there" - but it's also awfully neat.

On the Croatian shore is a very unusual musical instrument: an organ powered and played by the sea. The engineers installed a rank (the organ term for a group or line) of pipes beneath some concrete stairs. As the waves lick the shoreline, the water pushes air out of individual pipes, and the size and duration of those waves controls the volume and sustain of each note.



Here's an MP3 clip of the organ playing. Yes, it's a bit abstract but also hauntingly compelling. While not directly comparable, the spare, open sound of the wave organ reminds me a bit of the wide sound that Aaron Copland was able to coax from the orchestra - particularly in his Symphony #3. I find myself waiting in rapt attention for the next note.

Should I ever find myself in Croatia, you can bet I'll visit!

Courtesy of the Oddmusic homepage. Be sure to check out some of their other unusual entries!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: music

Holy cow, it's Friday already! I've been so busy, it didn't dawn on me until mid-morning that I had a blog post due today!

Here's one that I really like - stop-action photography of water. Take a look - it's not what you think!



(I was going to write a clever introduction to the work of Harold Edgerton, but you'll just have to research him yourself.)


-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: photography

At least, some of them did!

Here's a great little collection of pictures from the last few decades of computer technology. Ranging from mainframes to the first microcomputers, it's a neat glimpse of just how far things have come.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

But not the one you may have thought!

You may recall that back during World War II, we developed the first operational nuclear bomb. It was a massive effort, with the epicenter in Alamogordo, New Mexico. So, why was it called the "Manhattan Project"?

Many believe that it was a name picked to draw attention away from the desert southwest, to confuse the enemy by calling it by something completely unrelated to the project. A little security sleight-of-hand, as it were.

You might be surprised just how close to the mark the name actually was.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Remember my declaration of geekiness? Well, a fellow I've been known to hang around with (also a ham radio enthusiast - go figure) sent me this:



Yes, that's me in a nutshell. Except I'm not an engineer - but I'd play one on TV if someone paid me.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Well, definitely not in these!

Owing to my unnatural fascination with old and abandoned things, I find the concept of an aircraft boneyard to be absolutely irresistible. The most famous of them is no doubt the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center outside of Tucson, but there are others.

The Russians have such things, too, and they can be a fascinating glimpse into the "other side" of the Cold War.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

When we think of a battery, we invariably think of the lead, acid, or alkaline components that have become synonymous with the concept. But chemical repositories are not the only ways to store energy; it can also be stored in its kinetic form.

That's the idea behind the mechanical battery. Read all about it, courtesy of Damn Interesting.

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's confession time: I'm a geek. A card carrying, spent-all-my-high-school-time-in-the-library, know-how-to-use-a-sliderule geek. I love computers, think physics should be taught in kindergarden, and generally find technology of all kinds (modern to ancient) fascinating.

Seems I'm not the only gun blogger to claim that moniker: the infamous Tam purports to be a geek, too - but is she? Is she really? Oh, yeah, she makes a big deal about her old computers - but did she ever have a DEC PDP-11/70 (running RSTS, no less) in her garage like I once did? I think not!

I, on the other hand, can prove my exalted status beyond a shadow of doubt, as I possess the ultimate geek credential: an amateur radio license. No, not your simple no-code-Tech paper, but a real I-passed-the-Morse-code-test-and-have-HF-privileges-to-show-for-it General class ticket. In the world of the terminally socially inept, the ham radio license is Da Bomb. Let's see you beat THAT, Tam! Hah! Hah-hah-hah!

(I think I've been reading far too much Mogambo Guru. But I digress...)

This nerd calling-out is just a pathetically unimaginative way of introducing today's topic: an abandoned Ionospheric Research Station hidden deep in the Ukrainian wilderness. You see, such installations are all about antennas, and any ham radio operator worthy of the title is really into antennas. I sure am; I have books about antennas, have pictures of antenna installations, and generally love looking at anything to do with antennas - the more esoteric, the better!

They don't come much grander than this one, courtesy - once again - of that web site for all geeks, Dark Roasted Blend. (If after viewing the site you have an irresistible urge to buy a pocket protector, I cannot be held responsible!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: old.technology

I just can't think of anything to say today. This is beyond writer's block - my mind is simply blank.

I'd thought of commenting on an email I received that was critical of my position in the article On Safety, but it seems like beating a dead horse.

Tam put up an interesting post on the S&W Model 53, but a simple link is hardly sufficient for a whole blog post.

A tragic shooting in small-town America shows just how ridiculous it is to insist that only the police and military have guns. I could comment, but I think the story is self-explanatory.

I guess I'll just fall back on this: it's stupid to make pets out of wild animals. Especially heavily-armed wild animals.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: s&w

So, let's say you've got some precision tools, a dozen eggs, and some time on your hands. What would you do?

How about carving up those eggshells?



-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: incredible

Well, chances are it will sit right where you left it!

Check out Abandoned Plane Wrecks of the North.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: abandoned

I like honeybees. Compared to their shiftless relatives, the combative yellowjacket, honeybees are a happy and productive insect. Of course, the reason I like them so much is because they make one of nature's most perfect foods: honey.

The inside of their hive, where they produce that golden nectar, has always held a fascination for me. I remember as a kid occasionally getting a large honeycomb and chewing on the honey-filled wax, wondering just how the little creatures managed their magic.

Well, one person thought of a way to watch. I present you with the Bell Jar Beehive:



Click here to see the rest of the amazing pictures!


-=[ Grant ]=-

The other day I was in the parking lot of the local Home Depot, whose coffers as of late have been swelling from the various remodeling projects around our house.

As I was loading up another pile of material for yet another round of work on the house, I watched in amazement as a couple contemplated how to carry their newly-purchased front entry door in (or on) their - wait for it - Mazda Miata. I wish I were kidding.

My wife chuckled all the way home.

My thoughts immediately turned to an episode of Rowan Atkinson's terrific "Mr. Bean" television show, wherein the namesake character carries the equivalent of a La-Z-Boy on top of his tiny little car (an original Leyland Mini):



But these two episodes of mirth pale in comparison to some real pictures of crazy portages, brought to us once again by Dark Roasted Blend. Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

We all know the baggage carried by the brand "Volvo": "Vegetarian." "Boring." "Safe." "Comfortable shoes." "Risk-averse." Volvo as a company seems to do little to dispel the image they have, as it's certainly been successful for them.

There is another side to Volvo, though - the take-no-prisoners, rough-and-tumble side, represented by their superb line of all-terrain military trucks. The best known of these models is the C303, better known as the "Laplander."



The Laplander is a very boxy 4x4 vehicle, similar in design to the Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer but a bit larger. Powered by the superb Volvo B30 inline six and possessing front and rear locking differentials, it it has proven itself more than a match for the toughest terrain. Look at the ground clearance under the rear axle!

The C303 has developed a worldwide following of passionate enthusiasts, though (sadly) there aren't a lot of them here in the U.S. Now I'm not usually one to lust after a mere vehicle, but I've wanted a Laplander for years. I don't know whether it's the need to possess something no one else does, a psychological deficiency that compels me to seek attention, or just a desire to annoy my ever-so-yuppie neighbors, but I want one. Yes, it's probably impractical as a day-to-day driver; yes, the fuel economy is nothing to write home about; yet I still want one!

Check out some of the Laplander's many fan sites:

http://www.volvoadventures.com/Laplander_C303spec.html
http://www.volvoc303.co.uk/


-=[ Grant ]=-

The "buddy movie" has become a staple in Hollywood's bag of banal plot staples. They've given us cop buddy movies, firefighter buddy movies, private eye buddy movies, superhero buddy movies, and even suicidal women buddy movies.

In the hands of a master, though, even a cliche becomes fresh and intriguing. The master, in this case, is Akira Kurosawa, and the movie in question is the superb "Dersu Uzala."

Dersu is a Nanai hunter who befriends - and is befriended by - Captain Arsenyev, who is leading a surveying expedition in Siberia just after the turn of the 20th century. Dersu is the quintessential mountain man who is completely at home in nature, while Arsenyev (and his crew of soldiers) are distinctly out of place in the vast wilderness. Dersu becomes Arsenyev's friend, showing him not just how to survive in the unforgiving landscape but also a bit about the meaning of life.

Watch this clip, and note how Dersu not only sees subtle clues around him, but how he cares for those who he may never meet:



Their friendship grows out of mutual respect, not bravado; what they share is a heartfelt concern for the land and the people who inhabit it, as well as the welfare of each other.

The movie is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name, written by the real Captain Arsenyev about the real Dersu. Kurosawa had read the book and desperately wanted to bring it to the big screen, and in the 1970s finally got his chance - spending two full years filming in the wilds of Siberia. The result may, as some critics have suggested, be Kurosawa's most beautiful (and certainly most underrated) work.

Because it is a true tale, this movie teaches us more about the nature of friendship than anyone in Hollywood can fathom. There are no plot twists and no happy ending; like life, it proceeds at its own pace up to the poignant conclusion (which itself brings up back to the start of the film, reminding us of the cycle of life.)

I saw this film many years ago, and I remembered it as being a great story. Understand that I'm not a film buff - frankly, I find it hard to sit through a whole movie - and certainly not a big Kurosawa fan. That it is one of only a handful of films I actually want to own tells you that it is something truly special.

Thanks to the generosity of a close friend I now have my own copy, which I will treasure. The film is hard to find, but it is worth the search. If Nessmuk means anything to you, Dersu Uzala will be one of your favorites too.

-=[ Grant ]=-

You may be looking for the latest installment of the "On Revolver Aesthetics" series. Well, it's not coming today. I can only plead for mercy on the basis that I had a VERY busy weekend, and frankly just didn't get around to finishing this week's article.

Saturday had me making a trek up to Firearms Academy of Seattle (FAS), where I was slated to give a talk about the technical aspects of personal high-performance flashlights. It was a good trip, though it's a bit of a drive up and back - very tiring for me (I hate sitting still for more than 15 minutes at a time!)

Of course that took all day, and on Sunday I was engaged in yet another joy of home ownership: finishing a remodel of my bathroom. (Yes, I just remodeled the kitchen, now it's the bath. This is getting old in a hurry.)

I should explain that these projects aren't "remodeling" in the sense that we're updating things. You see, our house is a circa-1930 bungalow, and what we're doing is ripping out the various "improvements" that were added during the '60s and '70s. We're bringing the rooms back to the general look and feel of the originals, but we're not doing an obsessive restoration.

For instance, in the kitchen we put in a sink and faucet that bear a resemblance to what might have been there originally, but definitely aren't original or even reproductions thereof. We're leaving as much original as what we can, though - in the bathroom we left the original tub and got a sink that matches its lines. The sink is reminiscent of the designs that were in use in 1930, but not an exact copy.

The net result is that I had no time for my "regular" job dealing with gunsmithing topics. After all, I have to get a day off occasionally, right?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Before Honda, before Kawasaki, Yamaha or Suzuki, motorcycle racing was dominated by the great Italian marques. Legendary companies like Gilera, Moto Morini, and MV Augusta held consecutive world titles, some of which would stand for years. All of these makers had their adherents, but the undeniable "big boy" of Italian motorcycle racing was Moto Guzzi.

The company was formed when three friends - Carlo Guzzi, Girogio Parodi, and Giovanni Ravelli - were serving in the Italian Army during World War I. Part of a flying unit, they had complimentary skills: Guzzi was a talented, though as yet amateur, engineer; Ravelli was an up-and-coming name in racing before the war; and Parodi, like his successful father, had demonstrated business acumen. The three agreed to pool their talents and form a company to make motorcycles. Ravelli, sadly, was killed only days after the war was finished, but Guzzi and Parodi soldiered on to form the company they'd all dreamed about.

Guzzi designed the machines and Parodi (whose father financed the enterprise) handled the business aspects of the fledgling firm. They knew that the key to commercial success was a reputation in racing, and thanks to their combined skill they were almost immediately successful at both. Only four months after their first prototypes were completed, company rider Gino Finzi picked up first place at the prestigious Targa Florio - a win that surprised the industry.

The company rapidly expanded their pool of engineering talent, and they would flex their muscle by making amazing motorcycles: a magnesium-cased, supercharged 250cc; a 4-cylinder supercharged 500cc in 1930; and a 3-cylinder supercharged 500cc machine in 1940. Despite these advances, their racing reputation would be made with their more pedestrian - but wonderfully engineered - single cylinder twin-cam motorcycles.

Those bikes quickly came to dominate the 250cc and 500cc classes, racking up win after win. In 1934 they cemented their hold on the top 500cc class with their introduction of the two-cylinder 500cc bicilindrica, which allowed them a spectacular win in both the 250cc and 500cc classes at the Isle of Man TT race in 1935. in 1953 they entered the hotly contested 350cc class, again with a twin-cam single, and won every World Championship until 1957.

By the mid-50s, though, they were losing ground in the "top dog" 500cc class. The twin-cam singles were decidedly out of date, while the bicilindrica had been inexplicably killed off in 1951. Guzzi needed a new bike that could not just take on the increasingly successful Gilera and upstart MV Augusta designs, but would rule over them.

Chief designer Giulio Carcano put his considerable talent to work, and what emerged in 1955 stunned the world: a water cooled, 500cc V-8 motorcycle. With dual overhead cams and a separate carburetor for each cylinder, this audacious design pumped out a then-unheard-of 72hp at a scarcely believable 12,000 rpm. Guzzi was ready.



Sadly the tire, brake and suspension technology of the day weren't up to the demands of the magnificent engine, and the otto cylindri never achieved the success intended. Moto Guzzi retired from racing entirely at the end of the 1957 season, and the bike was shelved. This didn't stop it from leaving a stumbling block for its rivals, though - in its short 2-season career it set several lap speed records which would end up standing for more than two decades, a parting shot to those who would succeed them.

Today only two authentic examples remain, both in the possession of the Guzzi company in the picturesque Italian town of Mandello del Lario. They occasionally fire one up for a demonstration run on their test track behind the factory. The sound of the engine is unmistakable, and reminds us that there was a time when Italy did, in fact, rule the world - or at least a small part of it.

-=[ Grant ]=-

I know that I've been featuring a disproportionate number of Dark Roasted Blend articles lately, but they just come up with so much good stuff it's hard not to! Take today's topic:



That's the creation of a mandala, the Dharmic representation (in miniature) of a particular aspect of the universe. The amount of work is incredible, and the cool (or plaintive, depending on your point of view) aspect is their ritual destruction after completion.

Check them out.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Massad Ayoob was in the area the last couple of weeks for his yearly round of teaching up at Firearms Academy of Seattle. We generally try to get together for a meal during his stays, and finally managed to do so last Saturday evening. We had our usual good time, catching up on family news and the latest gossip in the industry.

Interestingly, for the first time in a long while he was actually teaching with one of his own guns as opposed to using a test/evaluation piece. The gun in question was a Langdon-prepped Beretta 92. I'm not a big fan of bottom-feeding handguns, as you know, and the 92 series is - for my little hands - the worst of the lot. I had to admit, though, that this one was pretty darned nice (for an auto, you understand.) I wouldn't have believed that a Beretta double-action trigger could get as light as this one and still ignite primers, but he reports it to be completely reliable.

When it rains, it pours, and Monday morning found me having brunch with AFGWWWTRA (who?!?), who was on a quick pass through the area. What did we talk about?

Cattle. Yes, cows. Well, there was also some talk about hunting, and of course the obligatory chat about how wonderful revolvers are, but cattle were the subject du jour.

Yes, this is a glamorous job alright!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags: afgwwwtra

I'm sure that by now you're quite tired of hearing about my interest in abandoned, secret, and underground places. I love exploring such things, and rarely turn down the chance to visit an old mine or poke around in the ruins of Fort Stevens, right here in Oregon. The older, danker, and creepier they are the more i like them. I can't explain this fascination, not even to myself!

I've been thinking that perhaps I've touched on this subject a bit much, and thought that it was only fair to give some balance - a counterpoint, as it were - to this keen interest of mine. Just so you know that there are some places I definitely don't want to explore, I give you abandoned bio-chem warfare facilities.

Yikes!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Saw this on the news last night, and my very first thought was "that can't happen - handguns are banned in the UK!" Guess it just shows the true futility of such laws. (Check the comments, though - apparently some people think that they're not going far enough. There are those in this country who think the same way. Even when they admit the laws won't work, they pass them anyway.)
---

Say Uncle alerted me to this...c'mon, you know you've always wanted to shoot a propane tank, just to see what happens.
---

Finally, this isn't really gun related, but is just too funny to ignore. Further comment would seem unnecessary.

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-=[ Grant ]=-

I've previously mentioned that I have a fascination with abandoned places, and even more for abandoned/mothballed spaces that are underground.

Well, the folks over at Dark Roasted Blend have some amazing pictures of old underground facilities around the world. You won't believe the Tokyo Storm Water System! (OK, it's not really abandoned, but it's still awfully cool.)



(As you might have guessed, I'm a fan of the History Channel's show Cities of the Underworld. Check it out!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

So, last evening - a hot, sticky Oregon evening - my wife and I were sitting under the maple tree eating dinner. A squirrel suddenly darted across the street, heading for a tree on the other side.

In and of itself, this is not unusual. There are a lot of squirrels in our neighborhood, and if you spend more than a few minutes outside you'll see numerous such rodent dashes.

What happened next, however, was unusual. Hot on the squirrel's heels (do they have heels?) was, not a dog or cat, but our neighbor's teenage son. He chased the squirrel across the street and into the tree; a minute or so later he dropped out of the tree carrying the squirrel by the scruff of the neck!

How he managed to chase the little beast down, let alone actually grab it without getting bitten, is a mystery. He showed the furry trinket to his friends, tickled its tummy a bit, and gently let it go back up a tree.

Believe it, or not.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Another squirrel attack. Were it not for the quick-thinking cane wielder, this could have been ugly.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you're into the weird and esoteric, if strange machines and odd places intrigue you, check out Dark Roasted Blend. It's a site that showcases an incredibly eclectic range of, well, things.

The way I was introduced to the site was a link to their entry on "Creepy High Voltage Installations" in the former USSR. Absolutely great stuff!

I could browse this site for hours. (Check out the Tatra car!) You can bet I'm subscribed to their RSS feed!

-=[ Grant ]=-

So you're on your way home from a hard day's work in Cameroon. You pass through a small village, where everyone is dead. No external evidence of foul play, and it appears that they died very quickly - in the midst of their daily activities.

The deaths aren't limited to people. Animals for miles around died in their tracks, and just like the humans show no signs of foul play. The toll would eventually be 1,800 people and double that number of animals, all killed at the same time.

Investigators were baffled. Eventually, though, they did find the answer - and it was one worthy of a television show. It turns out that the mysterious killer had more in common with a bottle of soda than with a psychopath.

Find out what the mysterious killer was.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Apparently Monday's post, featuring the "b-word", was enough to put me over the top!


This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• gun (15x)
• shoot (6x)
• bitch (2x)
• hurt (1x)

-=[ Grant ]=-

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of carving (or whittlin', as we called it.) My dad occasionally whittled a whistle, my uncle did a spoon now and again, but the object that fascinated me the most was a short wooden chain that my grandfather had hanging on his wall.

The idea that one could gouge out a series of links, with no breaks, from a single piece of wood seemed incomprehensible to my young mind. It seemed almost like magic!

Today, of course, I understand how its done, but now marvel at the patience necessary to complete such a task. The little chain that captivated me pales, however, in comparison to this:



That item was carved from a single pencil! There's more to see over at The New Shelton Wet/Dry blog. Check it out!

-=[ Grant ]=-

For the 3rd time in 3 months, I'm working on a 9mm revolver. It is the 3rd Ruger SP101 in a row that has CrimsonTrace LaserGrips installed. Finally, it has the 3" barrel.

All these "3"s are starting to become unnerving...I feel a bit like Rod Serling.

---
Michael Bane has a podcast at the top of his blog page these days, and it's pretty darned good. I'm hoping one of these days he'll see fit to make it available as a subscription through iTunes (or one of the other podcast sites) like every other podcast! (Hey, Michael, that's a hint! I listen to podcasts as I work, and having one that's not in the same place as the others interrupts my workflow!)

Seriously, though, it's a great listen. Check it out.

--
Funny how training manifests itself. We're remodeling the kitchen, and I'm making good use of my Bostitch nail gun. I've noticed that I keep my trigger finger straight along the side of the head when I'm not actually nailing, just as one should with a firearm. I guess that safety training really has been ingrained!

--
Speaking of safety: handling guns all day long, as I do, always has a certain amount of danger for accidents. That's why I don't allow any live ammunition in my shop, period. If you do any dry fire practice, follow that same rule: no live ammunition anywhere in the room where you're practicing, no exceptions!

--

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've been trying my level best to alert the world about the threat posed by militant squirrels. They've been testing us, attacking sporadically in an attempt to weaken our defenses. Now the unthinkable has happened - they've acquired advanced weaponry!



Once their internal power struggles have been settled, we're in for a long, hard fight!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Someone reminded me that I promised to tell you the story of my little plumbing adventure. Personally I don't think it's all that interesting, and there isn't even a moral to the tale. It is, however, interesting in the same way that highway accidents are!

It started, innocently enough, with a knock at the door. Standing on my porch was a nice gal from the city's Public Works department, who said something along the lines of "we think you have a problem!" The Finance Department had called them with the news that our water bill had jumped during the month from our normal $73 to a whopping $233, and that maybe they should come out and have a look.

She did, and didn't see anything. She did suggest that I call a leak detection company to locate the source, after which a call to a plumber might be "a good idea."

(It's worth noting that normally I take care of such matters myself, having grown up on a farm where we never hired such work out. However, I've got so many other things to do right now I just couldn't tackle the project. As you'll see, it was probably for the best.)

The leak guy came out and did his little magic (pumping the lines full of helium and listening for the popping sounds of the gas escaping from the leak site.) Nothing. He did the test again - same result. We were both standing in my side yard, wondering where this leak could be, when I heard a sound.

"Pop-snap-crackle" (trademark concerns, you understand.) We walked around in circles, trying to find the source. At one point I decided on a likely direction and followed the sound into....the middle of my neighbor's back yard, where a tiny geyser was erupting!

We theorized that at one point back in the 1940s both houses shared a common water service, but sometime later the neighbor got their own service. At that point they apparently cut the tie at their house and capped the now-unused stub, which finally rusted out and started leaking.

At least, that was the theory.

The leak guy traced what he thought was the offending pipe over to the leak site, marked everything, and left. That's when I started calling plumbers - and calling plumbers, and calling plumbers. An even dozen, in fact. I called half on Thursday and the other half on Friday, and none of them returned my calls. Finally, on Monday I found a plumber who actually answered his phone, and one of his crews came out to start digging.

The plan was to dig down 32 inches, where the line was, to the 't' fitting where the stub line originated, then cap the stub off at that point.

They got down to the point, and found only an elbow going into my house. They started digging a trench - 32 inches deep, by hand, mind you - in an effort to find the stub and it's fitting. The dug 8 feet of trench without finding that connection, and would have followed it clear to the water meter, were it not for one little problem: the garage was built on top of the water line, and the pipe went right under the cement floor!

At this point things got really expensive, as we elected to have them bring in a horizontal drilling rig and install a whole new service line. A couple grand later, and it was in - and the leak, naturally, ceased. I'm now glad I didn't try to tackle this myself.

On the plus side, those boring machines are pretty cool. They put a hole from the water meter, down under my garage, up the hill and into the end of the trench that had been dug - and got within a couple inches of center. The actual drilling probably took them 10 minutes, but the setup and takedown kept them here about an hour. Quick and easy, as long as one has a full checkbook!

There you have it. Hope it was as exciting as you were expecting!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back when I was a teenager, I apprenticed to a master watch- and clock-maker. He was an older fellow - in his early 70s - and had been in the business for a very long time.

I enjoyed looking around his shop in spare moments, as he had many old and wonderful gadgets on his jam-packed shelves. One one high shelf, way in the back, was a little vial of off-white liquid. I asked him what it was, and he said "radium paint. We used to use it to make the numbers on dials visible in the dark. Don't touch it!"

He never did explain to me why I shouldn't touch it, but I obeyed his command and forgot all about it. That is, until I ran across this article on US Radium, the company that made the paint in that little bottle.

-=[ Grant ]=-

The Friday Surprise articles usually present themselves well in advance of the time I need them. There's just so much interesting stuff going on in the world that I usually have no problem finding a topic.

Not this week. It really shouldn't have surprised me, as this week has just been a disaster from the start, but it did annoy me. I just couldn't find anything interesting to write about.

Luckily my old nemesis, The Squirrel, went on another rampage.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back from serving as assistant teacher in a rifle class this weekend, and am just beat. My back hurts; my chiropractor has been making a mint off me for the last few months, as I seem to injure myself with greater regularity as I age!

Students reported that ammunition (this class required 700 rounds) was extremely difficult to find, particularly in .223 (5.56mm, if you prefer.) It wasn't so much the price - although ammo prices are high, and getting higher by the minute. No, the major stumbling block was availability; they almost couldn't find what they needed in sufficient quantity for the course.

As a result, we saw a lot of "second tier" ammunition in this class: Fiocchi, Sellier & Bellot, and Wolf.

Luckily, no major ammunition problems presented themselves. In the past, S&B .223 has shown a disturbing tendency to lose the primer cups during ejection. Invariably, those little things would work themselves into the trigger mechanism, and tie up the action. This time we saw none of that. Perhaps S&B has gotten their act together (again)?

Fiocchi seemed to work fine, and the Wolf steel cased is....well, Wolf. I'd personally restrict its use to those guns (Communist-bloc) designed for steel cased ammunition, as the steel is rough on extractors designed for a diet of brass cases. If you insist on using it I'd recommend you keep a spare extractor on hand.

After working these classes for the past several years, and seeing all kinds of autoloading rifles used to shoot large amounts of ammunition over a weekend, I've come to a conclusion guaranteed to raise hackles amongst rifle debaters: the AK-47 series of rifles have proved to me that they aren't as reliable as scuttlebutt makes them out to be, and the AR-15 series of rifles aren't as fragile as that same scuttlebutt says they are. This particular class proved that again: two AKs experienced problems while all of the ARs ran flawlessly.

Boy, am I gonna get hate mail for that one!

(Final thought: if you have a Ruger Mini-14, use only Ruger magazines. Period. Nothing else will be reliable in that model. This opinion is validated in nearly every class, as it was again this time. Yeah, I know Ruger only makes 20-rounders; if you want more, get a different rifle!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

That's right - an undersea cable. I'll bet you thought that undersea cables were a thing of the past, right? You probably had it in your mind that satellite technology had rendered the undersea cable a relic of a bygone age, didn't you? As Gomer would say, "surprise, surprise, surprise!"

The vast majority of telephone and internet traffic flows on undersea cables, to this day. Compared to satellites, cables are cheaper and have much greater bandwidth. As a result, there are hundreds of cables in use today, and well over 1,000 cable landing sites (where the cables come ashore) around the world. Here's a good graphic of the undersea cables - and their load - in use today. Wikipedia has a good article on cables, with lots of links to other sites that can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the subject!

Of course, all those cables sitting on the ocean floor are subject to lots of forces, and sooner or later they break. So, how do you repair a cable that might be thousands of feet deep, well below the ability to use human divers?

Find out here.

-=[ Grant ]=-

The changing social behavior of Americans is having an interesting side effect: certain types of knowledge are becoming extinct. I'm not talking about the kind of information you'd expect to disappear: how to build a barn, how to drive a team of horses, or how to make butter. No, what I'm referring to is less obvious.

Prior to World War II - and even, in some place, for a decade or so after - people grew up in a specific area, got married, and settled in that same area to live out their lives. They might travel occasionally to see other locales, but they always returned to what they called "home" - where the rest of their family lived. Over generations, there would come to be a large number of folks in that area who were related to each other; large extended and interrelated families who knew each other well, even if they didn't always see eye-to-eye.

After the War, people started moving around the country in larger and larger numbers as the idea of going "away to college" became accepted. This lead to the practice of chasing a career across the nation, and as a result new families were being started a long way from the families which begat them. After a while, enough of these disconnected families existed that it became common for one member to not know his or her relatives in the other branch of the family, even at the first cousin level.

Without these large numbers of related people in a specific geographic area, our perceived need to know how we're related to someone else has diminished. After all, if you don't know who your cousins are, why do you need to know who the less-close members of your family are?

The upshot of this whole thing is that the common knowledge of how to place yourself (and everyone else) in the family tree is quickly fading away. Most people know how their cousins are related - but can you tell what a second cousin is? How about a third? What does "once removed" and "twice removed" mean?

Don't sweat it! Thanks the the miracle of the internet, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about how families are structured. Check out these sites:

The Cousin Chart
Canon Law Relationship Chart
Simplified explanation of cousins
Yet another chart for determining relationships
A thorough explanation of relationships
What is a cousin? (Wikipedia)

-=[ Grant ]=-

During World War II, Oregon had the singular distinction of being attacked by the Empire of Japan not once, not twice - but on three separate occasions. It would seem that the war planners in Tokyo had it out for us!

In early 1942, Fort Stevens - which stood guard at the mouth of the Columbia River - was shelled by the Japanese submarine I-25. Just a few months later that same submarine, this time fitted with an underwater aircraft hangar, launched a small airplane and bombed our southern coast. Finally, in 1944, the Japanese military launched a series of balloon bombs against North America, most of which landed in the forests of Oregon. One of those balloons landed in south-central Oregon, and killed 6 people - the only war casualties to occur in the mainland United States.

So, why Oregon? Basically, because we were the most convenient yet lightly defended target available to them. There is a lesson in that...

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's one of those days: I can't come up with a decent topic. It's a combination of a lack of creative urge, coupled with a ton of "real" work to be done. The two conspire to give me keyboard constipation.

(Speaking of work - what's with all of the 9mm revolvers that are coming in lately? I've had a half-dozen in the last 4 months, with several more to come! And to think - I don't own one of my own. One of these days I'll have to look into remedying that oversight.)

Back to the non-topic: since I can't seem to do any "thinky", I'll do some "linky": Tam finally puts a revolver in her blog. Is the world as we know it coming to an end?

-=[ Grant ]=-

I fell in love with the short story format back in high school. While I cannot stand reading a whole novel - non-fiction isn't really my "thing" - I do enjoy the short story. It forces the author to work carefully on character and plot development, and requires the reader to concentrate on the storyline.

While my favorite author in this format is Stephen Vincent Benet, Mark Twain proved himself a master of the short story. One of my favorites is "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg."

Hadleyburg enjoys the reputation of being an “incorruptible” town, known for its responsible, honest people that are trained to avoid temptation. However, at some point the people of Hadleyburg manage to offend a passing stranger, and he vows to get his revenge by corrupting the town.

You can read the entire story online, or you can download it as an e-book.

Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Okay, I realize this is a little morbid, but it's also pretty cool (in a weird sort of way): a coffin made of recycled paper! From Boing Boing we learn about the EcoPods, which are made of recycled paper that has been "naturally hardened." (Don't ask me...)



While you're reading the article, check out the other links - like how to make a cheap coffin out of Ikea parts. Folks, where else can you learn such useful things??

-=[ Grant ]=-

No, that's not a typo - just a bad pun. Find out why in the article "The Terrifying Toothpick Fish."

Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

(My female readers may wish to pass on this one, unless you're just morbidly curious. In that case, enjoy a laugh at our expense!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

As you know, I've been on top of the growing Squirrel Menace. I've alerted you to the pack of squirrels that kills dogs, and I've kept you up to date on the squirrels that take down planes. It's a tough job, but it's important to the security of the free world!

Luckily for us all, there is finally one website that dares to expose the deeds of the most notorious squirrels on the planet. Scary Squirrel World: Profiles in Terror is where you can keep up on the most heinous of the squirrel conspirators.


Squirrel in top-secret SEAL training

I'll sleep easier knowing that they're one the job!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Perhaps it's normal when one reaches a certain age, but occasionally I have small episodes of nostalgia, and one of the things I miss is the thrill of our space program. Oh, for the days when people would gather around the television (black-and-white, of course) just to watch one of our beautiful Saturn IV rockets blast into space - secure in the belief that with each one we were leaping ahead of our Cold War nemesis. ("Take that, Comrades!")

It was exciting on many levels, and we never missed a liftoff - they were big events. I remember getting up very early one morning to watch Apollo 11 blast off for the moon; heck, we even waited for the splashdowns! (For those of you born after 1980, that's how astronauts landed before the wheeled Shuttle was developed.)

Not surprisingly, I was thrilled when I came across the International Space Artifact Collection at www.hightechscience.org They have artifacts from both the U.S. and Soviet space projects, and have lots of great pictures on their website. Cool stuff!


Authentic Soyuz spacecraft clock

(Trivia time: can anyone tell me the connection between the U.S. space program and one of my favorite revolvers??)

-=[ Grant ]=-

As the story goes, a fellow in Portugal decides he wants a new house. He looks around and finds a nice old farm house, with some acreage and an old barn. He gets a good deal on the property because the place has been empty for 15 years.

He moves in, and gets curious: what is in the old barn? Now this is not your usual barn; it's made of block, and features high windows and a very sturdy steel door which is padlocked solidly, the lock rusted shut.

He manages to cut through the lock and force open the door - and you'll never believe what he finds inside...



Find out more here. (Warning: lots of pictures, slow to load.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Things you didn't know could be done with water!

First, what happens when water hits a horizontal impeller being driven at high speeds? Patterns that look almost like solid glass!



More pictures of water polyhedra here.

What can you do with a waterfall controlled by a computer? Jeep Corporation figured it out!




-=[ Grant ]=-

In 1988, at a facility near Henderson, Nevada, something really bad - and really loud - happened.

Pacific Engineering Production Company, aka PEPCON, was a producer of ammonium perchlorate - a very powerful oxidizer for rocket fuel. Ammonium perchlorate, as it happens, is very unstable and doesn't like fire one little bit.

Coincidentally, there was a repair crew on a television transmitter tower nearby, and not only did they witness the whole inferno they also captured an incredible video sequence of the main explosions. You just have to see it - watch for the shock wave as it travels across the ground!



You can read about the whole disaster at Damn Interesting.

-=[ Grant ]=-

Gukanjima ("Battleship"), also known as Hashima ("Border") Island sits a mere 15 kilometers from Nagasaki. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands of the Nagasaki Prefecture - but it was not always that way.

In 1890, Japan's industrialization was just gaining steam, and they needed coal to make that steam. Mitsubishi (yes, that Mitsubishi) bought the island that year, with the intention of mining the coal reserves that stretched beneath it. Mitsubishi built a city on the tiny island (only 15 acres) that eventually housed an incredible 5300 people - giving it, for a time, the highest population density on earth.

By the 1960s, coal had fallen out of favor around the world, and Japan was no exception. They began shrinking operations at the mines, and in 1974 closed the mines - and the island - completely.

Today the empty city stands, its once-bustling buildings being reclaimed by the force of wind and rain. Travel to the island is prohibited, but some intrepid photographers have made the trip to capture haunting images like these.

Wikipedia entry for Hashima Island
Archibase photo esssay - superb B&W pictures of the remains
History of Hashima Island

-=[ Grant ]=-

A regular reader informs me that the Nessmuk classic, "Woodcraft and Camping", is available online as a .pdf file - completely FREE!

"Woodcraft and Camping" at Outdoors-Magazine.com

If you haven't yet gotten a copy, you now have no excuse!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Everyone else rants on their blog, why not me? I generally I find ranting to be unseemly, but sometimes I run across something so unbelievably stupid that I just can't help myself!

After all, Straka has his "Grrrrs", and Andy Rooney has made a virtual industry of ranting; heck, there's one gunsmith who has a half-dozen blogs, each of which is a gigantic, incoherent rant! So I think it's not too much to ask to be allowed an occasional "harrumph!"

Our inaugural item comes from one of my "daily reads", the Uncommon Business blog. This is a great blog, chock-full of examples of businesses that you wouldn't normally think of as being viable, yet somehow have found a successful niche. (One could argue that revolversmithing is such a business!)

Their latest entry is for OpenX, a device that was designed to open that annoying plastic clamshell packaging. Go check out the article, then come back and read the rest of my rant.

I'll wait right here. (Cue "Jeopardy" theme...)

Back already? Did you read the whole thing? Good!

When I read the article, I was immediately struck with the thought "man, that's stupid." Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that the engineering is good and the construction quality is more than acceptable; I'm sure it opens clamshell packaging in a most efficient manner, with great aplomb and no doubt accompanied by heavenly choirs.

What I can't understand is why the heck this guy needed to invent the thing in the first place!

You see, I always carry a pocket knife - usually a couple. I've carried a pocket knife since (probably) the 3rd grade. (Back then every kid carried a pocket knife to school. For those born after 1980, I'm not kidding.) Every male I know carries a pocket knife. My wife carries a pocket knife, and has her own collection from which to choose.

When I need to open a clamshell package, I simply reach into my pocket, pull out my trusty pocket knife (a Victorinox Swisschamp, in most cases) and proceed to open the package with a minimum of fuss, bother, and anguish.

Apparently, that's not how everyone does it. There are ill-equipped people out there, just waiting to be frustrated by product packaging!

How is it this guy didn't have a pocket knife?!? Is he afraid of them? Does his social station eliminate the need to carry his own implements? ("Jeeves, please open this package for me.") Do his peers look down on someone who carries such an essential implement? ("I say, Muffy, he is acting positively blue-collar these days! The boys at the club will be absolutely aghast!")

Follow me here: he didn't have a knife with him, which made him conceive of the idea of a package opener; he invented a knife substitute to have with him, in place of that which he didn't have with him in the first place! So, this solves the problem how, exactly? What happens the next time he's presented with a gift that he can't open, because he doesn't have his opener with him, just as he didn't have a knife with him?

(Hmmm....wonder if the OpenX comes in a clamshell package? If so, how is one to open it?? The Helplessness Brigade would be stymied once more!)

Rant off. Until next time!

-=[ Grant ]=-

You know, I had a pretty darned good childhood. I grew up on a small farm, outside a small town (I remember when the town passed the 1500 resident milestone) that was nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Range.

After chores were finished and if there were no other pressing jobs to be done (like hauling hay), I got to do what I wanted. I could go down to our pond and fish, or take off with my friends Dan and/or Tom for an overnight camping trip - all with very little administrative (parental) hand-wringing. Even a two-day trip up the river and into the woods wasn't out of the question, though such an outing did prompt some worrying from my mother.

Not a bad way to grow up!

Living as I do in suburbia, I long for the time when we would run into the forest with little more than a small tent, a blanket, a sheath knife, maybe a couple cans of baked beans, and a fishing pole. (If we planned our trip into a particular area that we knew contained several small caves, we didn't even bother with the tent.) Woodcraft, such as shelter building and fire making, was an expected part of any well-balanced upbringing. I miss those days.

I have found a way to keep the hunger for simpler times at bay: I curl up with Nessmuk.

What is a Nessmuk? Properly, the question is phrased "Who is Nessmuk?"



Nessmuk was in normal existence one George Washington Sears. Sears was a slight, asthmatic individual who was born in 1821 in Massachusetts, and spent much of his life - at least, that portion when he wasn't working just to finance his next adventure - in a canoe or on a boat or in the woods.

He was able to combine his love of the outdoors and his considerable talent as a writer by having narratives of his adventures published in Forest and Stream magazine.

He wrote two books, Woodcraft and Camping, which are still in print - combined into one volume titled Woodcraft and Camping (no surprise there, right?!?) It is still available to this day, which must be some sort of record in the publishing business. (Another book, called Adirondack Letters, is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)

Woodcraft and Camping is not a thick book, nor is it solely a "how to" manual. It is the collected wisdom and insights of a man who lived just to be able to commune with nature. Nessmuk wrote in a beautiful, lyrical style that makes the reader salivate with the desire to get out into the wilderness.

At only $6.95, I believe it to be one of the greatest bargains - as well as one of the "must haves" - in outdoor literature. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who enjoys living in and exploring the wilderness, or even just dreaming about it!

Woodcraft and Camping at Amazon.com
A short biography of George Washington Sears
The Adirondack Letters online edition (free!)
Wikipedia entry on Nessmuk

-=[ Grant ]=-

That was my dear, departed father's question whenever I was found to have done something that wasn't all that bright. Of course, any self-respecting 10-year-old knows how to answer: look at the ground, shuffle your feet, and say (sotto voce) "I dunno."

Unfortunately, once you become of age and start asking yourself the same question that tried-and-true answer know longer works. As luck would have it, sometimes it takes a while before you ask. Sometimes, it takes years. The great part about this delay is that it allows you to once again say "I dunno!"

This is a story about just such an event.

Here in Oregon we're blessed with some phenomenal scenery. From our gorgeous Pacific Coastline to the high desert east of the Cascades (a treasure unto themselves), there is something here for every taste. One of the most visited natural wonders is Multnomah Falls, located just a short 45-minute drive from downtown Portland.

The spectacular waterfall - the second-highest year-round fall in North America - is fed by a spring way up on Larch Mountain. In fact, it's not the only falls served by that spring: there are several other (much smaller, of course) falls that the water travels over before reaching the "big one."


(From the U.S. Forest Service website.)

Multnomah Falls is 620 feet high - a straight drop of 542 feet, then a bit of a pool, then another drop of a mere 69 feet. A footbridge spans the small canyon over the top of the smaller section, and leads to a trail which snakes its way up the side of the mountain to a viewpoint at the top. There, safely contained behind fences and guardrails, one can look over the incredibly scenic Columbia River Gorge.

However, back in 1982 there were no such amenities at the top - just a small sign that warned visitors (those hardy enough to make the steep climb) to stay on the trail. That didn't stop my buddy Ed and me from doing something stupid, however!

A quick digression: Ed and I were aspiring photographers who spent our days selling Nikons and other assorted high end gear to people who also aspired to be photographers. Most of them, however, would never put themselves on the line for "that shot"; we, on the other hand, continually stick our various body parts in harm's way just to get pictures that no one else would dare.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we found ourselves in the middle of that cold little river at the edge of Multnomah Falls!

I decided that I wanted a different shot of the falls - one that no one else would take. So we lugged our 35 pounds of gear (per person, you understand) up the trail and sloshed out into the water.

I walked to the edge of the falls, where I found a couple of rocks between which I could wedge my Pentax KX-Motor camera on its Bogen Monopod and shoot at a low enough shutter speed to capture the movement of the water. I framed the scene to show the water going over the edge on its way to the bottom (542 feet below my, umm, feet) as well as a glimpse of the river and gorge, and made 3 exposures.

Once I developed the film, into my archives the negatives went - to be resurrected here for the first time in a quarter century:



Looking at this shot today sends chills down my spine. It was foolhardy in the extreme; I was literally leaning out over the edge of the falls to take the picture, knee-deep in cold water, just a slip away from certain death. I was either invincible or ignorant - I'll leave it to you to determine which.

It shouldn't surprise you to learn that this wasn't the first - nor was it the last - stupid thing we did in the name of photographic immortality. My wife, one would think, would be used to this sort of thing - yet when I told her the story (several years later), she asked "what the hell were you thinking?!?" Need I tell you my answer?

-=[ Grant ]=-

I found this thread over on Candlepowerforums (a great place for flashaholics!) about a hike in China. Take a look at what passes for a trail:




While not having been to China, I have had some experience along those lines. A few years back, I spent a month gold mining in the wilderness of southern Oregon - just a few miles, coincidentally, from where the James Kim family was stranded last month.

We were mining down in a canyon, and it was a seriously difficult hike in and out. The nearest flat, relatively clear spot to make a camp was about a 1-1/2 miles away, which wouldn't have been too bad - except for the 800 foot elevation change! Even that wouldn't have been too bad, except that more than half the trail was relatively level, which meant that we had to deal with an 800 foot vertical climb in about three-quarters of a mile! (Did I mention that the trail was wilderness, amounted to a path that most of the time wasn't even visible, and that we hiked in and out every single day for a month?)




At one point in the hike, we had to traverse a cliff face for about 50 yards. The drop from that point down to the river at the bottom of the canyon was about 300 feet, and the "trail" was nothing more than a few crudely carved footholds in the cliff face. The first few times across the cliff I was sweating bullets, but at the end of the first week I was hopping across the cliff with nary a care in the world!


(That's the cliff face, shrouded by trees, as viewed from the approach.)


After that we had to climb down a rock wall; the first day out I fell off the wall and landed on the rocks below. Luckily I was almost all the way down, and only fell 10 feet or so. The result was a broken finger (with residual loss of dexterity coupled with some arthritis - hey, ya gotta be tough if you want to live out West!)




Just for fun, here I am in all my glory; I'm carrying about 75 pounds of mining equipment in the British pack/web gear set:



Next installment: when I was younger, I did even dumber things. Wait until you see just what...

-=[ Grant ]=-

Today's cel phone technologies rely on something called "spread spectrum," which is a fancy way of saying "frequency hopping." In spread spectrum, a data stream - in this case a voice - is transmitted using radio waves whose carrier rapidly switches between many frequencies, using a prearranged sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.

The reason the spread spectrum is so important - aside from being resistant to interference and very difficult to intercept - is because it makes more efficient use of scarce bandwidth. Spread spectrum makes it possible to carry more information - more conversations - amongst a limited number of frequencies.

But this use is very recent. Prior to the invention of the cel phone, frequency hopping was used to make military radio transmissions more secure. Using frequency hopping makes it far more difficult for an enemy to intercept your signal, and to use direction finders to pinpoint your location. Of course, it isn't just for voice! Frequency hopping makes it possible to have radio-control munitions, such as bombs and torpedoes, that your enemy can't jam into uselessness.

Now as useful as this is, one would think that the concept originated deep in some Pentagon think tank - but you'd be wrong! The idea came from the fertile mind of a beautiful woman, the actress Hedy Lamarr.



I'll let you read the articles below to find out about her valuable contribution to the world of communications technology!

Female Inventors: Hedy Lamarr

HEDY LAMARR: The Inventor of Frequency Hopping

Did You Know...about Hedy Lamarr?

Hedy Lamarr - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


-=[ Grant ]=-

Some random news bits to round out the year...

So, according to Fox News, last Thanksgiving a man breaks into a barn, spray paints some goats, and leaves some porno behind. Guess he didn't have cable...(I'd comment on this story's interesting similarity to the town I grew up in, but thankfully I've managed to suppress those memories!)

In a story out of Russia - one that literally begs for a Yaakov Smirnoff joke - we learn that a pack of squirrels has attacked and killed a dog. What happens if they get guns? THIS:



Finally, in North Carolina they just aren't making desperate criminals like they used to. And "they" say that kids aren't affected by television!

Have a safe and sane New Year's celebration!

-=[ Grant ]=-

I admit it: I'm a bit picky about things. Just how "picky" depends on what the "thing" is, but on the whole I suspect friends and family would describe me as being on the "anal retentive" side.

This extends to my clothing. A number of years back, when I was playing the keep-up-with-the-rest-of-the-yuppies game, I spent a lot of money on Italian suits and expensive ties. Over the years, as I've gotten wiser (and perhaps a tad more miserly), I've looked at clothing for its functional qualities rather than fashion. It's not as though I don't care how I look, but I don't care if I impress anyone with my style of dress.

How the clothing works for me in my lifestyle is more important than anything else. As a result, I've come up with something of a "uniform" - clothing that I've chosen because I like the way it functions. I always wear long-sleeve button-front shirts with two breast pockets - and those pockets must have button flaps. I'll settle for snaps, but I absolutely abhor Velcro! (Yes, long sleeves even in the 95+ degree temperatures of summer. In my mind, you can always roll the sleeves up - but you can't roll a short-sleeve shirt down for the winter!)

Suitable shirts are easy to find, but pants are another matter. I like cargo pants; again, I want the flaps to have buttons or snaps only. What's more, they have to be durable - I wear my chosen clothing everywhere from hiking to range training to getting groceries, and they see a lot of wear and tear. (I've torn out the corners on leg pockets and worn holes through front pockets in as little as six months!) Of course, they have to fit me well in the bargain - both with and without carrying a handgun on (or in) my waistband.

As you might imagine, I wouldn't be writing this diatribe if it were easy to find pants that met my requirements! Most cargo pants seem to be built for mall ninjas and yuppies who rarely venture beyond a Starbucks - their thin, soft material just doesn't hold up to heavy wear, particularly outdoors. Late in 2005 I bought yet another couple of pairs of a brand I'd not tried - they lasted a mere seven months. This was getting to be expensive! I resolved to find the toughest pair of cargo pants I could.

I started looking at Cabela's canvas "Nailhead" pants - which, sadly, were discontinued this fall. The Carhartt line looked promising, but their construction quality wasn't really any better than any other cargo pants I found. The new Woolrich "Elite" line has been getting a lot of press, but the material was a bit thin for my taste (and the price tag.)

I own some original Royal Robbins pants and shorts that must be 10 years old, and I thought that they might do the trick. Of course, those garments have been spun off to a new company, 5.11 Tactical Wear - and the quality has gone away. I examined a pair, and they weren't built nearly as well as my old Royal Robbins examples, despite having a premium price tag. (I guess you have to pay for that "tacticool" look!)

Wandering through my local farm store, I chanced upon some pants that looked promising: the new Riggs "Ranger" work pants from Wrangler. The material is 10oz ripstop canvas; all pocket attachment points are double thickness; the knees are double thick; the front pockets are made from heavier material than my last pair of pants were; and the cargo pockets have snap flaps, which are also anchored to a double thickness of fabric.



Other interesting features: the right cargo pocket has a couple of outside sleeves that hold a folding knife and a cel phone, while the right hand slash pocket has a reinforced corner edge to clip a knife to. This this prevents wear of the pocket edge, which is a nice touch. The back pockets (which I never use) are lined with Cordura, which makes them darned near wear-proof. Finally, they come in odd sizes - I wear a 34, but with an IWB holster they're too small and a 36 is too big - 35 fits perfectly, and Riggs are available in that size.

I picked up a pair, and I must say I'm impressed. They are far better built that your average "tactical" pants, and they look good too - not as "military" as some are. They're available in several colors, and sold by all kinds of stores all across the country so availability isn't a problem. (There are at least a half-dozen stores within 10 miles of me that carry the Riggs line!)

Suggested list is $39.99, which is really a bargain for a garment of this quality. If you're looking for a great pair of cargo pants for serious use, check 'em out!

Riggs work wear by Wrangler

-=[ Grant ]=-

Aside from my preoccupation with personal flying machines, I'm also fascinated by abandoned buildings, old mines, and - even though I can't swim - shipwrecks!

The schooner Milan operated on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, shuttling grain and other staples with its crew of nine men. In October of 1849, it was heading to Cleveland with a load of salt when it started taking on water. Despite the efforts of the crew, the Milan sank into the cold depths of Lake Ontario, coming to rest in over 200 feet of water.

The wreck was located in 2005, and a surprise awaited its discoverers: it sits upright, completely intact, on the bottom of the lake - even its masts are in place, sticking straight up from the deck as they did when on the surface! It is a superbly preserved example of early American sailing technology, and is an important historical find (in addition to just being really cool!)



You can read about the wreck in this article on Shiwreckworld.com, and get some more background material in this article on the ABC News website.

-=[ Grant ]=-

No, I'm not talking about a mortising chisel, or a broach - I mean a real drill for square holes. They do exist!

A bit that drills square holes ... it defies common sense. How can a revolving edge cut anything but a circular hole? Not only do such bits exist (as well as bits for pentagonal, hexagonal and octagonal holes), but they derive their shape from a simple geometric construction known as a Reuleaux triangle (after Franz Reuleaux, 1829-1905).


To construct a Reuleaux triangle, start with an equilateral triangle of side s (Figure 1). With a radius equal to s and the center at one of the vertices, draw an arc connecting the other two vertices. Similarly, draw arcs connecting the endpoints of the other two sides. The three arcs form the Reuleaux triangle. One of its properties is that of constant width, meaning the figure could be rotated completely around between two parallel lines separated by distance s.


Click here for a scholarly (i.e., mathematic) explanation; click here to see a more down-to-earth explanation (including an animation that will make all clear.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Regular readers are already aware that I have this "thing" for personal flying machines. (See here, and here, and here.) I admit it, I'm hooked.

AirScooter has announced that their personal helicopter, the AirScooter II, will finally be available for sale in 2007. Weighing in a roughly 300lbs and flying at 55 knots, the helicopter features simplified controls that use no foot pedals - even amputees will be able to fly!



There's a great video of the craft in action that you can see here.

Of course I want one - but the price is likely to be in the neighborhood of $50,000. It's up to you, folks - order some custom gunsmithing, and lots of it! Papa needs a new 'copter!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Way back when, I spent a short amount of time as a commercial photographer. It was a short amount of time because, though I was technically proficient, I just wasn't terribly creative on a daily basis. This guy, though, is!

Check out the videos - the creation of art from spray paint. Man, I have a hard time spray painting a tricycle!

Painting #1 - video
Painting #2 - video
Painting #3 - video

Will his work be ultimately be considered in the class of Mondrian - or "Velvet Elvis"? I don't know, but it sure is neat to watch!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Regular readers may have noticed that I have a "thing" for flying. This is somewhat contradictory, as I simply cannot abide flying in an airliner. However, the thought of flying a personal aircraft is immensely exciting to me - and the more personal the craft, the more it intrigues me!

Back in the 1950's and 1960's, the Army experimented with personal flying machines as a way to increase troop mobility. Several different approaches were tried - some were even successful - but the Army ultimately decided that the concept itself had sufficient drawbacks to keep from being adopted.

The most recognized of the entries - and my favorite - was the VZ-1 "Pawnee":



The Pawnee, though, was only one of several designs. This article at Damn Interesting gives you all the poop on the various approaches to the Army's requests.

(Oh, and of course I want one !)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Here in suburbia, everyone (save for me) appears to have at least one dog - the latest fad amongst the upper class, it seems. The trouble with having dogs in a suburban area is that people take them for walks. When they are taken for walks, they relieve themselves. When they relieve themselves, they do it on my lawn!

I'm tired of it, and now I have inspiration to tackle the problem - watch this video for a great tip on dealing with clueless dog owners.

Somehow, it fits right in with the recently completed election. I leave it to you to deduce the connection...

-=[ Grant ]=-

NASA has made a decision to repair the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

I remember when the Hubble was launched in 1990. Once in orbit, NASA discovered a flaw in the main mirror. It was thought that the flaw would doom the Hubble to uselessness, but in '93 NASA sent a repair crew to restore the telescope to its planned quality. It worked, and the Hubble began to transmit the kind of startling images that everyone had hoped for.

Now the gyroscopes on the telescope have reached the end of their service life, and the only way to replace them is to send another manned mission. The only trouble is that NASA has a much better understanding of just how dangerous those missions are in the wake of the Columbia disaster, and they have been a bit reluctant to risk the lives of a crew - not to mention spending a healthy chunk of their operating budget - on such an expedition.

Last Tuesday, they finally reached a decision to repair the Hubble. This is great news for all science buffs, and serves as a chance for me to post one of the terrific images made by this marvel of American engineering. I give you the Crab Nebula, as only the Hubble Space Telescope can present it!



-=[ Grant ]=-

Jay Leno has one (two, actually.) In 1924, it ran on kerosene, developed 1,000 ft-lbs of torque, got 15+ MPG, had a top speed of over 100 mph, and had an engine that ran at 900 RPM while traveling at 75mph.

What was this remarkable vehicle? The Doble Steam car! The Doble was the pinnacle of steam automobile design, and even today remains a marvel of engineering. Steam, for those not familiar with the "antiquated" technology, produces phenomenal, linear power with almost no noise. I've long been of the opinion that a modern steam car, taking advantage of advances in metallurgy and computer control, could be economical, powerful, and clean. What's keeping Detroit??

In the meantime, check out this article on the fantastic Doble. (Oh, and be sure to ignore the idiot commentary from one of the readers, who opines that the steam car is impractical because of the "dangerous" high pressure boiler. The Doble used a flash boiler, which doesn't contain a large quantity of high pressure steam. If it burst, the only result would be a sudden drop of power and large cloud of water vapor. Maybe he works for one of the Big 3 - it would explain a lot!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

The Navy retired the F-14 "Tomcat" fighter last month. The F-14, one of the premier fighter aircraft of all time, is being replaced by the F/A-18.

The F-14 grew out of a failure. In the 1960s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was on a mission to standardize all kinds of equipment across the various military services - everything from boots to rifles to aircraft. He decided that the Navy (who, remember, operates airplanes off of short aircraft carriers) could use the same fighter as the Air Force (who operate from nice, long runways.) He decreed that the Navy should adopt a variant of the Air Force F-111A, to be designated the F-111B.

The F-111 wasn't exactly a rousing success in its original role, and despite throwing huge amounts of money at the modification project it never did make any of the Navy's goals. It remained grossly overweight, had extremely poor visibility for carrier landings, and at the medium speeds the Navy anticipated it to operate it had less than stellar maneuverability. It proved to be less suitable for the role than the plane it was to replace, the F-4 Phantom II.

It should go without saying that F-111B project died a horrible death, and the F-14 project was initiated. What the Navy got was one of the premier fighter aircraft ever made, and also one of the most visually striking. After giving yeoman service for 34 years, the Tomcat received a heartfelt farewell from the Navy.



F-14 FAQ
Tomcat Alley: The F-14 Site

-=[ Grant ]=-

Since this is Friday the 13th, I thought I'd share with you some link that are a little on the "eery" side.

The first deals with the Battle of Los Angeles: did we fight extra-terrestrials in 1942?

Second, check out the Glore Psychiatric Museum: a weird exhibition of madness and how we deal with it.

Finally, take a listen to one of my very favorite podcasts: HomeTown Tales - "because every town has one."

Enjoy!

-=[ Grant ]=-

OK, I admit it - I'm a sucker for the idea of personal aircraft, though I do not own one. Ultralights, autogyros, hang gliders - I love 'em all, even if I've never flown in or on one!

Of course the ultimate would be owning a personal helicopter, and it looks like it may now be possible: the GEN H-4 personal helicopter! For about $30,000 and a week's worth of assembly work, you can have a helicopter that weighs only 155lbs and cruises at 55mph.



Yeah, I want one!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Back in the summer of 1944, the Germans and Russians were fighting over a small strip of land in Estonia. The Germans managed to capture one of the Russian T34/76A tanks, and apparently needed it badly - as it was pressed into their service and painted with German army insignia.

As the Germans organized yet another retreat, the tank was driven into a lake, presumably to keep it from once again being used against them. There it lay for 56 years, until one Igor Shedunov organized a crew to drag it back out into the light.

Buried in the cold waters under a 3-meter thick layer of peat, the tank was phenomenally well preserved. According to the story on the group's website, the engine was able to be started after relatively minor repairs!



Great story and pictures. Check it out.

-=[ Grant ]=-

We're used to having little "balloons" tethered to our favorite cartoon characters that show us what the character is thinking or saying. Cartoons have been around longer than those balloons, though, and this site shows you the evolution of the now ubiquitous balloons.

OK, I admit - it's pretty useless information, but aren't you glad someone, somewhere, made up an entire web page on the topic? Amaze your friends with your knowledge of 19th century cartooning! (Or not...)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I've always wanted a flying car, and every few years I get my hopes up only to have them dashed by more vaporware. Will this be the one that finally makes it?

The Transition is designed for jumps of 100 to 500 miles. It will carry two people and luggage on a single tank of premium unleaded gas. It will also come with an electric calculator (to help fine-tune weight distribution), airbags, aerodynamic bumpers and, of course, a navigation unit with a global positioning system.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've never visited our great state, you owe it to yourself to come out and have a looksee. We have some of the best Pacific coastline available, and - unlike our neighbors to the south - the entire coastline is public property and accessible to all. We have the gorgeous Willamette Valley, which was one of the chief destinations for people coming over on the Oregon Trail. In fact, there are lots of places in the eastern part of the state where you can still see the wagon ruts!

(Speaking of eastern Oregon, what you may not know is that Oregon is nearly 2/3 desert!)

The point of this little travelogue, though, is to sing the praises of our favorite inland body of water: Crater Lake. Formed from the collapsed Mount Mazama, it is the deepest lake in the United States - 1,943 feet deep, to be precise! It is the deepest blue that you can imagine, and is one of the most picturesque lakes extant.

There is a large moss that grows on the bottom of the lake, which is itself the subject of some study. There is a project underway to study the organism, and you can see the latest video of the project here. (For more background on the lake, visit the official Crater Lake website.)

Crater Lake isn't the only deep thing in the state, however - we also boast the deepest river canyon in North America, Hell's Canyon. It sits along the border of Oregon and Idaho, and is considerably deeper than the Grand Canyon. Breathtaking! Visit the Hell's Canyon website.

Of course, there are many more natural attractions and historical sites to visit in our great state. Please visit and enjoy all that Oregon has to offer!

-=[ Grant ]=-

The California Senate has passed a bill that requires "microstamping", which imprints each fired case with a unique identifier from gun in which it was fired.

As usual, Tamara K. at The View From The Porch has a great analysis of the situation. Check it out.

I hate to sound harsh, but how long are all you California gun owners going to put up with these kinds of gun control plans? Haven't you figured out that they just don't want you in their state?

-=[ Grant ]=-

In the news this morning:

Pluto no longer a planet

Russian Cosmonaut to Whack Golf Ball From ISS

Am I the only one who sees the humor in this??

-=[ Grant ]=-

Here in Oregon, we once had a thriving retail enterprise known as Meier & Frank. M&F, as their logo appeared, was a department store in the grand old tradition - think of what a Nordstrom department store would look like, and you have Meier & Frank. The store expanded to several stores here in the northwest, but never got really "big"; many years ago the family sold out to a corporation, and the circus began.

Since then, the small but elegant little chain has had several owners (and bad management teams), culminating in their recent acquisition by Macy's.

We should have sensed that this behemoth from the east was up to no good, in the way that RiteAid (another large eastern corporation that purchased another homegrown chain, Payless Drugs) proved to be. Sure enough, Macy's announced that they would eliminate the venerable Meier & Frank name and paste their own (far less stylish) moniker on their buildings.

It is the end of a fond era.

But why "Friday Surprise"? Back in the good old pre-corporate-takeover days, Meier & Frank had a tradition of having some special sale or event every Friday. It was never advertised, but everyone knew about the Friday Surprise. So, to keep the memory of an Oregon institution alive, I'm inaugurating my own version of the Friday Surprise. This is where I hope to share all of the wilder (non-gun related) stories that I come across, pictures, events, personal stuff, and so on.

I hope you enjoy it!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made quite a number of photographs prior to the communist revolution of 1918. What makes them unusual is that they are in vibrant color!



Prokudin-Gorskii invented the technique to do this. What he did was to shoot 3 nearly identical black-and-white negatives in rapid succession - through narrow-band red, green and blue filters - then show them on a screen through those same red, green, and blue filters to produce color images. With today's digital techniques, it is possible to assemble these images and view them easily.

During my photographic career, I experimented with his technique with marginal success, but of course modern color films and papers made this cumbersome process superfluous. At the time I was playing with this, I did not know that Prokudin-Gorskii had invented it. It was, after all, the tail end of the Cold War, and very little was publicized about Russian technology. It wouldn't be until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the disintegration of the Iron Curtain, that such things became known.

Today, the Library of Congress has one of the largest, and the only digitally reproduced, portfolio of Prokudin-Gorskii's groundbreaking work. Absolutely fascinating to view, and a "must see" for history and technology buffs!

-=[ Grant ]=-

This last weekend was the large wedding of one of my close relatives. Since we're known as the "Second Amendment Family", the day would not be complete without some sort of ballistic celebration. What we came up with fit the occasion perfectly.

One of my cousins handloaded some special 12ga shotgun shells with birdseed. (That's right, SEED, not SHOT!) He used a 100% cotton wadding for biodegradability, and a very small amount of powder. (We had originally thought that primers alone would be sufficient to propel the lightweight charge out of the barrel, but that proved to not be the case.) The resulting rounds sent their payload out of a vertical barrel some 25 to 30 feet, and the sound level was approximately that of a .22 Short - just enough to attract attention but not so much that anyone's hearing would be in jeopardy.

After thoroughly checking the shotguns for non-approved ammo, and making sure that no one had any such ammunition on their person, our little Matrimony Militia (a grand total of 4 people) met the happy couple at the entrance of the reception area. We announced them, and (with the best military precision that a bunch of civilians could muster) fired our rounds straight into the air - muzzles held high, well above anyone's head, of course.

The effect was perfect - the birdseed rained down and thoroughly covered the bride and groom, who were surprised and greatly amused at their "shotgun wedding." Their photographer even stifled her laughter enough to thoroughly document the prank, and I'm quite certain that this was a first for her too!

If you are moved to try this, remember SAFETY FIRST. We made sure that everyone involved behaved in a safe manner, from the loading of the rounds to the storage of arms afterwards. The rounds were completely biodegradable (save for the hulls, naturally) and we made sure that all of the standard safety rules were obeyed. Of course, this was well before the bar was opened and absolutely no alcohol was permitted until after the arms were stored in locked trunks. (The fact that this event was held outdoors on private property made the whole thing possible. DO NOT try this at a church or indoors!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

NASA maintains a great website called "Astronomy Picture of the Day". As the name implies, they put up a new picture each day, along with a plain-language explanation by an astronomer.

Be sure to check out their archives - there are some terrific pictures in their collection. Sure to pique anyone's curiosity about what is beyond our little world!

Here's one of my favorites: The Eskimo Nebula.



Sometimes my wildest imaginings pale in comparison to reality. This is one of those times.

-=[ Grant ]=-

If you've read the "About Me" page, you know that I spent many years as a clock/watchmaker. Consequently, I like timepieces - and sometimes even really odd ones.

At the Indianapolis Children's Museum is a water clock - in fact, the largest water clock in North America! I'd really love to see it in action, particularly at 12:59.



That's cool - but a bit hard to fit in your house. How about something a bit easier to deal with? How about a bar code clock on your laptop? Neat bit of programming; now if someone can just program a Widget like that...

(Sorry, Windows users - Widgets are a Macintosh thing.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

Remember the story I posted a while back about the Washington state police officer who couldn't tell the difference between a Taser and a loaded pistol (wherein the Taser was a bad choice for the circumstance, let alone a firearm)?

Well, the Northwest thankfully does not have a lock on civil servants with sub-par intellects: three New York officers caught in their own crossfire.

What part of "make sure of your target, and what is beyond" didn't these people understand? "Here's your sign!"

-=[ Grant ]=-

Found on the "pdb" blog:

Blind man fatally shoots wife while trying to handle gun, food

MORGANTON - AP

A legally blind man fatally shot his wife while trying to balance a plate of fried chicken and a pistol, authorities said.

Kelly Honeycutt of Morganton was holding a .38-caliber pistol he found in a box while he and his wife were moving into a new home Monday night, said Burke County Sheriff's Sgt. Robert Beall said. He accidentally shot his wife Norita in the head after she handed her wheelchair-bound husband a plate of chicken, Beall said.

Beall said no charges were filed by investigators, but the case was sent to the county prosecutor's office for a final determination.

Beall said the husband was more than 50 percent blind, had limited movement and was in advanced stages of multiple sclerosis. His wife was his caretaker.

"They had a storybook marriage," Beall said. "No history of domestic violence, no indication of alcohol abuse. It just looks like a case of bad timing while handling a gun."

-=[ Grant ]=-

Famous dead castrato brought out of retirement.

No further comment!

-=[ Grant ]=-

Have you been following the story of Kyle MacDonald? He started a year ago with a single red paperclip, with the stated goal of trading up in a series of transactions to a house. It was an ambitious plan, and this week he achieves his goal.

Now, I just wonder; could I use the same idea to trade my way into one of those juicy Korth revolvers? Hmmmm.......

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's become apparent that the U.S. government has lost trillions (not millions, not billions, trillions) of dollars that were taken out of our (yours and my) pockets.

The recriminations are pathetically predictable; the Democrats point fingers at how President Bush "squandered" a non-existent 'budget surplus', while Republicans chastise the democrats for their 'tax and spend policies'.

The trouble is that they are equally at fault. The only things politicians do, in the final analysis, is write intrusive laws and spend money like drunken sailors. Anyone remember the story of the turtle and the viper?

-=[ Grant ]=-

Seems that former 'Baywatch' babe - and little else of consequence - Carmen Electra is promoting a new investment opportunity.

She'll undoubtedly "convince" a few people to invest - and odds are that all of them will be males under the age of 35.

Hey, sex sells. Just don't expect me to don a Speedo for any advertisement

-=[ Grant ]=-

...and better pre-hire screening.

Scenario: admittedly bizarre individual is 30 feet up in a tree. Deputy, who according to the article "wanted to get him down before he hurt himself or others", decides that the appropriate response is to use a Taser. Trouble is, the deputy draws pistol instead of Taser and shoots the man in the leg!

Aside from the obvious stupidity, think about this: the man is up in a tree, approximately the height of a two-story house roof. The deputy decides that the way to get him down is to use a device that disrupts one's motor control. If the deputy had used the Taser, the man would quite probably have fallen 30 feet to the ground!

What outcome did the deputy expect - that the guy would suffer a fall from that height with no injuries? How does this square with the quote about not allowing the man to hurt himself? It doesn't, and that's the problem.

The deputy made two egregious errors - one in judgment, and one in performance. This is someone who should really be doing something else for a living...."you want fries with that??"

-=[ Grant ]=-

Sheeple are afraid of flashing red lights.

The short story: a bartender lost his grip on reality when he saw a flashing red light on a window display for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Apparently convinced that this was a bomb, he called the police - who, rather than using their heads, evacuated the hotel.

Why is this important to you? Because the people now taking the reigns of power and influence in this country have had their world view shaped by prime time television - where all bombs have flashing red lights and all guns are bad, and giving up a little freedom for some safety is perfectly acceptable. See the connection?

These are the people who vote for anti-freedom politicians; they sit on juries and award ridiculous "pain and suffering" judgments; they go to town meetings and, no matter what the topic, scream hackneyed phrases such as "won't someone please think of the children?" They do these things because they live in a permanent fantasy, where all bombs have flashing red lights, and they have no clue that the real world isn't like what they see on "The West Wing."

It would be funny if their actions weren't so onerous...

-=[ Grant ]=-

Damn interesting, that's how!

This is a site that I read regularly. Damn Interesting has regular stories about (surprise!) interesting - and usually little-known - events and happenings in the world.

This entry details an almost-forgotten radiation accident at Los Alamos shortly after World War II. Why did it happen? Someone got careless and ignored safety precautions, proof that even a PhD doesn't shield you from the laws of physics.

As I read the story, the parallel with shooting became obvious. Even the best-trained shooters get careless, or decide that the rules don't apply to them. The result is usually a negligent discharge, sometimes with tragic results.

Georges Rahbani, the best combat rifle instructor I know, says "seemingly obsessive preoccupation with safety is the mark of the professional." Be obsessive - follow the rules, and make sure everyone around you does too. Safety is the first thing that you should think of when you pick up a firearm, and the last thing you think about as you put it down. Don't get complacent: THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

-=[ Grant ]=-

It's easy to believe that we aren't like other countries; it's hard to imagine that something as horrific as the trafficking of human beings occurs right under our very noses. But it does, and police are having a hard time combatting the problem.

This report details some of the fight against the sub-humans who engage in this "business."

-=[ Grant ]=-

Great idea - turn them into a lamp! From the TechEBlog comes this:



Says the builder: “The pile of CDs that had been massing in my room was growing to epic proportions. So I decided to make myself a CD lamp. The circular base was actually cut using a template on a table saw, then sanded after clamping it in a drill press. The cold cathode lamp is from NewEgg. “

And to think I've been throwing them away all these years...once again, proof that I have no creativity whatsoever!

-=[ Grant ]=-

One of my childhood dreams was to build a submarine out of our above-ground diesel tank, and use it to explore the bottom of our pond. Despite the fact the the pond was only 8 feet deep at its deepest, the dream persisted.

Needless to say, I love the current generation of small research submersibles. Here are some great videos of an erupting volcano on the sea floor, taken from the Jason II sub as part of NOAA research.

(The site is very popular, so you may need to reload a couple of times to see the video.)

-=[ Grant ]=-

What brings on this question, you ask? Well, I'm sitting here considering yet another of my afflictions: fountain pens. Yes, those old-fashioned writing instruments that no one uses any more.

Except that people do use them!

I re-discovered the joys of writing with a fountain pen about a year ago. My interest was kindled by the fact that the most indestructible writing inks are available only in a bottle - from a company called Noodler's Ink. This stuff is so fraud-resistant that the only way to obliterate it is to literally dissolve the paper from under the ink.

Thinking that would be great for check-writing, I unearthed the fountain pen I'd been given as a gift a couple of decades ago. Now I had another weapon in my tool chest against identity thieves! But a funny thing happened: I discovered that writing with a fountain pen is, in and of itself, a wonderful experience.

A fountain pen lays down ink with NO pressure required - less even than the best rollerball. That means that, instead of a chore, writing becomes effortless and non-tiring. If you write a lot, a fountain pen will be a godsend to you aching hand muscles! The fountain pen is also more expressive; the ink also has "shading", which means that each different stroke produces differences in saturation or width. The "look" of a fountain pen's work is unmistakable.

As if that wasn't enough, fountain pen inks are available in hundreds of different colors - just the different shades of blue which are available is staggering! Blacks? You'd be surprised at how different a simple black can be from maker to maker - and there are still browns, greens, reds, purples, oranges...well, you get the picture.

You have a wide choice in pens, too. Of course there are the great vintage pens, but there are also dozens of manufacturers of new fountain pens from all over the world from which to choose. Prices range from $2.99 to multiple thousands of dollars, with most falling between $50 and $300.

Intrigued? Your first stop should be the Fountain Pen Network discussion forums, where you can learn all you need to know. From there, go explore dealers like iSellPens (my favorite place to get real bargains), Pendemonium (sellers of my favorite color of ink, Noodler's Legal Lapis - be sure to check out their color charts), and Swisher Pens. There are lots of others, but these will get you started.

Hey, a fountain pen even makes my chicken-scratching look good!

-=[ Grant ]=-