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.
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.
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 calledEnvironmental Graffiti.
The siteEnglish Russiaentices 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 anever-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 alocomotive
depotin the same part of the
country, but these were all operational - until the USSR broke
apart. At some point, everyone just walked away...
Second, Dark Roasted Blend hasthis 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.)
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 abighouse.
Pipe organs, even modest examples, arelarge 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.
The LIFE website this week unveiled aphoto 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 fromthe camera of an inventive geniuswhose 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.
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 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.
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?
Spent weekend away from home. No computer. Mailbox very full on
return. Yuck.
---
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.
---
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.)
---
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!
Nothing witty or exploratory today, just a great picture of star
trails from theAstronomy
Picture Of The Daywebsite. 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!)
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 withthisandthisfrom
www.terrastories.com
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 theStan
KentonOrchestra. 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
Hubbardplayed 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 greatClark Terryfor 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 guitaristsHerb
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.)
TheWoody
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.
TrumpetersPete
and Conte Candoliappeared 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-unknownDiane
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 wasMaynard
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 toutedWynton
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, greatRed
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I'm novexillologist, 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:
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.)
It's a rare thing when I make social commentary, asTamandMarkocover such things far better
than I ever could. I hope you'll forgive me, however, for this
brief interlude from the technical chatter.
---
The rest of the world (meaning everything outside of the gun
culture) is just now finding out about our ammunition supply
issues. I foundthis column from Maine's Morning Sentinelto 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.
---
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.
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 ofamateur chemistswho were alsoprofessional 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 theEastman 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
individualwho 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 andFrederick Fennellwould have been enough for
any one person.
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.
Many people have heard of theMaginot
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 theMannerheim 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.
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.
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!
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, butDark 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.
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 throughlong 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.
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.
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?
As Imentioned 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", andTam's recent comment on this articlepopped 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!
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:
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.
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, andDark 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:
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.)
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.
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.
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 amechanical 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?
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:
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.
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!
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 fromStormdrane'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...)
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.
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 theAbandoned Mines of
NY/NJ site. Nice layout, and the pics
are beautifully detailed. Go, and prepare to be captivated.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 stuffand make maps of their
findings.
Take a gander at thelarge 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
theStrange
Mapsblog. It's a fun place to
explore.
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.
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.
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
readthis article in London's Daily
Mail.
I've
previously mentionedmy 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 anew 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!
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.
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 atthis collection of tipsabout turning the tables on
those who interrupt your life to sell you cheaper long distance.
(Courtesy of Dark Roasted Blend.)
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?
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 wasthis article at WebUrbanist about abandoned movie
theatersacross 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!)
If you're under 40, the nameDouglas Engelbartprobably 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 ofARPANET.
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.)
That's a quote from one of my favorite photographers,Lifemagazine's fantastically
greatRalph
Morse, about his rivals atNewsweek. 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 wasthis article
on Soviet cosmonaut deathswhich 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.
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 theall-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.
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 buildingjustcastles 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
picturesfrom 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.)
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??
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 whatIwould do.
This fellow? He spent all that time alone in an adult candy store
stealingJack
Daniels.What a waste. The man should
be publicly flogged for terminal stupidity and a profound lack of
good taste.
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!
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, buteven 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!
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.
+++
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 ofwhy 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.)
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.
It pains me to think that the '70s - the decade of my young
adulthood - are now considered "vintage"!
However, that is the case, and alook through this Flickr photo setof 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.
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.
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 isSage 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 discoveredHave 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 Bruksisthechoice.) 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 areBailey'sandAmick'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, andthe story of
Captain Thomas Henry Hines is a great
example.
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'mquitejealous 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.)
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 - butthis article
at Damn Interestinggives the best overview I've
seen of the ill-fated project.
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.
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.
(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.)
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 LineTam 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 fromAFGWWWTRA,
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.
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 neatfeature-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.
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.)
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.
(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.)
Many people, it seems, do
not know aboutarchive.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!"
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.
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 theOddmusic
homepage. Be sure to check out some
of their other unusual entries!
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.
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 theAerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Centeroutside of
Tucson, butthere are
others.
The Russianshave such
things, too, and they can be a
fascinating glimpse into the "other side" of the Cold War.
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.
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-sliderulegeek. 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
infamousTam purports to be a geek, too - but is she? Is
shereally?
Oh, yeah, she makes a big deal about her old computers - but did
she ever have aDEC
PDP-11/70(runningRSTS, 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 theultimategeek 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 muchMogambo Guru. But I digress...)
This nerd calling-out is just a pathetically unimaginative way of
introducing today's topic: anabandoned Ionospheric Research Stationhidden 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!)
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 positionin the article On
Safety, but it seems like beating
a dead horse.
Tam put up an interesting poston the S&W Model 53, but a simple link is
hardly sufficient for a whole blog post.
Atragic shooting in small-town Americashows 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 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:
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 somereal pictures of crazy
portages, brought to us once again
by Dark Roasted Blend. Enjoy!
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!
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. IfNessmukmeans anything
to you, Dersu Uzala will be one of your favorites too.
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?
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
500ccbicilindrica,
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
thebicilindricahad 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 theotto
cylindrinever 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.
I know that I've been
featuring a disproportionate number ofDark Roasted
Blendarticles 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 amandala, 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.
Massad Ayoobwas in the area
the last couple of weeks for his yearly round of teaching up
atFirearms 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.
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
ofFort
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 youabandoned bio-chem warfare
facilities.
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 whothink 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
toshoot
a propane tank, just to see what
happens.
---
Finally, this isn't really gun related, but isjust too funny to ignore. Further comment would seem
unnecessary.
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 someamazing pictures of old underground
facilitiesaround 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
showCities of the Underworld. Check it out!)
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,wasunusual. 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.
If you're into the weird and
esoteric, if strange machines and odd places intrigue you, check
outDark 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!
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.
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:
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!
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
acrossthis article
on US Radium, the company that made the paint
in that little bottle.
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.
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!)
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
agood 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?
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:
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 timefitted with
an underwater aircraft hangar, launched a small airplane and
bombed our southern coast. Finally, in 1944, the Japanese military
launched aseries
of balloon bombsagainst 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...
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?
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.
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 -
likehow to make a cheap coffin out of Ikea
parts.
Folks, where else can you learn such useful
things?? -=[ Grant
]=-
As you know, I've been on top of
the growing Squirrel Menace. I've alerted you to the pack ofsquirrels
that kills dogs, and I've kept you up to date on
thesquirrels
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 Terroris 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!
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.)
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...
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!
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.
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", theUncommon
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 thefirstplace!
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 hedidn'thave 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!)
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 inForest and Streammagazine.
He wrote two books,WoodcraftandCamping,
which are still in print - combined into one volume titledWoodcraft 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, calledAdirondack
Letters,
is a compilation of his articles in Forest and Stream.)
Woodcraft and
Campingis
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!
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?
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...
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!
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!)
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!
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!)
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
herefor a
scholarly (i.e., mathematic) explanation;click hereto 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. (Seehere,
and
here,
and
here.) I
admit it, I'm hooked.
AirScooterhas announced that
their personal helicopter, the AirScooter II, willfinally 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 thatyou 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!
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!
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 Interestinggives you all the poop on the
various approaches to the Army's requests.
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 onmylawn!
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, andthey have been a bit reluctantto 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
decisionto
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!
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 aheartfelt farewell from the
Navy.
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: theGEN 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.
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!
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, andthis 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 onethat 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.
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.
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 billthat requires
"microstamping", which imprints each fired case with a unique
identifier from gun in which it was fired.
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?
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.
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!
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!)
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.
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.)
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)?
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."
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.......
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?
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??"
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...
This is a site that I read regularly.Damn Interestinghas regular stories about (surprise!) interesting
- and usually little-known - events and happenings in the
world.
This
entrydetails 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!
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 reportdetails 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!
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 somegreat videosof 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.)
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
]=-
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Alliance! The blog about revolvers,
training, self-defense, and shooting in general (along with an
occasional surprise!)