That is what that noise was!

Very close to here. VERY close. If you run a car into a subdivision median divider made of concrete, rock, and steel at about 100 MPH, well all I can say is I'm thankful for that sign. If there was nothing to stop him, he would have possibly taken innocent lives in their home.

Punching the Geek Card....

In case you did not know it the second pilot (the first one was officially judged too cerebral by NBC) ordered by NBC for Star Trek TOS had a very special cinematographer. He showed up for the job interview and brought no resume, no cover letter. He showed up for the gig as a favor for a friend as he was retired. When the interview ran he simply said: "I did this little thing called Gone with the Wind".  Word. Best response for that job interview ever! 


Thanks Ernest B. "Ernie" Haller. 

Oh, the studios were owned by Desi Arnaz and his wife Lucille Ball. Star Trek was filmed after they separated and "Lucy" was running the studios.

My geek card should be good for a week or so! 

Sigh... Everyone is Offended Now.

So New Zealand Airlines comes up with a new safety video using swim suit models. A bunch of people get bent.





They pull the video. Sigh... I at times figure things were better when you were glad to be on an aircraft going where you wanted to go (well except with ML, I did not know where I was going but did not care). 

From 1972 here is this commercial. 




What the hell happened? Is everyone offended at everything now? I'm more offended that the #2 Engine appears to need some compressor work here. 

I Am a Random Trivia Generator!

So today a friend comments that his Daughter is coming back from New York City from her Senior class trip via rail. I comment "So riding the Crescent eh? It will be late and here is where you can check the status of the trip."

My friend comments that I know way too much about obscure stuff. Not really. The Southern Railroad has made that run for a long time. 

Here is one engine that did it. 

 
  A long time ago! I need to do this run sometime.
 

 

I Meet Great People....

Sometimes though for the wrong reasons. I taught a Concealed Carry Handgun class today. There was a woman and her son in class. She was alert, engaging, and possessed a wicked humor that I found refreshing.

On a break she calmly approached me in the "faculty smoking lounge" and whipped out a crime report. Her and her son's home was invaded while she was alone. Two males (I will not call them Men) entered. She ran and fought with one until the other pistol whipped her on the head. She removed the ball cap and showed me the result. That happened about three weeks ago. Then the beating really began. They ruptured internal stitches from a recent hysterectomy by beating her in the stomach. They tied her up and then proceed to rape her. 

Her son finds her the next day STILL TIED UP. 

I hear these stories occasionally. They rip my heart out. 

I hope there is a special level of Hell for such vermin that committed this act. They are still on the loose.

    

Pffft! Here is how you do snow in NC!

This is in the State Capitol:

Less dramatically here is the driveway at stately manor. Yeah I could shovel it or wait for a capitalist with a tractor with a blade to clear it, but meh, just fire up the 1994 Mustang and have at!

 



































As with so many other things in my life not esthetically appealing but effective. Traction control consisted of clutch and accelerator!

So we shall see how bad all of this freezes over tonight.

Snow death!

Sigh.... Yeah I know we don't get the snow that some do here, but it makes for fine drama llamas. Hey! Do you really need to put a run on the grocery store when the highs here will be in the mid forty's by Thursday? This will be gone by then. I promise. 

The only thing that does suck is that I have a revolver and a new TV supposed to be delivered the end of the week. 

Hey. If it gets that bad I have barter and food. Sorta. 

 

My Favorite Game.

In fact, it is the only PC based game I have left here. 

Here is a trailer for it.



The game was not really a game. Here is more info. Any game I get and it comes with a 2 inch thick manual? Its not HALO! 

Hey NFO! Does this look anywhere close to the office?

It is a big time sink if you allow it. I have not played it in years.

 

 

Whoops!

That's what I get for turning on the TV! Productivity for today is through! A marathon:

 

Coolant Leak!

Not quite as dramatic as this:



Troubling just the same. The '94 Mustang beater is reporting "Low Coolant" on an idiot light. Bad on me for not catching it sooner. There is a reason they call them "idiot lights". Sigh.  Luckily, the "No Coolant" light is not on yet =). Looks like the thermostat housing. On it tomorrow, it's supposed to get cold here Friday.  

Tech Update!

Well I got this about 30 minutes ago from the brown truck of happiness. 

I'm in the tech biz but I had to back up for a moment and be stunned. One day delivery from an Internet order. A 1 TERABYTE hard drive for my computer?!?!

Lets put this into perspective. 

The Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Module had a computer that had 2K of memory. I have for under 80 bucks a TeraByte harddrive. The numbers look like this:

 

















I continue to be amazed.Take a look at this old school pilot fly his craft even when the computer is telling him that it can't handle it.1202 Alarm.

My Brain Scares Me Sometimes!

So working with some Molle gear and some Maxpedition Tacties today for a gift and it looked like this:

 Oh, the lights? A case of 100W incandescent and a case of 60W. The powers that be are making these hard to get. 

Anyway, while I'm doing this, my brain immedatly thought of this video:



Yep, my brain works in mysterious ways! 



 

Heavy Metal!

In a previous post I commented on an animation technique called rotoscoping. 

Here is old school ink on cell animation of a B-17 having a bad day. Bonus music. Don Felder.

More bonus same movie with a totally different animation technique. Ah, the 80's.   

If You Ever Visit....

Stately manor when you turn into the development please keep an eye on your rear view mirror! The road in is at a 90 degree angle to the main two lane road between county seat and eastern yuppie ville. Two lane has a posted speed of 55 MPH.

So I was sitting in the office just after work today and hear the sound. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! No squealing of tires, no intermittent chirps of ABS working either. 

Two drivers are walking, one air bag deployed on the last car to add to the three car pile up. That car has handicapped plates and they are still in the car. This is the view from my front yard. 


Here is that car.

 








A good distance off the road, but not a glancing blow as if they attempted to swerve. Looks head on.

It's 5:30 and rush hour. The best I can do is insure 911 has been called and try to stop another pile up. I love glow sticks and reflective triangles but burning things on the pavement seem to get a drivers already distracted attention better:

 













So do they still make these? I deployed them 100 yards away from the scene in both directions. 


The VFD was the first to arrive at 8 minutes after the fact. EMS took another 10, and the State Trooper another 15. 

So now almost two hours after the fact we are back to normal here. 

If you come here, watch your A** turning in! If you leave I suggest a good dose of acceleration too!

Irony. I haz it.

Waiting on me today in the mailbox was an envelope. I retrieved it after going to work to fix something else that went Tango Uniform. I have been running around that place since Memorial Day weekend plugging holes in the dike.

Inside the envelope was this:

Right on time too. 

 








Thanks President of chemical plant! 

If You Want Americana....

Go here. You will spend a great deal of time there. He is an accomplished writer and has spent a great deal of time researching our past. Americana. Before anywhere you go it all looks the same.

Oh, and if he can whip old photos and illustrations like this out with his captions added, so much the better!

I hoped that in his postcards of motels he had The Blu-Vue from my home town. Sadly he did not. I think a Costco or some such is there now. 


You will go down the rabbit hole and you will be impressed! 


 

Thank God They had a Gun!

Wife who can't load shotgun uses it to club bear attacking husband. 

Oh, wait......

 

A Quote From an Old Movie..

A gun, like any other source of power, is a force for either good or evil, being neither in itself, but dependent upon those who possess it. 

Ok, here is another one: "A pistol don't make a man. It's the gent before the gun that counts".

Give up on the movie? Hint to dude with the Saturday Man movie thing.  Mr. Curmudgeon thought of you while it was playing last night on TCM. 





Not technically correct however. The model correctly being demonstrated was the first model .44 Caliber Colt revolving belt pistols made in 1849 and reaching final form by 1850.

Good movie though!

Hey Comrade!

So Tam throws some first grade snark out there on the North Koreans no less.  

So I went down the rabbit hole and found this: "In the mid-1990s, an automated exchange system based on an E-10A system produced by Alcatel joint-venture factories in China was installed in Pyongyang. North Koreans announced in 1997 that automated switching had replaced manual switching in Pyongyang and 70 other locales.[2] North Korean press reported in 2000 that fiber-optic cable had been extended to the port of Nampho and that North Pyong'an Province had been connected with fiber-optic cable".

I think that the landlines they DO have are in better shape than here. 

Aside from eating sawdust and dirt clods they do have these traffic signals in the Capitol City. 






Hmm... Comrade if I make an illegal turn do I go to the gulag? I mean really. They have cars? 

A Gentle Tune

I have built my house but as opposed to this tune no one is coming. I can call, but life choices are made. We do what we can. 



Oh, I was at a Fleetwood Mac concert in 1979. My Grandmother sold the tickets!