Friday, October 09, 2026
Thursday, October 08, 2026
I didn't get things posted today, I heard from an ol shipmate right after I got home, and we ended up texting for a couple hours
some days I have a lot of spare time, and post a lot.
Probably most days, but not today.
Anyway, as long as I'm talking, I figure it's a good time to mention that a month from now is my 20th anniversary.
And this is my 66600 post. (Yeah, 666 and a couple zeros)
To let you know I'm going to have less spare time after my 20th anniversary.
It takes all my spare time, after work, before work, and on weekends. I've got a couple other things I want to focus on.,... like learning to play guitar, music theory, and make a couple books... maybe 3. One on my family tree, one on my favorite poetry, https://better-than-palgrave.blogspot.com and another on the history of my home town https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095524357751
Life is too short, and none of us have any idea when the clock will run out for us. So, since I'm 55, have diabetes type 2 (recently acquired in Jan 2021) so I need to get to work on my other hobby interests while I still can, 'cause they are going to take a long time.
As for the poetry and history, the links above show I've got a really good start on those. I started the poetry project before I started this blog, and interrupted what was a good start, until I was done with this project. I have about 175 books of poetry, that I am about 1/2 way through and then putting the ones I like the most, in one book, means I never have to hunt through the 200 books to find them. If you ever look up the Ralph Woods Treasuries, or the Between the Bookends by Ted Malone, the collections of Tony Wons... you'll find a lot of great stuff, and I want to select all those and put them together in one book for myself.
The history of my home town will take a lot more time and effort once I'm old and retired and can get back to Michigan to pound the pavement to research it more.
I already spent about 12 months tracing out my family tree, and that's the majority of the work on that project, I just want to index, cross reference, etc etc so I can look up any last name to see if there's a connection with any other family last name.
So, learning to play guitar... I bought a couple guitars at estate sales, and facebook marketplace, very inexpensive, except for the Taylor... some local online auction and estate sale auction company never handles guitars, they mostly do companies going out of business... and they had an auction that was fronted by a 66 Ford truck, So I was looking at that, and a Taylor 110 acoustic was there... and a very old Ibanez. For the price of a new Yamaha.. it's a 2008 and likely never used. Long story, but I think they were both owned by a woman born in 1944... do the math, she was 64 when she got the Taylor, and the company she bought the strings for the Ibanez, went out of business in 1987. She owned a couple guitars she didn't play. I found her name on the Ibanez case, and looked her up. Amazing woman! I am guessing she's dead, hence the estate sale of her things... but I'm going to try and see if she's alive, to learn more about her, and the guitars... hey, you all know, I'm very curious.
Anyway, for the curious about guitars, I bought a 1960s Aria, 1960s Goya, 1960s Kawai, 1960s Ibanez, and 2008 Taylor. Models I can fill you in on later but all are big acoustic, no electric, dreadnaught size, or darn close to it.
I've wanted to learn to play guitar since I was 4... and heard so much cool music on the radio, like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Eagles, Frampton, and all the country and western hits, 50s music, 60s music, Motown, etc etc.
But poor families don't gift guitars. Damn shame, kids who are studying music, and playing guitars, and trying to do all the guitar music, don't have time to get into much trouble, often find themselves with cool girlfriends, cool friends, great teen age years of experiences, etc. I had my first guitar lesson last Saturday. It was nothing hard, but a very basic beginning, and I was STOKED afterward as I drove to get lunch, wondering if I'd win the auction on the Taylor and the Ibanez to make a hope for a REALLY good new guitar a reality
Hell, my grandma was so musically gifted she was given a scholarship to Intrerlochen for piano talent. She was so dextrous, she could type a hundred words a minute on a manual typewriter, she told me.
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Prime Video, is making Jeremy Grows a Car: A Clarkson’s Farm Special.
“Alongside his very own Diddly leather interior and wool carpets, Jeremy will attempt to grow a crop of flax fibre and turn it into a revolutionary flax-composite – a sustainable alternative to carbon fibre
He has enlisted the legendary car designer Ian Callum CBE, founder of design and engineering firm CALLUM, the man who penned the original F-Type and the Aston Martin Vanquish
The new, one-off show will air in 2027 with Prime Video also confirming yesterday that series six of Clarkson’s Farm will also be released next year.
A dog was stolen from a trucker's can while she was in the station paying for the fuel
Arlene put the picture from that camera on a truckers' page that night. Then she parked and waited.
Two days later a driver named Hollis spotted a heeler tied to a fence at a rest area outside Oklahoma City, 260 miles east. He was headed the wrong way. So he handed Dutch up to a driver going west, and that driver handed the dog to another one in Elk City.
The third truck pulled into the Amarillo truck stop a little after midnight.
Dutch came down the steps of a stranger's cab, crossed the lot and went straight up into Arlene's.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Monday, October 05, 2026
Fritz Schiedel was a bit obsessed with making this Porsche 550A as light as possible for racing ( bought directly from Porsche competition director at Sebring in '58, never raced, a backup car for the new RSK) Thank you John!
I'm surprised he didn't swiss cheese the dash, but I get a kick out of the lack of decorative trim around the instruments, and the holes in the key? Awesome
An 18-year-old from was arrested after police said he stole a Star Brass steam whistle before it was stolen from the 1921 Cooke steam locomotive at Central Park in Sutherlin, Oregon. (thank you George! )
185 speed cameras are going live in Los Angeles
Over a single week in September, Malibu's handful of speed cameras clocked about 100,000 speed violations
A federal judge in Oklahoma has ruled that a warrantless search of a vehicle’s monthlong location history through automated license-plate reader databases violated the Fourth Amendment, that Flock cameras pose an unconstitutional surveillance risk,
A Tulsa County deputy’s search of her license plate through Flock and VehicleManager systems amounted to an unconstitutional search.
A deputy had access to about 30 days of vehicle-location information across several states and found more than 50 sightings tied to a rental vehicle, according to the ruling. The deputy initially searched the California plate after seeing it on an Oklahoma highway, before he had identified a traffic violation or other basis to suspect criminal activity.
The court found that police cannot use a vast network of cameras to indiscriminately collect vehicle data, then retrieve a detailed history of a person’s movements on demand without probable cause and a warrant. U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill said the technology can reveal sensitive information, including visits to medical providers, lawyers, fertility clinics, casinos or liquor stores.
The decision drew on Supreme Court privacy rulings involving cellphone location data, including *Carpenter v. United States* and this year’s *Chatrie v. United States*. The judge wrote that while motorists are visible on public roads, people can still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in “the whole of their physical movements” when law enforcement compiles and searches weeks of location records.
"Freedom from persistent, dragnet-style surveillance while in public is not a foreign concept in our society, and it is a reasonable expectation that society already accepts," wrote Hill.
In Fort Pierce, former Officer Josepher Crutchfield was arrested on four felony counts related to unauthorized computer access after police accused him of searching his ex-girlfriend’s license plate 382 times through the Flock database between October 2025 and July 2026, largely while off duty and without a legitimate law-enforcement purpose. He has not been convicted.
two 11-year-olds, founders of TJ & JT Mowing Service, completed a 50 Yard Challenge in Alabama, to mow 50 yards for the elderly, veterans, and people unable to care for their lawns for free.
He gave both teens a mower, a blower, and a trimmer for their hard work, hoping they would use their new equipment to expand their business. “Giving these boys lawn equipment is teaching them discipline,” Smith said. “If they tell someone they are going to mow a lawn, they need to mow the lawn.” he added. “This could be the beginning of a successful lawn service.”
Smith’s commitment to caring for people’s lawns began in 2015, and the following year he went viral for helping a 93-year-old woman who could no longer mow her lawn. Smith had set a bold goal of mowing lawns for free in all 50 states. His goal was to promote his initiative that “provides free lawn care to our elders, those who are disabled, single mothers, and our veterans, who do not have the time, resources, and/or money to manicure their yards.”
As part of this goal, he created the 50 Yard Challenge, which has been a smashing success.
As of mid-2026, more than 6,000 pre-teens and teens have signed up for the challenge across the United States, up from 4,588 in May 2023. If everyone completes it, the total number of lawns mowed for free by Smith’s Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service will reach well over 300,000.
Kids and teens can take part in the challenge by sending them a photo holding up a sign that says, “I accept the 50 Yard Challenge,”
After completing the challenge, the child or teen will receive a mower, a blower, and a trimmer
https://www.upworthy.com/50-lawnmower-man-challenge-ex1/
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that aimed to boost oversight of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority.
Newsom’s veto comes two weeks after the investigative office released a scathing report in which its auditors found that the high-speed rail authority approved nearly $600,000 in unallowable travel expenses for its consultants. It found they flew first class, took luxury rides and visited a nightclub on taxpayer dollars.
The auditing agency was created in 2022 to conduct independent reviews and investigations of the long-delayed bullet train project. But it has never been fully staffed because it doesn’t have the authority to hire the expert staff necessary for audits, said Inspector General Ben Belnap in recent public hearings.
govt is always looking to make people use mass transit... and Vancouver had a proposal by TransLink to charge all vehicles in Metro Vancouver a yearly fee between $100 to $200 a year, on top of their insurance costs to help fund the region's transit system.
For the last 18 months, a vehicle levy has been talked about by TransLink as a potential way to create a more sustainable funding model, as revenue from fuel taxes continues to decline and an extra $100 million a year in top-up funding expires in 2028.
Interesting that they only way they can fund something car owners won't use, and don't want, is to make them pay for it.
More interesting, is that if mass transit is needed, utilized, and worth keeping, that IT DOESN"T PAY FOR IT"S OWN NEEDS
The 55th annual National Stearman Fly-In, a six day event, brought 91 Stearman owners and pilots, together with enthusiasts at Galesburg Regional Airport in Illinois from Sept 7-12, 2026
the six-day gathering featured fly-outs, a Poker Run, landing and aerobatic competitions, formation flying, restoration awards, and the longstanding traditions that make the event a family reunion for the Stearman community.
a canoe with an odometer! When mapmaking in the everglades in 1897, Ed Brewer wanted to know exactly how many miles had been traveled
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10168508082232782&set=pcb.10168508083127782 via the Antique Overland facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1740495786660758/
Sunday, October 04, 2026
I can't understand a word, but, there is a race, between 6 fantastical vehicles, driven by a variety of people, robots, and anamorphic creatures, including kitten girls in a vehicle that transforms into a jaguar robot - across 5 environments (skip the first 4 minutes)
for some stupid reason, they overlooked that kitten girls would not have both human and cat ears
I was not kidding that every scene starts with ankles
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