Saturday, October 03, 2026
The Count De Smet De Nayer bridge in Ostend, built between 1903 and 1905 named after the Belgian Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Public Works, famously known among locals by its crude yet historical nickname: "Tettenbrug" (Titty Bridge).
When the bridge was officially opened in 1905, its stone pylons were decorated with striking bronze sculptures and bas-reliefs of half-naked women with exposed breasts representing maritime themes and angels
during World War I, occupying German forces stripped the bridge of its valuable bronze decorations. The statues were loaded onto trains and melted down in German smelting ovens to manufacture ammunition and extract copper
The city of Ostend bought original terracotta maquettes and designs of the missing bas-reliefs for €3,000. Backed by local government support, these designs are being used as a blueprint to create and restore the replica sculptures, finally returning the iconic "Tettenbrug" to its original Belle Époque grandeur
erected over the Afleidingsvaart (now filled in), the Oostende-Brugge railway, and the Oostende-Brugge canal, each bridge section symbolically refers to the transport system it spans: symbols of the sea and shipping adorn the bridges built over a water connection; the bridge section over the railway displays a bas-relief sculpture of a steam locomotive.
the 1959/1961 Devin C with a supercharged Corvair engine was fielded by Andy Granatelli in the 1961 Grand Prix at Riverside
The factory-built Devin C built by Bill Devin and his team in 1959. The cars developed by Devin deserve to be more famous than they are, in period they won 32 SCCA races, the 1956 SCCA H Modified National Championship, and they were six-time Pikes Peak Unlimited Class winners.
The car was tested for the October 1961 issue of Sports Car Graphic magazine before being borrowed by Andy and Vince Granatelli for high-speed supercharger testing at the Bonneville Salt Flats, which was detailed in the January 1962 issue of SCG. The Granatellis also ran the supercharged car at various drag strips, scaring away the competition with a sports-car record 12.44-second quarter-mile run at 109.75 mph.
A few weeks later, with the supercharger removed, the Devin C was entered by its first owner (the well-known dealer Hollywood Sports Cars) at the LA Times-Mirror Grand Prix at Riverside in October 1961.
Dealership employee Pete Woods battled hall-of-fame racing giants like Stirling Moss, Jim Hall, Dan Gurney, Roger Penske, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Ken Miles, Walt Hansgen, George Follmer, and Augie Pabst during a 10-lap introductory qualifying race, before a seized engine prevented the car from running the main event.
Friday, October 02, 2026
there is a road grading attachment for Caterpillar 972M XE wheel loaders
Standing ovation for Clarenton 'Nicky' Crawford
In the article, a man had been distributing hotel soaps and shampoos to people experiencing homelessness. About an hour later, one of the recipients returned the items. He appreciated the kindness—but he had nowhere to shower, so the supplies were useless.
The story lingered in Crawford’s mind. After spending decades working in construction, he was now retired and living in Stone Mountain. He had time, resources, and a growing sense that he should do something to help. “I thought, ‘Do I buy them food or give them money?’” Crawford later said. “I just wanted to do something to help others.”
In 2021, he began forming a plan. On February 2, 2022, he used his own money to purchase a three-stall mobile shower trailer. The next challenge was finding a place to operate it.
In Atlanta, 2,000 people sleep on the streets at night, according to the Atlanta Mission. Georgia's capital city is home to over a quarter of the state's homeless population of nearly 10,000, according to the organization.
Within a week, a friend connected him with Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, which agreed to let him test the idea outside its emergency department. On the first day, four people stopped by for showers.
By the following week, attendance had doubled. Word spread quickly, and the hospital eventually allowed the service to remain there permanently.
“At first I thought if we ever reached 30 showers a day, that would be huge,” Crawford said. “At one point, we were doing about 60.”
That effort became a nonprofit called Flowing with Blessings.
The “Wash Bus,” launched in June 2024, came from a realization. Many people would shower, only to put the same dirty clothes back on afterward.
“What we're trying to do is get them clothes they can have for the week so they can change clothes,” Crawford explained. “Because a lot of times it's not them that smell, it's the clothes.”
He bought the school bus but needed help designing it. So he reached out to Georgia Institute of Technology. A group of industrial design students took on the challenge, figuring out how to fit multiple washers and dryers into the bus to create a functioning laundromat on wheels. Crawford brought the vision; the students helped turn it into reality.
Today, Flowing with Blessings typically serves 50 to 60 people each time it operates and has assisted more than 4,500 individuals since it began. Beyond showers and laundry, volunteers also provide towels, socks, undergarments, haircuts, hot meals, and clean clothing. The program works alongside churches, hospitals, police departments, and thrift stores, and every shower stall is sanitized after each use.
Much of the day-to-day work is now managed by Crawford’s daughter, Christina Moss. She hadn’t originally planned to be involved—she was focused on a career in real estate after leaving her father’s construction business. “I just came in one day and I’ve been coming back ever since,” she said. “It opened up a passion that I didn’t know I had.”
The organization now includes about ten volunteers, many of them young adults. Some people who once relied on the service have since gotten back on their feet and still stop by just to say hello.
Crawford remembers one older man who broke down in tears after Moss addressed him as “Mr.” He said he couldn’t remember the last time someone had shown him that level of respect.
“They are my validation that what I heard God tell me to do was right,” Crawford said. “They don’t have to tell me ‘Thank you.’ I can tell them, ‘Thank you.’”
When people ask why a retired man would wake up at 4:30 every morning to set up showers outside a hospital, Crawford keeps his answer simple.
“I have always had a love for people who were less fortunate because, other than the grace of God, this could be me.”
He adds: “I don’t know them at first. I learn their names over time because they come back. But it doesn’t matter. They’re still human.”
Atlanta is home to more than a quarter of Georgia’s homeless population—nearly 10,000 people statewide—and the city’s unhoused population has grown significantly in recent years. Crawford knows his effort alone cannot solve the crisis.
But he can make sure that when someone leaves his trailer on a Tuesday morning, they walk away with a clean load of laundry, a warm shower, and a chance to feel like they matter.
Within a week, a friend connected him with Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, which agreed to let him test the idea outside its emergency department. On the first day, four people stopped by for showers.
By the following week, attendance had doubled. Word spread quickly, and the hospital eventually allowed the service to remain there permanently.
“At first I thought if we ever reached 30 showers a day, that would be huge,” Crawford said. “At one point, we were doing about 60.”
That effort became a nonprofit called Flowing with Blessings.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, Crawford and his volunteers wake up around 4:30 a.m. and drive to Grady with their mobile setup: the shower trailer equipped with sinks, toilets, and private bathing stalls. Later, they added something new—a converted yellow school bus designed as a mobile laundromat.
The “Wash Bus,” launched in June 2024, came from a realization. Many people would shower, only to put the same dirty clothes back on afterward.
“What we're trying to do is get them clothes they can have for the week so they can change clothes,” Crawford explained. “Because a lot of times it's not them that smell, it's the clothes.”
He bought the school bus but needed help designing it. So he reached out to Georgia Institute of Technology. A group of industrial design students took on the challenge, figuring out how to fit multiple washers and dryers into the bus to create a functioning laundromat on wheels. Crawford brought the vision; the students helped turn it into reality.
Today, Flowing with Blessings typically serves 50 to 60 people each time it operates and has assisted more than 4,500 individuals since it began. Beyond showers and laundry, volunteers also provide towels, socks, undergarments, haircuts, hot meals, and clean clothing. The program works alongside churches, hospitals, police departments, and thrift stores, and every shower stall is sanitized after each use.
Much of the day-to-day work is now managed by Crawford’s daughter, Christina Moss. She hadn’t originally planned to be involved—she was focused on a career in real estate after leaving her father’s construction business. “I just came in one day and I’ve been coming back ever since,” she said. “It opened up a passion that I didn’t know I had.”
The organization now includes about ten volunteers, many of them young adults. Some people who once relied on the service have since gotten back on their feet and still stop by just to say hello.
Crawford remembers one older man who broke down in tears after Moss addressed him as “Mr.” He said he couldn’t remember the last time someone had shown him that level of respect.
“They are my validation that what I heard God tell me to do was right,” Crawford said. “They don’t have to tell me ‘Thank you.’ I can tell them, ‘Thank you.’”
When people ask why a retired man would wake up at 4:30 every morning to set up showers outside a hospital, Crawford keeps his answer simple.
“I have always had a love for people who were less fortunate because, other than the grace of God, this could be me.”
He adds: “I don’t know them at first. I learn their names over time because they come back. But it doesn’t matter. They’re still human.”
Atlanta is home to more than a quarter of Georgia’s homeless population—nearly 10,000 people statewide—and the city’s unhoused population has grown significantly in recent years. Crawford knows his effort alone cannot solve the crisis.
But he can make sure that when someone leaves his trailer on a Tuesday morning, they walk away with a clean load of laundry, a warm shower, and a chance to feel like they matter.
Half of San Diego's map is marketing that stayed.
Kelton and Bollenbacher are also street names over of the 94 in emerald hills so they must have developed over there as well
Bollenbacher and Kelton built many tracts all over So. Cal. there's a few in the San Fernando Valley and in Santa Clarita.
another neighborhood use to be called Hallmark Homes and to the west that neighborhood was called Heritage Homes.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122136787623382848&set=a.122097576627382848
when filming of Mad Max wrapped, ilmmaker George Miller was completely out of money by the end of production. He shot the classic on a shoestring budget, which he partially funded by working extra shifts as an emergency room doctor
Warner Bros bought it back for Mad Max 2, built a sacrifice double for the explosion, and kept the original. Later restored by fan Bob Fursenko and confirmed authentic by Murray's initials scratched behind the door trim, it crossed oceans, sat in a UK museum, and finally landed in an Orlando museum where an offer rumored at $2 million was refused. The car everyone once paid in trades is now worth more than the movie's entire budget, several times over.
Because they couldn't afford traditional wages for background talent, the production hired a real-life Australian biker gang called The Vigilantes to play the villainous Toecutter’s gang. They, along with several other extras and on-set security, were paid entirely in slabs of beer
Mad Max went on to gross over $100 million worldwide, setting a Guinness World Record at the time for the most profitable movie ever made relative to its budget
how did this WW1 1918 German MG 08 machine gun end up in a small Maine town library basement ?
A routine search through ceiling-high boxes for a summer book sale turned up a relic from the Fort Fairfield Rifle and Pistol Club, nicknamed “The Devil’s Paintbrush” because of its killing power and its ability to shoot 666 rounds per minute
Thursday, October 01, 2026
did you know that Orange County Choppers is still on the air with new episodes? But, it seems only in the UK
Orange County Choppers Originals – which aired in the U.S. on Discovery Channel, Discovery Turbo TV, Discovery+, and Discovery GO after launching in February – is the latest chapter in the motorbikes franchise that began in 2002 with American Chopper and is based around the Orange County Choppers custom bikes business.
A second season has been ordered, with 12 episodes.
The series shifts the focus to his workshop in Florida, where he reunites with some of the original team while introducing fresh talent. It also delves into his personal life, highlighting his charity work and passion for animal welfare and rescue on his hobby farm.Hearst’s Gray said: “Orange County Choppers has everything we look for in great factual entertainment: big builds, strong characters and plenty of heart. With Paul Sr. back at the centre of the story, we’re excited to bring this new chapter to UK audiences.”
following the same recipe of "Oh no! We're out of time!" "Oh no, we have a dead line!" this won't have a single new thing to bring to the show
so what was the reason the pilot tried to kill the co-pilot on the airline flight from the UAE to Israel? I'm guessing, it was to use the Boeing 737 to crash into Tel-Aviv like the muslims did to NYC (and Wash DC) on 9-11 - but was this a long term sleeper agent? Or recently converted extremist?
The pilot is an Omani citizen and is being interrogated to learn the motive. I bet the answered get tortured out of him in less than a week. I also predict, like the Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, who entered the Saudi consulate to obtain marriage/divorce paperwork and was ambushed, strangled, and dismembered by a 15-member team of Saudi operatives.... not that you'd forgotten
the co-pilot was able to reach the door and open it so he could be rescued, passengers rushed to help him, and he lived.
Passengers struggled to open the cockpit door, but what made it difficult was the pilot himself — he had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door
When passengers went into the cockpit they saw the pilot who had initiated the attack trying to crash the plane, he wasn’t sitting in the pilot seat, trying to stabilize the plane, he was trying to jam the equipment.
Israeli officials also praised the stabbed pilot, identified as Indian national Captain Smit Machchhar, for his actions in opening the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to rush in, secure the cockpit and prevent the plane from crashing.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/flight-dubai-tel-aviv-diverted-emergency-alert-rcna600628
This attempted murder prompted Israel to scramble jets in case it was not a singular isolated situation, and was instead one of many, like 9-11
Aviation experts were surprised the plane didn't crash because the extreme descent was so brutal that some of the rudder was destroyed, ripped off the tail.
The suspect is Omani citizen Hamam al-Hammami, multiple sources from three agencies briefed on the investigation and a diplomat in the Middle East told NBC News.
The Wall Street Journal reported that al-Hammami had "previously been banned from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted radical ideological views."
Ray Dausman designed the engine for the Blue Flame which set the land speed record at Bonneville in 1970, and is cerrently serving as an adviser for Project Blackbird, to break the current land speed record.
Others working on Project Blackbird include Nathan Marks, who assisted with NASA’s Lucy mission whereby a spacecraft visited asteroids connected to Jupiter. Purdue University Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Carson Slabaugh is also helping as are a number of Purdue students.
Project Blackbird aims to create a vehicle which would go at least 800 miles per hour. If successful, the project would also bring the land speed record back to the United States, with the current record of more than 763 miles per hour held by Great Britain in a vehicle driven by former British Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green.
The Blue Flame, with driver Gary Gabelich, went more than 622 miles per hour in Oct 1970
Dausman said a scale model of the vehicle should be completed soon, with it to be tested in a wind tunnel in Florida.
When the vehicle is actually constructed, it will be built in Lafayette. Plans are to test it at Alvord Desert in Oregon.
When the vehicle is actually constructed, it will be built in Lafayette. Plans are to test it at Alvord Desert in Oregon.
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