https://thejivebombers.com/2019/09/09/alaska-aviation-in-days-of-yore
Saturday, May 18, 2024
the 1st taco stand a Michelin star has been awarded to
Chef Arturo Rivera Martínez has stood over an insanely hot grill for 20 years at Mexico City’s Tacos El Califa de León, searing meat in a 10-foot by 10-foot business where there are only four things on the menu, all tacos, and it's earned him the 1st Michelin star that has been awarded to a taco stand among the 1 6 Mexican restaurants given one star
In fact, other than perhaps one street food stand in Bangkok, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/04/update-to-michelin-star-for-street-food.html El Califa de León is probably the smallest restaurant ever to get a Michelin star: Half of the 100 square-foot space is taken up by a solid steel plate grill
El Califa de León is a tribute to resistance to change. It got there by doing exactly the same four things it has been doing since 1968.
Stephan Marjoram went to Montlhery and photographed how many approaches have been tried in building a motor vehicle
Video of the above in action, rolling and retracting outriggers https://www.facebook.com/stefanmarjoramart/videos/1639501153555785/
in response to yesterday's airplanes on album covers, Kim sent me one that had been overlooked! Blue Oyster Cult!
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thank you Kim!
Even cooler than yesterday's album covers, as I prefer the look of hand drawn art!
PLUS! This is the only one featuring a WW2 era Luftwaffe plane. In this case the Messerschmitt 262
But here's something I just learned yesterday about the Blue Oyster Cult, and I will guess, you are going to learn this for the first time too. I hope so, I love to surprise and entertain all of you.
A metal umlaut (also known as röck döts) is a diacritic that is sometimes used gratuitously or decoratively over letters in the names of mainly hard rock or heavy metal bands—for example, those of Blue Öyster Cult, Queensrÿche, Motörhead, the Accüsed, Mötley Crüe and the parody bands Spın̈al Tap and Green Jellÿ...
Among English speakers, the use of umlaut marks and other diacritics with a blackletter typeface is a form of foreign branding, which has been attributed to a desire for a "gothic horror" feel.
The metal umlaut is not generally intended to affect the pronunciation of the band's name.
As Vince Neil recounts: "I can remember it like it was yesterday. We were drinking Löwenbräu, and when we decided to call ourselves Mötley Crüe, we put some umlauts in there because we thought it made us look European. We had no idea that it was a pronunciation thing.
Folding BSA bicycles storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, who knew? Oh... probably Steve B!
folding BSA bikes used by the Canadian infantry (about 1,000 bike riders out of 14,000 men) at Juno Beach (second wave).
The Canadians had successfully used them previously during the invasion of Sicily.
After the soldiers were done with them, they just tossed them aside and many civilians suddenly had new wheels.
Friday, May 17, 2024
Do you remember the 1971 Paul Newman movie Once Upon A Wheel? A documentary on the history of auto racing
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413072
Paul Newman narrated this documentary that is clearly meant to explain why so many people enjoy racing.
The film is broken down into several categories including the men who race, the motors in the cars, those who watch and of course the wives of the men who drive. This documentary was originally shown on ABC and Newman not only promoted the film but also appeared on the cover of TV Guide.
Movie fans will be entertained since they get to see not only Newman but various other celebrities including Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Dick Smothers, Cesar Romero, James Garner, Glenn Ford, Hugh Downs and Chuck Connors.
The documentary really isn't going to teach anyone much as people are already going to know the majority of the stuff discussed here
It's important to know its goal then was to show America why they should be watching the sport.
Today I think it's mainly of interest to those wanting to see some famous actors of the 1960s and 70s outside their movie roles
Major General William Kepner, boss of the 8th Fighter Command, he got around in style in his P-47.
What? How many pins did he have above his right breast pocket? Huh, only 1. In the Navy, you can wear at least 2 warfare pins
From 1909 to 1913, Kepner served in the US Marine Corps, then the Indiana National Guard. After a short spell in the US cavalry, in 1917 he transferred to the infantry as a captain and commanded a company at the Battle of Chateau-Thierry. He subsequently lead the 3rd Battalion of the 4th US Infantry in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
In 1920, at the age of 27, he transferred to the US Army Air Corps and trained as a balloon pilot, then subsequently as an airship pilot.
From 1927 to 1929 he participated very prominently in several US national and international balloon races, most notably winning the prestigious Gordon Bennett Cup with co-pilot William Olmstead Eareckson in June 1928.
In the summer of 1934, Kepner took command of the joint National Geographic Society - US Army Air Corps Stratosphere Flight near Rapid City, South Dakota to make an attempt with the specially constructed balloon Explorer on the manned balloon altitude record.
Prior to leaving for Europe in 1942, Kepner demanded increased fuel capacity in aircraft like the P-38 and P-51. He demanded fuel be put into the wings of the aircraft, only to be told it couldn't be done by Lockheed. When he insisted they comply, complaints by the companies to Material Division (Wright Field) resulted in a threat to have charges laid against him for tampering with aircraft specifications. Fortunately, he was backed by Maj Gen Barney Giles and the modifications went ahead. These later proved critical in enabling the USAAF to introduce fighters with sufficient range to enable escort of bombers on deep penetration missions into Germany.
Anyone wanna bet that Brett Kepner is related to him?
I never noticed until I got an email from Bruce... but some speedshops had their name on a LOT of famous funnycars and drag super stockers (thanks Bruce!)
Steve was 17 when he and his brother opened a small shop in the basement of their folks home, a small Pennsylvania cattle ranch. Street racing was big at the time; real American Graffiti-type stuff.
Other Kanuika cars included his C/Gas Willys pickup with a 301-inch injected mouse motor. It set the record at 10.80, 127mph and even made the cover of Drag Times.
Ice cream time, Los Angeles, Mines Field, 1943. ... dang it, it's universal, happens everywhere that an ice cream truck driver can get to! Thank you John S!
Notice one has a three-bladed propeller, the other a 4 blade
Thursday, May 16, 2024
A Marine truck mechanic received the Meritorious Service Medal for saving the Defense Department more than $140 million through work he began as a teenage lance corporal. He's the 2nd corporal to earn one since 2008
While serving as the Marine Corps’ representative to Oshkosh Defense as it revised its technical manuals for the joint light tactical vehicle, Barbieri pointed out flaws in the manuals, including one issue that could lead to rollovers.
Barbieri’s engineering acumen would save more than 900,000 person-hours of maintenance production time and more than $140 million throughout the entire life cycle of the platform, the Corps calculated.
At 14, he started drag racing through the International Hot Rod Association. He learned how to check over his car before getting onto the track.
But most of his background in mechanical engineering was theoretical knowledge — about aspects of systems like wiring and resistance — he gleaned from reading technical manuals, he said.
Having skipped fourth grade, Barbieri graduated from high school in 2019 at only 16. He spent two semesters studying mechanical engineering, first at Palm Beach State College in Florida and second at the University of California at Berkeley, but he didn’t love it.
Then a Marine recruiter approached him at a career fair.
When Barbieri was about six months into working at the unit, he faced a problem that didn’t have an easy solution: how to replace hoses that ran from the vehicles’ engine bay to the back end.
It took him two weeks, but he figured it out, he said.
After that, his leaders tasked him with repairing more and more vehicles with thorny problems. Barbieri repaired more than 75 trucks, keeping the battalions’ readiness above 90%, according to the news release.
His leaders took notice.
“He could diagnose issues that most Marines couldn’t find and was able to make the repairs that civilian engineers from external organizations couldn’t,” said Master Sgt. Kenneth Byxbee Jr., Barbieri’s former motor transport maintenance chief, in the news release.
Later in 2021, while Barbieri was still a 19-year-old lance corporal, his command selected him to spend months working with Oshkosh’s tech writing team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on the technical manuals for the joint light tactical vehicle.
“Anytime I would find something that felt like it was out of order or would mess with the flow of things, we’d write that down,” Barbieri said.
Based on those issues, Barbieri and the rest of the team would pile into a conference room and suggest changes to the technical manuals.
One day, Barbieri noticed a problem with a manual’s instructions for replacing the steering column. Installing the replacement part that way would have stopped the steering wheel from moving, he said.
“If that happened while you were in a turn or on a highway, that could cause a rollover,” he said.
Oshkosh was receptive to what he had to say and worked with him to change the instructions, Barbieri said.
On Friday, Barbieri received the Meritorious Service Medal, which is awarded to service members who distinguish themselves through “outstanding meritorious achievement or service.”
He is set to leave the Marine Corps in June. The next step is college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he plans to study mechanical engineering. He hopes of becoming a tech writer, who writes manuals himself, he said.
Delaware’s vanity licence plate program is unconstitutional because it allows officials to discriminate against certain viewpoints when deciding whether to approve applications, a federal judge has ruled.
“This court agrees with the majority of courts on this issue,” wrote Williams, declaring that Delaware’s regulations permit viewpoint discrimination and are unconstitutionally overbroad and arbitrarily enforced.
wow... the nostalgia of matchbook cover art and the diligence of a collector, combined with a perfect display setting... amazing.
As you can tell, the art and variety is worth looking at, but Dave Rutan did an incredible job of putting together displays on topics like the trains and matting them so well!
from Don's magazine that evolved into a website, https://garagestylemagazine.com/classic-match/ where he finds terrific garages, and lots of cool things at auctions is this article on Dave's collection
https://www.atomicmatchstudio.store/ for Dave's business where you can get really cool stuff!