Saturday, October 05, 2024

professional model maker Marco Laviola, a 43-year-old wheat farmer from southern Italy by day, obsessive model maker in the off hours.

 


https://www.hagerty.com/media/people/theres-model-making-and-then-theres-farmer-marco/https://www.instagram.com/marlinlav/?hl=en

The Military Aviation Museum will host a supply drive to help areas of Western North Carolina devastated by Hurricane Helene by dropping supplies with a Douglas C-47 Skytrain flown by The Liberty Foundation,

 

https://vintageaviationnews.com/aviation-museum-news/military-aviation-museum-collecting-hurricane-helene-relief-supplies-liberty-foundations-c-47-will-fly-supplies-to-n-c.html

the city of Lenox in Georgia on Interstate 75, finally got caught "consistently altered" speeding tickets by the state Dept Of Public Safety for years, and only ticketed people on the interstate, only ONCE in the city in the last 3 years

but the state of Georgia, instead of arresting or legally prosecuting the Lenox government and law enforcement, instead, did the least useful, least noteworthy possible action

It took away the right to create speeding tickets. 

According to state investigators, after officers ticketed drivers for speeding, the city often changed citations to “unsafe driving.”

That practice allowed the city to circumvent a state law that caps revenue from speeding fines at 35 percent of a police department’s budget. After the DPS audited the city, it discovered Lenox generated nearly 40 percent from speeding citations last year.

DPS Commissioner Col. William Hitchens said the agency’s investigation found the city altered tickets for years, but only exceeded the state 35 percent cap in 2023.

According to the agency’s audit, city records originally showed it collected $477,685 in revenue from speeding related fines in 2023. After investigators re-calculated the altered tickets, the revenue from speeding-related fines increased to $514,456, a difference of $36,771.

before DPS conducted a hearing sustaining the city’s suspension in August, an Atlanta News First investigation uncovered Lenox relied on the profit from its police force more than any other city in the Georgia. In 2022, it collected $1.3 million from fines and forfeitures, revenue generated by its police department. That’s nearly 73 percent of the town’s budget. State investigators at the hearing said the practice seemed intentional; they pointed out 85 percent of the police department’s revenue came from fines and forfeitures. An investigator also said Lenox officers only cited one driver for speeding on city streets in three years. The remaining speeding tickets occurred on Interstate 75.

The last time the state suspended a police department’s speed detection permits was in 2019, involving the city of Cecil. According to agency records, the city’s speeding ticket revenue equaled more than 150 percent of its 2018 budget.

17 cities in Georgia have relied on 25 percent or more of their budgets from traffic citation revenue from 2019 to 2022. The majority are located in South Georgia, including Warwick, Morven, and Poulan, whose respective populations are less than 1,000 residents each.


https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/10/03/georgia-city-prohibited-writing-speeding-tickets-following-anf-investigation/

As if taking away the legal ability to write speeding tickets will change how corrupt the city govt and law enforcement will be in the future? 

thank you Jeff J for donating to the cause!


Dream Flights, a nonprofit based in Nevada, has owned this trainer plane since 1946 and he had it restored in 2009, and gives individual flights to World War II, Korea and Vietnam vets. 7,000 so far, about 700 a year

















https://www.ksl.com/article/51148863/nonprofit-gives-open-cockpit-world-war-ii-era-biplane-flights-to-veterans

update to the protesters in Mexico from 4 months ago that blocked the oil refinery, Wednesday they blocked the Tijuana airport.

residents of Tijuana’s Maclovio Rojas neighborhood who blocked roads leading to and from Tijuana’s international airport for 11 hours on Wednesday, affecting thousands of travelers who missed or were late for their flights.

The blockade also forced arriving passengers to walk with their suitcases for more than a mile because they were unable to take shuttles, taxis or ride-share vehicles from the airport.

Demonstrators said they took action because the state of Baja California and former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have not provided titles to the land where their homes have been built.


how can anyone with a truckers license do some

 
A semi-truck that was carrying an oversized load struck the overpass at the Indian Street exit on interstate 60

The McRig is in Asheville serving FREE 5 dollar meals to those affected by Hurricane Helene beginning today, Oct. 3, through Saturday, Oct. 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

 

If I ran that corporation, I'd have said, lets bring the McRib, and every other well loved burger, we are going to make a GREAT impression, and get the best free publicity we can. Not a 5 dollar meal, without cheese on the burger. GTFR

thank you James D for sending me a link to this video of the destruction aftermath in North Carolina, on Oct 3rd days later, of what one river did to a river side road, and bridges. Amazing hi def hi res video, the 2nd video shows the hurricane coming through on Sept 27th


Cleetus flew over this area with his helicopter, you can see the river and destroyed road very well on his video at minute 15:07 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQAPEBKhMS8








Skip to 7 minutes in for the hurricane blowing through 


Friday, October 04, 2024

cool looking Nova


one stupid looking aircraft


https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2024/10/what-job-that-guy-had.html

so many people covering the car events are focused on the priceless cars on the track, or in the paddocks... but not many are looking for the FUN photos!


https://www.speedhunters.com/2024/09/timed-laps-time-travel-2024-goodwood-revival/


a 1951 Mercury from Knud Tiroch of Hotrod Hangar, in Finland

 

Who knew Angelina Jolie had a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Coupe? Well, it's for sale, so, she once had one. That's intriguing. Not many women find a vintage Ferrari something they want to own.


 The article says it only has 6424 miles on the odometer. I'll guess that means SINCE it was restored. 

https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/angelina-jolies-ferrari-250-gt-coupe-auction-1235893119/

1991 Suzuki Cappuccino, 1600 pounds of roadster, turbocharged 40 cu in inline 3 cylinder... on 13 by 6.5 inch wheels



GT 40


 https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/gallery-ford-gt40-historic-shots

As octane requirement is concerned, the 10.5:1 aluminum head is about equivalent to a 10.0:1 iron head because it conducts heat away faster.

 https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a29798198/ford-gt40-mk-ii-le-mans-analysis/

Panasonic’s headliner-mounted Cockpit, 50 years ago, it was an aftermarket upgrade radio



https://www.thedrive.com/news/panasonic-cockpit-vintage-stereo-for-sale



 

Honda‘s newest ad featuring Formula 1 champions Ayrton Senna and Max Verstappen—and narrated by John Cena, about how setbacks can serve as the greatest teacher and catalyst to achieve big dreams



 

an 11-year-old that lives in Fresno, took the keys to his mom’s Explorer and went on a joy ride, and wound up crashing into a semi truck at 6am at the intersection of Valentine Avenue and Holland Avenue

https://fordauthority.com/2024/10/11-year-old-crashes-moms-ford-explorer-into-semi-video/

Thank you Casey M and William S for donating to the cause!

 

Thursday, October 03, 2024

Chris Pratt and Millie Brown are starring in The Electric State on Netflix, in early 2025, directed by the Russo brothers





The Electric State "takes place in 1994, in the aftermath of a battle between humanity and artificial intelligence that ended in a devastating stalemate. The people who died were buried; the automatons who were destroyed rust away where they fell. The defeated robots have been banished to an 'exclusion zone' in the southwestern desert, while human society attempts to rebuild without the help of the mechanical beings it created,"

The Electric State stars Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle, a young woman searching for a lost brother she once believed dead. As the story begins, he seems to have tracked her down through a remote-controlled bot that looks like a life-sized tin-toy version of his favorite sci-fi hero, Kid Cosmo (an original creation for this story, although he has retro vibes). The robot can only speak in catchphrases, but he’s trying to guide her to his real-life location. Though he looks and sounds like a machine, within this apparent drone she sees the soul of a sibling she thought was gone forever.

Chris Pratt costars as Keats, a veteran of the war who became a long haul trucker, engaged in a smuggling operation with one of his former enemies—a construction machine named Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie) who’s like a Russian nesting doll, able to hop into increasingly various sized versions of himself. These two are the only ones who can help Michelle venture through hostile territory and track down the missing boy, while also solving the mystery of why he was kidnapped in the first place.


The Electric State also stars Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst, Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate, and Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury.

The live-action cast also includes Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Woody Norman (C'mon C'mon), and Martin Klebba (Pirates of the Caribbean). Joining Anthony Mackie as voice actors in the sci-fi movie are Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alan Tudyk, with Woody Harrelson voicing a robotic Mr. Peanut.

https://www.cbr.com/netflix-the-electric-state-first-look-images-millie-bobby-brown/
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/electric-state-netflix-movie-plot-details-photos




Keanu won the 2009 Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix Pro Celebrity race, and will be competing in the Toyota GR Cup at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for the Eagle Canyon Racing team


one of the very few functioning very old gas pumps... still in use.

 I'll guess that the local governments that didn't need to upgrade to a keyfob/credit card authorizing type gas pump, never did, and there may only be a few of these from the 70s still in use

spotted in a high school parking lot this morning... I like the banner stickers of all the race tracks. But, those are only supposed to go on your car when you've had that car on those tracks. Otherwise, you're a wanna be

 

After a 10-month restoration, former Lehigh & New England office car No. 100 is ready to start carrying first-class passengers for its new owner, the Everett Railroad of Pennsylvania




After L&NE quit running in 1961, the car served as a restaurant annex near Philadelphia before trolley broker Ed Metka of Windber, Pa., bought it in 1993.

 He stored it indoors in a former freight-car repair shop, but left it untouched from its days as an eating house, including two gaping doors torched into one side to provide patrons and waitstaff access to the main restaurant building.

Fast forward to 2023. With a now-flourishing tourist business and needing a premium-class car to augment coach seating, Maples last year — out of the blue — remembered the L&NE 100.

With its original exterior appearance of Pullman green with gold L&NE lettering, the 75-foot-long, 60-ton steel car is the only known example of passenger rolling-stock from that anthracite-region line. It was built by American Car & Foundry Co.’s former Jackson & Sharp works in Wilmington, Del., in September 1925. Although it’s a steel car, Maples noted that “it reflects wood-car methods because Jackson & Sharp was primarily a wooden passenger-car builder.”

Now that one project is done, another is in the works. A carnival train was closing out its final runs so Maples made arrangements to buy the former personal car used by the carnival owner and his family. Car No. 21, a former Chesapeake & Ohio heavyweight office car that started life in the same role for the Nickel Plate Road, traveled with the show for many years

When Strates, a Greek immigrant who founded the company in 1923, died in 1959, his son E. James Strates succeeded him. The son acquired the 1925 Pullman-built car from C&O and became, Maples said, “the last show owner to travel by train, and this was the last of the showman’s cars . . . The Strates family’s private car No. 21 was always kept spotless and was clearly the pride of the fleet.”

Maples, who bought the car from the show founder’s grandson, John Strates, intends to restore the car as a rolling tribute to the traveling circus-train and carnival-train era, with corresponding photos and displays. “If a railroad museum got this car, they‘d turn it back to what it was originally,” he said.


The Everett Railroad is a 23-mile Class III Common Carrier freight railroad servicing Blair County’s I-99 corridor, including the communities of Altoona, Hollidaysburg, Roaring Spring, Martinsburg, and Claysburg.

Florida just passed a law that allows Margaritaville themed license plates. The final design has not been decided,


Fees from the sale of the plate will be distributed to Singing for Change (SFC Charitable Foundation, Inc.), which was founded by Buffett in 1995 to "provide grants to nonprofit organizations in communities impacted by natural or manmade disasters for recovery, rebuilding, and future sustainability in those communities and to promote and inspire local grassroots leadership that will work to improve the quality of life in those communities and others in this state."

A 1967, 1968, and 1969 Miura in Klein’s collection was a well-kept secret




California Gov. Newsom has signed into law a ban on leaded aviation gasoline that comes into effect in 2031.

That's the day after the FAA has said it will have a fully approved replacement fuel for 100LL through its End Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions (EAGLE) program.

this 1963 Grand Sport replica Vette was commissioned by Tim Allen in the late 1990s when it was rebuilt and fitted with a 327ci, riding on a tube-frame chassis with suspension sourced from a C4 Corvette with Art Morrison rear coilovers.




https://www.hotcars.com/tim-allens-1963-corvette-grand-sport/

'62 Catalina, 4,050-lb, 525 hp and 600 lb-ft. With a best ¼-mile pass of 11.78 at 114 mph at Atco raceway