that wing couldn't deploy faster if it were anchored behind him and stayed put while he launched
this was either the coolest thing to happen at Goodwood, or the 2nd coolest and the other thing's been kept a secret
!:56 to 2:40 on the video
Showing posts with label awesome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awesome. Show all posts
Thursday, July 16, 2026
did you see Pastrana's self adjusting wing at Goodwood Festival of Speed? Deployed in less than a second.
that wing couldn't deploy faster if it were anchored behind him and stayed put while he launched
this was either the coolest thing to happen at Goodwood, or the 2nd coolest and the other thing's been kept a secret
Wednesday, July 08, 2026
a 12-year-old from outside Nashville, Tennessee, invented the "EZ Baby Saver," in hopes that it would help parents remember that they've left their children strapped in a car seat. The contraption won him a runner-up prize of $500 at the Rubber Band Contest for Young Inventors.
Dozens of children die every year after being left in an automobile –- and one 12-year-old Tennessee boy did his part to end that.
Sunday, July 05, 2026
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
your feel good story for the week - James Blair, a U.S. Navy veteran who has spent the last two decades working at John Wayne Airport, was seen limping across the airport tarmac
plans to continue working, as he has for as long as he can remember, so that he can pay for his 90-year-old mother's hospice care.
He was recorded limping, visibly struggling, by a woman traveler who knew that someone in that position shouldn't have to continue putting so much wear on themselves.
So she started a fund raiser, and the GoFundMe raised more than $170,000 for him
Posted because it's awesome, it's charity, and it's an airport. I post all three of those things
Thursday, June 18, 2026
a claw hammer, a borrowed Ford truck, and no patience left, meet Sophie Zielinski and the Moving Crew, circa 1932
Sophie Zielinski was 44, Polish, a landlady on Chene Street with six cold-water flats, three of them already empty because nobody could pay.
She had a claw hammer, a borrowed Ford truck, and no patience left.
On January 12, 1932, after watching the Kowalskis across the street get put out with a baby six weeks old and a coal stove still warm, Sophie walked across with that hammer, knocked the new lock off with three swings, and carried the stove back in herself, with Mrs. Kowalski holding the door.
By February there were twenty-two women, Polish, Black, Italian, Hungarian, wives, widows, factory girls laid off from Briggs, all with hammers, all with a list.
On January 12, 1932, after watching the Kowalskis across the street get put out with a baby six weeks old and a coal stove still warm, Sophie walked across with that hammer, knocked the new lock off with three swings, and carried the stove back in herself, with Mrs. Kowalski holding the door.
By February there were twenty-two women, Polish, Black, Italian, Hungarian, wives, widows, factory girls laid off from Briggs, all with hammers, all with a list.
They called themselves nothing at all.
The newspapers called them the Moving Crew.
For two winters they followed the bailiffs.
For two winters they followed the bailiffs.
When an eviction went out, the crew went in that night. Locks knocked off, furniture carried back up three flights in the dark, stoves re-piped, windows stuffed with newspaper against the cold, a pot of soup left on to warm, so the children coming home from school would find home still home.
They moved two hundred and eleven families back in, between January 1932 and March 1933. They lost count of stoves. Sophie kept count of hammers broken, seven, notches cut in the handle of hers for each one.
The police arrested Sophie twice. The judge dismissed both times. The second time he told the bailiff, off the record, to stop calling, he was tired of seeing Mrs. Zielinski in his courtroom.
When work came back in 1934 the evictions slowed, then stopped. Sophie went back to collecting rent when people could pay, and not collecting when they could not, which was most of the time for another three years.
She kept that claw hammer hanging behind the kitchen door until she died in 1961, seven notches deep in the hickory handle, head worn smooth on one side from knocking off locks.
Her great-granddaughter has it now, in Detroit, in a toolbox. She used it last winter to hang shelves in her first apartment. It still pulls a nail clean.
They moved two hundred and eleven families back in, between January 1932 and March 1933. They lost count of stoves. Sophie kept count of hammers broken, seven, notches cut in the handle of hers for each one.
The police arrested Sophie twice. The judge dismissed both times. The second time he told the bailiff, off the record, to stop calling, he was tired of seeing Mrs. Zielinski in his courtroom.
When work came back in 1934 the evictions slowed, then stopped. Sophie went back to collecting rent when people could pay, and not collecting when they could not, which was most of the time for another three years.
She kept that claw hammer hanging behind the kitchen door until she died in 1961, seven notches deep in the hickory handle, head worn smooth on one side from knocking off locks.
Her great-granddaughter has it now, in Detroit, in a toolbox. She used it last winter to hang shelves in her first apartment. It still pulls a nail clean.
Friday, June 12, 2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026
American journalist Martha Gellhorn tricked the Navy so that she could write firsthand dispatches from Normandy in June 1944, she lied to get on a hospital ship so she could be a stowaway and get transported to the D Day invasion!
She had already accompanied the US Fifth Army to the front in Monte Cassino, Italy in 1943. She wasn't worried about being in the middle of the war.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Although the US military refused permission for female journalists to cover the Allied landings, Gellhorn wasn't deterred. "To me, all the people in the rear who make rules, they exist to be thwarted," she said in 1991.
Her defiance meant she was on the first hospital ship to reach Normandy, arriving at Omaha Beach early on the morning of 7 June, and becoming the only woman correspondent on the ground at the D-Day landings.
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"somebody asked me before letting me board the hospital ship, what I was there for, and I said, 'I'm just going on this ship to interview the nurses – a woman's feature.'
"You could always get by with that. It always sounded harmless and idiotic, and it worked a treat. 'I'm just doing the woman's angle,' and nobody's interested anymore. And then I just locked myself in a toilet until after we left port."
During a career that spanned 60 years, the Missouri-born journalist covered the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Finland, and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp.
She befriended the Roosevelts and stayed with them at the White House, cadged bed and breakfast from HG Wells, and married Ernest Hemingway
She also wrote for Vogue magazine and reported on the Great Depression for the US government, travelling through the Dust Bowl with the photographer Dorothea Lange.
Thanks to Don for highly recommending the movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn". Martha Gellhorn is played by Nicole Kidman.
Tuesday, June 09, 2026
Thursday, May 28, 2026
I just love this part of a bigger photo... I had to slice off the water marked area. Then I learned how important the car in the watermarked area was... a Super Duty 421 Tempest at the Daytona 2nd Continental Race, a 250-miler.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26555912034081287&set=gm.1751308582811627&idorvanity=226675368608297
The Chevy 427 big-block—the first of its breed, was out to punch the automotive world in the proverbial nose— but there was this Pontiac to get around.
And the Pontiac was hustling around the track and lapping everyone, including one poor Ferrari eight times.
And the Pontiac was hustling around the track and lapping everyone, including one poor Ferrari eight times.
Others were lapped multiple times, too. Even the second place finisher, the legendary A.J. Foyt would succumb, he was 2 laps down
Instead of Chevy introducing the world to a victory with the Mystery Motor, the best they could do this day was to come in second.
But then... the SD Tempest disappeared.
The Pontiac was sent back to the shop in Indiana and sat for a short time before reportedly being purchased by Mercedes-Benz, who promptly shipped it back to Germany and completely disassembled every nut and bolt for a “competitive” inspection. The car has never been seen again and is listed by most hard-core SD experts as “destroyed.”
In 1963, Pontiac built 12 lightweight Super Duty Tempests, six station wagons, and six LeMans coupes to assault the 'strips—which they all did, with the exception of one coupe.
It was plucked for the first ever NASCAR Challenge Cup (above race)
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
shout out of respect for Kenny from Dakota Fluid Power in Rapid City, SD
Luke hit a pot hole that destroyed the front hub.
A part that you CANT buy new and is insanely rare to find used.
Kenny literally picked it up, welded it back together, machined it for new bearings and returned it to Luke on the road same day. Simply amazing
I stand and begin the slow clap, join in when you can!
Monday, May 18, 2026
Washtenaw Community College in Michigan has an OUTSTANDING student, 21 yr old Mikala Sposito, who just won the USA Weld Trials in Huntsville, Alabama, and will be the first woman to represent the US in world welding competition in Shanghai, at the WorldSkills Competition
Sposito is the sixth Washtenaw Community College student to qualify in WorldSkills history.
WCC has produced more WorldSkills welding alums than any other school in the United States
One of them, Alex Pazkowski, who finished second in 2013, is Sposito’s instructor and mentor.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
giving respect where is is earned, this CHP did not waste time clearing the overturned car off the interstate - by using the push bar on the CHP SUV! Finally, I see someone use that for what it was designed for
Anyone else often frustrated by wrecks on the roads that are not moved the hell off the road, out of the way, so traffic can get on to where they are going? Just move the wreck already, there is no point in it sitting in the road!
Friday, May 15, 2026
30 years ago, a little 7 year old brought all his hot wheels toys and set them up on the running board of his dad's car at Pebble Beach.
"I had brought all my hot wheels toys and set them up like I was having my own car show Jay was so kind to me and was telling me facts about all the cars I had out."
"Then he signed my Pebble Beach brochure and I exclaimed to my mom's horror "Hey his signature has a big chin just like he does" mom said that was rude of me to say.
My dad laughed and said he probably didn't mind as that's his signature.
I wish there was a way I could show this to Mr Leno that he was very kind to a little boy 30 years ago and left a lasting impression"
Here is Jay's autograph I photographed, I thought you might want to see the chin in the autograph
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Thursday, May 07, 2026
John Eads Cushman shop built a lightweight racer using a Cushman (named Black Jack) with a bored out cast iron engine using a piston from a Studebaker six and an overdrive unit giving it two gears. took it to the drag strip and it went 89 mile per hour in the 1/4 mile, a record for a scooter.
John Eads of Kokomo Indiana lived a 102 years despite crewing a bomber as a gunner on 50 missions in WW2
He was born in 1923, in Kokomo, and Married Thelma in 1952
John enlisted in the Army Air Corp on December 5, 1942, at the age of 19 with plans to be a mechanic. But after his enlistment, he was sent to a gunnery school and was assigned as a waist gunner with the 97th Bomber Group, 342nd Squadron of the 15th Air Force in Italy.
He was honorably discharged on March 26, 1945, earning the rank of TSgt.
He was an Army specialty Airplane Mechanic Gunner and during battles, engagements, skirmishes and expeditions, flew in 50 heavy bombardment missions over enemy occupied territory from 1943-1944.
After WW2 he bought a Cushman dealership and also sold Whizzers, it was open until 1958 and worked for Martin Wrecker Service in their office and was very involved at Bunker Hill Dragstrip
After WW2 he bought a Cushman dealership and also sold Whizzers, it was open until 1958 and worked for Martin Wrecker Service in their office and was very involved at Bunker Hill Dragstrip
His Cushman used an old lawn mower handle for steering, a hand ground cam, and a hot water bottle filled with alcohol that he used as a seat for a fuel pump and supply. It weight 136 pounds.
He was a member of Greentown Road Kings Car Club, Kokomo VFW and the Cushman Club
He set the track record in 1958 at 89.4 mph 14.46 seconds in the quarter mile at Bunkerhill Drag Strip.
in this video he went down the strip on an exhibition pass at age 90, in 2013
Yes, I've got 65,000 posts and have forgotten most of them, and if this one is something you've never read before, you oughta consider looking through the last 19.5 years of archives.
Wednesday, May 06, 2026
OUTSTANDING WW2 history! Truk Lagoon, April 30th to May 1st, 1944, in the Caroline Islands
Carrier strikes in the area had left several U.S. aviators downed inside the lagoon, a place still firmly within enemy territory. In response, a Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane from the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) had been dispatched on a rescue mission and had recovered a downed pilot, but while loading him aboard the plane, the Kingfisher was swamped and capsized.
Another Kingfisher from the battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) piloted by Lt. j.g. John A. Burns with Radioman Aubrey J. Gill, saw their capsized compatriot and landed to pick up the three aviators. The Kingfisher could have just taken off with one downed pilot on board, but with three, it was too overloaded. Burns made the decision to taxi out of the lagoon and rendezvous with the lifeguard submarine USS Tang (SS-306) who took the three men aboard.
But Burns wasn't done yet.
After delivering his first three rescues, Burns took off for the lagoon again. Over the next few hours, he located seven more downed airmen scattered across the choppy waters. As he kept picking up survivors with no hope to take off again, Burns packed men into the fuselage, onto the wings, and even towed one of the downed aircraft's rafts to carry all the survivors.
He taxied for five hours through heavy seas, finally returning to the submarine. By the time they rendezvoused with the Tang, the Kingfisher was nearly out of fuel, listing badly from a leaking pontoon, and battered by the waves. The survivors as well as Burns and Gill all were transferred by raft to the sub.
Once the survivors were safely aboard the Tang, the damaged Kingfisher was sunk by gunfire. For his extraordinary persistence and resourcefulness, Burns was awarded the Navy Cross.
Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Sunday, May 03, 2026
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
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