Doing a local haul forwarding some high quality poplar bolts outta' the Fleming rd.

DST 975AC

DAF XF 460 FT

Bemotrans Freight Forwarding, Oirschot, Netherlands (registered in Strzelin County, Poland)

Buckingham, 27 October 2020

DAF XF 106.440 von AFC nv. a division of ADPO Forwarding and Cleaning aus Kallo auf der B20 Cham - Burghausen bei Oberschneiding.

A solo Central of Georgia ES44AC leads a westbound into the siding at Bon Air on their busy Birmingham to Columbus main in the golden hours of a summer evening. They’ll also drop down the connection track into Childersburg to set out a cut of coal hoppers for interchange with the Southern Railway, which are destined for Alabama Power’s nearby Plant Gaston at Wilsonville. While the Southern thru Childersburg is a sleepy secondary main, the Central of Georgia is a busy high-roller forwarding midwest traffic to Florida and the port of Savannah. While modern signals are proliferating everywhere on the Class One railroads, it’s nice to see the vintage searchlight and dwarf signal still directing traffic here.

 

Well, one can dream for a minute anyway right? Of course this is the Central of Georgia heritage unit running as the radio unit on the rear of coal train 74G, which loaded west of Birmingham near Parrish. Two NS GE’s are on the head end, but the conductor is riding in the cab of the radio unit for the shove down to the former Southern. From there it will be a short run across the Coosa River to the power plant at Wilsonville.

 

And the Central of Georgia District has now definitely fallen into the sleepy secondary main category, with just one thru freight in each direction daily. A weeknight local turn out of Sylacauga to Birmingham and the occasional Wilsonville coal trains round out the current traffic volume. Likewise, the former Southern is just a branchline for all intents now with the stretch from Talladega to Anniston mothballed (and the stretch from Anniston to Rome, Georgia having been abandoned and torn out for many years.) Local A84 which runs six days a week and the Wilsonville coal trains round out the traffic on it.

Note: this photo was published in a Dec 12, 2010 blog titled "Idler." It was also published in a Jul 23, 2011 blog titled "32 Facts About Guys."

 

Fast-forwarding into 2015, the photo was published in a Jan 23, 2015 blog titled "7 Habits Of Exceptionally Rich People."

 

****************************************

 

I had a lunchtime dentist appointment in midtown Manhattan the other day, and when it was over, I decided to walk a couple blocks over to Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library. It was a sunny day, and I thought I might see some gorgeous babes sunbathing on the park lawn in their bikinis (even being an amateur photographer is a tough job, but someone's gotta do it). If not, I thought perhaps I'd find some photogenic tourists or oddball New Yorkers that I could photograph.

 

As it turns out, almost all of the central lawn was being covered over with some kind of wooden platform -- presumably for an upcoming concert performance of some kind -- so nobody was sunbathing out on the grass. But since that area was unavailable, and since it was still the lunchtime period, the periphery around the central lawn was chock-a-block with people. There's now a cafe immediately behind (i.e., to the west) of the library itself, and it was doing a land-office business. And all along the north and south sides of the park, as well as the broader western side, there were tables and chairs and benches where people could enjoy their lunch with whatever food or entertainment they had brought along.

 

I was already aware of the pentanque court on the western side of the park, and knew that I'd find one or two good pictures there. But I didn't realize that the Parks Department had set up two ping-pong tables, as well as several tables for chess-players. In addition, there were a few card games underway, and there was also a section set aside for people who wanted to borrow local newspapers to read.

 

As for the people: I had to remind myself that because Bryant Park is smack in the middle of mid-town Manhattan (a block away from Times Square, filling the square block between 41st/42nd street, and 5th/6th Avenue), most of the people enjoying their lunch were office workers. So the men typically wore slacks and dress shirts, and a surprising number of them were also wearing suits and ties. The women wore dresses and skirts, and generally looked quite fashionable and presentable. Of course, there were also tourists and students and miscellaneous others; but overall, it was a much more "upscale" bunch of people than I'm accustomed to seeing in my own residential area on the Upper West Side.

 

I was surprised by how many people were sitting alone -- eating alone, reading alone, listening to music alone, dozing alone, or just staring into space alone. You'll see some of them in this album, though I didn't want to over-emphasize their presence; equally important, many of the loners just weren't all that interesting from a photogenic perspective. So you'll also see lots of couples, some children, a couple of families, and occasionally larger groups of people who were eating and chatting and enjoying the warm summer day.

 

Three activities dominated the scene, all of which were fairly predictable, under the circumstances: eating, reading, and talking on cellphones. You would expect people to be eating at lunch-time, of course; and you wouldn't be surprised at the notion of people reading a book as they sat behind the New York Public Library on a warm, sunny day. But the pervasiveness of the cellphones was quite astonishing ... oh, yeah, there were a few laptops, too, but fewer than I might have imagined.

 

I've photographed Bryant Park several times over the past 40 years, going back to some photos of 1969 Vietnam War protest marches that you can see in this album. I was here in the summer of 2008 to take these photos; I came back in January 2009 to take these photos of the winter scene; and I returned again for these pictures in March 2009 and these these pictures in the late spring of 2009; all of these have been collected into a Flickr "collection" of albums that you can find here. But if you want to see what New York City's midtown office workers are doing at lunch, take a look at what's in this album.

ZV-8060DJ

OMV McDonald's Centura Budapesta Annahegyi Pihenő Törökbálint E60 E71 E75 M0

1-QBG-430

Beringen

Ex DJV Transport & Forwarding

Hulls of Rotherham Bound Class37 No No. 37896 along with Boothes of Rotherham bound Class 37 No 37684 sit on the back of Allely's Trailers on the 28th December 2009 in a layby on the A441 north of Redditch awaiting forwarding to their respective destination. Both were removed from Margam prior to Christmas.

Before we head on back to the Horn Lake Arby's this Saturday to see how its remodel altered the existing cool 90s design, I first have to hold up my end of the bargain and show you the update I promised you’d see elsewhere in the DeSoto Crossing shopping center! So from March 2017 in that linked view, we’re fast-forwarding to September for this one, where you can see Payless Shoesource has closed and gone (as I mentioned last time), and neighbor Grand Buffet has (surprisingly!) received a new sign! Totally wasn’t expecting that one, as Grand Buffet had had the same plain, understated signage (as far as I know) for the entire time they’ve been in this shopping center… and I’m fairly certain they’ve been here since the beginning, too. So considering that, this is actually a kinda cool development really, and “understated” sure doesn’t apply to this new look any longer: there’s definitely no way anyone will miss Grand Buffet now, haha!

 

Speaking of missing things, though: my mom and I were here this day (as ever, lol!) to go on our Target run, and once inside she asked me if I had seen the work going on inside the former Payless. Nope, I replied, I totally missed that! I was so concentrated on getting this shot (and framing it exactly like my last one for maximum comparison XD ) that I didn’t even pay attention. But sure enough, you can see paper covering the windows in the shot above, and I believe the door is open as well (I can’t really tell, but that’s what my mom said. I want to say she even saw workers inside, too). Not only did I not notice whatever was going on on the day I took this photo, but I also completely forgot to investigate this last weekend when I was here once again. So I’ll certainly have to try to make a concerted effort to check things out next time! But in any case, there’s no signage on the building (which would of course draw my attention!), so things must not be *that* far along just yet, if indeed there is a new retailer moving in at all. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on it either way, however…

 

…And as far as keeping an eye on things goes (yay, yet another segue!), I managed to discover a few major DeSoto County retail news items in the past week or so! (Read: mainly yesterday afternoon, while I should have been studying instead XD ) No, not any info on this Payless thing, sadly. Nor did I find anything on who will be taking over the old Southaven Books-a-Million, although I did discover there is a “retail lease pending” there! I could go ahead and tell you the other two pieces of news here, too… but I also want to keep them a surprise ;) So I guess I’ll compromise and just tell you one-half of it: The Fresh Market is officially no longer coming to Olive Branch Crossing, and instead that never-opened shell has been gobbled up by – wait for it – Planet Fitness :/ Not that I have anything against PF per se, but they’re taking over a spot in a trendy new area, whereas normally they seem to assume abandoned spaces in, shall we say, more “established” areas: and while I admit Planet Fitness does technically fulfill my hope that OB would get another new retailer out of the deal if Fresh Market pulled out (which was pretty much expected), they weren’t really what I had in mind, haha!

 

The other bit of news I’ll share with you soon enough; in fact, it is very much related to what will be my next feature photoset, which will begin in two weeks. But in the meantime, stick around for those Arby’s pics this weekend… and until then, go and enjoy some of this music! :)

 

Payless ShoeSource (now closed) // 7256 Interstate Boulevard, Suite 1, Horn Lake, MS 38637

Grand Buffet // 7256 Interstate Boulevard, Suite 5, Horn Lake, MS 38637

 

(c) 2017 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

Having arrived on UP Train MINKC 05 the evening of the 5th, this bad order empty reefer sits in the RIP Track at UP Neff Yard awaiting repair and forwarding to its destination.

 

Rolling Stock: ARMN 902109

 

3-9-16

Kansas City, MO

Ab773 of 1923 at the left was the last active coal burning locomotive at Auckland Depot and was moved out to store at Otahuhu Workshops not long after this while Ab824 was relocated to Westfied. Also stored in the shed were other coalburners Ab825 and Ab834 and Wab's 687 800 801 802 which were relocated before the portion of the shed they were stored in was demolished to make place for a freight forwarding company. .

-Talstation der neuen Galzigbahn, St. Anton am Arlberg-

-base station of the new Galzig ropeway-

Group: Macro Mondays Theme: Pictionary

 

It’s a phrase. Clue: Something is kept safe…

 

This was truly the greatest of challenges this week. Not only was the theme challenging (I spent a whole lunch discussing possible words and phrases with friends), but the triptych was something I realized I hadn’t done in like…ever.

 

So, I asked Digital Vincent. Vincent was quick in his response and I appreciate his attentiveness to my question. And by the way, Vincent, your shots and execution for this week’s theme are outstanding.

 

But, I have to send my greatest thanks to Terry for forwarding Photoshop instructions on how to do a triptych.

 

Granted, I emailed him at 11 pm West Coast time and he had an instruction link emailed to me, which I had waiting for me this morning. Thank you, Terry. You truly are my hero.

 

So, again, I’m crunched for time; but here it is, the best I could do…for now.

  

By Douglas Ringer 2009

Amex Vignettes

 

Amex vignettes? Well yes, these are for the enormous cauldron that still is bubbling away in the campfire of my mind, filled with an alphabet soup of unforgettable fragments culled from those so many Amex personalities and those so many jobs. Multi-coloured fragments, or mosaic like shards that I know that my memory collected and put carefully wrapped in my treasure chest of experiences, because it seemed my memory found so much to treasure in that moment… but the totality of that particular job has gone on a long walk about. These bits and pieces though still remain and cover what I found to be profoundly funny, full of the rollicking silly, the hopefully not to serious, the mind-bogglingly stupidity and, naturally, the totally incomprehensible.

 

Amex was a universe unto itself and, like our infinite homes, possessed all the wonderful complexity that nature and humans could conjure up and… speaking for myself… these delightful vignettes must have had that very special something because at 62 they are still firmly embedded and I am still chortling. Over this time they may be chronologically misplaced, burnished up a little but the essence remains.

  

That sinking feeling

 

This first one still brings a big smile to my face. This is somewhere in the Highland Valley, Logan Lake area in that busy time of summer, 1969. It’s a grid and I’m working with Gary Lyall and we are doing some exemplary lines in which we both were taking great pride in. They were not just “lines” they were masterpieces of well placed flagging, pickets that you would want to take home to and show your girlfriend, blazes that were like stars on a dark night, compassed lines so straight that plumb bobs became redundant and so well cut out that even the most disparaging geologist would have given them the nod.

 

It’s a really hot day and on one of our lines we come to a small lake and have to naturally stop although, in theory, the mapped end of the line would have ended up on the far side of the lake. We sit down and do the cig thing and Gary starts giggling. He has a vision that has tickled his funny bone. “Hey Doug, lets run out and put as many pickets as we can out into the lake. That will really blow the geologist mind.” I thought that great fun too. After all it was a hot, hot day and we would dry off quick enough and I had become totally inured and indifferent to walking in wet-soaked-damp, work boots.

 

So off we go and cut 3 very long pickets, spruce them up and write the line numbers down on them. Slowly Gary starts wading into the lake. It was, so Gary reported, not too gooey on the bottom and it didn’t seem to have a surprising drop off, as yet. He gets out about 25 feet. The water is about thigh level and I call chain. Gary sticks in our extra long picket and I wade out to the picket while Gary continues out.

 

The water is now slowly climbing up over his waist when he begins to gradually sink. The bottom seems to have developed a quick-sand effect and he quickly realizes he’s losing it. He knows he has a few decisions to make quickly. As the water creeps up, he thinks first of the cigarettes in his front shirt pocket…pulls them out…and holds them high in the air. Cigs in one hand, axe and picket in the other, he looks like a torpedoed ship, continuing to leisurely sink. He does manage to extract himself , but in doing so, had to reluctantly admit that he would have to use both hands and that something precious would have to be sacrificed.

 

Moon landing

 

On this particular day I know exactly the date and where I was. Millions of others know it too.

It was the 20th of July, 1969. For some reason in that busy summer working for Amex I found myself back in Kamloops on some days off which were needed to replenish your bush wardrobe, doing the socials and trying to be as unproductive as possible. You were tanking up for your next 12 rounder with the bush.

 

These few days off must have been planned in heaven because on one of those days the Americans were going to land on the moon. I had been sitting in Mum’s living room watching the TV since the morning to witness this stunning, historical event and could not believe how long it was taking and was getting a little antsy. It was a beautiful Kamloops summer day out side and I was hoping, not only to witness this historic sight but to meet up with a few friends…have the chats and quaff a few. As it was now the late afternoon it seemed that the Eagle was getting close to landing.

 

Just as the Eagle seems to be getting close to landing on the moon the phone rings. It’s Ab! “I guess you are watching the moon landing, eh? Sorry to bother you but I got a bit of a panic thing here. Can you grab a taxi and head over here? Pick up a truck, drive to Ashcroft-Wallichin and pick Frosty up and he’ll take it from there.” I was naturally shocked and more than surprised to find out that Ab, himself, was not ensconced in his living room sofa, surrounded by Ella and the kids, engrossed in this incredible event. Did the exigencies of that busy summer not leave him with time to witness this historical happening? Now telling the Eagle to hold up a bit…I got a taxi and headed over to Ab’s place.

 

Ab was quite apologetic and all…but I’m trying to hurry things up a bit and get back home and plus, I must confess, as well, that a little shot of anticipation was dancing through me…as this would be the first time that I had ever driven a 4 by 4! I felt I had graduated from being a mere passenger, who had to experience the oft scary-whimsical driving skills of others and now , potentially in some future, perhaps, had the power to get in a little pay-back and scare the day-lights out of those kind lads who had played havoc with my fear factors.

 

Scenarios like, “Going a little too fast for you…am I? Gee, please don’t put any deep, finger indentations in the dash, Ab won’t be pleased. Or, perhaps: Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t really see that heavily loaded logging truck coming around that ever so dangerously, narrow, 90 degree, wash-board, boulder-strewn bend. I was just gazing out the rear view mirror and admiring our dust plume. I think there is a creek up ahead where I can stop and you can tidy up a bit. Did you bring a change of underwear?”

 

I saddled up that 4 by 4, mounted, and headed off home. I ran into the house but they didn’t wait for me! The Eagle had already landed! Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon and voiced those big steps for humankind. Edwin Aldrin had also bounced around. I was probably crossing The Overlander’s Bridge when Armstrong’s foot first touched the moon’s surface. Of course, there were ceaseless replays…but was it the same?

 

Have to add this short offering. I could not really remember some crucial facts about Colin Macdonald’s 1969 summer job with Laura Mines and other later details so, I sent off my queries. He was kind enough to send me the asked for details and I was more than surprised to find out that Colin was not stuck deep into the green charms of the Highland Valley when the Eagle landed… but watched it in the cosy comfort of a Cache Creek motel.

 

Gil

 

This event still sticks in my mind and, can to this day, raise within me a little discomfort. A little discomfort, because it brought to the surface those rather ugly emotions that we all have deep within us…laying in wait for just that right moment to come bubbling up like an artesian well. These emotions are tied very closely to the ever strong survival instinct and we have in reality read about them and truly know they can happen. Most have seen the old movie “The Goldrush,” with a starving Charlie Chaplin up in Alaska boiling a shoe for dinner and his much bigger partner wanting badly to eat him.

 

It has happened where a group of people have been stranded way out in the middle of no where, with out food, and after a week or two your companions begin to look like a large platter of Big Macs with copious loads of greasy fries.

 

We know of some of these stories and probably have played the game of…”What would I do?” and, I think way, way back in that emotional cauldron you have probably realized that in a dire situation, that, your companion’s well turned thigh, might, just perhaps, look delicious on your mind’s menu. Terrible thoughts and they do, indeed, make me to this day feel uncomfortable.

 

On this day in question when these frightening emotions arose in me they had nothing at all to do with food but “water.” Normally, in the Highland Valley, water wasn’t a big problem. There were creeks of all sizes, lakes or swamps where one could quench one’s thirst. Normally, I say, because surprisingly there were one or two days… and I was not prepared for them…when it was hot and no water was to be found. It was a treed desert! I noticed, that emotionally, this was very, very upsetting to me because to drink the blood of my compass man seemed uncivilized.

 

Realizing, that I tended to sweat, and lose water in litres while carving out those lines, water, was my prime thought most of the time.”Beverage,” is such a beautiful word! Before the Amex experience, a friend, had noticed my almost obsessive need for water when the day waxed hot. He suggested, that when I was reincarnated, that I really should ask to come back as a water buffalo.

 

I remedied that whole problem, and eased my mind a lot, by investing in a canteen. Until that fateful day, I thought all was hunky-dory. It was another hot, hot day and I was now compassing and was given a long, long line which, with the time needed to walk in, would no doubt, take the whole day. I’m guessing here but I think it was around 6000 or 7000 feet and I had no idea what kind gifts the line was to give me.

 

My partner was a French Canadian lad called, Gil, who I had never worked with before. He was new blood and I think, he had only worked a couple of days for Ab and his English skills were similar, to my French skills.

 

We started off and did the big walk in and got located at our base line origin. I took my first shot and plunged downward into a deep creek crevasse and at about 400 feet down I came to a lovely, bubbling brook. We had a smoke break. Drank deep from its soothing waters and I naturally replenished my canteen. Then we headed off and it was another 400 feet, panting upwards until I crested and found myself standing on a rock outcrop with a commanding view that was absolutely stunning!

 

Jesus! I was on a promontory where I could look way down on the highway between Merritt and Spence’s Bridge. I could see tiny cars wending their way up and down the highway and an occasional blue tinkle of the Nicola River running merrily away to Spence’s Bridge. Another one of those… it doesn’t come any better views.

 

I took another compass shot to get some idea of what we were up against and it looked liked for some distance that we would be walking pretty much along these exposed bluffs. Not much vegetation and finding material for pickets was going to be fun. Up above us, you could see where the woods started to thicken up a bit and, I thought, that maybe it could be nicer up there, shadier and maybe a tad cooler.

 

From what I could see of the first bit of this line there would not be much blazing but we would need lots of flagging and hoped that we had brought enough. It was starting to get real hot and I was beginning to get that egg, frying on a Kamloops’ sidewalk feeling. Thought about having a drink but decided not to…brave it out a few feet. I thought, as well, that there must be some cascade , cooling creek up ahead lying in wait for us. Who knew?

 

So starting off the first 500 feet of terrain was quite reasonable… a little of this, and a little of that. I noticed, as well, that Gil was having a hard time keeping up and I had to make a pause or two to compensate for that. Plus, in this rather bare area, he was not so imaginative about what would do for a picket. He did lots of Gallic shrugs and many,” Tabernacs!.” They are so special!

 

It did not take so long before within the next 3000 feet or so and that we began to be really mentally and physically challenged .The line of bluffs that kept on running were getting quite dramatic and my rock climbing skills, dreadfully basic due to a fear of heights were really slowing me down.

 

The sun was now eliminating any resemblance to B.C. and I was now somewhere trapped out in the Khalahari. Mirages with palms swaying and deep pools of cold water began to cloud my senses. Amazingly, I could hear water running everywhere except where I was. The Nicola River, far below, was so tantalizing. It was so, so tempting to launch off those bluffs into a half gainer of joy and plunge into its beckoning sweetness.

 

The terrain became steeper in places and was harder to find ways to get up and off the bluffs…then plunging into a gully and crawling back up on your hands and knees. This was now pretty thirsty, slow going and I knew that the straightness of this line was not going to win any compassing awards. Today, I still hope that no one ever looked for that line.

 

Fast forwarding here…We are now at the end of the line. The canteen has been empty for many a foot now and Gil and I are not the same two lads who optimistically left that bubbling, clear brook way, way back there. Gil would rather be anywhere else but here... and I have been thinking about and wanting for quite some time now, to do insanely, dreadful things to him.

 

As we humped up and down those bluffs, Gil must have known he was missing something. As the sun beat down hard on us and the meaning of the English word, “parched,” was being etched on his and my mind. Gil couldn’t reach back and pull out a canteen. Gil didn’t have a canteen!!! I did, and like a good Christian shared it with him because your intrepid compass man was still dreaming of this illusive, bloody, cascading, ever so cool creek up ahead. My canteen was empty before we had done half the line. Gil, had gone from human being, to albatross, in 3000 feet.

 

I was more than really out of sorts. Internally, I was a mess of ugly emotions all of them focused sharply on Gil. I had never felt so much animosity flowing out of myself! Every time Gil took a drink from my canteen...I watched to see how many times his Adams apple, bobbed up and down. I counted every water molecule that entered his system! Every molecule that I was deprived of!

 

I was now in a Hollywood movie…force marching across the Sahara… where the sadistic, French Foreign Legion Sergeant...me... with all the water…in the middle of the hottest part of the Sahara…turns to his totally, dehydrated companion, Private Gil…and... just to piss him off…lifts up a canteen…takes a long, long draught… burps a very satisfying, water burp…then pours half a canteen of water into the sand…and with cruel merriment... watches as Private Gil collapses... and the Sergeant... gleefully, glancing upward…into a burning, blue sky… is marvelled by the wing span as vultures circle, high above.

 

The return journey back across the Kalahari-Sahara was oven-like. This time, I knew there was no water, except at that long ago, bubbling brook…way, way, way, back there! Looking down at the Nicola River had gone from pleasant scene to knowing how unreachable its blessed succour was. Tongue, wrenching, torture itself! In fact, my tongue, is now glued to the roof of my mouth and my inability to spit, intriguing.

 

Atacama dry! Moisture free winds played havoc with my drought-racked senses! My hearing was all over the place. Water sounds flowing everywhere! I even thought I could hear... from those wee cars down on the highway…way down there... imaginary sounds that might quench. I could clearly hear the liquid, swishing, swaying sounds that the designated bottle opener made while reaching into the cooler. The cooler, strategically set, with much thought, in the back seat... while eyes feasted on scenary.

 

The holy, perfect, cubes of melting ice, crashing together like ice bergs. His fingers seeking out the coolest! The “holy” designated, pulling out a fresh, cold-cold- beer! His, well sung, ritual prayer upon opening the bottle: “Here is to you and here is to me,” type of thing! How gracefully he opened the bottle! Well tended finger nails! How he so enjoyed, the so, so very cool, so cool, pop-sizzle sounds on bottle opening and the following... vocal,” Cheers” to life!”

 

Worse for me, was the fascinating picture of the, “chug, chug,” as a tidal wave of cooled, liquid went down his throat! A mind wrenching vision while the sun pelted down!

 

We scrabbled over those bluffs and made it back to that bubbling brook, half demented from thirst. I wanted to tell Gil not to drink too fast because being so dehydrated... his body might find it difficult dealing with multi litres of water in such a rapid succession. You see it in the movies. But then, I thought the better of it. We must have spent about a half a hour pouring that bubbling brook into ourselves. I never worked with Gil again.

 

I learned that if it was hot out and I was working with a new guy…I never, at first, asked him to entertain me with the interesting details about his drugs, sex life or latest book read... but asked, politely, if he had a canteen?

 

MY FIRST BONUS...1969.

 

My first summer with Amex is over. It is late August, and I’m looking forward to a two week trip with Joe and Don, more than friends, to Mexico. We would travel in Joe’s 1955 Chev station wagon. We would sleep and drive a mammoth distance through the complex nature of our large part of the world in that beautiful car. What did we know of the enormity of North America?

 

So job over... and Ab said, I could pick up my last check at his place. I made my way over to Ab’s place. I think Ross Rd, before Ella and Ab had moved to Brocklehurst. They’ll have to check it out.

  

So, I walked over there to North Kamloops from normal, Kamloops. Having no car at the time I liked to walk and hitch-hike. Hitch –hiking... what a learning experience and how noble the good people who picked you up were.

 

I saw that Ab was in the small front yard they had. Ab was leaning over the fence, as I remember it. Perhaps chatting to a neighbour. We, greeted each other...and he went inside... and then brought out my check. I said how much I liked this bushy, scary experience. He said: “Come back next year.”

 

With check in hand, I walked about 20 feet down the road, when I heard Ab say: ” Whoa Doug, whoa!. Shit! I forgot your bonus.”

 

At this point in my life, I must confess, I had never heard of the word “bonus” before. I stopped and turned around and walked back to Ab. He had opened his wallet and fished out fifty dollars and gave it to me. Well shit!

 

It gets a little difficult here to describe my emotions at that perfect time. I was so elated and so full of good wishes to all. So, blown away, that my body grew wings and I flew home! 50 bucks! 50 bucks! Fifty dollars! A very, awesome, spending power in 1969. You could bet your bottom dollar that I was coming back!

   

LEAVE THIS OFF YOUR RESUME

 

It is now 1970 and I have rejoined Amex for the summer and my first Job is up at East Barrier Lake. We are not camped on the lake but high above it on one of the many logging roads found in the area. It is a big job for Noranda and the geologist on site is Laurie Rhynerson.

Laurie, fantastic man and a guy you really want in a camp with you, in fact, later on other jobs… it was hard to know if he was working for Noranda or for Amex. As well, I met Colin MacDonald and John Watters for the first time.

 

In fact, John drove me up to the camp from Kamloops so we had some initial contact there. The lads from my 1969 summer who were also there…as I remember…Bruce Bried, Gary Lyall, Gordy Seimens, Dennis Siemens and I think, Frosty. And maybe there were others who I can’t remember.

 

!970 was to be for me, a most incredible time with Amex. We covered areas in B.C. that I had never imagined seeing. Plus the lads were probably the best you could ever find to spend the rest of your life with.

 

At East Barrier Lake, I had an inkling that it was going to be a super summer when John Watters on his way to our out house, passed me just leaving and kindly asked…..”Clean break, Doug?” That stopped me in my tracks. “Clean break? Clean break?” Suddenly the lights came on and I brightened up immensely. Now knowing that our days and evenings in camp would not only be conversationally filled with, infinitely interesting topics such as films ,literature, oral sagas, myths, music, science astrology, psychology, entomology, biology, genecology, axe and power saw sharpening seminars but rollicking takes on faecal matter.

 

One unforgettable story that is still firmly intact from the East Barrier Lake job concerns a lad from Edmonton. One day in the morning there appeared in our camp a few men, who were accompanied by Ab. One of the men also had his son with him. The man, as I remember, was a higher up manager with the construction company ,Mannix. Why they were there…I don’t know. As it transpired, Gordy and I had drawn an all day line. I believe it was 10 or12 thousand feet long. It would run from the baseline all the way down to the edge of East Barrier Lake and due to its length we were given a third person… who happened to be the inexperienced son of the man from, Mannix.

 

The son was about seventeen years old and wore a high school football jacket from his Edmonton school. He was husky built and looked pretty fit. He followed us down the baseline to our starting point. He was to cut out behind us as we made the run to the lake edge. Gordy showed him the basics of cutting, blazing and flagging. We had the smoke and chats and off we headed....I think around 10 o’clock.. Unlike my first day, I could keep up to Gordy, make those pickets, throw those blazes , tie that flagging. and even do some limbing on the way. The vegetation was pretty bushy so it would mean a quite a bit of limbing on the way out.

  

We took a couple of breaks along the way and reached the lake at around 2 in the afternoon. We had lunch, admired the view, and naturally wondered how much line the lad would manage to cut. Much speculation here, but, .I thought if he could do half the line that would be pretty good. The line didn’t have to be perfection because we could tidy it up on the way out. Gordy hoped he could do more because he looked pretty tough. Around 5:30 or so, it would be time for supper and that was becoming a bigger factor in our lives.

 

We headed back about 2:30 banging and hacking away and I think at about 3000 feet up the line we stopped for a smoke and listened to hear if we could hear the lad’s axe. We could only hear ourselves breathing.

 

At 6000 feet…the half way point, we still couldn’t hear his axe .I personally was a bit surprised because I thought he could do 6000 feet and began to think that he had hurt himself somehow. So off we went and at about 3000 feet from the baseline we were becoming more than surprised that we had not met up with the lad. Not a sound to be heard from his swinging axe.

 

Gordy was now starting to get a little testy…yelling loudly up the line, but getting no response. Now I really thought something must have happened to him and I imagined gruesome axe cuts to bear problems. Or maybe he had wandered off the line and was hopelessly lost.

 

.We, chopped on…stopping occasionally to listen for his axe sound, and hooting and hollering hoping that we would get some response from him. Gordy was beginning to really spice up our hooting and hollering with some rather coarse references to his work abilities. We were starting to get really hungry and knew we had missed the serving of supper. On we hacked away and at 1000 feet from the baseline I knew something had happened to him but not knowing is what made it a little scary.

 

At 500 feet from the baseline an amazing thing happened. We could hear an axe chipping away…slowly coming towards us. In astonishment, Gordy and I looked at each other and Gordy immediately started up an incredibly, large barrage of profanity aimed in the direction of that chipping axe. Gordy was pissed. I was totally stunned. When we met the lad he had only cut 300 feet! Gordy was not verbally gently all over the lad. That remarkable English was marching up one side and down the other. The lad didn’t say a word and meekly followed us back to camp where he disappeared. Where, I don’t know.

 

We got back to camp at close to 8 o clock. Ate our late supper and, of course, the lad was the main topic of conversation. We still didn’t know why he only managed to cut 300 feet. During the story, Laurie popped into the tent and heard a little of what we were saying. Laurie realized immediately who we were talking about... and told us that about six o clock he was making his way back to camp when he almost step on the lad who was curled up in a ball sleeping. Laurie actually woke him up and inquired as to his health. He was okay.

 

Even today, I often wonder what became of him and if he achieved what he most desired. Sure hope so.

 

KENNY KILLS A BEAR.

 

Kenny was a great guy from Barrirer. I think 18 years old at this time, His father, a bulldozer artist, who had been hired by Laurie to punch in some roads and potential drill sites on the East Barrier Lake project. Amex, in need of more lads, had hired his son, Kenny. Coming from Barrier, Kenny was used to the bush and all that lies therein and suffered no adaptation problems.

 

This was all pretty much the norm for him. I believe he was in love at this time, and preferred to be at home and do a hug or two. More preferable than the camp. He enjoyed our company, but, in the past, had seen camp life up close and knew the smell. But, under duress, but would dine and sleep a few days in our camp…Barrier was not, after all, that far away.

 

The camp was set up beside one of the many logging roads that crisscrossed the area. There was a cook tent…I think two sleeping tents and the necessary outdoor biffy smelling, hopefully, lemon fresh.

 

Gordy’s Dad was cooking for us at that time and slept in the cook tent. One night he was awoken by a bear enjoying the delights of the of cook- tent food. I think he was pretty calm about this visitation but those in the know…knew the bear would come back.

 

Kenny said I’ll just run on down to Barrier and get my gun. Of course, we knew that he was going to get more than his gun and wished we could be there too. I think one or two days passed.

 

During these couple of days…Kenny slept beside his gun…when we were awoken by a clanging,falling of tin sounds from the kitchen. Kenny, reluctantly groans, half-asleep rolls out of a comfortable bed in his “Stanfields”…grabs his rifle, yawning, leaves the tent…then you hear “BANG!” Kenny comes back…flops back onto his foamy-cot,falls quickly asleep. After the shot, with Kenny definitely sound a sleep…I…, but it seemed nobody else...,, was still wide-eyed awake wondering about it all.

 

In the morning we had to drag the dead bear out of the kitchen before Gordy’s Dad would cook breakfast.

  

FEAR OF FLYING

 

Gordy …like so many…enjoyed having the gas pedal pressed very close to the floor and, as well, enjoyed seeing your finger nails dig deeply into the dash-board and seeing the margarine, smear of fear spreading across your face. This would be the first time that I would drive with Gordy and, unknown at the time, I would enjoy more times while Gordy drove. I did survive all the fear and somehow, overcame it all.

 

In this case, I think, Gordy and Dennis had an important appointment to make and were quite wired to their own world and scaring the be-Jesus out of you was secondary. His brother, Dennis, was accustomed to his brother’s love of motion on high octane and proved to be more than an able navigator. Cautioning and urging on in appropriate breaks when the dust gave a slight inkling to what might be manifesting itself around the next corner.

 

The East Barrier Lake job is over and we are decamping and heading back to our various haunts for reconnection time and hopefully, an interesting beer or two. In that way, as it goes, the dice were rolled…and one other guy and myself ended up been driven to Kamloops with Gordy and Dennis. The drive to Barrier…I think…is about 30- 40 miles. At this time it’s mostly a dirt road with lots of … look out...I’m coming around curves and other surprising potholes and gravelled tid-bits that faithfully followed the terrain downward into the North Thompson valley.

 

Being a dirt road, for most of the way, it is blessed in the summer time, with heaving humps of spitting gravel and surprising dips where you raise your hands high trying to wrestle your stomach back in place. A rodeo for those in the back seat…sort of. Lots of rattling, quick like snare drum cattle crossings and fearsome, loaded and unload logging trucks coming up and down the road claiming right of way… and, in hot weather…lots of dust plumes that could hide surprising closure.

 

So we left the East Barrier camp in the blast of a deeply depressed gas peddle that must have left a vast spray of every mineral-molecule found on that park place hanging from the greenery.

 

My first thought was… this is what astronauts must feel like…the forceful thrust of your body thrown deep into the back seat upholstery unable to lean yourself forward…. your body trapped in the force. Your face strangely distorted.. In the first, very frightening few miles, I knew this was going to be a very taxing emotionally... hang on for your dear life ride. I had no idea what hell or tidal waves of the scary that I was to experience on this run. The Robert Mitchum movie...“Thunder Road”…ran continuously through my colourful imagination. He died in the end. Robert, playing a southern moonshiner who left the road at only 90 mph, chased relentless by the tax people. Revenoures!

 

So the guy, seated with me in the back-seat, who , as well, had drew a short straw, we both were to be treated to a virtuoso performance of nervy driving that had you either wishing you were totally somewhere else or thinking about safety features that were still on the drawing boards…thanks to Nader.

 

No fire extinguishers, no seatbelts, no cell phones to call emergency services, no parachutes: No! If you hit something solid or found yourself kissing the inside of the roof… none of that how the auto would kindly fold in on itself… cuddling occupants in a warm hug of security until responsible people arrived to cut you out. No! It was just a basic early sixties model that did not give a shit about you.

 

So, there we were roaring down that East Barrier road with a dust plume miles long. The car doing a lot of roller-coaster ups and downs...doing dips and leaps like some circus acrobat…zipping into the air and crunching down on a frame that you bloody well hoped wasn’t built on Monday. You try…though helpless… to sketch imaginary survival strategies. I quickly realized, that looking between the shoulders of Gordy and Dennis, straight at the road, was simply too horrendous. Every real and imaginary, micro and macro horror, could happen at any second.

 

I chose to pretend that I was a tourist in these parts and that by, looking out the side, car window, I could admire the beauties that nature had so gallantly laid on the areas plate. As they very quickly passed by...it provided only seconds of relief…not really relief, as I was scared–shitless... but I was not going to let on! But, as I looked at my partner, sharing the back seat… I realized his eyes were just as fixated on the road ahead, and, he, no doubt, was thinking quite seriously about his future.

 

The future he may not experience. He would never experience the alarmingly, fullness of the sexual thing. Thinking a lot about the potential, miserable way in which his young life could end. All a-tangled- up in the metal and plastic bits of a failed rocket, ship-car...without bandages or sutures...and all of this could happen in the most immediate of seconds of the right now. Who could even conjure up the obit?

 

We did get to Barrier unscathed… and we pulled in to tank up. Gordy and Dennis were still pretty keyed up about this appointment and were hurrying it up a bit. I was enjoying the feel of cement under the soles of my boots. That very alive feeling and the smell that gas has as it wafts through the air. I was still alive!

 

In this small repose...amazingly...I saw my back seat partner lifting his kit out of the car and with all of that in hand... he walked over to me and said. “Fuck this! I’m taking the Greyhound into Kamloops.” I was astounded! Wordless! Who was I going to hold hands with when we had to face the uncertain road histories embedded in the curves of the infamous, Louis Creek Canyon? All alone in the back seat!

 

I think Dennis said..”Chickenshit.” Deep down I admired my former back seat partners love of life...as we rocketed out of the Barrier gas station.

 

I like to think, I remember a few details of that last phase of the trip to Kamloops. I remember passing cars where you would glimpse looks out the windows from the people in the cars we passed. Nobody was passing us! Did I see a mouthed...”Holy Fuck!,” here and there? See lips, silently moving, uttering a prayer or two for our safety, in passing?

 

Was that a small boy, in the back seat of one passed auto, with enormous round, blue eyes...waving a friendly greeting or a, I hope you make it? It all went by so fast. With my eyes faking allergies...tightly closed... Gordy mastered the Louis Creek highway maze with frightening élan.

 

I knew I would survive when I saw the Red Bridge up ahead. You simply had to slow down for it. Gargantuan waves of relief bathed my nervous system. All we had to do now was navigate Lorne Street. Whip up eighth Ave, turn on Battle Street and I was to see another day.

 

This did indeed happen. I can’t remember how I lied about the pleasures of the ride. Riding high on survival, I think I said we should do this more often. But I can tell you a ride like that makes you know how great it is just to breath Kamloops air with a shot of Pulp Mill air in it.

 

Later on, I was to learn that the young man, who shared that back seat with me to Barrier, was not the only one to decline a ride with Gordy.

  

Percy: The ongoing search for love. The Art of Compliments. 1972 or 1973:

 

So there we were. The crew was composed of Colin MacDonald, John Watters, Percy and myself. We found ourselves way North of Fort St. James on a long staking job. On finishing the job we crossed over to McKenzie...a real, new town of no history. We were hungry and went into the local supermarket.

 

A few days out in the bush can cause a strange, overwhelming taste for the opposite sex. Every female looks so delicious, tempting and so desirous regardless of form or shape. So, when we had collected our goods in the McKenzie supermarket, and standing in line to pay, Percy strikes up a conversation with the nice looking cashier. And in the hormone fever that erupted... Percy can only say to her...” Gee, that’s a beautiful apron you have on.”

I think we made Prince George that night.

  

Randy and “The Chain.”1971 Merritt-Princeton area.

 

This is a “short-chain like story that still makes me laugh. An Amex, really true,inspired, priceless pearl. Truth be told, there are no “pearls,” out in the bush. You may find that some interesting antlers lay upon the surface, scattered bones of prey, great, growth mushrooms singing and hanging from rotting trees. Perhaps an interesting-shaped rock or two may lay upon the surface, awaiting your eager hands...I took all I could find...but no nuggets will wink at you. It was a dream time to, expect so.

 

The pearl in Randy’s story, which I write, has nothing to do with the geological creations of long ago but a 100 foot, nylon chain.”The Chain,” was our master! It determined speed and footage and complexities of life when tangled in vegetation. Knots and a long-time slow-voiced...”Chain”...” meant bad bush. A fast- quick-voiced...“Chain”....meant good going. Repeated over time.

 

If you worked side by side on different lines but not that far apart...”Chain!” indicated how well your partners were progressing. 100 foot space between Amexers’ could mean hell or heaven. In B.C. nature spreads its difficulties pell-mell in the bush. 10 feet can mean heaven or hell! In B.C. vegetation is complex in its emotional distribution of forgiveness and punishments.

  

Now, in The Princeton- Merritt, area we find ourselves doing a property 20 kilometres north of Princeton. It is a mountain. We park cars on the side of the highway...facing Princeton way. Where, later,survivors Cheese burgers and milk will nurishbekon.

 

We climbed up this mountain following the before cut out base line. The mountain has many dips and doodles...it has wrinkles where water has pooled to create alder swamps and being a mountain... many trees have fallen in the direction that gravity dictates. It was the alder swamps that were difficult. My partner and I were doing a few lines to the south of Randy but we confirmed that we would meet up for lunch.

 

Shared tinfoil wrapped sandwiches... where the tinfoil drove your cavities crazy.

 

So we had done our bit and located Randy’s start point. Some Dante expert had written on a nicely blazed –start point branch...”Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

I remember starting off...and...as my boots filled with water realized the intricate horrors of this complex alder swamp. A Darwinian night-mare!

  

We followed the cut, flagged and blazed line both feeling like a python on the slither. Soon in the distance I could hear...”Chain!” We were going up, down, under, over, above and, on stomachs under the warp and weave of the Alder’s life's watery-carpet. But I knew that we were closing. I heard “Chain!” again!

 

In fact... I heard ...”Chain!” Getting faster than I thought possible in this Alder swamp. When, On my belly...I looked up and found a 10 foot strand of nylon-chain hanging forlornly off an alder branch. I knew now the twist. The tail chainer was setting new standards of the cut.

 

This can easily happen when bush is too entwined...tail chainers can cut-chain and not notice their transgressions In that run before meeting up with Randy at the base line...the tail chainer had cut that nylon chain four times. Randy was probably pulling, at this time, sixty feet.

 

As we closed in on Randy all I could hear was a singular, vibrant-well-vocalize word through the dense, bushy, air...”Chain! Chain! Chain! Chain!" Which meant that they had stumbled upon Ab’s famed...”Park-Land.”

 

When we finally met at the base-line and I presented Randy with four pieces of the cut chain. He did not laugh.

 

Even now in his prime...Randy can be quite prickly when I sound out with..."Chain! Chain! Chain! Chain!"

I went for a village festival where I saw a snake in vigorous and action position. Though it was risky. I too a snap immediately. Now you are seeing it. Chennai- - KOLATHUR-VALLUR- Tamil Nadu, India. 29-03-2015. Timing – 10:44 am - Instagram id:- @nagendran_c4777

One of the major reasons why we need to work towards protecting the environment is because it helps to protect humanity. If we didn’t have our environment, then we wouldn’t have a place to live or resources to live.it is our moral obligation to do so. As a human who lives on earth, it is our responsibility to make sure that it is protected. We must give back to the future generation that what we have received and enjoying. Give them an environment that isn’t damaged and teach them how to continue living sustainably. I request all good souls to plant Banyan tree while making tree plantation. It will have a long lasting effect for mankind and go a long way in carry forwarding the nature to the next generation and will also give fruits useful for birds. Instagram Id : @nagendran_c4777. Planting of trees in a special occasion such as Birthday Wedding etc is a excellent gesture. It can be done in memory of our Parents, Teachers, Friends and also people who comes across in our life such as Doctors Nurses and health staff for their noble service to the society.

( Interview of Shri. C. Nagendran BSNL in NewsTamil 24x7 - Dated:- 05-10-2024 )

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ly_euGfvk

youtu.be/GgOvcjSlA6Y?si=hH_LWz9Ij_NBI1Xr

 

C. Nagendran,

Instagram id:- @nagendran_c4777

 

Here's a daily spread. I don't try to lay out an entire week on a spread, I just add as I go. I track coffee (the orange cups) and the pill is to track whether I took my meds or not (it sucks getting old).

 

I don't always worry about forwarding incomplete tasks so long as I'm still on the same spread or sheet of paper.

 

I'm still playing with how to handle tasks I have to do "later this week" (see Thursday's list)

Food trip, salamat. "Carrie doesn't live here anymore, sorry that she left no forwarding address that was known to me."

The single application has now dried, with the effect of consolidating the folded Folios which form the Spine of the book's Text Block. The consistency is somewhat like Treacle and dries to a brittle state. This particular adhesive was used on this 300+ year old volume, as it replicates the glue of the period.

'TRANSFORMATIE IN KLEUR' - the title of the art-book with an overview of my work till now, that will come to light in the course of spring 2011. It contains fragments of my diary and poems, and three essays (in Dutch) of the Belgium writer Claude van de Berge, the Libanese art-historian J. Abousleiman, and the Dutch culture-philosopher and writer Ton Lemaire. If you want to order it please send me a flickr message.

ISBN 978-90-73007-26-0 / 25x25 cm, binded / 175 pages, 100 color-illustrations of paintings

/ 500 ex. / price €39,95 (forwarding-charges €7,-)

 

So i'm getting back into Minecraft, a little more serious this time. I've been fixing my server, moved it to my more stable PC and am in the process of Forwarding my ports (hopefully that will be done over the weekend.) Now I hope to get the server hosted so that It is more easily accessible to people outside of my region. I need a list of decent mods to incorporate into a SMP server. I already have World Edit/Guard, BOSEconomy, Shops, Craftbook, SafeCreeper, Essentials, Lockette, Simple Prefix, and a few other small necessities. Other then that, I only have one question. If I am able to get my server hosted, would I still have to keep my PC running all the time? or am I going to have to build a Server Tower?

Four Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western SDs muscle 120-odd cars, most of them loads, toward Max, N.D., under a perfect prairie sky. The SD40-3s will be interchanged to CP at Max for forwarding to Flaxton, N.D., and will serve customers on the Whitetail line.

KN-6172P

A3 Passau - Nürnberg

A47

The Fader

August 2004

 

Contributed by Friis

 

Text of the article:

 

"Definitive Jokes"

By Eric Ducker

Photography by Dorothy Hong

 

It was around 1979 or 1980, and it happened like this: Michael Diamond was in the student lounge of St Ann's, his hippie-ish New York high school, when his friend Raymond Rozado threw in a Harlem World battle tape. During lunch period at Edward R Murrow in Brooklyn, Adam Yauch snuck out to get a slice and heard "Rapper's Delight" for the first time, playing on the radio in a pizzeria.

 

Adam Horowitz had already heard the Sugarhill Gang and "The Breaks" by Kurtis Blow, but then his brother came home with a 12-inch of jimmy Spicer's "Adventures Of Super Rhymes". That's how the Beastie Boys —Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock—got into rap music. "It was more real," says Horowitz 25 years later. "I just related to it a lot more. I don't know what specifically set it apart, but it wasn't like... love ballads. My head wasn't at where Cat Stevens was. It just hit me at the right time."

 

Actually, it happened like this. It was 1986, and I heard the Beastie Boys during recess on my elementary school's concrete baseball diamond. Three big kids stood in a circle just off of third base reciting "Paul Revere" line for line. When they got to the Ad-Rock line about doing it "with a Wiffleball bat" it was so raw and confusing to the seven year-old me that during lunch I found my older brother to ask him whose song it was. It wasn't the first time I'd heard hip-hop; I'd already memorized the Treacherous Three's "Xmas Rap" from Beat Street because I watched it on VHS every morning before school.

 

Other vivid memories: hearing "Roxanne Roxanne" and "jam On It" on jesse Edmunds's boombox at his dad's house. Fast-forwarding my friend jono's copy of Bigger And Defferto get to "The Bristol Hotel". Seeing the video for "Night Of The Living Baseheads" on Yo! MTV Raps. And of course, the Beastie Boys—clandestinely listening to License To Ill's "Girls" over and over on my Walkman during a field trip to the Pacific Film Archives.

 

But the group wasn't important to me until 1992.1 was 13 the year their third album Check Your Head came out, and not knowing better—or much of anything at all—at first I dismissed the Beastie Boys' return. I mean, in the video for "Pass The Mic" Mike D wore black overalls with only one strap, just like the clueless seventh graders we clowned. I bought it (on a lark, I told myself) the day after classes ended and ended up keeping it in my boombox for the duration of my first summer with a job.

 

In between that summer before my freshman year and the release of Ill Communication two years later (that Tuesday I got to the record store as soon as my brother would drive me) I rediscovered the Beasties' second album Paul's Boutique. I bought the tape when it was released in 1989, but at the time I thought it wasn't nearly as good as Appetite For Destruction— I was only ten.

 

But on this go around Paul's Boutique hit me at the right time. It was fun, strange, clever, complicated, braggadocious, kind of retarded, smoked-out, funky and everything else I imagined myself to be. It also sounded like nothing else my classmates—wrapped up in the misogynistic thrill of Dr Dre or the three-decade-long allure of the Grateful Dead-listened to. Even the kids who were just playing "Sabotage" in the school van before basketball games or still worshipping the hydraulic phallus of License To Ill wouldn't—couldn't—appreciate it. Paul's Boutique was a secret handshake, and the music was a key to a combination of juvenile energy and hip knowledge that sounded right as I spent my weekends making mixtapes, hotboxing in Oakland Hills cul-de-sacs, generally dorking out and imagining the person that I might become but usually drawing a blank.

 

I was a fan of the Beastie Boys, not unlike the kind of fans the Beastie Boys acknowledged themselves to be—curious, open-minded and believers in the transformative powers of learning about the dope shit. The clues in the samples they chose grew my record collection (thanks for Eugene McDaniels and the Commodores, I could have done without Sweet), but their name-dropping lyrics, album art direction, Grand Royal magazine—in short, the industry of personal style they produced—opened passageways into worlds beyond my immediate grasp. I saw The Taking Of The Pelham 123 because Ad-Rock mentioned it in "Sure Shot", I knew who Haze was because of the booklet for Check Your Head, and like they said in "Sounds Of Science", I rocked myAdidas and never rocked Fila. I had a Bruce Lee poster on my bedroom wall and Hunter S Thompson books on my floor. I had an ill-conceived flirtation with visors.

 

The Beastie Boys' new album To The 5 Boroughs is the group's first entirely rap record in 15 years. The seed for the decision to return to their roots (as it were) came shortly after 9/11, when they organized a two- night benefit show at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom for the families of those without insurance killed in the World Trade Center. Because the show had to be put together quickly, the group didn't have time to rehearse as a full band, so they decided to just perform a hip-hop set.

 

In the initial planning for 5 Boroughs playing instruments was still a possibility. "When we set up the studio we set up some drums and amps and eventually got together and jammed a little," says Yauch. "At first we had a plan where we would work on hip-hop a couple days a week and play a couple days a week. Then we started working on hip-hop more and going in that direction, and at some point along the way we said, 'Fuck it, let's make a hip-hop album.'"

 

This choice was as natural as the one they made when they picked up instruments over a decade ago for Check Your Head. "The decision to play was inspired by listening to a lot of the music we had been sampling," Diamond explains of those sessions. "Once we started doing it, it was like, 'That felt right, that's the shit we're going to do.' This was true in reverse this time around. We all started bringing in beats and working on beats together. As soon as that collaboration started, it was like, 'That's what we're doing now.'"

 

The Beastie Boys also say they were influenced by the ease (and the novelty)—of unassisted production on home computers or laptops—a process so automatic that Horowitz says it's "like making records at Kinko's."

 

As Matteo Pericoli's cover art of the twin towers suggests, the album's vibe is definitely Manhattan pre-millennial. Last year the word was that To The 5 Boroughs would be the Beastie Boys' "political" album; this hasty statement was mainly based on "In A World Gone Mad", the free mp3 they released at the start of the war in Iraq. But while there are mentions of "unilateral disarm" and "SUVs strung out on OPEC," these brief references are the only lyrics that reveal 5 Boroughs was written this decade. "In A World Gone Mad" isn't even on 5 Boroughs.

 

"This is probably the most immature record we've made," Diamond says. "I'd come home from the studio and my wife [director Tamra Davis] would ask how things were going. I'd have to explain to her that we're making some juvenile shit."

 

Though the album isn't immature in that they've brought back the violence and misogyny of their early rap records, it's immature in terms of its basic rhyme schemes, word play and punchlines. "Some of what's in there is just trying to have a good time and crack each other up," explains Yauch. "Some of it is trying to get across what we might be feeling politically living through the last few years with this administration going and attacking other parts of the world. It's a couple years of us hanging out."

 

In some senses, the Beastie Boys doing an all hip-hop album is like Eric Clapton doing a blues record: it's a complete embrace and return to the musical mainline of their career. It's also somehow brave; releasing a nostalgic rap record is a risk because most hip-hop artists still making music—aside from maybe De La Soul and Jay-Z—don't acknowledge their age, or the process of aging itself. "Rap music is one of the very few types of music where what's happening now is what you listen to and you rarely go back," says Horowitz. "It's not like with rock records where you have to listen to the first Led Zeppelin album and obviously if you're making a mixtape you have to throw on an old James Brown record. But as much as you love old school rap records, you probably don't listen to them that much. They're more in the compartment in your heart and head somewhere as opposed to actually on your turntables." When the last Beasties album Hello Nasty came out in the summer of 1998 it was the only record Rasputin's on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley played during store hours for about a week. At the smoothie shop where I worked, after we closed the doors we'd pump it over the stereo while mopping the floors and wiping down the blenders. And when I got back to college for fall semester, pretty much all my friends had bought a copy.

 

That was six years ago. These days cool sneakers are pretty low on my list of

concerns, and not simply because I mainly wear flip-flops. I'm trying to figure out where the Beastie Boys belong for me now, in my heart or on my turntable. While I still find the video for "Body Movin'" endearingly goofy, I was embarrassed when I saw the sophomoric antics on the video for their new single "Ch-Check It Out". But maybe To The 5 Boroughs isn't a record meant for me. Perhaps it's for kids whose first show was a parent drop-off at a late '90S concert in-the-round, or even their younger siblings.

 

I've long maintained that hip-hop won't get better—whatever "better" means—until someone figures out a better rhyme for "party" than "Bacardi." For the better part of the last two decades, the Beastie Boys have been some of the most likely rappers to stumble upon that holy grail. To me they've always been like older, distant cousins: guys I didn't see that often, but when I did I could learn about cool records, bite a little of their style, and get a sense of how my life should be going in ten or 15 years. Maybe that's why Check Your Head has been sounding so good lately as I settle down in LA, get a dog and figure out which of my immaturities I want to keep.

 

Two years ago I was at the Museum of Natural History on a Sunday in New York when I saw Adam Yauch with his preschool-aged daughter. He was wearing an orange and yellow camouflage sweatshirt with baggy pants. He was about to turn 40, but his outfit didn't look strange on him. He just looked like how more dads are going to start looking. Well, at least how I probably will.

DAF XF 105.410 von AFC nv. a division of ADPO Forwarding and Cleaning aus Kallo auf der B20 Cham - Burghausen bei Oberschneiding.

SOURCE

 

Cassette tapes are back in the mix

 

The format's low cost and no-sweat portability have made it attractive beyond the nostalgia set.

 

By August Brown, Los Angeles Times

 

August 1, 2010

 

When the vinyl LP began its modest but highly publicized commercial comeback a few years ago, the format felt easy to love again. With sprawling artwork, pristine sound quality and the adoring ritual of flipping album sides, its return united young bohemia and their boomer parents alike.

 

Not so for the lowly cassette tape. To mainstream music fans who spent the '80s detangling spools with a paper clip, listening to heat-damaged sounds warble out of the speakers and blindly fast-forwarding and reversing to get to a favorite song, cassettes might be the most despised, instantly discarded and fidelity-challenged medium to ever vie for mass popularity.

 

"Tapes remind me of Dollar Stores and K-Mart," said Chris Jahnle, the 22-year-old co-founder of Kill/Hurt, a new Hollywood record label specializing in small batches of outré noise-rock released on cassettes dubbed in his living room. He's no Luddite — Jahnle works in a major label's digital marketing department, and co-founder Katrina Bouza just wrapped up an internship at the hotly tipped L.A. indie label IAMSOUND Records. They know that "tape is like the weird uncle no one talks about," Jahnle said.

 

And yet across pockets of America and especially among shoestring record labels, DJs and boutique stores in Los Angeles, this weird uncle is again a welcome guest. A tiny but busy tape-based music culture is growing from roots in economic necessity, thrift-store crate-digging and, yes, a pride in being difficult for its own sake.

 

But cassettes also carry a different nostalgia, one not tracked by SoundScan. They evoke high-school mixes from nascent crushes and trips to the beach soundtracked by sun-bleached tunes recorded off the radio. The emotional archaeology of trawling through shoeboxes of cracked cassettes has a resonance that iTunes doesn't offer.

 

After all, Jahnle said, "Mp3s sound terrible anyways, so why not have something that sounds terrible that you can hold?"

 

Originally marketed for dictation and portable voice recording, mass-produced cassettes became a format for distributing music in the U.S. in the '60s. Their notoriously sub-par fidelity improved throughout the '70s, and with the rise of the portable Sony Walkman in the 1980s and as automobiles came equipped with standard cassette decks, the tape became a second viable mainstream format alongside vinyl LPs and later compact discs. (The less said about the 8-track tape of the 1970s, the better.)

 

Like Mp3s, tapes compensated for their relatively degraded sound quality with portability and, notoriously, the ability for fans to record and share music. This sparked a small panic — now impossibly quaint — among record labels worried that home taping would gut retail record sales.

 

But even as the compact disc usurped it as a mass medium — as early as 2007, pre-recorded cassette albums constituted only 0.05% of all SoundScan-reported album sales, and in 2009 only 34,000 were sold — those convenient features kept the cassette alive at the musical margins.

 

For artists in fringe genres such as noise and garage-rock who want to document their music but only expect to sell a few copies, home-dubbed tape remains an economical godsend. By trawling eBay with a few hundred bucks, an artist or novice label head can buy used duplication equipment and bang out a hundred copies over a weekend.

 

"Tape fits in with a belief system of how intimate music is made," said Britt Brown, co-founder, with his wife, Amanda Brown, of the Eagle Rock-based Not Not Fun, which releases much of their catalog of psychedelic, noisy rock by bands such as Pocahaunted and Robedoor on cassette. "And I've never seen such voraciousness as in people who want a limited-run tape."

 

That fetishistic quality is part of what has sustained the format. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, a longtime tape aficionado, curated a 2005 book, "Mix Tape," dedicated to the art and culture of homemade tape culture. For years, the L.A. label Deathbomb Arc nurtured a subscription club of home-assembled tapes for artists such as Lucky Dragons in editions of 100. Not Not Fun has released cassettes wrapped in medical gauze and cassettes taped to beer cozies (with a lukewarm beer inside it).

 

Demand is high enough for labels like the La Puente-based Bridgetown Records and Fullerton's Burger Records to put out dozens of strange and abrasive projects a year and turn a self-sustaining profit. The cost of professional duplication is also low enough — usually less than a dollar a copy with artwork — that editions of a few hundred make economic sense, unlike with CD or vinyl duplication.

 

The office of Burger Records is a clear case of how the long tail of cassette culture can eke out a small, thriving business. Founded by Lee Rickard and Sean Bohrman in 2007, the label's principals have a kind of spacey, goofy energy that's lost to modernity and are most animated when enumerating favorite forgotten '70s punk acts or trawling through vintage surf-movie VHS discards. The retail arm of Burger, on an exurban stretch south of Cal State Fullerton, offers reams of coveted and kitschy vinyl and ratty couches for weekly movie nights.

 

But Burger's ear for big hits in small genres gives its releases a reliable cachet that larger labels salivate over. "We sell out of every single tape we do, and I know Sub Pop is listening to everything we put out," Bohrman said. Burger usually issues batches of 250 and charges $6 a copy, though some high-profile releases by bands like the Black Lips get 1,000 pressed.

 

Their business model doesn't allow for huge profit margins. But their acumen is dead on. The aforementioned tastemaking Seattle indie label Sub Pop signed two Burger-anointed acts (Jaill and Happy Birthday), and Burger throws high-profile parties at festivals such as South by Southwest.

 

Yet like with vinyl, there is an upper threshold of sales that tape culture will support. You'd be hard pressed to find a store in 2010 selling new cassette decks, even if Los Angeles has a unique advantage in this culture, where unlike in New York, most local fans of squalling noise-rock also own junky '90s sedans with tape decks.

 

But tape culture rewards magpies of tossed-off stereo equipment and thrift-store digging. Mark "Frosty" McNeill of the L.A.-based DJ collective Dublab recently revamped his cassette-DJ night at Silver Lake's Hyperion Tavern, which highlights the weird universe of found sounds.

 

"Tape was really cheap to make, so you can find things like voice-therapy cassettes and far-out Third World pop," said McNeill. "I remember Ariel Pink gave me a tape of his stuff that had clearly been dubbed from one tape to the next, so it was one of the worst-quality things I'd ever heard, but that also made it also one of the craziest."

 

The format, however, will probably stay resigned to Internet mail order. Only niche outlets like Los Feliz's Vacation, the Fairfax district's Family bookstore and Chinatown's Ooga Booga make shelf space for new releases. Duplication companies still in the business work mainly for Christian audiences dubbing sermons or academic presses printing lectures.

 

"Tape orders have definitely picked up from almost nothing in the last couple years, and it's been almost entirely indie bands," said Michael McKinney, the president of M2 Communications, the Pasadena-based CD and DVD duplication plant where Burger presses its cassettes. M2 issues between 6,000 and 10,000 tapes a month at around 70 cents apiece, McKinney said, a number clearly down from its '80s heyday of hundreds of thousands but up from its '90s and '00s doldrums of virtually zero.

 

The second wind of mass-produced cassettes may have a mechanical expiration date as well, as the motors, gears and tape heads (which read and amplify the information on the cassettes) used to manufacture the format become scarce. "It's a novelty, and it will die down," McKinney said.

 

If the format is to continue thriving, it will be in homes like the Browns', where a life's worth of tapes spill from every cabinet, and at stores like Burger that will haunt the dreams of obsessed record nerds decades in the future. The reasons tape failed in the mainstream is why it's thriving in the margins today — it's cheap but durable and easily duplicable.

 

It's not the stuff of huge industry money, but it still holds an allure. .

 

"I get so nervous around iPods," Amanda Brown said. "If someone made a hot-pink ghetto blaster, I swear that every kid at Hollywood High would have one."

CUSTOMER: Rotra Forwarding BV (The Netherlands)

TRUCK DEALER: Bakker Bedrijfswagen Groep

BODYBUILDER: Van de Weijer Carrosserie

with an the first couple of an Express Forwarding cargo train filled with Cereals from Podari to Constanta Port Zona B

Terminal Railroad job 102 grinds up the south approach to the Mac Arthur bridge in St. Louis the train has three passenger cars from The Amtrak station taking them back to Madison for forwarding to Granite City.

Lena, IL, is on the former Illinois Central Iowa Division, and was spun off to regional Chicago, Central & Pacific in 1985. Illinois Central then bought it back ten years later, which itself would fold into the CN in 1998. But the CC&P station sign still stands at Lena, being passed by a CN 338 train being led by a new UP SD70ACe.

 

This reminded me of a photo I took in the same location in the CC&P days featuring a loaded coal train being led by a UP Dash 8, as the train was handed off from the UP to the CC&P in Council Bluffs for forwarding to the Plaines generating plant near Joliet, IL.

E-9725-EA

E80 Border Crossing

Kalotina (BG) - Gradina (SRB)

WU65 NTO

2015 Scania R450 Topline

Abingdon Freight Forwarding Agency, Steventon, Oxfordshire

Buckingham, 7 May 2021

New to Travis Perkins

DL-6520C

Beringen

Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Forwarding the library in 2017

Former Milwaukee Road SD40-2 #153 has dodged the flat black paint up to this point, though #6349 in the trailing position can't say the same. Both lead train #226 (Bensenville - Kansas City) past the Big Timber Road station in Elgin. Eventually, this train will connect with the Southern Pacific / Cotton Belt for forwarding to the West Coast.

 

Photo taken by Dennis Jenks in June of 1987.

This Volvo FH truck from Poland, was travelling along the A1 autobahn. The truck was operated Jager Transport&Forwarding, based in the vilage of Giżyce in east-central Poland. The truck was registered to the county of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, located about 20km west of Warsaw and only 25km south-east of Giżyce. This county has low transportation tax, which is why a lot of trucks and coaches I see from Poland are registered here.

 

A1 Autobahn (Stuhr), Lower Saxony, Germany

D&M Forwarding Co hauled Jeeps out of Toledo in the early 1980's. They hauled other stuff, too. When in they East, they backhauled VWs out of the Port of Wilmington, DE. This IH 2200 was pulling an older Stuart trailer. Summer 1985.

Not at all thrilled with how the first quarter was going (or, for that matter, the entire game), I grabbed a couple of my film cams, called Shingo, and went out for a short shooting session.

 

Featured on the right is by Burnett Combo; Graflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic w/ Kodak Aero Ektar 178mm f2.5. On the left is my new buddy I got from a local photographer (& great guy), the Nikon F Photomic with the legendary Nikkor-H 85mm f1.8. Quickly running a roll of 400TX through it to check the lightmeter's accuracy.

The 1970 Hemi Cuda was a huge release in the history of muscle cars, but there is only one factory-built drag-car Hemi Cuda with a VIN that was produced for the Sox & Martin team: this one. By 1970, NHRA was forwarding acid-dipped bodies to its race teams for conversion. Not as well remembered is that the rules still required enough OEM trim that many teams also received a Street Hemi E-body to complete that conversion. This car likely exists because it was rebuilt into a test and clinic car by Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin. It served as a test bed and was then dressed up to actively compete in AHRA’s GT-1 class and Super Stock class, where team driver Herb McCandless and Ronnie Sox successfully took it to a World Championship in AHRA, also winning in several GT-1 PSS wins. Now considered the only professional-level drag-racing E-body Hemi Cuda with a factory Hemi VIN tag, this car is equipped with a 426 Hemi V-8 engine that hosts a rare Chrysler prototype independent-runner tunnel ram with twin 4500-series Holley 4-barrel race carburetors. This serious engine also has a solid-roller camshaft, 13.0:1 compression, Hooker headers, rev-limiter and cool can. The engine is backed by an A833 4-speed transmission and 4.88 Dana 60 rear end with chrome cover. Presented stunningly in the legendary red, white and blue team livery, this car has a black bucket-seat interior, Hurst shifter, cable-driven tachometer and period-installed gauging. Well-known within the Mopar hobby and restored to competition specifications, this car also has Keystone wheels, correct Firestone Drag 500 slicks and an original broadcast sheet. Gorgeous with correct decals and excellent painted-on team lettering, this Plymouth is instantly recognizable by those who remember the glory days of racing. However, only this car can lay claim to being a true Sox & Martin drag-racing vehicle whose origins were a production-line-built 1970 Hemi Cuda.

Parking Mendelstraße, Emsbüren, Lower Saxony, Germany (D)

 

PL | ZS 658PM

Head Office BFC = Szczecin, Poland

The 1970 Hemi Cuda was a huge release in the history of muscle cars, but there is only one factory-built drag-car Hemi Cuda with a VIN that was produced for the Sox & Martin team: this one. By 1970, NHRA was forwarding acid-dipped bodies to its race teams for conversion. Not as well remembered is that the rules still required enough OEM trim that many teams also received a Street Hemi E-body to complete that conversion. This car likely exists because it was rebuilt into a test and clinic car by Ronnie Sox and Buddy Martin. It served as a test bed and was then dressed up to actively compete in AHRA’s GT-1 class and Super Stock class, where team driver Herb McCandless and Ronnie Sox successfully took it to a World Championship in AHRA, also winning in several GT-1 PSS wins. Now considered the only professional-level drag-racing E-body Hemi Cuda with a factory Hemi VIN tag, this car is equipped with a 426 Hemi V-8 engine that hosts a rare Chrysler prototype independent-runner tunnel ram with twin 4500-series Holley 4-barrel race carburetors. This serious engine also has a solid-roller camshaft, 13.0:1 compression, Hooker headers, rev-limiter and cool can. The engine is backed by an A833 4-speed transmission and 4.88 Dana 60 rear end with chrome cover. Presented stunningly in the legendary red, white and blue team livery, this car has a black bucket-seat interior, Hurst shifter, cable-driven tachometer and period-installed gauging. Well-known within the Mopar hobby and restored to competition specifications, this car also has Keystone wheels, correct Firestone Drag 500 slicks and an original broadcast sheet. Gorgeous with correct decals and excellent painted-on team lettering, this Plymouth is instantly recognizable by those who remember the glory days of racing. However, only this car can lay claim to being a true Sox & Martin drag-racing vehicle whose origins were a production-line-built 1970 Hemi Cuda.

CUSTOMER: Rotra Forwarding BV (The Netherlands)

TRUCK DEALER: Bakker Bedrijfswagen Groep

Unit 630

Plate: Ontario