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Bit sad to think a lot of likely working are CRTs being thrown out. They'll be pulled apart to recycle their materials but one wonders if it may not be more efficient to just ship them to places where people still want CRTs.
Bits and bobs
Pictures taken during exercising my hobby (electronics) and building/disassembling amplifiers and/or upgrading a record player tonearm and pre-amplifier. Anyway, a text was needed, to describe this lot, and here it is (the text and the lot, enjoy the pictures :)).
Assemble Borg designer Yasuhiro Nightow is a Takara SF Land fan so it's worth scrutinising his designs for nods to the classic lines that inspired him. For instance, this particular look for the Nexus figure could be seen as an updated Cybercop design. The chin, massive scowl and chest piece seem to be a tip of the hat to Lucifer Bit while the ear-wings are reminiscent of Mercury Bit.
The Cybercop figures never really got the recognition they deserved back then. They were superbly-articulated, the accessories were fantastic (and this being a Takara line, there naturally was a drill) and there was even a slick vehicle. If they look fairly unimpressive 27 years later, you need only look at the competition to appreciate just how outstanding they were at the time.
Cybercop was later repackaged and sold in the US as ZAP Power Force but it seemed to have made no impact whatsoever. That really was typical of Takara: great action figures coupled with mediocre marketing.
But it really says a lot that another generation of toy designers are taking inspiration from those old designs. The Diaclone toys may have less cachet than their Transformers counterparts but with fans like Shogo Hasui around, it's no surprise there's going to be an update of Diabattles thirty years later.
Our late winter break in Tenerife was a bit different this year. The weather was forecast to break the day we arrived – and it did! Rain wasn’t the problem it was gale force winds – the same winds that caused the dust storms in Africa that caused the pollution and sand in the UK. We have witnessed gales in Tenerife before but this was worse than we’d seen it in the past . The palm trees were bending, the sand drifting like snow and the sea was raging. We usually walk around 150 miles on a ten day break but for five days we just walked with a brief spell on the beach, then the gales came back. We covered 22 miles some days and totalled 192 miles, not bad for a beach holiday. In some of the photos it looks stunning but look at the tops of the palm trees, like inside out umbrellas, the beach beds are empty and the waves were up to ten feet high and smashing thirty feet in the air. For five days everyone stood taking photos of the sea. For two days all boats stayed in harbour, only the big ferries sailed, there wasn’t a thing at sea, not even the surfers, we’ve never known that happen before. To add to this jellyfish in their hundred were washing up on shore and there was a severe risk of a burn from them. Even when red flags were flying and flags warning about the jellyfish were up the occasional nutter would go in the water and some people took staggering risks with their children including one couple with a baby, dangling it over the waves, just to get a photo, playing chicken as monster waves crashed in.
One day I had to catch my club sandwich as it went flying from my plate in the wind, empty glasses slid off the table and seat cushions went cartwheeling down the pavement. A couple of days were dull and cool but the menacing clouds made impressive photos, the sea was like a boiling cauldron. We did have days of beautiful weather as well, the second half of the holiday was normal sunny Tenerife. I haven’t hired a car for ages on Tenerife, it adds a degree of hassle to – what is supposed to be – a sun and relax holiday so again we didn’t go up El Teide. Next time perhaps. I took my racing bike once just to cycle from sea level to 8000 feet nonstop – twice! it’s a seventy mile round trip and a long drag to the top. On the way home we had to make an emergency landing in Dublin, fire tenders with foam jets pointing at us, unfortunately I was facing the setting sun and couldn’t take photos as the sun was shining straight through the window. Seven and a half hours on the plane, not much fun.
To see more about the history of J B Schofield & Sons Ltd and their plant and vehicles look here: www.jbschofieldandsons.co.uk/
I've used a lot of German Flott braces. They might not be the best looking braces you'll find but they are excellent users, well made and very solid.
This is the nicest example I have ever seen. For once I have only had to clean off some very light surface rust and then polished the steel parts with Autosol and a cloth. The ratchet mechanism works like a clock and the paintwork is original. Even the transfer decal logotype on the sweep handle is almost entirely intact.
The Flott braces comes with a variety of chuck jaws. This example has four jaws which are riveted to the chuck. The jaws are very well working. They will accept square as well as round shanks. The jaws are designed so that the square shank will fit inside a square hole in the bottom of the chuck and the jaws will the center and lock the bit.
A great bit of wall art, Merchant Street, Edinburgh #wallart #wallartist #muralart #muralartists #edinburgh #edinburgh_snapshots #edinburghstreetphotography #wallartedinburgh #photography #aerlingus #airline #airlineadvertising #billboard
A 5 hour late eastbound Empire Builder with a Charger locomotive in the lead spot, passes by me between Fargo and Harwood ND.
October 21st 2022
Bits and pieces of ephemera, some mail art I'd made last February, a photo of my daughter. Journaling with a white sigma pen and a blue gel pen. Love the green masking tape!
Bit of noise with this one - not sure why but will learn from mistakes - could be alcohol induced. Just back from a two week holiday in Riviera Maya (Azul Sensatori) - took over 600 shots and loved every second. The sunrises and sunsets were to die for :-)
Auger Bits
Date Taken : 2004/11/28
Camera: Canon 10D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens
Exposure: f/16 at 1 second, ISO 100
Lighting was two Home Depot work lights diffused through an old bedsheet.
The auger bits were held in place in a plastic case, which was flipped open for the photo.
Bit noisy as i had to crank up the ISO to take the picture handheld from a bumpy plane. Quite a bit of clear air turbulence on the way over to Copenhagen (via Munich) today. The lights started somewhere over Hudson Bay and continued beyond Greenland. First time i've ever got to see them, the picture just does't do them justice.
The rear bit was built in 1866. The front bit in the 1920s.
A Town of One, Two, Three.
The story of Gawler, the first town developed outside of Adelaide in 1839 is the story of numbers. Colonel William Light, after he resigned as Surveyor General for SA, formed a private surveying company with his friend and former Assistant Surveyor Boyle Finniss. (Remember Boyle Finniss became our first Premier in 1854.) They did some commercial surveying; they surveyed a sort of village along the Sturt River at what is now Marion; but the only other town apart from Adelaide that they surveyed and laid out was Gawler.
•Their township of Gawler had three squares- Light, Orleana and Parnell. Light had planned for the squares to be the centres for the Anglican, Presbyterian and Catholic churches. It did not quite work out like that!
•Light carefully sited this town on a ridge of high ground between three rivers –the North Para, South Para and Gawler Rivers. The first two rivers join just below Light’s town to form the Gawler River which flows out to the sea. The town grew quickly for a non mining town and became the 19th century industrial hub of SA.
•The first settlers around the town grew wheat and consequently flour milling became the first industry with three flour mills –the Albion Mill, the Victoria Mill and the Union Mill.
•The farmers needed plough disks, windmills, strippers and winnowers and other farm machinery. The Gawler residents wanted fancy wrought iron lace work to adorn the verandas of their houses and cottages. So from the mid 19th century Gawler became a town of three foundries- the May Brothers Foundry, the Eagle Foundry and the Phoenix Foundry.
•Like all country towns in the 19th century Gawler was dominated socially by a select group of business and social leaders. In Gawler the well respected and known leaders of the 19th century were three prominent men- Walter Duffield - the flour miller, James Martin - the foundry man and John McKinley - the explorer.
Some Unique Aspects of Gawler’s History.
The origins of Gawler are unique in SA. When the Special Surveys of 1839 were offered for those with £4,000 to select 4,000 acres in an area of the person’s choice, a group of farming settlers who had voyaged out together on the ship the Orleana clubbed together to purchase a Special Survey at the junction of the North and South Para Rivers. Those settlers were John Reid, Henry Dundas Murray, E. Jerningham, Stephen King, William Porter, Patrick Tod, James Fotheringham, John Patterson, Thomas Stubbs, John Sutton, Robert Tod and the Reverend Howard. You will see many of these names on the street signs of Church Hill. These pioneering men came to a strict agreement and each donated a certain number of acres for the township of Gawler (named after the Governor of the day) in proportion to the total number of acres they had purchased from the 4,000 acres. Most of this group purchased around 300 acres and donated 7½ acres for the town and parklands but John Reid, Henry Murray, E Jerningham and
Stephen King purchased between 530 and 932 acres each. Hence the main street of Gawler is Murray Street. John Reid was the first to settle in the town and built a house called Clonlea. Stephen King built his sandstone mansion, Kingsford along the North Para a couple of miles out of Gawler. It was used for the TV series McLeod’s Daughters but is now an upmarket bed and breakfast establishment. Some of the others from this Special Survey appear to have sold their land and moved on quickly rather than settling in the emerging township. Fotheringham stayed and set up the town’s first brewery.
Social aspects and a sense of civic pride were always strong in Gawler. It was remarkable that in 1859 this small “gateway to the north” sponsored a competition for a national song to be conducted by the Institute Committee. As we all know Mrs Caroline Carleton won the competition. The Song of Australia was sung in all SA primary schools and was one of the options voted upon for the new national anthem in the 1970s. The music for the song was written by German born Carl Linger and the lyrics and music were first presented in the Gawler Oddfellows Hall in December 1859. The town also offered a prize for a written history of SA in 1861. Henry Hussey won that award. Also in 1859 the township opened the first museum in SA. At one time Mr Schomburgk, who later became Director of the Botanic Gardens, was the curator of this museum. Gawler also formed the Humbug Society in 1859 to consider social and political issues of the day and in 1863 the town established its own newspaper, which is still published, called the Bunyip. In later years it was unique in building so many steam railway engines that were used in SA or exported for use in other states.
Bit of an old favourite this view, a quiet harbour on Easter Sunday.
Scrabster Harbour, Caithness, Scotland.
Macro detail from metal sculpture found in Prince Albert, South Africa
Canon 350D
Canon EF 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
via Tennis Court Surfaces bit.ly/1LgnUw9
Acrylic Tennis Court Paint in Fivelanes #Acrylic #Tennis #Court #Painting #Fivelanes bit.ly/1LJykdh