Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. It was referred to as Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction, but was named Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.

Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.

As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado River was seen as a potential source of irrigation water. An initial attempt at diverting the river for irrigation purposes occurred in the late 1890s, when land speculator William Beatty built the Alamo Canal just north of the Mexican border; the canal dipped into Mexico before running to a desolate area Beatty named the Imperial Valley. Though water from the Imperial Canal allowed for the widespread settlement of the valley, the canal proved expensive to operate. After a catastrophic breach that caused the Colorado River to fill the Salton Sea, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent $3 million in 1906–07 to stabilize the waterway, an amount it hoped in vain would be reimbursed by the federal government. Even after the waterway was stabilized, it proved unsatisfactory because of constant disputes with landowners on the Mexican side of the border.

As the technology of electric power transmission improved, the Lower Colorado was considered for its hydroelectric-power potential. In 1902, the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles surveyed the river in the hope of building a 40-foot (12 m) rock dam which could generate 10,000 horsepower (7,500 kW). However, at the time, the limit of transmission of electric power was 80 miles (130 km), and there were few customers (mostly mines) within that limit. Edison allowed land options it held on the river to lapse—including an option for what became the site of Hoover Dam.

In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.

Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of black people employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.

As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp. Workers with families were left to provide their own accommodations until Boulder City could be completed, and many lived in Ragtown. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, and the summer of 1931 was especially torrid, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C). Sixteen workers and other riverbank residents died of heat prostration between June 25 and July 26, 1931.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies"), though much-reduced from their heyday as militant labor organizers in the early years of the century, hoped to unionize the Six Companies workers by capitalizing on their discontent. They sent eleven organizers, several of whom were arrested by Las Vegas police. On August 7, 1931, the company cut wages for all tunnel workers. Although the workers sent the organizers away, not wanting to be associated with the "Wobblies", they formed a committee to represent them with the company. The committee drew up a list of demands that evening and presented them to Crowe the following morning. He was noncommittal. The workers hoped that Crowe, the general superintendent of the job, would be sympathetic; instead, he gave a scathing interview to a newspaper, describing the workers as "malcontents".

On the morning of the 9th, Crowe met with the committee and told them that management refused their demands, was stopping all work, and was laying off the entire work force, except for a few office workers and carpenters. The workers were given until 5 p.m. to vacate the premises. Concerned that a violent confrontation was imminent, most workers took their paychecks and left for Las Vegas to await developments. Two days later, the remainder were talked into leaving by law enforcement. On August 13, the company began hiring workers again, and two days later, the strike was called off. While the workers received none of their demands, the company guaranteed there would be no further reductions in wages. Living conditions began to improve as the first residents moved into Boulder City in late 1931.

A second labor action took place in July 1935, as construction on the dam wound down. When a Six Companies manager altered working times to force workers to take lunch on their own time, workers responded with a strike. Emboldened by Crowe's reversal of the lunch decree, workers raised their demands to include a $1-per-day raise. The company agreed to ask the Federal government to supplement the pay, but no money was forthcoming from Washington. The strike ended.

Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 ft (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than 3 miles (5 km). The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.

Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterward, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is 3 feet (1 m) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 ft (15 m). The river was diverted into the two Arizona tunnels on November 13, 1932; the Nevada tunnels were kept in reserve for high water. This was done by exploding a temporary cofferdam protecting the Arizona tunnels while at the same time dumping rubble into the river until its natural course was blocked.

Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and halfway through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The inner diversion tunnels were plugged at approximately one-third of their length, beyond which they now carry steel pipes connecting the intake towers to the power plant and outlet works. The inner tunnels' outlets are equipped with gates that can be closed to drain the tunnels for maintenance.

To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was 96 ft (29 m) high, and 750 feet (230 m) thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m3) of material.

When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately 1,500,000 cu yd (1,100,000 m3) of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were also excavated to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company.

The men who removed this rock were called "high scalers". While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes, the high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. Falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site; the high scalers' work thus helped ensure worker safety. One high scaler was able to save a life in a more direct manner: when a government inspector lost his grip on a safety line and began tumbling down a slope towards almost certain death, a high scaler was able to intercept him and pull him into the air. The construction site had become a magnet for tourists. The high scalers were prime attractions and showed off for the watchers. The high scalers received considerable media attention, with one worker dubbed the "Human Pendulum" for swinging co-workers (and, at other times, cases of dynamite) across the canyon. To protect themselves against falling objects, some high scalers dipped cloth hats in tar and allowed them to harden. When workers wearing such headgear were struck hard enough to inflict broken jaws, they sustained no skull damage. Six Companies ordered thousands of what initially were called "hard boiled hats" (later "hard hats") and strongly encouraged their use.

The cleared, underlying rock foundation of the dam site was reinforced with grout, forming a grout curtain. Holes were driven into the walls and base of the canyon, as deep as 150 feet (46 m) into the rock, and any cavities encountered were to be filled with grout. This was done to stabilize the rock, to prevent water from seeping past the dam through the canyon rock, and to limit "uplift"—upward pressure from water seeping under the dam. The workers were under severe time constraints due to the beginning of the concrete pour. When they encountered hot springs or cavities too large to readily fill, they moved on without resolving the problem. A total of 58 of the 393 holes were incompletely filled. After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks caused the Bureau of Reclamation to examine the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock. It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy to complete the supplemental grout curtain.

The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 ft square (15 m) and 5 feet (1.5 m) high. Each five-foot form contained a set of 1-inch (25 mm) steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints.

The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet high (2.1 m) and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inches [230 mm] stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cu yd (6.1 m3) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only 1 inch (25 mm), and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.

A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 cubic meters) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cu yd (850,000 m3) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete". Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR), as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.

With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of 102 °F (39 °C), 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony. To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name "Boulder Dam", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas.

Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government. Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.

There were 112 deaths reported as associated with the construction of the dam. The first was Bureau of Reclamation employee Harold Connelly who died on May 15, 1921, after falling from a barge while surveying the Colorado River for an ideal spot for the dam. Surveyor John Gregory ("J.G.") Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, in a flash flood while looking for an ideal spot for the dam was the second person. The official list's final death occurred on December 20, 1935, when Patrick Tierney, electrician's helper and the son of J.G. Tierney, fell from one of the two Arizona-side intake towers. Included in the fatality list are three workers who took their own lives on site, one in 1932 and two in 1933. Of the 112 fatalities, 91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site; the remainder were employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies.

Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Not included in the official number of fatalities were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning (brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels), and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims. The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia and were not included in the above total; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.

The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project. He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year.

At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist. With the assistance of the National Laboratory of Anthropology, True researched authentic decorative motifs from Indian sand paintings, textiles, baskets and ceramics. The images and colors are based on Native American visions of rain, lightning, water, clouds, and local animals—lizards, serpents, birds—and on the Southwestern landscape of stepped mesas. In these works, which are integrated into the walkways and interior halls of the dam, True also reflected on the machinery of the operation, making the symbolic patterns appear both ancient and modern.

With the agreement of Kaufmann and the engineers, True also devised for the pipes and machinery an innovative color-coding which was implemented throughout all BOR projects. True's consulting artist job lasted through 1942; it was extended so he could complete design work for the Parker, Shasta and Grand Coulee dams and power plants. True's work on the Hoover Dam was humorously referred to in a poem published in The New Yorker, part of which read, "lose the spark, and justify the dream; but also worthy of remark will be the color scheme".

Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam. His works include the monument of dedication plaza, a plaque to memorialize the workers killed and the bas-reliefs on the elevator towers. In his words, Hansen wanted his work to express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment", because "the building of Hoover Dam belongs to the sagas of the daring." Hansen's dedication plaza, on the Nevada abutment, contains a sculpture of two winged figures flanking a flagpole.

Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a "star map". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication. The 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze figures, dubbed "Winged Figures of the Republic", were both formed in a continuous pour. To put such large bronzes into place without marring the highly polished bronze surface, they were placed on ice and guided into position as the ice melted. Hansen's bas-relief on the Nevada elevator tower depicts the benefits of the dam: flood control, navigation, irrigation, water storage, and power. The bas-relief on the Arizona elevator depicts, in his words, "the visages of those Indian tribes who have inhabited mountains and plains from ages distant."

Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about 3.5 feet (1.1 m), topped with layers of sand and tar.

In the latter half of 1936, water levels in Lake Mead were high enough to permit power generation, and the first three Allis Chalmers built Francis turbine-generators, all on the Nevada side, began operating. In March 1937, one more Nevada generator went online and the first Arizona generator by August. By September 1939, four more generators were operating, and the dam's power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. The final generator was not placed in service until 1961, bringing the maximum generating capacity to 1,345 megawatts at the time. Original plans called for 16 large generators, eight on each side of the river, but two smaller generators were installed instead of one large one on the Arizona side for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller communities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a single municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.

Before water from Lake Mead reaches the turbines, it enters the intake towers and then four gradually narrowing penstocks which funnel the water down towards the powerhouse. The intakes provide a maximum hydraulic head (water pressure) of 590 ft (180 m) as the water reaches a speed of about 85 mph (140 km/h). The entire flow of the Colorado River usually passes through the turbines. The spillways and outlet works (jet-flow gates) are rarely used. The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures 180 feet (55 m) above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956. The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.

The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought since year 2000 and high demand for the Colorado River's water. By 2014 its generating capacity was downrated by 23% to 1592 MW and was providing power only during periods of peak demand. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam would no longer be able to generate power once the water level fell below 1,050 feet (320 m), which might have occurred in 2017 had water restrictions not been enforced. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, were installed.[102] Water levels were maintained at over 1,075 feet (328 m) in 2018 and 2019, but fell to a new record low of 1,071.55 feet (326.61 m) on June 10, 2021[104] and were projected to fall below 1,066 feet (325 m) by the end of 2021.

Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation has allowed the dam project to be self-sustaining: proceeds from the sale of power repaid the 50-year construction loan, and those revenues also finance the multimillion-dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.

Lake Mead and downstream releases from the dam also provide water for both municipal and irrigation uses. Water released from the Hoover Dam eventually reaches several canals. The Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project branch off Lake Havasu while the All-American Canal is supplied by the Imperial Dam. In total, water from Lake Mead serves 18 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California and supplies the irrigation of over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land.

In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) proposed a $3 billion pumped-storage hydroelectricity project—a "battery" of sorts—that would use wind and solar power to recirculate water back up to Lake Mead from a pumping station 20 miles (32 km) downriver.

Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities. The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017.

The dam is protected against over-topping by two spillways. The spillway entrances are located behind each dam abutment, running roughly parallel to the canyon walls. The spillway entrance arrangement forms a classic side-flow weir with each spillway containing four 100-foot-long (30 m) and 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) steel-drum gates. Each gate weighs 5,000,000 pounds (2,300 metric tons) and can be operated manually or automatically. Gates are raised and lowered depending on water levels in the reservoir and flood conditions. The gates cannot entirely prevent water from entering the spillways but can maintain an extra 16 ft (4.9 m) of lake level.

Water flowing over the spillways falls dramatically into 600-foot-long (180 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) spillway tunnels before connecting to the outer diversion tunnels and reentering the main river channel below the dam. This complex spillway entrance arrangement combined with the approximate 700-foot (210 m) elevation drop from the top of the reservoir to the river below was a difficult engineering problem and posed numerous design challenges. Each spillway's capacity of 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m3/s) was empirically verified in post-construction tests in 1941.

The large spillway tunnels have only been used twice, for testing in 1941 and because of flooding in 1983. Both times, when inspecting the tunnels after the spillways were used, engineers found major damage to the concrete linings and underlying rock. The 1941 damage was attributed to a slight misalignment of the tunnel invert (or base), which caused cavitation, a phenomenon in fast-flowing liquids in which vapor bubbles collapse with explosive force. In response to this finding, the tunnels were patched with special heavy-duty concrete and the surface of the concrete was polished mirror-smooth. The spillways were modified in 1947 by adding flip buckets, which both slow the water and decrease the spillway's effective capacity, in an attempt to eliminate conditions thought to have contributed to the 1941 damage. The 1983 damage, also due to cavitation, led to the installation of aerators in the spillways. Tests at Grand Coulee Dam showed that the technique worked, in principle.

There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam, which formerly served as the Colorado River crossing for U.S. Route 93. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, authorities expressed security concerns and the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Pending the completion of the bypass, restricted traffic was permitted over Hoover Dam. Some types of vehicles were inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 ft (12 m) long were not allowed on the dam at all, and were diverted to U.S. Route 95 or Nevada State Routes 163/68. The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, 1,500 ft (460 m) downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side.

Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure's being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.

The changes in water flow and use caused by Hoover Dam's construction and operation have had a large impact on the Colorado River Delta. The construction of the dam has been implicated in causing the decline of this estuarine ecosystem. For six years after the construction of the dam, while Lake Mead filled, virtually no water reached the mouth of the river. The delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 40 miles (64 km) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was higher close to the river's mouth.

The Colorado River had experienced natural flooding before the construction of the Hoover Dam. The dam eliminated the natural flooding, threatening many species adapted to the flooding, including both plants and animals. The construction of the dam devastated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam. Four species of fish native to the Colorado River, the Bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, Humpback chub, and Razorback sucker, are listed as endangered.

During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon".

When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country."

After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as Boulder Dam. Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name "Hoover Dam" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name "Hoover Dam" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.

When Ickes spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 30, 1935, he was determined, as he recorded in his diary, "to try to nail down for good and all the name Boulder Dam." At one point in the speech, he spoke the words "Boulder Dam" five times within thirty seconds. Further, he suggested that if the dam were to be named after any one person, it should be for California Senator Hiram Johnson, a lead sponsor of the authorizing legislation. Roosevelt also referred to the dam as Boulder Dam, and the Republican-leaning Los Angeles Times, which at the time of Ickes' name change had run an editorial cartoon showing Ickes ineffectively chipping away at an enormous sign "HOOVER DAM", reran it showing Roosevelt reinforcing Ickes, but having no greater success.

In the following years, the name "Boulder Dam" failed to fully take hold, with many Americans using both names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to which name should be printed. Memories of the Great Depression faded, and Hoover to some extent rehabilitated himself through good works during and after World War II. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name "Hoover Dam." Ickes, who was by then a private citizen, opposed the change, stating, "I didn't know Hoover was that small a man to take credit for something he had nothing to do with."

Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations.

Pierre Bergé was born on the 14th of November 1930, in the south west of France.

He came in Paris very early, at about 18. Never went to the university and built himself his empire with the men he loved : the paintor Bernard Buffet and Yves Saint Laurent.

This book was written in the beginning of our century - it's a serie of portraits of very important people he met in the fifties............ among them : Jean Cocteau, François Mitterand, Bernard Buffet, Aragon, Chanel, Schiaparelli, Céline, Marguerite Duras, Rudolf Noureev, .............. this book can be read in loud voice, the writing is really beautiful. Sometimes, it's so touching that I had difficulties to hide my emotion and my tears and so did the friend to whom I was reading some portraits........... My friend did not know Pierre Bergé and for me, he was a great collectionar, a personality, but I did not know he was a writer, a man with such culture and sensibility with such a beautiful writing !!!! I bought this pocket book by curiosity and I'm so glad to have it now. In my comment, you'll can read the poem from where the title of the book is taken. You'll easily find the translation on google because this poem is a very famous poem in the french litterature.

(for further information please click on the link at the end of page!)

Palais Daun-Kinsky

If the Freyung once has been one of the most prestigious residential addresses in town, so for it was next to the Palais Harrach especially the Grand Palais Kinsky responsible. In its place in the middle ages were two parcels, each with a small building. The front part of the Freyung was since the 16th Century always in aristocratic in hands (Bernhard Menesis Freiherr von Schwarzeneck, Countess Furstenberg, Counts Lamberg). 1686 acquired Karl Ferdinand Count Waldstein the house of Count Lamberg. His son bought also the adjacent house in Rose Street (Rosengasse) and united both plots to one parcel. He had three granddaughters, who sold the site in 1709 to Wirich Philipp Laurenz Graf Daun. This came from an old Rhenish nobility. His ancestors were mostly working for the Elector of Trier as officers. In the battle of the Habsburgs against the Turks, Spanish and Frenchmen, he acquired great military merit. He brought it to the General Feldzeugmeister (quartermaster) and Viceroy of Naples. In 1713 he had the house at the Freyung demolished and by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt built in its place until 1716 a palace, him serving as Vienna's city residence. Down may have been Antonio Beduzzi requested the creation of reconstruction plans, but was eventually Hildebrandt entrusted with the work. In 1719, the palace was largely completed. Daun lived there but rarely because he stayed a lot in Italy and in Austria preferred his country castles Ladendorf, Kirchstetten and Pellendorf. In 1746 acquired Johann Joseph Count von Khevenhüller the Palais from Leopold Joseph von Daun, the son of the owner, who happened to be in financial difficulty. The Reichsgraf (count of empire) was appointed in 1763 by the Empress Maria Theresa for his services to the Lord Steward and Lord Chamberlain, and raised to the hereditary imperial princes (princes of the Holy Roman Empire).

Door knocker

He sold the palace in 1764 to the Imperial Councilor President Ferdinand Bonaventura Harrach Count II. This worked as a diplomat, especially in Holland and Italy. At times of Maria Theresa, the building was inhabited by her Swiss Guards until they 1784 moved to their new quarters in Hofstallgebäude (court stable building). Ferdinand Bonaventura's daughter Rosa brought the palace in 1790 into her marriage to Josef Graf Kinsky. Whose family belonged to the Bohemian nobility. Its members appear at the beginning of the 13th Century documented. Wilhelm Freiherr von Kinsky was a colonel and friend of Wallenstein. He was murdered with this 1634 in Eger. His confiscated estates were divided among the assassins. Only two masteries (Chlumez and Bohemian Kamnitz ) remained through the timely change of front of his nephew, Johann Octavian with the family. The Kinsky but succeeded soon to rise again. They occupied again high positions in the administration and the military. 1798 the had modernized their Viennese palace by the architect Ernst Koch inside. Thus, the original Baroque interior was lost. As in 1809 the Frenchmen had occupied Vienna, a french Marshal and General were billeted in the palace. Prince Ferdinand Kinsky was a great patron of Beethoven, which he paid an annual salary of 4,000 florins for life along with two other nobles. In 1856, the Palace was refurbished in the interior by the architect Friedrich Stache. In the 19th Century lived the Princes Kinsky mostly on their Bohemian goods or in Prague. The building was therefore temporarily rented to some posh tenants. So lived here temporarily Field Marshal Radetzky and Archduke Albrecht. 1904 redecorated the French interior designer Armand Decour the piano nobile.

Staircase - second floor

With the end of World War II began a tough time for the Kinsky family. Almost all goods and industrial holdings, with the exception of the hunting lodge Rosenhof at Freistadt lay in Bohemia. By 1929, 50 % of the extensive Bohemian possessions were expropriated. There were still about 12,000 acres, a sugar factory and breweries. 1919 had to be a part of Vienna's Palais force-let. During World War II it was requisitioned by the German army. For fear of air raids the in the palace remaining objects of art were transferred to some Bohemian castles. The Palais Kinsky was not destroyed, its art treasures but remained in Bohemia. After the Second World War, the remaining Czech possessions were lost by nationalization for the family. In the Viennese palace were temporarily housed the embassies of China and Argentina. In 1986 it was sold by Franz Ulrich Prince Kinsky. After several short-term owners, the palace was acquired by the Karl Wlaschek private foundation in 1997. It was generously restored from 1998 to 2000 and adapted for offices and shops. The Grand Ballroom is often used because of its excellent acoustics as a concert hall. Since 1992, acclaimed art auctions are held at the Palais.

The Palais Kinsky is probably next to the Belvedere the most prominent secular work of the great Baroque architect and one of the best preserved baroque palaces in Vienna. Despite multiple changes of ownership and of numerous rearrangements inside the main components such as Baroque facade, vestibule, staircase, hall and gallery remained largely unchanged. The building extends between Freyung and Rosengasse. The property is only 30 meters wide, but three times longer. It was therefore not an easy task to build on it a representative palace with a grand staircase. Hildebrandt but has brilliantly overcome by putting up four floors at 24 m height, and yet preserving the proportions. He grouped the construction with two long side wings and a cross section around two consecutive large courtyards. The pomp and living rooms of the palace are mounted around the first courtyard, while the second contained carriage houses and stables. Here have yet been preserved the marble wall panels with the animal waterings made ​​of cast iron and enamel from the late 19th century. Hildebrandt integrated various parts of the previous building into the new building. The seven-axle face side at the Freyung is divided several times. Stability is procured by the rusticated ground floor with its inserted diamond blocks. On it sit the two residential floors. They are embraced by Corinthian Riesenpilaster (giant pilasters). The mezzanine floor above it features in comparison with the underlying main floor tiny windows.

Hercules

The large windows on the main floor are particularly detailed designed. While the outer pairs of windows possess pagoda-like over roofings, those of the three windows of the central projection are round-arched. The trophies and weapons depicted in the lintel fields refer to the military profession of the owner. Vertically is the extensive looking facade accented by the slightly protruding, tri-part central risalite, the pilasters are decorated much richer than that of the side projections. In the Fantasiekapitelle (fantasy capital) of the pilasters are diamond lattices incorporated, an important component of the coat of arms of the Counts Down. The with figures and trophies decorated attica is over the central part formed as balustrade. The sculptures are believed to originate from Joseph Kracker, representing the gods Minerva, Juno, Hercules, Neptune, Diana and Constantia. Very elegant looks the plastically protruding portal. Its composition goes back to Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. It is considered one of the most beautiful Baroque portals of Vienna. The draft was submitted in 1713 and carried out until 1715. The richly decorated wooden gate dates from the period around 1856, when it was renewed. It is outside flanked by two, obliquely placed Doric columns that match the rusticated ground floor. Sloped to the inside carry two, on pillar stumps standing atlases (also from Kracker) the entablature with the overlying structured segment gable. On it sit the stone figures of Prudence and Justice. The middle window in between is much richer decorated than the rest of the window openings on the first floor. Instead of the usual trapezoidal over roofings here it is crowned by a cartouche held by two putti. The originally thereon located coat of arms of the owner was replaced after the change of ownership by that of the Kinsky family with three boar's teeth. Above the shield hangs an chain with the Order of the Golden Fleece. Both the gusset of the archway as well as the overlying triglyph frieze are decorated with trophies.

Banquet Hall

If someone passes the portal, so one gets into one, by strong pillars divided three-aisled gatehouse. The massive spatial impression is something mitigated by the large sculptures in the niches. They were created by Joseph Kracker. Among the somewhat restrained stucco decorations you can see the coat of arms of the owner, with its characteristic diamond motif. At this gate hall adjoins the widely embedded and more than twice as high vestibule with its domed ceiling. This transverse oval space is divided by pilasters and Doric columns. The rich stucco decoration of the ceiling provided with lunettes could come from Alberto Camesina or from his workshop. The here used motifs are again relating to the career of the client as a commander. For instance, in the lunette caps are reliefs of Roman soldiers. On the left side of the vestibule leads an anteroom to the grand staircase. It is dominated by a vault carrying Hercules, a work by Lorenzo Mattielli. As the monogram of Charles VI proves, with it the Emperor was meant to be worshiped. In two oval niches stand above the two double doors of the Treppenvorhauses (stairway hall way) busts of Caesar and Emperor Titus Flavius ​​Vespasian. The elongated stairway occupies almost the entire length of the left wing of the first courtyard. In the stairwell are eleven statues of Roman deities in stucco niches. The relatively narrow, crossed grand stairway is considered one of the most beautiful of Vienna. It overall design might go back to Antonio Beduzzi. On the second floor stand on the from winded perforated volute forms constructed stone balustrade four groups of playing or scrapping putti. They serve in part as a lantern holders, partly just as a decoration. The statue cycle in the staircase is a work of Lorenzo Mattielli, but the cherubs are believed to stem from Joseph Kracker. This type of decoration already points to the coming Rococo. A fresco by Carlo Innocenzo Carlone adorns the ceiling. The simulated architecture painted Antonio Beduzzi. The large wall mirror of the staircase were added after 1907 .

Staircase/ceiling fresco

The somewhat playful balustrade leads to the reception rooms on the second floor. The large oval ballroom above the entrance hall is oriented towards the courtyard. Its allegorical ceiling painting stems from Carlo Innocenzo Carlone. The other frescoes are of him and Marcantonio Chiarini. The walls are covered with marble. The room was several times, most recently in 1904 changed structurally. In front of the banquet hall is the former dining room. It is now called Yellow Salon. In 1879/80 was installed in it a choir stalls from the Pressburg Cathedral by Georg Raphael Donner ( 1736) and partly completed. The also acquired confessionals were converted into boxes that are in the antechamber of the second floor today. In the chapel, designed by Hildebrandt, was until 1741 as altarpiece Francesco Solimena's "Holy Family with the Infant John the Baptist". 1778 the sacred space, however, was already desecrated. The altarpiece is already since the 18th Century in Wiener Neustadt Neuklosterkirche (church in Lower Austria). In the cross-section between the first and the second courtyard lay the paneled gallery whose spatial effect in 1856 by an attached conservatory was changed something. Its vaulted ceiling is decorated with frescoes by Carlo Innocenzo Carlone. Marcantonio Chiarini created 1716/18 the quadrature paintings. At it followed a larger hall in which Francesco Solimena's oil painting "Phaeton and Apollo" was located. It can be admired today in the National Gallery in Prague. The hall was later used as a library. Part of the state rooms 1714 was equipped with ceiling paintings by Peter Strudel. In the course of a radical redesign of the building's interior Ernest Koch has cut off all stucco ceilings of the staterooms 1798-1800 and also redesigned the walls. Since 1879 Carl Gangolf Kayser tried to restore the original spatial impression by the of Rudolf von Weyr created new Neo-Baroque stucco ceilings. Only in a few areas (vestibule, staircase, ballroom), the original substance remained. In the palace there are numerous Mamorkamine (marble fireplaces) and stoves from the 18th and 19th Century. The star parquet floors and many original door fittings date from the third quarter of the 19th Century. The facades of the first courtyard are structured by Tuscan pilasters. The arcades on the ground floor have already been closed in 1753. The with a mascaron decorated wall fountain is a work of Rudolf von Weyr. The second courtyard is kept simple. Remarkable at it rear end is the cenotaph for the current owner Karl Wlaschek.

Location/Address: 1010 Vienna, Freyung 4

Activities: The courtyards are freely accessible, the staircase usually also. A look at the state rooms is only possible if these are not just rented.

www.burgen-austria.com/archive.php?id=804

University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton

It was my daughter's Applicants' Day at the University of Sussex, so we headed down to Brighton. It is more than thirty years since I was a student there, and I haven't set foot on the campus since, until yesterday.

The University was one of the dozen or so new campus universities of the 1960s, mostly set in the grounds of former Big Houses (in Sussex's case, Stanmer Park) and designed by leading architects of the day. At Sussex this was Sir Basil Spence, who had recently completed Coventry Cathedral. The idea was a red brick Italianate hill village, climbing up into the South Downs, designed for about 2,500 students, though there are probably four times that many now.

I was never really very happy at Sussex, although as Philip Larkin observed of Coventry, it's not the place's fault after all. I was a post-graduate education student, and I had done my first degree in the centre of lovely, friendly Sheffield. I had partly chosen the University because the family of a girlfriend of the time had recently moved to Brighton (the University's high reputation was no doubt secondary). As you will no doubt have guessed, the relationship had ended before I arrived at Sussex.

Everybody seems to love Brighton, and they can't understand it when I say that I don't, but I was too miserable there. Brighton, for me, will be forever associated with debt, and with the transience of being a student. There has never been a time in my life, before or since, when I have been so poor. And then, extraordinarily, a brief, doomed relationship, a love affair, became the one vivid thing, a brief, sweet memory of my year in that brash town.

How narrow was the single bed we shared, how intense those brief few weeks. And she loved me more than I could possibly have loved her, for I had already met the woman who would become my wife. And so it was messy, and then it ended. My most dramatic memory of our time together is of leaving her flat shortly before daylight on an October morning and cycling back to my own house only to be stopped by a police roadblock, because the IRA had bombed the Grand Hotel half an hour earlier.

The University campus has expanded since I was there, but is still entirely graspable. The wide-open spaces and reflections of water under arches that Basil Spence aimed at are now overwhelmed by blocks in the same red brick but without any life to them whatsoever. I thought it was a shame. And yet, the campus still has the intensely intellectual vibe of a major University sequestered in the hills, the thrill of promise and the energy of youth. In some ways it was good to be back.

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away:...

...Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

My bait Kozy girl. I am calling her Boo, which is short for Caboose...'cause she's a bit of a trainwreck LOL. Let's hope she's really a diamond in the rough!

NOT MY PHOTO

View from Mt Difficulty winery and restaurant where we had lunch. March 6, 2014 South Island, New Zealand.

Mt Difficulty Wines is located in Bannockburn and the Cellar Door at Mt Difficulty Wines is known as much for its dramatic views of rugged rock and thyme landscapes as it is for its stylish wine and food.

All wines that carry the Mt Difficulty Bannockburn Estate label are subject to two strict criteria: they have to be sourced from vineyards situated in a very specific area – Bannockburn, south of the Kawarau River – and they are to be under the umbrella of the Mt Difficulty management team. The reasons for these self-imposed constraints are that we believe this to be an area with very special qualities for growing grapes, and that the management of the vineyard is reflected in the quality of the ultimate product.

For More Info: www.mtdifficulty.co.nz/vineyards/bannockburn-map.html

The MtSac v Cerritos dual was held on 23 October 2019 at Mt. San Antonio College.

In his 13 years as the Cerritos College wrestling head coach, Donny Garriott has won a lot of matches. But one place he has had difficulty winning in conference play has been at Mt. San Antonio College, where he had lost his last five matches. But on Wednesday, the #2-ranked Falcons (10-0, 2-0) posted a 25-16 Southwest Conference win over the Mounties. It was the first conference win for Garriott and the Falcons at Mt. SAC since 2010, who now has a lifetime 13-8 record against the Mounties.

125 Pounds - Jonathan Prata (CERR) def. Connor Diamond (MSAC), 11-4

133 Pounds - Andres Gonzales (CERR) pinned Nicholas Weissinger (MSAC), 3:24

141 Pounds - Oscar Chirino (MSAC) pinned Stefano McKinney (CERR), 3:36

149 Pounds - V'ante Moore (CERR) def. Jimmy Adams (MSAC), 9-0

157 Pounds - Larry Rodriguez (CERR) win by forfeit

165 Pounds - Wetzel Hill (MSAC) def. Drake De La Cruz (CERR), 17-3

174 Pounds - Ian Vasquez (MSAC) def. Cobe Hatcher (CERR), 3-2

184 Pounds - Kevin Hope (MSAC) def. Jarrod Nunez (CERR), 10-6

197 Pounds - Hamzah Al-Saudi (CERR) def. Mellad Ayyoub (MSAC), 2-0

285 Pounds - Randy Arriaga (CERR) def. Jackson Clark (MSAC), 5-0

French postcard. Edition Pathé Frères. Photo Henri Manuel. A difficulty with this card, which is easily found online as well, is that it dates from around 1910-1914, while the actress, born in 1864, was 50 in 1914. We could not trace whether Pathé used a pre-1900 photo, a photo of a relative with the same name (a daughter?), or just a photo of somebody else.

Jeanne Bérangère (1864-1927) was a French stage and screen actress.

Jeanne Bérangère was born as Françoise Béraud, daughter of Pierre Béraud and his wife Appoline née Dumont, on June 9, 1864, in Ainay-le-Château, in the Auvergne. Her parents were wealthy landowners in La Chaume, east of this small medieval village, cradle of the oldest lords of Bourbon. Little is known about her childhood and youth, but at the end of the 19th century beautiful Françoise became a popular theatre actress in Paris under the name of Mademoiselle Bérangère. Her Parisian fame caused her to pose often for postcards, allowing her to spread her image throughout France. After an impressive stage career in Paris, Michel Carré selected her in 1909 to play her first role on screen in La peur, directed by Henri Desfontaines. Once under contract by Pathé, Jeanne Bérangère did one film after another there until the beginning of the Great War. She appeared in one of the very first versions of Cléopatra (Henri Andréani and Ferdinand Zecca, 1910), with Madeleine Roch in the title role. Among the twenty or so films of this period, she had the female lead in Affaire d'honneur (Matter of Honour, Charles Decroix, 1910), Henri IV et le bucheron (Henry IV and the Woodchopper, Georges Denola, 1911), La rivale de Richelieu (Musketeer’s Love, Gérard Bourgeois, 1911), La fille de Jephté (Jephta’s daughter, Henri Andréani, 1913), and several films directed by Albert Capellani. For Éclair, she acted e.g. in Maurice Tourneur's grand guignol comedy Mademoiselle Cent Millions (The Conspiracy, 1913) and Trompe-la-mort (The Master Criminal, 1913), an adaptation of Honoré de Balzac's novel by director Charles Krauss. The First World War removed Bérangère from the cinema, apart from the propaganda film Français !... n’oubliez jamais (Robert Boudrioz, Roger Lion, 1916), but she never ceased to act on the Parisian stage.

After the war, Jeanne Bérangère resumed her way to the studios for Lucien Lehmann's film La chimère (1918), alongside Edmond Van Daële and Geneviève Félix. She collaborated to two films for Marcel L'Herbier, L'homme du large (Man of the Sea, 1920) with Jaque-Catelain, and Eldorado (1921) with Eve Francis. She also worked with Germaine Dulac (La mort du soleil, 1921; Âme d’artiste, 1924), Victor Tourjansky (Calvaire d’amour, 1923), Yakov Protazanov (Justice d’abord, 1920; Le sense de la mort, 1921), Raymond Bernard (Triplepatte, 1922), Andre Hugon, Gaston Ravel and Louis Mercanton. She was also noticed in four very popular serials of the 1920s: Charles Burguet's L'Essor (The Rise, 1920), Charles Maudru and Maurice de Marsan's L'Assommoir (The Drinking Den, 1921), Les mystères de Paris (Mysteries of Paris, Charles Burguet, 1922), and Belphégor (Henri Desfontaines, 1926), starring Lucien Dalsace.

Jeanne Bérangère died prematurely in Paris on November 19, 1928. Pascal Donald writes, “’like many actresses of the silent cinema, her name, face and films have sunk into the almost complete oblivion.” Thanks to festivals such as Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna and Le giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone, we can still see some of these films now and then.

Source: IMDB, www.cineartistes.com/fiche-Jeanne+B%E9rang%E8re.html.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone who celebrates this special day today!

What a mess Flickr was last night! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr this morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared.

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "gourds".

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...

"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.

The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.

www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...

"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."

"What the Border Wall will do here:

1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.

2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.

3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.

IN ADDITION:

4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.

5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.

6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.

Due to financial difficulties Alfa Romeo stopped racing in 1933 (Alfa’s own version of the story is that the marque had already proved itself) and sold off its racing division to Enzo Ferrari, who established his own racing team, ‘Scuderia Ferrari’.

The legendary racing driver Louis Chiron took part in the 1933 Le Mans race for the Scuderia in this car, which has bodywork designed by Touring. The regulations for participating touring cars specified that they had to be fitted with a windshield, mudguards, a silencer, lighting, a horn and four seats. Needless to say, everything was kept to a minimum in order to limit the weight. The rear seats, for example, aren’t really usable. The car weighs just over 1,000 kilograms. Note the fin at the rear, an important step towards the streamlining of racing cars.

The 2.3-litre, eight-cylinder engine introduced by Alfa Romeo in 1931 was in fact made up of two four-cylinder blocks, one behind the other, with an ingenious gear mechanism that drove the camshafts as well as the compressor. The cylinder capacity was increased to 2.6 litres for this Le Mans version.

2,6 Liter

8 Cylinder

180 HP

Louwman Museum

Den Haag - The Hague

Nederland - Netherlands

Augustus 2019

A Dutch translation of the illustration of the four-fold micro- and macro-cosmos in the ‘Manual of Byrhtferth‘, Oxford St. John College ms. 17 fol.7v. The ages of man (pueritia (-14 years), adolescentia (-28 years), juventus (- 48 years) and senectus (70 – 80 years) make a clockwise motion.

P. 65 in: FOUR - Marten Kuilman (with coloured diagram):

quadriformisratio.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/four-ages/

---

The original scheme is reproduced in:

Burrow 1986, pl. 2; Edson 1997, ill. 5.5 (91); English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, 104; Esmeijer 1978, fig. 53; Evans (M.) 1969, pl. 66; Kauffmann 1975, ill. 21; Kline 2001, fig. 1.9; Murdoch 1984, ill. 290; Singer 1917, 124; Singer and Singer 1917-1919, fig 3; Singer and Singer 1921, fig. 2.

Related manuscripts: Post-Conquest English Computus Manuscripts: Peterborough computus

1. Introduction, transcription and translation

2. Byrthferth's Diagram as symbolic diagram

3. The form of Byrhtferth's Diagram

4. Did the Diagram illustrate Byrhtferth's Enchiridion?

5. The Peterborough computus copy of Byrhtferth's Diagram and related schemata

1. Introduction, transcription and translation

Byrhtferth's Diagram is probably the most famous and most frequently reproduced item in MS 17. It is also a very complex composition, and its interpretation bristles with historical and exegetical problems. To avoid a disproportionately long commentary, we will limit our remarks here to a description of the Diagram, and some observations on its relationship to the copy in the Peterborough computus and to diagrams in Byrhtferth's Enchiridion. A longer interpretive article is in progress.

What follows is a transcription and translation of the text surrounding Byrhtferth's Diagram:

Hanc figuram edidit bryhtferð2 monachus ramesiensis coenobii de concordia mensium atque elementorum.

Hi sunt solares \scilicet dicuntur quia secundum ipsum cursum constant/ menses qui habent dies XXXI. Ianuarius. Martius. Maius. Iulius. Augustus. October. December.

Hi autem XXX \scilicet dies habent secundum solis cursum/ Aprilis. Iunius. September. November. Februarius uero ab omnibus erat.

Retinet hec figura XII signa et duo solstitia. atque bina equinoctia. et bisbina tempora anni. in qua descripta sunt IIII nomina elementorum. et duodenorum uentorum onomata. atque IIII etates hominum. Sunt insimul coniuncta bis bine littere nominis protoplasti ade;

Demonstrat enim uero quales menses lunam XXX quales XXIX habent;

(Byrhtferth, monk of Ramsey Abbey, set forth this diagram of the harmony of the months and the elements.

These are the solar months (so called because they follow the Sun's course) which have 31 days: January, March, May, July, August, October, December. These have 30 (that is, days according to the Sun's course): April, June, September and November. But February deviates from them all.

This diagram contains the twelve signs and also the two equinoxes and the twice-two seasons of the year, within which are inscribed the names of the four elements and the designations of the twelve winds, and also the four ages of man. The twice-two letter of the name of Adam, the first-created man, are also added.

It shows which months have a moon of 30 and which a moon of 29.)

2. Byrthferth's Diagram as symbolic diagram

Diagrams, schemata and tables found in computus manuscripts are of three basic types. The reference table like those which precede (fols. 8r-15v) and follow (fols. 22r-27r) the calendar in MS 17 are designed for consultation, or to manipulate data to solve a problem. Computists also inherited a tradition of pedagogical schemata illustrating scientific principles or providing a graphic summary of information:3 the taxonomy of knowledge on fol. 7r is such a summary, while the drawings accompanying the cosmographical anthology on fols. 35v-40v are essentially scientific illustrations. Derived from pedagogical schemata, but of a higher order of complexity, and with a different function, are symbolic diagrams in which interpenetrating systems of abstract concepts are brought into relation through graphic organization, numerical and geometrical symbolism, colour, and other visual strategies. Symbolic diagrams can contain more or less assertive pictorial representations which allegorize their contents; this diagramming iconography is one of the typical features of Carolingian and Romanesque art. But the symbolic diagram in the strict sense, like the pedagogical schema, presents contents which are primarily textual or conceptual in character. The diagram sidesteps the normally diachronic presentation of words and concepts by distributing them in a spatial arrangement, a diagram. This arrangement allows the material to be compared, juxtaposed, analysed, and interpreted on many levels at once, using a process of "visual exegesis." However, unlike the pedagogical schema, symbolic diagrams are not illustrations of a parent text; rather, they are either completely independent of, or in a kind of collegial relationship with a text. Essentially, the diagram itself functions as a text.

A scientific or pedagogical schema can become a symbolic diagram by the addition of an iconic reference, or by re-orientation to a more metaphysical purpose. When Gerbert of Aurillac wished to illustrate the different types of geometric angles, he used a pedagogical scheme consisting of circles overlapping in various degrees. But then he added an extra diagram, a figura composed of a number of circles, and which contained all the possible types of angles. It had no pedagogical value; it simply satisfied a passion for synthesis. Gerbert made the diagram, in his words, "so that all might be seen together in one. Likewise at the end of the copy of De natura rerum in Oxford, Bodleian Library Auct. F.3.14 (fol. 19v), Isidore of Seville's OT map of the world has been transformed into a maiestas Domini, with Christ seated atop the globe and three praying figures standing in for the three continents. In both cases, a scientific image has become a symbolic one.

3. The form of Byrhtferth's Diagram

Byrhtferth's Diagram, like Gerbert's, was designed "so that all might be seen together in one," and like the Auct. F.3.14 map, the organizing symbolism is that of the maiestas Domini. The rubric announces that this figura is a harmonization of two systems: the twelve months and the four elements. The first is represented by an 8-shaped green band on which is inscribed the twelve signs of the zodiac, and beneath these, the month of the year roughly corresponding to each sign, together with the number of solar days in the month and the length of the lunation that terminates in that solar month. Within this zodiac band is a double diamond. The outer diamond is pinned to the zodiac band by four roundels labeled with the names of the four elements -- earth (blue), air (cream), water (green) and fire (red) -- at the equinoctial and solstitial points. An arc with the date of the solstice or equinox passes over each element-roundel, so preserving the continuous flow of celestial time despite the interception of the static quadrilateral of the sublunary elements.

Within the continuous flow of time is the unmoving world of place, represented by the inner, blue diamond. The Greek and Latin names of the cardinal directions are inscribed in the "bites" in the corners of the diamond. These are linked to the four elements through the twelve winds, whose names lie inside the element roundels. Because they are twelve in number, and pertain to the upper atmosphere, the winds belong to the celestial realm of the outer band; but they also belong to the inner, terrestrial diamond because they are sublunar, meteorological phenomena, and because they are classed according to the cardinal directions. Byrhtferth compromised by grouping them in threes according to the cardinal directions, but locating them in the outer region.

The four elements themselves also bridge the worlds of time and of space. Each has a pair of qualities which link it to its neighbouring elements: these are transcribed on the bars of the inner diamond, which is particularly associated with space. But these paired qualities serve to connect time as well as the material creation. The paired qualities are assigned to the different seasons, and the bars on which they are inscribed form the outer diamond. The arms of this diamond thread through a second series of four roundels containing the name of the season, its length and the date on which it begins. The reminder that each season covers three months carries our eye outwards to the band of three months arching over each season-roundel. But the roundels also relate the four seasons to the four phases of the human life cycle and its duration: puericia lasts 14 years, adolescentia to age 28, iuuentus to age 48, and senectus until 70 or 80.

Hanging between heaven and earth, these roundels are a graphic statement of man's amphibious nature, linked to the heavens through the stages of life as microcosm of celestial time, and to the earth through the name of Adam, formed from the initial letters of the Greek names of the cardinal directions -- a conceit already encountered in the world-map on fol. 6v. Enclosed within ADAM is an eight-spoked wheel, resembling a sundial or horologium, above which is a narrow horizontal strip containing some symbols, a fragment of Ogham or pseudo-Ogham writing, and abbreviated words. These puzzling details (which incidentally are missing from the Peterborough computus copy of the Diagram) await further research and study. Here we will concentrate on the overall form and the explicit messages of the Diagram.

None of the separate components of the Diagram is particularly unusual, yet the Diagram as a whole bespeaks a high degree of synthetic creativity in the way in which it superimposes four common medieval schemata: the syzygia elementorum (the connection of the elements through their paired qualities, and their analogous relationship to the four seasons, four humours of the body, four ages of man etc. through these pairings), the rota of the zodiac, the rota of the months, and the windrose with its four cardinal directions. What binds them together is numerical analogies, particularly the number four, a subject on which Byrhtferth himself has much to say in his textbook on computus, the Enchiridion.

4. Did the Diagram illustrate Byrhtferth's Enchiridion?

Byrhtferth of Ramsey's significance to the origin and shape of MS 17 goes well beyond the few items formally ascribed to him in this manuscript, namely this Diagram, and the Proemium on fols. 12v-13r. The unique manuscript of Byrhtferth's Enchiridion is Bodleian Library Ashmole 328, a quarto volume written in English square minuscule of the early 11th century, but of unknown provenance. Illustrating Byrhtferth's text are a number of computus reference tables, pedagogical schemata, and symbolic diagrams. One of these is a rota of the months and zodiac signs, but without any indication of the number of lunar and solar days in each month.18 Directly after presenting this rota Byrhtferth announces, "Nu her ys gemearcod se circul þe ys zodiacus gehaten, 7 þaera XII monða naman, nu wille we furðor geican þurh Godes mihta" -- "Now that the circle called the zodiac and the names of the twelve months are here written down, we wish, with the aid of God's power, to continue further"). This "further" addition is a second diagram in the form of a Greek cross bound by concentric circles, which Byrhtferth introduces by explaining the dates of the equinoxes and solstices and connecting them to the twelve months and the four elements.21 The diagram, however, shows neither the months nor the elements, but rather the solstices and equinoxes in connection with the seasons.

Byrthferth then turns to a fresh topic ("Exceptis his rebus...") and proceeds to unroll a long chain of analogies between the twelve winds, the four seasons, the four ages of man, the four elements and their qualities, and the four humours of the human body. The diagram, he says, will explain it all. Unfortunately, the diagram has been torn out of the Ashmole manuscript, leaving only a corner.

In 1919, Charles and Dorothea Singer published Byrhtferth's Diagram as a copy of the missing schema in the Ashmole manuscript, claiming that the Diagram fulfilled all the requirements of Byrhtferth's introductory description. But does it? Byrhtferth's introduction does not mention the months, the zodiac, the solstices or the equinoxes; in fact, he had explicitly set these matters aside. Moreover, the Diagram mentions nothing about the humours, a fact that the Singers overlooked to the extent of christening the schema "Byrhtferth's Diagram of the Physical and Physiological Fours," and asserting that it illustrated the medical treatise on fols. 1v-2v of MS 17.24 They could not avoid noticing, however, that the Ashmole diagram was obviously rectangular, and that the legends still legible in the fragment do not correspond to the text in MS 17, but this cast no doubt on their "restoration." It has raised few questions since, though Lapidge and Baker, in their new edition of the Enchiridion, are very much more cautious than previous commentators about equating the MS 17 diagram with the Ashmole schema. Caution is justified: apart from the discrepancies identified above, the Ashmole page would not have been large enough to hold the Diagram, if the scale of the writing on the extant stub is taken as a module. But the major difficulty remains that Byrthferth's text does not permit us to look for a concordia mensium et elementorum at this point. This concordia is the central theme of the Diagram.

Many of the analogies expressed through the Diagram are indeed discussed in the Enchiridion, but not in the context of the missing schema; rather, they are included in an essay on number symbolism which forms the final part of the treatise, and particularly in the section devoted to the number four. Here Byrhtferth explicitly describes the relationship of the elements to the seasons and the ages of man through their paired qualities, the connection of the winds and the cardinal directions, and how the initials of the Greek names for the cardinal directions spell the name of Adam. But he mentions no diagram in connection with these. In sum, it would appear that Byrhtferth's Diagram, like many other symbolic diagrams, stands on its own, and is not an illustration of a particular text -- not even Byrhtferth's own.

The second distinctive aspect of the Diagram is its unusual and evocative shape. By far the most common shape for a schema of the zodiac, months, or winds is a rota, and almost every syzygia elementorum is a circle segmented by a four-lobed knot. Nowhere save in Byrhtferth's Diagram are these contents presented as an elongated diamond within an 8-shaped frame. This is the distinctive graphic framework of a maiestas Domini, that is, the representation, generally in an eschatological context, of Christ manifested in glory. In sum, unlike most symbolic diagrams, Byrhtferth's Diagram does not take a pedagogical schema and fill it with religious content, but takes a religious schema and fills it with computistical content.

digital.library.mcgill.ca/ms-17/folio.php?p=7v&showit...

---

The theme of the four ages of man continued after the thirteenth century of the European cultural period, but its character became increasingly symbolic. Genuine four-fold thinking drifted towards a lower division environment. This move – which lasted for almost six-hundred years – increased the (visible) visibility, but decreased the character of real tetradic thinking. The invention of the printing press ‘enabled the widespread dissemination of the literature of symbolism including the new genres of emblem and device’ (RAYBOULD, 2009). The world of painting added to the visualization of the four-fold, but not necessarily to the understanding of a tetradic world view.

MK4_9642 Glenmaye Waterfall and Beach, Glenmaye, Isle of Man.

10 minutes walk from the cottage in which we stayed for a holiday in September 2017.

Creek/riverside walk accessed by step steps so not suitable for wheelchair users and anyone who has difficulty in walking.

Quite overgrown so quite dark. Would be nice if some of the growth could be cut back to expose more of the waterfall and the river.

The beach is mainly rocky and faces west towards Ireland. Nice spot to rest and throw a few pebbles into the sea.

More general photographs at: www.flickr.com/photos/staneastwood/albums

Día Mundial de la Enfermedad Pulmonar Obstructiva Crónica

World Day for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

( 17/11/2010 día mundial de la Epoc. / World COPD day.)

Español

BENEFICIOS AL DEJAR DE FUMAR

20 minutos después de abandonar el hábito: su frecuencia cardiaca, así como su presión arterial, baja.

12 horas después de abandonar el hábito: el nivel de monóxido de carbono en la sangre se reduce hasta el valor normal.

De 2 semanas a 3 meses después de abandonar el hábito: su circulación mejora y su función pulmonar aumenta.

De 1 a 9 mesesdespués de abandonar el hábito: disminuyen la tos, la congestión nasal, el cansancio y la dificultad para respirar; los cilios (estructuras parecidas a vellos pequeños que eliminan el moco de los pulmones) recuperan su función normal en los pulmones, lo que aumenta su capacidad para controlar las mucosidades, limpiar los pulmones y reducir el riesgo de las infecciones.

1 año después de abandonar el hábito: el riesgo excesivo de presentar una insuficiencia coronaria se reduce a la mitad del que tienen los fumadores.

5 años después de abandonar el hábito: de 5 a 15 años después de haber dejado el cigarrillo, el riesgo de sufrir un derrame cerebral se reduce al nivel de una persona que no fuma.

10 años después de abandonar el hábito: el índice de mortalidad debido al cáncer del pulmón se reduce a casi la mitad del que afronta una persona que fuma. Disminuye el riesgo de contraer cáncer de la boca, la garganta, el esófago, la vejiga, el cuello uterino y el páncreas.

15 años después de abandonar el hábito: el riesgo de padecer de insuficiencia coronaria es el mismo que el de una persona que no fuma.

*La Nicotina es un alcaloide (altamente adictiva)

*Una persona que fuma inhala sólo un 15 por ciento del humo total que su cigarrillo produce mientras que el 85 por ciento restante va al ambiente que todos respiramos.

*Si una persona permanece una hora en un ambiente contaminado por humo es como si se fumara activamente dos o tres cigarrillos.

*Los hijos de padres fumadores tienen un 20 por ciento más de riesgo de padecer asma, infecciones respiratorias (30 por ciento ), otitis (50 por ciento ), catarros frecuentes, tos persistente, etc.

English

BENEFITS OF QUITTING

20 minutes after quitting: Your heart rate and blood pressure low.

12 hours after quitting: The carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal.

From 2 weeks to 3 months after quitting: Your circulation improves and your lung function increases.

1 to 9 months after of quitting: Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and difficulty breathing; the cilia (small hair-like structures that remove mucus from the lungs) regain normal function in lungs, increasing their ability to handle mucus, clean lungs and reduce the risk of infections.

1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is reduced to half that of a smoker.

5 years after quitting: 5 to 15 years after quitting smoking, the risk of stroke is reduced to that of a nonsmoker.

10 years after quitting, the mortality rate due to lung cancer is reduced to almost half that of a smoker. Reduces the risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix and pancreas.

15 years after quitting: The risk of coronary heart disease is the same as that of a nonsmoker.

* Nicotine is an alkaloid (highly addictive)

* A smoker inhales only 15 percent of the total smoke produced his cigarette while the remaining 85 percent goes to the atmosphere we all breathe.

* If a person is an hour in a smoke-contaminated environment is as if two or three actively smoke cigarettes.

* The children of parents who smoke are 20 percent higher risk of asthma, respiratory infections (30 percent), otitis (50 percent), frequent colds, coughing, etc.

© IVAN PAWLUK promysalud.blogspot.com/

www.promysalud.blogspot.com/2010/10/fumador-pasivo.html

Due to financial difficulties Alfa Romeo stopped racing in 1933 (Alfa’s own version of the story is that the marque had already proved itself) and sold off its racing division to Enzo Ferrari, who established his own racing team, ‘Scuderia Ferrari’.

The legendary racing driver Louis Chiron took part in the 1933 Le Mans race for the Scuderia in this car, which has bodywork designed by Touring. The regulations for participating touring cars specified that they had to be fitted with a windshield, mudguards, a silencer, lighting, a horn and four seats. Needless to say, everything was kept to a minimum in order to limit the weight. The rear seats, for example, aren’t really usable. The car weighs just over 1,000 kilograms. Note the fin at the rear, an important step towards the streamlining of racing cars.

The 2.3-litre, eight-cylinder engine introduced by Alfa Romeo in 1931 was in fact made up of two four-cylinder blocks, one behind the other, with an ingenious gear mechanism that drove the camshafts as well as the compressor. The cylinder capacity was increased to 2.6 litres for this Le Mans version.

2,6 Liter

8 Cylinder

180 HP

Louwman Museum

Den Haag - The Hague

Nederland - Netherlands

March 2013

Not as easy as you might think. Everyone has their own struggles and difficulties to overcome.

"Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." - Christ Jesus

Canon EOS Rebel T1i

Canon EF 50mm f1.8

Edit: Film/Troy

📷: Nikon Z6ii with Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 FE

💻: Lightroom

Explore my work at:

www.antonisdeligiannis.com

#photonetmagazine #igers_greece_ #neamagazine #noicemag #ignant #contemporaryphotography #somewheremagazine #subjectivelyobjective #lensculture #phroommagazine #floatmag #modernvisual #visualpoetry #createexplore #artofvisuals

#nikon #nikoneurope #nikongreece #nikonz #z6ii #viltrox #ultrawideangle #viltrox16 #nikonz6ii #day #oldman #handicap #czechia #man

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone who celebrates this special day today!

What a mess Flickr was last night! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr this morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared.

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "gourds".

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...

"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.

The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.

www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...

"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."

"What the Border Wall will do here:

1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.

2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.

3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.

IN ADDITION:

4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.

5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.

6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.

File name: 10_03_000939a

Binder label: Laundry

Title: The difficulties of a tub wringer. The convenience of a bench wringer. [front]

Created/Published: N. Y. : Buek & Lindner, Lith.

Date issued: 1870-1900 [approximate]

Genre: Advertising cards

Subject: Women; Laundry; Appliances

Notes: Title from item.

Collection: 19th Century American Trade Cards

Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department

Rights: No known restrictions.

Now you know that i love exploring SL as i do in RL when i m traveling in France or in other countries. It is always bringing me into new adventures, experiences and meeting. Of course they are not always outstanding not positives ...But i am open minded it is how i live my life accepting also the difficulties. Anyway on friday my suprised has been very good as i was walking alone under the grey sky full of snow ...i let you discovering it.

Thanks so much Ewta for this amazing afternoon !!!

Day two of our trip down to Wanaka Central Otago. February 20, 2018 New Zealand.

We didn't get accommodation in Wanaka last night and they were all booked out until the 25th. We went on to Cromwell .. some there but we did book for today. We finally found a place to stay in the camping ground in Alexandra. Now we are making our way back to Cromwell for the next two nights.

Mt Difficulty Wines is located in Bannockburn, well within an hour's drive of both Queenstown and Wanaka. The Cellar Door is known as much for its dramatic views of rugged rock and thyme landscapes as it is for its stylish wine.

www.newzealand.com/ie/plan/business/mt-difficulty-wines-c...

PM Netanyahu met on Monday, 13.2.12, at the Knesset with 14-year-old Tal Hajaj who told him about the difficulties her family has experienced since her father came to the State of Israel after having served in the South Lebanon Army. Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

Pink N' Pretty Barbie 1981

still can't resist (although very poor lighting - difficulty with colors - will try post improved versions)

vicinity Deception Pass - interesting that this keeps appearing in the same small area (say 5m square)

The fungus (P. britannica) and the green alga (Coccomyxa) combine to form this lichen's green (particularly so when wet) lobes, which are speckled with dark "cephalodia" containing the cyanobacterium (Nostoc). In this "individual" cephalodia have escaped and formed the purplish lobes, which in turn are sprouting pure green lobes. So we have two versions (photomorphs) of the same lichen.

(The name Peltigera britannica refers only to the mycobiont. This fungus can be associated with a green alga (in this case a Coccomyxa) and/or a cyanobacteria (in this case a Nostoc) to form a lichen, which in this case has been given the common name "Flacky freckle pelt". (In my opinion the use of common names for lichens, most of which have been coined very recently, only makes things more difficult.) Although the lichen itself does not have a scientific name, depending upon context the name of the fungus is often used to refer to the entire lichen. This seems to work fine. There are on the order of 16,000 to 28,000 species of fungi which are obligate lichenized www.researchgate.net/publication/258485014_One_hundred_ne... They combine with 100 or so species of algal and cyanobacterial partners. It now appears that many more fungi are found within lichens, which might better be thought of as mini-ecosystems.)

of interest - www.anbg.gov.au/lichen/form-structure-sticta.html

wales-lichens.org.uk/species-account/sticta-canariensis

my lichen photos arranged by genus www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections/7215762439...

my photos arranged by subject www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.

Hi my flickr friends, I am back..I sure missed all of you.. hope to get back in the circle.

I lost a wonderful sister in law to Breast cancer...and we have had some awful tornados in our part of the country..

I will try and get around to all of the photos.. God Bless everyone.. and God Bless America!

It's so hard to take good pictures of her, but I'll get the hang of it as soon as I get to know her a little better. She's even cuter in person.

Hot Air Ballooning Cappadocia:

A must do in Cappadocia is take a balloon ride in order to see the sights from a vantage point like no other. On this 1-hour flight at sunrise you will experience the changing colors and the unique landscapes that scatter the region.

Enjoy a unique hot air balloon flight over the fairy chimneys and rock cut churches. This exhilarating experience in Cappadocia is one of the best places around the world to fly with hot air balloons.

www.britannica.com/place/Cappadocia/media/94094/229210

CAPPADOCIA WORLD HERITAGE LIST :

www.whc.unesco.org/en/list/357

In a spectacular landscape, entirely sculpted by erosion, the Göreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Dwellings, troglodyte villages and underground towns – the remains of a traditional human habitat dating back to the 4th century – can also be seen there.

Brief synthesis

Located on the central Anatolia plateau within a volcanic landscape sculpted by erosion to form a succession of mountain ridges, valleys and pinnacles known as “fairy chimneys” or hoodoos, Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia cover the region between the cities of Nevşehir, Ürgüp and Avanos, the sites of Karain, Karlık, Yeşilöz, Soğanlı and the subterranean cities of Kaymaklı and Derinkuyu. The area is bounded on the south and east by ranges of extinct volcanoes with Erciyes Dağ (3916 m) at one end and Hasan Dağ (3253 m) at the other. The density of its rock-hewn cells, churches, troglodyte villages and subterranean cities within the rock formations make it one of the world's most striking and largest cave-dwelling complexes. Though interesting from a geological and ethnological point of view, the incomparable beauty of the decor of the Christian sanctuaries makes Cappadocia one of the leading examples of the post-iconoclastic Byzantine art period.

It is believed that the first signs of monastic activity in Cappadocia date back to the 4th century at which time small anchorite communities, acting on the teachings of Basileios the Great, Bishop of Kayseri, began inhabiting cells hewn in the rock. In later periods, in order to resist Arab invasions, they began banding together into troglodyte villages or subterranean towns such as Kaymakli or Derinkuyu which served as places of refuge.

Cappadocian monasticism was already well established in the iconoclastic period (725-842) as illustrated by the decoration of many sanctuaries which kept a strict minimum of symbols (most often sculpted or tempera painted crosses). However, after 842 many rupestral churches were dug in Cappadocia and richly decorated with brightly coloured figurative painting. Those in the Göreme Valley include Tokalı Kilise and El Nazar Kilise (10th century), St. Barbara Kilise and Saklı Kilise (11th century) and Elmalı Kilise and Karanlık Kilise (end of the 12th – beginning of the 13th century).

Criterion (i): Owing to their quality and density, the rupestral sanctuaries of Cappadocia constitute a unique artistic achievement offering irreplaceable testimony to the post-iconoclastic Byzantine art period.

Criterion (iii): The rupestral dwellings, villages, convents and churches retain the fossilized image of a province of the Byzantine Empire between the 4th century and the arrival of the Seljuk Turks (1071). Thus, they are the essential vestiges of a civilization which has disappeared.

Criterion (v): Cappadocia is an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement which has become vulnerable under the combined effects of natural erosion and, more recently, tourism.

Criterion (vii): In a spectacular landscape dramatically demonstrating erosional forces, the Göreme Valley and its surroundings provide a globally renowned and accessible display of hoodoo landforms and other erosional features, which are of great beauty, and which interact with the cultural elements of the landscape.

Integrity

Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, having been extensively used and modified by man for centuries, is a landscape of harmony combining human interaction and settlement with dramatic natural landforms. There has been some earthquake damage to some of the cones and the pillars, but this is seen as a naturally occurring phenomenon. Overuse by tourists and some vandalism have been reported and some incompatible structures have been introduced.

The erosional processes that formed the distinctive conical rock structures will continue to create new fairy chimneys and rock pillars, however due to the rate of this process, the natural values of the property may still be threatened by unsustainable use. The cultural features, including rock-hewn churches and related cultural structures, mainly at risk of being undermined by erosion and other negative natural processes coupled with mass tourism and development pressures, can never be replaced. threats Some of the churches mentioned by early scholars such as C. Texier, H.G. Rott and Guillaume de Jerphanion are no longer extant.

Authenticity

The property meets the conditions of authenticity as its values and their attributes, including its historical setting, form, design, material and workmanship adequately reflect the cultural and natural values recognized in the inscription criteria.

Given the technical difficulties of building in this region, where it is a matter of hewing out structures within the natural rock, creating architecture by the removal of material rather than by putting it together to form the elements of a building, the underlying morphological structure and the difficulties inherent in the handling of the material inhibited the creative impulses of the builders. This conditioning of human effort by natural conditions persisted almost unchanged through successive periods and civilizations, influencing the cultural attitudes and technical skills of each succeeding generation.

Protection and management requirements

The World Heritage property Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia is subject to legal protection in accordance with both the Protection of Cultural and Natural Resources Act No. 2863 and the National Parks Act No. 2873. The entire territory between the cities of Nevşehir, Ürgüp and Avanos is designated as a National Park under the Act No. 2873. In addition, natural, archaeological, urban, and mixed archaeological and natural conservation areas, two underground towns, five troglodyte villages, and more than 200 individual rock-hewn churches, some of which contain numerous frescoes, have been entered into the register of immovable monuments and sites according to the Act No. 2863.

Legal protection, management and monitoring of the Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia fall within the scope of national and regional governmental administrations. The Nevşehir and Kayseri Regional Conservation Councils are responsible for keeping the register of monuments and sites, including carrying out all tasks related to the legal protection of monuments and listed buildings and the approval to carry out any restoration-related works. They also evaluate regional and conservation area plans prepared by the responsible national and/or local (i.e. municipal) authorities.

Studies for revision and updating of the existing land use and conservation plan (Göreme National Park Long-term Development Plan) of 1981 were completed in 2003. The major planning decisions proposed were that natural conservation areas are to be protected as they were declared in 1976. Minor adjustments in the peripheral areas of settlements and spatial developments of towns located in the natural conservation sites including Göreme, Ortahisar, Çavuşin, Ürgüp and Mustafapaşa will be strictly controlled. In other words, the Plan proposes to confine the physical growth of these towns to recently established zones. Hotel developments will take into account the set limits for room capacities. Furthermore, the plan also suggested that local authorities should be advised to review land use decisions for areas that have been reserved for tourism developments in the town plans.

Preparation of conservation area plans for the urban and/or mixed urban-archaeological conservation sites within the historic sections of Göreme are in place and provide zoning criteria and the rules and guidelines to be used in the maintenance and restoration of listed buildings and other buildings which are not registered, but which are located within the historic zones. Similar planning studies for the towns of Ortahisar and Uçhisar are in place. Once finalised, a conservation area plan for the urban conservation area in Ürgüp will be in place. All relevant plans are kept up to date on a continuing basis.

Appropriate facilities aimed at improving the understanding of the World Heritage property have been completed for the subterranean towns of Kaymaklı and Derinkuyu, and are required for Göreme and Paşabağı.

Monuments in danger due to erosion, including the El Nazar, Elmalı, and Meryemana (Virgin Mary) churches, have been listed as monuments requiring priority action. Specific measures for their protection, restoration and maintenance are required at the site level.

While conservation plans and protection measures are in place for individual sites, it is recognised by the principal parties responsible for site management that an integrated Regional Plan for the Cappadocia Cultural and Tourism Conservation and Development Area is required to protect the World Heritage values of the property. Adequate financial, political and technical support is also required to secure the management of the propert

whc.unesco.org/en/list/357

www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/cappadocia/

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

With equal amounts of difficulty as Uneven Bars, Balance Beam also requires competitors have full concentration as they go about their respective Routines. Here we see a competitor attempting an exceedingly difficult element on Balance Beam Routine during a Women's Gymnastics Competition at National Level in the USA.

Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui

Chino Planes Of Fame

The J8M1 was intended to be a licence-built copy of the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet. Difficulties in shipping an example to Japan meant that the aircraft eventually had to be reverse-engineered from a flight operations manual and other limited documentation. A single prototype was tested before the end of World War II.

The Japanese were quite aware of the results of the strategic bombing of Germany, and knew that the B-29 Superfortress would be bombing Japan and the resultant problems which would arise from trying to combat this. Japanese military attachés had become aware of the Komet during a visit to the Bad Zwischenahn airfield of Erprobungskommando 16, the Luftwaffe evaluation squadron charged with service test of the revolutionary rocket-propelled interceptor. They negotiated the rights to licence-produce the aircraft and its Walter HWK 509A rocket engine. The engine license alone cost the Japanese 20 million Reichsmarks.[1]

The agreement was for Germany to provide the following by spring 1944:

Complete blueprints of the Me 163B Komet and the HWK 509A engine.

One complete Komet; two sets of sub-assemblies and components.

Three complete HWK 509A engines.

Inform Japan of any improvements and developments of the Komet.

Allow the Japanese to study the manufacturing processes for both the Komet and the engine.

Allow the Japanese to study Luftwaffe operational procedures for the Komet.

The broken-down aircraft and engine were sent to Kobe, Japan in early 1944. It is probable that the airframe was on the Japanese submarine RO-501 (ex-U-1224), which left Kiel, Germany on 30 March 1944 and was sunk in the mid-Atlantic on 13 May 1944 by the hunter-killer group based on the escort carrier USS Bogue. Plans and engines were on the Japanese submarine I-29, which left Lorient, France on 16 April 1944 and arrived in Singapore on 14 July 1944, later sunk by the submarine USS Sawfish on 26 July 1944, near the Philippines, after leaving Singapore.

The Japanese decided to attempt to copy the Me 163 using a basic instructional manual on the Komet in the hands of naval mission member Commander Eiichi Iwaya who had travelled to Singapore in the I-29 and flown on to Japan when the submarine docked.

From its inception, the project was a joint Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (JAAF)/Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (JNAF) venture. The JAAF wanted a new design to be drawn up. The JNAF, on the other hand, felt the design should mimic the German Komet because it had already proven to be a stable aerodynamic body. It was the JNAF which won and issued the 19-shi specification in July 1944 for the design of the rocket-powered defence fighter. The contract went to Mitsubishi Jukogyo KK, which would produce both the JNAF version the J8M1 Shu-sui and the JAAF version Ki-200.

The project was headed by Mijiro Takahashi. The JAAF, however decided to undertake their own design to meet the 19-shi specifications, working at their Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) in secret.

At the 1st Naval Air Technical Arsenal in Yokosuka, in association with Mitsubishi and Yokosuka Arsenal, work began to adapt the Walter HWK 509A engine to Japanese manufacturing capabilities and techniques. This was also where efforts were underway to produce a glider version of the J8M to provide handling data. While working on this glider, the MXY8 Akigusa (??, "Autumn Grass"), Mitsubishi completed a mock-up of the J8M1 in September 1944.

Both the JAAF and JNAF approved its design and construction and a prototype was built. In December 1944, the MXY8 was completed and, on 8 December 1944, at the Hyakurigahara Airfield, Lieutenant-Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka took the controls of the MXY8. Once in the air, Inuzuka found the MXY8 almost perfectly emulated the handling characteristics of the Komet. Two additional MXY8 gliders were constructed in the naval yard at Yokosuka, one being delivered to the Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) at Tachikawa for evaluation. The JNAF initiated the construction another prototype, production designation Ku-13. This was to use water ballast to simulate the weight of an operational J8M complete with engine and weapons. This variant was to be built by Maeda Aircraft Institute, while the JAAF version was to be constructed by Yokoi Koku KK (Yoki Aircraft Co). The JNAF also proposed a more advanced trainer, designated the MXY9 Shu-ka (??, "Autumn Fire") which would be powered by a 441 lbf (1.96 kN) thrust Tsu-11 ducted-fan engine. The war, however, ended before this model could be built.

Mitsubishi and partners Nissan and Fuji proceeded with development of the airframe and Yokosuka Arsenal was adapting the engine for Japanese production, designated the Ro.2. The Japanese succeeded in producing prototypes that outwardly looked very much similar to the Komet. The J8M1 had a wet weight that was 900 lb (410 kg) lighter, the aircraft having a plywood main spar and wooden vertical tail. The designers had also dispensed with the armoured glass in the cockpit and the aircraft carried less ammunition and slightly less fuel.

The Ki-200 and the J8M1 differed only in minor items, but the most obvious difference was the JAAF's Ki-200 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Type 5 cannon (with a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 2,350 ft/s (720 m/s), while the J8M1 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-105 cannon (rate of fire 400 rounds per minute, muzzle velocity 2,460 ft/s (750 m/s). The Ho-105 was the lighter of the two and both offered a higher velocity than the MK 108 cannon of the Me 163 (whose muzzle velocity was 1,705 ft/s (520 m/s). The Toko Ro.2 (KR10) rocket motor did not offer the same thrust rating as the original, and Mitsubishi calculated that the lighter weight of the J8M1 would not offset this. Performance would not be as good as that of the Komet, but was still substantial.[2]

The engine still used the German propellants of T-Stoff oxidizer and C-Stoff fuel (hydrogen peroxide/methanol-hydrazine), known in Japan as Ko and Otsu respectively.

A total of 60 of the training version (Ku-13, Ki-13, MXY-8, MXY-9) were produced by Yokosuka, Yokoi[disambiguation needed] and Maeda[disambiguation needed]. Seven of the operational version (J8M1/Ki-200) were built by Mitsubishi.

Operational history

J8M-17[clarification needed]

In 8 January 1945, one of the two J8M1 prototypes was towed aloft, water ballast added in place of the fuel tank and rocket engine to test its aerodynamics. The test flights confirmed the design. Training courses for JAAF and JNAF pilots began on the Ku-53 glider, which shared a similar configuration to the J8M1. The 312th Naval Air Group was selected to operate the first J8M1. Mitsubishi, Fuji Hikoki, and Nissan Jidosha all had tooling for mass production well into the advanced stages, ready to produce both the J8M1 and the J8M2 variant, which differed from the J8M1 in sacrificing one of the Type 5 cannon for a small increase in fuel capacity. The first J8M1 prototype to be equipped with the Toko Ro.2 (KR10) was ready in June 1945. They were then transferred from the Nagoya plant to Yokoku for final checks before powered flight testing, after final glide tests with the engine installed.

The J8M took to the air for its first powered flight on 7 July 1945,[3] with Lieutenant Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka at the controls; after his "sharp start" rocket-powered takeoff, Inuzuka successfully jettisoned the dolly upon becoming airborne and began to gain speed, climbing skywards at a 45° angle. At an altitude of 396 m (1,300 ft), the engine stopped abruptly and the J8M1 stalled. Inuzuka managed to glide the aircraft back, but clipped a small building at the edge of the airfield while trying to land, causing the aircraft to burst into flames. Inuzuka died the next day.[4] While Mitsubishi and naval technicians sought to find the cause of the accident, all future flights were grounded. The engine cutout had occurred because the angle of climb, coupled with the fuel tanks being half-filled for this first flight, caused a shifting of the fuel, which in turn caused an auto cutout device to activate because of an air lock in the fuel line. Requests to continue flight testing were denied pending the modification of the fuel pumps in the aircraft. The sixth and seventh prototypes were to be fitted with the modified Ro.2 engine.

Full scale production readiness was almost at hand and in fact, component construction was already underway. Flight testing was to resume, despite another explosion of the fuel mixture during a ground test days after the crash, in late August 1945 and the J8M2 design was finalized. But on 15 August 1945, the war ended for the Japanese and all work on the J8M ceased. The end of the war also spelled the end of the JAAF's Ki-202 Shu-sui-Kai (Modified Shusui), whose design had begun in secret months before. The Ki-202 was to offer improved flight endurance over the Ki-200 and was slated to be the priority fighter for the JAAF in 1946, but no metal was cut before Japan's surrender.

Germany tried to send another Komet in U-864, but the submarine was sunk near Bergen by British submarine HMS Venturer in February 1945.

Variants

J8M1

J8M2 Shu-sui Model 21(?)

Long-range version for Navy, identical to J8M1, but armament reduced to a single 30 mm (1.18 in) cannon.

J8M3 Shu-sui Model 22 (Rikugun Ki-202 Shu-sui-kai)

Long-range version for Army and Navy, with fuselage and wingspan lengthened to 7.10 m (23 ft 3 in) and 9.75 m (32 ft 0 in) respectively. Powered by 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) Tokuro-3, projected maximum speed 900 km/h (560 mph).

Yokosuka MXY-8 "Akigusa" (Yokoi Ku-13)

Training glider using J8M airframe for Navy and Army.

Yokosuka MXY-9 "Shuka"

Training version using J8M airframe, powered by Tsu-11 thermojet engine.

Operators

Japan

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service

Survivors

The J8M1 at the Planes of Fame Museum.

In November 1945, two aircraft were taken from Yokosuka to the United States for evaluation aboard USS Barnes. FE-300/T2-300 (USA ident) (Japanese ident 403) is now exhibited at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. The other was at NAS Glenview in October 1946 (identity unknown), but was scrapped.

In the 1960s, a nearly complete (but badly damaged) fuselage was discovered in a cave in Japan. This was on display at a Japanese Air Self Defense Forces base near Gifu until 1999, when it was restored and completed by Mitsubishi for display in the company's internal Komaki Plant Museum.[5]

Specifications (J8M1/Ki-200)

Data from [6]

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 6.03 m (19 ft 9 in) ;;;Ki 200

5.88 m (19 ft)

Wingspan: 9.47 m (31 ft 1 in)

Height: 2.68 m (8 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 17.72 m2 (190.7 sq ft) ;;;Ki 200

17.69 m2 (190.41 sq ft)

Empty weight: 1,445 kg (3,186 lb) ;;;Ki 200

1,505 kg (3,318 lb)

J8M2

1,510 kg (3,329 lb)

Gross weight: 3,000 kg (6,614 lb) ;;;J8M2

3,650 kg (8,047 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 3,870 kg (8,532 lb) ;;;J8M2

3,900 kg (8,598 lb)

Fuel capacity: ;;;Ko

1,181 l (260 imp gal) (T-Stoff = 80% Hydrogen Peroxide + 20% Oxyquinoline and Pyrophosphates)

O-tsu

522 l (115 imp gal) (C-Stoff = 30% Hydrazine Hydrate + 70% Methanol, Water and Potassium-Copper Cyanides)

Powerplant: 1 × Toku Ro.2 a.k.a. KR10 liquid-fuelled rocket engine, 14.71 kN (3,307 lbf) thrust

Performance

Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph; 486 kn) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft)

Cruising speed: 699 km/h (434 mph; 377 kn) ;;;Ki 200

351 km/h (218 mph)

Stall speed: 150 km/h (93 mph; 81 kn)

Endurance: ;;;J8M1

5 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight

Ki 200

max - 7 minutes, full throttle - 2 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight,

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

Rate of climb: 50 m/s (9,800 ft/min)

Time to altitude: ;;;J8M1

2,000 m (6,562 ft) in 40 seconds

4,000 m (13,123 ft) in 2 minutes 8 seconds

8,000 m (26,247 ft) in 3 minutes 8 seconds

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 50 seconds

Ki 200

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 40 seconds

Wing loading: 219.22 kg/m² (44.90 lb/sq ft) ;;;J8M2

219.7kg/m² (44.998 lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 0.388

Armament

Guns: ;;;J8M1

2x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds per gun

J8M2

1x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds

Ki 200

2x Ho-155 30mm cannon or 2x Type 5 30mm cannon

Source Wikipedia

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

EXPLORE : August 1, 2008 # 413

(Highest position)

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

Make your dream comes true...

Determining to reach your goal...

Never give up when facing hardship..

Devoting your whole self to fight...

The difficulties would turn aside...

By the power of strong mind...

If you fear that your sun is dying...

And you need the strength to keep trying...

I will reach out and take your hand :-)..

Like the sun that keep on shining...

My best wishes and love for you will always be remaining :-)..

Have a great Sunday and sweet dream tonight! :-)..

I will always send you nice sunshine, sweet smile and warm love from Thailand, my Dearest :-)..

Ich liebe dich..I LOVE YOU now and forever...

J-A-S-M-I-N-E..

A little pretty girl in Thailand..

Chonburi Province, Thailand

on the telly.

Had some difficulties with diverticulitis (damn awful pain.OUCH!) earlier in the week, so it was a broth diet for a few days... but I'm all better now (thanks Dr. Hartenstein!) so I fixed this for dinner last night, yay!

What it is:

4 ounces of cheap ass steak (forget the cut)

Delicious fried Brussel sprouts

Delectable mashed cauliflower (you've got to try it to believe it, Flickr mail me if you want the how-to)

Some low carb bread 1-minute bread and a spinach salad.

Soooo good!

Have a great week ahead my friends!

difficulty: very easy!

School bus junkyard in Alto, GA.

www.sussmanimaging.com

Follow Sussman Imaging on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sussmanimaging

National Express SR136 (FJ12 FYL) is helped to back off the bus stop at Woking station by a member of South West Trains staff (wearing a National Express hi-viz the driver had lent him!).

It was unable to depart forwards and drive around the front of the car park as there had been a collision.

Station Approach, Woking railway station, Woking, Surrey.

While I was re-reading (aloud this time to Ontario Wanderer),

"One of the difficulties with talking to the very old was that one always underestimated their awareness_and their sense of humour.The mind so often outlasted the body: ..."

An incredibly loud crash interrupted the reading. We went to one of the eastern windows and saw two floors down, the body of a yellow-shafted flickr, its wings outspread. OW thought it was dead but noticed a movement. Was it a death throw?

I had read within recent memory what to do when a bird came crashing into a window: pick up the bird and cover it with a soft cloth or towel, place it in a box and leave in a closet for a couple of hours. The idea of keeping it in the dark was to prevent swelling of its brain.

I got a clean soft rag (a thin cotton shirt of mine) and my camera. One quick photo:no movement detected. Then I layed the cloth on. It seemed very little so I went back inside and got a cut-open cotton sock and layed it over the other cloth. I had no box so there was no question of bringing it in. On second thought, I thought some protection was needed from a wandering cat. I inverted a small empty garbage can over it.

Hoping for the best, we went back to our reading:

"The mindso often outlasted the body: he had seen it on a hundred death-beds: one could accept it as a blessing of God, or a cruel jest, or as some absolute guarantee that the sould would outlive the flesh, if only for a few heartbeats, which meant for eternity.

He had always remembered, for ever afterwards, his very first death_that was how he had phrased it, as with trembling hands and the great doubt of a novice he had anointed the lips of an old woman slipping away from life as if from a family party which had gone on long enough. He knew her to be eighty-five years old, and himself sixty years younger.

He had thought that she was already dead, so calm was the grey-white face, so peaceful and relaxed the wasted body after months of pain. Then the anointed lips had opened, andhe bent his head to hear what she might say. Some holy thought?_some last confession?_some confused memory of a life of travail? Not so...

Her eyes remained shut, but her lips were smiling. 'You did that very well... for a young chap...'

On which brave and blessed farewell, she died.

At that moment he knwe that he had lost a friend, and gained an advocate in heaven. After twenty years, he still prayed for the soul of one Anna Caruna, of the village of Santa Lucia beyond Tarxien: mother of eight, daughter of God, teacher of courage to the very threshold."

Nicholas Monsarrat, The Kapillan of Malta (1973)

Ontario Wanderer had a commitment, and he worried that the air would grow to warm on this sunny & yet cool morning. So I offered that we go have a look though it had only been an hour or so, since the bird had flown into the window at great speed.

I tilted the garbage can back, and before we had time to reach down and lift the cloths, the flicker flew up and away with strong and rapid wing beats.

Our worst fears had vanished as the woodpecker had, and left us with jubilant hearts!

In Ithaca, Penelope was having difficulties. Her husband had been gone for twenty years, and she did not know for sure whether he was alive or dead. She was beset with numerous men who thought that a (fairly) young widow and queen of a small but tidy kingdom was a great prize: they pestered her to declare Odysseus dead and choose a new husband from among them. Meanwhile, these suitors hung around the palace, ate her food, drank her wine, and consorted with several of her maidservants. Penelope was despondent by her husband's long absence and especially the mystery about his fate. He could come home at any time — or never. Temporizing, she fended them off for years, using stalling tactics that were wearing thin. Meanwhile, Odysseus' mother, Anticlea, had died of grief; and his father, Laërtes, was nearly so.

Odysseus arrived alone. Upon landing, he was disguised as an old man or a beggar by Athena, and was welcomed by his old swineherd, Eumaeus, who did not recognize him but still treated him well. Odysseus' faithful dog Argos was the first to recognize him in his rags; he had waited twenty years to see his master. Aged and decrepit, he did his best to wag his tail, but Odysseus did not want to be found out, and had to maintain his cover, so the weary dog died in peace. The first human to recognize him was his old wet nurse, Euryclea, who knew him well enough to see through the rags, recognizing him by an old scar on his leg received when hunting boar with Iphitus. His son Telemachus didn't see through the disguise, but Odysseus revealed his identity to him.

Odysseus learned that Penelope had remained faithful to him. She pretended to weave a burial shroud for Odysseus' father, Laërtes, and claimed she would choose one suitor when she finished. Every day she wove a length of shroud, and every night she unwove the same length of shroud, until one day a maid of hers betrayed this secret to the suitors and they demanded that she finally choose one of them to be her new husband. When Odysseus arrived to his house, disguised as a beggar, he sat in the hall and observed the suitors, and was repeatedly humiliated by them.

Still in his disguise, Odysseus went to Penelope and told her that he had met Odysseus and told a tale of how Odysseus was a brave solider and bragged about himself. Penelope, still unknowing of this beggar's identity, started to cry in hearing of her husband. Penelope went to the suitors and said whoever can string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through 12 axe-handles, would marry her. This was to Odysseus' advantage, as only he could string his own bow. (It is believed that Odysseus' bow was a composite bow, requiring great skill and leverage to string, rather than mere brute strength.) Penelope then announced what Odysseus had said.

The suitors each tried to string the bow, but in vain. Odysseus then took the bow, strung it, lined up twelve axe-handles, and shot an arrow through all twelve. Athena then took off his disguise and, with the help of his son Telemachus, a cattleherd, and Eumaeus, the swineherd, Odysseus killed all. Antinous is the first of the suitors to be killed, being slain by an arrow to the throat by Odysseus in the Great Hall while drinking. At first, Odysseus shot as many as he could with his bow, but when out of arrows he reached for spears. Caught by surprise and unarmed by Telemachus, the suitors were easy prey, but later on during the conflict they started arming themselves. This, however, did not save their lives.

When all the suitors were killed, the goatherd Melanthius, who had provided the suitors with arms but had been strung up by Eumaeus, was taken into the courtyard where his nose, ears, hands and feet were cut off, and his genitals pulled out and fed to the dogs. Telemachus hung the female servants who were availing themselves to the suitors.

Penelope, still not quite sure that the beggar was indeed her husband, tested him. She ordered her maid to make up Odysseus' bed and move it from their bedchamber into the hall outside his room. Odysseus was initially furious when he heard this because one of the bed posts was made from a living olive tree - he himself had designed it this way, and thus it could not be moved unless done by a god; he told her this, and since only Odysseus and Penelope knew this, Penelope accepted that he was her husband. She came running to him, hoping that he would forgive her. He forgave her, because he could understand why she had tested him and because he had passed the test.

To avenge the death of his son Antinous, his father Eupeithes tried to kill Odysseus. Laërtes killed him, and Athena thereafter required the suitors' families and Odysseus to make peace; this ends the story of the Odyssey.

Odysseus had been told (by the shade of Tiresias) that he had one more journey to make after he had re-established his rule in Ithaca and also that his death would come from the sea and would be peaceful and pleasant.

Coachwork by Touring Superleggera

By the end of the 1950s Maserati was facing a bleak future. Its parent company's financial difficulties forced a withdrawal from racing, and Maserati's survival strategy henceforth centred on establishing the company as a producer of road cars. The Modena marque's new era began in 1957 with the launch of the Touring Superleggera-bodied 3500 GT, its first road car built in significant numbers. A luxury 2+2, the 3500GT drew on Maserati's competition experience. A tubular chassis frame was used and the suspension was independent at the front by wishbones and coil springs, while at the back there was a conventional live axle/semi-elliptic arrangement. The 3500 GT's designer was none other than Giulio Alfieri, creator of the immortal Tipo 60/61 'Birdcage' sports-racer and the man responsible for developing the 250F into a World Championship winner. The twin-overhead-camshaft, six-cylinder engine was a close relative of that used in the 250F and developed around 220 bhp initially, later examples producing 235 bhp on Lucas mechanical fuel injection. Built initially with drum brakes and four-speed transmission, the 3500 GT was progressively updated, gaining five speeds, front disc brakes and, finally, all-disc braking. By the time the 3500GT was discontinued in 1964, around 2,200 of all types had been made.

The 2nd Series example offered here represents the pinnacle of the model's development, leaving the factory equipped with the five-speed ZF gearbox, twin-plug ignition, and Lucas mechanical fuel injection, hence the name change to '3500 GTI', the first time the now common 'GTI' appellation had ever been used. Chassis number '2716' was delivered new to Gianvico Saccardo of Schio near Vicenza, Italy, a local industrialist. Prominent collectors of historic vehicles, Gianvico and his brother, Gianluigi, were founders of the Monza Italian Bugatti Register. Saccardo's Maserati was subsequently exported to New England, USA where it has spent most of its life. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, the former Massachusetts Senator and Republican Vice Presidential Candidate in 1960, is believed to have been its second owner. During the 1970s, Cabot Lodge served occasionally as US envoy to the Holy See in Rome, and it is believed that he imported the car from Italy to the USA.

Since his death in 1985, the Maserati has had four owners: Anthony D Paglia (1986-1998), John Drew (1998-2003), Christopher Derricott (2003-2014), and the current vendor. Mr Drew commissioned Spencer Restorations of Natick, Massachusetts to carry out a comprehensive restoration. Completed in 2003, the latter included a mechanical rebuild, bare-metal re-spray, and a full interior re-trim in the original colour. Borrani wire wheels, a stainless steel exhaust system, and polished stainless steel bumpers and trim were fitted at the same time. The quality of this restoration has been recognised at the Lars Anderson 'Tutto Italiano' meeting in Massachusetts, where '2716' won the 'Best Maserati in Show' award on each occasion it was entered following the restoration.

During Mr Derricott's ownership in the UK, the restoration process was extended to include all mechanicals including the engine, transmission, brakes, and suspension together with an overhaul of the electrical components and installation of a new wiring loom. These works were undertaken by two specialist companies: Prestige Restoration and CGP Auto Engineers, and there are related invoices on file totalling some £ 76.000 (approximately € 91.000). The total spent between July 2010 and July 2014 was in excess of £85,700 (approximately € 102.600).

It should be noted that this car is equipped with a non-original but correct Maserati 3500 GT engine that has been re-stamped with the original's number. It is fitted with three Weber 42 DCOE carburettors, a common upgrade considered superior to the original Lucas fuel injection system.

Accompanying paperwork consists of a Maserati Certificate of Origin; copies of the original factory documentation; and all restoration invoices relating to works carried out in both the USA and UK. Offered with a UK V5C registration document and current MoT certificate, this beautiful Maserati would make a stunning addition to any private collection.

Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais

Bonhams

Sold for € 178.250

Estimated : € 180.000 - 220.000

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2017

A little difficulty getting this shot as I was told by a lady leaving an establishment nearby that I had strayed 20 yards across the grass from the public footpath and was now on private land. Definitely a jobs-worth experience!

Pentax K-3

Tamron 17-50mm

Hoya ND400 9 stop filter

Aperture ƒ/16.0

Focal length 17.0 mm

Shutter 10 secs

ISO 100

www.eldavephoto.com/2014/04/technical-difficulties-2/

DESCRIPTION

The difficulty of making and cutting through soft meringue in this classic bar has been eliminated ! Try this variation and see.

INGREDIENTS

1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated sugar cookies

1 cup lemon curd (from 11 1/4- to 12-oz jar)

1 package (3 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup marshmallow creme

1 container (6 oz) Yoplait® Original 99% Fat Free French vanilla yogurt

1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed

DIRECTIONS

1.Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9-inch pan with shortening or cooking spray. In pan, break up cookie dough. With floured fingers, press dough evenly in bottom of pan to form crust.

2.Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are golden brown and center is set. Cool 30 minutes.

3.Spread lemon curd over cooled crust. In large bowl, beat cream cheese, marshmallow creme and yogurt with wooden spoon until well blended. Fold in whipped topping. Spread over lemon curd, swirling to resemble meringue topping. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until serving time. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Store in refrigerator.

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change.

The B-32 Dominator was produced by Consolidated Aircraft in parallel with Boeings development of the B-29 Superfortress. While both of these long-range heavy strategic bomber development programs encountered some difficulties, the B-29 was completed sooner, and was ordered in far larger quantities than the B-32. About one hundred Dominators were ultimately built and the aircraft saw some service very late in WW II. Powered by the same engines as the B-29, the B-32 had a distinctive very tall stabilizer. Four B-32s from the 386th BS of the 312th BG based at Yontan, Okinawa were given a three-day photoreconnaissance mission near the end of the War. On the third day of the mission, August 18, 1945, two aircraft were forced to turn back and only two aircraft, the Hobo Queen and the Hobo Queen II made it to Japan. The mission involved photographing an area north and east of Tokyo. The aircraft were unescorted, as the War was for all practical purposes over. As the two aircraft prepared to head home they were jumped by a large group of Japanese fighters including Imperial Navy A6M2 Zeros and Army Ki44 Tojos. The first attacks occurred at 1:30 PM while the aircraft were at 20,000 feet. The enemy planes made ten passes on the Hobo Queen II with little or no damage. About twenty-five passes were made at the Hobo Queen, which was under the command of Lt. John R. Anderson. Seven passes were made at the tail of the B-32 and one of the attackers blew-up. One fighter pass was made at the ball turret from below with no success, and another six were made at the forward upper turret. About six more were made at the nose turret position, and several more at the upper rear turret. Another enemy fighter blew up, and a third was seen going down smoking. The pilots went to full mix and full throttle and power-dived the B-32 from 20,000 to 10,000 feet. The Hobo Queen absorbed a lot of damage during these attacks. The radioman got the Hobo Queen II to regroup with the badly damaged Hobo Queen to provide some cover. Three men were wounded including Sgt. Anthony J. Marchione, SSgt. Joseph M. Lacharite, and Sgt. John T. Houston. Marchione and Lacharite were at the camera hatch at the rear of the aircraft when that section of the plane was riddled. Both men were hit. Despite his own wounds, SSgt. Lacharite began administering first aid to Marchione, but a second fighter pass wounded Marchione again. Despite the valiant efforts of his crewmates to keep him alive, Marchione passed away at 2:00PM. Sgt. Marchione may have been the last USAAF combat casualty of the War. SSgt. Chevalier administered first aid to SSgt. Lacharite during the long ride home. Despite being unable to bank his aircraft due a feathered prop, Lt. Anderson got the Hobo Queen down successfully.

Well that's a big fail. I started this project 1 year ago, and to my disappointment I found out my meager amount of 156 photos out of the total 365 that were to be taken. This really made me feel sad. I felt terrible. I started this project to bring the love and joy of Legos and photography together. My study life has kept me so busy because of my country's curriculum. It makes it so hard to come back after the day ends to take a picture and edit, with exams one after the other and continuous non stop homework. I'm sorry about that. So I'll be continuing this project until it finishes (asap) so we can end happily and start another great one. Thanks to you all for your continued support. You guys rock, and I still wouldn't be doing this if you weren't there to see my work. You came to see my work, and I shall deliver. No promise breaking this time. I promise. :-)

Another bus I have had distinct difficulty in capturing is 436. Here it trundles down Old Steine towards the Bus lane

Now you know that i love exploring SL as i do in RL when i m traveling in France or in other countries. It is always bringing me into new adventures, experiences and meeting. Of course they are not always outstanding not positives ...But i am open minded it is how i live my life accepting also the difficulties. Anyway on friday my suprised has been very good as i was walking alone under the grey sky full of snow ...i let you discovering it.

Thanks so much Ewta for this amazing afternoon !!!

After our lunch at Mt Difficulty we went up the Felton Road to Felton Road Winery. March 6, 2014 Central Otago, Bannockburn, South Island, New Zealand.

Felton Road Winery. is situated on warm, north facing slopes of glacial loess soils in Bannockburn, in the heart of Central Otago. The modern gravity fed winery receives 100% estate grown fruit from its three vineyards that are all farmed biodynamically and are fully certified by Demeter. Minimal intervention in the winemaking with such practices as wild yeast, no fining or filtration, allow the unique vineyard characters to further express their considerable personality.

Since the first vintage in 1997, Felton Road has acquired a formidable worldwide reputation.

Zero waste By-products:

Winery waste is, probably more than any other substance, lees. Lees are a mixture of sediments left over from winemaking, and consist mainly of dead yeast and tartaric and malic acid. It isn’t particularly hostile stuff, but acids are a problem in any waste system, so winery waste management systems are designed to deal with this mixture. It takes a lot of money to build a waste management system and a lot of energy to run it so, in a perfect world, we’d do without one. But is it possible to do that? We have demonstrated that it is. Our solution is simple: don’t throw anything away. Nothing whatsoever goes down our drains unless we have failed to find a better use for it. And since almost all waste has some form of value, there is a better use out there. Lees, for example, get separated into fine lees (the more liquid stuff) and the solid gunk. The solids are composted. It might be tricky to compost something this acidic for some wineries, but as we make well over 100 tonnes of compost a year anyway, the lees solids are literally a drop in the manure heap. That leaves the more liquid stuff to deal with. Each year it goes to a beautiful wood fired copper still and is distilled into “Fine”: the term for brandy distilled from wine lees. Roughly a thousand litres of lees yields about 100 litres of wonderful brandy. After 5 years of aging in French oak using a “solera” type system, it is ready to bottle.

What better way to recycle something that most regard as an industrial waste product?

Taken from and for more info: www.nzwine.com/winery/felton-road/

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

At the end of WW2, Sweden was in search of a new fighter offering better performance than the J21 could offer. The latter was an indigenous fighter/attack aircraft from SAAB that first took to the air in 1943 and dated back to a requirement from 1941. The J21 was designed as an unusual twin boom pusher configuration, where the propeller was mounted in the rear of the fuselage, pushing the aircraft forward. The advantages of a pusher design were that the view forward was unobstructed and armament could be concentrated in the nose, while the heavy engine was placed close to the center of gravity for better handling and agility. A major drawback was the difficulty in escaping from the aircraft in an emergency, though, as the pilot could get drawn into the propeller blades. SAAB deliberated between systems that would eject the pilot, or jettison the propeller or even the whole engine, via a system of explosive bolts, and eventually installed an early, explosives-powered ejector seat developed by Bofors for this purpose.

However, the SAAB 21 had its share of trouble (overheating an unreliable DB 605 engine), and in 1944 a new requirement for a more powerful and conventional fighter was issued. Selecting the Rolls Royce Griffon as the powerplant, SAAB initially looked into adapting the engine to the J21. However, this proved impractical, so SAAB started work on a clean-sheet design.

The last J27A was, after serving with fighter units primarily in southern Sweden, already retired from frontline duties in 1955. Some aircraft, though, were kept in service as target tugs, liaison aircraft for the air staff and for dissimilar air combat training. The last machine was finally decommissioned in summer 1961.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 9.90 m (32 ft 5 in)

Wingspan: 11.84 m (38 ft 9 1/2 in)

Height: 4.19 (13 ft 9 in)

Wing area: 22.2 m² (238.87 ft²)

Empty weight: 3,250 kg (7,165 lb)

Loaded weight: 4,150 kg (9,149 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 4,413 kg (9,730 lb)

Powerplant:

1× license-built Rolls-Royce Griffon 83 liquid-cooled V-12 engine, 2,340 hp (1,745 kW),

driving a six-bladed contraprop

Performance:

Maximum speed: 435 mph (700 km/h) at 20,000 ft (6,100 m)

Cruise speed: 495 km/h (265 knots, 308 mph)

Range: 1,100 mi (1,770 km)

Service ceiling: 40,000 ft (12,190 m)

Rate of climb: 3,800 ft/min (19.3 m/s)

Armament:

4× 20 mm Bofors cannon (license-built Hispano Mk.II cannon) with 200 rpg in the outer wings

Underwing hardpoints for 8-12 × 3inch "60 lb" rocket projectiles

or 2× 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs

or a pair of 45 gal (205 l) or 90 gal (409 l) drop tanks.

The kit and its assembly:

This is a “real” what-if model, or at least the attempt to build a phantom aircraft from single parts! The SAAB 27 is a bit of a mystery, because valid information is sparse, especially concerning details about its shape. You find some drawings or profiles, but IMHO these are based on guesswork and rather vague. The J27 is frequently described as a “Swedish Spitfire with a P-51 radiator” or a “Swedish Super-Spitfire”, but that leaves much to be desired, because the similarity is only superficial. Hence, this model here is rather a free interpretation of what a service J27 could have looked like.

For long time I fought with two building options: either convert a Fairey Firefly (Airfix’ Mk. 5 would have been my bet), or use a Spitfire Mk. 22. After long considerations I settled for the latter one, because I feared that the Firefly would result in a rather massive aircraft, and the Airfix kit itself is vintage and worth a building fight on its own.

So I used an Airfix Spitfire Mk. 22, but from this (very nice!) kit just a few things were taken, because I wanted a more individual look. Only the fuselage, cockpit interior and landing gear survived, and I even inserted a 2.5mm wide “wedge plug” around the cockpit and wedge-shaped inserts at the fuselage halves’ seams in order to add some beef to the sleek (if not spindly) Spitfire. I think it’s hard to notice, but the overall proportions look good. At the tail and the front end, the original fuselage width was kept, though.

Reason behind this was the P-51 radiator’s width (leftover from a Matchbox kit) that was considerably wider than the Spitfire fuselage. Furthermore, the thicker/more massive wings from a P-47 (from an early MPM kit) also called for a more massive body.

For the new wings, some adaptations to the Spitfire wing roots had to be made, though, e.g. a bulged mid-wing section under the fuselage. The Thunderbolt parts also had the benefit of wells for a landing gear that retracts inwards. I also used P-47 landing gear parts, even though the struts were shortened at their bases by 3mm and the covers accordingly. For the sake of a different look (the Spitfire wheels are very characteristic) I used different main wheels from a Revell G.91R. The landing gear cover arrangement differs from J27 sketches (as far as I can tell, it must have been similar to the P-51's), but I stuck with the P-47 parts because they match well with the rest of the aircraft.

The contraprop belongs to a late mark Seafire, left over from a Special Hobby kit. The propeller was in so far modified that I added a metal axis and a styrene tube adapter for the fuselage, so that both propeller parts can (theoretically) spin. OOB, the Special Hobby solution is simply to be glued onto the nose, fixed, despite being constructed in two separate parts?

Furthermore, the carburetor intake was changed: the Spitfire’s scoop at the wings’ leading edge was replace by a Firefly-style lip intake right behind the propeller.

The whole tail section was reconditioned, too. Descriptions of the J27’s tail are corny, but “more square than a Spitfire’s”. Instead of simple cosmetic surgery I thoroughly replaced the OOB fin with a Supermarine Attacker’s (Novo kit) with some mods to the outline, which fits well in size and is …more square!

The new tail is a bit taller and has a fin fillet, making it look very P-51-ish, but that’s O.K. for me. At least it’s different from the round Spitfire shape.

I also exchanged the stabilizers, the round Spitfire parts gave way to differently shaped pieces from a Hobby Boss La-7. Their shape is similar to a P-47’s, but they are smaller and match J27 illustrations well.

The canopy was also changed. Through the widened fuselage around the cockpit the tight OOB Spitfire hood would hardly match, anyway. The bubble layout remained, and I adapted a bigger Matchbox P-51 canopy to the new fuselage contours, and moved forward as far as possible.

Painting and markings:

The Swedish Air Force as operator was settled, as well as early post-WWII markings. But I did not want the standard, uniform olive green/blue grey livery, so I painted the upper surfaces with camouflage scheme made from two green tones: a medium green tone (Humbrol 102, Army Green, ~FS 34096) and a bluish, dark green (Humbrol 91, RLM 70 equivalent), applied in bands – somewhat inspired by a scheme carried by some SAAB 32 Lansen in the early 60ies.

The underside was kept in the typical Swedish blue-grey, for which I used Humbrol 87. The waterline was placed very low so that the upper camouflage was also taken to the radiator flanks under the fuselage and wings.

The cockpit was painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 32), while the landing gear and the wells were kept in Aluminum (Humbrol 56).

As a 2nd squadron machine, the code letter became blue, as well as the two-part spinner, latter’s paint was mixed, based on the squadron code letter decal’s tone on the tail.

The roundels and the 'R' codes come from an RBD Studio aftermarket sheet from Sweden, further decals like the yellow ‘9’ code, the squadron’s ‘Bonzo’ dog mascot emblem as well as most stencils come from a Heller SAAB 21.

A complex build, yet the model aircraft looks so innocent… Anyway, the goal was IMHO achieved: this J27 model just looks like a “Swedish Spitfire with a P-51 radiator”, and at first glance you cannot be certain if this is a modified Griffon Spitfire or a P-51D. Both is true, to a certain degree, but also not correct, because the changes are more fundamental and the wings are completely different from either. So, the mission’s been accomplished. ;)

And I feel inclined to tackle a J23, too, a Bf109/P-51B design hybrid that was designed as a conservative alternative to the pusher J21.