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Level-headedness, a steady hand, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the trade are standard skills employed by engineers. For our Switchblade, however, these attributes are mere child’s play: she first showed her mechanical bent in infancy, when to amuse herself during her long naptime hours she would routinely dismantle the mobile that hung above her crib and reassemble it in more interesting formations. As a child, she dismissed the pinafores that were standard attire for young ladies of the age in favor of a far more practical pair of coveralls, in which she was accustomed to trot down to the local mechanic’s shop, where the proprietor reluctantly allowed the girl to watch him at his trade.
By the time she came of age, Switchblade was far from the village of her birth, designing improved navigation systems for submarines during the Great War. With her heavy tool belt rattling at her hips and a socket wrench most often clenched between her teeth, the young Engineer soon garnered a reputation for taciturnity, though her shipmates could attest to her eloquence in defending her opinions, political and otherwise, in the cabin below deck over cups of strong Russian tea.
Though she loved her life beneath the sea, a difference of ethical conviction led our intrepid Engineer to take her talents beyond the roving waves. Within the ranks of the Pastime Athletic Club, Switchblade proves her mettle daily through her inventions, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. Never before has one of our own been so unconditionally deft with ratchet, knife, and compass, nor designed such foolproof mechanisms as to defy the most doggedly curious investigators.
Directions for making a gluten free chocolate coconut flour cake. This recipe is available at the Free Coconut Recipes website.
This is an exposed and undeveloped Kodak Instamatic 126 Kodacolor VR film cartridge.
The 126 format (originally marketed as "Kodapak") was introduced in 1963, and was meant as a foolproof system for loading, taking pictures and unloading film. The drop-and-load design of the film cartridge meant that the photographer did not have to worry about improperly loading the film. The light tight design of the film cartridge and lack of a rewind mechanism allowed Kodak to design cameras that were simpler and with fewer parts.
126 film is basically 828 rollfilm housed in a plastic cartridge. Kodak had introduced the 828 format in 1935, but it never became popular primarily because most cameras that used 828 were low-end, compact point-and-shoots. 126 film is the same width as 35mm film, but featured pre-exposed frames with lines and numbers intended to make printing and viewing the negative easier. With a little ingenuity, regular 35mm film can be fitted into an empty 126 film cartridge (See link below)
The 126 film cartridge consisted of four main components: the outer two-part plastic shell, which contained the protective numbered paper, the film and the take-up spool. Each frame on the film contained a single sprocket hole which would trigger a leaver to let the shutter mechanism know that the film had been advanced one full frame. The cartridge even contained notches to help the camera detect the film speed and adjust the shutter speed accordingly, although very few 126 cameras had this feature.
Although 126 was popular among armature photographers in the 1960s and 70s, the format never caught on with professional photographers for a number of reasons. Professional photographers did not like the idea of using a film cartridge and did not care of the square orientation of the 126 film frame. Also nearly all 126 cameras produced were simple point-and-shoots, often with fixed shutter speeds, fixed focus and fixed apertures. The fact that majority of 126 camera were plastic and on the junky side, and offered very few features deterred professional photographers even more from adopting the format. Also, 126 had a reputation for sometimes producing rather dull looking pictures. However, this was not the fault of the film itself, but rather the low quality lenses that Kodak often used in their cheaper 126 camera models.
Kodak stopped manufacturing 126 cameras in 1989, and eventually ceased producing 126 film in 1999. However, a few companies such as Ferrania and Adox continued producing 126 film into the early 2000s. Kodak's 126 format was available in B&W (Verichrome Pan), slide transparency (Kodachrome II) and for colour prints (Kodacolor)
Here is a link with instructions on how to load a 126 cartridge with 35mm film:
www.lomography.com/magazine/44732-recargando-tu-carrete-d...
This is my new pinhole camera, responsible for some of my recent pix. It's built on a Graflex 6x9cm rollfilm back, which makes film transport very convenient and pretty foolproof. The knob on the top winds the film, and the metal edge on the left is the handle for the dark slide, which must be removed to expose the film. There's no shutter, so I use my finger on the pinhole. On the front, I made a simple box with matboard and gaffer's tape, with a pinhole in a small piece of an aluminum can (visible in the shiny square on the front). The hole is about 0.25mm (measured very inaccurately by comparing it under a loupe to a 0.5mm pencil lead), and the focal length is a short 30mm, making an aperture of f/128. The diagonal field of view is very wide, 120 degrees, but of course the projected image circle doesn't quite fill the frame.
Happy Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day!
Is there anyone who doesn't like potatoes? That too small potatoes marinated with aromatic spices and well roasted. I have tried this Potato Pepper Fry Recipe / Small Potato Fry Recipe so many times and it is always a super hit recipe at my home. Whenever I run out of sidedish ideas, this dish comes to my mind immediately and it is always a foolproof recipe. It is an apt and simple sidedish for rasam, sambar and even pulao's too.
Chassis n° 379
Coachwork by Roussile & Fils - Bergerac
Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais
Bonhams
Estimated : € 90.000 - 110.000
Sold for € 184.000
Parijs - Paris
Frankrijk - France
February 2018
- Majestic survivor of formal coachwork design
- Simple ownership history
- Sympathetic older restoration retaining original interior
- History of long distance tours
Although it was Karl Benz who first made the motor car a viable proposition with his primitive slow-revving engines and designs, those were left on the starting blocks when Panhard brought in the Système Panhard, a design that was to mould the future of the motor car for the next century, and when De Dion Bouton introduced their fast-revving engines in the last decade of the 19th Century. Early rear-engined De Dion Boutons, gave way to a new generation of front-engined cars for the 1902 season, again single-cylinder models with atmospheric inlet valve and mechanical exhaust valve. De Dion's gearbox was virtually foolproof for the first-time car driver, the fast-revving engines were supremely reliable, and De Dion back-up and service was second-to-none.
But as with modern technology things moved quickly and the company had to move with the times, by the turn of 1904/5 an inline four cylinder was offered, being simply four individual pots on a common crankcase. Next the radiator was moved above the chassis in the style made fashionable by Mercedes and with it the 'alligator' or 'coal scuttle' bonnet was retired. The gearbox too would follow fashion and move to a side control mechanism, by the time De Dion fielded their Peking-Paris team in 1907. The model AX as offered here represented the evolution of the first four that was introduced, on a slightly longer more substantial frame and with magneto ignition. As a bare chassis it cost 11,500 French Francs more than twice the price of their single cylinder car which was still offered, and with formal coachwork, 40-50% could reasonably be expected to be added.
As can be seen from the variety in the collection, Jacques Vander Stappen took great interest in coachwork and its design, particularly in its earliest days as it transitioned from coaches and railway carriages to cars. The De Dion Bouton presented here is one of very few surviving cars of any marque that retain Double Berline coachwork, a design which owes much to railway carriages more than cars, and literally took its name from having two coaches perched together in tandem. Those carriages being separate entities with a fixed division. Perhaps the most famous survivor of this external style is the famed 'Corgi' Rolls-Royce, sold world record price car of the marque sold by Bonhams in 2012, but that differs in that the interior compartments are not separated. Another survives on a Silver Ghost built by Fuller of Bath, there is one in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart on a 60hp, and of course Bugatti would copy this style in convertible form on one of his Royales, but they are certainly few and far between.
The regal De Dion Bouton here is a lesser known example which has resided in Continental Europe all of its life. Very little is recorded about its coachbuilders, Roussille Fils of Bergerac, nor for whom they built this majestic piece, however it is unquestionably a wonderful automobile that would have made quite a statement in its day. From the condition of its interior it is clear that its use was relatively modest and from the documentation on file we know that however brief its original commission was, it was clearly laid up relatively early on, until it was discovered by noted collector Eugene Segers in the early 1960s. Photos of the car show its slumber incarcerated in a French barn, then its subsequent careful refurbishment. Aside from its technical specification which pinpoints its year of construction to 1907, during the sympathetic restoration that it received, a business card was beneath the upholstery in the rear compartment stating that the bodywork was supplied in March 1908.
During its restoration, its headlamps were replaced with large BRC, but it would seem that otherwise the car remained as it had been found and was new. The upholstery appears to have been cleaned at this point rather than replaced. At this point, the bold BRC headlamps it now wears were fitted. Once finished the De Dion was then put on the road and campaigned in and around Europe, including journeys such as the 1961 run from Brussels to Paris and Madrid and The Polar Tour, as attested by plaques in the front cabin.
Segers must have prized the car and it was not until his passing that the car was sold by his son Philippe, in 2001, when Mr. Vander Stappen was able to secure it for his collection. Over the course of the last few years its use has been far more modest than its busy 1960s life and at present the water pump has been removed, suggesting that this needs attention, as well as general recommissioning.
The car is a quite remarkable period piece, in its technical aspect it shows the transitional De Dion Bouton model with separate cylinders as they moved from their ubiquitous hugely successful single cylinder automobiles to multi-cylinder production, while the coachwork is a snapshot of how some chose to be conveyed in the early days of the motorcar and its state of preservation places it in an even rarer category.
I had planned to go sailing today, Mother Nature planned for stormy weather, I decided to stay on shore. Rather than just sit around the house and stare at cardboard all day (I’m moving), I hit the county roads with some friends and tried to track down some dramatic storm clouds.
We were secretly hoping to catch a tornado. We even had a foolproof plan:
1. Drive out of town to the local trailer park.
2. Park car.
3. Await destruction.
Sadly (or happily for the park residents), no twisters developed. So the best I can offer is this shot out of the car window.
Ex Stagecoach Manchester and Magicbus Dennis Trident W673PTD is seen on Tritton Road in Lincoln, operating a journey on service 29 to Skellingthorpe. This East Lancs Lolyne bodied bus was new to independent Bullock of Cheadle. It later passed to Stagecoach Manchester, and was allocated fleet number 18283. It then spent a time in the low cost Magicbus fleet, before being transferred to Stagecoach East Midlands and going back into corporate livery. It is currently based at Lincoln Depot.
Annoyingly, the LED destination hasn't captured properly on this photo. I know why this happens, something to do with the LED's in the destination not emitting a constant light, more of a constant flicker that is too fast for the human eye to detect. Of course it may be too fast for the human eye, but cameras at a fast shutter speed will pick this up, hence sometimes not getting a full display on the image. The question is, is there a foolproof way to prevent this from happening?
My photographs are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka “Zoom Lens”) and all my rights are reserved. Any use without permission is forbidden.
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IT'S EASY! I'M SERIOUS! READ THE DIRECTIONS...YOU CAN DO IT!!!
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For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving with me this November 2011, here's how to cook the perfect bird, hassle-free!
I'm a turkey roastin' son-of-a-gun! LOL HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Everyone!
Don't be afraid to roast a turkey! Here's a virtually fool-proof method! (First off, can you roast a chicken? Then you can roast a turkey...a turkey's just a big-ass chicken...treat it as such.)
I don't know if this is a "recipe" per se, but here's a way to cook a turkey and get the above results every single time.
First, make sure that you've removed all of the bags of giblets from your bird. Wash it well. Here comes the big secret...do this, and your roasting is basically a "set it and forget it" type procedure, whether it's chicken, turkey, a roast, etc: Pour about 1/8" of cooking oil into your roasting pan; place your bird in the pan, breast side up, and slide it around on the oil to coat its backside. Now pour about 1/2" of water into the roasting pan. The oil will keep the bird from sticking, and the water will keep the bird from drying out. Now you can riff on all kinds of rubs, seasonings, etc: You can stuff the bird's cavity with oranges and lemons if you desire; rub garlic on the turkey and insert whole cloves of garlic into the cavity; devise a rub or simply use salt and pepper or Lawry's seasoned salt. Thyme goes good on a turkey!
Now that your bird is properly prepared and seasoned here's the most important part: Follow the cooking directions that came on the bird's packaging!!! Your bird has a weight...round that up: If your bird weighs 15.68 pounds round that up to 16 pounds...then follow the packaging direction for cooking a bird of that weight. Typically oven temperatures will be between 300 and 320 degrees. You're cooking low and slow!
About 1 and a half to 2 hours into the roasting take a look at your turkey...don't be afraid to open the oven door and slide the rack out so that you can get a good look. When the skin is about as brown as you want it to be place a tent of aluminum foil over the bird and return it to the oven to finish cooking. I usually like to remove the tent after the bird is done and allow the skin to brown just a tad more.
How do you know when the bird is done? If you're an experienced cook it's pretty easy...if you're worried about it then simply use a meat thermometer...but that can sometimes be an inaccurate method...the thermometer might say that the bird's reached the proper internal temperature, but maybe you want the bird a little more done. If you cook much at all you can look at the bird and tell when it's about how you want it. If all else fails go by the package directions...just cook it for that amount of time, tenting as necessary to keep the skin from burning.
Don't ever, ever, ever rely on those stupid pop-up doneness indicators that some processors insert into their birds. I haven't seen one in awhile, but if yours has one...take it out! They're about as useless as tits on a boar hog!
When your bird's done remove it from the oven, take it carefully out of the roasting pan and place it onto a carving board / serving platter. Let it rest for about 10-15 minutes before you carve it.
Enjoy!
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This and other good original recipes of mine in my set, "Come & Get It:"
www.flickr.com/photos/motorpsiclist/sets/72157623907920771/
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And for many more delicious recipes to go with your Thanksgiving feast check our group, "Flickrecipes:"
Hockey was a blast, the break in the daily routine as gentle as the routine was gave us many benefits. After a few weeks of playing our darker sides showed up. The guards took along several spectators fellow inmates as there were no work crews when we played hockey. One of the spectators a chap named Jim with a complexion like the actor Richard Burton saw that the liquor store was located across the street from the rink in the little town of Mansfield. The next week all the millionaires sent Jim to the store to buy us liquor in the form of mickeys that Jim kept wrapped individually in the brown liquor store bags. Then he put the bottles carefully into the hockey duffle bags in the dressing room while the guards watched us butcher each other.
The liquor was to be be brought into the camp building later from the storage facility garage by the head of the storeroom, this was myself as I had inherited the job from Jim Bugsy when he was released in January. Jim Bugsy looked a lot like Alf Ventriss on the British sitcom Heartbeat, he was an accountant that had gone south with the companies funds. It was a real honour to get the position of storeroom clerk, it was the best gig for an inmate. In the mornings and the evenings I went out alone with no supervision and raised and lowered the Canadian flag. I spent my days in the storeroom, sorting laundry that had been shipped in from the O.R., stacking shirts and toiletries which were given out to inmates on Wednesdays after dinner. Incoming supplies, dry goods including canteen items would come through my office, I was an integral part of the institution.
There was a little radio in the store room, a desk and a chair. To while the days away I carved rings out of the bowls of tobacco pipes which card players would purchase for me as part payment of their gambling debts. Sandpaper was available at the tool shed along with round files and a hacksaw which I used to cut the exotic wooden pipes into pieces. Tobacco pipe wood is of differing materials some interesting pieces were created and either sold or given to friends who treasured these crude but unique pieces of wooden folk jewelry. One ring survives to this day, a crude outline of a serpents head hand carved into the exotic wood.
Wednesday nights were Happy Day nights and we would drink our liquor mixed with cans of coke while we watched the show. I drank whiskey then, still do at times, others chose vodka, or rum whatever. Jim got paid in tobacco for getting the booze, we used to purchase between five and ten mickeys a week. The plan seemed foolproof, we repeated this scam for about six weeks, no one was the wiser, not even the guards who just thought we were being goofy because we were watching Happy Days.
It all came crashing down when they found a couple of empty mickey bottles in the kitchen garbage pail. Actually the chef found them and reported them to the guards who had a thorough investigation and the two inmates who worked in the kitchen Bob Rainey a speedy kind of guy from Regent Park with ambitions to strike for one of the clubs was one of them and his friend Gilles another weight lifting guy from Toronto’s east end. They both got sent back to Guelph immediately. Problem is the guards were now on the warpath and they left no stone unturned in their searches. Eventually they came across a stash of empty bottles in the removable ceiling panels above my bunk, that was it. Although technically they didn’t bust me, they knew my position of trust and my position as a ‘millionaire’, all fingers pointed towards me. Besides myself a few others from the dorm were returned to Guelph where we would face the wrath of the Warden, we had let him down.
By now a year of the eighteen month sentence had been served. Sentences were automatically reduced by a third if you had good behaviour. A new term was thrown around, ‘short timer’, and this was a pleasant term that also had a dark side which was the anxiety of the future. What would one do on the outside? Although I generally am grateful for my short time served I like to point out, that in this regard, this preparation for release, the system was lacking in that very little pre-release planning had been done prior to my departing the institution. Due to the shortness of the sentence there hadn’t been a long enough time period for me to require any extra counsel. In retrospect the system could not have known that this period of incarceration was in fact the termination of a half dozen years or so of misbehaviour.
The Warden called the half dozen or so returnees from the camp together the next morning after ‘jug up’. We were outside in the courtyard, we were kept waiting for an hour while he took care of some other duties. He then personally took us up to the attic of the dorms, where we were assigned the task of moving several hundred old steel bed frames from the attic a dark and dusty poorly lit space down three flights of stairs to the garbage and scrap area a hundred yards away from the buildings for the scrap dealers to take away. The work was boring and repetitive and of course it was meant to be a form of punishment. Not unlike the days on the S.W.P. building hills then dismantling them
Had this been the 1950s we would have been beaten across the buttocks until we bled, if an earlier period we would have been flogged! I must admit I was getting a little testy with the job and after a few days complained to the guard who was in charge of the detail, to no avail, the sentence lasted a few weeks. The only solace of the situation was the fact I had been returned to my old quarters, 2B where most of the inmates were still present and accounted for. The same guys still wanted to challenge me at cards and lose their canteen dollars, I took it, but had even lost interest in cards except as a means of buying smokes and chips. I wrote most of the debts off.
The book Papillon was making the rounds and I got on the short list of persons to read it early on. The story was supposedly the true adventures of Henri Charriere as he made numerous escapes from Hells Island where the French authorities had sent him for his crimes. The books many layers of adventure helped to retard the boring days I was experiencing. Earlier in life I felt much the same while reading titles by Harold Robbins. Vicarious living was at this point about all I could do, when engrossed in a novel either fiction or truth I could lose myself in another time which was much more satisfying than the day to day experiences for the most part.
Up on the third floor some nasty speeders had gotten a hold of some Angel Dust one night and they tore the place apart. About six thugs from the Shuter and Queen Street area of Toronto had overdone the ‘bad’ drugs and started beating on some meek inmates. A gang of about thirty riot equipped guards marched up the stairs with batons and teargas to subdue the altercation which they did quickly. The thugs with blood shot eyes were handcuffed, some were literally dragged down the stairways to the solitary area and were never returned to the general population. It was usual in these circumstances for inmates to be shipped out to maximum security Millbrook where the regime was much tougher and where other ‘difficult’ prisoners were locked up.
A side effect of the Angel Dust evening was a lack of some privileges for the entire prison population and a general search of every ones locker boxes. I had no contraband, hardly any extra tobacco as my ‘extras’ had been confiscated at Camp Dufferin. The guards claimed I had been gambling. These searches were fairly common, and lots of guys lost their most prized possessions at these times, their pornography pictures. The odd blade and pill and piece of hash and pot were also confiscated and if you were found with any contraband chances were you’d be sent to the hole, some extra time would be added to your sentence, perhaps even court charges would be laid and then you may be sent to another institution possibly Millbrook.
Dwight Bonkers a burly man from Neathrose Ontario was doing a sentence for apparently torturing someone by lashing them to a tree with steel chains and driving into them with a vehicle. He was a mean looking son of a bitch who had been transferred from the third floor to our calm ward after the commotion. Dwight could lift double his own weight which I would safely say was well over two hundred pounds. There existed in that prison and I’m told at many others a group of individuals who’s sole purpose was to lift weights in their spare time thereby creating a climate of fear around them. For the most part, the word ‘toughs’ could be applied to these folk. For outsiders and newcomers there wasn’t much of a chance to use the weight lifting equipment unless one wished to embark on friendships with these individuals.
When I heard through a gym ‘employee’ that Bonkers was interested in ‘killing’ me my sense of paranoia grew considerably. Bonkers’s bunk was only about six beds up the wall from where I slept near the TV. A friend from the gym had moved into the ward and he kept an eye on Bonkers for me as we played cards together in the evenings. I made sure that I didn’t go anywhere without someone with me. Turns out that Bonkers was jealous of my popularity, and I could understand this. Night after night he would lie on his bunk watching us play cards and kibbitz around while he had no social life to speak of. I spoke with him on a few occasions, being friendly, trying to get a feel for his anger, from where it stemmed. That as we all know is a difficult task, understanding the unknown and I think by way of my friendly advances and sharing of myself that Bonkers negative attitude towards me subsided, in any case when he got transferred I was relieved.
Spring shone wonderfully that year. As it always does when one is able to work in the outdoors. Eventually the warden saw fit to transfer me to the outdoor gardening crew where life became more tolerable. Since I was on short time I was allowed on this crew with other short timers, the likes of Jake Babine from Hamilton a real street tough individual and another character from north of my Mt Dinky neighbourhood, Porky Morrow of the famed Morrow family who’s brothers Greg and Damien I got to know quite well when they frequented the Beverly Hills Hotel in future years. Greg and Damien were in involved in an unfortunate incident in 1980 that saw a Toronto policeman, officer Sugar murdered after a botched robbery attempt at a Queen Street bar called Bourbon Street. Greg is still in jail, no thanks to super cop Jewel Fanta. Poor Porky he died sometime in the 80s by jumping off an overpass of the 401 near Oshawa escaping a pinch. He jumped onto the highway with cars going 120 KMH, that’s what them bad drugs can do to you. Drugs like crack cocaine and meth, stay away from them.
It was glorious working outside! We’d get shovels and rakes off of a tractor pulled wagon and plant trees, tend garden beds, rake up leaves and debris paying particular attention to the front of the grounds where the administration building was and where visitors to the institution would get their first impression of things. This was a great gig with lots of joking around where once again the bonding between individuals made for great times.
A flooding situation in the town of Cambridge required a crew from the O.R. to go to the flooded town and help with the cleanup of the flooded basements in the downtown core. Several of us traveled in a corrections van to the area every day for a week. The interesting aspect was the sudden taste of freedom, for the very first time in over a year. Fortunately everyone toed the line and reported to the van at lunch time. We were sent into commercial stores and helped in the general cleanup, the throwing out of merchandise. One such shop a nickel and dime store either a S.S.Kressges or a Woolworths were throwing out hundreds and hundreds of those cheap Timex watches that you saw all your life in those twirling display cases in your local drug store window. Insurance companies wouldn’t pay for anything if it wasn’t all sent to the dump. Truckload after truckload filled with excellent merchandise pulled out of the lane ways where the shops had thrown out the stock.
After a few days the water level in the basements of the main street shops had subsided and our crew was no longer required. Our guard told us that the town of Cambridge had officially thanked the prisoners who helped with the cleanup. All these years later I recall the wonderful feeling of being free for those brief moments, the freedom of driving to Cambridge in the institution van, to observe the common everyday occurrences out in the other world, a young girls colourful skirt, a smile on a strangers face, nobody counting you every couple of hours. I felt human.
Back at the institution I counted the last remaining days of incarceration. My plan was to move back with mom and whomever was with her for a while until I got settled in to another routine. Life in the dorm seldom varied, down the hall in 2C a friend from the Rock was in doing a couple of years less a day the maximum reformatory sentence, anything more and you were sent to a Federal institution. Brian Kurns was his name, he was a bit chunky, maybe half native dude from the old days at Rochdale. He had operated a substantial take out pot and hash business a few years earlier, dealt mostly to people from the east end, had a wife and kid now, he used to have some excellent gange. He got a big kick out of having me smoke a reefer of incredible quality. All that crap you here the police saying about how weak pot was back then, that’s bullshit! Lots of guys were like that, wanting to take you over the top, show off their goods.
Kurns he was a mystery in there, at the Rock he had his pad which was where he dealt from on the eleventh floor windows facing Bloor we would visit at least once or twice a week, he’d lavish the drugs on us. One time he took some of us to this ‘other’ pad in the building where it was furnished to the hilt, best stereo system, velour couches, carpets real deluxe not at all like his crash pad, maybe it was some bodies stash place that he was watching cause it just wasn’t his style to have a fancy place like this.
As it was, by this time in life I’d actually lost the taste for drugs like pot and hashish, I guess because there was so much time between ‘drops’. Using became an old habit, one I didn’t really need anymore. Kurns, he kept to himself, if I didn’t know better I might of thought he was afraid of something, he said he was just scared of the situation and appreciated my friendship. He got lucky, was assigned onto a work gang that went to the abattoir on the property and cut meat for which he received a good pay cheque that went to support his wife Barb and their young child.
There was a small scandal that took place at the prison during my tenure. A guard who was in charge of the laundry and its large work force was charged with buggering several inmates. This was common knowledge to the prisoners, this sex ring that was thriving in the laundry area. For having sex with the guard the inmate was given favours, nicer clothes, smokes, candy, not much different than the Maple Leaf Garden scandal years later. The prison guard was relieved of his duties. Had this occurred in the earlier years of the prisons existence, had an inmate been charged with these crimes the courts would have given long sentences and included the paddling of the individual on the buttocks as he stood pants down tied to a large wooden stand, tied at the arms and the legs, up to twenty strokes might be administered depending on the severity of the crime. After a half a dozen or so whacks the inmate bled. The guard was relieved of his duties, lost some seniority, some pension, what shame could he have after the thousands of assaults he had performed over the years while prison officials turned a blind eye to his house of horrors.
I never got involved in the drugs scene in the joint, Cinnors was just handy and we hit it off. Other dealers worked in the gym, it was a cushy go and if you didn’t have drag you didn’t work there. Zorky, a big TO player from Mississauga was there as was his friend Bob, Bob got real bad in the drugs game, smuggling tractor trailer loads of marijuana into California from Mexico, he shot and killed some people, anything for a buck, rumour has it he’s still at it and to be avoided. John Naatch from Oshawa he worked in the gym, smiling Johnny I’d call him, he worked for that big moving company in Oshawa, he was a great guy. That last month I got friendly with the gym guys and I’d get to play golf a lot on the little three hole course they had built while I was in Dufferin. My friend from Keele and Eel Tony Flaim and the Dukes were coming to the joint that summer for a gig and can you believe it, I felt bad that I wouldn’t be there to see the show.
When the last day finally came, sometime in early June of 1974 I hugged a lot of guys the night before, gave all my stuff away, cards, sunglasses, smokes, books, whatever I had. I got up around 5AM on release day, hardly slept it was that same kind of sleep a kid gets when he is excited about something, say like going to the Ex the next day.
A guard came over to my bed and gave me a shake to stir me, he put his hand to his mouth to be quiet so as not to disturb the thirty one other people sleeping. I dressed quickly and quietly then followed another guard to the reception area where all my things were given back to me. The clothes I had worn from Windsor. The mid blue coloured three quarter length jacket with lots of pockets and the white striping fit very well I wondered if it was still fashionable. It was nice to see the white gold ring that they had cut off my finger, I slipped it on. Other things like my wallet and the keys for Don and Carols car were given to me in a plain yellow manila envelope along with about six hundred and fifty dollars. A couple of hundred which was from my canteen savings as every dollar you earn is split up equally in your canteen and take home fund. Somehow I had managed to do my income tax from the previous year and that cheque had been put into my account as well.
That sum was a pile of dough back then, almost as much as I had saved while working for McPhar a few years earlier. In the big cafeteria I was the only person eating and the ritual is that you get to order whatever breakfast you want within reason. I recall those good tasting bacon and eggs that day. A guard walked me out a quiet side door, through a tall wire fenced area into a waiting van where another guard drove me to the Guelph bus station and handed me a one way ticket to Toronto, the bus left in three hours. The guards job was to get me to the bus station. My cockiness was just a mask, I was full of anxieties, life was about to begin anew.
Waiting for the bus was irritating me, we were near the commercial strip, I think, any ways there was a car rental place nearby and I hoofed it over to the place and rented a shiny new car to use for the weekend, nothing fancy a mid size sedan. Before I left I called Robbie Cinnors who was attending U of Guelph on a TAP program and made arrangements to hook up with him sometime soon in Toronto as he had some hashish he wanted to show me. At a service station I quickly unhooked the odometer under the hood to save on mileage charges.
It’s a short drive from Guelph to Toronto, about an hour. I drove to my moms apartment building on Clearview Heights in the Trethewey Drive and Keele area. The government subsidized four bedroom apartment on Humber Boulevard was lost when the Toronto Housing Authority found a lot of damages caused by Alex. The new place was pretty grim, they didn’t have much of anything. There were pieces of ratty old furniture, those few wooden pieces left over from when dad was alive and providing. They’d gone downhill a lot which is hard to imagine as the apartment on Humber was always fairly threadbare. That entire fourteen months I’d been away, I think I wrote home on a bi-weekly basis, Gisele, my mom never once mentioned the turmoil she was going through. It was difficult to appreciate from jail, in retrospect my life in prison was better than that of my families in Toronto. I felt like crying as the sight of this degree of poverty was overwhelming. That poor woman, those poor younger siblings who were with her still, Shane, Barbara and Suzanne. I was the lucky one, the one who left home and went to jail.
Shane was home, Kevin was doing a bit somewhere. Shane and I headed out to Boomer and Herbies house on Spadina Ave west of Eglinton where Boomer had relocated when Rochdale closed. Herbie was his new roommate, TJ, had move elsewhere. It was a tiny house in a nice quiet area of mostly bigger homes. I was a wreck, Tommy’s dog Boogie a giant German Shepherd didn’t like me and scared the shit out of me whenever our eyes would lock, and he would growl which made me more nervous. The other dog Abby was more relaxed.
My anxiety made everything feel twice its normal size. A woman from the neighbourhood was hired to entertain me, I can see her face still today though her name escapes me. I got so drunk and stoned, I was satisfied to eat clams, she liked that, all the guys got a free show watching through the front window. Then I passed out on Herbies new bed, pissing all over his $400 dollar mattress, I never heard the end of that.
I Snuck out early in the morning with Shane in tow, we had a brief stopover at moms then Shane and I headed to Niagara Falls. Somewhere between the Falls and St Catherine we got royally pissed on a large jug of good whiskey and slept the night in the rental car. Passed out is more like it, behind a dusty diner like in a scene from a bad movie. I had missed Shane while I was away, Kevin also.
Monday morning I had to reassemble the odometer on the rental car before I took it back to the rental agency. It was difficult, I was fretting that I would have to go back to jail because I got caught fucking around with a rental car, a form of theft.
I hooked up with Robbie who passed me a nice chunk of black hash at a very good price for kilos which I passed on to my T.O. people who felt I was to fresh from the ‘joint’ too much of a ‘cowboy to do business with. Who knows where that might have taken me, I may have been the big man on the street but more than likely I would have gotten a big head and screwed up. Rochdale ceased to exist all the dealers moving into regular housing with stash houses elsewhere. It was a different world now.
Down on Brunswick Ave the buildings were so huge, I was suffering from some type of ‘release syndrome’, I don’t know what they call it. At High Park there was a big concert around that time and my friend Tony Flaim was on this massive stage, the sun was shining thousands of people were in attendance, Tony was smiling like only Tony could smile a regular smiling pumpkin, full of life and as the set began he saw me and shouted over the microphone, “well folks we’ve got Charlie Tuna in the crowd today, this one’s for him and he kicked into a bad ass blues tune!!!” That made me feel like a million dollars, the ice had been broken, whatever was making me feel weird melted away with those words. Thanks Tony.
After that weekend Boomer took me up to a cottage he and others were using for the summer, a place called Kakabika, a little two bedroom cottage on Stoney Lake a half hours drive from Peterborough. Pete could see I needed some R&R, some down time, some period of adjustment. He hung in for a day or so then left me there in the splendour of nature where I could eat when I wanted, drink when I wanted, walk when and where I wanted to walk. There was a small rowboat that came with the summer cottage rental and I would go rowing on the quiet bay in the evenings trying my luck at fishing but really just bathing in all of these natural elements. I kept busy sprouting some marijuana seeds and planting them in the woods nearby, they didn’t do very well. Like a smokers coach Boomer kept passing fat hash joints to me, the interest to smoke dubes had passed me by, I was no longer comfortable getting stoned three and four times a day, everything was Heaven for me just the way it was. I was home.
After a reasonable rest period, having lost most of my cash in a poker card game at the cottage to my buddy Snorks, I headed back to Toronto, stayed at moms for a few weeks, got work as a slave, operating a jackhammer, tearing up a concrete floor at a plant on Adelaide Street, that lasted two weeks…then I got work at the local bar, the Queensbury Arms, a referral from Big Al. That’s where I met my sweetie Julia and well, going on fourty years later, we are still together….For some reason, of all the stories I have written and tried to write, this is the one I like the best. Thanks for taking the time to read it, and thanks to those folk who stuck by me over the years, you must have been able to see some good in me..
If you are wondering what The Firehydrant is, it is a business card I created while living at Rochdale at Boomer and TJs place…the bearer of that card was allowed entry into the building to party and pick up party supplies.
During the Jazz Age:
Movie star Clara Bow stands alongside superstar dog Strongheart and Mrs. Strongheart.
Clara: "People love you so much, Srongheart, that I know when I'm with you, nothing can go wrong!"
*In real life, Strongheart (1917-1929) was the first animal film star, making hit films during the 1920s. He, Lassie, and Rin-Tin-Tin are the only animals with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
I'm going down,
Follow if you want, I won't just hang around,
Like you'll show me where to go,
I'm already out, foolproof idea, so don't ask me how
To get started, it's all uncharted...
My roommate was so kind to model for me in our wonderful pool, (even if she was freezing). I love the shadows the light casts.
...a crazy level of detail made nearly foolproof by the iPhone 5. The 24MP full size is a crop of the original.
The lines of Boy Scouts and TARC challengers stretch off in each direction, and firetrucks are doing driving practice in the distance near the endoskeleton of Hangar One.
Pattern: Foolproof
Yarn: this scrappy skein
I used about 5.5 oz., 500 yards of the sport weight yarn to make a cowl 8" wide and 50" in circumference.
This pattern is super fun!
Some of these pictures are of rather poor quality and I apologise for it. I'm showing them here more to bring back memories, and perhaps even draw a smiles from my good friends from Repulse Bay, than for their artistic or technical qualities. In fact, some are grossly underexposed, such as this one and the next, because of a mistake I made when I shot them. Most of the pictures I took back then were on Kodachrome 64 (64 ASA) film, but occasionally I used Kodachrome 25 (25 ASA, a slower film than K64), usually when the K64 was not available in the local stores. It happened more than once that I loaded a roll of K25 film in the camera and forgot to change the ASA setting. The result was that all the pictures of that roll were underexposed. Cameras were really dumb in those days; today, something like this would never happen because our modern digitals are pretty well foolproof. After scanning, I was usually able to adjust the exposure a bit with software, but the results are never very good.
Even underexposed, I thought these two little kids looked so cute that I had to show them - brother and sister, perhaps?
2. Quick, Essential Stovetop Mac-and-Cheese
5. Sheet Pan Meatballs with Crispy Turmeric Chickpeas
7. Slow-Roasted Sweet Potatoes
8. Chilaquiles Brunch Casserole
10. Grilled Zucchini Ribbons with Pesto and White Beans
11. Split Pea Soup
12. Corn Fritters
13. Pasta Salad with Roasted Carrots
14. Candy Pork
Agfa Optima with Apotar S 3.9/39 in Compur shutter
A milestone in camera history: the first camera with programmed shutter automatic exposure. Okay, it isn't a programmed AE as we understand it today, whereat f-stop and shutter speed are adjusted simultaneously. Under conditions with few light the Optima keeps the aperture always open and only changes the shutter speed in the range from 1/30 s to 1/250 s, in bright light the 1/250 s is constant and only the aperture is adjusted. So it is rather a combined shutter/aperture-priority AE, but at last it is fully automatic, you don't have to select one component by yourself.
So the Optima was designed to be as foolproof as possible. The sensational novelty was the "magic lever" on the right side, you press it and if a dot in the viewfinder changes its color from red to green you know, that the light will be sufficient for the picture - before you take the picture. You'll have to press the lever in any case in AE-mode, otherwise the shutter button on top is locked, but you can press the shutter button also when the dot is the viewer stays red - with the risk of underexposure (too dark for 1/30 s at f/3.9). On later Optimas the lever switched to the left side and was combined with the shutter button.
The other problem was focusing. Autofocus wasn't invented yet, and instead of an expensive focusing aid like a rangefinder the Optima was equipped with an effective zone focusing. Only three symbols, in addition the chosen lens is not very fast and its focal length short, so the depth-of-field is large even at open aperture, and adjusting the focus is a sure action.
The Optima has no distance scale and no specification on the lens - the user should not be confused by too much numbers. Other technical functions are very inconspicuously spread. In flash-mode and bulb-mode the set f-stop is displayed in a tiny window at the side of the lens. Both modes can be selected with the dial on the lower left corner near the lens. B is hidden behind a dot (A or B? - Don't confuse the photographer!), selecting the flash-mode reveals the PC-socket, which is covered in A-mode. In both modes it is not necessary to press the magic button. What remains is the setting of the correct film speed, but that can do your photo dealer for you when he is loading a new film.
Other specs:
* The Apotar lens is a triplet
* The frame-counter is not self-resetting
* Weight: heavy 725 g
* Bright frame viewfinder without parallax marks
* Selenium cells, no battery required
* Cold shoe
* Year of introduction: 1959
* Price new: moderate 238 Deutsche Mark
* Zone focus ranges:
Two boys: 1.5 - 2.25 m
Family: 2.25 - 4.5 m
Mountain and church: 4.5 m - infinity
The lower part of that pictures shows a close-up of the zone focusing symbols. Perhaps the two boys on the left side (short distance) are looking a bit weird to you, but they should be well known to the contemporary user. They are characters taken from a famous German children's book by the author and drawer Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908). Their names are "Max" and "Moritz", true bad boys which have always pranks on their mind. Probably they were the role models for the comic-strip "Katzenjammer Kids".
It is my first "classic" Optima. Normally I avoid cameras whereat the function depends on Selenium cells - if the cell is dead, the camera is more or less useless. But this exemplar is in a good condition and the meter works. I bought it on the flea marked from a nice seller, it was the camera of her grandfather and she itself took some photos with it.
SPRAYED BY A SKUNK!
Here's the foolproof recipe to get the odor off your dog
1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 teaspoon dish soap (If worried about eyes you can use baby shampoo instead)
Just mix it all together and pour it slowly over the affected area and scrub to a lather.
Try not to get in eyes (his our yours) :) It really works.
Use all of solution - it cannot be stored.
I have absolutely no idea where this photo was taken - any ideas anyone? BB had a knack for finding odd out of the way locations before Google Maps was invented by the simple expedient of travelling by train on the chosen route and marking the appropriate OS map where promising looking locations appeared to be. It wasn't foolproof of course and many was the time when you turned up only to find something compromising the view you hadn't anticipated. Not only does Street View make it so much easier but you can easily record the whole view from the train window using the video on your mobile phone nowadays!
Photo by the late Brian Beer.
I took yesterday off and went with my nephew Josh to hike up Matilija Canyon. We got a late season rain, so it was partially cloudy and cool.
My kind of weather.
It is my favorite hike in Ventura County, completely wonderful. layers of shale, folded and straight make for an amazing synthesis of nature and geometry.
The best part of this perfect hike are the waterfalls. The first is a double fall, maybe 39 and 40 feet in a rocky side canyon.
The second falls is a few hundred yards up a narrow canyon that for some silly reason feels like Utah to me, even though I have never hiked in Utah. This fall is a single fall, maybe 70 feet high with an impressive travertine face.
I had never gone further than this before, but knew that there was a rope off to the left face of the falls. I am very scared of heights, but Josh volunteered to try going up.
I semi-promised to follow.
Two faces, two ropes. Any well trained climber could have gone up without a rope, but I was terrified, but I wanted to see what was beyond.
Got to the top shaking with fear to see this.
Absolutely magnificent.
We didn't see a foolproof way down, but there is another rope next to this third fall.
Maybe next time.
I'm still getting waves of happy just looking at this picture. It was beautiful.
Perfect.
Cheers.
There has always been generic diecasts ever since model cars were invented and no doubt there will always be too. Not only is it a foolproof way to save on expensive license fees but they can often also give designers a free reign to invent whatever design they want, usually fantasy or futuristic.
Where things go badly wrong is when a company turns its entire 1/64 range to overt generics such as HTI and then proceeds to completely dominate its domestic market dividing up the nation between themselves and Mattel leaving little space for anyone else! They have been producing these generic horrors since 2016 and the situation has only got worse, not helped by our lazy and unimaginative retailers who just want to buy in the cheapest crap they can!
ASDA have been selling HTI generics since 2017 when they replaced licensed Maisto and haven't deviated since! I must have been mad to have even bothered rummaging through the selection but my eyes did focus on this modern looking Tow Truck. Its cab styling is reasonably Scania-esque and I do like its simple livery and for 1.00 I deemed it acceptable enough to enter my collection.
Mint and boxed.
Pattern: Foolproof
Yarn: "Freshness" Shetland
I used about 5.5 oz., 500 yards of the sport weight yarn to make a cowl 8" wide and 50" in circumference.
This pattern is super fun!
Andrew getting crafty in studio 2. He later made a kite out of Powerpoint and I've not seen him since.
Clerkenwell, London, UK
Thanksgiving is Ruined
At the center of every Thanksgiving meal is the most important part: the turkey. This year, it fell upon me to prepare the turkey for our yearly dinner. I was ecstatic to be in charge of such an essential component of the meal, but at the same time, very nervous. It was a lot of pressure to cook the turkey to perfection, with the hope that everyone would love it.
The task for me personally wasn't an easy one. Leave it in the oven too little, and you have an undercooked turkey, risking food poisoning for your guests. Leave it in too long, and you run the risk of having a really dry turkey or, much worse, burning it.
I wasn't going to take any risks. I wanted my turkey to be the best anyone had ever tasted, so I set up a stool next to the oven and sat and watched, guarding that turkey for hours. I made sure to check it every now and then. I wanted to be ready when that turkey turned into a mouth-watering, golden-brown, crispy meal ready for all my guests to devour.
Well, it turns out I lost track of time. I thought my plan of guarding it was foolproof, so I never thought about setting an alarm. Before I knew it, I couldn't remember when I put the turkey in the oven, and when the guests started arriving, being the host that I am, I got caught up in taking care of my guests and completely forgot about the turkey. Before I knew it, the aroma of something burning started to fill my home, and my internal alarm immediately went off—I had forgotten about the turkey.
Fearing the worst, I hurried to the kitchen, and as I opened the oven, thick smoke billowed out, consuming me. My heart sank. Unknowingly, I reacted by taking off my skirt to blow the smoke away, revealing a blackened, burnt turkey. It was crispy, alright—just much more than I wanted it to be.
I had ruined the turkey. I had ruined my skirt. I had ruined Thanksgiving.
-------------------------------------------
El Día de Acción de Gracias está arruinado
En el centro de cada comida de Acción de Gracias se encuentra la parte más importante: el pavo. Este año me tocó a mí preparar el pavo para nuestra cena anual. Estaba exultante de estar a cargo de un componente tan esencial de la comida, pero al mismo tiempo, muy nerviosa. Fue mucha presión cocinar el pavo a la perfección, con la esperanza de que a todos les encantara.
La tarea para mí personalmente no fue fácil. Si lo dejo muy poco en el horno, tendré un pavo crudo, lo que correrá el riesgo de intoxicación alimentaria para mis invitados. Déjalo cocinar demasiado tiempo y corres el riesgo de tener un pavo muy seco o, peor, quemado.
No iba a correr ningún riesgo. Quería que mi pavo fuera el mejor que todos en probado, así que puse mi silla al lado del horno y me senté y observé, cuidando ese pavo por horas. Me aseguré de chequear lo de vez en cuando. Quería estar lista cuando el pavo estuviera un color cafe dorado y crujiente listo para que todos mis invitados lo devoraran.
Bueno, resulta que perdí la noción del tiempo. Pensé que mi plan de estar al pendiente era infalible, así que nunca pensé en poner una alarma. Al pasar el tiempo, no podía recordar cuando meti el pavo en el horno, y cuando empezaron a llegar los invitados, siendo la anfitrión que soy, me dediqué a cuidar a mis invitados y me olvidé por completo del pavo. Sin precupacion me llego una aroma. El aroma de algo quemándose comenzó a llenar mi casa y mi alarma interna inmediatamente se disparó: me había olvidado completamente del pavo.
Temiendo lo peor, corrí a la cocina y, cuando abrí el horno, salió un humo espeso que me consumió. Mi corazon se hundio. Sin darme cuenta, reaccioné quitándome la falda para alejar el humo, dejando al descubierto un pavo ennegrecido y quemado. Estaba crujiente, pero mucho más de lo que quería.
Había arruinado el pavo. Había arruinado mi falda. Había arruinado el Día de Acción de Gracias.
Common Toad / bufo bufo. Derbyshire. 22/03/19.
'AMPLEXUS.'
This pair gave their presence away by a subtle movement that caught my eye - not that the male was doing much, apart from gripping on to the female for dear life!
This vice-like gripping tactic, 'amplexus', is employed so that he stands the best chance of fertilising her spawn when they reach their traditional breeding site. It's not a foolproof tactic though. 'WHEN they reach...' should more accurately read 'IF they reach ...'
Their journey can be fraught with danger from predators and vehicles. Every year, 1000's of toads are killed across the UK as a result of being run over crossing roads. Who knows how many pass down the throats of Herons, Crows etc.
Even if they do survive the journey, the male's opportunity to fertilise the spawn is still not guaranteed. Waiting in the water there will be numerous single males all eager to find a female. The couple's entry into the water will be met with a mad clamour as other males join them, clinging on also. This forms a 'toad ball' and becomes a contest of tenacity and strength. Frequently, females get damaged or drowned in the process.
During a Spring breeding migration, a Common Toad's lot is certainly not a happy one.
No wonder they have such care worn faces!
What do hallucinogens have to do with Oskar Blues' Metamodern IPA? I don't know. The beer, however, is fine.
Summer drinking, not tripping.
20 August 2016.
***************
▶ "A Metamodern IPA conceived of hand selected hops from down under. Malt barley and red wheat combine to create a clean malt backbone with foolproof flavor and mouthfeel to support the main act of Enigma, Vic Secret, Ella, Topaz and Galaxy hops. The hops strum juicy and sweet aromas with headline notes of passion fruit, raspberries, pineapple and citrus. This straight-up strain is Oskar Blues IPA (6.43% ABV). To each their own til we go home."
6.43% alcohol-by-volume (abv)
70 International Bittering Units (IBUs)
Longmont, Colorado; Brevard, North Carolina; Austin, Texas, USA.
***************
▶ The reference on the beer can's label apparently is to the alt-country song, "Turtles All the Way Down," by Sturgill Simpson, on his album, "Metamodern Sounds in Country Music."
"Marijuana, LSD, Psilocybin, and DMT
They all changed the way I see
But love's the only thing that ever saved my life
So don't waste your mind on nursery rhymes
Or fairy tales of blood and wine
It's turtles all the way down the line
So to each their own til' we go home
To other realms our souls must roam [emphasis mine]
To and through the myth that we all call space and time."
***************
▶ Photo by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.
▶ For a larger image, type 'L' (without the quotation marks).
— Follow on Facebook: YoursForGoodFermentables.
— Follow on Instagram: @tcizauskas.
▶ Camera: Samsung Galaxy 7 Edge.
— Edit: PicMonkey.
▶ Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.
See other shot immediately to the left of this on my photostream. It shows the soft-top canopy fitted - which is a very rare (and expensive) accessory that's seldom seen. It provides very welcome shelter when out in flying spray - or rain.
We sincerely believe that this is could be the best example of a sea-fitted out Shetland Sheltie in the UK at present.
Certainly the present owners (owned by myself and another family member) have spared little effort or expense in keeping this as the safest (if not the absolute fastest) Sheltie it's possible to have and use at sea. These hulls have been on occasion fitted with motors up to 90.+HP, but this is a rather ill-advised stretch and will put stresses on the transom it wasn't built to take. 55hp is a good rating for engines on these boats, giving good fuel consumption and more than adequate performance.
Her hull is freshly antifouled with International materials. She's had this done annually ever since we first bought her.
Leila has taken us offshore to cruise with dolphins, regularly made it possible to dine on lobster, crab, smoked mackerel and of course cod and pollack aplenty. We've just totally rebuilt her side seats and pilot seat mounting, added a high-shine finish to her original gel coat - and 8 years ago fitted what every Sheltie should have - a completely replaced deck built onto custom-cut solid wood stringers in place of the sorry affair originally fitted by the factory. The deck replacement was conducted with detailed guidance from Simpson Marine Boatbuilders in Dundee who supplied our materials. The result is a massively stiffened/strengthened hull.
It was a huge job but very worthwhile.
Leila cruises easily at twenty knots plus with plenty of speed in reserve - while still returning excellent fuel consumption. She gets up on the plane from around 12-14knots with two hefty adults aboard, and carrying a full complement of fishing gear, fuel tanks, and lobster creels. Reduced load will let her plane at lower speeds.
While fishing on the drift the Sheltie is wonderfully stable, with huge deck space for any water-borne activity consistent with her spec - she'd make an excellent diving platform as well as a wonderful sea fishing craft.
In the interests of safety, she's fitted with an auxiliary longshaft Mariner motor of 9.9 HP on a beautiful custom-built bracket constructed from approx. 2.75in thick resin-bonded marine ply/stainless steel, which enables her to make an easy 6knots even in adverse conditions. Both motors use the same fuel supply, so no need to keep two separate fuel supplies aboard. The aux. engine's never been needed as such but is run on every trip to make sure its performance is up to standard.
She also comes with marine GPS and echo sounder - today these are really indispensable in a sea boat.
And if this reads like advertising copy well - of course it is, but - it's all true enough. Most boat users skimp on their auxiliary power - but we've always known that to do that could put you into the 6 o'clock news - and not in a good way.
Main power unit is one of Yamaha's best ever efforts - the famously bulletproof twin-cylinder 55hp unit which has power trim/tilt and of course full electric start, like your car engine.
Mechanically it's as simple an engine as you could wish - and does NOT need connected to a Yamaha agent's computer to keep it running sweetly - it has foolproof CDi ignition and twin carburettors, which are very uncomplicated items and easy to keep in tune.
Two full seasons ago we replaced the cooling system's impeller in the big engine. There's also a switchable auto bilge-pump to keep her from filling with rain water whilst moored. For the latter, full mooring lines and large anchor are included in the sale. Several lobster creels also available by separate bargain.
Previous outboard motor fitted was a Mariner 55hp, mechanically the very same engine made by Yahama for Mariner - and it had served us so well we decided to replace her (when our backs became too old, stiff, etc etc - to haul her up to park position after each trip.) - with another newer example of the same sort but with electric power trim - what a difference that's made - its electric powered hydraulic system buzzes the engine up and down - marvellous! Into the bargain, it's an brilliantly eager starter and doesn't go through battery-draining churning sessions before reluctantly chugging smokily into life - like we've seen many others doing.
The large battery was replaced last year after about 8 years in service. The road trailer has had new wheel bearings fitted within the last few weeks.
So - this very nice complete fishing-boat package is regrettably up for sale. If anyone is interested further, contact me directly via Flickr mail.
Viewing by appointment. Delivery possible within reasonable limits.
Rolleicord V, Kodak New Portra 400 (shot at 800, pushed one stop), f8 1/60 (?)
It's Friday, and it's time to let my fail flag fly! I keep trying to capture the dingy marvel of this mural at the Whitehall subway station, and I keep failing. This one's underexposed.
Hey, who says the new Portra is foolproof? I managed to underexpose this unsalvageably! I'm pretty proud of myself!
Started working again this week. I work for a medical lab taking blood samples from people. Not a job you can do while keeping your distance from others. And i had been forbidden to wear facial protection. So decided, and my boss graciously let me, to take some vacation days. I live with my boyfriend who has asthma and didn´t want to risk bringing anything nasty home.
Also seeing a lot of sick and vunerable people at my job without having anything on to protect them from what I may inadvertently be carying didn´t seem like a good idea.
Now however I have been given permission to wear a surgical mask, and evethough it´s not foolproof, it does give some additional protection. So that together with dropping infection rates in holland made me decide to go back to work.
Linhof Kardan Standard / Ernolux 2.5 75mm projection lens / Agfa MCP paper negative
Ok, many of us iconomecanophiles dispassionately despise Kodak camera production. This is quite unfair, I have to concede that. And I'm not only thinking about Ektra and the top of the line Kodaks, the grandeur of Kodak resides in models like this Bullet: a small and foolproof camera for everyone, which is what Kodak mainly did.
The KOM League
Flash Report
For
The Week of
February 9, 2020
(It will take that long to read it if the links are accessed)
In recent weeks and now months, this source has been about as speedy in responding to e-mail messages and updates, on the status of former KOM leaguers, as the political apparatus in Iowa has been in counting caucus votes. In the future an attempt will be made to do better, on my part, but don’t bet on it.
Thanks to Jack Morris, baseball necrologist, the following was received. “I found an obit from about four months ago for Chet DiEmidio.”
www.kingfuneralservice.com/obituary/Chester-DiEmidio Sr
Obituary
Chet DiEmidio age 89 on October 12, 2019, of Southwest Philadelphia. Chet was a Philadelphia Police Officer for 31 years and then started a new career as a minor league baseball coach for the Chicago White Sox. Husband of the late Margaret A. (nee Kennedy). Beloved Father of Chet Jr., Debbi, Dean, Rick and Doug. Grandfather of Pete, Sophia, Alexa, Ava, and Nick. Relatives and friends are invited to his viewing on Wednesday evening from 6 pm to 8 pm and on Thursday morning from 8:45 am to 9:45 am at St. Barnabas Church, 6300 Buist Avenue, Philadelphia. Funeral Mass on Thursday at 10 am at St. Barnabas Church. Interment at SS. Peter & Paul Cemetery. In lieu of flowers donations to Vitas Hospice, 1300 Wolf Street, Philadelphia, PA 19148 or the Leukemia Society, 100 N. 20th Street Suite 405, Philadelphia, PA 19103 would be appreciated.
Ed comment:
Some truths never surface until the final day of reckoning occurs or long after a fellow retires from baseball and reveals his true age. When reporting to the Miami, Oklahoma Eagles, in 1952 Chester Gerald DiEmidio claimed to have been born in 1933 making him three years younger than he was. He was the property of the Philadelphia Phillies at the time. There is no record of him playing in 1953 but in 1954 he returned to KOM league territory spending a short spell with the Joplin Cardinals of the Western Association. The Joplin Miners had been a New York Yankee affiliate since 1936.
DiEmidio was barely in Joplin long enough to visit friends in Miami, Okla. before he was hopping buses to Hannibal, Missouri and Dothan, Alabama and Erie, Pennsylvania where his baseball playing career concluded.
Over the years contact was made and maintained with the recently departed and he enjoyed reliving some of the great days of his youth. His obituary describes how he went to work as a protector of the citizenry and then at retirement embarked on a second career in the game he loved.
DiEmidio enjoyed reminiscing about some of his 1952 Miami teammates including Jim Owens and Seth Morehead who went on to play in the major leagues and Bert Convy who made it in a big way in music, television and the movies.
With DiEmidio’s passing there are now six members of that 1952 Miami Eagles who have even the slightest chance of seeing this report. They are: Wayne Doyle, Billy Ray Long, Jimmy Obringer, Jim Owens, Eddie Sack and Don Tullar.
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Weissman from last issue
In the previous issue of this seldom read and often ignored report, there was a header that just stated “Weissman.” The intention was to write a segment regarding a person by that name who played one game in the KOM league. However, due to lack of space, or fatigue, I never got around to finishing it. It was my hope some reader would point that out and ask “Why?” They didn’t so here goes.
Richard Weissman was born January 2, 1925 in East St. Louis, Illinois. He registered for the draft on his 18th birthday which, although being redundant, was January 2, 1943. At the time of his draft board physical examination he was 5’ 11” and weighed 145 pounds. His parents Louis and Sophie were Russian immigrants coming to this country in 1897. Mr. Weissman was listed as an iron worker and scrap metal dealer in East St Louis.
Not much was found regarding Richard Weissman but he did play in one game, at second base, for the 1948 Chanute, Kansas Giants.
Young Weissman moved to the west coast and lived in Lodi, Alta Loma and Canoga Park, California before moving to San Dimas where he passed away on March 26, 2008. His obituary wasn’t located but I wonder if it was mentioned therein that he was a professional baseball player for one game? I doubt that aspect of his life would have appeared and probably few, if anyone, outside his immediate family were aware of that fact? However, I now believe that at least a dozen people will know for I estimate that is the size of this reading audience.
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Comments regarding the previous issue.
It was never the intention to take a political poll regarding the impeachment efforts in Washington and the tempest in the teapot over the removal from office of this here preparer of the Flash Reports.
So, without further ado here are some comments generated by the report for January 26, 2020.
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Hey John, as far as a vote goes, there is absolutely no hesitation from the Chanute native-----YOU are absolved of all blame for any malfeasance. So continue on please. As for the other person (certainly not "gentleman") facing charges, the guy with the orange hair (like an orangutan), charge him GUILTY as charged and let's move on. More Flash Reports please. Do not cease!! Your Pal Casey Casebolt
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John: In my capacity as an ex-officio (or something like that) member of the KOM jury, I vote for your acquittal! - Jerry Hogan-Novelist from Fayetteville, Arkansas
Reply:
Boy, I'm relieved. Thanks.
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If I knew how to vote for you I would/. I don't understand much about what is going on but I love your articles and don’t want them to stop. Thanks for all you do. Judi Bartley Jordan—Daughter of longtime Dodger player, manager and scout—Boyd Bartley
Ed reply
You just voted for me. Thanks. As you can see much of what I write is tongue in cheek.
Thank you, John! I gather there is no increase in the price of our subscription for 2020! I enjoyed all your updates, plus your views on "sign stealing." What do you think about major league baseball getting electronic computer reading-and-calling of balls and strikes instead of umpires? Elaine Brooks—From the Bay Area of San Francisco
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I tried to add a response to your Flash Report but could not get logged in. It was a really good one. Sorry, Neil says sorry also. Dave Davis in Austin, Texas. The “Neil” to whom he referred left this world in 2012 but they still communicate and Dave shares what Neil, a late, great friend, thinks about these missives
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John, I vote for acquittal... and in your case, too! Curtis Davis aka Brandy's son .. Brandy was a Bartlesville Pirate before becoming one in Pittsburgh, Pa.
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John I was sure glad to receive this report. I was beginning to wonder if any more were going to come. We need them, as spring training is still a few weeks away. Don Papst—Chanute, Kansas.
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Curtis Heider wrote “I vote for acquittal for you.”
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My father talked about playing in one of these Pacific theater barnstorming games perhaps in Hawaii. Details were very sketchy. Thanks for another interesting reading, Bruce May—son of Wilbert May 1946 Carthage Cardinals
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Finally!! Two observances of the celebration of Leonard Van De Hey’s life: July 18- Elroy, Wis: July 19- Marshfield, Wis. Kathy Finck
Ed reply:
Thanks for letting me know you are still tuned in.
Ed comment:
Van de Hey was a member of the 1950-51 Carthage Cubs and Kathy kept the readership informed of Leonard’s last few months of life in this realm. He passed away October 4, 2019 in Ashtabula, Ohio.
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Hi John: Yesterday (January 28) would have been my Dad, Tom Kordas’ 88th birthday. Just wanted to share a picture and caption from the newspaper right before he had to report to Army training camp back in the early 1950s. Hope you and all the remaining Carthage Cubs are doing well. Greg Kordas.
Ed reply:
A note was sent to Greg stating that his father left the Blackwell, Oklahoma Broncos in late August of 1952 to serve his country. The next year he was stationed at Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas and played baseball for that Army base team at Ft. Smith and their nickname was the “Smokers.” They were Arkansas State amateur champions and played in the National Baseball Congress tournament in Wichita, Kansas.
This is a relevant place to state that every attempt is made to send condolences to surviving family members of deceased former KOM leaguers. Each week I receive reminders from Legacy.com of the anniversary of those deaths. This is the one received for Thomas Kordas.
mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/kordas/FMfcgxwGCkmXKlGNz...
Kordas passed away 1/23/2017 in Monee, Illinois
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I read with pleasure your good writing in these reports. Even though I really do not know most of the players from those KOM days, I appreciate the diligence and details that you display in each Flash Report. As I look at the photos that often include signatures of those players, I am often struck by the clarity of these athletes’ handwriting, and as an old fogey educator, I bemoan the decline of cursive writing in the modern age. Even Connie’s left-handed signature was usually legible. Yikes, I really AM old!—Jackie Swensson. She is the widow of Conrad Swensson who pitched for the 1949-50 Ponca City Dodgers.
Ed reply:
Thanks for the kind words. Things have changed way too much over the years.
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Hi John. How about the sign stealing going on back then and the lengths they go to do it?
I have not gotten a reply from Bobby Ramsey's family. I mentioned some pictures and thought they might like copies. Thanks for keeping in touch. Marge Qualls
Ed reply:
Hope you eventually hear from the Ramsey family. People are often slow to respond.
Ed comment:
Ramsey, Qualls, Bill Virdon, Don Taussig and John Gabler were members of the 1950 Independence, Kansas Yankees. For historical perspective, the latter three guys cited made it to the major leagues.
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John, I really don't know how you can have all that information and photos etc. Of course working very hard but I admire you with all my heart, thank you very much. Ernie Wallerstein played minor league baseball as Ernie Klein—From Havana, Cuba now living in freedom in New Jersey.
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Hi John, been trying to remember some pros that I met over the years. Hank Bauer, Spook Jacobs, Roger Maris, and six other Yankees/A's who were at Spook’s house next door Tom Earp—Kansas City (Yes, Tom is kin to the famous lawman of the same last name.)
Ed reply:
Could that rookie who pitched a no-hitter be the late Bob Grim?
Earp’s reply:
Yes, thank you. (It) Niggled at my mind for some years now!
Ed reply:
Having a mind niggling isn't pleasant . ________________________________________________
Now to the Don Biebel story
In the previous issue of whatever this is publication is called, a reference was made to the current baseball scandal—sign stealing. In that report, like most, space it concluded prior to my finishing what I wanted to say. Thus, I told the folks to look up key words like “Don Biebel” and other things like the Chicago Cubs scoreboard.
This is a link to the Chicago Cubs sign pilfering scheme.
thebaseballcodes.com/2019/11/19/that-time-when-the-cubs-w... Now, if you clicked on that site and read the article the rest of this report will make sense. If you ignored the link then do the same for the remainder of this submission.
Note from Don Biebel
John. Now you've done it. I'll be afraid to answer the phone now for fear MLB will be calling to suspend me without pay. Ha! Ha! myctfocbd.com/cbdbieb
Ed reply:
Don't you love it? I can't believe people are getting bent out of shape regarding something that has gone on since the birth of Abner Doubleday. Would you like to share some comments regarding what has been going on since electronic snooping has come about? I can make you a household name, again.
I'm sure glad to have known Don Biebel, off and on, over six decades. Have a great day, week and year.
Biebel’s response
Sign stealing is trying to get too modern with all this electronic equipment and too many people involved. The old KISS method is what you need. Keep.it simple stupid. If you can’t come up with a foolproof set of signs you have a problem. Things are getting tougher though with all this free agency and nobody staying on the same team for multiple seasons anymore. I was always concerned that one of our guys would get plunked and seriously hurt by my error or by being crossed up by the opposing pitcher. Like you say, what's the big deal it’s been going on for nearly 150 years.
I might add that one day while spending the afternoon in the scoreboard I caught Bob Buhl www.google.com/search?q=bob+buhl+baseball&oq=Bob+Buhl...
and Joey Jay www.google.com/search?q=joey+jay+baseball+player&oq=J... of the Braves sitting in the bleachers with a pair of binoculars. After making a phone call I had them promptly escorted back to the Braves locker room since they didn’t have tickets. Fun at the ‘ol ball park. The (Hank) Sauer story is still tops myctfocbd.com/cbdbieb
Ed reply:
Did the Cubs give much thought to their sign stealing when they released or traded a player? Who was actually in charge of authorizing the sign escapade in Chicago?
Biebel’s response
Not really we only did it the second half of the ‘59 season. At least that's the only time I was involved. Al Dark www.google.com/search?q=alvin+dark+stats&oq=Alvin+Dar... was the one that came up with the idea. All players were not included, (Ernie) Banks was one of those. You're coming up with lot of dirt about me. I'm really a nice honest guy.
Comment:
Biebel and Yours truly exchanged numerous other messages along this line and he felt I may have exposed his past to which I remarked “Don't worry you'll come out of this looking like a hero. You have to know the old batboy protects his former Carthage Cubs.”
Those comments led to this exchange. Biebel replied “I know you will protect me I appreciate that. Hope all is well with you. Love the reports.”
This editor admitted “I'm doing better after a trip to the emergency room yesterday. To which Biebel replied “Well I hope so, hope nothing serious.” The response to that was “They did every test known to mankind and found nothing. They didn't even find a sign of a brain when doing a CAT scan.”
Biebel opined “We’re better off without a brain. I'll never forget a comment Don Anderson (Carthage manager) said to me after I screwed up something and was trying to explain what happened. He said ‘Biebel, every time you think two runs score. I don’t think anymore.’”
Confession was made to Biebel that I never thought Anderson liked me when I as batboy. But years later he made up for it by visiting in person with me and calling by phone about once a month.
At this juncture in our conversation, regarding sign stealing, we ran out of ammunition and the subject turned to the girls the ball players dated in Carthage. For obvious reasons they will not be named. However, I recall every one of them for I set up dates for many of the single players. Never knowingly did I do that for a married player.
In perusing the names of the former Carthage Cub girlfriends it was discovered that the majority of them are deceased. However, one of special interest had a teaching career at a major university in the south. After over 30 years of marriage her husband passed away and she then married a prominent surgeon in the mid-south. He was two decades her senior and she is now a very rich widow living in the State of Florida. I told Biebel where she lived and that he should give her a call and relive the summers of 1950 and 1951. If any of you Carthage boys from the graduating classes, circa 1951-53 want to know to who I’m referencing, let me know
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And in contusion, collusion, collision or conclusion…
Finally, this report comes to a merciful end with this note from the 1950 Iola first baseman, Bob Schwarz. “John, I must say, your keeping coming, THE KOM LEAGUE FLASH REPORT (yet a low minor league, having ‘few’ highlights organization to write about,) is no small task for you, need I say. Be thankful that the good LORD blessed you with ‘WIT’, dry as it is. Thanks. Bob.”
Comment:
Yes, my wit is pretty dry. So, in order to read this report just add a cup of water and hope for the best.
Half-frame cameras were in vogue in the 1960s, and some predicted that, with their advantages of compactness, film economy and depth of field, they would eventually supercede full-frame 35mm. Films, in those days, were available in 20 and 36 exposure lengths giving, in practice, 44 or 75 half-frame exposures. To those graduating from 8-on-127 Brownies, it seemed a blessing.
The diminutive Olympus Pen EE was the most popular half-frame camera ever. With its lapidary selenium cell baffle surrounding the lens, it was a familiar sight in camera shop windows.
The basic Pen EE, with automatic exposure, a single shutter speed and fixed-focus f3.5 lens was well-made, reliable and in good lighting conditions, foolproof to use. This example is a “Go Faster” EE-S model with a focussing f2.8 lens and two shutter speeds which like the aperture, were selected automatically. The bright-frame, portrait-orientated viewfinder was very clear but offered no exposure or focussing information. Usefully, the 30mm focal length (equivalent to 40mm full-frame) gave a semi-wide angle view.
By the 1970's the half frame format had had its day. Certainly they could produce good album-size prints and (projected on a small screen) very sharp colour slides. But for the more discerning, a good small image would always be beaten for quality by a good big one, and mass-market users, finding themselves with two Christmases and a Summer holiday on a still-unfinished roll of film, were better catered for by the new Instamatic format.
Sneak preview of the upcoming recipe book of Fatmah Bahalwan and NCC Team: "60 Foolproof Recipes - Desserts and Drinks"
Years taken off my life for eating these wonderful sugary rings - 2
Recipe courtesy of www.southernplate.com/2009/01/melt-in-your-mouth-doughnut...
Security Team at Namma Bengaluru Kambala 2023
Foolproof security arrangements were made at this important event in Bengaluru city.
... and the plot quickly thickens.
The Bugs Bunny posse recruiting plan was a great success and within the week, 007 had recruited fifty top men. After security checks came back positive, they were issued high tech cell phones and were kept in daily touch with the team.
One of the posse members had a cousin who was a monk at the local monastery just a few miles out of town. The 007 leaders were welcomed there where they were able to live in complete anonymity.
Unexpectedly, Columbo, received the final investigative update from the joint FBI/CIA phase of the investigation and the evil challenger was postively identified.
The person they MUST take into custody turned out to be the grandson of the infamous Goldfinger of 1960s fame. In the underworld, that grandson is known as the Goldeneye and his story is much the same as his evil grandfather, leaving us to believe that is plans for the future of the world will be much like his grandfather's as well.
A little known fact about grandfather Goldfinger was he got his name because during his youth when he was learning explosives. He lost his right index finger. Because of this wealth and ego, he had a prosthesis of pure gold made and implanted into the bone of his right hand. Most people thought he got his name from this ability to make money. The old saying being, "...everything he touches turns to gold." Others thought it was because his favorite means of murder was to completely cover a person with gold dust and cause them to die from lack of oxygen.
Goldfinger's original plan after, he had built his underwater kingdom, was to destroy the populated area of the earth and repossess it after the nuclear residual danger had vanished. Unfortunately for him, he died in the explosion that destroyed his underwater kingdom. That explosion had been set off by 007's grandfather, in whose footsteps he had proudly followed.
The Golden Eye as a child lost his eye in an accident caused during an experiment with explosives and in honor of his grandfather, had the golden finger prosthesis melted down and an artifical eye molded. His admiration for his grandfather led 007 and his team to believe his plans would be a perfect match to those of the evil grandfather.
Displays were put up in the Monastery chapel, and the raid that would put the Golden eye into captivity were thoroughly discussed.
Slowly a foolproof plan began to emerge.
This is heady stuff.