Friday, April 29, 2011

Royal wedding

Associated Press.
Yrs trly got up at 4:25 a.m. this morning (Friday, April 29, 2011) to go the bathroom.
“25 minutes into ABC’s coverage of the Royal Wedding,” I said, as I got back into bed.
Which begs the question: did you set your alarm to 4 a.m. to view the Royal Wedding?
We didn’t.
“I’m sure there will be plenty of Royal-Wedding coverage on tomorrow’s news,” my wife commented last night.
Better than the talking-heads droning about passage of all the Queen’s horses, and all the Queen’s men.
“And there goes the new princess, waving at all her subjects from the golden carriage.”
A glittering Cinderella story, yes indeedy.
Boring to me.
And every time I see a marriage, I think what’s in store for these two people. Do they have any idea?
Everyone smiling at a bright future.
Can British royalty last? Is Queeny the last monarch?
Rule by monarchy seems to have been replaced in England by noisy posturing in the House of Commons.
That goes clear back to the Magna Carta, agreed to in 1215 by King John.
And no English monarch has been named John since.
And who knows what other travails might beset this happy couple?
Prince William might have a heart-attack, and Princess Kate might develop cancer.
43 years ago we had no idea I’d have a stroke, or that my wife would get cancer.
I wish the couple well.
From my male vantage-point Kate looks interesting.
And it looks like the two actually like each other, that marriage wasn’t forced on them by circumstance.
Kate has taken on incredible responsibility — to become royalty.
But even that isn’t worth getting up at 4 a.m. to be bored silly by talking-heads.
Years ago President Kennedy was assassinated while I was in college.
Classmates drove to Washington D.C. to view the funeral procession and history.
Free of talking-heads.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not a death-sentence. It’s treatable. Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer. The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen. That was poofed with chemotherapy. —The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts. It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes. We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole. Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The mowing-season begins


(Photo by BobbaLew.)

And so begins the mowing-season, a wild bucking-bronco ride of trying to keep up with our gigantic and prolific lawn.
Actually, it began last Tuesday, April 26, when I installed three sharpened cutting-blades on our 48-inch Country-Clipper Zero-Turn lawnmower.
The Country-Clipper is a fabulous machine.
It makes our lawn manageable.
It’s zero-turn, which means it can turn on a dime.
I mow one swipe, spin, and then the next swipe.
I’m not driving all over creation to mow my lawn.
Operating a zero-turn is a skill. But I got the hang of it without too much trouble.
With a zero-turn, I can mow my entire lawn in about four hours.
With a lawn-tractor it might take six-seven hours.
I mow four individual segments.
The front-lawn might take half an hour.
The north and south wings might take an hour or more each.
The backyard, the so-called “Back-40,” takes over two hours.
I had ordered an assist-jack to install the mower-blades.
What it does is lift the front of the mower, so the deck can be flipped out to work on it, e.g. install the cutting-blades.
The front of the mower could be lifted manually, but we’re old and it’s heavy.
The assist-jack didn’t appear.
I could jack it with my own jack (a car-jack). but there’s no place to lift.
I couldn’t wait; the front-lawn was growing like gangbusters.
So I installed the cutting blades the old way, down-and-dirty groveling on the garage-floor.
I ride the front up car-ramps, and install the blades from underneath.
I have a so-called “blade-buster” tool that clamps to the deck to keep the blades from spinning.
It holds them in position while torqueing, almost impossible from underneath with a loose two-by-four.
Cutting-blades installed, I could mow. So I immediately mowed the front-lawn.
If I had waited another day, it would have been almost impossible.
I finished just as a giant thunderstorm moved in.
I could not “blow it:” distribute the clippings all over the lawn.
A mower-man showed me this.
Raise the cutting-deck as high as it will go, 4&1/2 inches, and blast back-and-forth.
It blows the clumped clippings all over the yard, evenly distributed.
I mow at three inches.
And so begins the chase to keep up with our lawn, wedging in time between showers and 89 bazilyun medical appointments, and working out at the Canandaigua YMCA, grocery-trips, etc.
May is always the hardest month.
Some segments grow so fast I hafta mow every four days.
This chase will last all the way into October, maybe even November.
And right now I can’t mow the Back-40; it’s too wet.
I’m in no condition to unstick a 700-pound lawnmower.

RE: “We’re old.......” —Both my wife and I are 67.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

$3.97.9

That’s what gasoline cost yesterday (Tuesday, April 26, 2011) at Wilson Farms on 5&20 in West Bloomfield.
“Probably the last time I buy gasoline at less than $4 per gallon,” I thought.
Seems a month ago it was about $3.21.9, and I was telling our investment-advisor “I go by the price of gasoline, not the Dow-Jones.”
The price of gas seems to indicate the viability of the economy.
If we’re bouncing back, the gas-price inches up.
Now things seem to be out of control.
The Dow-Jones goes down, yet the price of gas jumps, often by leaps and bounds.
“Turmoil in the oil patch,” we’re told.
Well yes, but we’re also told there’s no oil crisis; that speculators are running up the price of oil.
Even the REPUBLICANS seem to be reversing course.
House-Speaker John Boehner, a staunch defender of the oil industry, is saying maybe it’s time to stop subsidizing the oil industry, end the depletion allowance.
I don’t drive a gas-hog, and don’t drive much. I’m not in my car every minute, driving when I can walk.
But we’re out in the boondocks. Everything is a 15-25 minute car-trip; into Rochester is 45 minutes.
Our moving out here presumed auto-travel. Public transit in the boondocks is essentially nonexistent.
The oil industry has us hooked.
As do speculators inflating the oil-price.
Boehner is also saying Obama can’t be re-elected if the price of gas keeps climbing.
“That depends on who he’s running against,” I shout.
And the REPUBLICANS have yet to present a viable alternative.
Donald Trump is a joke.
As if taking over the oil-patch is a solution to our problems.
Trump should stick to glitzy overpriced hotels and gambling.

• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live. It used to be the main road across Western New York before the Thruway. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The greatest Mustang of all


(Photo by Roy Ritchie.) The 2012 Boss-302 Mustang.

The May 2011 issue of my Car & Driver magazine says the 2012 Boss-302 Mustang is “the best Mustang ever.”
I’ll let Car & Driver Editor-at-Large John Phillips do the honors:
“We expected the Boss-302 to be little more than a marketing exercise in nostalgia, a somewhat more brutal, slightly faster GT, with alluring graphics but primitive predilections.
It isn't. Nose to tail, this feels like a whole new equine—thoroughly sorted, conscientiously massaged, the object of considerable forethought and ambition.
As automotive resurrections go, this is a knockout that venerates the original Boss while embarrassing it objectively and subjectively in every meaningful measure. What this is, is the best Mustang ever.”
The new Boss-302 is a reprise of the fabulous Boss-302 which was only produced in the ’69 and ’70 model-years.
A 1970 is pictured below.


(Photo by David Newhardt.) A 1970 Boss 302 Ford Mustang.

The Boss-302 was Ford’s response to the Camaro Z/28, which was selling like hotcakes.


(Photo by David Newhardt.) A 1969 Z/28 Camaro. (The first Z/28s were 1968.)

The Z/28 was a package of “hot-rod” options to make the Camaro dominant in Sports-Car Club of America’s (SCCA) Trans-Am series.
SCCA wanted 1,000 cars to have the improvements made to ponycars to make them dominant in the Trans-Am series.
In fact, “Z/28” was the package option number. Car & Driver suggested they name the concept Z/28.
Trans-Am wouldn’t allow any more than 305 cubic-inches engine displacement, five liters.
But the Chevrolet Small-Block could be made immensely powerful even at that displacement.
A Penske/Donohue Camaro. (This is a restored Penske Camaro; it’s not Donohue’s number, which was “6.”)
Entrant Roger Penske (“penn-SKEEE”) entered Z/28 Camaros driven by Mark Donohue in the Trans-Am and won the series.
A Penske Z/28 is pictured at left.
Chevrolet was stealing Ford’s thunder.
The Mustang was in eclipse.
Ford president “Bunkie” Knudson, ex of GM, pushed through a Mustang that could compete with the Z/28, named the “Boss-302” at the suggestion of stylist Larry Shinoda.
Shinoda had a lot to do with the graphics on the Boss-302.
Like the Z/28, the Boss-302 came at 302 cubic-inches engine displacement, to meet the Trans-Am five liter limit.
The Boss-302 was taken up by old stockcar racer Bud Moore of Spartanburg, SC.
Moore had been running Trans-Am with Cougars, modified for racing per stockcar practice.
He hired old Indianapolis racer Parnelli Jones (“parr-nell-EEEE”) to be his lead driver.
Parnelli won the Indianapolis 500 in 1963.
By then Jones was ratcheting down.
Trans-Am cars were not as dangerous as open-wheel racers.
But Jones was extremely competitive, probably the most competitive driver in Trans-Am.
And Bud Moore’s Mustangs were dominant — they usually qualified fastest.
The Bud Moore Parnelli Jones Boss-302 Mustang (1970).
A Bud Moore Parnelli Jones Boss-302 Mustang is pictured at left.
In 1969 I attended a Trans-Am race at Bridgehampton road-course out Long Island. (Bridgehampton is gone.)
Moore’s second driver was usually George Follmer (“FOAL-mer”)
Jones had the pole, and Follmer was second.
Right after the start-straight was a long blind downhill curving right.
Jones and Follmer barreled over the crest of that hill flat-out at 165 mph, each giving no quarter.
It was awesome and frightening; I will never forget it! That’s goin’ to my grave.
At the bottom of the hill, their rear-suspension trackbars grounded throwing up sparks.
As Jones used to say: “If your car’s not outta control, you’re not driving fast enough.”
Supposedly this new Boss-302 is better than the old Boss-302.
Well, it should be; over 40 years have passed.
I used to say the old Boss-302 was the most appealing of collectable classic cars.
It had the Cleveland version of the Ford Small-Block, supposedly better than even the Chevy Small-Block.
This is because the Cleveland has splayed valves, like the Chevy Big-Block, which allow larger valves for better breathing.
The new Boss-302 is almost attractive enough for me to buy one, but there are downsides.
—1) It’s still the tractor layout: solid rear-axle with center differential.
At least it’s better up front, probably struts.
But it needs independent-rear-suspension (IRS).
A bump to to one tire will effect both tires, and that heavy rear-axle will side-step in curves.
My Vega used to do that.
If it crossed a bump mid-corner, the back-end would side-step.
That heavy rear axle would bounce off the pavement, and hang up for a while. Its momentum was not allowing it to respond quickly.
With independent-rear-suspension you take the heavy differential out of the suspended parts.
Plus you make the opposite tire independent of the bumped tire.
The tractor layout can be made to handle quite well. That’s what NASCAR uses.
But state-of-the-art racecars are independently suspended — they have been for years.
—2) It’s not All-Wheel-Drive. In fact, it’s Rear-Wheel-Drive, which means blowing out my driveway if it snows.
With All-Wheel-Drive I can negotiate up to a foot.
With Rear-Wheel-Drive it’s about six inches max.
—3) It’s a car; it won’t have the high under-clearance of an SUV.
The above two factors make it a poor choice for chasing trains. I noticed this last February.
Facing us was a narrow dirt-track clogged with ice, the kind of road my friend Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) is afraid of trying with his newish Buick.
His Buick doesn’t have the high ground-clearance of my Honda CR-V SUV.
Nor is his Buick All-Wheel-Drive.
Up that ice-lined dirt-track we went easy-as-pie; no worries about bottoming, and the All-Wheel-Drive just clawed through the ice.
Beyond that, some of the places we chase trains are dirt-roads through the outback — they prompt fear of damaging paint.
My CR-V is eight years old, although in pretty good shape.
It comfortably seats four, and can go through anything.
There’s little worry about damaging anything, or bottoming.
—4) I’d have to keep a Boss-302 in gas, and it’s a V8.
My CR-V is a four, and averages over 24 mpg. A Boss-302 might get 20.
—5) What sense does such performance make when stuck in traffic?
My 2003 Honda CR-V.(This is as-new; I’ve installed alloy-wheels, and better tires.)
Plus most of my driving is pillar-to-post. I’m more interested in dependability than crushing the competition.
My CR-V, which I almost traded, is the best train-chaser I’ve ever owned.
About all I don’t like about it is its rear-door which opens sideways, conflicting with our garage-door.
And fold-up rear seats that are dog unfriendly.
A Ford Escape would better — the rear-door is hinged at the top, and the rear-seats fold away.
But it’s slightly bigger.
Plus Fords seem to have a habit of rusting.

• I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67). (“Do ya fish?” a friend once asked. “No, I chase trains,” I said. “Fisherman are gratified when they snag a big one; with me it’s a train.”)
• The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time. (The Ford Small-Block was a Ford V8 designed to compete with the Chevy Small-Block. The first overhead-valve Ford V8 debuted in the 1954 model-year, but was a boat-anchor compared to the Chevy Small-Block. —Ford also had large “Big-Block” engines. The Ford Small-Block debuted in the early ‘60s.)
• “Phil Faudi” helps me chase trains in the Altoona (“al-TUN-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA area. Phil is the railfan extraordinaire who supplied all-day train-chases for $125. —I did my first over two years ago, alone, and it blew my mind. He called them “Adventure-Tours.” He’d bring along his rail-scanner, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and he knew the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers called out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fired off. He knew each train by symbol, and knew all the back-roads, and how long it took to get to various photo locations — and also what made a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc. I’d let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but I left it behind. Phil knew every train on the scanner, where it was, and how long it took to beat it to a prime photo location. My first time was a slow day, yet we got 20 trains. Next Tour we got 30 trains in one nine-hour day. Phil gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a really nice new car he’s afraid he’d mess up.
• Altoona is the location of Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”),
by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and-personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.)

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Spinning in her grave

“I don’t know how you can buy a German dishwasher after what they did to London in WWII?”
So would say my English friend who survived the bombing of London.
“V-2 rockets. Incendiaries. They reduced London to rubble. They killed thousands!”
Actually this is an extrapolation of what really happened in the early ‘80s when I showed up at her house in our Volkswagen Rabbit.
She slammed down her garage-door, and almost wouldn’t let us into her house.
Our dishwasher is Bosch, the same people that made the fuel-injection and spark-plugs for our Rabbits.
At least it’s not Mitsubishi — weren’t they the manufacturers of the Japanese Zero?
I can still that oily black pillar of smoke towering above the battleship Arizona.
The fuel-injection was rudimentary — not as elaborate as what you find now; individually-timed pulses of fuel into the intake tracts.
It was like the fuel-injection in the 1957 Chevrolet and Corvettes.
A constant spray of gasoline into the intake-tract of each individual cylinder; the volume of which was metered by a paddle-sensor to measure air-flow.
Now fuel-injection is no longer constant.
It’s timed pulses of fuel, some even directly into the combustion-chamber.
So-called Direct-Injection; it’s more precise, and therefore less polluting.
We decided on Bosch after reading Consumer-Reports dishwasher reviews.
Supposedly Bosch was better engineered, and more durable.
Beyond that were -a) the fact a Bosch didn’t have a garbage-disposal, which we don’t need, and -b) intake water is quickly heated off-to-the-side, not by a large heating-ring coil in the base of the tub.
Well, okay, but our Maytag lasted almost 18 years.
It was replaced by a Kenmore, which didn’t last long, and committed an unpardonable sin.
The rack was sheathed in rubberized plastic, and its end-caps wore off, allowing the rack-ends to rust.
Rust was being deposited on our dishes.
Our Kenmore got early retirement, and my wife started washing the dishes herself.
I started complaining we needed a new dishwasher, one with nylon-covered racks, which most are nowadays.
To replace the racks in our Kenmore would cost almost as much as a new dishwasher.
And again the rack-ends might deteriorate.
So Bosch it is.
My friend is probably spinning in her grave.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Show of hands

“I need a show of hands,” said Linda Giordano, a sales representative for Care-Point Medical, at a recent meeting the the dreaded Alumni.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS — “Transit”), a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit, management versus union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then.
The Alumni is a special club — you have to join. It’s an Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) functionary. (ATU is nationwide.)
It isn’t just a social club.
It has bylaws, officers, and an Executive Board.
In many ways it’s just like our union-local, except it entertains issues of interest to retirees; like Medicare, healthcare, and diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
“Dreaded” because all my siblings are flagrantly anti-union, like the proper way for hourlies to parry the massive management juggernaut is one employee at a time; in which case that single employee gets trampled because he’s not presenting a united front with power equal to the management juggernaut.
“How many in this room have diabetes?” she asked.
A forest of hands shot up.
“Everyone in this room has diabetes,” said Major Anderson, a retired bus-driver.
“Not me,” I shouted.
“Nor me,” said my friend Ray Dunbar (“done-bar”), recently retired, sitting across from me.
It was Dunbar (who I called “Radical-Dude”) and I who caused great consternation among Transit management by publishing a union newsletter.
I was the volunteer editor and publisher, and Dunbar circulated it among local politicians.
We were loudly excoriated as despicable union activists by Transit management because for once our side was getting perused by those that funded Transit.
We were rocking the boat — DREAD!
Our meeting was held at the Golden Fox Restaurant, not the infamous Blue Horizon, site of previous meetings.
The Blue Horizon was being remodeled.
We also call it the Blue Cockroach, since it seems to be cockroach infested.
“I hope those remodelers have hazmat suits,” I observed.
“And ya don’t even need to go into the rest rooms,” said my friend Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”), also a retired bus-driver.
“All ya do is open the door and aim in.
Ya don’t dare go in lest ya get peed on.”
Last meeting I went in the rest-room and Brother Tom Hyder (“high-drrrr”), another retired bus-driver, and Recording Secretary of the Alumni, was sitting on the can.
He came out, and “you dared sit on that seat?” I said.
“Ya gotta be careful,” he said. “It’s not attached.”
Which means toilet-users have to stash the seat. It won’t prop open.
People don’t.
“Cooties,” I said.
“Make sure ya shower!” I told him.
Ms. Giordano trotted out her display of various medical paraphernalia.
Including shoes.
“Everyone with diabetes is entitled the one free pair of shoes per year. Medicare pays for them. Our shoes are specially designed for diabetes patients.
Plus here we have our back-braces.
Velcro attachment with a pulley to pull it tight.”
Funny, I’ve never needed a back-brace; I use a McKenzie Lumbar Roll.
Dunbar related how the bottom five vertebra of his spine fused together after collapse and required an operation.
Driving bus would do that to you, sitting in that seat.
I got so I used the Lumbar Roll while bus-driving to put the proper lumbar curve in my back.
I told management they could save a bundle on disability for back-pain, but was laughed at.
Like, I’m just a bus-driver — what do I know?
Same with the driver-seats, which had a habit of collapsing and throwing you on the floor.
“Can’t possibly happen,” I was told.
“It just happened to me!”
The old waazoo — “You’re just a bus-driver; what could you possibly know?”
“I’ll send out a sign-up sheet,” Ms. Giordano said. “Write down your name and phone-number, and I’ll come to your house and fit you for shoes. They won’t cost you anything. Medicare and your secondary insurance.”
“But I’m out in the boondocks,” Colvin said.
(He lives about 40 miles east of Rochester, in a very rural area.
His road isn’t in Google Street-Views.)
“I see you already have the free shoes,” Ms. Giordano said to Colvin. “Dr. Comfort.”
“Also free,” Colvin said. “But not Care-Point.”

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Google Street-Views” are a Google picture of what’s viewable from the street. Apparently a car traveled the street with a fish-eye video camera to record everything viewable from the street. This is nationwide, but not every road is in “Google Street-Views,” although most are.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The ugliest car of all time


The ugliest car of all time.



Yrs trly finally had a chance to read a report in my May 2011 issue of Hemmings Classic Car Magazine, about the ugliest car of all time, the 1959 Oldsmobile.
The 1959 Chevrolet — pictured below — comes extremely close, but I always adjudged it the ugliest Chevrolet of all time, not the ugliest automobile of all time.


(Photo by BobbaLew.) The ugliest Chevrolet of all time.

Other cars were almost as ugly, e.g. the 1959 Pontiac, also pictured.
1959 Pontiac.
Just about every 1959 General Motors offering was ugly.
The only one that wasn’t was the 1959 Buick, also pictured.
Although I look at it now, and it’s garish.
The ’59 Buick was the only offering that successfully pulled off the 1959 General Motors re-stylings.
Massive gull-wing fins, and exaggerated width.
Things were better in the 1960 model-year — the ’60 Chevy still had massive gull-wing fins, but looked okay.
The ’59 Cadillac, also pictured, had giant sweeping vertical tailfins considered the extreme of the chrome tailfin era.
It didn’t look too bad, but its front-end doesn’t match.
1959 Buick.
This was especially true of the ’59 Chevy.
The front-end was an el-cheapo anodized aluminum stamping with punched cut-outs.
It’s a variation of the same cheap anodized aluminum stamping used in the ’58 Chevy grill.
Put those gull-wings on a DelRay two-door business-sedan, and it looks ridiculous.
Not too bad on the BelAir two-door hardtop pictured.
The BelAir hardtop was supposed to look dramatic.
Putting gull-wings on a DelRay is sloppily applied lipstick on a pig.
1959 Cadillac.
Growing up a teenager in the late ‘50s in northern Delaware the family across-the-street from us had a ’59 Oldsmobile.
Same color as pictured, but I think theirs was a four-door sedan.
The family’s last name was “Ball,” and they had a teenaged daughter named Cindy a year older than me.
She had learned to drive in that Olds, and was somewhat intimidated by its size and weight,
This was about the time Driver-Ed was starting — I didn’t do Driver-Ed.
The Olds was the family car, and had the usual four-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission.
She told me about flooring it once, causing great fear and consternation.
There was a detent in the accelerator-travel. Go past that detent, and you’re engaging “passing-gear.”
The Hydramatic downshifted a gear or two, and all-of-a-sudden the giant motor was revving for the moon.
The motor was the same 394 cubic-inch engine used in the pictured car; 435 foot-pounds of torque at 2,800 rpm.
At that time 394 cubic inches was HUGE.
Scared the living daylights out of her.
My family’s ’53 Chevy Powerglide six had the same detent, although Powerglide was only two speeds.
It tried it. Floored it!
The Powerglide dropped into Low, and all-of-a-sudden the old Stovebolt was revving for the moon.
Although a Stovebolt in Passing-Gear wasn’t hang-on-for-dear-life.
At college during the early ‘60s I became friends with a guy two classes ahead of me who drove a ’59 Olds.
Same color, and I think his was also a four-door hardtop, just like the car pictured.
“Ugliest car ever made,” I thought, but he really loved that car.
Once we drove to an art-museum in Buffalo — a long and pleasant cruise.
I could see why he liked it.
“Ugliest car ever,” but it rode great — a majestic land-ship.
The car pictured is unrestored original with only about 9,000 miles.
The kind of car “Classic Car” editor Richard Lentinello loves.
The original owner in Colorado bought it to assuage his wife, who was filing for divorce.
His effort failed, but he liked the car — and his ex-wife — so much, he stored the car in a barn.
When he finally died, his heirs were loathe to part with it, until someone came along who knew how valuable it was.
It’s still unrestored original, as delivered by the factory, just a minor doll-up.
The engine and tranny have never been apart.
No matter, it’s still the ugliest car ever; it looks like it was styled by a committee.
“We need them taillights, JB; and what’s an Olds without flipper hubcaps?”

• The Chevrolet overhead-valve inline “Stovebolt-six” was introduced in the 1929 model-year at 194+ cubic inches. It continued production for years, upgraded to four main bearings (from three) for the 1937 model-year. In 1950 the Stovebolt was upsized to 235.5 cubic inches (from 216), and later upgrades included full-pressure lubrication and hydraulic (as opposed to mechanical) valve-tappets. The Stovebolt was produced clear through the 1963 model-year, but replaced with a new seven-main bearing (as opposed to less — like four) inline-six engine in the 1964 model-year. The Stovebolt was also known as “the cast-iron wonder;” called the “Stovebolt” because various bolts could be replaced by stuff from the corner hardware.
• I attended Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) in western New York, where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (Houghton was about 80-90 miles from Buffalo, NY.)
• “Tranny” = transmission.

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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Four-door hardtops


(Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The June 2011 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car Magazine arrived the other day.
I’ve gotten so I really like Classic Car Magazine, largely because of its head-honcho, Richard Lentinello.
He seems biased toward the great cars of my youth, American cars of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.
I suppose this is the love of Boomers, although I’m pre-Boomer, born in 1944.
On the cover is a ’57 Olds Fiesta station-wagon, pictured above.
“35 fun-to-drive station-wagons you must own,” the cover blared.
“I don’t want 35 station-wagons!” I said.
The Fiesta was a special breed, a molding of the pillarless four-door hardtop with the station-wagon body.
The pillarless four-door hardtop was an engineering nightmare.
The rear doors were hinged on pillars that don’t go into the top like a sedan.
The body had to be strong enough to not sag out of alignment, and misalign the doors.
That B-pillar also had to accommodate closing latches for the front doors.
But most important, it had to not fall out of alignment, to allow the doors to close properly.
The four-door hardtop debuted in the 1956 model-year.
Even Chevrolet had one, pictured below.



The roof contributed to body stiffness.
But it’s long and open, spanning two doors per side.
At least it’s not a convertible, which had no top-bracing at all, and had to rely on additional frame members.
Convertibles were horrible, prone to cowl-shake, the shaking of the front cowl which mounts the dashboard and the windshield.
A TR250 (very similar to my car — same color).
My TR250 had that. It was an open roadster with a vinyl top. It was an aluminum ladder.
I remember the first time I road-tested a 1972 Chevrolet Vega GT, how much stiffer it was. It was a two-door GT coupe, with a steel top, and B-pillars clear to the roof.
Imagine flipping a four-door hardtop.
Looks nice but no rollover protection at all.
Part of what adds rollover protection to recent cars is B-pillars to the roof.
Also of note are the famous Oldsmobile flipper hubcaps, the darling of hotrodders and car-customizers in the late ‘50s.
By 1957 Oldsmobile was becoming a flaccid turkey, bloated and heavy.
Early ‘50s Oldsmobiles were far more attractive, especially the Rocket-88; essentially a Chevrolet with a modern overhead-valve V8 engine.

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Friday, April 15, 2011

No sale

Yesterday morning (Thursday, April 14, 2011), returning from nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”) after walking our dog, I noticed a maroon minivan parked at our driveway.
I drove around and pulled into our garage.
As soon as I got out of our car to let out the dog, the maroon minivan was pulling in our driveway.
“Who’s this?” my wife asked. She had come out into our garage.
A nice gentleman got out of the minivan with a large elaborately framed photograph.
It was an aerial photo of our house in strong sunlight.
Probably out of a Piper Cub at about 500 feet.
“I’ve seen that before,” I said.
“Not this,” he said.
“Well, something similar,” I said.
“Probably,” he said. “There are others doing this.”
Now the sad part; “I’m not interested.”
Here a nice man had gone to all the trouble to photograph our house from above — he needed favorable weather to do so, and that isn’t often.
It was a nice photograph.
Our garden was surrounded with strident yellow, our marigolds.
Our red roof reflected the sunlight — it hogged the photograph,
And they had gone to all the trouble to frame the photograph, yet I wasn’t buying.
“Well, thanks for your time.”
Back in the minivan the beautiful photograph went.
No sale.

It’s simple

.....said the girl from Life360 support.
“Nothing is ever simple,” my wife remarked.
Over a week ago I downloaded free software from Life360 to my DroidX smartphone.
The idea was for my wife to track me, that is my phone, assuming I was carrying it.
A cellphone has a GPS locator in it, which Life360 would use to precisely locate my phone on a Google-map.
We can do this tracking on my smartphone, and also via computers.
We’d seen it before.
Something tracked the location of my wife’s friend’s iPhone as he drove from Columbus, OH to Webster.
Theoretically I could drive someplace far away alone, and my wife could track me.
It wasn’t working, of course.
So began a torrid e-mail exchange with Life360 support.
“First you have to log in,” we were told.
“I can’t log in,” I responded.
“Your user-name is your e-mail address.”
I have two e-mails. The one Life360 was using was GMail, the one I never use.
Okay, try GMail. AANNT! “Invalid password or user-name.”
“I still can’t log in,” I e-mailed.
“In which case you have to reset your password,” I was told.
Okay, reset password to the same password I used to set up the account.
“We have successfully logged in, but still no tracking.”
“In which case you have to add the family-member you wanna track.”
“We already did that,” I said. “The only two family-members on our account are my wife and I. Do them again, and I’d be duplicating.”
Finally, still getting nowhere, my wife called the Life360 support-desk.
“It’s simple,” the girl said.
At which point my wife said “nothing is ever simple.”
“We also noticed a button to run Life360 in the background. We’ll try that,” my wife said.
Nothing was ever said about that background button.
What we got were suggestions we disable Task-Killer® for Life360.
Now I’m being tracked; my DroidX that is.
I get the feeling us old codgers got it to work ourselves.
I think Life360 needed to be in the background, which Life360 never suggested.
Well, at least Life360 support sounded like Silicon Valley, not Sri Lanka.
They helped me reset my password, except it was the same password I set up with.

• “Webster” NY is a suburb east of Rochester, NY.
• “Task-Killer” is a smartphone computer application that “force-quits” applications frozen or run amuck.
• RE: “Old codgers......” —We’re both 67.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The REAL MAN requirement

Kevin Cameron.
A month or two ago an interesting column ran in my Cycle World magazine written by Technical Editor Kevin Cameron.
Cameron is probably the best writer Cycle World has. Not only does he understand the most arcane technical subjects, he can relate such esoterica extremely well.
So technical esoterica can be understood.
I guess Cameron used be an entrant in motorcycle racing, first as a rider, then a mechanic.
He got his hands dirty wrenchin’.
And to win races you had to understand technical esoterica.
He seems biased toward gasoline engines, and has an appreciation of their development history, particularly classic WWII propeller airplane engines. —And other motivators, like the steam-engine and electric motors.
Motorcycle design and suspension are somewhat interesting, but not as interesting as the engine.
Gasoline engines are compromises.
The rpm at they generate the most horsepower is often higher than the rpm at which they generate the most torque.
Things are at play within an engine that limit output, like friction and pumping losses.
Torque is the twisting force put out by the rotating crankshaft.
Multiply those torque pulses by revolutions per minute, and the horsepower generated is often higher at that engine-speed, with lower output per torque-pulse, than the torque-output at the rpm of maximum torque output.
So where does this leave the user of the gasoline engine?
Maximum torque output may make exiting corners quicker.
Yet maximum horsepower at high speed makes higher speeds attainable.
Gasoline engines are always a compromise.
Valve-events, etc. have to be dickered to maximize both.
One also has to avoid extremes that compromise reliability.
Yet what’s needed to maximize torque often minimizes peak horsepower.
Honda developed a transmission for its Quad-Runner all-terrain-vehicles.
They ran the engine at the constant speed of its maximum torque output.
No one would buy it, even though it delivered performance superior to a standard gearbox.
The engine was not being revved “through the gears” .
It was running at constant speed: “HUMMMMMMMMMMMM........”
Honda had to dicker the transmission to make the “through the gears” sound — thereby scotching the whole point.
The Quad-Runner was no longer taking advantage of maximum engine torque.
No one would buy the constant-speed tranny, even with superior performance.
Tied to convention. Users were used to “through the gears.”
Same with clutching.
Steam-engines and electric motors can start from a full stop.
Gasoline engines can’t. They have to idle.
This being the case a clutch of some sort is put between the idling engine and the stationary wheel on pavement — like meshing discs or a tighten able pulley-belt on an idler.
The operator wicks up the engine a little so it doesn’t die when the clutch is engaged.
It’s a wonderful expression of macho charisma, to successfully start a stopped vehicle with an idling engine.
—And not stall the engine.
A right-of-passage for teenagers; to learn the whole kibosh and thereby avoid looking like a fool.
My wife never mastered it; she uses automatic transmission.
The auto-transmission dispenses with the clutch.
It relies on a fluid-coupling.
Which was partly why the automatic transmission was so poorly regarded in the ‘50s.
Automatic transmission was the need of wusses; a real man could master standard-tranny with a clutch.
And now real men are so tied to “through the gears” they won’t buy a better performer.
Automatic transmission has become the norm.
Both our current cars have automatic transmission; although I had cars in my past with standard-tranny; usually four- or five-speed.
My motorcycle is six-speed standard tranny with a clutch.
It goes “up through the gears;” although I don’t need it to.
If constant revs did better, I’d do that.

• “Tranny” = transmission.

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Where’s the discontinue button?

“To discontinue receiving e-mails from Jockey.com. click here.”
Capital idea.
Put a stop to some of the daily deluge of e-mail missives I get from JC Penney, Shade-Tree Powersports, Hanes, Folica, and Jockey.com.
Stuff that clutters my junk folder every day, and I have to delete.
Stuff I have no interest in.
Depictions of young people cavorting half-naked on sunny California beaches in their skivvies.
So I clicked it, and went to the following screen:
“Dear Jockey.com customer,
While we enjoy letting you know about our latest arrivals, special events and promotions, you have the option to unsubscribe.”
I do?
Where’s the “unsubscribe” button?
I don’t see it.
I supposedly have the option, but there’s no “unsubscribe.”
Or is this where it ends — the unsubscribe process.
Is this confusing message the actual unsubscription?
We’ll see.
We’ll see if I get any more young people prancing on sun-drenched California beaches in their underwear.
Perhaps they’re just making unsubscription impossible.

Jag XK120


XK120 coupe.

The other morning, probably Friday, April 8, 2011. I fell in behind a classic Jaguar (“jagg-you-are”) XK120 coupe on Routes 5&20 toward the Canandaigua YMCA.
XK120 roadster.
It was maroon, with full rear fender-skirts like the roadster pictured at left.
It was definitely a coupe, and not the bloated XK140 or XK150 which weren’t as stylish.
I followed it a while, until it turned south off 5&20 up into the hills.
The XK120 is a landmark car.
An incredibly impressive styling job, long-nosed, low, and streamlined.
It set the pattern for all sportscars after it, particularly British sportscars, which it was.
The MGA, which replaced the classic TDs and TFs, is sort of an XK120 clone, in appearance anyway.
MGA roadster.
Although the MGA was smaller, and had only a pedestrian four-cylinder engine.
The XK120 was six inline, with double overhead camshafts.
That engine was state-of-the-art, and a torrid performer.
Double overhead cams are finally becoming the norm, 50 years hence, although the Jaguar engine was kind of finicky.
Enthusiasts often replaced the Jag six with a Small-Block Chevy. Similar performance, yet more reliable.
Jaguar built that engine for years. It ended up powering the XKE, a car a friend says is the best-looking car of all time.


(Photo by BobbaLew.) The best-looking car of all time.

I used to think Raymond Loewy’s 1953 Studebaker Starliner coupe was the best-looking car of all time, but compared to an E-Jag the Stud looks doughty.
Photo by BobbaLew.
Starliner.
I remember seeing an XK120 in a warehouse years ago next to a pier in the Port of Camden (NJ) across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
It had just been loaded off a ship, and was still tied down to its shipping-pallet.
It was my first school-trip, probably first grade — about age-six.
We toured the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) factory, and viewed a presentation of their new 45 rpm record-changer.
RCA’s icon was a dog named Nipper looking into an antique record-player horn, listening to “his master’s voice.”
We also toured the Campbell Soup Factory — industry on parade.
Marching cans of Campbell’s tomato soup.
We also rode the turntable at Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines’ (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”) Camden Terminal Engine house (CTE).
How can a railfan forget that!
(“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” [PRSL] is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the Jersey seashore from Philadelphia. —My attraction to railfanning began with PRSL, which was still using steam-locomotives at that time.)
That Jag was unforgettable, just sitting there awaiting its lucky new owner.
Rakish! A shining icon of towering automotive achievement.
I’m sure my first-grade classmates have all forgotten, but not this kid.
Following the XK120 I couldn’t help notice how narrow it was, and how skinny the tires looked, and well inside the fender-wells.
It looked like it would flip at the slightest provocation.
Nowadays cars have a much wider stance, and their tires are much more meaty.
My CR-V, which I was driving, has a much wider footprint, and it’s probably putting twice as much rubber to the pavement.

• “5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our area; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live. It used to be the main road across Western New York before the Thruway.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about three-four hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time.
• “Stud” = Studebaker.
• I am a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
The “CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.

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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Whazzubbb.........

“How come every time I fire up my Google search-window I get an invitation to install the RoadRunner toolbar?” I asked.
“I don’t want the RoadRunner toolbar. That would just be another thing to waste time on, trying to figure it out,” I said.
“There it is again!” I exclaimed. “What are they trying to do; shove this down my throat?
Everything was fine the way it was,” I said. “I could successfully drive what I had. I don’t have time to figure out something new.”
This reminds of a recent computer foray.
A deal where a search-result was always something other than what I asked for — usually an invitation to buy and download something.
I was trying to get the IRS Tax-Tables, a PDF, and kept getting run around in circles.
“Available free from Tubbie-Tax®; only 89 bazilyun dollars. Have your credit-card ready.”
Like the powers-that-be had taken over my computer from afar.
I get this with Google.
A while ago Googling something was wonderful, but now they seem to be power-crazed.
When I Google-search I get ads — more likely than viable results.
I wonder how reliable Google is...... I guess competitors have sprung up.
It’s like Google is trying to take over the computer-world, now that Microsoft seems in decline.
Which would be okay, if Google were as helpful as it was.
Google something now, and you get ads — things shoved down your throat.
I still use Google, but I’m wary.
It’s like my frustration with Facebook, a nice idea gone awry.
My family’s web-site was also social-media, but much less frustrating than Facebook.
Every time I fire up Facebook its interface is slightly different.
It’s like the tech-mavens at Facebook had nothing better to do, so they dickered something.
A while ago they had a search of all graduates from my high-school on Facebook, but I can’t find it any longer.
Just recently I fired up my only Facebook “friend” from my high-school class — who I never hear from.
My intent was to send him a message hoping he might know the e-mail of the contact who always arranges our high-school reunions.
But I didn’t see a message-function. I had to post on his “wall.”
And then you’re always running up against Facebook’s word-limit, anathema to a word-generator like me.
(It’s ironic they can fly giant video-files; yet excess words, which don’t amount to much, are verboten.)
What if I can’t make my question short enough?
Thank you Facebook, for tossing the message-function. (Or did they? Now, four days later, I see it.)
It isn’t social-media if all I can say is “You go girl,” or “burp.”
And Facebook is unrealistic.
Its members are always perfect and without fault.
Which might be okay if I actually heard from anyone.
I have 42 “friends;” not the record hundreds. (I got an invite from one with over 1,000!)
I have many friend-invites, but I figure why bother?
I’ve accepted a few, and never heard from them again.

• “RoadRunner” is our Internet-Service-Provider (“ISP”), via Time-Warner cable.
• “Tubbie-Tax” is of course Turbo-Tax.

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Saturday, April 09, 2011

Missed relief

Horrible dream this morning.
......That I had “slipped” a relief.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
A “slip” was to fail to show up on time for work.
There were two kinds of slips:
-1) To fail to report on time to pull a bus out, and
-2) To miss relieving a driver already driving a bus, who was to be replaced by you. (Some buses ran all day.)
My missed relief came from confusion which set in -a) since my stroke, and -b) since my retirement from bus-driving.
Such confusion never occurred during my employ. I never “slipped” once. —I was supremely conscientious.
I’d schedule things so slipping couldn’t occur.
Although I tried awful hard once.
It started pouring rain as I got out my motorcycle.
I had to park it and get in my car.
I made my show-up with seconds to spare.
If you were a second late for a show-up, you slipped.
Which may seem ridiculous, but I felt it eminently fair.
It took possible management favoritism out of the equation.
In this morning’s dream, I showed up at management’s window to get transfers for my relief.
Transfers were tiny pieces of paper a driver issued to passengers for a nickel or dime extra.
They entitled that passenger to transfer to another bus without paying additional bus-fare.
My relief was a run I hated.
A slow sojourn out into the western suburbs with horrible equipment, aging and unreliable.
Equipment prone to breakdown, which I abhorred.
There was confusion on my part, like when I was supposed to make the relief.
As I say, confusion like this never occurred during my employ.
I was over an hour off (late) — I had “slipped” the relief.
A typical management goon, prone to elitism, told me we needed a “consult.”
We bus-drivers were unionized; management and union were always at war.
I was dragged into a tiny office to face the goon at his desk — this was what was known as “getting called on-the-carpet.”
I failed to get union representation to go in with me; an angle I knew I should have done from my involvement with the Union.
A union-rep was always on-the-property to accompany union employees before management.
But you had to ask for union representation.
Over 16&1/2 years I got called-on-the-carpet a few times, but charges weren’t serious.
A missed relief was.
The management goon could go ballistic; he might even fire me.
I mentioned the source of my confusion; the fact I had driven the run only a few times.
But management loved to pillory union-employees, or so it seemed.
Like we union-employees were the scum of the earth — an outcome of the wars.

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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Garbage in/garbage out

“What a great idea!” we thought.
A friend of my wife had set up his iPhone to be a tracking device.
He was driving to Rochester from Columbus, OH, and my wife would get an e-mail link which fired up a Google-map of the road he was on, and his exact location.
“There he is on the Thruway.”
Such applications were also available for Droid® SmartPhones, one of which I have.
So theoretically my wife could track my progress on a long trip I was taking alone.
It relies on the fact a cellphone renders to the satellite the exact geodesic coordinates of where it is.
But you need an “app” on your phone to be the translator, and e-mail your follower.
So we’ll try it. Probably it can track my trips to the Canandaigua YMCA, 15-17 miles away.
Doing so would be a precursor to trips over long distances.
Okay, so what “app” did my wife’s friend use?
“Family-Tracker.”
I fired up the App-Store on my SmartPhone, and found “Family-Tracker.” I downloaded and installed it.
“Welcome to ‘Family GP;’ new user, we suggest you take the tour.”
“Hmmmmnnnn....... Is this actually ‘Family-Tracker?’”
Well, it was free.
So I fire up the tour.
First window: “know where preverts are in your area.”
“Swipe left to continue the tour.
“What does ‘swipe’ mean?” I ask.
Okay, I swipe left; NOTHING!
I try again; NOTHING!
I try again; VIOLA! A whole new display appears.
“Wherein was that any different?” I ask. “All swipes were the same.”
I try again; another new window appears.
I swipe left; NOTHING!
I try again; NOTHING!
We seem to be stalled.
”Maybe the tour was just those three windows,” my wife suggests.
I don’t think so! A three-window tour, and each window has an “Exit” button?
Okay, put it away — try again later.
I fire up a few hours later, and start the tour again.
I swipe left; NOTHING!
I try again; NOTHING!
I try yet again; NOTHING!
We seem to be stalled at the first window.
“Make sense a’ dat,” I shout.
“Every time I approach this thing I get some mysterious unknown.
It throws up some new hairball that was entirely unpredicted.”
“It’s only doing what you tell it,” my wife says. “Garbage in/garbage out.”
“Yeah, I do repeatable actions, and each time I get a different result never seen before. I do as told, and nothing happens.”
So now I have three apps, two recently downloaded and installed, one pre-installed, all of which lob steaming hairballs at me.
None are delivering as promised, and one cost money.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about three-four hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15-17 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)

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Sunday, April 03, 2011

Monthly Calendar Report for April, 2011

It’s hard to know how to rate things, since they’re all kind of plain, except mine, which is one of the BEST shots I ever got.



Upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

―The April 2011 entry of my own calendar is a stacker upgrade on Track One at Cassandra Railfan Overlook in Cassandra, PA (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”).
Cassandra is just south of Lilly, PA, not far from the railroad’s tunnels through the top of the Allegheny mountains.
The picture is a rerun; you’ve seen it before. It ran as the March entry of my own calendar last year.
That’s because my 2011 calendar is one I did for Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) when in the Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA area.
Altoona is the location of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains, including Horseshoe Curve (the “Mighty Curve”), by far the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick by the railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades — the railroad was looped around a valley to stretch out the climb. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I am a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67). The viewing-area is smack in the apex of the Curve; and trains are willy-nilly. Up-close-and personal. —I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.
That 2011 calendar for Tunnel Inn crashed; the post-office lost the order.
We did a 2012 calendar for Tunnel Inn with the same pictures they can sell throughout the year.
You should know this picture was taken with my “Cannon;” a strong telephoto, 70-300 mm zoom.
With the lens-shade installed it’s almost nine inches long. It’s about three inches in diameter.
The ultimate phallic symbol. I always wonder why wannabee photographers use these things, when wide-angle is what matters. —It’s just that wide-angle is not phallic.
I call it the “Cannon” because it’s so big.
I put it on my old Rowi (“ROW-eee;” as in “wow”) shoulder-grip because the lens is so strong.
It’s so powerful it can blur the image if jerked slightly.
It almost needs a tripod, but I don’t wanna limit flexibility.
So I use my old Rowi shoulder-grip — sort of a rifle-stock — so I can hopefully hold it still.
That shoulder-grip is at least 40 years old.
Despite that, I have to prop against something.
There was a small bridge-railing I could prop on when I took this picture.
I now try to shoot shutter-priority; no slower than 1/250th.
Most train-shots are auto-focused at infinity; I can let the lens open up. (I prefer 1/500th with this lens.)
I can also crank up the ISO. ISO is normally at 200 (the lowest), although I’ve cranked it up to 400. —No faster than that. If it’s that dark, it’s not worth shooting.
Yet this photo is old enough (2007) it was shot “full automatic;” 1/250th at f5.6, ISO=200; i.e. automatic mode had set the shutter-speed.
But I’ve since learned to shoot shutter-priority. If I let “automatic” slow the shutter-speed, it will shoot slow enough to blur the locomotive-front.
Sadly, Cassandra Railfan Overlook is doomed.
This is a shame, because it’s a great place to watch trains; even better than Horseshoe Curve.
This is primarily because it’s in the shade.
Horseshoe Curve doesn’t have much shade.
A while ago I said the bridge over the tracks at Cassandra was the old highway-bridge, but apparently it isn’t.
It’s very heavily constructed, and wide enough to pass a single Model-A one lane, but it’s not the original Highway-53 road bridge.
Route 53 was rerouted to bypass Cassandra, which meant abandoning the highway-bridge.
The railroad originally went through Cassandra too, but the railroad built a bypass in 1898 to reduce curvature.
That bypass included a deep rock cut.
The cut was deep enough to encourage bridging it, which was done to bring Route 53 into Cassandra from the east.
After the highway-bridge was removed, residents of Cassandra still had to cross the tracks to go east to places of employ.
It’s an active railroad.
So a footbridge was installed on the old highway-bridge abutments.
Photo by BobbaLew.
Cassandra Railfan Overlook (the bridge).
That’s what’s pictured at left.
Railfans started congregating on the bridge, so a Cassandra town resident put in tables and chairs, and started mowing lawn.
That guy eventually became mayor of Cassandra.
The location was named “Cassandra Railfan Overlook.”
It’s a great place to watch the passing parade of trains, of which there are many.
You sit in the shade, and it’s between two defect-detectors, 253.1 south of Lilly, and 258.9 in Portage.
One afternoon we were stuck there about 2-3 hours.
Every time we got up to leave “Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects,” or “Norfolk Southern milepost 258.9, Track One, no defects.”
But not too long ago a chunk of concrete fell off the bridge and damaged a passing locomotive.
The railroad owns the bridge, but the town of Cassandra maintains it, a volunteer effort.
The railroad wondered whether it could be repaired. It couldn’t (not by volunteers), so now the railroad wants to remove it.
Take it out, and that viewing-and-sitting area on the other side of the tracks is no longer accessible from Cassandra.
And the parking-area is on the west side of the bridge, the viewing-area on the east side.
Photo by Roger Durfee, in the Norfolk Southern
Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
Looking south at Cassandra Railfan Overlook.
Even with the bridge gone, it still would be a great place to watch trains; photographing north or south (my calendar-picture is looking north — railroad-east).
Looking south is down into that rocky cut, and looking north is into that curve.
But to get to the east side, you’d have to -a) walk in from Route 53, or worse yet -b) cross the tracks at grade.
  


(From here on they’re all equally plain, although I’ll run the hot-rodded pickup last, even though it’s a great picture; only because I’ve never thought much of hot-rodded pickup trucks.)



(Photo by Mark Shull.)

―The April 2011 entry of my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern mixed freight-train passing Landis, NC.
I run it first after me, because it looks like one of my own Norfolk Southern photographs.
Not a cloud in the sky, and fairly well-composed and well-lit.
I certainly have had enough “not a cloud in the sky” days down near Altoona.
And with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) as my tour-guide, I can get well-composed photographs with excellent lighting.
I’ve written up Phil so many times, I’d only be boring constant-readers (if there are any at all). If you need clarification, click this link, my January 2011 calendar-report, and read the first part — the January entry of my own calendar. It mentions Phil.
Photographer Shull decided to try to get a photograph in the Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar.
What he had previously shot was wildlife photography, and having done well at that, he decided to branch into rail photography.
He also is a railfan.
He says rail photography is always a crap-shoot, which in my case it is.
Just shoot and see what happens!
A certain amount of composition enters on my part, but it often doesn’t work.
And then there are those shots that are fabulous, full of drama, that invoke memories, lacking input on my part.
Most of what I shoot works that way. Just shoot, and see what I end up with.
Okay, this angle works, so we’ll repeat that — in which case the repeat bombs.
So Shull goes trackside where Norfolk Southern goes through Landis, NC, apparently front-and-center through town.
I see storefronts to the left, and what appears to be a bank-clock.
I bet there was a trackside depot here once — that the railroad was the center of town.
He sets up under a magnolia tree; the light and sky are perfect.
It’s a dead ringer for something I would shoot, and he managed to get the train close enough.
About all that’s wrong with this picture are two things:
#1) Was a bird flying over the tree next to the parking-lot. —I took that out with my Photoshop, although it wasn’t too distracting.
Shull could have done the same, but didn’t.
To do so would be not fair; I’ve seen an obvious Photoshop construct that won the Irish-Setter Calendar contest, and it looks like the judges weren’t even aware.
What gives these constructs away is differences in illumination, especially the angles of lighting.
#2) Is the Sheriff cruiser parked in the parking-lot.
It’s 11:30, probably a Sunday morning, and the Sheriff is probably warily eyeing the photographer while glomming donuts.
“That photographer should be in church! Probably a Muslim terrorist.”



Mustang! (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The April 2011 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is a photograph of two versions of the most desirable propeller airplane of all time, the North American P-51 Mustang.
Below is a P-51C, an earlier version of the Mustang, and above that is a P-51D.
The early versions of the Mustang didn’t have the bubble canopy, as seen on the P-51D.
The earlier Mustangs had a cockpit canopy much like earlier fighter-planes, enclosed, but not the one-piece plexiglass bubble canopy.
The P-51C is as flown by the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of African-American pilots, the first.
Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no African-Americans had ever become pilots.
Racial discrimination — the military was also segregated at that time.
The Tuskegee Airmen were notorious. They turned honky-heads.
Perhaps their most famous mission was to accompany bombers on their runs over Germany. They were known as “red-tail angels,” since they protected the bombers from enemy fighter-planes. (Tuskegee Airmen airplanes had red-painted tails.)
Good as it was, the P-51C was not as good as the P-51D, although differences were slight.
According to this calendar, the P-51C is slightly more powerful (1,790 horsepower), and is slightly faster in level flight (439 mph). The P-51D is 1,695 horsepower, 437 mph.
In the distance is a B-17 bomber, what Mustangs were designed to protect.
Previous to the Mustang, American pursuit fighter-planes didn’t have the range to accompany B-17s on bombing-raids over Germany from Britain.
B-17s had to lose their fighter escorts and fly in unaccompanied. The fighters had to turn back. From there on the B-17s were easy pickings for Hitler’s Messerschmitts.
But the Mustang had the range.
They could accompany B-17s all the way over Germany and provide fighter protection.
And Hitler’s Messerschmitts, good as they were, weren’t as good as the Mustang.



Thank goodness photographer McCaleb was shooting stuff like this. (Photo by Willis McCaleb.)

The April 2011 entry of my All-Pennsy color calendar is two EMD E-units on a passenger-train near Lima, OH, in 1956 (“LYE-muh;” not “LEE-muh”).
This is the way it was, and thank goodness photographer McCaleb was recording it.
Photo by Willis McCaleb.
McCaleb s March 2011 entry in the All-Pennsy color calendar.
McCaleb’s March 2011 entry in the All-Pennsy color calendar was very similar; the way it was; not so much a fabulous photograph, but how Pennsy usually was.
Pennsy always painted its passenger equipment “Tuscan-Red” (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Arizona”)
The only other railroad that used that color was Norfolk & Western, which Pennsy tried to merge with.
N&W also painted is passenger equipment Tuscan-Red.
Photo by BobbaLew.
The Levin Es.
Pictured at left are the two EMD E-units restored by the Levin brothers of Baltimore into Pennsylvania Railroad passenger colors, which means Tuscan-Red.
They are pulling a train for railfans through Gallitzin, PA.
Gallitzin is the top of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains across PA.
The train has just exited Allegheny Tunnel, the top of The Hill.
It’s a railfan excursion operated as part of Altoona’s Railfest.
Altoona was once the base of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s crossing of the Allegheny mountains. Helper locomotives were attached there for surmounting The Hill.
Altoona was also the main Pennsylvania Railroad shop town.
There are locomotive shops still in the area, in Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”), just north of Altoona. The shops are Norfolk Southern.
A Conrail Executive E on its Business-train.
The Levin E-units are the old Conrail Executive Es that powered the Conrail Business-train. —With that they were painted goldish brown.
I think one E-unit is actually ex Erie-Lackawanna.
Norfolk Southern sold ‘em when they bought part of Conrail in 1999. They now have their own Executive Business-train, pictured below. It uses restored classic EMD F-units.
Photo by BobbaLew.
Norfolk Southern’s Executive Business-train, led by their restored EMD F-unit “Tuxedos.”
Looking at that picture, Norfolk Southern’s Executive Business-train passenger equipment is also painted tuscan-red.
But that’s more homage to Norfolk & Western, a main partner of Norfolk Southern.
As first merged in 1982, Norfolk Southern was Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
NS came to own Pennsy by purchasing the Pennsy side of Conrail, at first a government bailout of all the bankrupt east-coast railroads, largest of which was Penn-Central, a merger of Pennsy and New York Central in 1968 that failed.
Conrail eventually went private, but was broken up and sold. Most of the ex New York Central lines went to CSX Transportation (railroad), and the ex-Pennsy lines to competitor Norfolk Southern.
Despite the mountains in Pennsylvania, Norfolk Southern is more successful.
CSX has the easier topography (the old NYC main was known as the “Water-Level Route;” there are no mountains), but can’t seem to succeed as well as Norfolk Southern.
Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest railroad in the world.
It covered much of the east coast between Washington DC and New York City.
It also went as far west of Chicago and St. Louis.
At the turn into the 20th century it was immensely powerful, enough to prompt president Theodore Roosevelt to initiate the Anti-Trust act, although that was as much a reaction against Rockefeller’s Standard-Oil.
Railroading was a great leap forward in technology. It made possible the Industrial Revolution.
Our nation’s early leaders, like president Washington, dabbled in transportation improvements, particularly canals, but it was railroading that made massive overland transportation cheap.
New York’s Erie Canal was revolutionary at first, and made New York City the great port it is now.
But canals were frozen in Winter. Railroads weren’t.
Prior to canals and railroads, overland transportation was stuck with the horse.
Overland trips took days over horrible roads — usually by pack-wagon or pack-horse.
Railroading changed all that. Suddenly great quantities of freight could be easily moved for peanuts.
Railroading was so revolutionary it become its own motivation.
Thieves and charlatans tried to cash in.
Everyone wanted the benefits a railroad could bring, mainly shipping out product for little cost.
As originally built, the Pennsylvania Railroad was just Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, but 89 bazilyun lines in the midwest that could feed Pittsburgh were merged into it.
The Pennsylvania Railroad became phenomenally successful, a product of immense power and savvy business-planning.
The Pennsylvania Railroad threw its weight around so much it got Teddy Roosevelt all bent-outta-shape.
But even mighty Pennsy, like General Motors, would fall.
It was partly a result of government subsidization of competing transportation modes, particularly the airlines and trucking.
Airline terminals were built by government entities; the railroads built their terminals mostly without government help.
In trucking it was improved highways, and the Interstate Highway System; all government funded.
Railroads are most frequently privately owned.
What we see in the calendar-picture is mighty Pennsy in all its post-WWII glory, with photographer McCaleb out there to record it.
Railroading was already falling apart in 1956, but here we have mighty Pennsy putting its best face forward.
A passenger express-train is booming east from Chicago on the mainline racetrack through Ohio, E-units on the point.
Boomin’-and-zoomin’; the line is arrow-straight and flat!
Photo by BobbaLew.
The way it was, back in 1959.
  
  
  


1969 SS Chevelle convertible. (Photo by Ron Kimball©.)

―The April 2011 entry of my Motorbooks Musclecars calendar is a 1969 SS Chevelle convertible.
Normally I don’t think much of ’69 Chevelles, but this is a great-looking car.
Photo by Robert Spinello.
A 1964 SS Chevelle.
The Chevelle was introduced in the 1964 model-year.
I remember it was marketed as a replacement for tired Tri-Chevys: ’55-’57. It was about the same size, and the same format.
You could get it with a Small-Block V8, and the four-speed floor shift; the love of hot-rodders in the Tri-Chevy.
But then Pontiac introduced a more appealing concept, the musclecar, the G-T-O, a four-speed floor shift with a hot-rodded full-size car engine, 389 cubic inches.
Photo by David Newhardt.
A 1966 Chevelle SS 396.
Chevrolet responded with a musclecar of their own, four-speed floor shift, and a hot-rodded version of the 396 cubic-inch Big-Block motor normally found in full-size cars and trucks.
One is pictured at left, but it’s a ’66. For 1966 and ’67 Chevelle got a new body on the original platform.
It’s really gorgeous. I featured it in my October, 2010 calendar-report.
Basic car, the lightest possible with a gigantic motor made to utterly flatten the competition in a straight line.
Chevelle went through two major restylings after that.
The calendar-picture is restyling number-two, not very successful to my mind.
But still a great-looking car, in this case.
Still the 396 Big-Block, but you could get it rated at 375 horsepower.
Photo by David Newhardt.
A 1970 454-Chevelle SS convertible.
To my mind the final restyling is the one that looked best, ’70 and ’71.
I pictured a red 1970 at left, which I think looked better.
My brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, has a ’71, which he thinks looks better.
But I think the ’70 taillights look better, and the four headlights. A ’71 has only two headlights.
By 1970 the musclecar horsepower race was on in earnest.
Chevrolet had upped the displacement of its Big-Block to 454 cubic-inches.
Many of the GM brand were up to 455 cubic-inches, and Chrysler was up to 440 in its wedge-motor.
Better yet was the explosive Chrysler 426 cubic-inch Hemi© motor, which generated gobs of horsepower at high revs.
Photo by BobbaLew.
Not my brother’s car, but identical (correct color).
The big GM motors were massive torque-generators, explosive from a standing-start.
Try to get one of these things to stop, or handle a curve, and you were over your head.
What they were really good at was creaming the competition in a straight line.
  
  
  

To “da show-ah.” (Photo by Robert Long©.)

—The April 2011 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black and white All-Pennsy Calendar is Train 1073, Pennsy’s finest from New York City to Atlantic City.
At the point this photo was taken, the train is operating on Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“REDD-ing;” not “READ-ing”)
“Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines” (PRSL) was an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey, promulgated in 1933, to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It serviced mainly the south Jersey seashore from Philadelphia.
By 1933 highway use was beginning to supplant the railroad as a means of getting to the seashore (“Da show-ah”).
Train 1073 was actually two modes of operation.
Out of New York City it would be electric south to Trenton. There locomotives would be changed because south Jersey wasn’t electrified.
Pennsy steam-locomotives would replace the GG1, in this case a K4 Pacific (4-6-2).
South of Trenton Train 1073 ran the old Camden & Amboy, Pennsy’s Bordentown Branch.
Chartered in 1830, Camden & Amboy was the first railroad in New Jersey. Its intent was to move freight between Philadelphia and New York City.
But there were ferry crossings at each end.
Camden & Amboy flourished until Pennsy acquired its mainline in eastern PA, and bridged the Delaware River at Trenton.
That scotched the ferry-crossing at Philadelphia. Into New York City by railroad for freight was never bridged.
Pennsy tunneled under the Hudson to access Manhattan Island, the only railroad to do so. But those tunnels couldn’t pass freight.
The Camden & Amboy eventually become Pennsy’s Bordentown Branch. It was a connection between Trenton and Camden.
Just north of Camden, it crossed under a branch built by Pennsy to access Philadelphia from south Jersey without a ferry-crossing.
It required bridging the Delaware River in north Philadelphia, the Delair Bridge, built in 1896, the first bridge across the Delaware river from Philadelphia.
Access to this Bridge-Branch allowed trains from Trenton to bypass Camden on their way to the seashore — although not by much.
The Bridge-Branch joined the line to Atlantic City at Haddonfield a few miles east of Camden. From there Atlantic City was still 40-50 miles east.
Photo by Frank C. Kozempel.
Headed toward the Bordentown Branch.
Pictured at left is a train threading the junction from the Bridge-Branch.
Involved were a number of south Jersey branches. The Bridge-Branch did not cross the old Camden & Amboy at grade. You had to juke all over to make the elevation-change up to the Bridge-Branch.
An aunt in south Jersey lived not far from the Bridge-Branch.
I remember Pennsy steam-engines on it, K4 Pacifics doing 60 mph or so.
Pennsy was still using steam locomotives in south Jersey in the late ‘40s.
They’re why I’m a railfan.
Photo by BobbaLew.
Custom Sport Shop. (I think those might be our bicycles, me and Bruce Stewart.)
I wonder if the calendar-photographer, Robert Long, is the salesman I knew at Custom Sport Shop, pictured at left.
Custom Sport Shop, in northern Delaware, was where my friend and neighbor, Bruce Stewart, bought most of his HO model-railroad equipment.
It also was where Stewart bought his camera, a twin-lens reflex, but not a Rolleiflex. —It was a cheaper model, but German.
It used 120 roll-film with 2&1/4-inch square negatives, I think 12 exposures to a roll.
The salesman was a camera-buff; and also a railfan.
I still have one of his prints of a Pennsy steam-engine with a passenger-train on the PRSL.
Custom Sport Shop is about 1959; a few years after Pennsy ended steam-locomotive operation on the PRSL.
*It wasn’t him. The guy’s name was Bob Harold.



But it’s a truck!

―The April 2011 entry of my Oxman Hotrod Calendar is a hot-rodded 1933 Ford pickup.
A really nice photograph, but ho-hum!
I don’t think much of trucks. Too basic and utilitarian.
The potential of cars is sacrificed for utility and carrying-capacity.
Hot-rod a truck, and it becomes appealing, but not as appealing as a car.
This truck has a hot-rodded 302 Ford Small-Block, Ford’s response to the vaunted Chevy Small-Block.
Ford’s first overhead-valve V8 motor, in the 1954 model-year, the Y-block, was a stone compared to the Chevy Small-Block.
It was called the Y-block because its block-casting extended below the crankshaft, making the casting look like a “Y.”
Ford’s Small-Block was a great concept; 221 cubic-inches at first.
But it wasn’t as great as the Cleveland version thereof, which came later.
Splayed valves like a Chevy Big-Block, which allowed larger valves, encouraging the engine to breathe.
The Cleveland was a massive power-generator and high revver, probably better than Chevy’s Small-Block.
The truck has automatic-transmission, although I’ve always felt a hotrod should have a standard tranny, preferably a floor-shifted four-speed.
There’s always been the visceral appeal of winding a Detroit V8 through the gears.
A guy nearby has one.
An incredibly-lowered ’32 Ford steel two-door sedan in flat gray primer with an unmuffled Chevy Small-Block.
I hear him exercising it. I recognize it unseen by sound as it approaches our house.
Imagine a hot-rodded 302 Ford Small-Block in a car.
To me, the fact it’s a truck is a waste.
Dually by Dodge.
Trucks have become a symbol of machoness.
Giant turbocharged duallys with diesel engines.
A dually is four rear tires; dual tires at each end of the rear axle.
Such an arrangement in a pickup requires extravagant fender-flares, something to shroud the extra rear tires that stick out beyond the pickup-bed.
This arrangement makes sense for towing a large RV- or horse-trailer, where the trailer-hitch is inside the pickup-bed, centered over the rear axle.
That way, the front trailer-weight is directly over the rear axle of the truck.
But all that is going to waste if there’s no trailer.
A dually just for driving a dually, is silly.
Given a choice between the Dodge dually and this old ’33 Ford pickup, the choice is slam-dunk obvious; I’d take the Ford.

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