Road Construction

It's not often you get to see the road in front of your house being repaired. That's why I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get some shots of the process. I have to say, the crew that did this particular job, E.T. Simonds out of Carbondale, performed the task in unison like a well-choreographed ballet. Their equipment was moved in so they could start on a Monday, but it rained for two days and they didn't get started until Wednesday. But, they paved the two lane road that went in front of my house and for about 3 or 4 miles in length in just 3 days! I thought it was pretty amazing.

They started by laying down a good coating of oil on top of the old road's surface. You can see that layer above, along with a truck holding the asphalt mixture.

Here is one of the many trucks that would line up with the asphalt mixture dumping it into some kind of conveyor machine on wheels. The conveyor would place it into the actual vehicle that would spread it on the road in a fairly smooth coat.

Those trucks would really raise their beds high into the sky to make sure all of that sticky, black stuff would come out!

Here you can see the conveyor machine dumping the black substance into the asphalt-spreading machine. It chewed up and spit out this mixture at a pretty fast clip and therefore had to keep being filled.

Here is the process as it moved down the road. In this shot, they are moving from the right to my left.

This is a shot of the machine that put the asphalt down. A couple guys rode on the back of it - I presume to see that it kept going in a straight line.

Another view of the conveyor machine filling up the asphalt hopper.

Once the asphalt was laid down, it looked pretty smooth to my eyes. But....

They had two heavy rollers following along behind, pounding it down even smoother and more compact.

Here is a close-up of one of the rollers. Of the two, you could feel this one coming blocks away because it had "oscillating action."

It said "oscillation" right on the side of it and felt like an earthquake when this thing went by. And trust me, I know what earthquakes feel like!

Both rolling machines were driven by women and as I took pictures, this one asked as she drove by, "Are those pictures going to be on the internet?" She had driven on past before I could answer, "Well.... maybe!" I wonder if she's single?

Tea Time

You've probably heard the term "Tea Party" being used in the news these days. Just so you know that I'm up on things and "hip," I love tea. And everything it stands for. You can see my tea of choice above - iced tea.

Don't Tread On Me

I just wanted to post this so you could get a good look at it. If you remember your high school history lessons, you'll know it is the Gadsden Flag, made famous in our Revolutionary War. The one where we fought for that little thing called "freedom." You may remember it well!

You're probably going to be seeing a lot more of this particular symbol in the coming days and weeks because the federal government of the United States has now decided that it stands for domestic terrorism! Exactly why are we paying these guys and gals!? To try and get us to fall for propaganda such as this?

You haven't heard the last of this story.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I just had to comment on this amusing little exchange.

A user over on the Joepedia wiki made this little comment on his user page:

"I get around - mostly minor edits, so the only reason I have a username is that nobody respects a string of numbers."

I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I made a reply to this statement. When you realize the user name he chose for himself is "ButtButt," you'll see why I had no choice but to say:

"Good point about people not respecting strings of numbers. Now, a name like ButtButt is something they certainly will respect!"

Do people actually use that thing between their ears anymore?

Meet George Jetson

Baby Boomers like myself probably remember The Jetsons better than anybody else. It was a cartoon set way into the future and depicted a society where humanity didn't have to work much anymore and when they did, they simply had to push buttons and computers did all the work. The only problem with that vision is that the reality is much different. Now we have computers that can "push the button," so to speak, without the need for human involvement. A good point to illustrate this is this:

I was "promoted" to being an administrator over on the great Wikipedia project, in one of the little side-wikis known as the Hot Wheels Wiki. The first task I was told to always be sure and do was to greet new users when they first appeared. It was imperative that this be done, so as to make sure users would stick around to do more work, editing the wiki and uploading new pictures. Well, I agreed to take on this charge and loved the responsibility of doing this important task. It was nice to be able to greet each new user personally, and with helpful suggestions that would get them up and running on something that can be complicated. If I had only had some of the hints that I'm aware of now when I joined, there could have been a lot less trouble.

But now, the great staff of Wikipedia has been upgrading everything and adding new features. One of them is, you guessed it, automatic software that greets every new user within 1 minute - 60 seconds - of when they first join. Now, this might be a good thing, but I enjoyed doing that task myself and making each greeting a personal thing, from a real person and not a "'bot." What is a person to do when progress keeps making people obsolete? I'm practically not needed anymore over on the wiki, thanks to all the new features.

What was the purpose of humanity again? Are you now or have you ever been?

Diecast Copies

Did you know that there are diecast companies that copy other companies' designs? Sad, but true. Rather than go to the expense of creating their own original designs, they'll just copy somebody else's that has already been released. Personally, I can't conceive how a person or company in a creative field such as this could ever even think about copying somebody else's work. Where's the joy of creation? Anyway, it does happen more often than you'd think, so it will probably continue to happen for just as long as diecast cars and trucks are made. Here are a few notable examples.

Above you will see a fine Porsche 911 Turbo cast in 1:64 scale, made by Tomica. Below, you will a pretty good copy of the same exotic car, only this one was made by Welly.


Here's an ambulance model made by Hot Wheels, called an "American Ambulance." Below you will see an almost identical copy, even down to the tampo design, made by Maisto. You tell me, was this intentional or not?

This is the Deora, made by Mattel in 1968. Below you can see a copy of it from Argentina. It was made by a company called Muky, and as far as I can tell, they named it "Furgon."

Pretty similar, eh? If you like copies, some of them are quite well made and sport features sometimes not found on the original versions. So, keep your eyes open as they "send in the clones."

You Say It's Your Birthday - Well, It's My Birthday, Too, Yeah!

As promised, here are some pictures from the night of my birthday. The place where I deejay is what used to be called a roadhouse. The name of the bar is Lonzo's Place and you can play the jukebox, get in a game or two of pool, sit at the bar and drink, order pizza or shake your booty until it hurts. I love that place!

The night started out slow, with the pool players keeping it mellow over in the corner. But it built until everybody got really loose. I'll mostly leave the pictures to talk for themselves, as they are self-evident in their nature!

Here you can see the girls are starting to shake their booty. Alcohol will do that.



Table tops were just made for dancing.

Please remember to tip your bartenders!

This was the spinning disco light. I love this shot - it was a hand-held, timed exposure.

Yours truly, with Miss Budweiser or something. Anyway, she was flat chested.

Don't ask.

Strike a pose! Vogue.

At the end of the night, these two guys became brothers. It's the alcohol, I tell you!

All in all, it was a fun night and turning 48 didn't seem that much of a big deal. Just wait until 50, though.