A not so good pic of the 55 Buick Century (CHP car) 

L.A. run today

I made an L.A. run today. I went up to Chinatown first to check it out. It's not really tourist friendly, it's more like a place where Chinese (and Vietnamese) hang out, shop, etc. There were 2 places where you can buy live chickens, a bunch of Chinese herbalists, etc. So, I walked it, had lunch and then headed to my next target - the Petersen Autmotive Museum. They are showing some of the cars Steve McQueen owned and were also showing cars of various heads-of-state. I took some pics, some came out OK, some not so good. The cool thing about the museum is that some of the cars were in working order and recently registered! (they have a 1955 Buick Century CHP car that had a registration sticker for 2006 on it's plate!). A note about the Bullitt Mustang - the original one is owned by a collector who won't reveal where he has it, or even who he is. The car that was in the museum is an exact copy built by Ford as part of the promotional tour for the movie.

So, that was my day, enjoy the pics.

A Rolls Royce used by Prince Charles & Diana 

Lincoln Continental used by JFK. Note the bubbletop on the back. No, this is not the car he was assasinated in. 

An exact copy of the 68 Stang from the movie Bullitt 

Steve McQueen's Jag XKSS 

I just don't fucking believe this

Of all the stupid, asinine, retarded shit the Bush administration can pull, they now pull this

Sept. 26, 2005
6:44 p.m.
(CBS) — CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate it's response following Hurricane Katrina.

Interesting views on Sweden

4 interesting bits on life in Sweden, the great Socialist paradise.
first
second
third
fourth

Japanese Wackiness, part 19.3 in a continuing series

Normally, when I talk about Japanese wackiness, I'm using Japanese as an adjective, but this time, I'm referring to the language. In Japanese, there are as many as 4 ways to write/spell something:

1. Kanji - this is the Chinese characters (pictograms)
   
2. Hirigana - this is the "spelling" used for native Japanese (Chinese words)
   
3. Katakana - this is the spelling used for foreign words and foreign names
   
4. Romaji or Romanji - this is the transliteration of Japanese words into English characters, like domo, Ueno and sushi
   

Kanji is an interesting set of characters, and when you break them down, you can totally see why the Kanji for something is the way it is. For example, electricity denki is made up of the character for rain over a character for "kite". The word for angry okuru starts with the character for "oka" or woman! (I wonder why?!?!?)

Awful bass player joke

Why does the Adam Smith Inst always have such great Jokes of the Day?

The Jetblue emergency landing

The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat

The Jetblue aircrew definitely showed the value of training, rehearsal and simulator time. Airline pilots practice stuff like this all of the time and the landing today (except for the broken front landing gear that burned up) looked for all the world to be just another landing.

A Who's Who of the "Blackboard Jungle"

This bit of classic moviemaking has it's cast dissected by James Lileks. Lots of people you've heard of were in that pic.

My Bass and the internet

2 very cool things:
1: Hickey's music (Ithaca, NY). I ordered a copy of Beethoven's 5th Symphony for bass. It came today. Very cool that I can get a specific part of a symphony like that. Cheap, too, like $6 plus shipping.
2: I immediately could read the music like I'd taken a break yesterday and not 10 years ago.

The 5th will be a great piece for me to get my fingers back with. I bought the CD a couple of days ago and I'll play it a few times tomorrow. (can't start tonite, MNF is on!)

Lego keeps getting cooler

A great article on LegoFactory and some "hacking" done by the LF users.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Sept 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day. I also start my jury duty on the 19th. I can see voir dire now:

Someone asking a q:"Can you judge this case fairly and based on the facts?"
Me: "Arrrr...he be guilty, so he should walk the plank."

Mike Brown quits twice in 1 day!

First, FEMA Mike Brown quits. Then, an Ohio HS football coach Mike Brown quits, too.

Train ride from Pontiac to San Diego

This is definitely a mixed bag...some of the stuff really sucked, some went OK....I took Amtrak from Pontiac to San Diego to lug my bass (a 3/4, upright/string bass) home.
My train was supposed to leave Pontiac at 6:40AM (Wed), it left around 6:50 or so - the train was parked just down the tracks from the station, I guess it was too much effort to get the damn thing going on time. Then, we got stuck for an hour at the MI/IN border because of switch/computer problems (Norfolk-Southern's problem according to the PA announcement); we wound up getting into Chicago an hour late. I sat in the back row and there was a nice big gap between the wall and the back seats, so I just leaned my bass against the seatback next to me and that worked fine.

The train that we were supposed to use to go from Chicago to LA was very late getting into the station, we wound up being about an hour late leaving. We made up the time Thursday night (not many stops). Friday afternoon, we left Lamy, NM and around 3:15pm MDT, there was an annoucement over the PA system, "immediate assistance to the forward sleeper cars", then a few minutes later, an announcement asking for anyone with medical training to the sleepers (they repeated this twice in about 5 min, or so). Eventually, we stopped around 3:30 or so at a place where we could meet an ambulance. The train then went forward about a mile or so (different place to meet the ambulance? Confusion?), then back to the original place. We sat there for about 20-30 min waiting for the ambulances that finally showed up, then about 15-20min later, a medevac helicopter showed up, waited for about 5-10 min and then left without taking anyone. The ambulances eventually left, and not in a big hurry, either. The rumor mill says that a guy had a heart attack and died (he was with his wife on the train). We eventually went back on our way after waiting for about 1 hr totalled up. We got into Fullerton around 9:15am (roughly 1hr behind schedule), where I jumped off and got on the SD bound train.

On the CHI-LA train, The bass sat in the seat next to me (actually on the floor) - there was room enough for the beast even with the seat infront of it leaned all the way back. Meals in the dining car were pretty good, and a little bit high-priced, but not too bad, considering the captive audience pricing. Despite what the Amtrak website said, there weren't any plugs in the coach car at all, so I lugged my laptop and DVDs for nothing. I did find a place to charge my phone, so I kept it charged, but the place where the plug was wasn't condusive to watching DVDs, so I read "Homicide" by David Simon (the book that the TV series was based on) - cover to cover.

On the Fullerton-San Diego train, I put the bass in the vertical bike rack (actually just a couple of hooks) - I leaned the bass against the wall and bungee-corded the bass to the hooks so it wouldn't fall, and that worked out OK.

I can't say that I'm 100% (or even 50%) sold on taking Amtrak again for a long-haul. It's great for commuter stuff, and the train to SD was fine.

The medevac helo picture.  

Pics of the excitement on the train ride on Friday. One is of the ambulances parked near the train, the other is the medevac chopper that landed and didn't take anyone away. I had to open a window and lean out to take these pictures, they yelled at me for it. Oh well! 

Stuck in indiana. Switch problems.

Stuck in indiana. Switch problems. Probably 1 hour late to chicago.

The Saudis, Desert Islam and Women

A good piece on the Saudis and women. It's just a taste of what feels like should be a book.

Another old sidewalk in San Diego, 5th & Upas, near San Diego Bloog Bank 

FEMA a mess? What a surprise!

Mike Brown, the current head of FEMA was the head of the (now non-existant) International Arabian Horse Assn which was left in total dissaray after him serving as the head from 91-01. I'm no fan of Kos, the blog where this story appears, but if it's true.....yikes, what kind of patronage was Bush pulling when he assigned this guy?
story

If there is any doubt that Micheal Brown needs to be fired from FEMA (at best), then read this from CNN and remove all doubt.