Not them, either. They are (or were) already good Texas boys. But I threw that in because I recently discovered a fun fact about one of the Big Boys, which I will put at the bottom of this post.
Check the schedule for more details, and keep in mind that the schedule may change due to mechanical or other issues.
I’m trying to decide if I want to go to Bryan, which is slightly closer, but is “viewing only”, or Houston, which is a little further away, but seems to be more open to the public for touring. If I can pull it together to do one or the other, I’ll post a report here.
That fun Big Boys fact I promised you? Tim Kopra, who played horns with the band, went on to bigger and better things. He became a NASA astronaut. Here’s his NASA biography.
I haven’t done one of these in a bit, and need to get back to it. And since it looks like the baseball season begins this week, I’m going to take the opportunity to throw a metaphorical change-up pitch with a train related book.
I would love to be able to document a book about guns on trains, but I don’t have a copy of Gerald Bull’s book. Yet.
(Side note: “one of New York City’s main police unions”? You may be asking: how many police unions does NYC have? Mike the Musicologist asked me that same question a while back, in relation to a different scandal. Other than the Sergeants Benevolent Association, there’s also the Police Benevolent Association, which represents the line officers, and the Detectives Endowment Association, which represents the detective ranks. It isn’t clear to me if the command ranks (above sergeant) and the civilian staff have their own unions.)
Today’s my birthday, so I’m queuing this up in advance. I thought I’d try to do something a little different today, maybe go back to some things I haven’t done in a while.
Like trains.
“Last of the Giants”. This appears to be a Union Pacific documentary about their “Big Boy” steam locomotives, which they operated in “revenue service” until 1959. UP still operates one “Big Boy” and one “800 Series” locomotive for promotional purposes.
Interestingly, the “Big Boy” has actually been converted to run on oil:
Bonus: Do you like people speaking with Russian accents? Do you like Zippos? I like Zippos. Most of the time, I can take or leave Russian accents.
By way of “CrazyRussianHacker“, “7 Zippo Gadgets You Did NOT Know Exist”.
It doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas, but I kind of want one of those Zippo hand warmers anyway. I remember my dad used to have something similar kicking around, but he didn’t use it much in my memory, because it doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas. There have been some New Year’s Eve’s when we’ve been setting off fireworks, though…
Bonus #2: Here’s a bit of a time capsule for you. It could also fall under “Travel Thursday”, but I’m not putting it there for two reasons. One, this is different.
The “Museum of Automata” in York. Apparently, this was filmed sometime in the 1990s.
Reason number two is that, sadly, from what I’ve found on the Internet, the museum closed quite a while ago.
Bonus #3: I will freely admit, I am posting this one to tweak someone who says “‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ f–king ruled!” (My own personal opinion: the monster fight scenes were pretty good. Unfortunately, there was an excess of humans and human interaction in the movie, and I really didn’t like any of the humans. The kaiju film that would “f–king rule” for me would be the monster equivalent of “The Raid: Redemption”: maybe two minutes of introductory setup, two minutes of epilogue, and 116 minutes of giant monsters fighting.)
Anyway, C.W. Lemoine ruins the first fight scene from “Godzilla vs. Kong”.
To be honest, I thought the movie looked a lot better on the screen at the Alamo than it does in this video. Also, to be fair, it is just a TV show movie: I should really just relax.
Bonus #4: I see a lot of folks talking about minimizing their lifestyle, and stripping away almost everything to the point where they can live almost completely out of a van. (I see very few of these folks who have toilets in their vans: apparently, when they need a bathroom, they find one at a gym, gas station, store, or other place of public accommodation. But I digress.)
Have you ever listened to these folks talk, or read any of their praises for van life, and asked yourself, “Self, what do these people do when it is -20 degrees? -20 Communist Centigrade degrees, too, not -4 American Fahrenheit degrees.” (See, by converting from Centigrade to Fahrenheit, you’ve already made yourself feel warmer. If you go a step beyond and convert to 455 degrees Rankine, you’ll probably give yourself heat stroke.)
Well, here you go.
Bonus #5: Okay, I know I’m posting a lot of stuff today. Consider this a present on my birthday to you, my loyal readers.
Have you ever asked yourself, while stoned on your couch, “Self, what ever happened to all those paintings Bob Ross painted?”
I’m going to guess: probably not, because I don’t think most of you are stoners. But just in case, the NYT (who probably are a bunch of stoners, judging from some of the crazy (stuff) they publish these days) investigated. Here’s what they found.
I was talking with my brother about calculator watches recently, which reminded me of this video from Techmoan: “Hewlett Packard HP-01 1977’s Smartest Watch”.
As a HP geek, I would kind of like to have one of these: however, examples in good condition are expensive.
Bonus #1: I also thought it might be interesting to do some startup videos. Not tech startups, but starting up things. For example, an Airbus A320:
Bonus #2: Or a railroad locomotive.
Bonus #3: Or a DC-3.
Bonus #4: Or a tractor, “with a 12 guage shotgun shell”. I believe this gives new meaning to the term “shotgun start“.
Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon? Or if not that, a passenger airplane from the 1950s?
From those wonderful folks at TWA, “Flight To California”.
Bonus, plus CanCon! “The Mother of Rivers”, about the Columbia River ice field. Made about 1947 for the Canadian National Railways by our old friends at the National Film Board of Canada.
Bonus #2: Again, I’m stretching the definition of travel, but this involves planes and is short. Have you ever wanted to see a Boeing 747-8 fully loaded abort a takeoff at 200 MPH? Using only the brakes, no reverse thrust? And by the way, the brakes are worn down to the metal studs?
I don’t want to seem like I’m whinging about the cold (even if it is 477.67 degrees Rankine out at the moment) so I thought I’d fall back to some more military history today.
From 1944, vintage OSS film: “Army Experiments In Train Derailment & Sabotage”. You know, it is a lot harder to derail a train than you’d think…
Bonus video #1: higher quality, and more recent: “An Eye In the Darkened Sky”, a promo video for the A6-E Intruder and the Target Recognition Attack Multi-Sensor system (TRAM).
Bonus video #2: “Royal Navy Learning Gutter Fighting”. Might be some useful tips here if you’re the kind of person who gets held at bayonet or gun point.
Bonus video #3, and I think this one is a real treat: “Cowboy 57” a 1959 short about the day to day activities of a B-52 crew. The treat is: this is narrated by Brigadier General James Maitland Stewart.
My phone currently claims that the low on Sunday will be 11 degrees Fahrenheit with snow, and the low on Monday will be 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…
“Clearing An Avalanche Using Explosives!”
“Railroad Crew Uses Howitzer CANNON to Trigger Huge Avalanche”.
“With this long range 105 howitzer, the team will fire shells into the danger zone…”
You know, those space blankets are so cheap, you probably ought to get a few. Keep one in your car(s), maybe tuck one away in a windbreaker or coat pocket (they’re small, too)…search Amazon for “mylar survival blanket”.
“German Military Special Forces Mylar Blanket Survival Shelter”
“Now you might be asking yourself, ‘Self, why is this guy taping chapstick and a lighter together with 550 cord?'” Answer: “Make the Best Fire Kit! Light a Fire Any Time Any Where!!”
Finally, “Lost WINTER Survival Challenge (NO Food, NO Water, NO Shelter!) | Knife, Saw, Axe, Wire, Rope”.
Since I ran really long yesterday, I thought I’d go mostly shorter today. I also thought I’d post some things totally unrelated to military aviation: while I have a bunch of new related stuff in the queue, I’m going to try to avoid going back to that well more than once a week.
(And, of course, Thursday and Sunday are already booked up with unrelated topics.)
From 1953, according to the YouTube notes: “The 225,000 Mile Proving Ground”, a short documentary about railroad research and development. Featuring Hugh Beaumont being a little hard on the Beaver.
Bonus #1: Did you know there was an Early Television Museum? There is. According to their website, it’s even open right now. Hillard is closer to Columbus than my usual stomping grounds of Cleveland, but not out of the realm of possibility for a day trip.
In the meantime, here’s a tour of the Early Television Museum. And I guess this does sort of tie back to yesterday’s Walleye video.
Bonus #2: I said “mostly shorter” because I did want to make one exception, on the grounds of timeliness: from the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, October 31, 2013: “An Evening With Hal Holbrook”. About 77 minutes long.
