Photoblogging Barrett-Jackson 2017

God I hate crowds, and even though cold and rain kept yesterday’s attendance down, it was still too crowded for me: this huge collector car auction (is it the hugest?) is like Disneyland for geezers. I drove this year, chauffeuring my friends Chip and Ed, along with Ed’s visiting sister Davida. By taking advantage of […]

Air-Minded: Magnesium Overcast Revisited

A few years ago I wrote a short post about the B-36 Peacemaker bomber. Here’s an excerpt: … even though I was around during the B-36 bomber’s heyday I never saw one in flight. It’s not something you’d forget: it would have been akin to seeing the Hindenburg or a tidal wave. They say the ground shook […]

Wednesday Bag o’ Gold

I don’t know what having a sexual kink says about a person’s character. Probably nothing, and as long as it’s all worked out between like-minded, consenting adults, and no one gets hurt, ain’t no one’s business. Unless it’s Donald Trump, of course, and the kink is a juicy one. The floodgates opened yesterday and Twitter was drowning […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: Vietnam, Old School SF, Radio Days, Tough Guys, Ghost Stories

“Page took the record that was playing on the turntable off without asking anybody and put on Jimi Hendrix: long tense organic guitar line that made him shiver like frantic electric ecstasy was shooting up from the carpet through his spine straight to the old pleasure center in his cream-cheese brain, shaking his head so […]

Air-Minded: Conform or Die

Looking for photos to add to my Promise of Air Travel folder on Pinterest, I came across this: It’s a Speedpak, a conformal cargo pod or pannier designed by Lockheed for its Constellation aircraft. It wasn’t used for passenger luggage but for extra cargo. It appears to be the grandfather of the conformal cargo pods […]