Ace-Garageguy

Still raining here off an on, forecast all next week too. So far must be be of the wettest, coolest springs on record.

Fast occasionally to lose weight, but too much can slow the fat loss process.

"Owned" is what mistakes and transgressions should be, but never willingly take an unjust whipping.

Welcome aboard. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

"Boats" is a sometimes fond, sometimes disparaging name applied to huge '50s and '60s and '70s American automobiles.

"Alert" is a state of mind that helps you avoid walking into open holes and spinning airplane propellers.

Where there's a will...you're probably not mentioned in it.

Carbon filament-wound pressure vessels are nothing particularly new, but carbon has its own unique properties that HAVE to be respected, fully understood, and design accommodations provided for. I've seen footage of the winding process for this thing, and it's not good. Far as I can tell, Rush had little use for highly experienced engineers. So there ya go. There is no reason I'm aware of that a carbon fiber hull couldn't be devised that would easily withstand the pressures encountered repeatedly (and this one had 13 prior successful dives to its ultimate failure depth), but any prudent design/engineering team would build in extreme safety factors and NEVER allow some clown to drive screws into the laminate. There's nothing wrong with breaking new ground using composite materials in novel applications. For years I worked with a company that developed repair procedures for one series of composite GA aircraft that the particular manufacturer said were impossible. But there wasn't any yeehaw going on. The procedures were directly derived from established methodology well known in the German "fiberglass" sailplane community for decades, but that the engineers for the particular powered aircraft we were working on were apparently wholly ignorant of. And our primary structural engineering consultant was a well-known and respected leader in the field, with spectacularly successful design work to his credit. After in-depth testing, running lots of numbers, providing piles of documentation, and jumping through a battery of FAA-imposed hoops, we were finally able to perform FAA-certified repairs on the particular series of planes...saving wrecks that would have been total losses otherwise. And they're all still flying.

I didn't realize this one had been bumped again. Thanks for the interest and comments. She's one of the closest projects to the bench, one of the easiest to re-start. Maybe it's time...

Springfield is one of the bikes made by Indian.

All that glitters ain't worth the paper it's printed on...or something.

Strange people are even stranger.

The more I investigate and try different things, the more I'm seeing evidence that the slow performance may be directly related to issues with my ISP and Chrome.

Me thinks that barely worn jeans and t-shirts with no obvious blood stains or funny smells are OK, but I usually boil them in Clorox anyway.

Everyday work clothes for me are getting pretty ragged, but I'm so cheap I'll be hitting Goodwill this weekend.

Seeing screws driven into the carbon fiber pressure vessel to mount a monitor because Mr. Sub didn't want actual competent submariners or engineers around pretty much told me everything I needed to know quite soon after the...failure.

Yup. When I was a kid, those were the adult men who shaped my idea of what an adult man was supposed to be. My, how times have changed...

Some of the photos being 2 billion pixels doesn't help much either...

I rarely give a rat's rump about celebs moving on, but this saddens me. My folks moved us from the Jersey shore to the middle-of-nowhere SC, and Beach Boys music went a long way towards keeping me somewhat sane after being transplanted into a pretty alien culture, where the closest (usually lousy) surf was 2 hours away. Thanks for every note you ever wrote Brian. Really.

Before I go anywhere I want some breakfast.

I can definitely identify with that one.

First remember that a penny saved is a penny earned, and that a big 2 cents doesn't get you much except the ramblings of some idiot like me.

Munchies are baby Munchkins, right?

Good on ya. My local region also improved dramatically after my repeated and lengthy complaints, and there's no way I was the only one. They're doing a pretty OK job now, much better...but UPS seems to have taken up the chimp slack.

Hand me that 3/4 inch squirrel on the bench over there.