How do You EVEN???

A few days back, on my afternoon walk, I was coming home, and came upon this, when I was almost home. I have NO IDEA how anyone could manage this!!!

It was in an area where he would have been having to try and parallel park, but he managed to run up over the curb, as well as running into the back of a parked car!!! If he hadn't hit the parked car, there's a very good chance he would have ended up in the canyon, as has been seen before, only likely it would have been a much messier ending, as it would have been into the basketball court, probably at least 15 feet down, where at the time there were several people playing.

They were high-centered on the frame, and trying to get it out, but the back tire was just spinning. Here's the scrape, and you can see a chunk of cement has been knocked off.

And, on the other end, where the tire had been spinning. Yesterday I saw a guy who was there when the guy was trying to get loose, and I asked him if he knew what happened. Turns out (in addition to finding out he's got the same nickname as me!!!) it was his car that got ran into, of course jamming his properly turned front wheel hard into the curb, likely destroying his alignment. He says it's hard to shift into gear now, in addition to the back end being banged up. Said he smelled no booze or weed on the guy, who claimed "I was taking a drink of water."

Boomerang

Back towards the beginning of this month, we heard from the firstborn. He's coming out from where he's been in upstate New York, driving out. Wow, we haven't seen him in a while!!! A little more than a year.

So, he shows up, with his old lady friend from school following along. She's moved out to Ontario, and she followed from there. Surprise, he's done with his Navy career!!! Apparently, he took the test for the position he signed up for twice, and didn't quite pass, so they offered him to either go forward with a lower paying position, or he can bail. He opted for the latter. General discharge, and he thinks he can get it changed to honorable after six months.

My parents wanted to visit with him, so they came up and took us all out to lunch at Slaters 50/50. That's where the top picture is from.

He doesn't seem like he's got much plan for doing anything right off, but he's got some skill set and education now, so hopefully that translates into something good for him. He's finally moved into the basement. Actually, that's not true, around a week back his girl and him both headed off to Frisco, and he hasn't been back since.

Back on Friday the 13th, a local tattoo shop was doing a special where you could get a tattoo for $13. Low cost of ink, indeed!!! Well, a tattoo the size of a quarter for $13, so a scaled larger for a scaled up amount. They went down and were waiting all night for their ink. I forget how much it was, but it seemed like a very reasonable amount. Ironic that the boy got a naval looking one after he's out.

His lady got the eclipse one on her wrist.

13 Shots from Petersen

I've lived my whole life in the Los Angeles area, and I'm a car guy, but here's something I've never done. A visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum!!!

My dad's car club managed to get a group trip there, including a tour of the vault. It was pretty awesome, but they don't allow photography in the vault. The three things that I remember from that part are one of the three gold DeLorians ever produced, a Pantera owned by Elvis that he put three bullets into when it wouldn't start for him, and a 62-63 Comet that was under construction. The Comet got my attention because one of the cars I'm always looking around for the similar but much cooler 60-61 model.

All the pictures are from the levels above the vault. I considered attempting a sneak vault photo on my phone, but never did.

Right out in the lobby they had this auto show superbike with a Dodge V-10 engine.

This Mercer was pretty cool. Whoever heard of a monocle windshield??? I was a bit mystified by the gear drive to the front wheel. The most likely thing I could think of was a speedometer cable take off.

Motorized bikes were well represented.

I liked the green car with the white hard top. Don't remember what it was named, but it is a trike, has a removable top, and seats four across the bench seat!!!

There was a design school that had done wood mock ups for the next generation Minis. I like that they used a 5 gallon bucket for the center gauge cluster.

A lot of auto show cars that never saw production.

The huge black Rolls Royce in the lobby has a perfectly round door, although it's not so easy to see in the picture.

Finally, on the way out, in the parking lot was a cool dune buggy!!!

Defying Gravity

A few of the MANY action shots I took today, all the ones I found with their feet off the ground!!!















*With the exception of the one where I caught a ball in flight!!!

???

"Dude, there's a Q-tip stuck into your ceiling."



"Yea, I know. I stuck it up in there."

"Don't take it out."

"Don't question it, just let the Q-tip be."

"Alright bud."