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Uncovering the Truth Behind Accidents
Posted in Automotive, Other by: TimothyT on: 04/01/2011 11:14 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
This is an original article written by Jason Holzberg of NewYorkPudding.com and posted here by request with full permission. By car, train, airplane, or other mode of transportation, everyone fears having an accident. High profile deaths, such as James Dean’s fatal wreck in his Porche Spyder at the age of 24 haunt people’s minds, reminding them of lives cut short and the danger that can sometimes come with transportation.American Chopper: On its last leg?
Posted in Motorcycles, Other by: TimothyT on: 01/31/2011 07:16 PM [ Print | 1 comment(s) ]
Let’s speculate and examine why:
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Metal Detecting the Treasure Coast Beaches: Dry Sand
Posted in Other, Metal Detecting by: TimothyT on: 01/02/2011 06:53 PM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Metal Detecting the Treasure Coast Beaches: Dry SandRule #1: I have learned this from detecting and from other enthusiasts; there is no perfect solution. You just never know. Use a little common sense and create your own scenario. That said there are some basic guidelines to follow.
If your metal detector can only detect dry sand, then you are mostly after modern coins and jewelry meaning things people dropped recently and the occasionally lucky items that might have washed back ashore. If you turn the sensitivity down, you might be able to detect where the high tide had dropped off and the sand is still a little wet, but results vary here and tend to be poor. Let’s apply the knowledge that we are on dry sand and make the most of it.
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Metal Detecting the Treasure Coast Beaches: Equipment you need to bring with you
Posted in Other, Metal Detecting by: TimothyT on: 01/02/2011 06:56 PM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Metal Detecting the Treasure Coast Beaches: Equipment you need to bring with youWhat do you need for the beach? The beach makes it simple because you don’t need to worry about digging plugs in soil that might cause you to want to bring kneepads and a sharp knife.
For each person it is trial and error, but here are some suggestions:
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This Day in History December 31st: Rick Nelson dies in plane crash, Plane carrying Roberto Clemente crashes, Soviets test supersonic airliner
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/31/2010 08:16 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
When the teenage Ricky Nelson launched his pop career in 1957 by picking up a guitar and singing at the end of an episode of The Adventures of Ozzie And Harriet, he established a template for pop-music stardom that inspired hundreds of imitators in the decades that followed. But what Ricky Nelson had that so many other actors who failed as pop stars didn't was undeniable musical talent. Having the full weight of the American Broadcasting Corporation behind him at the start of his career certainly guaranteed that the younger son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson would sell a few records, but it didn't guarantee that he wouldn't stink. And Ricky Nelson didn't stink—not by a long shot.
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This Day in History December 29th: Actor Christian Slater arrested for drunk driving
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/29/2010 09:13 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Slater is certainly not the only celebrity to be caught drunk driving. In 2006, actor Mel Gibson's blood-alcohol level was .12 when the police pulled him over for speeding in Malibu, California. In that year alone, Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie were cited for driving under the influence, as were actors Rip Torn, Haley Joel Osment, and Tracy Morgan and boxer Mike Tyson. Other celebrity DUI arrestees include swimmer Michael Phelps, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and basketball player Carmelo Anthony.
Source: This Day in History December 29th: Actor Christian Slater arrested for drunk driving
This Day in History December 27th: Office of Price Administration begins to ration automobile tires, Apollo 8 returns
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/27/2010 08:03 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 1941, the federal Office of Price Administration initiates its first rationing program in support of the American effort in World War II: It mandates that from that day on, no driver will be permitted to own more than five automobile tires.Read more
This Day in History December 25th: Layne Hall is born; will become oldest licensed driver in United States
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/25/2010 07:47 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 1880, Layne Hall is born in Mississippi. Some records indicate that he was actually born in 1884; either way, when he died in November 1990, Hall was the oldest licensed driver in the United States.Hall continued to drive his blue 1962 Cadillac Sedan de Ville sedan--to the grocery store, to the doctor's office, to visit friends and even to go on dates--until he died on November 20, 1990. His accomplishment won him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. (He displaced Mrs. Maude Tull of Inglewood, California., who remained behind the wheel until she was 104. Tull died in 1976.)
Source: This Day in History December 25th: Layne Hall is born; will become oldest licensed driver in United States
This Day in History December 22nd: First "Mercedes" is delivered to its buyer
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/22/2010 08:50 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 1900, the first car to be produced under the "Mercedes" name is delivered to its buyer: Emil Jellinek, the Austrian car racer, auto dealer to the rich and famous, and bon vivant. Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. It was faster, lighter, and sleeker than any car the company had ever made before, and Jellinek was confident that it would win races so handily that besotted buyers would snap it up. (He was so confident that he bought 36 of them, paying D-M-G 550,000 marks in all.) In exchange for his extraordinary patronage, the company agreed to name its new machine after Jellinek's 11-year-old daughter, Mercedes.Source: This Day in History December 22nd: First "Mercedes" is delivered to its buyer
This Day in History December 20th: "Roger & Me" opens in U.S. theaters
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/20/2010 09:51 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On December 20, 1989, the provocative filmmaker Michael Moore's satirical documentary "Roger & Me" opens in theaters across the United States. (It had made a brief tour of film festivals earlier that year, before it had a distributor.) The film chronicled Moore's unsuccessful attempts to meet Roger B. Smith, the chairman and chief executive of General Motors, who had presided over the closing of 11 factories in Flint, Michigan, during the 1970s and 80s. As a result, nearly 40,000 people lost their jobs, and Moore wanted to interview Smith about the city's subsequent decline; Smith, perhaps understandably, chose to avoid that conversation, and his dodges and evasions provided plenty of grist for the filmmaker's mill. "Roger & Me" earned a great deal of critical praise, and put its director into the public eye. His subsequent movies--the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004) and "Sicko" (2007) became some of the top-grossing documentary features in history.In "Roger & Me," Moore made the argument that the factory closings in Flint were not inevitable. Instead, they were the entirely predictable (and avoidable) result of the ineptitude, callousness and greed of the people running GM. Roger Smith deserved a lion's share of the blame for these managerial disasters, according to Moore, because he had been at the company's helm for so long: Before he was appointed CEO in 1981, he'd been on the Board of Directors for almost eight years.
Source: This Day in History December 20th: "Roger & Me" opens in U.S. theaters
This Day in History December 17th: Stuntman Stan Barrett breaks the sound barrier
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/17/2010 08:14 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Barrett was a 36-year-old stuntman and ex-lightweight Golden Glove champ who had been introduced to auto racing by Paul Newman in 1971. (He was the actor's stunt double for the film "Sometimes a Great Notion.") Barrett's car, the $800,000 Budweiser Rocket, was owned by the movie director Hal Needham, a former racer himself who had broken a nine-year-old world land-speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats the previous September. The car had a 48,000-horsepower rocket engine and, to give it a little extra kick, a 12,000-horsepower Sidewinder missile.
Source: This Day in History December 17th: Stuntman Stan Barrett breaks the sound barrier
This Day in History December 15th: OPEC states raise oil prices
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/16/2010 08:39 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On December 16, 1979, the night before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' annual price-setting meeting in Caracas, two member states (Libya and Indonesia) announce plans to raise the price of their oil by $4 (Libya) and $2 (Indonesia) per barrel. (The resulting prices--$30 and $25.50 per barrel, respectively--were among the highest they had ever been.) These diplomatic maneuverings were intended to keep OPEC's "price hawks" from raising them even further; nevertheless, by the end of 1979 the cost of oil had more than doubled since the end of the previous year.This price hike only exacerbated an energy crisis that had been going on since the beginning of 1979. An Iranian oil-field strike and the January revolution had disrupted oil supplies from that part of the Middle East, and an earlier OPEC fee increase had sent prices inching toward an all-time high. By the time the Iranian hostage crisis began in November, Americans were already dealing with the effects of this "oil shock": long lines and short tempers at gas pumps, panics over gasoline and heating oil shortages, and frustration with the inefficient, gas-guzzling vehicles manufactured by American automakers.
This Day in History December 14th: Indy "Brickyard" is completed
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/14/2010 08:07 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 1909, workers place the last of the 3.2 million 10-pound bricks that pave the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana (a town surrounded by the city of Indianapolis). Since then, most of that brick has been buried under asphalt, but one yard remains exposed at the start-finish line. Kissing those bricks after a successful race remains a tradition among Indy drivers.Read more
This Day in History December 12th: GM announces phase-out of Oldsmobile
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/12/2010 08:52 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 2000, General Motors declares that it will begin to phase out the 103-year-old Oldsmobile, the oldest automotive brand in the United States.Read more
Body cameras: The new eyes of the law
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/09/2010 09:18 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
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This Day in History December 8th: Auto-factory architect Albert Kahn dies
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/08/2010 09:21 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On December 8, 1942, the architect and engineer Albert Kahn--known as "the man who built Detroit"--dies at his home there. He was 73 years old. Kahn and his assistants built more than 2,000 buildings in all, mostly for Ford and General Motors. According to his obituary in The New York Times, Kahn "revolutionized the concept of what a great factory should be: his designs made possible the marvels of modern mass production, and his buildings changed the faces of a thousand cities and towns from Detroit to Novosibirsk."Read more
This Day in History December 6th: NYC officials revive Lower Manhattan Expressway
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/07/2010 08:26 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On this day in 1964, the New York City Board of Estimate votes to revive a controversial plan to build a 10-lane, $100 million elevated expressway across Lower Manhattan from the Holland Tunnel on the west to the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges on the east.In December 1962, the same board had refused to approve plans to build the road: its members had unanimously agreed that it was not really needed to alleviate cross-town traffic congestion and that, in any case, it would destroy the crowded and historic residential neighborhoods in its path. However, fervent lobbying by highway advocates like the powerful urban planner Robert Moses, along with the heavy-construction companies who stood to profit from the road-building itself, persuaded city officials to reconsider. This time, the board gave the expressway the go-ahead, and in 1965, Mayor Wagner promised that he would break ground on the project "as quickly as possible."
Source: This Day in History December 6th: NYC officials revive Lower Manhattan Expressway
This Day in History December 5th: Eddie Murphy stars in Beverly Hills Cop
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/05/2010 11:34 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
Eddie Murphy stars as the wisecracking Detective Axel Foley in the action-comedy Beverly Hills Cop, released in theaters on this day in 1984. The movie marked the first major starring role for Murphy, who went on to become one of the top-grossing actors in Hollywood.Murphy was born on April 3, 1961, in Brooklyn, New York, and rose to fame in the early 1980s on the TV sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. As a regular cast member of the show from 1980 to 1984, Murphy became known for such memorable characters as Buckwheat, Gumby and an inner-city Mr. Rogers, as well as for his impersonations of celebrities, including Stevie Wonder. In 1982, Murphy made his big-screen debut in the hit action-comedy 48 Hrs., co-starring Nick Nolte, which was followed by another popular comedy, Trading Places (1983), featuring fellow SNLer Dan Aykroyd, Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche.
Source: This Day in History December 5th: Eddie Murphy stars in Beverly Hills Cop
Power chairs: older and fatter Americans are on the move in Florida
Posted in Other, Weird by: TimothyT on: 12/04/2010 12:23 PM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
They're everywhere, it seems, dotting the downtown streetscape, a kind of ant trail from the condos to the Publix and back.
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This Day in History December 3rd: Last AMC Pacer rolls off assembly line
Posted in Other by: TimothyT on: 12/03/2010 08:24 AM [ Print | 0 comment(s) ]
On December 3, 1979, the last Pacer rolls off the assembly line at the American Motors Corporation (AMC) factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When the car first came on the market in 1975, it was a sensation, hailed as the car of the future. "When you buy any other car," ads said, "all you end up with is today's car. When you get a Pacer, you get a piece of tomorrow." By 1979, however, sales had faded considerably. Today, polls and experts agree: the Pacer was one of the worst cars of all time.Read more
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